Sometimes, when Israel has ostensibly surrendered its strategic advantage and the US is ostensibly making feints toward a return to foreign policy “realism,” I like to go to the mall and buy myself something velour.
So if anybody needs me, I’ll be shopping for 1982. With any luck, maybe I’ll catch an Asia reunion concert, too.
If that doesn’t work, try the telephone operator. It seemed to work for Randy Travis, once upon a time.
You’ve got an unusual idea of “luck”, kemo sabe.
Dude, at least make it Styx, or something.
Saturday…Saturday…Saturday…
Saturday…Saturday…Saturday…
Saturday…Saturday…Saturday night’s alright
(FOR FIGHTING)
1982-when did all the time fly away?
Funny thing, you can still find a velour tracksuit on sale today.
Maybe the time didn’t fly away after all.
TW:last
I’ll say about it
Jeff’s feeling the Heat of the Moment.
TW: the west is great, but it also makes some shitty music.
I hear Steve Howe’s gonna use a SITAR, dude!
Jeff,
While you’re in 1982, fill up the gas tank and pick up some shares of Microsoft.
Pleasant memories, guy.
TW: 1982 seems a good place to visit.
T&T
While you’re there, check out the new Atari 5200. I hear it’s bitchin’.
And have you seen the Star Trek sequel? It’s so fuckin’ awesome! So much better than the first one. I know, it’s got that dude from Fantasy Island in it, but it’s the tall guy, not the midget.
Trust me. All I can say is, KHAAAAAN!!!
See it. You’ll know what I’m talking about.
If we’re doing 1982, we might as well do…
Eye of the Tiger!
Maybe that’s our corny theme song? Seems kind of appropriate to this international sit’iation.
You trying to say that French and Turkish troops will be less dedicated at keeping Hezbollah from massacring Jews than Israeli troops are?
How simplisme…
Turing = friend, as in With a friend like the UN…
Hmmmm.
“In the heat of the moment,
muslim terrorist sympathisers accuse you of racism,
you white crackers.”
– a discarded rewrite of an Asia song.
I hope it isn’t 100 degrees there like it is here, or you’ll be miserable in that tracksuit
.
Aw, don’t take on so, Jeff. You give so much merriment to us everyday, it’s sobering to see you so down.
Here, maybe a comedy show will cheer you up.
I would say something witty, but I spent the 80’s in a tequila bottle, and therefore don’t know too much about them..
This peace agreement will look like hollow diplomacy when more do cry than ever cheered it.
This agreement practically guarantees a Shi’ite empire stretching from Isfahan to Beirut, with Syria as its first client (read “bitch”) Sunni state.
This bodes ill.
Oh, come on, hezbollah will violate this ceasefire before the hot air in the UN building has time to cool.
Check out Captain Ed (http://www.captainsquartersblog.com) for an interesting take on this.
C’mon Jeff, Scotland Yard and the FBI will prevent all terrorist acts from now on.
This week’s events proves that Kerry was right. Law enforcement will protect us all. We’re safe.
[Khobar Towers, 9/11, African Embassy bombings, the London Tube bombings et ctc et ctc notwithstanding]
SMG
Patrick,
wife state. One of the harem.
No, no, Syria will be the (TW
T&T
I hate to sound like a know-it-all, Jeff, but I think the title of that book is 1984.
Actually, it probably should read “… buy myself something velour …” instead of “… by myself”; although, theoretically, you can “buy myself” something while you are “by myself”.
Sunday I rest, Monday thru Friday I work, Saturday is the day I pick nits.
oh come on, why so pessimistic? Nasralla seems like a fine, savvy, trustworthy, tell-it-like-it-is kinda guy. I’m sure Brian Williams and Mike Wallace would surely enjoy his company. I mean, he’s a freedom fighter. Like Rambo. While you’re at the mall, get me a tan Members Only jacket—i hear they’re back in style. I’ll pay you back. I’ll pay double if Hezb’allah honors any kind of cease fire.
tw: returned…as in, my calls to Nasralla never get returned.
It was the heat of the moment
Telling me what your heart meant
Heat of the moment shone in your eyes
And now you find yourself in 82
The disco hotspots hold no charm for you
You can’t concern yourself with bigger things
You catch the pearl and ride the dragon’s wings
And when your looks are gone and you’re alone
How many nights you sit beside the phone
What were the things you wanted for yourself
Teenage ambition you remember well
Yeah, stick with ‘82. In 1983, everything went to shit.
Hm. We may all be misinterpreting. Jeff may be shopping for 1,982—as in, planning a really huge dinner party.
I’m sure our invitations are already in the mail, right Jeff?
Jeff?
Wait up. I’ll send my life savings with you. Pick me up about $175,000 worth of those tax-free muni bonds that were yielding 12-15%. They were the shit back then.
Sticky’s right: time to rebalance the old portfolio.
The UN hasn’t gotten the best of Bush yet. Even the fact that they held off the Iraqi invasion for months and what that might have cost us in the long run, the UN came out looking like assholes (for quite a few reasons that most people here are aware of without my enumerating them).
Bush has to recognize international political pressures, but his administration has never given me the impression that they see terrorists as worthy of treaty. I think a trap has been set for both the UN and Hezbollah.
The IDF has just in the last week put a lot of soldiers under arms, mobilzed them and they’ve shaken out their equipment and OOB. The trap’s trigger is the belief that Hezbollah (Iran) will assume that they have won the latest media battle and continue the war under the further assumption that Israel will opt to assuage the immediate international pressure and take the hits to keep the ceasefire in place. I think that’s a bad bet for Hezbollah. When the trap springs – Hezbollah fires one rocket at Israel – the IDF will still be in place in Lebanon and with fresh formations ready to roll uncontested from Israel to the Litani river area. The IDF will have a 60-100 thousand man force in OOB with no intact enemy line in front of them and a free hand for another two or three weeks before the UN can cobble together another plan. Hezbollah will be tidily swept up.
Oh, fer…
Snap out of it, Jeff!
This is one small setback–maybe even a draw–in the longest war any of us will ever see. It’s not the end of the world. Israel is still here and will continue to be here, but most of my favorite bloggers are blubbering like Bill Paxton in Aliens: “That’s it! Game over, man!”
Think back on WWII, when we experienced an almost unbroken string of defeats from 1941 to about 1944. Bungling, idiocy, mistakes, dumbassery–yet look how it ended. After Wake Island, D-Day, Anzio, the Battle of the Bulge, the Malmedy massacre, and so on, did the American population start sniveling about how our foreign policy was a failure and it was time to take our balls and go home?
I would ask my favorite bloggers to think about how we felt when we read the late, unlamented Musab al Zarqawi’s whining screeds about how his side was losing. How did that affect us? Did it make us want to hang in there and keep kicking his fat tush, or did it make us want to give up?
How do you think all this mourning the death of Israel and the global triumph of Islamism is influencing the Islamonazis who read blogs? Does it make them think they’re on the right track, or does it make them more inclined to put down their guns and knock it off?
Just saying…
Hey..I graduated high school in ‘83! I wouldn’t mind going back to 1982 with what I know now…..
Tw: Young. Oh to be young again.
I just posted this in the previous thread, but Bush really does have stones. Rumors of his weakness are greatly exaggerated. Maybe we’ll win this thing, after all.
Tom W —
I said ostensibly.
From ahem’s link:
Can you imagine the histrionics and caterwauling if the US press expressed such a sentiment?
Peace In Our Time
In ‘82, I was shopping for 1968. Funny, but I don’t really remember either year. Did a search on 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon.
My 1982 was awesome. My daughter had just been born – she was supposed to arrive in January of 1982, but decided to show up seven weeks early. The company I worked for covered ALL the medical expenses, even my share. We’re talking five weeks of hospitalization before baby showed up. The hospital bill was not quite half the cost of my house. Mom and daughter were and are fine.
In October we went to Japan to visit my wife’s parents. That would be the first time she had seen them in five years.
I’ll take some 1982 also.
The thing that’s important is that the Bush administration gave Israel the go-ahead to take out Syria and Olmert blew it. The IDF had a great plan that would’ve nipped most of what’s about to happen in the bud and it was trashed. Jesus Christ.
Americans are wringing their hands anf worrying about the president’s resolve. President Bush’s resolve is just fine. Olmert’s is the problem here. Perhaps I was correct; this resolution gets rid of an unreliable partner. Olmert is going down–and with a speed that’ll surprise us all.
1982 the Police sounded amazing and were not yet the Sychronicity sized egos that they (Sting) would soon become
See them live Jeff and make sure to wear your Sweats Bi Ebe.
In 1982, my hair was not grey. I think I had a Volvo, and a Timex Sinclair with a 16K expansion pack.
Well, I was born in 1982 as well. So, it was indeed a good year. (Yes, 1982 was that long ago…!)
TW says: It was a fine year.
Me too.
Drank beer every weekend, it was morning in America, and My God the girls were beautiful.
The fifteen thousand Soviet nuclear warheads pointing at us kind of sucked, though.
yours/
peter.
Thanks to teh Internets, you can listen to “Heat of the Moment” right now.
Tell me about it. I was living on an American Air Force base in the UK that had a first strike MIRV aimed at it. (We had the A-10 tank killers based there)
It was very common for us to have air raid drills.
Oh.
This 1982?
Stop the Asia bashing, please. I liked them – still do.
Not enough to replace my vinyl with CDs, however…
”UNIFIL was unable to prevent terrorists from reinfiltrating the region and introducing new, more dangerous arms.”
right. and now again.
it’s not as if it were ancient history.
never again? BS. and why? because we freaking can’t seem to learn from history, no matter how recent.
and God in Heaven above help us when hizbollah’s armed with even newer, more dangerous arms than they have now.
Some of the good things from 1982…Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, Rush (for those Yes fans), and Rossington-Collins Band. Just kidding on that last one. Brrrr.
I wish I could tell you my favorite moment from ‘82, but I can’t. Well, I could, but I’d look like a bigger jerk than I already do. (Hint: It involves a math problem.)
I had a 90 min tape with Asia’s Asia on one side, and Journey’s Escape on the other. I literally wore that tape out.
– With a MIRV aimed directly at you, an air raid drill would be of the “bend over” variety.
– Run outside and see if you get a glimpse of the missile as it homes in, drop your pants, and bend over, and kiss your ass goodbye.
While you’re there, drop in to the Chess King and get yourself a tie.
Oooonnnllleeee time will tell…..
(guitar-speak mumbling): Meer neer neer…
Oooonnnllleeee time will tell…..
(guitar-speak mumbling): Meer neer neer…
Member that album cover for Asia? With the dragon and the triangle on the beach doin’ somethin’ crazy?
Man, that was AWWWESOME….
That’s what I thought. But it was fun watching my Dad and all the other AF personnel running around in MOPP suits and hiding in shelters.
McGehee–
I missed your previous brilliant solution to the Glenn Greenwald/Jennifer Anniston 6 degrees of separation puzzle. Well done.
And it made me think that there’s probably a great television series to be made about GiGi’s Brazilian hideaway. It would combine features of Friends, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, Teletubbies, Queer as Folk and The Muppet Show, and the kicker is that since all of the characters are puppets you won’t have them continually renegotiating their contracts for higher pay.
TW: report: we could call it The Greenwald Report
jumpin’ jeebus on a pogo stick, I have pants that are older than you.
I remember 1982. I was living with a couple of babes – a ditzy blonde and a perky brunette. We had a crabby landlord who never had sex with his horny wife.
I used to meet my buddy Larry at the Regal Beagle to cruise chicks.
……good times……….good times.
I can tell mine. Unfortunately it occurred before dawn on January 1. Three times.
That year kind of went mostly downhill for me.
Ah, but I witheld (sp?) the real kicker: Jennifer is Greenwald too.
Oh, what a night!
New Year’s morning back in ‘82,
Girl so drunk she didn’t have a clue!
What a lady, what a night!
1982 the whole AIDS started. Remember how everyone was going to get it and die?
Michael Jackson was still normal looking and the King of Pop.
Madonna was only famous for being the mother of Christ.
Jeez look how all that turned out.
COCAIN!!!!!
Sorry.
She don’t lie.
1982
Hmmmmmm
I had more hair and less weight. So can I come along ?
Oh, you guys… back in ‘82 “we” were worried that Orwell was going to be right.
Asia was a fav of mine at the time (my ultimate fav year was ‘75, but I digress), but they never did quite live up to their supergroup status.
O/T – I have seen the future on Drudge Report – a “photo” of Castro with the following at the end of the caption:
HA!
Anyway. gahrie, I has a similar tape – had one Asia album each side – I am not sure the NSA could recover what is on it now…
jumpin’ jeebus on a pogo stick, I have pants that are older than you.
How do you think I feel? My mother died two years before he was born. How did I get this old? I’ve been trying to ignore my knees for years, now. Maybe they are trying to tell me something…
While you’re there, see if you can find my youthful enthusiasm.
And my optimism for the course of humanity.
The last time I remember seeing them was 1986 or so, so you should have no trouble finding them in 1982.
“I have pants that are older than you.”
Well, I have food in my refrigerator older than your pants.
Graduate school man: no,Don’t stand so, erm, dont’ stand so close to me, casual drop-in 19 year old girl friend of a friend. Its nice that men and women can be casual friends. Well, (said in Reagan voice) then, would you like to stay for dinner? I think Cosmos is on later.
Why yes, I love spaghetti. I like your epaulets. I like your laurie Anderson Album. Why yes, I would like a glass of Fine Gallo Burgundy with dinner. I’ve had wine before. At least twice.
Why yes, one before dinner would be nice.
Good spaghetti. This wine is very nice. Yes, we should go ahead and move to the living room. Hey, its that new music channel.
Star-stuff, hmmm that’s something to ponder. You certainly are looking at me very intentl ::SMOOOCH::
::brian eno musical interlude:: ::less lovely music to kiss porcelain by:: – but someone is kindly holding my hair
Man in suit and aftershave kisses me good morning, invites me to sleep in as I please, or stay till he gets back, then departs.
Oh God. I think that was the same as my Dad’s aftershave. !!LIGHTNING BOLT PREMONITION !!
WHAT? What now? Shut up, inner voice. Men don’t marry girls who throw up on the first date. Its dark in here. Augh, my head.
Hey, there’s my prairie skirt. Where are my cowgirl boots?
::Flees room, but not fate::
8 years later, dogs, house, kid.
24 years later, I still laugh at his Reagan impression.
Yup. Then she woke up and saw me without her beer goggles and that was the end of that.
Go back to the borders of 1967. Every time Israel gave back an acre, she got shafted and Islam held a victory dance. Islam – losers in battle, winners in negotiations.
– 82 – Z280, Dating a saucy little Jooo divorce’ that was head of HR. Got her, didn’t take the job. Still have one lone copy of DOS 1.1 on a 180K Floppy. Disco rocks. Good weather, good times, but weird.
– The new face of AP? I guess photo titles will now come with a disclaimer as well, in the form of:
“This could be a shot of a dead infant, killed by Israeli shelling indiscriminately in Beirut civilian population area’s, or maybe not. We report. you decide.”
– The “HO” part is apt though.
TW: All this damn authentication is just too much freekin’ work.