Bowling in KC

It looks like we are going to make it through another week. Just a couple more thoughts that have been running through my head the past couple of days...

One of the goals behind the random CD project has always been to uncover those hidden gems that had been sitting in my collection unopened for years. Came across one today in R.E.M.'s 'Automatic for the People', which I would always claim to be the band's best disc and one that I hadn't listened to in years until today. There are just some seriously good songs on that disc. You forget how good "Drive" or "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight" really were. "Everybody Hurts" has been overplayed for sure but the rest of the disc has aged extremely well. It was a nice listen this afternoon, it was like I was 19 and sitting in a dorm room at Illinois again.

Of course, one of the reasons behind the random CD project is I tend to buy a lot of CDs with only a minor interest in ever listening to them. Like the new Liz Phair disc, which is still sitting on my coffee table in my living room. I've at least unwrapped it but still haven't obtained the courage to actually play the darn thing. Is fear an emotion you should have when playing music? How about dread? I really don't want to play this and find out that one of my favorite performers, someone who ranked very high on my original perfect mate list, has just devolved into pop fluff. Sadly, that is where my expectations lie right about now.

(Ok, for the record I am now incredibly pissed at either Blogger or AOL right now. The damn thing just ate half my post and I wrote it in Blogger itself. Something is really goofing up my posting. Here's a retry of the last section).

So there was a really big Kansas City news story today. We are apparently in line to get the Super Bowl next decade. If we pay $600 million to add a retractable dome to the existing stadium. And double the amount of convention space in the city. But other than that it is a done deal. I'm sorry but this is a really bad idea. First of all, adding a dome to a stadium that wasn't built for it always is a turn for the worst (see Olympic Stadium in Montreal). It's better to just build a new stadium from scratch. Second, it's not like we would be added to the rotation of Super Bowl cities. We would join the ranks of Minneapolis and Detroit as places they play once every 20 years at which point they realize how damn cold it is and decide to go back to playing in LA or Miami or (someday soon) New Orleans. There's just no way that having the game one year would justify the huge expense for a stadium that is used ten times a year. We don't even have concerts out there. So, as much as I would like this place to be a big league city (as opposed to the AAA feel it often has), this isn't the way to do it.

One last note before I call it a night. I got an email from a publisher about my blog! Well, more like a form email from someone who got a hold of my email account. Who wants to charge me an awful lot of money to see my work in print. Still, it is a publisher and I'm going to take my victories wherever I can.