I doubt that I’ll watch the game. I’m not much of a football fan to begin with, and having no geographical or cultural allegiance to either of this year’s contestants, I’ll probably take a pass.

Earlier in the day, however, I will be going with Ken, my bodyguard and Da Chef of da Future to Rutt’s Hutt for deep fried hot dogs, fries, maybe a bowl of chili and a couple three mugs of beer. I spent many of my teen and post-teen years eating Rutt’s Hutt hot dogs, but for my cronies it’s a novel experience.

Maybe after a couple “rippers” (Rutt’s well-done deep fried dogs) and a few brewskies, I’ll feel differently about the watching the obscenely overblown football game.

It all depends on what’s on the History Channel.

I went out for a groundpound this morning. Although the temperatures were not as frigid as they recently have been during my morning thing, it was overcast and raw out there, and, more importantly, it felt like snow. I know it was unpleasant enough to apparently put my muse to sleep. A couple writing ideas just refused to take shape. Yo, that’s the way it is sometimes.

As such, you’re stuck with me sitting at the keyboard, sipping a Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka (Lemon flavored this time), waiting for the snow and letting the mush in my cruller flow quite unfiltered to my fingers on the keyboard. You won’t hurt my feelings if you bug out at this point, because I make no representations whatsoever that anything from here on will be worth your time.

Admission: I have become a fan of “Pawn Stars.” Don’t ask me to explain myself, because I can’t. It’s sort of like “Antiques Roadshow” with tattoos and a grumpy old guy with lots of hair. In addition, Chumlee cracks me up. Go figure.

Another Admission: I like the woman in the Progressive Insurance Commercials (Stephanie Courtney). Perky (not in a Katie Couric way), pretty and funny. [No real need for a disclaimer, as my car insurance is not with Progressive.]

I have a sense that Facebook is screwing up the Blogosphere. Several excellent bloggers who are excellent writers have abandoned their blogs for one sentence entries on Facebook. Perhaps they have experienced blog burnout, having decided that blogging is too much of an interruption in Life 101. I can relate to that. It is, nonetheless, sad to see so many peeps who are engaging writers bail on the blogosphere. Note: I understand that there are plenty of reasons not to want to be bothered maintaining a blog: e.g. annoying trolls and, frankly, running out of things worth a shit to write about. I worry about the latter point myself.

Is there anything more boring than reading what a blogger has to say about blogging? I don’t think so. You were warned (see above).

Can you for one minute imagine how much money movie theaters make on popcorn sales? I figure a handful of unpopped popcorn (enough to make one of those very pricey buckets or popcorn) costs mere pennies. Hey, I’m a capitalist, and if the traffic will bear the movie theater price for a bucket of popcorn, I’m OK with it. Seems a bit nuts to me, though. [ANOTHER DISCLAIMER: I think the last movie I saw in a movie theater was “Saving Private Ryan,” and I didn’t buy popcorn.]

Here’s how the word “popcorn” appears when your fingers are not on the home keys: [p[vptm. You non-touch type peeps won’t understand.

No snow yet.

The older I get, the more I truly appreciate the talent of Frank Sinatra. If you don’t agree with me now, just wait it out.

I see where famous artists like Picasso have done paintings that a five-year old can do, only to have the paintings sell for millions of dollars. I figure that’s OK, because I’m sure that Picasso could draw an excellent picture of a cow, such that it would look like a cow. But for that, I could be a gazillionaire.

Yet Another Admission: In college, and a for a few years thereafter, I was a roaring, flaming liberal. Then I got a real job.

Do you read Sippican Cottage? You should. It’s good for the cruller and the soul.

I awaken in the middle of the night wondering how Henry Ford and Thomas Edison managed their businesses without consultants and a multi-million dollar Mission Statement. I figure that if everyone in a company does not know the company’s “mission,” a shitload of managers have to be fired. Speaking of “Consultantspeak,” check out this post at the aforementioned Sippican Cottage.

No snow yet. I think I’ll pour another Firefly and leave youse guys to your own devices.

Years ago I stopped by the music store to buy drumsticks. The guy behind the counter asked, “What kind of sticks do you want?”

I replied, “I want the ones that will make me play like Gene Krupa.” (Showing my age)

I can only imagine how many people have purchased Gibson Les Paul Guitars thinking that, with such an axe, they will play just like Les Paul.

Fortunately, drumsticks are cheaper than a Les Paul guitar.

There’s a theme here, but I’m too lazy to develop it, so let’s call it an exercise in nuance.

Anyway, I loves me some clarinet, even if it is a carrot.

Thanks to my friend Brian, the Air Force Vet.

Let me say at the outset that, except for about five painful minutes, I have not watched the wretched the “reality” TV program called something like “Jersey Shore,” which is set in Seaside Heights, New Jersey.

When I was a boy, Seaside Heights was the place where our blue collar parents took their “vacation club” money and their kids for vacation. To us kids, it was heaven on earth. It is where I first tasted pizza (called, back then, “tomato pie”) and where learned that placing a nickel on the right square could win you a whole box of Clark Bars! Equally as important, we learned that it was possible to blow a bunch of nickels and win nothing — a valuable lesson they didn’t teach in school.

As we aged, the place still offered excitement and adventure. Exploding hormones, girls, romance and broken hearts. It was all there. If nothing else, it was always great to have dinner “on the boards,” which meant you ate your way from one end of the boardwalk to the other – fries with vinegar, Taylor Ham sandwiches, sausage sandwiches, pizza, caramel popcorn and frozen custard.

Once we became old enough to imbibe, the place really rocked. I am fortunate enough to have played at some of the joints in “Seaside.”

My old pal Paul sent me this rather amazing (albeit corny) video from 1960, in which, for all I know, I may appear.

Enjoy.

I have read numerous news stories that deal with the reading of “Miranda rights” to terrorists, specifically in connection with the capture of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Underwear Bomber, and the reading to him his “Miranda rights”.

I have a few thoughts on this off the top of my cruller.

The sloppy use of the term “Miranda rights” might lead one to conclude that the Supreme Court, in Miranda v. Arizona, 394 U.S. 436, conferred on criminal defendants the right to remain silent and the right to be represented by an attorney during custodial questioning. As I have written before, the Supreme Court in Miranda did not confer those rights.

Rather, the “right” conferred upon a criminal defendant in that case was the right to be informed of, or reminded of those rights that already belong to the defendant by virtue of the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment (right not to bear witness against one’s self) and the Sixth Amendment (the right to an attorney). As such, reading a defendant his/her Miranda warning presupposes the existence of those rights in the first instance.

We now know that Eric Holder and The One someone in the Obama administration decided that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Underwear Bomber, would be tried in criminal court, much as if he had been caught holding up a local gas station. We also learned that he was questioned for fifty minutes before he was read his “Miranda rights” the Miranda warning and, after that, he refused to answer any more questions.

What are we to make of this?

The reading of the Miranda warning to Abdulmutallab, a foreigner who was trained and equipped by an enemy of the United States and who was caught in the act of trying to blow an airliner out of the sky, presupposed that he enjoys the constitutional rights afforded by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. Assuming that an enemy combatant enjoys such rights is, at best, a novel legal proposition and, at worst, a reckless mistake. I come down on the side of reckless mistake.

If, for the sake of argument, we assume that Abdulmutallab has rights under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution and, as such, was entitled to the Miranda warning, that means that he was entitled to the warning from the moment he was placed in custody. If that is so, what is the value of the information he may have provided during those fifty minutes when he was questioned without having received the Miranda warning?

One thing is for sure, and that is that none of the information he provided during those fifty minutes can be used against him at trial, nor can any information that flowed from his statements during those fifty minutes be used against him at trial. Any conviction of Abdulmutallab will have to rest on other evidence, such as eyewitness testimony of his actions and expert testimony regarding the explosives and their potential consequences.

The statements he may have made during those fifty minutes may be used to capture other persons he may have identified and may be used may be against them at trial (assuming such statements are not deemed inadmissible for some other reason), but they may not be used to convict Abdulmutallab.

Thus, if the Administration truly believed that Abdulmutallab was entitled to the Miranda warning (I don’t believe he was), the warning should have been given as soon as he was placed in custody. If the Administration believed he was entitled to the Miranda warning, but decided to question him to get information on others (knowing they would have to rely on non-testimonial evidence to convict him), then the warning should not have given to him in the first instance in order to extract as much information about from him about other parties as possible.

The bottom line is that this was a complex issue of law and strategy deserving of careful thought, and it appears that careful thought was in short supply on the part of the Administration.

It’s twoo! It’s twoo!

My guitar pickin’ younger half of the Elderly Brothers, who recently had his cruller scrambled in a skiing accident, made the “Conservative 100” List.

Maybe hanging around with a really cool guy with great farookin’ hair played a role in his receiving such an accolade.

Then again, maybe not.