Men, and I am talking to you men who are about to, or thinking about, getting married.  I have one piece of advice and one piece of advice only.  Value your own opinion. Don't share it, cause no one cares, but value it. I think back to the time when I was bright eyed and star struck and heard "let's go the furniture mart and look at some furniture the two of us we'll get something we both like." I was fucking dumb enough to believe it. Of course when we got there my opinion was solicited and I was fucking dumb enough to give it. What do you like? "oh I like this" "no no no that's too dark we'll go with this"

 Lesson learned. 

Next time we're at the mart:

"what do you think dear?" 

"you ask me and then when I show you something I like you'll say I don't like it" so why are you asking me? "No what do you like dear?" "

OK I like this." 

No I don't like that we'll go with this" 

Again lesson learned. 

Now when I am at the mart or any store for that matter and I am asked what I like I say "Don't ask me you pick it out and it will be fine." The sales person may give me a dirty look but I just ended the charade and saved them...and me valuable time I can spend some place I'd rather be. Which is of course about any where else.  

Do I always like what she picks out? No. Do I value my opinion on what she picks out? Yes. Do I share it? Oh hell no. Because at the end of the day it doesn't matter what my opinion is to anybody but me.

And then of course there is this conversation. You're at home. The wife is shopping. ring...ring...ring...

"I am about to pick up food dear what would you like to eat?"

"What would you like?"

"anything you want is fine with me"

"OK _____________________________ sounds good."

"No I think I'll go to __________________________________"

In time that turns into...

"I am about to pick up food dear what would you like to eat?"

"does it matter what I want?"

"yes you know it does"

"Just get what you want"

"Tell me what you want"

"I'll tell you then you'll say no"

"No I won't just tell me what you want"

"OK I want________________________________________________________________"

" No I think I'll go to __________________________________ instead

Finally it becomes this....

""I am about to pick up food dear what would you like to eat?""

" wherever you go just find something on the menu I'll like" "hurry home bye"

I skip the charade of her pretending my opinion matters and the back and forth that can take hours before she goes wherever she was going to go in the first place. Again value your own opinion. It's the only person it matters a lick to. But don't share it... trust me nothing good can ever come of that.

This is why I like cats. Oh the cat doesn't give a rat's ass about my opinion. But at least he's not selective. He doesn't give a rat's ass about her opinion either.

Is this is why I am so opinionated on line? I don't know. I've always been opinionated. It's not like I've never taken a look at something she's picked out (including me) and thought what the fuck were you thinking? I just don't say what the fuck were you thinking. I say that's nice dear. Oh sure I could have gone with her and tried to sell her on something that I would like more but that ain't gonna happen. And instead of seeing some great sporting event of getting some much needed sleep I wasted my time and the store's and she still bought the same damn thing I couldn't stand.

I am I must admit on a win streak. I went to go pick up a clock for my new "man cave" and actually selected one I liked. She actually also liked the clock I picked out. I got the clock! I probably could have bought more but I left while I was ahead. Well not quite. On the way home she asked me where I'd like to eat and "any place would be fine" Of course I pointed to a restaurant and said that sounds good! And of course she said no let's go to ______________________ instead.

KTF

Count Istvan.

VS

March is here! And it came in like a...Well it came in closer to lamb to a lion I'll put it that way. Still the wind kept it from being as nice as a 52 degree sunshiny day can be. And tomorrow it's suppose to rain and maybe drop a flake. SO MAYBE we won't wake up on March 29th to 15 inches of snow. But then again by Tuesday it's suppose to be 62 so maybe we will. Either way this has been an unbelievably mild winter in these parts. Maybe the mildest I can ever remember.

Today...well yesterday now, my state turned 145 years old. I was born in Nebraska, lived all of my life sans 4 years in Nebraska, I suspect I'll die in Nebraska and I know i'll be buried in Nebraska. In fact i think the plot's already there though I'll have to ask about that to be sure. And though i don't agree with the states politics much I love living in Nebraska. Still I never fail to marvel at the constant identity crises this state continues to create for itself and fight at the same time. Nebraskans hate and I mean HATE being labled hicks yet they've made Larry Cable The Guy The State Symbol. The Largest newspaper in the state, which serves a metropolitan area of 900,000 people gives large spaces in the news and sports sections to a joke teller whose work is about on par with Peggy Hill's musings column in the Arlan Bystander but hey he use to be a joke writer for Jay Leno and he lives in Omaha. His jokes are painfully not funny and it just makes the paper look poor. It's the kind of crap you would expect to find in the York News-Times and not a paper that boasts having "the second-highest percentage of people within a home circulation area compared with other major metropolitan newspapers in the United States" But it's not out a character with either Omaha or Nebraska. This state, and this city in particular loves to hire people whose abilities barely qualify them to do political forums on Monroe Louisiana public access and give them 65 different jobs in the media.

Case in point. Travis Justice. Sportscaster, talks show host on radio, host of late night groovy movie, high school mascot, announcer for Creighton and finally political commentator. And guess what? Travis sucked at EVERYTHING he did. OK maybe did OK hosting late night groovy movie theater but that was it. Today the only job he's got is calling (very poorly) Creighton games. The New Travis Justice is Mike'l (yes that's how his name is spelled) Severe. Severe was a reporter on the morning news, wearing heavy coats on 75 degree mornings, a moderator on a political show where he played a Black Alan Colmes, a sports radio talk show host, a color analyst for Nighthawks games (he never played football) and get this a food critic for the Omaha World Herald. That's right somebody who's "expertize" talking about a sport he never played is the food critic for the largest newspaper in the state. I've never read his work as a food critic though maybe he's finally found a job he's good at. Let's see what the people are saying...

"So this is the new OWH format.  100 monkeys with 100 typewriters.  I guess eventually we will get a decent review.  Not that it even matters.  The Herald has decided that restaurants in Omaha are a joke and don't need any coverage.  This GARBAGE of unqualified jerk offs writing in some meaningless column that the paper can't even fake to care about is intolerably insulting.  STOP READING THE PAPER.  STOP BUYING IT.  STOP ADVERTISING IN IT.  It is obvious to everyone with a brain that the The World Herald is insufferably ill equipped to find writers let alone editors that any more interested in the subject than the readers become disinterested in reading it.  Ugh. What a waste."

As I write this it is currently 35 degrees outside which is about as cold as it's going to get. A far cry from March 1st 2007. My Father's wish was to have Lara's theme played at his funeral a request my Mother always balked at because "you'll die in the spring and the snow reference will make no sense" Well on the day of his visitation was on a Wednesday and we were suppose to get a Blizzard. It never came. The weathermen said the snow missed us and we dodged a bullet. On Friday morning his funeral the snow came in and it snowed, and snowed and snowed and snowed. He damn well made sure Lara's theme was going to fit. I remember the nearly indescribable feeling I had at his passing, like I was wondering through a dream that I had no control over, everything around me just being a haze. That feeling I guess is what is keeping me from being too vitriolic about the Death of Andrew Breitbart.

I have nothing good to say about the man at all but the feeling a family must have to lose their Husband, Father, friend, suddenly at that young of an age must be awful. I know how I felt losing a Father 25 years older and having seen him cease to be the person he was. When I lost my Father he was in a state where he wasn't living any more. I had begun to pray for a quick and speedy end. I didn't want to see my Father linger any longer in the form he was in. The last thing I said to him was "Thank You" To this day I have not fully come to terms with no longer wanting my Father linger in what was his present earthly state. I still feel a quilt for praying for a merciful end to my Fathers life. As hard as it was I had 3 months to ready myself and come to terms with the passing of My Father Andrew Breitbart's children and wife never got that time and that is truly a tragedy. Nothing else about his death, to me at least qualifies or even comes close.

I close with this for my Father...





KTF
Count Istvan
Stephen

Man it's been awhile has it not? How's tricks? I have stayed out of the Susan G. Koman fiasco for the most part for one simple reason. in a battle between 2 organizations whose primary purpose is women's health I just don't particularly feel as if it is my battle to fight. Although I will say this. A look at the Koman Facebook page shows that supporters of the organization, which right now are are far fewer than detractors, have names like Michael, Charles, James and William. Now I do not doubt that many of these men who suddenly stand behind Susan G. Koman 100% have an interest in women's breast but somehow I doubt that many of them care about cancer.

My only real "take" on the Koman fiasco was this. You are an organization whose primary goal is women's health. Why in the world would you alienate another organization that has the same primary concern not to mention millions of women? And to pacify a fanatical religious fringe group that is made up overwhelmingly of men. To me the decision seems maddeningly ignorant and so completely ill thought out. Did they put any thought into the decision at all? Did they think women wouldn't care? Honestly there are people at Komen who haven't a clue of how to run an organization if they thought this was a wise idea. And if that organization wants to at least try and get it's name back they should take a good long hard look at themselves and then do some house cleaning. (No don't go PC on me you know what I mean)

A word of advice to Aria. Aria you are a dear friend and I was wondering how to tell you this: Don't take a fight started on the internet off of the internet. To battle with morons like Sewell, and Peters on the net is one thing and one thing that is probably not worth a lot of effort. But don't get into with them on a personal level with emails to friends and that shit. I say this for 2 reasons. 1. I like you a lot. 2. These clowns might be dangerous. They are certainly unstable. I've had to deal with internet stalkers myself. I know how dangerous they can be. To start tracking down their friends and exchanging emails and whatever else is a losing battle. At the end of the day Sewell got what he wanted. Some publicity for his 93 blogs. I'm sure I'll write about him and others of his ilk here and other places many more times in the future. But I haven't got time for exchanging Emails and getting into personal wars with crazed jerkoffs and their sycophants. And I think you should also save yourself the hassle by not taking these battles off the net.

I know that Bias is in the eye of the beholder but tonight for the nationally televised Boston Celtics-NY Knicks game on ESPN the announcers were Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy. Now this is suppose to be an unbiased sports broadcast on ESPN. Breen is a Knicks play by play man Van Gundy a former Knicks coach. In other words the broadcast was as unbiased as your typical ESPN Duke Basketball broadcast with Dick (Duke) Vitale and Mike Patrick calling the game.

Sunday is the big day Man's official holiday The Super Bowl. The biggest football game of the year that amazingly is packaged and sold to people whom for the most part hate football. There will be the usual 30 hour pregame show. Randall Terry wanted to run an ad with dead fetuses. I say let him if you let Planned Parenthood also run adds. CBS for the record said no to dead fetus adds. I guess we'll have to struggle through with the other dumbass ads we'll be bombarded with. For the record the Count mutes the ads anyway. He's also rooting for the NY Giants. Although he picks the Patriots. The law of averages would suggest we're in for a dud of a game. We've had 5 pretty good games in a row and the last 4 have all been great. Really even before this latest stretch many of the games have been competitive and enjoyable. Certainly the old myth about the Super Bowl being a lot of hype and a lousy game is no longer true. I will say this maybe if I were in Romney's real or Ranger Bob's imaginary income bracket I would feel differently. But I could not justify paying $1000 a piece face value for a football ticket. I had a hard enough time justifying $175 a piece for Nebraska-Wyoming $137 a piece for Nebraska-Minnesota.

Another prediction for the game. Kelly Clarkson will deliver a serviceable if  unmemorable national anthem. I don't think it will be great for sure but I doubt it will be Steven Tyler, Christina Agulara bad either. it will be just another of a million rendition of a song that in all honesty is really a pretty bad piece of material. That will get me in trouble. The Plan Sunday is to get up watch the Nebraska-Minnesota basketball game settle in Watch some football, eat some Pizza , should the snow stop in time and the pizza man can either get here or we can get there, And watch some more football. Oh and find something else to do that 20 minutes while Madonna is on. Madonna the safe uncontroversial choice. What has the world come to?

KTF

Count Istvan

I don't know how Mother Nature is treating you but here in the river city we had a record warm day with the temperature coming topping out at a very UnJanuary 30th like 67 degrees. So I was fortunate enough to be able to go out and have an afternoon smoke in the great outdoors. My Smoke of choice was a Gurkha Assassin Toro with a maduro wrapper. The first Gurkha assassin I had I bought in a Wyoming tobacco shop across the street from our hotel however I can not remember if the town was Evanston or Rawlins. Anyway I smoked the cigar in Omaha and was quite impressed with it's flavor. So for Christmas I wrote on my Christmas list and received a box of Gurkha Assassin Toro's with a maduro wrapper. OK I'll come clean I bought the cigars for myself.

Now first thing when it comes to Cigars size CAN matter. Two cigars same brand, same line can taste vastly different if they are two different sizes. As a personal preference I am not as big fan of Churchill sized cigars as I am medium sized cigars. It's not that I dislike Churchill's so much as I find them to often be just too big for my preference. The Toro which comes in at 6X50 is a about a perfect size of Cigar for me. The first thing that grabs you about the assassins or any Gurkha line cigar for that matter is the box. This thing weighs a good 10 pounds and is to use a lame phrase super cool. Even if the cigars were duds the Box would be something anyone would be proud to own. Still people don't spend $140 or more for a bitchin' cigar box.

The Assassin is a full bodied cigar. Draw is excellent. This thing puts out the smoke output of your average 1977 Harlem arson fire. And the fact that I prefer a Maduro which is a darker wrapper that makes the cigar even fuller than say a lighter Connecticut wrapper. However it is also a very smooth smoke. Don't confuse strength of flavors with the strength of Cigar. A cigar with mild flavors can knock you on your ass and make you sick if it's a strong cigar and you aren't ready. And a full bodied cigar can by nice and smooth. The Assassin is case in point. As I said earlier LOTS of smoke. If you want to get your wife out of the house and she doesn't like cigars...just light this thing in front of her and she's gone. (NO I don't do that! I have a designated cigar room in the house where I smoke and the animals are not allowed in.)

The Assassin is a quick burner, which I prefer I don't like having to smoke for 2 hours to get halfway though a cigar, burns evenly and stays lit. Some Cigars I fight all the way to either keep it lit or have the thing burn evenly that is not a problem at all with the Assassin.

The ash holds up well on the Assassin. It's not a cigar that will catch you off guard with falling ash every other minute. The Ash will become quite long before falling if left unattended and most smokers prefer that. Construction is good. I had one cigar where the wrapper fell apart. That is a real pet peeve of mine. A Cigar that costs $10+ SHOULD have a solid construction and not fall apart. Yes with a handmade cigar sometimes it's bound to happen but it shouldn't happen as often as it does with many lines of Cigars.

So if you've read this far as you can probably tell I am very much a fan of the Gurkha Assassin Toro Maduro. It's joined Hoyo De Monterrey Excalibur #II and La Gloria Cubana Corona Gorda as my favorite smokes.

VS



Bowl games are always an odd lot will they be motivated? won't they be motivated? If you're going by the spread South Carolina is a small favorite. Popular opinion your thing? Picks seem to be 60-40 South Carolina as well. The consensus is the Gamecock defense will be too much and they will win a low scoring game. Is that what will happen? We shall see. I'll say this I like this matchup for Nebraska better than I like say Arkansas. Lest we forget last year Nebraska was a 2 touchdown favorite to beat Washington and didn't bother to show up losing 19-7. The Two years before that? A small dog to Clemson a 26-21 NU win and a small dog, ( to open) The line moved back and forth, to Arizona.  33-0 NU win. So being the dog is not such a bad thing. No doubt this is a game Nebraska can win but it will require a great effort. As always little lonely creatures will be hovering around if things should not go well and their comments will be erased on site. If need be I'll repost the picture of our favorite troll's son and his date at the Insight bowl again. So don't respond and GO BIG RED!

BEAT THE COCKS!