Whiskey in the Jar

Who better than Thin Lizzy to invoke when doling out early St. Patrick's Day greetings? I'm sure the fine MP3 blog Kitty Text will have an appropriate posting tomorrow for Thin Lizzy Thurzzday.

Emptying the brain, as it were:

• Late-breaking news: A jury acquitted former "Baretta" star Robert Blake of murder charges. Wow. I didn't follow the case too closely, but apparently the prosecution's evidence was pretty flimsy.
• HBO's "Deadwood" has started its second season. Man, that's a great show. David Milch's characters make profanity almost poetic, with Ian McShane's Al Swearingen without a doubt the best character on TV. And Carnivale is winding down to a killer climax as well.
• The AHL's Rochester Americans are experimenting with a blue ice surface to see if it makes the game easier to watch on TV; cuts down on the glare created by the white surface, supposedly. The Amerks, the top farm club of the Buffalo Sabres, will try out the blue ice for a couple of games. The blue lines will in turn be orange. Strange to think of, but at least there are some people using their imagination in the hockey world.
• In college hockey, the Hockey East playoffs are this weekend with some great matchups: UNH vs. BU, BC vs. Maine on Friday night, the finals on Saturday. Hopefully UNH will prevail in the end, but it really could go to any of those teams. They're all excellent.
• Bill Simmons is funny, but his fixations on the NBA and Beverly Hills 90210 can be annoying. That said, his column on the awesome terribleness of the 1986 crapfest of a hockey movie Youngblood is hi-larious. The movie starred Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze, and featured a young Keanu Reeves in a bit role. The captain of the UNH hockey team at the time, James Richmond, had a small part in the movie as a player on an opposing team. It also features longtime NHL player Steve "Stumpy" Thomas as a teammate of Lowe's.
• And now, for my MP3 of the week. This track harks back a mere 21 years, when Pink Floyd guitarist/vocalist David Gilmour released his second solo album, About Face. The album came as Gilmour's relationship with Floyd leader Roger Waters was at an all-time low; indeed, Gilmour emerged with a Floyd album a few years later after Waters left the group to go solo. I liked this album much better than A Momentary Lapse of Reason, the first post-Waters Floyd album, which was rather bland. About Face featured some great guitar playing and varied songs, including this Pete Townshend-penned scorcher, All Lovers are Deranged. It rawks.