Merry Christmas, all ye merry gentlemen, from all of us here at MFL!
Here is a video about a special little bionic dog and if it doesn’t get you in the Christmas spirit, well, I doubt anything will (h/t Meteor Blades):
Ho, ho, ho & have a very safe & merry holiday!
We’re very happy to announce that a new man has joined our little enterprise here. He goes by the handle Dick Bonneville and with admittedly perfect timing for the fast approaching NFL season, he’ll be covering the Pro Football beat with a special emphasis on weekly matchup spreads, as well as whatever else tickles his fancy. As one of the resident experts over at TheOfficePool.com, he’s a good man to listen to when it comes to your Sunday lineups or pick ’ems. So a warm welcome to the MFL team, Mr. Bonneville, and a toast to your pigskin prognostications. We certainly feel like dancing in the end zone at having another well-rounded chap to help carry the rock.
We know a lot of you do your blog reading on a mobile device and we wanted to make that experience cleaner, quicker and richer (as they say in browser-speak). So we’ve created a mobile version of the site that’s easy to navigate and easy on the eyes, making it a breeze to track topics at a glance with associated thumbnails. You don’t have to do anything on your end, just continue to go to our bookmark on your mobile device and the new format will automatically kick in. And of course you can still access the full desktop version from a link at the bottom of the page if you prefer.
We hope this makes it easier for you to keep up with MFL and a more enjoyable experience when you’re on the go. And we’ll keep striving to constantly improve the site with our readers in mind — however gradual that may be since we are mainly a pack of beer drinking luddites — because we appreciate you spending a little of your valuable time with us. Thanks as always for dropping by and we hope you enjoy MFL mobile.
And now for putting up with such a dry blog announcement, without further ado, here’s The Who:
Introducing a new feature here on MFL to celebrate some truly amazing men who may not be “famous” in the general sense of that word but who have made a significant impact on the world at the time of their passing. These are men whose exploits, adventures and expertise we can admire and possibly even emulate but never duplicate. In short, they embody the very definition of a life well lived and we salute them and honor their accomplishments. Their like won’t come again and it’s important that we recognize and celebrate their deeds.
From The New York Times, the story of one of the baddest good guys you could ever hope to meet and a marksman nonpareil:
Walter R. Walsh, a world-class marksman who shot clothespins off laundry lines as a boy and went on to become an F.B.I. legend in shootouts with gangsters in the 1930s, an Olympic competitor and a trainer of generations of Marine Corps sharpshooters, died on Tuesday at his home in Arlington, Va. He was 106.
His son Walter confirmed the death.
Mr. Walsh was still winning handgun awards and coaching Olympic marksmen at 90, and aside from some hearing and memory loss, he was fit and continued to live alone at home. At the centennial of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2008, he was recognized not only as the oldest living former agent, but also as older than the organization itself by more than a year.
He joined the F.B.I. in 1934, a short, feisty James Cagney tough guy fresh out of Rutgers Law School. A natural left-hander, he was already a dead shot who could cut the center of a bull’s-eye at 75 yards with a rifle and blaze away at moving targets with a pistol in each hand — an enormous advantage in a bureau that was just breaking in its first class of agents authorized to carry guns. Continue reading
Apologies for the radio silence — we’ve been moving the MFL world headquarters to new digs and as anyone who has moved recently (or ever) knows: it’s a time consuming PITA. But we’ll be back and running up to full strength very soon, have no fear. In the meantime here are a couple of sterling versions of Duke Ellington‘s gorgeous Jazz standard, “In a Sentimental Mood”, to tide you over while we get back up to speed.
And the second is by Coltrane’s nearest rival on the tenor sax, Sonny Rollins along with the Modern Jazz Quartet:
Enjoy that and we’ll be back with our regularly scheduled blogging soon!
From France this morning comes the shocking news that Formula One legend and 7-time World Champion Michael Schumacher has sustained serious brain injuries in a skiing accident in the Alpine resort of Méribel. The 44-year old retired racer was skiing off-trail with his family and struck his head on a rock. Despite wearing a helmet, Schumacher was airlifted first to a local medical facility and then to a larger hospital in Grenoble, where his injuries were severe enough to require surgeons to place the German in an induced coma to protect his brain from further damage.
Along with his family, former Ferrari team manager and current FIA president Jean Todt and Ross Brawn, Schumacher’s technical director for his record-setting 5 consecutive championships with Ferrari, were said to be at the hospital holding vigil.
The full NY Times story is here.
We here at MFL would like to extend our hopes and prayers that Michael makes a full recovery from this ghastly incident. With his superior athletic conditioning, he has as good a chance as anyone to survive such an accident. It really does sound very severe but like racing fans around the world, we are hoping for the best for the great Schumacher and his friends and family.
*Update: You can follow Michael’s progress via the excellent Former F1 Doc blog where Gary Hartstein, an assistant of the late, great Sid Watkins and F1’s medical delegate from 2005-12, is discussing this sort of traumatic brain injury in detail. The Daily Mail in the UK also has excellent straight-up news coverage.
We’re very glad to announce the addition of a new contributor to Man’s Fine Life, a gent who goes by the handle Punto Verde. Like tomvox1, he’s yet another Brooklyn hepcat (they’re downright ubiquitous these days… like herpes, only more charming) and PV is also an artist, music lover and all around bon vivant. We’re looking forward to his take on fashion, tunes, vintage contraptions and whatever else catches his fancy. The more the merrier and it’s always good to have another well-rounded gentleman aboard. So let’s raise a stein to Punto Verde!