Coors Light is giving adult consumers a way of knowing when their beer is at the ultimate drinking temperature with the debut of the brand’s Cold Activated Can in a 24 fluid-ounce container. Thermochromatic ink turns the mountains blue when the beer is cold enough to drink. The company was the first U.S. beer brand to offer this type of product with the debut of Coors Light and Coors Cold Activated Bottles….

I have an equally effective technique for determining when my beverage is at the “ultimate drinking temperature”:  I touch it with my hand.

You read right – Troy Landry of Louisiana “sued Atlantic Recording Corp., Kid Rock (whose real name is Robert Ritchie) and others in 2004, claiming an 8-second portion of Kid Rock’s ‘Somebody’s Gotta Feel This,’ featured in a beer commercial, was ‘strikingly or substantially similar’ to songs Landry released on a 1994 record.”  Judge Mary Ann Vial Lemmon ruled in favor of the defendant today.

No doubt the beer referenced was Coors, which is already on my Axis of Evil, not only for choosing Mr. Rock as their spokesbastard, but for referring to him as “an American hero” in a written response to my anti-Rock manifesto of 2002.

Still, I cannot understand why any self-respecting songwriter would debase himself by publicizing a plausible connection between his own work and that of such a feculent ass clown as Kid Rock.  It would be as if the most offensive hard core pornographic motion picture of all time contained amongst the filth some plot element that you had once thought of yourself.  Suing would only draw a permanent link between your name and the aforementioned smut.

And to lose in the end?  I pity you, Mr. Landry.

It began for me on Wednesday the 21st, when I drove down to St. Petersburg to spend the evening with my grandmother – something I always enjoy. The drive was exceedingly slow due to heavy holiday traffic, which only cleared southbound in Wildwood, where the Turnpike begins. But I arrived in St. Pete eventually, and Grandma and I chatted into the night. I slept comfortably, and, as an added bonus, my cousin Marshall–who is presently living with my grandmother–has an Arctic White Fender Stratocaster.

Grandma and I chatted away Thanksgiving morning, and eventually made our way to my Aunt Julie’s new house in Pinellas Park, which was actually quite a nice place, with a huge back yard and a garage tailor made for Thanksgiving dinners. Of course, it is a custom in my family to sing a hymn in lieu of a spoken prayer, and this year was no different. One of these days we ought to make a recording of it, so that ages hence we’ll remember what it was to spend Thanksgiving at a Hill household.

Uncle Tom, Dad and I gathered around and flipped through Connie and Charlie’s scrapbooks of their roadtrip down Route 66. Miriam would have enjoyed that. But before too long I had to make a road trip of my own, back to Gainesville to spend what was left of the holiday with Mrs. Hill, and help her organize our own Post-Thanksgiving in what ever way I could. The drive back was considerably less congested, and in the absence of traffic, I enjoyed crossing the Howard Frankland Bridge, speeding through Tampa, and passing a favorite old landmark. I even made a short detour as part of the Dana Heritage Project, which I will detail in a future post.

Our premiere Post-Thanksgiving was to have been a happy gathering of combined families, an idea Mrs. Hill had, and she pulled off something remarkable, bringing together over a dozen people whom otherwise would have had no home-cooked meal. Unfortunately, my grandmother fell ill, and my mother had to work, so their absences were felt. But the food was delicious, and Miriam’s efforts were super-human.

My father bravely drove alone in his 1983 BMW 320i, which he loves. But the sudden death of his transmission at the Newberry Road exit spelled the end of his car’s journey under its own power. After some confusion regarding his exact whereabouts–I thought he was at the Red Lobster, when, in fact, he was on the Interstate off-ramp–I met up with him, and we got his car to a safe location in the Borders parking lot and made our way home for dinner. But we had to leave early to take advantage of the little remaining daylight, and attempted an on-location repair with no success. An improvised tool proved ineffectual, and the appropriate-but-pricey Craftsman version was too large to fit in the limited space beneath the car. While I was in Ocala photographing a wedding the following day, Dad worked more on the car, only to come to the conclusion that repair was likely impossible. Sunday the 25th was spent arranging for the BMW to be transported back to Pasco County. The best solution we could find was a trailer attached to a U-Haul. It worked fine, and the fellow at the Gainesville U-Haul even gave us a deal. So, U-Haul is hereby removed from the Axis of Evil.

My father’s automotive calamity was an unexpected expense and frustration for him, I know. On the other hand, I was able to spend more time with him than I had in a decade. And you can’t put a price on that.

James Stevenson is a bird-watcher, who readily admits to shooting the cat, and confesses to having done the same thing on his own property before.  The crime in question, however, took place around a bridge at San Luis Pass in Galveston.  This is important, because the toll-keeper at that bridge had taken to feeding and caring for the feline victim, and had even named her.  At the time of the crime, the law in Texas stated that it was illegal to kill a cat belonging to someone else.  One could presumably kill as many feral cats as one wished.  Texas has subsequently amended the law to include all cats, but this case apparently hinges on whether this cat–which was certainly a stray–was tended to by the toll-keeper.

I can understand the frustration of an avid birder wanting to protect his objects of interest.  Stray, hungry cats eat birds; it’s a sad fact of life.  I, too, love birds, and I do whatever I can to minimize their exposure to peril in my own yard.  Bela is much too fat to stalk anything, but Mr. Meow and Spooky could probably catch a bird if they tried.  Thankfully, I haven’t seen them do this.  But, with a little compassion, this bastard in Texas–who, incidentally is the founder of the Galveston Ornithological Society, in case you want to send some hate-mail–could have trapped the cat, had it spayed and put a collar around its neck with a bell on it.  Many communities have programs that will spay or neuter strays for free.  I realize that that would have taken effort on this man’s part.  I guess the difference between someone who loves animals and someone who doesn’t is how far they’re willing to go to help them.

Mostly, I am saddened at the obvious difference between lovers of birds and cats, of which I am both:  many birders hate cats, but few, if any, cat lovers hate birds.

So, with all that crapulence, it was rather surprising to turn on my TV last week and see something called “On Demand”.  At first I thought it was some lame pay-per-view initiative that I would get no use out of.  It turns out, however, that it is rather convenient.  The way it works is that there is a menu with several different channels listed, including HBO, Showtime, and Starz.  When you select one of these options you get another menu listing many movies and series that these networks telecast.  Selecting any of these allows you to watch it whenever you’d like.  This is particularly handy when you want to watch, say, any of this last season’s best show, Flight of the Conchords.  It’s rather like having everything on DVR.  The most amazing thing is that there is no extra charge for this if you already subscribe to those particular premium channels.

Still, it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that other markets had this technology long ago, or that theirs was better.  Cox still sucks.

I discovered the problem, coincidentally, while talking to Steve on the phone.  I had gone to log-in to my site to write a new post, when I saw some gibberish in the place of the normal log-in screen.  I tried another browser and it was the same.  Then I tried Internet Explorer, and my anti-virus program pops up, saying a virus was detected.

So, my apologies to anyone who attempted to read my posts and had trouble.  Endless thanks again to Steve for resolving what could have been an enormous headache.  Furthermore, instant Axis of Evil status for the loathsome computer vandal.

“The president said he objects on philosophical grounds to a bipartisan Senate proposal to boost the State Children’s Health Insurance Program by $35 billion over five years….

“‘I support the initial intent of the program,’ Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post after a factory tour and a discussion on health care with small-business owners in Landover. ‘My concern is that when you expand eligibility . . . you’re really beginning to open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government.’”

Stunning.

George W. Bush is more concerned about the profits of insurance companies than he is about poor, sick children. He said it in plain English. Think for a minute about what this means: the president of the United States–a man who claimed to be a “uniter”, a man who professes to support a “culture of life”–is putting the financial interest of corporations ahead of the welfare of innocent children. Lest anyone think this is loaded language I am using, read the president’s words again.

Whether or not you support national, single-payer healthcare–and, obviously, I do–to deny the most basic need to the most helpless among us is truly sinful, and I mean that in the most damning, Biblical way. To those who support(ed) President Bush I’d like to ask, is this what you voted for? Do those words represent your values? Would Jesus Christ–whom Bush named as his favorite philosopher–speak those words?

I’ll write more soon about my position on universal healthcare, but, for now, I’d like to let the president’s words sink in a little longer.

“This is Cheney’s version of the $400 haircut/I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it/I invented the Internet — a moment whose importance is magnified because it fits with jigsaw precision into an existing template.”

This type of writing follows a pattern common in American journalism today – a pattern in which, for a variety of reasons (none of them legitimate), every criticism of a conservative figure is “balanced” with a criticism of a progressive figure. Ergo, the reference to John Edwards’ expensive hair-do and John Kerry’s unfortunately worded explanation of an otherwise reasonable Senate vote. During the 2004 election cycle another media critic pointed out that George W. Bush could say the sun rises in the west, and John Kerry could say the sun rises in the east, but the newspaper headlines would read “Opinions Differ On Sunrise”.

This brings me to the the real irritating part of Marcus’ column: the Al Gore stab. Al Gore never claimed he “invented the internet”. That simply never happened. You can read all about it here, but the gist is that for years, conservative politicians, pundits and publications have misquoted and outright misled the public to try and make Al Gore seem like a liar.

This all amounts to lazy writing, and a cowardly fear of being accused of “liberal bias”. Republicans know that, in fact, it’s the truth that’s biased against them. They also know that conjuring up the specter of an elite “liberal media”, and repeating the accusation often enough, cements it in the minds of those who are no longer paying attention – no longer paying attention to avoid the regular parade of incompetence, corruption and carnage wrought by people like Vice President Cheney.

After a flurry of accounts this week about financial offers to land the first postprison interview with Paris Hilton, both ABC and NBC said yesterday that they no longer had any interest in securing the interview.

NBC said that it had contacted representatives of the Hilton family yesterday afternoon and told them the network would no longer pursue the interview with Ms. Hilton, who has been in jail in Los Angeles since June 3 on charges related to traffic violations. She was sentenced to serve 45 days.

‘We have informed their representatives that we are not interested in this interview,’ said Allison Gollust, the spokeswoman for NBC News.

It’s clear that Barbara Walters had been approached to do the interview for ABC, but the network declined, to their credit. I am certain, however, that Walters would have done the interview had she been allowed. The only thing that could convince me that whatever journalistic integrity Walters ever had had not long since vanished would have been if the first question she asked Hilton was, “Why are you such a terrible human being?”