Between doing Christmas stuff and Life 101 stuff today, I am beat. It doesn’t look like I’ll be doing much blogging tonight. A comfortable chair and a nice cigar beckon.

Of course, it is nice to have been nominated for the 2003 Weblog Awards in this category, and it’s even nicer to see people actually voting for this site. In addition, one of the good things about the process is that it has introduced me to some excellent blogs that I probably would not have otherwise found.

One such site is Unbillable Hours. Its proprietor is a Jersey guy, who also happens to be an attorney (he knows the secret handshake), and who is a wonderful photographer and first-class writer.

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit there, and I think you will too.

Roger, of Curmudgeonly and Skeptical, reports that his MT Site cratered, and so he returned to BlogSpot. That’s right. BlogSpot!!!

Welcome back to the hood, Herr Schultz.

His newly relocated site is here. Adjust your blogrolls accordingly, so you don’t miss anything.

I don’t eat a lot of candy. I’m just not a big candy fan. However, I do like Necco Wafers and often keep them nearby when I am watching television.

Necco Wafers are those quarter-sized, hard, sugary wafers that are packaged much like a roll of quarters. They come in 8 flavors and colors: lemon (yellow); orange (orange); lime (green); clove (purple); cinnamon (white); wintergreen (pink); licorice (black); and chocolate (brown). The number of each flavor and color in each roll is determined randomly. So, when buying Necco Wafers, the number of each flavor you get in the package is essentially a crapshoot.

The only flavor that can be purchased separately (i.e. all one color) is chocolate**. The good news there is that chocolate is my favorite flavor. The bad news is that it is often difficult to find the “only-chocolate” packages.

Necco Wafers have been around since the beginning of the twentieth century, when they were first manufactured by the New England Confectionary Company, which accounts for the name Necco (N.E.C.Co. Clever, no?). Now, more than 4 billion Necco Wafers are manufactured each year, which is enough to completely encircle the world twice if placed edge to edge. Link

What’s good about Necco Wafers is that, with the right technique, they are very satisfying and take a long time to eat. In fact, with the right technique, even a mini-roll (10 wafers) can last for the better part of a TV program.

Here’s how to eat Necco Wafers:

The first rule is that one eats only one Necco Wafer at a time. Putting more than one Necco Wafer at one time in one’s mouth causes flavor collision, which is a bad thing. For example, orange and cinnamon tend to beat the shit out of each other. Putting two or more Necco Wafers at a time in one’s mouth might be acceptable, but only if they are all the same flavor. Nevertheless, this practice is not recommended, as it will result in the roll not lasting as it should

Second, it is always acceptable to throw away black Necco Wafers, because they taste like licorice, and licorice tastes like crap. With luck, there will not be too many black Necco Wafers in your roll.

Finally, one doesn’t chew a Necco Wafer, at least not when one first puts it into one’s mouth . They are too hard for that, and prematurely chewing them is too noisy inside one’s head, requiring an upward adjustment of the TV volume. Rather, one lets the Necco Wafer sit on one’s tongue for a few minutes until it softens up and is ready for a slow, constant-pressure chew, rather than a chomp-type chew.

Necco Wafers have an interesting history. Admiral Byrd took 2 1/2 tons of Necco Wafers to the South Pole in the 1930’s to give to his men as well as the locals he ran into along the way. In addition, Necco Wafers travel well because they do not melt and, as candy goes, they are relatively indestructible. For that reason, during World War II, the government purchased a major portion of the company’s production of Necco Wafers to ship overseas to the troops.

Be a good American. Eat Necco Wafers.

** It is true that the only flavor Necco Wafer that can be purchased separately is chocolate. However, I recall from my boyhood Rod Redwing saying that the Necco Wafer manufacturer used to provide him with special packages that contained only white Necco Wafers. I know you are asking yourself, who is this Rod Redwing guy, and why was he given special treatment by the Necco folks?

Yep. They were Necco Wafers.

The New Jersey Departmental Protection has revised its number of bears that were killed on Monday, the first day of the bear hunt, from 61 to 116, which included 76 females and 40 males. Some of the bears that were killed had been previously tagged and were identified as having been a nuisance to local residents. On Tuesday, an additional 35 bears were killed, bringing the total, by the end of the day, to 152.

Creating a bit of a public relations disaster in an already emotionally charged atmosphere, on Tuesday morning, a cub, having been wounded by a hunter, staggered out of the woods to the roadside and took twenty minutes to die, in full view of the morning’s commuters, who were stuck in rush hour traffic.. Eventually, the hunter (properly licensed), who claimed the bear to be his kill and who tracked the wounded bear for several hours, showed up and took the bear away.

The number of kills should increase because the area available for bear hunting expanded to its intended size, when a federal judge rescinded a temporary order that had prohibited bear hunting in New Jersay’s Delaware Water Gap National recreation area.

The judge, in his opinion, observed, “… contrary to plaintiff’s alarmist predictions, the black bear population at (the Delaware Water Gap) is not going to be decimated, or even significantly impacted, by this bear hunt.” Further, in response to the plaintiff’s argument that the state lacked the authority to permit hunting in a national recreation area, the court stated that “the public interest favors permitting the state of New Jersey to conduct its limited hunt in order to manage its wildlife resources and hopefully promote a healthy and safe habitat for the residents who live in the vicinity of the Recreation Area.”

It is now virtually certain that the hunt will continue until approximately 500 bears are killed, or the six-day bear hunting season expires, whichever comes first.

Read the whole story here.

Stay tuned.

The first bear hunt in New Jersey in 33 years began yesterday. Those who applied for and obtained the special licenses for the six-day hunt faced a few problems. First, the snowstorm over the weekend discouraged some hunters from venturing into the woods and encouraged the bears to stay in their dens. Second, the amount of land available for the hunt was reduced when, on Friday, in connection with a lawsuit filed by environmentalists, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting hunting on the 67,000 acre Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. Finally, protestors opposed to the hunt (at least one of whom wore a bear mask) appeared in various places to urge that the hunt be stopped.

Nevertheless, despite these obstacles, by the end of the day the hunters killed 61 bears, the largest one weighing in at 498 pounds.

As I have said before, bear hunting is not my cup of tea, but there seems to be no practical alternative to the growing bear population and the increasing number of bear-human encounters.

The state’s goal is to reduce the bear population by approximately 500.

Tomorrow, December 10th, we all have a great opportunity to lighten Cousin Jack’s wallet a bit, perhaps by as much as a G-note. For every hit his site receives on that day, Jack and his family will donate a buck (up to $1,000) to charities that fight hunger in Oregon.

So, tomorrow, be sure to go forth and visit his site to keep his hit counter spinning.

I think that it’s fair to say that this space, with few exceptions, has been “G” to “PG” rated. So, for a change, I thought I would post something a bit different.

Check out “Nudes on a Bench”.

Thanks to my friend Brian, the Air Force Vet.

No blogging tonight, as I am off to this place to see Simon and Garfunkle in concert. I had seen them once before in concert in the 1980’s, and it was terrific. Truthfully, I am just as stoked, if not more so, to see these guys, who are the opening act.

It promises to be a great night of wonderful harmony from the big stage (vocally, anyway).

Update: The concert was absolutely fabulous. Simon and Garfunkle sang as well as they did thirty years ago, and they sang every song you would want to hear. Some tunes were done with just the two of them and Paul Simon’s guitar (which he plays beautifully), while others made full use of an ass-kicking band. At one point (I believe it was during “El Condor Pasa”), I heard a unique sound, and holy crap!! It was a theremin!

I was surprised to see that the Everly Brothers were not the opening act. There was no opening act. Rather, Simon and Garfunkle brought the Everly Brothers out about one third of the way through the performance. They were great. They completely captivated the audience when they sang “Let it be Me.” In fact, they were so good, and the crowd loved them so much, I cannot help but wonder if their appearance was intentionally limited to four tunes, lest they steal the show. They ended up singing “Bye Bye Love” with Simon and Garfunkle, and it worked very well.

If the tour will be anywhere near you, knock yourself out to get a ticket. You won’t be sorry.

Kevin at Wizbang has done a tremendous amount of work setting up the 2003 Weblog Awards. I was most flattered to see that a really nice person nominated this site in the category of Marauding Marsupials and even more flattered to see that some people actually voted for the site. For you non-bloggers (e.g. friends of mine, who still call it a “blob), Marauding Marsupials is one of several classes of bloggers in the “blogosphere,” a system brilliantly concocted and maintained by N.Z. Bear, and which appears here.

So, make sure you visit Wizbang to cast your vote for your favorite blogs (there are lots of categories), and it would be really nice [shuffling feet, looking at the ground, with hands in pockets] if you would stop by the Marauding Marsupial category and vote for meeeeeeeeee!

Oh, and if you don’t feel like voting for me (you rat bastard), then vote the LeeAnn’s “The Cheese Stands Alone.” That’s whom I’d vote for, if I hadn’t already voted for meeeeeeeeeee.