Big Ups and Backhands

Welcome to Big Ups and Backhands, where we recognize that if spring break had come any earlier, it would have been in winter.

Yesterday marked the first day of spring, which deserves all kinds of Big Ups, since everyone’s biggest complaint about Missoula is its gelid winters. However, we’ll miss winter, if for no reason other than it keeps the hippies indoors and under wraps.

The political season is upon us – in case you haven’t noticed in the last four months – and the two remaining candidates for the Democratic nomination, Sweet Home Hillabama, will hit up Montana – and maybe even Missoula – next month. Backhands to those who bitched about this state not being a real player in the nomination process.  Your credibility has sunk as low as that of Dennis Kucinich.

Speaking of Hillary Clinton, her campaign gets Big Ups for announcing that our old friend Elton John will be holding a benefit concert in New York on the former first lady’s behalf. It’s slated for just two days before touch down brings him ‘round again to find if the Adams Center can put on a good show. BU&Bh is wondering if Hill had to pony up $75,000 for AIDS, too.

Obvious newsflash of the week: Men don’t get women. The National Institutes of Mental Health and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIOMHATNIOAAAA for short) gets Backhands for funding the pointless report that said young men interpret friendly gestures from women as come-ons, and come-ons as gestures. So we’re fickle. You needed a study to figure that out?

Big Ups to this week marking the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Who’da thunk we’d make it this far? BU&Bh figured the apocalypse would have hit by now.

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament, “March Madness,” started yesterday. Backhands to you if you didn’t pick No. 15-seed American to knock off Tennessee and run the table all the way to the Final Four. It’s a game of upsets, friends.

Search “robot” on YouTube, and you’ll understand why the Big Dog by Boston Dynamics – a robotic walking thing that can’t slip or fall or do any of the things BU&Bh does during winter – needs hard Backhands. The machines are getting smarter, and we’re not (no offense, UM).

Humongazoid Ups to spring break. ‘Nuff said.

Check back next week if you want, but BU&Bh will be lounging on a beach (albeit that gravel bar in the middle of the Clark Fork).