The Round Mound of Sound FTW

I always liked Charles Barkley, even when he played for the Knicks. I like him a little bit more today.

Hall of Famer Charles Barkley is certain he played with gay teammates on two or three teams during his basketball career -- and says it didn't bother him a bit.
He said he never felt threatened or hit-on in the locker room and was never bothered by the presence of gay teammates.

"First of all, every player has played with gay guys," Barkley told 106.7 The Fan, adding that any player who says he hasn't is "a stone-freakin' idiot."

"First of all, society discriminates against gay people," Barkley said. "They always try to make it like jocks discriminate against gay people. I've been a big proponent of gay marriage for a long time, because as a black person, I can't be in for any form of discrimination at all."

As more and more of the wall gets chipped away, it's nice to see people like Sir Charles doing some of the chipping.

A Sighting of the Rare and Elusive Boltgirl

It's the annual family confab in Tucson, which has left my calendar a bloody mess when viewed from a distance--gotta switch from red ink to a more soothing blue--and my blog neglected in the corner, sniffling. What can I fling at you as I sprint by the computer between rounds of cards, grilling, and backyard birdwatching fueled by high-quality merlot and shiraz?

Meat! Meaty meaty meat meat. I have been a vegetarian off and on for the past twenty years or so, but right now am definitely peaking in the meat quadrant of the graph. Costco sells lovely slabs of top round that grill to tender perfection, which you might not expect from something with "round" in the title, but damn. Damn. I like to cover one slab with a rub of equal parts brown sugar, black pepper, hot ground roasted red chili, and garlic powder, with a half part of kosher salt and let it think about it for a few hours before hitting the grill, and then do the other with simple salt and pepper. And then some lovely thick rounds of onion around the edges until they caramelize. Nom. The grill is getting a workout this week.

Economy! I'm sorry, but at this point I am utterly confused. US auto execs are getting fired by the White House on the same day banking execs are invited over for tea? Meanwhile, my friends and I are coordinating those Costco runs for days when Tucson is not being invaded by family members who gleefully pick up the tab. Recommended bargain of the week: giant clamshell pack of Cherubs grape tomatoes, $4.49. That gives you a week's worth of salads, pastas, omelettes, and lovely snacks. A little olive oil, some basil, salt, and pepper, and bam smacky, you're eating like the king of your very own tomato patch.

Gardening! I suck at it. I know people who very successfully grow tomatoes and peppers and thus avoid that portion of Costco, but I am not one of them. High and subsequently dashed hopes in the past have included tomatoes, jalapenos, anaheim chiles, squash, red bell peppers, lettuce, and snow peas. This season I stuck to herbs and have managed to keep sage and mint alive; the cilantro, to my great chagrin, collapsed and died within three days. Oh, wait--I have had marginal success with potatoes, and am currently sitting on a harvest store of four yukon golds ranging in size from small grape to golf ball with a thyroid problem.

Basketball! My brackets are dead in both men's and women's, although I still have the Heels alive for the men's championship and UConn for the well, duh category in the women's. And the Irish rolled over and died in the NIT semis. That is all.

Arizona! Our esteemed Governor Jan Brewer (R-Harpytown) appointed the illustrious and beloved-by-Shakesville Mr. Benjamin H. Grumbles as head of the state Department of Environmental Quality, which is something akin to appointing a hyena as head of kitten welfare. Grumbles is a Bush EPA hack whose major accomplishment at the EPA was being concerned about pharmaceuticals in groundwater. Well, he was actually only concerned about nitroglycerin, and then only because it's an explosive. Anti-depressants and anti-inflammatories are apparently okay because--let's be honest here--they're making you feel better, aren't they?

Baseball! Pima County wants to build another stadium in hopes that maybe they can lure like three teams back from Glendale to Save Spring Training in Tucson, which will only cost about $137 million in a state that is shuttering state parks and firing teachers as fast as it can in order to fill exactly two sandbags that can be stacked up in front of the 75-foot tsunami that is the current $3 BILLION budget deficit. But it is important to soak people with an increased sales tax so that they can build a stadium that may or may not be used for an entire month every year if the teams decide to relocate to the cotton fields of Marana before bolting to the next sweet deal being offered by a municipality someplace else. Arizona: 49th in education, 2nd in teen pregancy rates, numero uno in short-sighted stupidity.

More to come! Later!

Madness

It's my second-favorite holiday, the opening day of the NCAA men's/women's basketball tournament season, which on the BoltLiturgicalCalendar falls in importance right after Thanksgiving and right before Christmas and the Super Bowl, which are tied. I intend to gorge on hoops--thank you CBS and NCAA, for your NCAA^® March Madness^® on Demand player--even if I'm too old to gorge on beer and snackies the entire time. If I were still 24 it would be nachos and Labatt's all damn day.

My Final Four is UNC, Pitt, Louisville, Memphis. Heels win the championship over Louiville, 73-70.

Tuesday, No Less Muddled Than Monday

I don't even pretend to understand what's going on any more.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. drives to the basket against North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough during a basketball game in Chapel Hill, N.C., on Tuesday. AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

My love for the Tarheels makes me go squeeeeeee when I see this photo and immediately start wondering exactly how far Psycho T rejected that well-meaning layup, as well as how fucking honored Obama would have to be to have had the opportunity for his offering to be so impressively swatted away. Unless T took pity on an old dude and let him score, that is.

But Obama taking it to the hole! Who can't love that?

Many people, apparently. Today's AP/Ipsos poll shows Obama in a dead heat with McCain, while Clinton beats Bomb Bomb by a non-sweat-inducing nine-point margin. Well, okay; she's my third choice of the original Democratic Big Three, but if she spanks McCain, that's all that matters, right?

But wait. Richard Mellon Right-Wing Conspiracy Scaife endorsed her in the Pennsylvania primary, and Rush has been exhorting his minions to switch parties for the duration of their states' primaries in order to vote her into the nomination, so is this a reality poll, or a poll of the reality righties are attempting to trowel into existence, or a poll reflecting how they've already managed to do that within the brains of actual Democrats?

Meanwhile, payday is resolutely refusing to come any sooner than Friday, completely disdainful of the fact that I'm already pushing $500 in the hole, borrowed against my tax refund, for no more entertaining reasons than gasoline, groceries, medical bills, and truck repairs. The stimulus check may or may not have been direct-deposited today, and it seems to matter less and less in the grand scheme of things. Initial ideas about keeping it in reserve along with the tax refund, to be parceled out month by month to pay for the boy's school tuition and occasional mechanical necessities, have been blasted into shreds.

What's important today in the world of presidential politics, once Obama's toweled down? Whether he's honestly repudiating Jeremiah Wright or just doing it out of political expediency. Wright flapped his yap repeatedly over the weekend, which is suspected to have contributed to Clinton's little surgelet in the polls. Please. Let. It. Go. I don't give a shit whether Wright's a harmless crazy uncle or an advance scout for the legions of Satan. I want the Democrats to hammer McCain on this crap-ass economy and incomprehensible national debt that's yet another legacy of this fucked up war the administration has tried to downplay as surely as it's insisted that the bodies of fallen soldiers come home in the middle of the night with no press coverage.

Oh, and while you're at it, Democrats? Just pick somebody already, yeah? You had this one in the bag, have had it in the bag since 2004, and you're pissing it away again. And John McCain's flying around in his wife's jet, laughing all the way to the inauguration.

Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk

I tried to come up with a more appropriate post title, but it's hard to get choke and hit a fuckin' free throw already to rhyme with Tiger. Way to piss away that nine-point lead in the last two minutes, Memphis! I particularly enjoyed watching you execute the shot-clock modified Four Corners offense with 1:17 to go, you know, the one where Douglas-Roberts stood rooted in place holding the ball, managing to burn four whole seconds off the clock before the Kansas defenders shook off their befuddlement--wait... oh, he's not going to pass? or even move? well, okay--and went ahead and fouled him. And he promptly missed the front end of the one-and-one, and the two following that on Memphis' next possession, and then Kansas hit only their third three of the game with seven seconds left to send it into overtime, and Memphis folded and that was that.

And Boltgirl lost her office pool as a result. Way to go, assholes!