This year I had some plans for Mardi Gras and they got all-out borked at the very, very last second. I was most miffed, in fact – I made a point of stating how miffed I was during my annual performance review (which was not reason for the change in plans).

Anyway, I overcame by some miracle and decided to give it a go on Saturday instead. Reaching back into the databanks where I stuffed 4 years of high school French to make way for subsequent years of Japanese, I arrived at Samedi Gras. I could probably swing Toujours Gras with enough motivation and an appetite for going sloth.

So, I stumbled down to the best local cajun eatery and helped myself to a heaping plate of blackened catfish with some jambalaya. There was even some drinking – Dixie beer, no less – and it was all a great time swinging the karma wheel back to center.

Did anyone else have to put off their Mardi Gras plans? What did you do?

I know it has been out for awhile, but I tackled a full session of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars over the weekend just to get a feel for it. If you’re not familiar with the game, it’s basically a humans vs. aliens FPS (first-person shooter) executed in little 3-scenario campaign segments.

While the game does have a single-player option (in the form of playing the campaigns with some computer teammates against a team full of computer players), where it thrives with its player base is in the online play on “ranked” servers. I do take some issue with idSoftware’s choice in only allowing leased servers from GSPs to be ranked, but oh well – it’s not my money, and they’ve already made theirs.

I must say, I’m not exactly good at it when pitted against people probably half my age that have been playing since the game first came out. But, I do get the basic gist of the classes and how to work with them, though I have an early preference for the straight up soldier and the engineer.

Try as I might, I couldn’t advance past the first rank online. Either it’s hard, or I suck at it; probably the second one is true. Early on I adopted a strategy of jumping right into a firefight and I usually lost multiple times. Towards the end of my experience I tried to take a more tactical approach – as if I were really doing it myself. I’ll say that my lifespans were longer, but I was still getting my ass tin-canned all over the map.

All in all, it’s a fun game. The gameplay is very good – it does have a few points of concern, but none that are deal-breakers. I could use some advice, however.

I picked up Chris’ new book the day it came out – I hesitated to read it right away because I knew I was going to attend the book signing stop in Denver, and I’d hoped to be able to hold out that long. However, I couldn’t actually resist for more than a few days, and I dove in anyway. What I found is that, like so many of Chris’ other stories, it starts strong and maintains momentum throughout.

Surely, you can’t take Shakespeare and make the bard’s plays better. Surely you can’t twist fate from some of the most widely-read scripts in the history of the world and make them better. Well, of course not. Chris doesn’t try to do that, either. He is recognized as one of the great satirists of our time, and with good reason. Fool doesn’t offend the purist, and doesn’t disappoint those seeking heavy doses of the elixir Chris provides.

I know that many have not yet read the story, so I shan’t spoil it for you, but it is a glorious mashup retelling of King Lear, with convenient borrows from other Shakespearean works, and from the perspective of Lear’s fool. In the play, the fool has no name – I found it great to have Chris name him Pocket (after his diminutive stature). We learn about his upbringing, about how he came to be the fool in Lear’s court, and about some serious misadventures in medieval Europe which spin the tale.

If you are familiar with King Lear proper, or even if you are not, you will love the tenacity that Chris brings to that world. I wouldn’t recommend reading “King Lear” before investing in Fool – there is certainly enough information in the story to carry it without foreknowledge of the plot.

But, the story is not for everyone. Even Chris says, as he is known to do, that it’s a bawdy tale packed with action and “action”. If you’re a reader easily offended by bad words and debauchery, you probably wouldn’t like the story at all – and let me recommend Pride and Prejudice as an alternative read.

Overall rating: 9.8/A+

This year, I’ve decided to take on a feat in defying arteriosclerosis. I’ve undertaken a challenge that I like to call the 12 steaks of Christmas.

First, a few notes to fend off religious naysayers. I am not attempting to emulate the real 12 days of Christmas, nor am I trying to connote that my consumption of a copiously large sum of beef equates to some form of religious ritual or any other object which may be related in some daft way to the practice of any organized religion. I’m simply a beef-eating grilling machine with a hunger for some steaks. Take it at face value.

Before taking on this challenge yourself, I suggest that you read up on the health risks associated with consuming red meat (mammalian meat) in large quantities. I’m not a vegetarian but I eat a heap of vegetables at every meal where I also consume these large steaks – mostly because I personally know the risks of binging on beef fat. Also, I plan to take the month of January off from most meats – though I do eat a significant amount of fish and chicken at home, which are both still meat but they’re not mammalian meats. My main rule is that every steak needs to be at least 1 pound – the goal is to get 15 pounds down during this course, since some cuts are significantly larger.

So – here’s the schedule.
#1 – 16oz. top sirloin
#2 – 18oz. NY strip
#3 – Chateaubriand, biggest I can find.
#4 – the biggest steak I can find (50oz Porterhouse)
#5 – 18oz. T-bone
#6 – 18oz. contre-filet delmonico
#7 – 18oz. ribeye
#8 – 24oz. flank steak
#9 – 16oz. top round steak
#10 – 16oz. shoulder steak (or a tri-tip if I can’t find one that big)
#11 – the biggest filet mignon I can find
#12 – 5 pound prime rib feast for all!

I started this quest early in December. Every other day until Christmas Eve I plan to knock one of these off the list. When I told my butcher about my task, he said he was up for it – they don’t normally keep all of these cuts (esp the delmonico) but they’ve done them up nicely when I asked for them. The most expensive one – aside from the porterhouse which I actually dined out to get – was the chateaubriand, but that’s to be expected since it’s a very specific cut and has a low yield per head. I found some that were just over 17oz, so that was the deed.

Except for the prime rib, these will all be grilled. I am a dedicated charcoal griller and I refuse to convert to gas, even in Colorado where there are burning restrictions.

Let me first say, I’m not going to discriminate against anyone. I dole out my opinions in a blanket fashion for all to endure equally. Does “lipstick on a pig” pertain to Sarah Palin if Obama says it? No, of course not, and stop being a whining dumbass about it. Even if it did – thought it doesn’t, imagine that – she has the whole pitbull image but couldn’t take a harmless dig? Ok, on to the interview that Charlie Gibson had with Sarah Palin.

My first thought was: “omgwow, I can’t believe the Reps let this lady sit through this interview.” This interview with Sarah Palin may have been historic, but it really opened my eyes to what kind of person she is, how little she actually knows about a)things outside of Alaska, b)the current presidency, and c)the state of the world, and a little bit into why McCain would have chosen her. Although, now he may be wishing he didn’t.

I thought Charlie Gibson was fair – that he did a good, unbiased job of asking for her position on stuff outside of Alaska and being a stickler for making her answer the questions he asked instead of letting her keep sidestepping them when she didn’t know the answer. There were a few things that I just found uber hard to believe.

It must be only because she’s from Alaska that we had to hear how bring a former Oil commission chairman meant that she had credentials in national security, and she was touting it like some magic ace in the hole.

When he said “But this is not just reforming a government. This is also running a government on the huge international stage in a very dangerous world. When I asked John McCain about your national security credentials, he cited the fact that you have commanded the Alaskan National Guard and that Alaska is close to Russia. Are those sufficient credentials?”

Her response was “But it is about reform of government and it’s about putting government back on the side of the people, and that has much to do with foreign policy and national security issues Let me speak specifically about a credential that I do bring to this table, Charlie, and that’s with the energy independence that I’ve been working on for these years as the governor of this state that produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy, that I worked on as chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, overseeing the oil and gas development in our state to produce more for the United States.”

She’s been working on energy independence for “these years” as a governor? How many years is that, Pyle? Sir, 1 and a half, sir!

My feedback was the same as Charlie’s feedback, “I’m just saying that national security is a whole lot more than energy.”

When Charlie asked “Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?” she had no idea what it is. Here is the text of that discussion – I laughed because I hate politics but I knew what the Bush doctrine is.

CG: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?
SP: In what respect, Charlie?
CG: The Bush – well, what do you – what do you interpret it to be?
SP: His world view.
CG: No, the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war.
SP: I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation. There have been blunders along the way, though. There have been mistakes made. And with new leadership, and that’s the beauty of American elections, of course, and democracy, is with new leadership comes opportunity to do things better. CG: The Bush doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense, that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us. Do you agree with that?
SP: Charlie, if there is legitimate and enough intelligence that tells us that a strike is imminent against American people, we have every right to defend our country. In fact, the president has the obligation, the duty to defend.

It doesn’t take an astute person to call bullshit. I felt like I was watching a high school kid that didn’t do their homework get called on in class. Was Charlie picking on her “because she’s a woman”? Don’t be a dumbass, no. He was trying to get her to answer the question even if he had to give her a dissertation on what someone that is trying to be VP should already know.

But hold the phones, we’re going to talk about something VERY, VERY SCARY that she said. I would type this out but I found it online at talkingpointsmemo.com, so I’m just going to copy it from their site. This is the exchange where she basically said that we’d possibly have to go to war with Russia if they invade one of the countries that she believes should be in NATO.

GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn’t we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?
PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you’re going to be expected to be called upon and help.

But NATO, I think, should include Ukraine, definitely, at this point and I think that we need to — especially with new leadership coming in on January 20, being sworn on, on either ticket, we have got to make sure that we strengthen our allies, our ties with each one of those NATO members.

We have got to make sure that that is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today.

GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.

PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.

And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.

It doesn’t have to lead to war and it doesn’t have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.

His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that’s a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen.

Is this the person who you want fingering the nuclear button? And did you notice that she can’t say the word “nuclear” just like Bush can’t say it? It always sounds like “nucyelehr”. No politician in their right MIND would say that. Maybe Bush would have said that after a few shots of Gentleman Jack, but even he is sharp enough to dodge THAT question. Is that change? Hell yes it is. Is it change that you actually want? Hell no it isn’t. If the stated priority is protecting America, WTF? Here’s a hint, if they have nukes, DON’T CALL THEM OUT ON TV. Could you imaging if the Cuban Missile Crisis was conducted like that? Oh, nevermind, JFK was a.. say it with me.. De-mo-crat.

And wow, when it came time to answer 1 simple question about her foreign policy judgement, she had no idea how to respond. Does this sound like change to you?

CG:”Do we have the right to be making cross-border attacks into Pakistan from Afghanistan, with or without the approval of the Pakistani government?”

SP:”As for our right to.. invade.. we’re gonna work with these countries, building new relationships, working with existing allies, but forging new, also, in order to, Charlie, get to a point in this world where war is not going to be a first option in fact, war has got to be a military strike.. a last option”

“But Governor, I’m asking you, we have the right in your mind, to go across the border with or without the approval of the Pakistani government?”

“In order to stop Islamic extremists, those terrorists who would seek to destroy America and our allies, we must do whatever it takes and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and who we target

“… I got lost in a blizzard of words there; is that a yes, that you think we have the right to go across the border, with or without the approval of the Pakistani government, to go after terrorists who are in the Waziristan area?”

“I believe that America has to exercise all options in order to stop the terrorists who are hell-bent on destroying America and our allies. We have got to have all options out there on the table.”

I maintain that I am an undecided voter until after the debates are held. But wow, one more of these from the Republican folks and I am going to have to vote against. I hear a lot of half-truth from the Republicans all over the place, and I hear a lot of banter about how “our plans are better” but we have no idea what the details of their plans are.

What’s sad is that so many Americans care so little about politics yet they want to vote. So they see the MILF on TV and vote for that, regardless of what their vote represents. I admit, if I knew nothing, I’d be in that boat as well – the whole “hey look, McCain’s got a second trophy for his office” opinion – but wow it’s hard to un-say what this lady said about our potential future.

You can read through this (congratulations) and berate me if you wish, on 2 conditions. 1) bring your A game and 2) back up what you say with facts that are verifiable and include some kind of non-partisan reference to your facts.

*edit: corrected post title to “Perhaps So” from “Possibly So”