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[To the tune of “When Britain Really Ruled The Waves”, by Gilbert and Sullivan.]

Miami really ruled the league

In good Coach Shula’s reign;

They won with dominant defense,

And a run-based, ground pound offense;

And got to pop champagne.

Yes, they ran the perfect campaign

In old Coach Shula’s glorious reign!

***

When Belichick beat Martz’s Rams

And the Greatest Turf Show fell–

The Patriot receiving corps

Did nothing too spectaculor—

But did it very well.

The Pats, they built a dynasty

Thanks to their strong, hard-hitting “D”.

***

And when the Bills of Buffalo

Learn from league history;

And their front office does not trade

For wide receivers overpaid

Or some has-been RB–

The Bills can be a dynasty

With good Coach Ryan’s awesome “D”!

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So, there is only one spam comment this go-round, but it’s a good one:

I am a Scorpio man and I’ve often questioned, How is a traditional Scorpio man in love?

I… really don’t know what to tell you.

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Napoleon Bonaparte–shown here “avec pantalon”, thankfully. (Image via Wikipedia)

I was listening to the song “Waterloo” by Stonewall Jackson. (The country singer, not the Confederate General, who met his own Waterloo at the Battle of Chancellorsville.) The song gives “Waltzing Matilda” a run for its money in terms of lyrical quality. Witness:

Little Gen’ral–Napoleon of France– Tried to conquer the world, but lost his pants.

The point of the song is that “everybody has to meet his Waterloo”.  For some reason, the thought popped into my head that Nixon met his Waterloo at Watergate.  And then I thought about the phenomenon I have complained about before: referring to every scandal that happens along as “[whatever]-gate”. So, by that logic, shouldn’t we start referring to all crushing defeats as “[whatever]-loo”? For example:

No, you say?  That sounds stupid, you say? My point exactly.

UPDATE: In the comments, reader P.M. Prescott informs me that this actually happened.

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I think there are a lot of people who don’t really listen to song lyrics.  This occurred to me the other day as I was listening to the song “Waltzing Matilda”–the unofficial Australian national anthem, by Banjo Paterson.  It’s a catchy tune, but it makes no sense.  And no, I don’t mean because of the Australian lingo.  Here are the lyrics, via Wikipedia:

Once a jolly swagman [vagrant] camped by a billabong [a pool of water]
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy [tea] boiled:
“Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me?” [“Waltzing Matilda” means wandering carrying your belongings in a bag.]

Down came a jumbuck [sheep] to drink at that billabong.
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee.
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag:
“You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.”

Ok, so what kind of sheep is this that you can fit inside a bag? Or did he slaughter the sheep before he did that?

Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred.
Down came the troopers, one, two, and three.
“Whose is that jumbuck you’ve got in your tucker bag?
You’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me.”

This is a remarkably efficient police force–homicide investigations are not treated with the same rigor as this sheep theft. Also, why do the policemen use the same expression?  Are they planning to carry the guy off in a bag?

Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong.
“You’ll never take me alive!” said he
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong:
“Who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda, with me?”

So… this guy committed suicide rather than give back the sheep he had stolen? Was the punishment for sheep theft worse than death?

Now there are indications that the song is based on a true story, and is in fact related to an incident in the 1891 Shearers’ Strike. That means it has some political subtext.  If that’s the case, it might have been better to mention it was a striking worker, as opposed to a passing tramp.

Anyway, that’s my opinion.  Don’t let it stop you from enjoying the song; it’s a nice little tune.  Maybe some other time I’ll post about why the confusing syntax in the official United States National Anthem is so annoying, and why we should replace the “Star-Spangled Banner” with the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

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What’s with these long lost stories turning up lately?  First they unearth a Harper Lee novel from somewhere, and now a Sherlock Holmes story has been found in an attic. This Gilbert and Sullivan fan hopes the Thespis score will be next, but that may be too much to hope for.

I’m expecting the next thing will be that we start uncovering works by famous classic authors that mimic modern-day ones.  Someone will find a Jane Austen manuscript about a lady being courted by a vampire, or that Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote something about a school for wizards.

Kidding aside, what lost books/stories/other media would you hope to see discovered?

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So, I got the game Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim as a gift.  When it came out years ago, I mentioned I didn’t care for the sword-and sorcery fantasy-setting, which was why I didn’t get it earlier, even as it won tons of Game Of The Year awards.

I still don’t care for the setting, but I will admit that it is so beautiful and atmospheric I can kind of get past that–it is a seriously gorgeous game, and it is really fun just to wander around the huge open-world with no aim, admiring the scenery.

But of course, this is a Bethesda production, so the minute you start to run into anything related to the plot or characters, things get silly.  The major issue so far in the game is that dragons are attacking the land for some reason, even though everyone thought they had been destroyed a long time ago. The opening sequence of the game involves a dragon attack, which is a shock to all the characters around.

Naturally, we learn that the player character is special, being a “dragonborn”, which gives them the power to absorb dragon souls, or something.  And of course there is a prophecy about it all.  (First rule of fantasy: there is always a prophecy. I guess they make their prophets in volume.)

My character has already been in five or six battles with dragons, and won all of them by hitting the dragon with a hammer when it lands ten yards away.  This makes the dragons seem, frankly, stupid. They could win continually if they just stayed up in the air, or perched somewhere I couldn’t get at them with my hammer.  But no, they obligingly allow themselves to be drawn into my kind of fight. It’s the “Cthulhu Problem” all over again.

Then there is the dialogue.  In one town that I rolled into while running away from monsters, there is some mystery that has to do with a house being burned down.  The locals are too afraid to investigate, because they are, according to the “Jarl” (the executive of the town) “too superstitious”.

I wanted to say to the Jarl “Of course they are!  We live in a world where dragons attack people and sorcerers openly summon evil spirits.  Just yesterday I was attacked by a gang of reanimated skeletons.  You’d be an idiot not to be superstitious in this world!”

(The house mystery, by the way, turns out to be the fault of vampires. And the clues to solving it are provided by ghosts. Yeah, I’d say the people are right to be superstitious.)

Also, there is the recurring problem of people saying essentially “well, hello there, heavily-armed stranger who just ran in three seconds ago from the vast wilderness populated by legions of bandits and bloodthirsty monsters. Here are all the secret intrigues and problems of everyone in town.. Please help fix them.”  This problem is to some extent inevitable in a game like this, but I think it could still be handled more deftly.

And then there is the criminal justice system in Skyrim.  It’s set up so the guards will attack you if you commit crimes against the people of a given town.  Neat idea, but I don’t see how it is that stealing a carrot can be punishable by death, whereas hitting the Jarl in the face with a sword can be forgiven if you put the sword down afterwards. (And yes, Fallout: New Vegas suffered from this too, a bit.)

In short, so far it seems to be Fallout 3 all over again, only more so:  awesome scenery and landscape, laughable character interactions, plot and dialogue.  And like Fallout 3, I’m having fun with it.  More than I expected actually.  If they had only gotten Obsidian Entertainment to write it, they would have had another masterpiece on their hands.

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I was thinking today about some of the great thinkers in history, and how the vast majority of the great minds had so little access to information compared to the average person in the present day.

It’s sort of sad when you think about it.  Take any great thinker from history, and then think about the logistics required for him or her to get the level of education they received.  They had to go to school, study, get books from libraries–if they were available at all.  If you were reading and you found a word you didn’t know, you had to go find a dictionary and hope you could find it in there. Not to mention that the mundane day-to-day tasks also took longer and were more difficult.  And yet, there were people thinking deep philosophical thoughts, inventing new technologies, writing great books, founding nations, etc. etc.

Compare them to me: I have almost instantaneous access to all the recorded knowledge in human history via the internet, I can have it translated instantly if need be, and I can do it while sitting at my desk.  On paper, I should probably be more well-educated and accomplished than the entire population of the world in the 1600s.  But I’m not.  If somebody from past times came to the present, they’d be appalled by how little I’d done with the wealth of resources I have.

Suppose John Locke had been able to access the internet.  He probably would have invented the perfect system of government in 10 minutes, if he kept up his past rate of productivity. How many times over could the great economic minds have solved the U.S. economic crisis in the time I spent watching cat videos?

I feel like an under-achiever, I guess is what I’m saying.

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Atlanta

They return to form,

And will be in the playoffs.

But not the S-B.

Arizona

Could be pretty good.

But are in a division

That is much too strong.

Baltimore

They’re like the Giants;

Championship, followed by

Mediocrity.

Buffalo

Can Sammy Watkins

Make E.J. into a star?

History says no.

Carolina

They won’t be as good.

Had lots of good luck last year.

Cannot count on that.

Chicago

Now they have offense;

But it’s their defense that’s weak–

Ya can’t have it all.

Cincinnati

They will fall apart;

Dalton and Lewis will go;

Green new Megatron.

Cleveland

With Johnny Football

Being the next Broadway Joe,

They might beat the Colts.

Dallas

No “D” in Big D,

At least, that is how it looks;

8 and 8 again.

Denver

Seem to have improved;

But stats say that offense will

Regress to the mean.

Detroit

After collapse last year,

Will be hard to be rebuilt–

But what else is new?

Green Bay

Are underrated;

First game will tell us a lot–

If well-refereed.

Houston

Clowney and Watt will

Be difficult to slow down.

But the offense won’t.

Indianapolis

Andrew Luck’s third year

Will be the one where he breaks

Into the “elite” class.

Jacksonville

They’re gonna be bad.

Like, really, really awful.

As in, not too good.

Kansas City

Still a decent team–

But San Diego and Denver

Are too much for them.

Miami

Buffalo swept them

Last year. That alone is a

Harbinger of doom.

Minnesota

Year of Transition–

“Bridge over Troubled Water”

You might even say.

New England

With improved defense

Tom Brady and Belichick

Finally get four.

New Orleans

Maybe I’m crazy;

But Brees has to decline soon–

And he’s their offense.

 New York Jets

Decker in for shock–

Amazing how good you look

When on Manning’s team.

New York Giants

When they’re counted out

Is when they do their best work;

But can’t beat the ‘Hawks..

Oakland

The AFC West’s

“Other” football team is still

Down in the cellar.

Philadelphia

Who needs DeSean

When they have LeSean and Foles?

Reinvent the screen.

Pittsburgh

Will win division

But more or less by default–

And lose in first round.

San Diego

They will beat Denver,

But lose two to the Raiders

And go 8 and 8.

San Francisco

Kaepernick should not

Throw to the right-side corner

With game on the line.

Seattle

The next Dynasty

Makes it back again this year–

But won’t win title.

St. Louis

“Distractions” can be

overcome, but the Niners

and ‘Hawks cannot.

Tampa Bay

Cool new uniforms

Sadly cannot mask the fact

They’re still pretty bad.

Tennessee

Will be wild-card,

And could even win a game–

But can’t beat the Colts.

Washington

After this season,

They will want to change their name,

They’ll have been so bad.

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Ok, readers, pop quiz! Quick, guess what my most viewed post ever is!

…

Made your guess?

Ok, it’s this one. And it’s not even close. It’s by about 1200 views, actually.

Forget the politics and history; I should blog more about vehicle wheels, I guess. Who knew it was such a popular topic?

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I know a guy who’s charismatic as can be:

Everyone he meets is sure that he’s all right.

The kind of guy that they all would like to be

Is exactly what he is–at least, upon first sight.

When he’s among conservatives,

He seems like a regular Reaganite.

But when among the liberals he lives

He looks for social revolutions to ignite.

 

CHORUS:

Oh, everybody loves a charismatic guy, you see;

He’s everything that you could want a chap to be!

His political skills are really quite sublime;

He fools all of the people all the time!

 

With the fellas, he’s a manly man’s man;

Drinkin’ beer and talkin’ sports and trucks to ride–

But when he’s with the ladies, oh, for sure he can

Get in touch with his female side.

When he’s discussed ‘twixt hims and hers–

Though on specifics they may disagree–

Everyone on both sides readily concurs:

“He’s just the kind of man for me!”

 

(CHORUS)

 

So, no one knows exactly what his deal is–

His convictions and beliefs are a bit unclear.

But still, there’s no denying his appeal is

So overwhelming he just has to be sincere!

I once spoke to him, hoping to convey

How nice to have these diff’rent personae.

And he replied “It’s just that I can never say

For sure which one of them is me!”

 

(CHORUS)

 

[NOTE: You may ask “is this about a particular person?” Answer: No. It’s about a particular type of person.]