New Year's Resolutions....

Well, here we are. It’s time for the last scheduled post of 2005. A year in which I posted five days a week every week except one (the one where I landed in New Orleans and spent the night living out scenes from my own novel). All in all, I have to say that I am very, very happy to see this year go by. I went through a lot of rough patches this year and if you’ve been reading this for the entire year you’ll know just when those patches were. That’s when the postings became cynical, even from my perspective. So, since I really do not want to spend any more time dwelling on the negative I’m going to discuss my two New Year’s Resolutions. Two items that I think really define my view of the world right now.

Here’s the first one. At this time of year everyone starts talking about learning something in the next year and it’s always something like “I’m going to teach myself Spanish” or “I’m going to learn how to program in C++” or “I’m going to learn how to play the guitar.” All of these are really useful skills that will come in handy at some point in your life. But here is my view on things. I’m 32. When Mozart was my age he’d been dead for seven years. I’ve begun to realize that “useful skills” never really become useful in life.

So instead I have decided that for every year for the rest of my life I am going to teach myself one completely meaningless and unnecessary skill. Something that will have absolutely no impact on my job performance or in my social life. Which for 2006 will be teaching myself how to juggle. Outside of impressing my nieces and nephews, I can think of no way in which that will be a useful skill, which is exactly why I want to do it. Instead of focusing on something serious I want to make myself do something completely silly. That should help me keep a light hearted focus on things and not let myself get into those dark spaces I’ve been before.

Doing something silly really fits into my next resolution, since the rule is from here on out I will do one really silly thing a year. And I don’t mean silly as in skydive or bungee jump. Those things are a) cliché and b) stupid. All you’re doing is risking your health for a momentary adrenalin rush. No, instead I want to do something that is a) fun, b) harms no one and most likely makes people laugh and c) causes everyone I explain it to to go “Are you serious? Don’t you have a job?” Because the last thing I want to be from here on out is a person who is seriously into his job.

That’s why I am going to take time off in 2006 to tour with a band. Not as part of the road crew or anything, I’m just going to travel the country seeing the same band in different venues. And we’re not talking about my following Dave Matthews here. I’m thinking of The Frames, a band that will play to at most 1,000 people. I just think that this would be so cool. By the second or third night the band is going to be wondering “Just what the hell is this guy doing?” and by the end of my part of the tour I’ll probably end up backstage with the band. From my perspective, this is a great way to see the country, listen to great music, and get one hell of a story out of the mix.

There’s another reason why I want to start doing something silly and it is really the driver behind all of this. Because at some point I want to do something that is silly but meaningful, like This Old Cub. Some of you may have heard of this story, some of you may not have but once I heard it I knew that somehow, someday I was going to have to try to match it. The story is this. Recently they released a documentary on Ron Santo, the former Cub great and current Cub announcer who has suffered from diabetes his entire life. Now Santo never let on that he had diabetes while he played, which is incredible given the time and the nature of the disease plus his ability to be an all-star with the condition. As the years have gone by his situation has worsened and has resulted in the amputation of his lower legs. The documentary covered this part of the story.

Well, this guy in Arizona (who was in his late 50’s I think) watched it and came up with an idea. He would walk from Arizona to Wrigley Field, raising money for diabetes research along the way. That was it, he would take months out of his life to walk that distance with two bad knees and all. And he did it and even though I am a Sox fan watching him walk onto Wrigley Field and shake hands with Ron Santo was one of the highlights of my year.

And all I could think of when I saw that was “I should do something like that.” I don’t know when or where (I think I know for what) but one day I want to set out on an adventure like that one. I bet every person told him that it was silly and questioned him. But he did it and there is no doubt in my mind that the world is a better place because of it. So, I’m going to start by doing something silly and one day, hopefully what is silly will turn into something meaningful.

Hope that everyone has a great New Year. Let’s have 2006 be a better year than 2005.

On the frozen Smurf Turf...

Have to start off the day my mentioning the passing of that legendary pop culture figure, the “Time to Make the Donuts” guy. First of all, as someone who misses Dunkin Donuts (which are apparently unheard of in this part of the globe) every day, this is actually meaningful. Add up all the commercials I watched and I’ve probably spent days of my life listening to that catch phrase. However, I have to point out that this guy got full coverage on Yahoo and CNN as well as mentions on my local news, which is more than Jack Kilby got earlier this year. I mean, all Jack did was invent the integrated circuit and make the modern world possible. But I guess that just doesn’t cut it anymore. Sigh.

(Yes, I know the irony in that this is a pop culture blog above all else and I tend to rant about how horrible pop culture is. But the fact that no one teaches who invented the transistor or the microchip or the computer bugs me. If they teach that Fulton invented the steam engine and that Cyrus McCormick had something to do with a plow then why can’t we teach the modern inventions?)

My office is still empty. Maybe the company went out of business and no one told me. Or maybe this is the greatest episode of Punk’d ever. “We’ve hid the rest of the employees so now watch as he tries to do all the work of a major multinational corporation by himself.” Ok, maybe not the greatest episode of Punk’d but we’re talking about Ashton Kutcher here, it’s not like we’re starting from a high level of quality to begin with. Still, nice to have a few days where I can have my headphones on for no reason other than I like listening to music while I work. As opposed to the rest of the time, when they are mainly to keep me from overhearing every phone conversation for a three hundred foot radius.

Oh, and I can’t believe that my being at work made me miss the MPC Computers Bowl, or as it will always be in my mind, the Humanitarian Bowl. Yes, my favorite bowl game of all time (and not just because it played an epic role in my “every relationship can be turned into a football analogy” theory) was played this afternoon. When you think of college bowl games, you have to think of playing on a Wednesday afternoon on blue turf in Boise, Idaho in a bowl named after a general concept. I was never quite sure what the mascot of the Humanitarian Bowl was, probably Bono. I still can’t believe that they changed the name. It was the biggest travesty since we lost the Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl. But we will always have the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl to look forward to…

(There are like two people on the planet who will actually get that last reference. The only way to get it is to have spent an insane amount of time in a bar in South Bend in the spring of 2003. And actually, if you did spend that much time in the bar you probably killed so many brain cells that you no longer have any long term memory. But will, on the other hand, have an urge at about 10:30 on a Wednesday night to search for a popcorn machine next to the Golden Tee game.)

Hey, one other note to close off the post. Battling the Current just went over 300 posts, which is unreal. For those of you who wonder about these sort of things, I’ve written pretty much all of the entries in my writer’s journal (discounting the stuff I stole from other sources, repeated from my old journals, or simply wrote from somewhere other than my laptop) and that has resulted in over 300 pages of material and about 160,000 words in the past year. That is nearly three novels worth of material. Admittedly, three novels with a theme of “Dude, weren’t Transformers cool?” but three novels nonetheless. Like I (and Stephen King) have always said, if you can’t produce quality always stun them with quantity.

Alone in the office

Found out last night that Ted’s profession in How I Met Your Mother is architect, which is a real sitcom cop out if you ask me. Whenever you have to give a character a random white collar profession you choose architect. There are never any plot points around it, well except for Mr. Brady’s architectural plans being swapped with a poster while the Brady’s were at King’s Island. After that, I don’t know of any possible plot that could be used (though reusing that one would be awesome.)

So I went back to work today and apparently I was the only person back in the office today. Seriously, I think that maybe today was a holiday and no one bothered to tell me about it. You know, like in high school when your friends ditched you. Not that that ever happened to me of course but you know, the theoretical ditching. Anyway, I’m one of the few people who enjoy being in the office by myself since it means that I can actually focus and get a ton of work done without having to deal with email or phone calls or people. All of those trivial things that get in the way of real production. At least it should be a quiet week and I get a good parking spot for the only time in my life.

I did check out the list of films that are being preserved by the National Film Registry. Hoop Dreams made the list, which is awesome since it has in it my high school beating St. Joe’s in my senior year and ending Gates’ high school career. Nice to know that that moment will be preserved for all eternity. Fast Times at Ridgemont High made the list, which just goes to show you how much of an impact that the “Phoebe Cates pool scene” has had on modern culture. Plus, that film has basically every star for the next twenty years playing one role or another in it. Finally, The Rocky Horror Picture Show as included, meaning that for the rest of time drama geeks will have something to do at midnight. All in all, I’m much happier with this list than with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (how the hell can you leave off R.E.O Speedwagon?)

Out of ideas for tonight so I’ll take care of some housekeeping issues. I will be discussing my New Year’s Resolutions at the end of the week and trust me, this should be fun. Also, next week will be my second annual Battling the Current year in review where I will again be providing a synopsis of every concert attended during the year (which looks like it will be somewhere in the mid 40’s). I’ll do some book reviews in there as well. Oh, and I do have one quick book recommendation for some of my fellow readers. Pick up “The Modern Drunkard” in the humor section of your local bookstore. Great, great reading. Including “How to know if you are a drunkard. #25: You start measuring time in terms of drinks as in, “Hold on a shot.” Or “Look, I don’t have a case of Schlitz here” or the classic “I’ll meet you in a Guinness”

Book talk time

Time to get back to our traditional, non-holiday editions of Battling the Current. I mean, can’t have “A very special..” episode all the time.

1) Nice to see that Howie Day got arrested again last week for drunken conduct on a plane. That’s pretty tame compared to his previous arrest in Milwaukee in which he a) locked a girl in the bathroom of his tour bus after she spurned his advances and b) broke said girl’s cell phone after she attempted to call for help. Can’t condone that type of behavior, cell phones are very important pieces of technology. (Can you type sarcastically? Just wondering.)

2) Like a lot of people I’ve spent the past few days traveling, which means I have another set of airport adventures to discuss. I knew that I had used up all my good karma when none of my Thanksgiving flights were delayed. So it didn’t surprise me when my plane was delayed for two hours in KC due to mechanical difficulties. What was my reading material for that flight? David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster” because whenever you are trapped in a plane you really should be forced to read an article dissecting the various schools of American English usage.

3) Actually, for anyone interested it is a really good book with some of his most readable work ever. If you skip over some of the more esoteric material you still get his analysis on the Adult Film Awards, the Maine Lobster Festival, conservative talk radio, John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign and Tracey Austin. If you want to read something written by a certified genius check it out.

4) I’ve made my decision for my reading challenge for January. This year it is going to be “Books I’m Embarrassed to Say that I’ve Never Read” (driven by my failure on a Watership Down trivia question). Book #1: To Kill a Mockingbird. Book #2: The Red Badge of Courage. Book #3: Watership Down. Maybe not really a “challenge” but definitely an attempt to fill a gaping hole in my quasi-English major persona.

5) Did complete my Shakespeare challenge for the year. Polished off “The Merry Wives of Windsor”, which means that next year I will begin my quest to make it through all of the Henry plays. I think that I’ve read every comedy and they all begin to run together after a while. Lots of men dressing as women, women dressing as men, mistaken identities, twins, some good verbal banter, some incredibly lewd (I’m talking American Pie level) jokes, and the occasional character being eaten by a bear. (That last bit happens in “A Winter’s Tale” for no apparent reason that I can discern). Like I said, got to try to make myself appear to be an English major.

6) I hope that everyone is prepared for the new American Pie film that is going straight to DVD tomorrow. Starring absolutely no one from the original cast. Well, except for Eugene Levy because you know that the kids today love former SCTV standout Eugene Levy. This might be the strangest attempt to create a film franchise ever. It’s like making “The Breakfast Club 2” using the same library set but with only the janitor making a reappearance. Guess that is why it is going straight to DVD.

Foiled again

Once again, I've been thwarted in my attempt to get a fire truck for Christmas. Is it that much to ask? All I want for Christmas, heck all I want in life, is a nice red fire truck with an extendable ladder. Just one to make up for the fact that my brothers took mine one Christmas morning several decades ago. (Yes, I remember those things)

But I did get the first season of The Muppet Show on DVD, continuing in my effort to relive my childhood through DVD collections. Ok, that sounds a little weird so let me explain. The Muppet Show did have some pretty high level comedy back in the day (and it will almost certainly make my Forgotten Television Shows segment just so I can talk about Pigs in Space.) And I don't think a little nostalgia is all that bad. Admittedly, we are running out of past to mine but I feel that this one is pretty respectable and will be a great counterbalance to the nine Beavis and Butthead DVDs that are crowding my shelves.

That's probably going to be it for tonight. I really don't feel a great need to write on Christmas (it is a holiday after all) and I certainly don't expect that anyone is waiting with baited breath to read this. I just hope that everyone had a great day spending time with their family and loved ones. If there is one thing that I have learned as I have grown older and had the gray hairs start outnumbering the other ones is that those moments where all of your family is in one place is rare. This is big for me. I spent my entire childhood in a house crowded with siblings, all of us trying to find our own place. Now we see each other only sparingly and I really long for those days when it was just the group of us and we knew that we would all be together for dinner. So enjoy those moments when you have the chance.

The five random CDs for the week (last week prior to the "No Repeat" rule going into effect)
1) Martin Zellar & the Hardways "The Many Moods of Martin Zellar"
2) Loreena McKennitt "Live in Paris and Toronto"
3) Old 97's "Too Far to Care"
4) Jay Farrar "ThirdShiftGrottoSlack"
5) Victoria Williams "Water to Drink"

Can't win them all...

It was an off night at the trivia contest for me tonight. Actually, let’s start off with the positives. I played for free tonight because I did prove in writing that the character singing The Lumberjack Song is in fact, a barber. Or at least he is in the original episode and in the original script, which I do own a copy of. Yes, I am a geek there is no way for me to argue that point. So, at least I went into this with no money down.

But the first half of the trivia night was the worst that I have ever performed at trivia. One category was Guitar (see Erik, you really need to move to KC to help me out) and I was missing questions in that like “Who invented prog rock?” and “Who was the first to utilize distortion?” Heck, I even missed a question on Sarah Vowell and I had read the story that it was referring to. (Actually, the category was on This American Life, the NPR series that I have listened to but which my main memory of is having a very long conversation about the show with a girl in New Orleans and since that night may or may not have actually happened (trust me, if it was real than my understanding of reality must be altered) it probably wasn’t a good choice for me to pick that category) The only bright spot was that I knew that the Swedish scientist who created the common system for classification was Linnaeus. Don’t ask me how I knew that.

But I still had other teams knowing that I am a second half player and was dangerous even as a team of one. The second round categories still weren’t to my liking. Other than Grab Bag we had: Computer Anagrams (which I’m ok at), Anthro 101 (never took the course), Fish (not the jam band) and School of Rock (the movie that I hate to admit that I’ve never seen). I somehow fought my way to a good middle of the pack finish, got the final Jeopardy question in literature right this time and had a respectable finish.

Why am I mentioning all of this? Because I need to make a request to my KC readership (or those of you willing to travel). Playing as a team of one is kind of silly so if anyone is interested in playing trivia on either a Thursday or Friday night let me know. You don’t need to know anything, that’s my job, just be willing to sit around, drink and crack jokes for a couple of hours. Otherwise, a few teams are willing to pick me up as a free agent. But I like the fact that there is actual competition in this thing and let’s face it, my ego needs some stroking right about now.

Otherwise I am just waiting in anticipation for the fat man to make his way to my part of town in the coming days. I swear to God, if I don’t get that fire truck this year someone is going to pay. How much more gooder does one have to be? Seriously, I put it on my list over twenty years ago and the elves still haven’t gotten around to making it? Dude, Santa really needs to outsource.

Ok, all kidding aside, I’d like to wish everyone a very merry Christmas. Enjoy the time with your loved ones and remember all of the things that are important in life. And if you will let me get a little spiritual here (which has been a surprisingly popular topic in the past few months), try to remember the most amazing part of the story. That when God decided to make himself known amongst men he did not do it as a king or as a warrior or as a conquering hero but as a defenseless, helpless child. There is a real power to that image, of God as truly one of us. I know that amidst the flashing lights and sales all of this is lost but try, just for a moment, late on Saturday night to think about what that means. Have a great holidays everyone.

More analysis than necessary

For those of you interested, Deal or No Deal is being shown all this week at 7 on NBC. They’re trying that Who Wants to be a Millionaire type event show in an effort to hit the cultural zeitgeist. Or maybe it was in Howie Mandel’s St. Elsewhere contract that he gets five hours of prime time exposure a decade. I almost sat down today and watched it to calculate the optimal choice at each point in the game but I like to think that I have a little bit of a life. Not that I do but I at least like to think so.

Did get to see Illinois just lay a pounding on Missouri tonight. Absolutely ran them off the floor on a national broadcast. Man, talk about getting an early Christmas present. I’m really impressed with the Illinois squad this year. I still don’t know if they are actually the number 6 team in the country but they are definitely playing better than I expected.

Since it came up in the comments and since I have absolutely no other topic in mind tonight, here is a breakdown of the characters on How I Met Your Mother and how it mirrors my own life.

Our hero Ted: Ted is a guy in his late twenties who is trying to break out of his shell and find the right girl. Which would be fine except that he is somewhat lacking in skills and tends to say things like “I’m madly in love with you” five seconds after meeting a girl. Basically, all he wants to do is hang out with his friends in the same bar time after time and just joke around and have a good time. He has two friends who are assisting in the process of trying to change his mindset and make him more outgoing. This is me in a nutshell. Heck, the guy does Red Dragon shots which is a) one of my nicknames and b) very similar to the Red Headed Slut, my personal shot of choice if just because it is my only opportunity to say “slut” in public.

Ted’s roommate Marshall: Marshall is a law student from St. Cloud, Minnesota (Erik, I swear I am not making any of this up). They’ve never gone into too much detail on his character except that he is a fun loving guy who is beginning to realize that he is about five seconds away from settling down and having a real life. This means that he not only will go off on the wild adventures like an impromptu road trip to Philadelphia but is really, really into it since this is his last shot. Absolute best scene was where he and Ted were arguing about who would get the apartment once Marshall got married and they ended up pulling swords off the wall and dueling, alternating between articulating their points and going “This is so cool” and “Why didn’t we think of this before.”

Doogie Howser also known as Barney: I don’t know if they’ve ever said what Barney does for a living. He is just always in a suit when they go out and he is definitely living life for his own enjoyment. He’s the type of guy who carries his own personal mix CD with him at all times. He will introduce Ted to random women at a bar. Other characters think that he might actually be Satan. What he really is is just someone who figures that you might as well enjoy the moment while you get the chance. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Super you probably have legal rights to sue for copyright violations here.

Marshall’s fiancé Lilly: Ok, maybe it isn’t a perfect recreation of my life. Lilly is a kindergarten teacher who still loves to go out and hang out at the bar and have a good time. There are probably a few people who would fit into this category just that none of them are engaged to anyone that I know. But anything that has Allyson Hannigan in my living room for thirty minutes a week is fine by me.

Ted’s dreamgirl Robin: The cute Canadian girl who is in the group who Ted is in love with but can’t seem to figure out how to make the leap from being friends to being an item. You know, I could expand on this but for my own sake I’ll just leave it to the reader’s imagination to fill in the gaps. But yes, this character has existed in my life before and will certainly reappear. Plus, it’s my legendary Canadian girlfriend come to life. You can’t beat that.

New game show alert!

(Where tonight we are mourning Cobra Kai’s ouster from the Fantasy Football playoffs and I am left saying something that has never been uttered in the history of Fantasy Football, “If I just would have started Todd Heap I’d be in the championship game.” Oh well, it was a good run while it lasted and with the Colts not even bothering to field a team this week I’d be dead for rights anyway.)

So, while flipping through the channels last night waiting for How I Met Your Mother to come on I came across NBC’s new game show “Deal or No Deal.” This may be one of the most interesting shows I’ve come across in a while for absolutely none of the reasons that its creators originally intended. Here is the breakdown.

Your host is Howie Mandel. Apparently, Howie Mandel is a) bald, b) still able to get work and c) alive. All three of those things were news to me. I’m not sure at what point in your search for hosts that “Let’s give Howie Mandel’s agent a call” comes up, other than it is probably after you’ve talked to Bobcat Goldthwait. Basically, Howie’s job is to be hyper and really intensely into the game, which I’ll describe now.

You are facing a stage in which twenty four models hold twenty four briefcases. In each briefcase is a sign with a dollar figure, ranging from one penny to one million dollars. You pick one (the case and not the model) and that is yours. Then you start off by picking six of the other cases and they show you what was inside (telling you what you didn’t win). At that point “The Bank” (shown so vividly as a guy in a darkened back room with a laptop and a cell phone) offers you X dollars to just walk away now or you can continue onwards. This goes on and on until you either take the money or see what is actually in the briefcase.

Obviously, this isn’t as much a game show as an expected value calculation. In fact, it is a great discussion of probability as a whole. Involving contestants who probably have no clue about how to simply view the game in terms of expected value and either take or leave the offer based on the odds. The interesting thing is that the show seems to play it loose with what they are offering. In one case I saw them make an offer where you should have definitely continued and in another instance you really should have walked away. That is what is called creating drama. Well that and creative editing, given that on the first show the woman’s first five selections of other briefcases consisted entirely of ones in the lower half of the payout range (the one penny and others), which by my calculations would happen 2.2% of the time. That means that this certainly wasn’t the first episode filmed but it was a great one for tv.

Oh, and I have to mention the entire “Choose a briefcase to open” bit. As it goes along and you are down to say ten briefcases to open Howie starts referencing the models by name. Like, “Ok Ashley, show us a low number.” This is a really interesting concept. As a viewer, I have no interest in what the model’s name is. It’s not like she’s famous or anything. Plus, this leads me to believe that Howie Mandel is still able to be on a first name basis with a model, something that makes me question the authenticity of this game even more. On top of that the models all apparently use a combination sorority girl/stripper naming convention. So you have Ashley and Jennifer and Heather along with Montana and Tiffany and Ginger. Actually, that would make for a great side game “Is she a) an actual model, b) a struggling actress or c) a stripper.”

So what we have is an out of work comedian, twenty four somewhat attractive women, and a probability calculation. It’s enough to get my attention of the half hour before How I Met Your Mother comes on.

(This week’s great parts/synchronicities between my life and the show. 1) Barney’s picking up of random foreign chicks. 2) “Some people say mix discs should rise and fall but I think they should be all rise.” And 3) “Well kids it was New Year’s Eve 2005 and if there is one lesson to learn from this story it’s that New Year’s Eve sucks.”)

Defining what isn't art

(Yeah, I’m sorry about last night’s post. It was pretty bad. That’s what happens when I try to write and watch a football game at the same time.)

A bad joke to start things off…

“So, did you go see King Kong over the weekend?”
“Hell no. You think that I’m going to sit through a three hour movie about gay cowboys?”

Amazingly, that’s my own joke. You’ll hear it in all of the monologues this week though trust me. But it does give me a segue into a topic that has been in the press where I could add my ten dollars Canadian and that is whether the themes in movies are reflecting the morals of modern society.

This is starting from something I heard on CNN this morning. Obviously, there is some controversy regarding Brokeback Mountain, which, let’s face it, actually is about gay cowboys. This means that there are the typical protests on how horrible it is that there is this embracing of homosexual culture by Hollywood and that while liberal cities (defined as New York, LA and Chicago) may embrace it, the rest of the country will not. Tied to this is the argument that Hollywood should make films that are more in tune with the morals and viewpoints of mainstream society.

It is that last point that is really sticking in my head because of what it implies. If you follow that to its logical conclusion then all art should be what the average person would agree with and enjoy. Defining art is incredibly difficult but I’m pretty sure that the opposite of art is “something that the average person would agree with and enjoy.” The entire point of being creative is to address stories on the fringes and to use uncommon situations to expose universal truths. It is not to present some bland, lifeless, uncontroversial material. Sure, that might make money but it is not art. Plus, as long as we still live in a capitalistic society (and hopefully a democratic one) you get to vote with your pocketbook. If you find a movie about cowboys who spend a little too much time together offensive then simply don’t go. Everyone gets to make their own choice even if you might not agree with it. I wish that more people could understand that principle.

The same segment brought up the rise in Christian imagery in film. Or at least the realization of such imagery. This was all started by The Passion (which really shouldn’t fall under imagery given that it is The Passion) and is brought up now by The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. It’s interesting hearing a critic state “I didn’t know there was religious symbolism in the story.” Wow, so the lion sacrificing itself and then being reborn had no resonance with you whatsoever? I caught that and I was nine at the time. I actually support this trend not so much in that there should be religious symbolism in films but that people really need to recognize it. In really good works of art, in most creative efforts, at the core there is often symbolism. If this causes people to look beyond the surface I am all for it. Let’s face it, within the Bible is the basis for basically every plot ever written. Except for the one about the magical pair of jeans that is passed amongst a group of friends. That may be the first original idea in a thousand years.

Braving the crowds

Are you kidding me? They delayed Family Guy for twenty minutes for the president’s speech? What type of country is this? I mean, we really need to get our priorities straight. They should have had the speech at 8:30 because no one would be that upset that American Dad is delayed. But Family Guy? That goes against everything that this great nation has been built on.

(Yeah, I watched the speech in parts. The Bears game is also on so I’ve been torn between stations. I figure it was the usual, “We’ll win the war though ‘win’ and ‘war’ have been really poorly defined. And if you disagree you are an unpatriotic communist.” That’s probably the gist of it.)

Not much going on this weekend. Took care of almost all of my Christmas shopping this weekend, which is good since Christmas is technically coming up pretty soon. I was able to avoid most of the crowds but I still had to brave the mall in December. Maybe this is a guy thing, maybe it is just me, but I just can’t stand crowds at the mall. When I go shopping it is a well organized process. I have primary and secondary objectives. I will go to these three stores, I will pick up these five items, if opportunity presents itself I may attempt to acquire three tertiary items. There are timetables, routes, everything is prepared to the nth degree. Then I hit the mall and everyone is just wandering around, looking at a tree like it’s the first time that they’ve ever seen one, and I just go bonkers. Thank God for Amazon and Ebay.

(But it did give me time to listen through the Paula Cole CD. A painful, painful experience. I’ll admit that it is horrible that I own this disc but it’s not like it was unpopular. Apparently a lot of people were idiots in the mid-90’s.)

Since I am completely out of material right now (and I don’t know if anyone would want to read play by play of the Bears game) I’ll hit on one of my housekeeping issues that I am going to bring up between now and the end of the year. As we near the year anniversary of the five random CDs I’ve decided to continue with the effort. It is a lot of fun and I get to hear music that I haven’t listened to in some cases over a decade. But there are going to be some changes made. First of all, starting on January 1 I will be implementing the “no repeats” rule. Given Excel’s random number generator isn’t this is what I have to do to ensure that I don’t have to listen to the same disc three times. Also, I’ll try to give a mini preview/review as I go along. Consider it to be like putting your iPod on shuffle, except you don’t actually get to hear any of the music.

The five random CDs of the week:
1) Laura Minor “Salesman’s Girl”
2) Old 97’s “Early Tracks”
3) Waco Brothers “Do You Think About Me?”
4) Gillian Welch “Revival”
5) Bruce Springsteen “Human Touch”

Highs and lows...

First thing, check out the following article http://www.suntimes.com/output/entertainment/cst-ftr-neville15.html. This is basically my worst fear brought to life. If Cyril Neville is giving up on New Orleans then I have to feel that the city that I know and love is lost. There is a strong possibility that it is simply going to become a Vegas on the Bayou with everything being a façade. That is a horrible fate for one of the last real places in America. I hope that someone has the foresight to create a city in which the original melting pot of citizens can return but in the end I fear that what we are going to be left with is not the place where I felt most at home but a movie set.

Ok, very fun story from tonight. Decided to play trivia tonight and made my way to the bar a few minutes ahead of gametime. Because I am someone who is in control and on time and prompt. Or at least I would be if I knew that they changed the start time from 8 to 7. Whoops. So, with the first round winding down I’m pissed that I showed up and can’t play. Grab a beer and see that no team has that many points and at the in between round break decide to enter the game, picking up teammates along the way. My new team name: Inanimate Carbon Rod.

(Which is one of my favorite Simpsons references ever. I know that switching from Cobra Kai is probably bad form but a) I probably used up all the luck associated with that team name in fantasy football and b) following Mr. Miyagi’s passing I felt that it was best to retire the name for the time being out of respect for our vaunted adversary. Of course, I still would like to use Dr. Wang and his Medical Staff as a name but I’m continually told that it’s too long. And let me tell ya, that happens in a lot of aspects of my life (insert rim shot here).)

So, we are down some pretty serious points to the other teams when the categories are revealed. “Classic Nintendo games”, that should be good. “20 Minutes of Fame” about minor celebrities, well that one is right up my alley. “Flashback” on questions from previous games, the photographic memory should be helpful there. And “Python Sings”

There are very few things that I am an expert on and all they have in common is a) I’ll never make any money from my knowledge and b) no girl will ever date me because of how much I know. These subjects are pro wrestling, Uncle Tupelo, and most specifically, Monty Python. I have all of the episodes on DVD. I have all of the movies on DVD. I have all of the specials. I have copies of the scripts of every episode. And I have compilation tapes of every song ever recorded. Yes, I know that this means I will never, ever have a girlfriend. But it also means I am damn well going to clean up this category.

Which I do, including nearly breaking into the “Eric a Half a Bee” song. I even argued, correctly I might add, that the answer to “What was the Lumberjack in the Lumberjack’s song profession” is barber and not weatherman. I checked the scripts and I’m right (I think in one of the stage versions it may be a weatherman). Running that category got us back into the game and the other categories allowed us to catch up so that at the end of the round we had actually taken the lead. This is kind of unheard of, not even playing the first round and leading at the end of the second. And what is our Final Jeopardy category? Literature.

At this point I thought that I was money. I mean, it’s literature, how the hell am I going to miss this question. If I knew who was the captain of the Exxon Valdez and that the brightest star in the night sky was Sirius I am certainly going to get this one right and take home a nice profit and enter trivia lore. This was a sure thing.

Until the question was what book had four characters that I had never heard of in it. And I knew that it was a children’s book that I hadn’t read and none of my teammates knew it so we threw out a wild guess and were wrong. It was Watership Down, which basically everyone else got right. I’ve never read Watership Down. You want to know why? Because it’s about friggin rabbits! That’s not literature, that’s agriculture or horticulture or one of those other ‘ures. You know, if it was about Ulysses I could have gotten it but no, it had to be on a book that kids are forced to read in school that I somehow avoided all my life.

So after starting out in last, fighting our way up to first, we end up back in last. If there is ever a metaphor for my life, that very well may be it. Oh well, I’m going back out to the bars to drown my misery (don’t worry, I’m not working tomorrow. It’s Friday, no one should ever have to work on a Friday). Have a good weekend everyone.

Coming to Kansas City...Last Night...

Several topics without a theme tonight…

Topic 1: I’ll admit that I go to an awful lot of concerts, including a number that I go to simply because I think it would be funny. And I am rather easily entertained as my continual watching of pro wrestling indicates. But just so I have it on record, no, I did not attend the Neil Diamond concert last night. If you could build a time machine and send me back thirty years I wouldn’t catch Neil Diamond in concert. (I would however make sure that Dubya got the baseball commissioner’s job so that the world would be a much nicer place.) But they filled our basketball arena for Neil Diamond last night. Are there that many people who need to hear “Sweet Caroline” one more time? Is there a level of irony that I have not yet reached at which this becomes a valid entertainment choice? Help me out here.

Topic 2: Picked up David Foster Wallace’s latest collection of essays “Consider the Lobster” over the weekend. DFW is one of my faves, a MacArthur genius grant winner who at the time was an associate English professor at Illinois State, which really is the high school after high school. He writes the way I would like to think that I would write if I dedicated my life to the task and was given an injection of talent along the way. This is a collection of non-fiction, which is where he is at his best or at least most accessible. Basically what he does is write these in depth, clinical, detached highly intelligent stories of common but bizarre situations. Like one in which he attends the Illinois State Fair and discusses the socio implications of the fair. Or in his latest book, he attends the adult film awards and writes about it with such a critical eye and in this post modern manner that you don’t notice that you end up reading through forty footnotes along the way. If you want to read something that is the polar opposite of The Da Vinci Code, pick up some of his work.

Topic 3: This might come as a shock to a lot of people, but I actually missed the finales of both Survivor and The Amazing Race this week. I know, I know, I should probably forfeit my vote in the annual Reality Awards as a result. This is only the second time that I’ve missed the finale of Survivor and the only one where I didn’t have a really good excuse. This season just never really did anything for me other than really hoping that Stephanie would lose again so I could just get her off my television. The Amazing Race was fun but the four member family teams were just too many people to keep track of and you didn’t have the same dynamics. Plus, they mainly stayed in the United States and part of the fun of the show is watching people go to places you’ve never even thought of visiting. Hopefully I’ll get back into the swing of things next year.

Topic 4: Ok, is it bad that I don’t have any Christmas decorations up in my apartment? I mean, I am a single guy so the fact that you can see the floor is actually an accomplishment but is there a minimal level of decorating that I am supposed to attempt here? Maybe what is missing from my life is a festive holiday atmosphere. Imagine that all of my searching could have been avoided by simply hanging up some colored lights. Yeah, this is what goes through my head late at night.

Production completed

I’ve got a lot of really good news today. First of all, the Battling the Current: Volume 1 CD is finally complete. Sorry for the month delay, which wasn’t entirely due to laziness. In listening to my original track list I came to the realization that the first half of the disc simply didn’t work so that meant that I had to rethink things, rerecord some tracks, and all in all just start from scratch. But, it is still a free CD along with six pages of liner notes for those who feel obliged to read those sorts of things. Expect them to be coming your way in the next few weeks. (You can still request one, just drop me an email.)

Just as importantly, tonight I am celebrating earning the Wild Card berth in my Fantasy Football league. Yes, Cobra Kai after starting off the season a rather sad 3-5 goes on to win five of its last six and claim the fourth and final playoff spot, ensuring that I actually make a profit this year. Nice to see Peyton Manning come through for me at the end of the year along with the most unlikely starting running back tandem of LaMont Jordan and Thomas Jones. I don’t know if I have much of a chance this week as my opponent has Edgerin James and Larry Johnson but I’m just happy to make the playoffs. See, you don’t have to pick a running back in the first round. Or the second round either.

Here is my fun work story for the day. So I’m sitting at my cube this morning, which is on the main aisle of my floor right next to a conference room. As you can imagine, that is a position of great honor and prestige. Or more accurately, a position where I can’t look out the window and see if it is raining outside without walking thirty yards. Anyway, I’m sitting in my cube messing around with spreadsheets and I start smelling food. Like about ten boxes of pizza worth of food. Being set up right next to my cubicle for the meeting that was taking place in the conference room. Do you know how cruel that is? “We’re going to set up lunch five feet from you but remember, you can’t touch anything. Now go back and make sure those rows and columns sum up correctly.” Oh well, one day I’ll have a cube with a window and the world will be a much better place.

For those wondering I didn’t make my way out to see The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe just yet. It is nice to see that they’ve apparently done a nice job with the film given that they could have easily butchered it. There just isn’t much that would drive me to go to the theater to see it, especially in an opening weekend. In my mind, they won’t be able to touch the book or the cartoon version of the book that I remember watching a dozen times in the early eighties. As much as I push nostalgia sometimes I like keeping those memories as just that, memories. It’s like how I prefer to remember watching The Wizard of Oz once a year with my family as opposed to watching it now where I would be tempted to synch it up with Pink Floyd and pay attention to how Dorothy’s hair changes length four times in the same scene.

Last thing, in the weird news story of the day: Pregnant woman skydives, chutes do not open, hits the ground and lives. Which raises the obvious questions: 1) Why are you skydiving while pregnant? and 2) Is there a videotape of this? To which the answers are 1) She’s from Arkansas, that might be explanation enough and 2) Yes there is. This is the strangest part of the story. The woman (who landed in the parking lot going 50 mph and suffered some pretty hardcore injuries) has actually watched the tape of herself skydiving and having the chutes fail. She said that it doesn’t bother he because “She knows how it ends.” I’ll let someone with a psychology degree explain if that is a good idea or not.

Top of the charts

Willow from Buffy: “Hello beautiful. Oh wait, that’s just me reflected in your shirt. It’s shiny”
Doogie Howser: “Which is item # 8 on my list of the twenty three ways that women are like fish: they are both attracted to shiny objects. You really must start reading my blog.”

Yes, “How I Met Your Mother”, once again stealing something from my own life. Including hitting on coat check girls. If you’re not watching this show and it ends up getting canceled I am going to hunt each and every one of you down and well, give you the biggest guilt trip ever. (Sorry, I’m not good at physical threats). I’m telling you, there are very few shows about Gen X but this is a great one.

Ok, I’m not one to toot my own horn but I found out something today that is just astounding. While messing around with my cel phone I decided to see if I could call up the blog. Which I can, meaning that no matter where you are, you can always read my ramblings. But that isn’t the coolest part. I discovered that if you type “battling the current” into Yahoo this site shows up #1 out of over four million possibilities. That was the best news I could get on a Monday. I have created a site where if you type a phrase, and not an entirely uncommon one at that, into a search engine it states that my site is the most appropriate out of the entire internet. How awesome is that? I guess I have at least one accomplishment this year.

Completely changing subjects. For those of you with VH1 Classic you may have heard about the fact that they were allowing you the viewer (for a charitable donation to hurricane relief efforts) to pick the videos that they would air. This has turned out to be an awesome programming decision culminating in the showing of the Y Kant Tori Read video. Yes, the video from the incredibly bad rock band that Tori Amos was in before she was known. I didn’t even know a tape of this existed and man, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen an incredibly young Tori Amos rocking out. I am so pissed that I didn’t record it.

I do feel like explaining why I have no problem with having a number of Tori Amos discs in my collection while the fact that I own a Paula Cole CD fills me with shame and disbelief. First of all, Tori did make my original top 10 perfect mate list so that explains a lot of it. But more than anything, she was groundbreaking in the early 90’s. When I first saw the video for “Silent All These Years” as a freshmen in college I went, “Whoa, that is different.” At a time where Nirvana was just breaking and MTV still had Def Leppard and Aerosmith in heavy rotation here was this girl playing piano with lyrics that could best be described as stark and direct. In my eighteen year old mind, there was no reference point for that type of music and I certainly couldn’t imagine it getting major airplay. In retrospect, it wasn’t as earth shattering as I thought (Tori is basically a much more easily accessible version of Ani DiFranco) but I was definitely made a fan by the fact that I’ve seen very few artists go to the edge without blinking like she did.

Paula Cole on the other hand… That was just a mistake. I must have bought it for my Canadian girlfriend and forgotten to give it to her. Or maybe I was just really drunk one night while ordering music on Amazon. That certainly wasn’t a decision made by someone of sound mind and body.

Weekend update

We’ll start off with the sad news from the weekend on Richard Pryor’s passing. With the possible exception of Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor was the most influential comedian of the twentieth century. He completely changed the fabric of the genre, he influenced topics, language even just the tempo of a stand up routine. Basically anything that you see in stand up today is a direct result of the work that Richard Pryor did in the seventies. He was incredibly funny to boot (and it all holds up. If I pulled my Live on the Sunset Strip 8 track out of storage it would still be hilarious). There are only a handful of people who you could say have completely altered popular culture in the past forty years and Richard Pryor is one of them. All that from someone from Peoria.

Had a pretty quiet weekend. All of the snow has already melted, which saddens me. I know that no one in this town likes snow but having snow on the ground is a much better alternative to looking at brown grass and dead trees for months at a time. If we’re going to suffer through winter it should at least look nice out. Anyway, it just seemed like an odd weekend. I went out on Saturday night and there was just no one out. Seriously, at 11:30 there were more bartenders than people sitting at the bar, which would be beneficial if it wasn’t for the fact that they now let me serve myself (it’s more efficient that way). Maybe people in this town are afraid of melting snow as well.

There is a new bar opening up in my neighborhood this week. Don’t have an over/under on how long this one will stay in business but given that the white trash/biker bar that it replaced didn’t last a year I don’t know how much faith I’ll put in this enterprise. Plus, I don’t know if opening a bar in December is a bright idea. It’s been a little tough for businesses in my neighborhood, we’ve had a sandwich shop go out of business after three months and I don’t know how the hot dog stand is staying open. And it does look like the Westport Flea Market with its really good burgers and music on Sunday nights will eventually be turned into a Hooters. Which means that I will be living next door to a Hooters. Remind me to rethink my life one of these days.

Oh, and if there is anything that describes my fractured personality it is this. Before going out last night I was flipping channels and came across Book TV on C-Span. This is one of those bad habits of mine. Instead of heading out to the bar I sat and watched a guy talk about the Peloponnesian War for an hour and was fascinated by it. Then I make my way out to a night on the town. Does anyone else on the planet do this? Or can equally discuss Shakespeare and pro wrestling? I know that I have made it a stated goal of my life to never be typical but sometimes I wonder if I am too interested in way too many subjects.

(Request to the readership. As you all know the New Year is coming up and I have historically spent January reading a challenging book. That’s usually defined as a book that either a) appears on several top 100 books of all time lists or b) is listed on the back of Cliff Note’s. In the past this has included Ulysses, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Faust, and On the Road. If anyone has any suggestions I’d really like to hear them.)

The five random CDs of the week:
1) John Wesley Harding “Awake”
2) Anders Osborne “Living Room”
3) Aaron Neville “The Grand Tour”
4) Tori Amos “To Venus and Back”
5) I’m not going to admit this one…
5) No seriously, I don’t want people to know this
5) Why? Because once I write it down it means that no one should ever take what I write about music seriously again.
5) Oh well, rules are rules
5) Paula Cole “This Fire”
5) I often wonder what I will have to do to atone for all of my sins. Having to listen to “I Don’t Want to Wait” over and over is probably high on the list

It's nostaliga-rific

Oh no, it’s time for another list.

1) Just made it back from my monthly poker night. Tonight was a rather respectable third place finish with a couple of tough losses and some incredibly lucky hands in the mix. Actually, third was about where I should have finished so I have to say while I am not overjoyed with my play at least it didn’t suck this time around.

2) Yes, I own Reality Bites. I think that came up earlier this year when I went on my spree of creating the ultimate Gen X’er DVD collection. Even though a lot of the movies just aren’t worth a second viewing. I mean, how many times does one need to see the movie Singles and reminisce about the Seattle scene. Beautiful Girls on the other hand is definitely worth having just to see Natalie Portman outact everyone in the cast at the age of 14. She might be the only person able to break the child star curse. Though the Star Wars curse may raise its ugly head as well.

3) I’m pretty sure that the latest comments means that we are now at the point where there are even no good retro television shows to mine for movie ideas. Is there anybody yearning for a Chips movie? Seriously, does anyone care? That’s my problem with the entire TV remake genre. Just because a few movies hit it big doesn’t mean that we all want to see television shows. It’s just that we are so attached to shows like The Brady Bunch or The Addams Family that we hear that they are turning it into a movie and go “Awesome.” But otherwise we really don’t care. I could just buy the show on DVD. Hell, for the same cost I could hire Erik Estrada to come over to my place and read some of the old scripts.

4) That said, good to see Wilmer Valderamma is still getting work. He’s a modern day Scott Baio. Which means that I hope that Wilmer has a really good investment strategy in place right about now.

5) If I haven’t mentioned it yet, I did pick up the MTV DVD of Beavis and Butthead last weekend, even though I own some of the other released DVDs. I mean, there are some videos on this one that I don’t have (including Wilco’s Box Full of Letters which I have only seen on Beavis and Butthead.) They do include the classic Pantera video in which they keep on saying things like “Oh, are you going to cry Pantera” and “You’ll treat your stepmother with respect Pantera.” Trust me, it’s funny on a Friday night when you have nothing to do. I’ve been making my way through some of the older episodes and you really discover how much the show improved over time.

6) Sadly, I think we need to officially remove the Simpsons from the must watch television roster. It’s one of my favorite shows of all time but the quality is just falling farther and farther. We’re at the point where I can predict the jokes now. Like you’re watching it and going “Now they’ll cut to the crazy cat lady” and it happens. That’s just a sign of lazy writing and trust me I am an expert at it. Still a decade and a half is a pretty respectable run.

7) I’m calling it a night. Enjoy the weekend everyone.

Let it snow

Well, we are having our first snowfall of the year out here on the Great Plains, where the buffalo roam and I end up sounding more and more like I’m writing for A Prairie Home Companion every time I start a blog entry. As sick as this might be, I really enjoy this weather. It’s not winter unless you have a lot of snow on the ground and it’s so cold out that when you get inside you keep your coat on for fifteen minutes because you’re afraid to take it off. Those are the things that make you feel alive. Plus, the world just looks better with a blanket of snow on it. Everything is a little purer, a little more serene.

Everything other than traffic, of course. We are picking up about six inches of snow today and tonight, which meant that the drive home was a killer. Actually, other than two spots my drive was actually pretty easy. I do need to state for those in the area who somehow forget every year that it does so to please follow the next few steps in order to make everyone’s life easier. 1) Wipe the snow off of your car before you leave. A snow scraper costs three dollars and come in a number of festive colors. Buy one. Use it. Incredibly, it allows you to see through your windows. 2) Wipe the snow off of the roof of your car. Ever wonder where that snow goes when you drive? It hits the windshield of the guy behind you. No one in this town apparently knows that whereas in Chicago we will pull over and beat you over the head with our snow scraper for not doing it. 3) Use a lower gear. There is a reason why automatic transmissions have those gears labeled 1, 2 and 3. Please use them, it really helps to keep you from spinning your wheels. Do these things, take a little more time and driving through snow really isn’t that bad. I’ve been doing this for half a lifetime now, trust me, I know.

(I will say this, and it counters last night’s post, you do learn interest things from snowstorms. Like the fact that there is a school named after Vachel Lindsay in the area. Maybe there is some hope after all.)

One other local story that I want to bring up. There are rumors going around that the Mets are looking at trading Kris Benson to the Royals. I am all for this trade if only because it will mean that we get Anna Benson along for the ride. Yes, Anna, who publicly stated that she would sleep with the entire Mets organization (including ballboys and Mr. Met) if her husband cheated on her. Who appears on Howard Stern all the time. Who has appeared in certain magazines dedicated to fine automobiles, high end cartoons, and, uh, detailed analysis of the human anatomy. You think I spend a lot of time making fun of this area? Imagine if Anna Benson was here. She’s a spoiled, upper class privilege brat with access to major media outlets. I think the comedy potential would be off the hook. Plus, I enjoy the fact that I would almost certainly run into her at a bar at some point during the year. So please Royals, we know the team is going to be horrible next year, at least provide us some entertainment value.

Morning difficulties

(Pittsburgh. Ohio. Same difference. I just remembered that he was from one of those Rust Belt states. I’ll still stand by my claim that Timmy is one of the most successful members of the Real World / Road Rules cast. He’s hosted a good number of television shows over the years, including a great college sports one. He still ranks behind Jacinda and Judd from the Real World but otherwise, he’s the only one who has gotten an actual career out of a few weeks on MTV.)

I’m a fan of science almost all of the time, except for when I read stories like I did today. On the advice of my doctor, I gave up caffeine five years ago. That happens when you hear words like “heart” and “explode” in the same sentence. As a result of going cold turkey I had to give up the pot of coffee I used to drink every morning. Well, not entirely as I just switched over to decaf. That was fine and for the most part no one noticed that I had switched (other than the fact that I could now put my hands on the table and keep them still).

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Checking CNN I saw a news story about how decaf coffee is bad for you. It seems that it increases the level of cholesterol in your blood stream and contributes to heart disease. But the doctor said, “It’s nothing to worry about unless you are having like six cups of decaf a day.” To which I replied, “Oh crap.” Yes, the step that I had taken for my heart’s benefit has in turn increased my cholesterol level.

So for the past few weeks I have been trying to greatly reduce my coffee intake. I’m just trying to get to one cup of decaf a day while simultaneously drinking a lot more water. That would be good for me right, no coffee and a lot of water, right? Wrong. According to the latest scientific study, coffee drinking helps to reduce liver problems caused by alcohol and obesity. Great, now I can either a) drink coffee and hope that my heart doesn’t give out or b) not drink coffee and accept the consequences. What a choice.

(Sure, I could give up coffee, cut back on the drinking and lose some weight but let’s be honest, at the end of the day I would like to have a life that is actually worth living.)

On the whole, it hasn’t been a good day for science out here in the Great Plains. There is a fun story out of Lawrence that has hit the wires that you may have read. Now as you all know, the state of Kansas (latest tourism slogan: Celebrating a decade of plumbing) recently decided to teach Intelligent Design in schools. A professor at KU then decided that he would teach a class basically devoted to making fun of Intelligent Design, I want to say to the point that he was going to call it mythology. It was pretty anti-religion, even for my tastes. (Like I’ve said before, Intelligent Design isn’t bad science, it’s plain wrong. It’s insulting to God to promote a theory that is so bad.) Anyway, he was driving through Lawrence a few days ago and found himself being tailgated by two guys in a truck. He pulled over to let them pass and they stopped their truck and (allegedly) beat him up while mentioning the class. For those of you who wonder why I always seem to be at wit’s end it’s because when I wake up and turn on the news this is what I hear. And then, in that haze that you get in those first few moments of being awake, I realize “This is where I live.” How I get out of bed some mornings I truly do not know.

Throwing down the Gauntlet

Author’s note: Originally, I was going to review every cast member on the show. In order to save my sanity, I’m now just hitting the high points. Of course, I’d already written a page when I made this decision so if this is disjointed, that’s why.


If it’s a day that ends in a Y then it’s time for yet another MTV Real World/Road Rules Challenge. This time it’s The Gauntlet 2 in which the teams are separated into “The Rookies” and “The Veterans”. Who is playing? Who apparently has a real job now? And how many comments can I make about a show that is ten years old? Let’s find out (and thanks to my good friends at Reality News Online, who did most of the legwork for me.)

The Rookies:
Alton (Real World: Las Vegas): There was no greater reality television idea than setting the Real World in Las Vegas. I mean, after the third season they realized that all the good footage came from when the case was drunk so let’s have them live in a casino. I mean, the producers are probably going to hell for doing it but it made for great television.

Ibis (Road Rules: X-Treme): I actually now remember the X-Treme edition because of Ibis. Well, it’s tough to forget people with names like Ibis. What happened to parents twenty years ago? What drove people in 1983 to name their kids Ibis? I was around back then and I certainly don’t remember any Ibis’ in my grade school. We can’t even have people on the Real World named Mike any more, they have to be The Miz.

Jamie (Real World: New Orleans): Who according to his bio is now living in a Buddhist monastery. And apparently, competing in a game show is a key stepping stone on the path to enlightenment.

Jo (Real World: San Francisco): Wow, this is someone that I never expected to see on television. For those of you who are really behind on your reality trivia, Jo was the girl with the killer London accent who replaced Puck. She is also responsible for one of my favorite reality put downs ever. As the cast is having dinner in Hawaii, Jo freaks out because the butter has touched the vegetables and are now tainted and Judd goes “And that was the vegan straw that broke the carnivores back.”

The Veterans:
Beth (Real World: Los Angeles): How in the world is she still getting work? May be the biggest miscast in the history of the show. She was a struggling actress (who you could never figure out how she would ever get a job as an actress) who was also supposed to be the nice girl in the cast (like Julie in the original show). Which would have worked except for the fact that she was a conniving brat with no discernable talent.

Ruthie (Real World: Hawaii): Wins the award for most improved reality show contestant. Has gone from actually having been forced into an alcohol awareness program by the producers to being a really heroic figure in these challenges. She’s just unstoppable and fearless in these things with minimal attitude. One of the few people who seems to have matured in the history of these things.

Mark (Road Rules 1): Dude, get a job. Seriously. What are you now, 35? Even Eric Nies has a regular gig now. Of course it involves a jump rope but at least it is honest work.

Montana (Real World: Boston): Forever known as the chick who gave the kids wine. Legacies come in all shapes and sizes. From a competitive standpoint I don’t expect her to last more than five minutes in this game.

Julie (Real World: New Orleans): She’s a mormon living in New Orleans. She’s thrown out of BYU because she was on MTV. She’s a psycho who tried to kill Veronica (not that anyone was really complaining). She hosts a show on G4TV. If anyone knows what is going on insider her head please let me know.

Timmy (Road Rules: USA): My favorite guy ever on one of these shows. RNO is off base in saying that he isn’t funny. Timmy and Christian were the absolute best comedy duo on reality TV. You have your funny jock from Ohio (I think) and the Norwegian wandering around the country and laughing at everything. I would so pay to have that season on DVD.

Who is missing: The Miz, Coral, Veronica, Sarah from the original Gauntlet (who I think decided to do the Jim Brown routine and retire at the top of her game), Eric Nies, Tonya, and a few other regulars. Should be an interesting season nonetheless.

Desert Island Discs

Let’s say I find myself stranded on a desert island. If that concept sounds a little too clichéd, imagine that I find myself abandoned in a cornfield in the middle of Kansas. All I have to comfort me until I’m rescued or I grow so sick of corn that I don’t even bother waking up in the morning is my CD player and five CDs (and a really, really large pile of batteries). What five CDs make the cut?

This is a classic music geek question and my answer always changes. I have three constants, one that usually makes the cut, and a fifth that changes daily. Here are my answers for today.

R.E.M. “Murmur”: Their first album and the one that really showed that a bunch of college kids in a garage in Georgia can change the face of the music industry. My main reason for picking this album is that even though I have been listening to it for, I don’t know, fifteen years now, I still don’t know what half the songs are about. I could spend days just trying to figure out just what in the world is Michael Stipe saying and then figuring out what he meant. For example, Radio Free Europe is this great rocking song that I could listen to every morning to get going and in the evening spend hours trying to understand “What do you mean ‘Calling out in transit?’” No question that this makes the cut.

Jeff Buckley “Grace”: There’s going to be a lot of long dark nights on the desert island. This is an album to listen to in the dark with the music washing over you. Jeff easily had one of the best voices that I ever heard and this is the one full album that he released in his much too short life. I could spend days just listening to the first three songs (Mojo Pin, Grace and Last Goodbye) over and over again. Interestingly, if I could take a DVD with me and only listen to it Jeff’s live show in Chicago makes the cut without a second thought. Let’s put it this way, I had that on in the background before every test of business school and basically before every major decision of my life in the past five years. It will travel with me.

Uncle Tupelo “Anodyne”: Life wouldn’t be complete without having a copy of “Chickamauga” around. Despite the fact that as I learn more about the politics of the band I can now see all of this subtext about the band breaking up in the song lyrics this is still the best example of the Americana/No Depression/Alt Country/Whatever You Want To Call It genre. Steel guitar and fiddle enter rock songs at the perfect moments and for a moment you are transported to another world. I know that most people say it is my fandom speaking when I call this the best album of the 90’s but at the end of the day that is what my heart tells me.

Kelly Willis “What I Deserve”: This is the disc that usually makes the cut but sometimes doesn’t. Part of it is because of the fact that this is one of the many albums that has protected me through difficult times in my life. You know how there are times when the world just seems to be against you and the only thing that keeps you from curling into a ball and hiding in a corner is knowing that you can listen to a song and feel that there is some brightness in the world? Well, when I had a few months like that it was this disc that never left my CD player at work. The backstory is great as well, an artist says screw you to Nashville and makes one last album on her own just to have one shot at having her own legacy and having it find major success. (Oh, and there is a small fact that Kelly is beautiful and there are lots of pictures of her in the CD booklet and look, it’s going to get pretty lonely on that island after a while).

Jack Johnson “On and On”: This is the spot that constantly changes. Honestly, I had to look through my collection to figure out what disc I would place here because it really changes all the time. But if I am on a desert island I’ll need some music that would be fitting and the Hawaiian surfer turned guitarist is fitting. Also, this is such an incredible collection of songs. It’s one thing to say that Taylor or Rodeo Clowns have great hooks, when you sit down and actually look at the lyrics you find that there is a striking amount of depth there. Just one of those discs that you can play and know that nothing can go wrong in the world for a little while.

(Of course, if I really was on a desert island what I’d really be looking for is a boat. Or an Xbox 360 with a really long extension cord.)

The five random CDs of the week:
1) Chris Mills “Every Night Fight For Your Life”
2) The Frames “Burn the Maps”
3) Robbie Fulks “South Mouth”
4) Gillian Welch “Hell Among the Yearlings”
5) Kelly Willis “One More Time: The MCA Recordings”

Limbo the night away

An apology in advance. I know that last week I promised to write about a) my five desert island discs and b) my preview of The Gauntlet 2, both of which never made the topic list for this week. I’ll get to them next week. As most of you know, or at least have figured out by now, towards the end of the month my posts become more disjointed than usual. That’s because I send out a monthly email to my friends in which I describe my life in such mind numbing detail that I am often surprised that I have any friends at all. Since there is only so much creativity in my body at any given time, one side of my writing has to suffer. It’s not a great excuse but it will have to do.

I’m also kind of pissed because I lost at trivia tonight. My defeat came for two reasons: 1) apparently Swatch does not stand for Swiss Watch but rather Spare Watch, which I still don’t believe and 2) I didn’t know what the record store I shop at weekly was called twenty five years ago. Actually, I did no it, I just didn’t know it was tied to the name of the local alternative weekly. However, I did gain props from my competitors for a) playing as a lone wolf, b) knowing that Neal Stephenson wrote Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon (come on, it’s in my profile) c) knowing that the bass player for the Pixies was Kim Deal and d) in the easiest question of the night, knowing that the mechanical butler Kryten is a character on the show Red Dwarf. I mean, how do people not know that one? Oh well, I’ll win it one of these days.

A few news headlines to close out the week. We had the first successful face transplant this week. It’s always been my dream to see movie ploys become reality. Somehow the Cage-Travolta classic Face/Off wasn’t the one I had in mind. It’s interesting in that all the articles I read raised the ethical questions of the procedure. There is a more practical question in my mind: does this mean if I hunt down Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt that I can have his face? How about Ben Affleck? He’s not using it for anything important, can I have it? These are the types of questions that CNN should be asking.

Also, apparently the Catholic church is considering getting rid of Limbo. Which for those of you who know your theology means that we have a lot of unbaptized babies to relocate in the theological landscape. I’m actually bummed about this. See, in high school I had a teacher assign over winter break that we should write our own version of Dante’s Inferno. That was the assignment, no page limits, no style rules, do whatever you want to do but reinterpret Dante’s Inferno. Most people wrote three or four pages. I handed in a detailed twenty five page manuscript that included a dedication page, an illustrated cover and maybe the most romantic ending I have ever written in my life. (It involved Meg, the first love of my life, the girl who my novel will be dedicated to, and my biggest regret but that is a story for another day). Anyway, in my story my main character (me) makes my way through all nine circles of hell. The first is Limbo, which is where all of the virtuous pagans go. In my view, this was the coolest spot in the entire afterlife. Here is what I wrote back in the day


The elevator lurched and after a short trip stopped. The doors opened and to my surprise I found a large amount of departed souls eating and drinking and having a good time.
“What is this place, I thought you said we were in hell?”
“This is Limbo and yes we are in hell. This is where all the virtuous pagans go and some of the nonvirtuous too.”
I was amazed by who I saw. Aristotle, Plato and Socrates were having an animated discussion on the meaning of life. Gandhi, Buddha, Mohammed and Moses were discussing the uses of organized religions. For our musical enjoyment there was Bob Marley, with dreadlocks still intact, singing his heart out.
“If this is hell, what punishment do these people get?” I asked.
“Actually, none. See, a few years back their punishment was that they would never see God. However, God discovered that most of the greatest people who had ever lived were down here so he decided to come and visit. Every once in a while he shows up, has a few beers and jokes around with everyone.”


You just can’t get rid of Limbo. There has to be someplace in the next life that is fun but harp free. But not Harp free, that’s no afterlife that I want to be a part of.

Back on Monday. Stay warm.

Lost in Cleveland

They announced the latest batch of inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this week. As always, I am upset that the J. Geils Band was passed over once again. One day the rest of the world will understand the immense lyrical mastery of the song Freeze Frame. And I still don’t understand how they can call it a Hall of Fame if the Monkees are not a part of it. I am one hundred percent serious on that last part. Name me one other television event (other than maybe Kiss on 3-2-1 Contact) that has resulted in more guys wanting to be musicians? It just doesn’t exist. The Monkees are the origins of music video as well as mainstreaming alt-country music (lots of Byrds influences in their later work). But I thought I should talk about who made the cut.

The Sex Pistols will be inducted and I for one will stand and cheer this announcement. Sure, there is no redeeming quality to their music. It wasn’t even good music. Heck, Sid Vicious could barely stand half the time, much less play bass. But they are one of the most influential and powerful acts ever. Here’s my explanation. Saturday night I was at a bar watching this band The Elders play. The Elders are this awesome Irish band with a killer live show. For some reason, the bar also had one of those punk documentaries showing on a tv set. Given a choice between an awesome live band and watching Johnny Rotten without sound my eyes were just naturally drawn to Johnny Rotten. Just that look in his eyes of mischievousness, where you can tell just how much he despised the establishment, and you can not look away. For making rock and roll dangerous again, for basically being banned for a time for being a threat to the social order, they need to be in the Hall of Fame. And I want to see if John Lydon even shows up for the ceremony, since it is against everything he has ever stood for.

On the other had we have Lynyrd Skynyrd. This one is probably a little tougher and that is because time has been both kind and unkind to the band. They have had a legacy that has lasted longer than almost anyone else in existence but in the process the band has become a caricature of itself. I don’t know if I can see past the cliché of people yelling Free Bird. That discounts a lot of good music in the process and they did bring about a Southern Rock revolution. Well maybe a revolution is too strong of a term but they did open the doors for bands like Alabama. On second thought, maybe they don’t belong…

Probably the other really interesting choice is Blondie. Now from my perspective they had a few hits, one of the first rap songs of any mainstream prominence, and I know they were big in the punk and new wave scenes but they don’t seem Hall of Fame worthy. Which is probably the biggest problem with the entire venture, there are no stats that you can work from. You don’t want to focus on album sales since so many incredible acts were never hugely popular and those that were popular weren’t very good (remember that one of the most popular albums of all time is Boston’s First Stage). But there is no qualitative measure of artistic greatness either. So saying that Blondie is in the Hall of Fame means that a good band should be in the Hall of Fame, which would open the doors to everyone. Or at least everyone who wants to make their way to Cleveland.

Overcharged and underappreciated

(To continue on the theme from last night, I realized that this means when I get old I will apparently turn into Bob Saget. You know, I used to look forward to the rest of my life. Now, not so much.)

I went to see Freakwater in concert last night. You’ve never heard of Freakwater and probably for good reason. Jim DeRogatis, one of my favorite music critics on the planet, once described their music as “sounding like a couple of cats being tortured.” But they play this really neat Appalachian hill country music despite the fact that everyone in the band is from Chicago. Anyway, there were three things that I had to mention about the night. One is that in a crowd of about thirty I knew a good third of them because they were all in local bands that I’ve seen. The second is that the bass player smoked with such a passion throughout the set that he has is own personal fog on stage. I mean, this guy played bass with a cigarette in his mouth and another one lit in the frets just so he wouldn’t have a nicotine free second. That was quite impressive. And I would like to thank the Grand Emporium for the following. On a Monday night, in an empty bar, they charged me six bucks for a beer. And it wasn’t even a good beer. And while I should thank them for limiting my drinking on a school night this officially places the management of the Grand Emporium alongside Ticketmaster as the people who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.

Have a few other odds and ends to mention here. I know that I constantly rip on personalized license plates but on occasion I am pleased by them. Like the one I saw on a Mini Cooper that had a Union Jack painted on its roof. MIMINI on a car like that is appropriate, you can show off your pride in a unique vehicle. I’m just sick of people with MYTORUS and other statements of attachment to extremely pedestrian vehicles.

Also, I need to give a shout out to my Fighting Illini who went out and beat North Carolina tonight. Just a few months later than I had originally hoped. This means we are national champs now, correct? It’s like boxing, they had the title but we won the rematch so the belt is ours, right? Let me dream at least for a moment. This was the first chance that I’ve had to see Illinois play and they looked pretty good. The team doesn’t have near the talent or chemistry of last year’s squad but they look like a solid top 25 team, which is all that I am hoping for out of this season. If we can turn last year’s run into the formation of a perennial Big 10 powerhouse I will be overjoyed.

Last note, I would like to be the first to publicly welcome Martina Hingis back to the world of professional tennis. I now have a reason to watch Sports Center again. Awesome.

That's me on the tv...

Those of you who read the blog regularly and take copious notes on the details of my life will remember that I am currently writing a novel called Until We Say Goodbye. Those of you with even better recall know that this wasn’t the original title, which was My Life as a Sitcom until I decided that it was a) too much of a rip-off of the movie My Life as a Dog and b) stupid. Well, tonight my life officially became a sitcom. The show How I Met Your Mother has apparently obtained the rights to my life.

You think I jest? Let’s just run through the opening of tonight’s show. Our hero is at a bar with friends as they try to convince him that he thinks way too much and that is why he fails with women. He needs to stop thinking and just do. Sound familiar yet? It gets better. Well, they end up with a plate of shots and our hero embarks on my fabled Level of Optimal Drunkeness experiment, as he does all of the shots to reach the point where he is loose and relaxed and the life of the party. The name of the shot? Red Dragon. Which just happens to be one of my nicknames.

At this point I was officially freaked out.

Somehow it seemed to grow even more similar from there. There was the playing of Cheap Trick on the bar jukebox (check), there was the rampant repeated drunk dialing (sigh, check) and there was the writing full sentences in pen on various body parts (which technically wasn’t me but I was at a bar where we did this one night). There was the talking to friends the next day to try to determine exactly what had occurred because no one could remember everything that occurred. Other than the fact that the guy ended up back at his apartment with a pineapple (something that I don’t recall ever happening to me but may have) and at no point did people start watching Beavis and Butthead episodes this was basically a retelling of my life. We even have Doogie Howser acting as the mentor to get our hero out of his shell and enjoying life. I don’t know if I am supposed to be ecstatic that there is finally a show that I can relate to or upset that my life is apparently a sitcom cliché.

(There were a few problems with this episode. First off, the hero was speaking much too coherently and moving much too quickly for someone who was apparently out of his gourd the night before. Technically, he should not have been able to leave the couch until three in the afternoon. And typically you do not have witty conversations when you wander into the wrong restroom. But the buddy sleeping in the bathtub and the waking up wondering “How in the world did I sprain an ankle?” were spot on.)

Now, I know that like most people I believe the universe revolves around myself (actually, I’m amazed that everyone doesn’t think that the universe revolves around me. Seems perfectly logical). So before I go off trying to find this camera crew that is apparently tailing me around Kansas City providing plots for a sitcom in which Allyson Hannigan can only get a minor role I need confirmation. Will someone please (especially Erik and Super) watch this show and let me know if I am completely out of my mind? Yes, I know it means watching CBS but sometimes you need to suffer for the sake of science. Plus, this is one of the funniest shows around. But that might not be an unbiased opinion.

Job hunting...

As always, life is so much better when it is organzied in a numbered list…

1) One day I will figure out which of these is the more amazing event: that I actually posted on Thanksgiving night, that someone posted a comment on Thanksgiving night or that instead of writing about the importance of being with family or the traditions of the day or even how Roy Williams’ meaningless touchdown helped clinch a win for my fantasy team I instead spend a page writing about Jessica Simpson. I guess I really know what is important in the world.

2) Just so people will stop asking me: no, I am not the guy that Jeff Tweedy is yelling at on Wilco’s new live album. Sure, I have picked up a bit of fame in the Chicago and KC music scenes and the alt-country scene in general but basically all it’s resulted in is “Hey, you’re that guy.” Part of me really wonders what would happen if I decided to become Beatle Bob and spend the rest of my life just following bands. Somehow I would place that as one of those “I’ll go broke but it will be fun getting there” experiences.

3) Started reading Nick Hornby’s “Fever Pitch” today. Note: this is the original book and has nothing, I repeat nothing, to do with the movie. I refuse to be associated with Jimmy Fallon in any way, shape or form. Anyway Nick Hornby, who also wrote High Fidelity, apparently lives my life better than I do. Or at least we are living the same life and he just writes about it much better than I ever will. Seriously, I should just give up now and let him take over. For instance, here is his discussion on being a fan “The truth is this: For amazingly large chunks of the day, I am a moron.” No matter how hard I try, I don’t think that I will ever be able to touch that.

4) The following has to be the greatest help wanted advertisement ever written. I was flipping through the back pages of The Pitch (the local free weekly newspaper) and came across one of those ads that you find in the backpages of your local free weekly newspaper. You know, the back pages where if you actually read them you find out that there is no way in the world you could in any way be considered strange. So, the fine establishment Legs has placed the following help wanted ad. And I swear I am making none of this up. “Dancers wanted. No house tip out. No D.J. tip out. No house mom tip out. Minimum wage guaranteed. Receive check every week. Health Insurance. Dental Plan. 401K. Profit Sharing. Legs (an equal opportunity employer)

5) I’m just going to let that set in for a little bit.

6) Ok, what does it say about your life when a strip club is apparently offering better benefits than your employer? And is this the most progressive strip club in the existence of the planet? I mean, they are offering a 401K for crying out loud. Of course, this just means that corporate beuracracy is now encroaching on every aspecet of our existence. In all honesty, that is a better deal than Wal-Mart offers its employees and they are the biggest employer on the planet. I saw the ad and didn’t know whether to laugh or cheer.

The five random CDs of the week
1) Mike Doughty “Haughty Melodic”
2) Howie Day “Australia”
3) Cowboy Junkies “200 More Miles”
4) Buick MacKane “The Pawn Shop Years”
5) Dave Matthews Band “Under the Table and Dreaming”

But they were perfect together...

So the big news today is that Jessica Simpson and that guy she married (Nick something or other) are getting divorced. I don't know about you but this sure has put a damper on my holiday season. I had to hold a moment of silence at Thanksgiving dinner in response to this tragic occurrence. Or not.

What I really want out of this is MTV to go all out on the reality television bandwagon. I mean, the only, and I mean only, reason that anyone on the planet cares about this is that they had their own show Newlyweds on MTV. For some reason that hit the cultural zeitgeist, mainly because people liked seeing how stupid Jessica was, and became a hit. Well, let's continue with this theme. Let's have a show called "Divorce Hearing" and "Alimony Settlement." Let's show what happens as you argue over who gets to keep the blender. This is exactly the type of entertainment that I need in my life right now.

(Oh, sometime in the next week I will give my predictions for MTV's The Gauntlet 2. Or at least take some time to rip on the cast members who apparently can't find a real job. How long can you live off of getting thrown off the Winnebago in Road Rules? Is this now considered a legitimate career path?)

Oh well at least this will give me something to think about when I get up at five in the morning to do my Christmas shopping. I am kidding about that, as someone with a real dislike of crowds tomorrow is the one day I really avoid shopping. But I have to give props to someone who will get up at that hour just so they could take care of their shopping a few days earlier this year. That's a level of dedication you just can't find in other aspects of American life. And that is a really, really sad statement.

Have a good weekend everyone.

H2G2

So I finally got around to watching the DVD of The Hitchhiker's Guid to the Galaxy this week. And the two commentary tracks. And the making of documentary. And have developed what most people would probably define as a very unhealthy attraction to Zooey Deschanel in the process. (What can I say? I just think that it would be really cool to date a girl named Zooey.) And as a guy who has read every word that Douglas Adams ever wrote five times over, as someone who figured out how to retrieve the Babel fish in the Infocom game, as someone who was genuinely saddened by his death, I have my final verdict on the film...

It's not that bad.

Ok, it certainly is not a great film. In fact, if you are not familiar with the source material I wonder if it would make much sense at all. If you are familiar with the source material you'll find a lot of things that you don't like and a couple nice additions. Let me discuss.

First, let's look at the cast. Martin Freeman makes for a different Arthur Dent than in the previous versions. Previously, Arthur quickly resigns himself to the fact that none of this will ever make sense and decides that his mission in the universe is to find a nice cup of tea. In the movie Arthur is driven by the fact that they finally decided to make Trillian his love interest (something that was hinted at in a couple of the different incarnations). I know that some of the H2G2 traditionalists didn't like this but from a character and plot standpoint it works much better. And Zooey does the best job anyone has ever done on Trillian. Mos Def is a cool version of Ford, though this is the character that probably least resembles the different incarnations (mainly because there just isn't time to explore his character). Sam Rockwell makes a rock star Zaphod Beeblebrox and they finally, after 25 years, figured out how to do the two head, three arm bit and not have it look incredibly stupid. And Marvin the depressed robot was spot on, really hitting Douglas' vision that this should be a state of the art, fantastic machine that just happens to be terminally depressed.

So why wasn't I jumping up and down when I first saw the film?

Because you basically can't turn a 6 hour radio series, a 3 hour television series, 5 books, a computer game and a towel into a 100 minute movie without losing a lot of good lines. It's really obvious at the beginning of the film. The entire opening with the Earth being destroyed has some of my favorite writing on the planet in it and so much was cut because it just wouldn't work unless you wanted a 4 hour film. Plus, a lot of the great parts were these side comments that had nothing to do with the characters or the plot and were just a convenient point for Douglas to start discussing philosophy. Those has to fall by the wayside because film narratives can't allow it. I think that once I realized that on the second time through I really began to understand and enjoy the film a lot more. I stopped looking for what was missing and started seeing what was actually there.

Some good new material as well. The point of view gun is classic as well as the Vogon planet. And John Malkovich plays another extremely freaky character. Or, to put it another way, John Malkovich plays John Malkovich.

I also want to say that the Jim Henson folks did a great job on the creatures. This ties to what I wrote yesterday. This film was actually improved by the fact that all of the aliens were puppets, which gave them a three dimensional weight. I really feel that it worked better than if they had gone out and done everything in CGI. It honestly made everything feel more real.

So, if you are like me and are a huge fan but avoided the film in the theater because you were frightened that it would be awful and ruin your memories of the books, don't worry you can go ahead and watch the DVD. If you've read this far and have no idea what I am talking about, make your way to the science fiction section of your bookstore and pick up The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. You'll finish it in a day, if you can stop laughing long enough to finish it, and then see the film. And then read the rest of the books and catch the radio series. There's always something new to find.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody.

Too much realism

I still have a few news stories from the weekend to comment on. Christina Aguilera got married to which my local morning news said “Sorry guys she is off the market.” To which I replied, “For the sake of basically all guys out there I would like to thank the guy who jumped on that grenade.” Seriously, I can’t see an attraction her in any way, shape or form. I’ve got to go with the Peter Griffin from Family Guy statement “I find you offensive to all five senses.”

However, it is important to note that she married a record company executive, which just proves my point that I am so in the wrong line of work. Have you ever noticed how many times this happens. Mariah Carey, Shania Twain, every other week some record exec or producer is marrying the new hot voice. That never happens in my job. And unless being able to calculate the present value of a cash flow stream becomes a really, really attractive trait, I really don’t expect it to happen any time soon. Just another example of how the world is conspiring against me.

On a completely different note, there is an incredibly good article on ESPN’s Page 2 about the new Xbox 360. I’d link to it but come on, like I need to give Disney any more income than they already have. Anyway, the entire gist of the article is that as video games have become more and more realistic they have become much less fun to play. We’re at the point now that you can see the stitching on the uniforms but that has actually made the characters become more unreal and more difficult to relate to than 10 years ago.

It’s actually a really interesting question in robotics and graphics. When images are primitive it is actually easier to humanize the images and relate to them. Case in point: Yoda. Which Yoda do you connect more to the brilliantly animated fighting Yoda or the puppet? It’s the puppet by a huge margin. You feel sad in Jedi when Yoda dies, even though you know it is simply a puppet. The animated character, while much more realistic, never has that emotional tie. It’s like that in video games as well. You look at the new generation games and all you notice is how they are not quite human. In the year of my life that was spent playing Dr. J vs. Larry Bird One on One I never asked that question. All I wanted to know was how to shatter the backboard. I really think that this is going to turn into an important point for the gaming industry. We can produce high definition games, the problem is will anyone really want to play them.

I think that is going to be it for the night. The CDs are being made, for those who are still interested. I’ve had a little bit of an issue in the manufacturing process: apparently the plant decided that The Best of Night Ranger took priority over my work. I tried to explain to them that Sister Christian for twelve consecutive tracks technically doesn’t constitute a best of disc but they weren’t buying it. Oh well, seriously if you’re interested let me know. Sharing music will help out my karma. Of course, doing something for good karma is actually bad karma so I’m screwed either way.