Let’s take on the next set of bowl games as we make our way through the New Year’s Eve.
December 28th
Military Bowl Presented by Northrop Grumman: Toledo vs. Air Force (4:30 PM, ESPN): Somehow I can never imagine Northrop Grumman as a bowl sponsor. I am not even sure what a Northrop Grumman commercial would look like. Maybe it is just “We’d like to tell you just how awesome we are as a company but that is classified information. So instead let’s just look at puppies frolicking in the grass for 30 seconds. Northrop Grumman: Any company that loves puppies couldn’t possibly be evil.” Look, it is the Military Bowl so you have to cheer for Air Force though Toledo gets points for being the Rockets.
Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl: California vs. Texas (8 PM, ESPN): A less than quality matchup in the Holiday Bowl, which usually features two teams that eschew defense and encourage brining Jim Brown out of retirement for one last game. Though there is the possibility of Colt McCoy could return because, well, it’s not like he has much else to do right now and could use to get away from Cleveland for a week. Texas is having a poor year and Cal is one of those schools that are annoying in every aspect. Athletically, academically, hell, even their mascot is annoying. Their main rival is Stanford for crying out loud. I have to cheer for Texas simply so that I won’t have to feel the need to immediately take a shower after the game.
December 29th
Champs Sports Bowl: Florida State vs. Notre Dame (5:30 PM, ESPN): Here is the highlight for Notre Dame this year: we went an entire regular season without anyone dying. That is how bad I still feel about last season. Hell, I lost hope for this season five minutes into our first game when our opening drive results in a fumble that is returned 95 yards for a touchdown, followed by the game suspended by a massive thunderstorm and concluded with a loss to South Florida. At worst, we should be 10-2 with losses to USC and Stanford, resulting in maybe a BCS bowl or at least a nice game in January. Instead it is a bowl game between two teams that totally underachieved sponsored by that really crappy shoe store at the mall. I know that I could talk about the legendary rivalry between the two teams but that would imply that both teams are worthy of a rivalry. On the plus side, we do get one more game of Brian Kelly screaming at 19 year olds and that is always a good thing.
Valero Alamo Bowl: Washington vs. Baylor (9 PM, ESPN): For the record, San Antonio is an incredibly underrated city. The Riverwalk is a blast and it is a really fun place to spend a few days. The Alamodome is an odd stadium though; it seems to have been designed for every sport other than football. Anyway, this is your Heisman Trophy winner game featuring the only Heisman Trophy winner that no one actually watched over the course of a season. Traditionally this results in the winner playing so horribly that we wish we could retroactively announce the results. Washington is a state in the Pacific Northwest. Sorry, I don’t have anything witty to say besides that. Well, that and I assume that the halftime show is just a bunch of people singing “Valero”.
December 30th
Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl: BYU vs. Tulsa (Noon, ESPN): This game is being played at Gerald J. Ford Stadium so expect a lot of stumbles, fumbles, interceptions and references to ending a national nightmare. Surprisingly though this game is in Dallas given that Gerald Ford a) represented Michigan, b) played for the University of Michigan and c) Michigan plays in Lyndon B. Johnson Memorial Stadium. Also, this game suffers from only having Air Force make the bowls from the service academies. You can’t have a Military Bowl and an Armed Forces Bowl and only allow one military school to play. They should just let Air Force play in both games. Also, if someone could explain to me why a school in Oklahoma is nicknamed the “Golden Hurricane” when a) they don’t have a coastline and b) that nickname seems to be just asking for a double entendre.
New Era Pinstripe Bowl: Rutgers vs. Iowa State (3:20 PM, ESPN): No, I have no idea why the game is scheduled to start at 3:20. Maybe they want to be careful not to have any overlap with the exciting conclusion of the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl. This is the game played in Yankee Stadium for those who like their football played the old fashioned way: in a baseball stadium that wasn’t in any way designed for football featuring a crowd made up of guido and guidettes complaining about how they can’t show off their tans under all of their layers. Has Snooki officially become the mascot of Rutgers yet? The fact that Rutgers is the state college of New Jersey but in no way associates itself with the state in its own name tells you an awful lot about the state. I almost went to grad school at Iowa State because I realized that the only places one should study for master’s degrees in electrical engineering is in cities where when you look out your window all you see is corn. That is the only thing that can make looking at circuit diagrams sound like an exciting alternative,
(Bonus Jersey Shore rant: So Kim and I watch Jersey Shore because there is no greater comedy on the air right now. The best way to watch the show is to realize the each of the people on the show is trying to get airtime to further their own careers while simultaneously trying to cash in what little fame they have. Thus you have Vinnie acting nice because he is trying to make his way into an acting career and J-Woww acts like a mom half the time because she is this close to a guest host gig on the View (or at least becoming an Access Hollywood correspondent). On the other hand, Situation is just trying to get as much airtime as possible to up his appearance fees because the second the show goes off the air he is going to drop off the face of the earth. Ron and Sammie are forced to realize that as long as the show is on the air they are going to have to alternately act like a couple or fight because otherwise they have nothing to do. And Snookie and Deena have reached the point where random strangers are about to stage an intervention for them. Seriously MTV, at some point watching people get blackout drunk in the afternoon stops being funny. Pauly D is cool, though.)
Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl: Mississippi State vs. Wake Forest (6:40 PM, ESPN): For crying out loud ESPN, you have multiple networks. Use them so that we have start times that make at least some sense. Besides, I’d recommend starting this game earlier due to the high probability that the stadium will file for foreclosure at some point in the second quarter. Ah, real estate lending humor, nothing better in the world. Anyway, Mississippi State is coached by the guy who I have heard mentioned the most often as the new Penn State coach so that might give you a reason to watch the game as well. Wake Forest is the alma mater of the legendary Brian Picolo so if you watch Brian’s Song you technically get credit for watching this game as well. It will also encourage you to dust more often as I always get something caught in my eye at the end of the film.
Insight Bowl: Iowa vs. Oklahoma (10 PM, ESPN): I always love bowl games named after general concepts. We’ve lost the Humanitarian Bowl but we still have the Insight Bowl. A Revelation Bowl would also be pretty cool though a Polite Dismissal of a Poorly Developed Theorem Bowl would probably have a hard time getting sponsorship. As an Illini I cannot in good conscience cheer for Iowa in everything including the production of corn. It really is the most hated rival for those of us who went to the school in the early 90’s and had to deal with four years of crappy basketball teams because of Bruce Pearl’s secret recording sessions. I still hate that bastard. I can’t recall the last time that Oklahoma was forced to play a bowl game in December. I don’t know if anyone has informed them that even though the game is in Arizona that it is not the Fiesta Bowl. Maybe we should all just act as if it is the Fiesta Bowl to make them feel better.
December 31st
Meineke Car Care of Texas Bowl: Texas A&M vs. Northwestern (Noon, ESPN): I understand the independence movement is strong in Texas but I don’t think that they have to go so far as declare their own sovereign version of Meineke Car Care. If the union of Meineke Car Care dealerships cannot be preserved then we are all doomed. Texas A&M is headed off to the SEC and is actually a worse fit for the conference than Missouri. Hell, they are a worse fit than Vanderbilt. At least Vanderbilt has the southern genteel style and the belief that wearing a sport coat to a football game makes it much easier to sneak in alcohol. Texas A&M games seem to always resemble one large ROTC meeting and I can’t see that meshing with schools where people hold up rolls of toilet paper and boxes of Tide at regular intervals. This is also another one of those games where the bowl decided to take a Big Ten school not named Penn State because they didn’t want to be associated with the controversy, which is just stunning if you know how bowl games work. All bowl games care about is getting people to travel to the game and how the city of Houston could think that they will get more Northwestern alums to travel to a game then Penn State is insane. And that is not even getting into the difference in ratings. Plus, given that Illinois beat Northwestern this year for the trophy formerly referred to as the Sweet Sioux Tomahawk they should be in this game anyway.
Hyundai Sun Bowl: Georgia Tech vs. Utah (2 PM, CBS): Finally a bowl game that is not on the ESPN family of networks. Utah joined the PAC 12 this year and I don’t think that anyone noticed. To be honest, Urban Meyer may have still been secretly coaching there for all I know. Georgia Tech runs the triple option offense which is always fun if you like running, pitches, a quick game and believe that Knute Rockne was completely wrong when he decided to implement the forward pass. If I remember correctly the Sun Bowl is one of the oldest bowl games in existence, which probably is nice to know if you ever find yourself in El Paso and need to start a conversation with something other than, “Hello, can you please help me find a way to get out of El Paso?”
AutoZone Liberty Bowl: Cincinnati vs. Vanderbilt (3:30 PM, ABC): Crap, I’ve already used my Vanderbilt jokes. I mean, who could anticipate Vanderbilt making a bowl game (and not Tennessee, which says something about how far that program has fallen.) Cincinnati is a) a city that I have never been able to properly spell my entire life and b) really proud of its chili in much the same way that Kansas City is of its barbecue except that Cincinnati chili is unlike any kind of chili known to man. (By the way, I’ve always preferred Memphis barbecue, which is probably why I never really fit in well in KC.) At least this game is no longer the St. Jude’s Hospital Liberty Bowl where the halftime show would often feature sick children. I am not kidding. The only thing that could compare to it would be the Rescue Shelter Bowl featuring Sarah McLachlan as the halftime entertainment. I swear to you if I ever win the lottery I am going to donate a portion to the ASPCA on the sole condition that they never use a Sarah McLachlan song in a commercial again.
Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl: Illinois vs. UCLA (3:30 PM, ESPN): I know I said this last year but I have to say it again. Hey Kraft! You want to fight hunger? How about you, I don’t know, donate food? Or instead of celebrating record profit margins on Macaroni and Cheese why not lower the price by a nickel? Though I will support a Kraft Fight Hunger Games where the food options in the cornucopia are solely Kraft products. I am so psyched to see that movie as any book that as you read it makes you wonder just how many people you could kill if forced to fight to the death is precisely what I feel we need to use to inspire the next generation. How else are they supposed to prosper if we do not raise them to anticipate an apocalyptic hellscape where you may be called upon to murder the person you just met three days ago as a means of entertaining others?
Anyway, Illinois football… Sigh. At one point this year we were 6 – 0 and I could legitimately make a case for us to play in the Big 10 championship game or at least be 9 – 3 and playing in a nice bowl game in January. Instead we lose six straight in more and more humiliating fashion and end up firing Ron Zook who gets added to the list of coaches who couldn’t figure out how to make the Illini even a consistent squad despite having the best talent that we have had in ages. I’m not even sure where they will go for a coach now. I would like for once in my life to have the Illini be consistently decent. I’m not even talking good, just decent. UCLA actually is in a bowl game despite having a losing record which makes this possibly the most depressing matchup ever. Well, at least it is a rematch of that legendary 1984 Rose Bowl where, yeah, Illinois got slaughtered but at least the Chief got to dance at halftime. Oh wait, we don’t even have the Chief anymore. Yeah, I’m still bitter.
Chick-fil-A Bowl: Virginia vs. Auburn: (7:30 PM, ESPN): I still think they should call this the Peach Bowl just because Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl is such a confusing combination that it makes one wonder if affordable chicken sandwiches and produce could make a pleasurable combination. I’ll have to admit that pretty much anything would go well with Chick-fil-A. The only benefit of having had to spend numerous hours at the Philadelphia airport is the fact that the Concourse B/C food court has a Chick-fil-A. Though those bastards closed on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend because for some reason God doesn’t want me to have waffle fries on a Sunday. It’s enough to question your faith.
This is the game that you have on as you face that dilemma of whether or not you actually want to go out on New Year’s Eve. Now that I am married this is a slightly easier decision as I actually have someone to be with at midnight but back in the KC days this was always the point of no return. There you are, watching an over-achieving ACC team taking on an under-achieving SEC team while cows take over the screen every five minutes and you have to decide whether to go out, face a bunch of idiot drunks to only be alone at midnight or stay at home, conclude that Cam Newton and Bo Jackson are the only two people who could make you care about Auburn football and spend the rest of the evening drinking whiskey straight from the bottle in a darkened apartment while listening to Morrissey cds. Not that I have any experience in that matter. Though I recommend Viva Hate if you are in the mood to do so.
Next time, all of the January games. Title games, Arkansas State and the best metal band in history. Stay tuned.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Bowl Preview Part One
It is that time of year again. Time to continue my annual tradition of previewing all 35 college bowl games. This will take a few days so sit back, relax, and enjoy the wonder that is modern college football.
(In chronological order, all times Eastern, all jokes intentional)
December 17th:
Gildan New Mexico Bowl: Temple vs. Wyoming (2 PM, ESPN): Fennis Dembo will be coaching Wyoming I assume. This is because Fennis Dembo is the only person I know who has ever been associated with the University of Wyoming. In fact, for males of a certain age Fennis Dembo may be all we know about the state of Wyoming. Who the hell is Fennis Dembo you may ask? Fennis Dembo was a basketball player who was put on the cover of Sports Illustrated in the late 80’s in a college basketball preview issue where SI ranked Wyoming 3rd and called Dembo the best player in the nation. The team didn’t even make the tournament and Dembo went on to be the last guy off the bench on one of the Pistons championship teams. Still, fame is fame and everyone has always enjoyed saying the name Fennis Dembo over and over again. Temple has a football team, which is always shocking to me, and I expect that most of the residents of Philadelphia are referring to this game as the God Damn New Mexico Bowl. Not out of spite as to where the team ended up; it’s just that Philadelphians typically use God Damn as an adjective for every noun to the fact that children are taught in grade school that “God Damn Dick and God Damn Jane ran up the God Damn hill.”
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: Ohio vs. Utah State (5:30 PM, ESPN): This should not be confused with the Infamous Idaho Potato, who murdered eight in a cross-country crime spree back in 1977 in what is often referred to as the “Summer of Spud.” This is traditionally my favorite bowl game of the year as two teams, after an incredible amount of effort and toil, are forced to travel to Boise, Idaho to play on blue turf for no apparent reason. It is quite possibly the only bowl game where you feel sorry for the players. Also, this game would be much more interesting if you move the State from one to the other. This game reads like a straight to DVD knockoff of a better bowl game.
R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl: San Diego State vs. Louisiana – Lafayette (9 PM, ESPN): It is now the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, which just sounds all sorts of wrong. When a stadium hasn’t had corporate sponsorship for decades it just seems bizarre to change the name like that. San Diego State will soon be joining the Big East in that San Diego is east of….the Pacific Ocean I guess. Conference realignment is going to really screw up kids sense of geography. As always, take Louisiana – Lafayette in this game as they have home field advantage as San Diego is probably one of the few cities that people wouldn’t leave for a weekend in New Orleans. I assume that R+L Carries is either a) a moving company or b) an air condition company with a slight possibility that the R refers to one and the L refers to the other.
December 20th
Beef ‘O’ Brady’s St. Petersburg Bowl: Florida International vs. Marshall (8 PM, ESPN): This is the Florida version of St. Petersburg and not the Russian version though a December game in Russia would actually be super cool. Or cold, one of the two. Certainly a game in Russia would allow the announcers to say, “Boy, I bet a bowl of Beef ‘O’ Brady’s” would taste good right now. Anyway, we have the fifth best team in Florida playing the other team from West Virginia in a contest to determine who will get to say that they won a bowl game this year. I will go with Florida International because of the legend of Ned (long story). By the way, I’m proud of myself for not writing a single Brady Quinn joke this entire time. Figure he doesn’t need the attention given that he is sitting on the depth chart behind a guy who everyone states cannot throw a football.
December 21st
San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl: TCU vs. Louisiana Tech (8 PM, ESPN): I have never understood the sponsorship behind this bowl game. Beyond the fact that it makes for the longest bowl game name and must drive the announcers crazy (and this is before we get into the whole how do you pronounce poinsettia debate) the only people who could care about the sponsorship are residents of San Diego, which is why you have teams from Texas and Louisiana involved. Maybe this will turn into a whole Occupy Wall Street game where they push people to go to credit unions, kind of like the Anti-Capital One Bowl. I’m not sure if even TCU knows what conference it is currently in but after the Rose Bowl last year I don’t think they even care. I guarantee that at one point the announcers will say “Remember folks that poinsettias are poisonous, just like the TCU defense.”
December 22nd
MAACO Las Vegas Bowl: Arizona State vs. Boise State (8 PM, ESPN): Some people would complain that due to a loss to TCU that Boise State is kept from playing in a BCS bowl and how unfair that makes the BCS system. I do not believe you will hear that from Boise State though as a trip to Las Vegas has to be more exciting than spending more time in Idaho. Though you have to wonder how the team adjusts to playing on fields that are actually green. You have to expect that Boise will win this game as a) Arizona State lost to Illinois this year and b) Arizona State represents the PAC-12 conference whose official motto is “Eleven fine academic institutions and Arizona State.” As for me, I’ll be at the blackjack tables for this one.
December 24th
Sheraton Hawaii Bowl: Nevada vs. Southern Mississippi (8 PM, ESPN): The annual Christmas Eve tradition. Some people go to church, some hang stockings by the fireplace while others spend the holidays by watching a game in a place they wish they could visit featuring two teams that they have never cared about in their entire lives. It is like the opposite of the Idaho bowl in that two teams underperform all year just so they can end up lounging on the beach on Christmas Day. So screw these two teams. Hope the game goes into like thirty five overtimes and they end up eating some bad poi and get food poisoning. Serves them right for getting to enjoy the holidays.
December 26th
AdvoCare V100 Independence Bowl: Missouri vs. North Carolina (5 PM, ESPN2): Back in the old days you knew what bowls were about. The Orange Bowl was about oranges, the Bluebonnet Bowl was about whatever a Bluebonnet is and the Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl was about how the Poulan Weed Eater played a pivotal role in the Revolutionary War. As George Washington wrote in his memoirs “We shall not be able to cross the Delaware unless our shipment of Poulan Weed Eaters arrive and allow us to clear a path to the shoreline. Without the economically priced Poulan Weed Eaters are cause would most certainly be lost.” Now the Independence Bowl is either about a car engine or a type of medication that you should see your doctor about a prescription for. Anyway, as I still keep up on Kansas City news for some reason I know that there is a great uproar about Missouri leaving the Big 12 for the SEC and I have to say that I agree. Missouri is just not an SEC team. When Arkansas joined I could kind of understand it but Missouri just doesn’t make sense. It does screw over Kansas City as well as they will lose all the Big 12 championship games and there is no way in the world that the SEC would ever send a tournament their way. So go Carolina I guess.
December 27th
Little Caesars Bowl: Western Michigan vs. Purdue (4:30 PM, ESPN): I have to at least give them credit for not calling this the Pizza Bowl as a Little Caesars Pizza Bowl sounds like one of the most sickening food items that could ever be imagined by the minds at KFC, who I believe are now encouraged to think up the most mind boggling items for their menu. Heck, I always felt that Little Caesars was always a little underrated in the mass produced pizza department so kudos for them for some solid marketing. Sadly, this bowl game might be the least interesting one of the year as it features a game that you would expect to see in the middle of September. In all honesty these teams may have already played this year and no one would notice. Tune in to see the world’s largest bass drum that plays a major role in Purdue’s band. Or spend the game drinking boilermakers whenever Purdue touches the ball and listening to MC5 songs whenever Western Michigan does. It will certainly make the game go faster.
Belk Bowl: Louisville vs. North Carolina State (8 PM, ESPN): Ok, new rule. Bowl games are no longer allowed to be named after sound effects from the old Batman television show. I swear that once Robin hit one of Penguin’s henchmen and “Belk” came up on screen. (By the way, I really want a story surrounding the temp agency that hires out henchmen to super-villains. Obviously someone has filled that market niche as I find it difficult to think that the Joker has his own HR department.) For those wondering Wikipedia informed me that Belk is the name of a department store as opposed to the electrical supply company that I originally imagined it to be. This will be a perfectly acceptable football game featuring two teams that you haven’t watched all year but who you know have football teams. That is the essence of bowl season, the time of year where you are so frazzled from having to spend time with family that watching a North Carolina State football game seems like a welcome respite from real life. Also, feel free to use Belk as your new all-purpose profanity. “What a Belky thing to say”, “She is such a Belk”, “What the Belk?” Works great.
Tomorrow I will go through the New Year’s Eve games and will feature rants on Notre Dame, Illinois, Jersey Shore and reasonably priced chicken sandwiches.
Best of 120 Minutes: I still have to write up something about R.E.M.’s official retirement but this will have to do for now.
(In chronological order, all times Eastern, all jokes intentional)
December 17th:
Gildan New Mexico Bowl: Temple vs. Wyoming (2 PM, ESPN): Fennis Dembo will be coaching Wyoming I assume. This is because Fennis Dembo is the only person I know who has ever been associated with the University of Wyoming. In fact, for males of a certain age Fennis Dembo may be all we know about the state of Wyoming. Who the hell is Fennis Dembo you may ask? Fennis Dembo was a basketball player who was put on the cover of Sports Illustrated in the late 80’s in a college basketball preview issue where SI ranked Wyoming 3rd and called Dembo the best player in the nation. The team didn’t even make the tournament and Dembo went on to be the last guy off the bench on one of the Pistons championship teams. Still, fame is fame and everyone has always enjoyed saying the name Fennis Dembo over and over again. Temple has a football team, which is always shocking to me, and I expect that most of the residents of Philadelphia are referring to this game as the God Damn New Mexico Bowl. Not out of spite as to where the team ended up; it’s just that Philadelphians typically use God Damn as an adjective for every noun to the fact that children are taught in grade school that “God Damn Dick and God Damn Jane ran up the God Damn hill.”
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: Ohio vs. Utah State (5:30 PM, ESPN): This should not be confused with the Infamous Idaho Potato, who murdered eight in a cross-country crime spree back in 1977 in what is often referred to as the “Summer of Spud.” This is traditionally my favorite bowl game of the year as two teams, after an incredible amount of effort and toil, are forced to travel to Boise, Idaho to play on blue turf for no apparent reason. It is quite possibly the only bowl game where you feel sorry for the players. Also, this game would be much more interesting if you move the State from one to the other. This game reads like a straight to DVD knockoff of a better bowl game.
R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl: San Diego State vs. Louisiana – Lafayette (9 PM, ESPN): It is now the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, which just sounds all sorts of wrong. When a stadium hasn’t had corporate sponsorship for decades it just seems bizarre to change the name like that. San Diego State will soon be joining the Big East in that San Diego is east of….the Pacific Ocean I guess. Conference realignment is going to really screw up kids sense of geography. As always, take Louisiana – Lafayette in this game as they have home field advantage as San Diego is probably one of the few cities that people wouldn’t leave for a weekend in New Orleans. I assume that R+L Carries is either a) a moving company or b) an air condition company with a slight possibility that the R refers to one and the L refers to the other.
December 20th
Beef ‘O’ Brady’s St. Petersburg Bowl: Florida International vs. Marshall (8 PM, ESPN): This is the Florida version of St. Petersburg and not the Russian version though a December game in Russia would actually be super cool. Or cold, one of the two. Certainly a game in Russia would allow the announcers to say, “Boy, I bet a bowl of Beef ‘O’ Brady’s” would taste good right now. Anyway, we have the fifth best team in Florida playing the other team from West Virginia in a contest to determine who will get to say that they won a bowl game this year. I will go with Florida International because of the legend of Ned (long story). By the way, I’m proud of myself for not writing a single Brady Quinn joke this entire time. Figure he doesn’t need the attention given that he is sitting on the depth chart behind a guy who everyone states cannot throw a football.
December 21st
San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl: TCU vs. Louisiana Tech (8 PM, ESPN): I have never understood the sponsorship behind this bowl game. Beyond the fact that it makes for the longest bowl game name and must drive the announcers crazy (and this is before we get into the whole how do you pronounce poinsettia debate) the only people who could care about the sponsorship are residents of San Diego, which is why you have teams from Texas and Louisiana involved. Maybe this will turn into a whole Occupy Wall Street game where they push people to go to credit unions, kind of like the Anti-Capital One Bowl. I’m not sure if even TCU knows what conference it is currently in but after the Rose Bowl last year I don’t think they even care. I guarantee that at one point the announcers will say “Remember folks that poinsettias are poisonous, just like the TCU defense.”
December 22nd
MAACO Las Vegas Bowl: Arizona State vs. Boise State (8 PM, ESPN): Some people would complain that due to a loss to TCU that Boise State is kept from playing in a BCS bowl and how unfair that makes the BCS system. I do not believe you will hear that from Boise State though as a trip to Las Vegas has to be more exciting than spending more time in Idaho. Though you have to wonder how the team adjusts to playing on fields that are actually green. You have to expect that Boise will win this game as a) Arizona State lost to Illinois this year and b) Arizona State represents the PAC-12 conference whose official motto is “Eleven fine academic institutions and Arizona State.” As for me, I’ll be at the blackjack tables for this one.
December 24th
Sheraton Hawaii Bowl: Nevada vs. Southern Mississippi (8 PM, ESPN): The annual Christmas Eve tradition. Some people go to church, some hang stockings by the fireplace while others spend the holidays by watching a game in a place they wish they could visit featuring two teams that they have never cared about in their entire lives. It is like the opposite of the Idaho bowl in that two teams underperform all year just so they can end up lounging on the beach on Christmas Day. So screw these two teams. Hope the game goes into like thirty five overtimes and they end up eating some bad poi and get food poisoning. Serves them right for getting to enjoy the holidays.
December 26th
AdvoCare V100 Independence Bowl: Missouri vs. North Carolina (5 PM, ESPN2): Back in the old days you knew what bowls were about. The Orange Bowl was about oranges, the Bluebonnet Bowl was about whatever a Bluebonnet is and the Poulan Weed Eater Independence Bowl was about how the Poulan Weed Eater played a pivotal role in the Revolutionary War. As George Washington wrote in his memoirs “We shall not be able to cross the Delaware unless our shipment of Poulan Weed Eaters arrive and allow us to clear a path to the shoreline. Without the economically priced Poulan Weed Eaters are cause would most certainly be lost.” Now the Independence Bowl is either about a car engine or a type of medication that you should see your doctor about a prescription for. Anyway, as I still keep up on Kansas City news for some reason I know that there is a great uproar about Missouri leaving the Big 12 for the SEC and I have to say that I agree. Missouri is just not an SEC team. When Arkansas joined I could kind of understand it but Missouri just doesn’t make sense. It does screw over Kansas City as well as they will lose all the Big 12 championship games and there is no way in the world that the SEC would ever send a tournament their way. So go Carolina I guess.
December 27th
Little Caesars Bowl: Western Michigan vs. Purdue (4:30 PM, ESPN): I have to at least give them credit for not calling this the Pizza Bowl as a Little Caesars Pizza Bowl sounds like one of the most sickening food items that could ever be imagined by the minds at KFC, who I believe are now encouraged to think up the most mind boggling items for their menu. Heck, I always felt that Little Caesars was always a little underrated in the mass produced pizza department so kudos for them for some solid marketing. Sadly, this bowl game might be the least interesting one of the year as it features a game that you would expect to see in the middle of September. In all honesty these teams may have already played this year and no one would notice. Tune in to see the world’s largest bass drum that plays a major role in Purdue’s band. Or spend the game drinking boilermakers whenever Purdue touches the ball and listening to MC5 songs whenever Western Michigan does. It will certainly make the game go faster.
Belk Bowl: Louisville vs. North Carolina State (8 PM, ESPN): Ok, new rule. Bowl games are no longer allowed to be named after sound effects from the old Batman television show. I swear that once Robin hit one of Penguin’s henchmen and “Belk” came up on screen. (By the way, I really want a story surrounding the temp agency that hires out henchmen to super-villains. Obviously someone has filled that market niche as I find it difficult to think that the Joker has his own HR department.) For those wondering Wikipedia informed me that Belk is the name of a department store as opposed to the electrical supply company that I originally imagined it to be. This will be a perfectly acceptable football game featuring two teams that you haven’t watched all year but who you know have football teams. That is the essence of bowl season, the time of year where you are so frazzled from having to spend time with family that watching a North Carolina State football game seems like a welcome respite from real life. Also, feel free to use Belk as your new all-purpose profanity. “What a Belky thing to say”, “She is such a Belk”, “What the Belk?” Works great.
Tomorrow I will go through the New Year’s Eve games and will feature rants on Notre Dame, Illinois, Jersey Shore and reasonably priced chicken sandwiches.
Best of 120 Minutes: I still have to write up something about R.E.M.’s official retirement but this will have to do for now.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Paying for noise
As always, I swear I am not making any of this up.
Kim has introduced me to the wonders of using a sound machine to fall asleep. It is something that took a little while to get used to as the first few nights resulted in my lying awake in bed trying to find the pattern in white noise. I mean, it couldn’t all be random static, could it? Anyway, after a while it just became a part of my routine to use a sound machine.
This led to several years of buying sound machines and then having them come to rather unfortunate ends. One blew up when I plugged it into an outlet in Iceland where, despite the fact that the converter I purchased specifically stated that it could be used worldwide, apparently has an electric grid developed by magical elves. Another was destroyed on a cruise shi[ when I mistakenly set the ourlet to European voltage instead of American. Yes, that does cause Kim to question just how I earned a degree in electrical engineering. On other occasions I have been forced to purchase a sound machine for an infant’s room as it was the only one that I could find. In that case I recommend not using the heartbeat or womb noises because they are incredibly freaky and will give you nightmares. It might explain why we are all so screwed up.
In any case I always end up buying sound machines, which typically meant a trip to Brookstone to be the only person who isn’t there just to sit in the massaging chair. Then a few weeks ago Kim was out of town and had forgotten her sound machine. I thought, “Hey, we have free mobile to mobile minutes, why don’t I just put my phone next to my sound machine and she can put her phone on speaker all night.” That didn’t work well and she spent the night sans white noise. In the middle of the night I wake up and go, “Hey, I bêt there is an iPhone app for a sound machine. She should download that.” I then immediately had three thoughts come to mind.
1) It would have been really useful if I had thought of that four hours ago so I could have helped out my wife.
2) It would have been really useful if I had thought of that a year or two ago so I wouldn’t have spent several hundred dollars on machines that have since broken.
3) It would have been even better if I had written the code for this app a few years ago when I, you know, happened to be making a living by promoting apps on cell phones.
I am still not sure which one of these three pissed me off the most, though I am most upset about the first one. But I couldn’t believe that I had missed such a simple market opportunity. All a sound machine is a speaker with a recorded sound loop on it. It probably takes five seconds to write the code for the app and someone did it and made a ton of money and I could have done it if I recognized the opportunity. It’s really upsetting to realize that you were dumb as a rock in your past (even though I realize that I am done in the present every day.)
The interesting thing about this, and why I am telling the story, is that when people talk about taking advantage of opportunities the challenge is less having the courage to take advantage but being aware that the opportunities exist. I’ve been on the cutting edge of two of the major technical revolutions in my lifetime: I was one of the first people on the web using Mosaic at Illinois and then I worked in mobile data just as cell phones were taking off. In both instances I recognized what was happening but didn’t really figure out how to take advantage of it. The web was just a neat toy and even I didn’t quite grasp the ubiquitousness of cell phones (though I think my argument that no one will ever watch TV on a phone has taken hold.) Sometimes you need the ability to take a step back and see the bigger picture and realize where the gaps are.
By the way, anyone need a sound machine suitable for an infant? It has two settings: soothing lullabye or gurgling hellbeast.
Kim has introduced me to the wonders of using a sound machine to fall asleep. It is something that took a little while to get used to as the first few nights resulted in my lying awake in bed trying to find the pattern in white noise. I mean, it couldn’t all be random static, could it? Anyway, after a while it just became a part of my routine to use a sound machine.
This led to several years of buying sound machines and then having them come to rather unfortunate ends. One blew up when I plugged it into an outlet in Iceland where, despite the fact that the converter I purchased specifically stated that it could be used worldwide, apparently has an electric grid developed by magical elves. Another was destroyed on a cruise shi[ when I mistakenly set the ourlet to European voltage instead of American. Yes, that does cause Kim to question just how I earned a degree in electrical engineering. On other occasions I have been forced to purchase a sound machine for an infant’s room as it was the only one that I could find. In that case I recommend not using the heartbeat or womb noises because they are incredibly freaky and will give you nightmares. It might explain why we are all so screwed up.
In any case I always end up buying sound machines, which typically meant a trip to Brookstone to be the only person who isn’t there just to sit in the massaging chair. Then a few weeks ago Kim was out of town and had forgotten her sound machine. I thought, “Hey, we have free mobile to mobile minutes, why don’t I just put my phone next to my sound machine and she can put her phone on speaker all night.” That didn’t work well and she spent the night sans white noise. In the middle of the night I wake up and go, “Hey, I bêt there is an iPhone app for a sound machine. She should download that.” I then immediately had three thoughts come to mind.
1) It would have been really useful if I had thought of that four hours ago so I could have helped out my wife.
2) It would have been really useful if I had thought of that a year or two ago so I wouldn’t have spent several hundred dollars on machines that have since broken.
3) It would have been even better if I had written the code for this app a few years ago when I, you know, happened to be making a living by promoting apps on cell phones.
I am still not sure which one of these three pissed me off the most, though I am most upset about the first one. But I couldn’t believe that I had missed such a simple market opportunity. All a sound machine is a speaker with a recorded sound loop on it. It probably takes five seconds to write the code for the app and someone did it and made a ton of money and I could have done it if I recognized the opportunity. It’s really upsetting to realize that you were dumb as a rock in your past (even though I realize that I am done in the present every day.)
The interesting thing about this, and why I am telling the story, is that when people talk about taking advantage of opportunities the challenge is less having the courage to take advantage but being aware that the opportunities exist. I’ve been on the cutting edge of two of the major technical revolutions in my lifetime: I was one of the first people on the web using Mosaic at Illinois and then I worked in mobile data just as cell phones were taking off. In both instances I recognized what was happening but didn’t really figure out how to take advantage of it. The web was just a neat toy and even I didn’t quite grasp the ubiquitousness of cell phones (though I think my argument that no one will ever watch TV on a phone has taken hold.) Sometimes you need the ability to take a step back and see the bigger picture and realize where the gaps are.
By the way, anyone need a sound machine suitable for an infant? It has two settings: soothing lullabye or gurgling hellbeast.
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Forgotten MTV Personalities: Volume One
Inspired by the book “I Want my MTV” I am starting a new recurring feature in which we examine some of the legendary characters of the Golden Era of MTV…
VJ’s always came in different shapes and styles. There were always the cute girl next door types or the comedian or the guy who is best known for his hair (few people know that widescreen TVs were invented solely to fully capture the glory of Adam Curry’s mane.) But only one WV existed solely to be the grunge DJ and that is our old friend, Steve Isaacs.
Featuring a look that screamed either “Seattle” or “That guy who sits in the fourth row of your English 103 class” Steve Isaacs ushered MTV into an era of Pearl Jam and Nirvana and left once we reached the era of Bush and Silverchair and completely disavowed all knowledge of the network by the time of Limp Bizkit. He was an example of 120 Minutes becoming mainstream as we no longer require a British accent to denote what was cool or not. Even if that was by having a kind of goofy, skinny guy with long hair act as the representative for an entire generation.
I have to be completely honest here, before reading I Want My MTV I could not for the life of me remember this guy and certainly not his name. But I guarantee that once people my age look at his picture we all immediately remember him. That was one of the wonders of MTV where even the minor celebrities became an integral part of our lives because they were always there. But more accurately, Steve Isaacs was probably the first VJ that I can remember who I legitimately thought that I could know in real life.
Because that really was the way a group of us were in the early 90’s. Ok, maybe I did not have the long hair and I wore less flannel but the idea of being young and really into this new type of music and having an almost childlike enthusiasm about it. We hung out at record stores at 11:55 on Monday nights just so we could get the new releases at midnight because we just had to have that new Breeders CD immediately. We made mixtapes and spent our free time rummaging through used CD racks trying to find some hidden gem. We thought we were unique but really we were just enjoying the thrill of youth and experiencing life on our own terms.
So cheers to you, Steve Isaacs. Once Pearl Jam no longer required MTV neither did you or any other member of Generation X. And who could sit through a Bush video anyway.
Wednesday Night Music Club: I’ve been listening to a lot of Jason Isbell recently. He is a former member of the Drive-By Truckers and might be one of the best songwriters around today. Give him a listen.
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
Cursive! Foiled again
It was in the news last week that Indiana lawmakers were looking to pass legislation to require that the Indiana Department of Education require the teaching of cursive in schools. This raises numerous questions like “Are these the same legislators that decided that daylight savings time did not exist until three years ago?” or “Didn’t they once almost pass a bill that stated that the value of Pi was three?” or “Wow, I didn’t even think Indiana had a department of education?” But mainly it makes you wonder about writing in cursive and what skills from my youth are no longer necessary.
(By the way, I am not kidding about the whole Pi being equal to three thing. There literally was a bill that nearly passed the Indiana legislature which would have made that true. One of my favorite pieces of math trivia ever. Also, I must be the only person who not only has a favorite piece of math trivia but also has numerous lesser quality pieces of math trivia in his repertoire. Sigh.)
I don’t know about anyone else but I was taught how to write in cursive in third grade on that weird three line paper with the light line to show how high to make the smaller letters. I will say that I was taught cursive but I don’t think I can say that I ever mastered it. My handwriting was always atrocious. I knew what all the letters looked like (including the fact that a capital Q looked way to much like a 2 than it should) but I could never write them in any manner that anyone else could read. I’m pretty sure teachers never read anything that I wrote, they just assumed that I was smart and graded appropriately. Throughout grade school I was forced to write in cursive and once I was given some more flexibility in high school I started printing everything. My handwriting still sucks but it is at least vaguely legible now. The only thing I write in cursive is my signature.
In fact, I am probably old fashioned in the way that I still write down anything. At least at work I have my daily notes for the day written in a notebook and I will always write my to do lists on paper. Most people would just use their laptops to keep notes and text or email messages. I know that I am the last person to have actually written a letter and I bet most students would rather take notes electronically than in a battered notebook. Cursive seems like a completely foreign skill.
I’m not sure where I fall in the debate, though. You certainly do not need cursive in order to survive in modern society. I honestly can’t remember the last time that I have needed to read cursive in real life. From a practical matter it is a completely useless skill that does not provide you with any measurable advantage. But there is a part of me that still remembers learning cursive as being a major portion of growing up for one reason…
As a kid I would go to the library and check out collections of Peanuts cartoons. I would read them and always be upset when I got to a series of strips with Charlie Brown writing to his pencil pal. Since he wrote in cursive I could never understand the strips. Learning cursive in third grade allowed me to get the jokes. In some way that made me feel like I was growing up. I think kids need to have those little victories. Makes life a little easier to handle.
Monday, December 05, 2011
A return of sorts...
On the plane tonight I finished Julian Barnes’ “The Sense of an Ending.” In and of itself that probably is not reason enough to restart the blog. If what I read is the inspiration for posting again then my devouring “I Want my MTV”, the oral history of the first decade of MTV, would be the top choice. But the book has put some thoughts in my mind that tie into what I’ve been thinking about recently and why I wanted to start writing again.
The novel, which is a very good read, focuses upon perception and memory and how we interpret our own past. We each consider ourselves to be the hero of our own story and we have created a mythology of our own legend. These memories define who we are but as we get older the question as to whether those memories are real or not become more and more in doubt. As Barnes writes, “History can be viewed as the lies of the winners or the self-delusions of the defeated.”
This made me think about how we document our lives, whether through pictures or videos or words. One of the reasons that I write is that I find it therapeutic to keep a record of my thoughts. Not that I feel that there is any historic value to them. In fact, for years I kept all of my writings to myself. It is not really what I write that is important as the pure act of writing and getting my thoughts out. For some reason I best express myself by looking at a screen and letting words flow from my fingers. I am more thoughtful and eloquent in this form and when I stop writing it effects who I am as a person. And I’ve spent too long of a time not writing and it is really becoming noticeable.
Battling the Current really is a record of who I am, or more accurately who I was. I wrote constantly from November 2004 until March 2011, which would just happen to correspond to when I got married. Now there are a lot of reasons as to why I stopped writing (mainly getting married, moving and switching jobs in the same week made my life so stressful that I can’t really describe it) but one major point is that the story behind the blog had come to an end. I started the blog to document my journey of being on my own, going out and trying to find the woman of my dreams. Once that story was completed I had no idea what the new story would be, which is a fancy way of saying that I was really wondering where my life was headed next.
I think I have it now. I still have a lot of growing to do and striving to become the man that I want to be. For years that was about creating that image as I sat at the end of a bar and looked at my reflection in the mirror. Now it is about more being than image and to stop paying lip service. The stories of our own histories that we tell ourselves are not always true. Sometimes you have to face some harsh lights. But that is how we grow. And that journey is what the next phase of my writing is going to be about.
So yes, I am back to writing every day. And yes, it will be the usual mix of pop culture and discussions of a bizarre world and the occasional derogatory reference to the state of Kansas. Some things never change. But the story has changed directions.
The novel, which is a very good read, focuses upon perception and memory and how we interpret our own past. We each consider ourselves to be the hero of our own story and we have created a mythology of our own legend. These memories define who we are but as we get older the question as to whether those memories are real or not become more and more in doubt. As Barnes writes, “History can be viewed as the lies of the winners or the self-delusions of the defeated.”
This made me think about how we document our lives, whether through pictures or videos or words. One of the reasons that I write is that I find it therapeutic to keep a record of my thoughts. Not that I feel that there is any historic value to them. In fact, for years I kept all of my writings to myself. It is not really what I write that is important as the pure act of writing and getting my thoughts out. For some reason I best express myself by looking at a screen and letting words flow from my fingers. I am more thoughtful and eloquent in this form and when I stop writing it effects who I am as a person. And I’ve spent too long of a time not writing and it is really becoming noticeable.
Battling the Current really is a record of who I am, or more accurately who I was. I wrote constantly from November 2004 until March 2011, which would just happen to correspond to when I got married. Now there are a lot of reasons as to why I stopped writing (mainly getting married, moving and switching jobs in the same week made my life so stressful that I can’t really describe it) but one major point is that the story behind the blog had come to an end. I started the blog to document my journey of being on my own, going out and trying to find the woman of my dreams. Once that story was completed I had no idea what the new story would be, which is a fancy way of saying that I was really wondering where my life was headed next.
I think I have it now. I still have a lot of growing to do and striving to become the man that I want to be. For years that was about creating that image as I sat at the end of a bar and looked at my reflection in the mirror. Now it is about more being than image and to stop paying lip service. The stories of our own histories that we tell ourselves are not always true. Sometimes you have to face some harsh lights. But that is how we grow. And that journey is what the next phase of my writing is going to be about.
So yes, I am back to writing every day. And yes, it will be the usual mix of pop culture and discussions of a bizarre world and the occasional derogatory reference to the state of Kansas. Some things never change. But the story has changed directions.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Hitting the gym
Sorry for the break between posts but as you obviously know it was The Gathering of the Juggalos this weekend so I had to make my way to Cave-In-Rock to hang out with my fellow ninjas. Dude, they had a ferris wheel there this year…
(I’m scared for the people who will actually get the reference. For a while there whenever anyone asked me about where we were going on our honeymoon I would answer “Gathering of the Juggalos, best honeymoon ever.” It would result in either a) blank stares or b) people backing away very slowly. The things I do to enjoy myself….
By the way, honeymoon was in Alaska.)
So, since I took my break from posting I have gotten on a huge workout kick. (Kim has as well and she is just doing amazing.) As I’ve written about before I’ve been trying to get my weight under control and I am proud to say that I am now at 185 pounds, basically 30 pounds lighter than I was at my heaviest last year. This is the lightest I have been for at least five years and maybe closer to ten. It is nice to have clothes that no longer fit because they are too big.
I am working with a trainer. Well, more like trainers. I’m on to my third different trainer in Chicago as the first two both left the gym under mysterious circumstances. I am not making this up. I’d go to the gym for my usual appointment only to be told that my trainer no longer works there. Given that I’ve only been using the gym for less than four months this is a pretty big degree of turnover. It sucks in that I have to get used to a new trainer and start over again but I have learned a few things in the process.
Basically I am working on building muscle and improving my flexibility and balance. I am pretty bad at all three at the present moment. I have no flexibility in my legs at all and I am embarrassed to say that simply standing on one leg without tipping over can be a challenge at times. I’ve never really carried much muscle and because of my injury history I’ve been more than a little frightened about lifting weights. I have been surprised at how well the weight lifting is going though. My shoulder and hip aren’t bothering me too badly and I’ve been making progress.
Cardio is still where I am best. Not that I am particularly fast on a treadmill or the elliptical. I can just go for a long time. Not sure if this is because of my training or the fact that I have a high tolerance for boredom. It takes a certain type of person to go for an hour on a treadmill and being an athlete is not really one of the requirements.
What has been so good about this is that it hasn’t really been about losing weight. I am happy that I am and especially that I am no longer, medically speaking, overweight but I am really focused on how I feel and what I can now do. I’ve been making huge progress and really look forward to my workouts (even my 7 AM sessions with my trainer.) It is a great stress release and I just feel so much better. It is pretty amazing that I am going to be turning 38 and might possibly be in the best shape of my life. Not a bad time to get in shape.
(I’m scared for the people who will actually get the reference. For a while there whenever anyone asked me about where we were going on our honeymoon I would answer “Gathering of the Juggalos, best honeymoon ever.” It would result in either a) blank stares or b) people backing away very slowly. The things I do to enjoy myself….
By the way, honeymoon was in Alaska.)
So, since I took my break from posting I have gotten on a huge workout kick. (Kim has as well and she is just doing amazing.) As I’ve written about before I’ve been trying to get my weight under control and I am proud to say that I am now at 185 pounds, basically 30 pounds lighter than I was at my heaviest last year. This is the lightest I have been for at least five years and maybe closer to ten. It is nice to have clothes that no longer fit because they are too big.
I am working with a trainer. Well, more like trainers. I’m on to my third different trainer in Chicago as the first two both left the gym under mysterious circumstances. I am not making this up. I’d go to the gym for my usual appointment only to be told that my trainer no longer works there. Given that I’ve only been using the gym for less than four months this is a pretty big degree of turnover. It sucks in that I have to get used to a new trainer and start over again but I have learned a few things in the process.
Basically I am working on building muscle and improving my flexibility and balance. I am pretty bad at all three at the present moment. I have no flexibility in my legs at all and I am embarrassed to say that simply standing on one leg without tipping over can be a challenge at times. I’ve never really carried much muscle and because of my injury history I’ve been more than a little frightened about lifting weights. I have been surprised at how well the weight lifting is going though. My shoulder and hip aren’t bothering me too badly and I’ve been making progress.
Cardio is still where I am best. Not that I am particularly fast on a treadmill or the elliptical. I can just go for a long time. Not sure if this is because of my training or the fact that I have a high tolerance for boredom. It takes a certain type of person to go for an hour on a treadmill and being an athlete is not really one of the requirements.
What has been so good about this is that it hasn’t really been about losing weight. I am happy that I am and especially that I am no longer, medically speaking, overweight but I am really focused on how I feel and what I can now do. I’ve been making huge progress and really look forward to my workouts (even my 7 AM sessions with my trainer.) It is a great stress release and I just feel so much better. It is pretty amazing that I am going to be turning 38 and might possibly be in the best shape of my life. Not a bad time to get in shape.
Wednesday, August 03, 2011
MTV: The First 30 Years (Part Two)
The second half of the top ten icons / shows / events in the 30 year history of MTV. Well, actually just the next three so there is a third half coming tomorrow.
Tabitha Soren: Since MTV is one of those constants in the life of every teenager / twentysomething over the past thirty years the network has an interesting commonality: every member of Gen X and Y had a young crush on one of the personalities. If I was a little older it would be Martha Quinn but know, Tabitha Soren is the one that stole my heart. From the moment she first appeared (as one of the girls in the party in the Beastie Boys video “You’ve got to fight for your right”) to her place at the side of Kurt Loder (making him even more of a creepy old man) she was smart, cool, hip and everything that college me wanted in a girlfriend. Yes, I fell for a news reporter who ended up marrying the guy who wrote “The Blind Side”. I was a rather troubled youth in retrospect.
MTV Animation (Liquid Television / Aeon Flux / Beavis and Butthead / Daria / The Head / The Maxx and maybe Clone High): I hate the fact that MTV now has nothing to do with music. Here are the shows that I can name that are on MTV right now: Real World, Real World / Road Rules Challenge, Jersey Shore, Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant. None of those shows screams Music Television to me. Yet some of my favorite MTV shows of all time had absolutely nothing to do music. They were just really good cartoons.
It all started with Liquid Television, which was a rather bizarre show when you think about it. Airing on Sunday night it was just 30 minutes of short animated sketches some of which were pretty avant garde. They didn’t relate to music or much of anything. They existed just to be cool. The show gave us Aeon Flux, an anime type show with no dialogue and the heroine seeming to die at the end of every single statement with no explanation of what the hell was going on. It was just people being shot over and over again. Needless to say it was super cool.
It also gave us Beavis and Butthead, a show I should not even need to discuss. Even better, Beavis and Butthead gave us Daria, which was probably the smartest show on television in the late 90’s. Add in the one offs of The Head (a guilty pleasure of mine) and The Maxx (closest thing I’ve ever seen to a graphic novel on screen) and you have something that it would take Cartoon Network a decade to figure out how to do it with Adult Swim. It may have set the network on the wrong path in terms of getting away from music but it hit the mark in terms of quality entertainment.
(Oh, and bonus points for showing old Speed Racer episodes at one point in the early 90’s.)
120 Minutes / Alternative Nation: Over the past few years I’ve continually written about Gen X and alternative music, whatever that means. In reality what I am mainly focusing on is that the music that I wanted to hear in high school and what I could actually find on MTV were two completely different things. If you watched the wonderful show Dial MTV (which was Total Request Live with Adam Curry playing Carson Daly and wasn’t live) all you would see is Bon Jovi and Def Leppard and Poison and Motley Crue and maybe even New Kids on the Block. I know that people have all of this nostalgic love for these bands and post on Facebook how thrilled they are to see them in concert but let’s face it: they sucked then and they suck now. That music just meant nothing to me.
But for two hours on Sunday night MTV played music that did mean something to me. Or at least I thought it should mean something to me as British guys with bad hair who were also wearing makeup for some unknown reason must have something important to say. As someone who wasn’t the popular kid in school and was never going to be I turned to music that was unique, was different, was something else. That is what drew a crowd to 120 Minutes and its genre of music.
Then Nirvana broke and the entire scene became popular and suddenly Kennedy was hosting Alternative Nation and we were forced to listen to Bush videos and I had to become a fan of old timey country music to keep my uniqueness. Sigh. Here is an old R.E.M. video, which is probably the high point of the idea of 120 Minutes and also the epitome of a band where you were pissed that the guys who beat you up in the hallways liked the same band that you did.
Tabitha Soren: Since MTV is one of those constants in the life of every teenager / twentysomething over the past thirty years the network has an interesting commonality: every member of Gen X and Y had a young crush on one of the personalities. If I was a little older it would be Martha Quinn but know, Tabitha Soren is the one that stole my heart. From the moment she first appeared (as one of the girls in the party in the Beastie Boys video “You’ve got to fight for your right”) to her place at the side of Kurt Loder (making him even more of a creepy old man) she was smart, cool, hip and everything that college me wanted in a girlfriend. Yes, I fell for a news reporter who ended up marrying the guy who wrote “The Blind Side”. I was a rather troubled youth in retrospect.
MTV Animation (Liquid Television / Aeon Flux / Beavis and Butthead / Daria / The Head / The Maxx and maybe Clone High): I hate the fact that MTV now has nothing to do with music. Here are the shows that I can name that are on MTV right now: Real World, Real World / Road Rules Challenge, Jersey Shore, Teen Mom, 16 and Pregnant. None of those shows screams Music Television to me. Yet some of my favorite MTV shows of all time had absolutely nothing to do music. They were just really good cartoons.
It all started with Liquid Television, which was a rather bizarre show when you think about it. Airing on Sunday night it was just 30 minutes of short animated sketches some of which were pretty avant garde. They didn’t relate to music or much of anything. They existed just to be cool. The show gave us Aeon Flux, an anime type show with no dialogue and the heroine seeming to die at the end of every single statement with no explanation of what the hell was going on. It was just people being shot over and over again. Needless to say it was super cool.
It also gave us Beavis and Butthead, a show I should not even need to discuss. Even better, Beavis and Butthead gave us Daria, which was probably the smartest show on television in the late 90’s. Add in the one offs of The Head (a guilty pleasure of mine) and The Maxx (closest thing I’ve ever seen to a graphic novel on screen) and you have something that it would take Cartoon Network a decade to figure out how to do it with Adult Swim. It may have set the network on the wrong path in terms of getting away from music but it hit the mark in terms of quality entertainment.
(Oh, and bonus points for showing old Speed Racer episodes at one point in the early 90’s.)
120 Minutes / Alternative Nation: Over the past few years I’ve continually written about Gen X and alternative music, whatever that means. In reality what I am mainly focusing on is that the music that I wanted to hear in high school and what I could actually find on MTV were two completely different things. If you watched the wonderful show Dial MTV (which was Total Request Live with Adam Curry playing Carson Daly and wasn’t live) all you would see is Bon Jovi and Def Leppard and Poison and Motley Crue and maybe even New Kids on the Block. I know that people have all of this nostalgic love for these bands and post on Facebook how thrilled they are to see them in concert but let’s face it: they sucked then and they suck now. That music just meant nothing to me.
But for two hours on Sunday night MTV played music that did mean something to me. Or at least I thought it should mean something to me as British guys with bad hair who were also wearing makeup for some unknown reason must have something important to say. As someone who wasn’t the popular kid in school and was never going to be I turned to music that was unique, was different, was something else. That is what drew a crowd to 120 Minutes and its genre of music.
Then Nirvana broke and the entire scene became popular and suddenly Kennedy was hosting Alternative Nation and we were forced to listen to Bush videos and I had to become a fan of old timey country music to keep my uniqueness. Sigh. Here is an old R.E.M. video, which is probably the high point of the idea of 120 Minutes and also the epitome of a band where you were pissed that the guys who beat you up in the hallways liked the same band that you did.
Tuesday, August 02, 2011
MTV: The First Thirty Year (Part One)
So MTV turned thirty years old yesterday and as someone who was seven when MTV first went on the air that makes me a) highly qualified to discuss the societal impacts of MTV and b) really freaking old. Anyway, so I’ve decided that I will list, in no particular order, the ten moments / shows / events that epitomized MTV for Gen X. Five tonight, five tomorrow. Here we go.
Live Aid: This is still the only major concert event of my lifetime that I actually remember sitting down and watching because it was “important”. It was the absolute biggest story of the summer. People were expecting to see a Beatles reunion with Julian Lennon taking the place of John. Yes, that would have been horrendous but cool nonetheless. It was the highlight of the year of charity songs from the good (“Do They Know It’s Christmastime?”) to the bad (“We are the World”) to the really, really confusing (“Ain’t going to play Sun City”, which was difficult for a 12 year old to fully grasp as playing a gig at a South African resort wasn’t on my list of regular events.)
So most people remember the event, raising money for Ethiopia and making Bob Geldof famous for something other than the “I Don’t Like Mondays” song but not for the show itself. The thing is, it was actually a pretty good concert. Status Quo opened the show, a band you know as the writers of “Matchstick Man”, which is now a Target commercial after previously being the only Camper Van Beethoven song anyone ever remembered. In England you had great sets by Queen and U2 (Bono jumping into the crowd to dance with a woman during “Bad”) and an ending with pretty much everyone in British music on stage. Philadelphia had Madonna, Tom Petty and a Led Zeppelin reunion. There has been no other time where everyone was focused on a charity concert in my lifetime and MTV was the way to see it.
Kurt Loder: Ah, the face of the network. One of the most amazing things about rock music is that the people who cover rock music are the least rocking people on the planet. As a result you end up with someone like Kurt Loder, who looked like your buddy’s kind of dorky dad, on the air twice an hour to give you updates on the release of Whitesnake’s new album. Add in an hour long “Week in Rock” (because there is so much music news it needed its own recap show) and you slowly begin to realize that Kurt Loder was the Walter Cronkite of Gen X. He was the one who told us that Kurt Cobain was dead. If Kurt Loder said it than it had to be true.
Remote Control: Dead or Canadian? No game show will ever have a better category, setup, overall concept or run than Remote Control. Hands down the best game show I’ve ever watched and if you put out a DVD of the episodes I would buy it and watch them all. Taking place in the late, great Ken Ober’s basement you have three college students sitting in Lay-Z-Boy recliners with a bowl of popcorn in their laps answering trivia questions. Sometimes they had to sing along with Colin Quinn, sometimes they had to complete a math question while a bishop raced around the studio (Beat the Bishop) and once LL Cool J came out just to help out one of the contestants. If you lost your chair went flying through a wall. Adam Sandler and Dennis Leary would play random characters. It was insane and funny and the best half hour you could spend in an afternoon in high school.
But what I really want to write about is the game’s bonus round, which is probably the most challenging thing I have ever seen on a game show. You are strapped into a Craftmatic adjustable bed and are facing nine different television screens, all of which are at different angles. Each screen has a different music video on it. To win you had to name all nine bands in thirty seconds. This was a perfect competition as you got to play along at home while the contestant has it worse because I don’t think that I could recognize a Cinderella video that was being played upside down.
Julie and Becky from The Real World (Season One): The reality show that started it all. I am not talking about the show in general as I believe it is now essentially just “throw seven people in a space and encourage them to sleep with each other in various combinations so we will have more contestants for the inevitable Road Rules / Real World challenges.” The first season, particularly Julie and Becky, is what made the show.
The first season of the Real World was the only one that was actually real. Of the seven people, six were actually from New York with Julie being the innocent girl with a nice southern accent trying to make it in the big city. Everyone looked like they belonged in NYC. You could see Becky trying to be the uber-hip artist, singer-songwriter or Andre leading a rather pathetic alternative band named Reigndance. I just finished my freshman year of college when it went on the air and if you asked me what it would be like to be living in New York after I graduated that would be precisely what I pictured.
That is what was great about the Real World. For a time period (for me it was from the first season through London) the show was precisely what you were going to. There were guys on the show that I wanted to drink with and get to know. Who wouldn’t want to hit a bar with Dominic from LA or Neil from London? There were the girls (Julie and Becky, obviously and also Kat from London) who you wanted to date. The show hit exactly what you were living. Then as I got older the show lost its meaning and I no longer knew the people by name but as “that drunk girl who is naked all the time” or “that douchebag who is going to probably end up being a congressman from Wisconsin”. Now I’m frightened to even turn the show on. Maybe it still speaks to a 20 year old. If so, I am simultaneously scared for our future and glad that I grew up when I did.
Pearl Jam and Neil Young playing “Keep on Rocking in the Free World” at the 1993 MTV Video Awards: This is my favorite performance in the history of MTV and the one that I can point to as a turning point in music. This is the end of MTV’s biggest show of the world and it features two performers that wouldn’t even have been broadcast on the network three years earlier. Hair metal was dead and grunge / alternative music was dead. As someone who never could relate to Motley Crue or Poison or any of the bands whose music seems to exist to play behind a stripper I was thrilled to finally have music that meant something to me take center stage. Even if meaning was just having the song end in a blare of feedback. Because that is what was going on in my head at the time. This song is just rebellion and strength and self preservation and everything that made the early 90’s great.
Live Aid: This is still the only major concert event of my lifetime that I actually remember sitting down and watching because it was “important”. It was the absolute biggest story of the summer. People were expecting to see a Beatles reunion with Julian Lennon taking the place of John. Yes, that would have been horrendous but cool nonetheless. It was the highlight of the year of charity songs from the good (“Do They Know It’s Christmastime?”) to the bad (“We are the World”) to the really, really confusing (“Ain’t going to play Sun City”, which was difficult for a 12 year old to fully grasp as playing a gig at a South African resort wasn’t on my list of regular events.)
So most people remember the event, raising money for Ethiopia and making Bob Geldof famous for something other than the “I Don’t Like Mondays” song but not for the show itself. The thing is, it was actually a pretty good concert. Status Quo opened the show, a band you know as the writers of “Matchstick Man”, which is now a Target commercial after previously being the only Camper Van Beethoven song anyone ever remembered. In England you had great sets by Queen and U2 (Bono jumping into the crowd to dance with a woman during “Bad”) and an ending with pretty much everyone in British music on stage. Philadelphia had Madonna, Tom Petty and a Led Zeppelin reunion. There has been no other time where everyone was focused on a charity concert in my lifetime and MTV was the way to see it.
Kurt Loder: Ah, the face of the network. One of the most amazing things about rock music is that the people who cover rock music are the least rocking people on the planet. As a result you end up with someone like Kurt Loder, who looked like your buddy’s kind of dorky dad, on the air twice an hour to give you updates on the release of Whitesnake’s new album. Add in an hour long “Week in Rock” (because there is so much music news it needed its own recap show) and you slowly begin to realize that Kurt Loder was the Walter Cronkite of Gen X. He was the one who told us that Kurt Cobain was dead. If Kurt Loder said it than it had to be true.
Remote Control: Dead or Canadian? No game show will ever have a better category, setup, overall concept or run than Remote Control. Hands down the best game show I’ve ever watched and if you put out a DVD of the episodes I would buy it and watch them all. Taking place in the late, great Ken Ober’s basement you have three college students sitting in Lay-Z-Boy recliners with a bowl of popcorn in their laps answering trivia questions. Sometimes they had to sing along with Colin Quinn, sometimes they had to complete a math question while a bishop raced around the studio (Beat the Bishop) and once LL Cool J came out just to help out one of the contestants. If you lost your chair went flying through a wall. Adam Sandler and Dennis Leary would play random characters. It was insane and funny and the best half hour you could spend in an afternoon in high school.
But what I really want to write about is the game’s bonus round, which is probably the most challenging thing I have ever seen on a game show. You are strapped into a Craftmatic adjustable bed and are facing nine different television screens, all of which are at different angles. Each screen has a different music video on it. To win you had to name all nine bands in thirty seconds. This was a perfect competition as you got to play along at home while the contestant has it worse because I don’t think that I could recognize a Cinderella video that was being played upside down.
Julie and Becky from The Real World (Season One): The reality show that started it all. I am not talking about the show in general as I believe it is now essentially just “throw seven people in a space and encourage them to sleep with each other in various combinations so we will have more contestants for the inevitable Road Rules / Real World challenges.” The first season, particularly Julie and Becky, is what made the show.
The first season of the Real World was the only one that was actually real. Of the seven people, six were actually from New York with Julie being the innocent girl with a nice southern accent trying to make it in the big city. Everyone looked like they belonged in NYC. You could see Becky trying to be the uber-hip artist, singer-songwriter or Andre leading a rather pathetic alternative band named Reigndance. I just finished my freshman year of college when it went on the air and if you asked me what it would be like to be living in New York after I graduated that would be precisely what I pictured.
That is what was great about the Real World. For a time period (for me it was from the first season through London) the show was precisely what you were going to. There were guys on the show that I wanted to drink with and get to know. Who wouldn’t want to hit a bar with Dominic from LA or Neil from London? There were the girls (Julie and Becky, obviously and also Kat from London) who you wanted to date. The show hit exactly what you were living. Then as I got older the show lost its meaning and I no longer knew the people by name but as “that drunk girl who is naked all the time” or “that douchebag who is going to probably end up being a congressman from Wisconsin”. Now I’m frightened to even turn the show on. Maybe it still speaks to a 20 year old. If so, I am simultaneously scared for our future and glad that I grew up when I did.
Pearl Jam and Neil Young playing “Keep on Rocking in the Free World” at the 1993 MTV Video Awards: This is my favorite performance in the history of MTV and the one that I can point to as a turning point in music. This is the end of MTV’s biggest show of the world and it features two performers that wouldn’t even have been broadcast on the network three years earlier. Hair metal was dead and grunge / alternative music was dead. As someone who never could relate to Motley Crue or Poison or any of the bands whose music seems to exist to play behind a stripper I was thrilled to finally have music that meant something to me take center stage. Even if meaning was just having the song end in a blare of feedback. Because that is what was going on in my head at the time. This song is just rebellion and strength and self preservation and everything that made the early 90’s great.
Monday, August 01, 2011
Starting over
Testing…testing…one two three….
Ok, and we’re back.
So yeah, this blog has been out of commission for several months. In fact, I don’t think I’ve posted anything for nearly five months, which is pretty amazing since I kept up a five night a week posting habit for over six years. After a period of spending most of my free time categorizing the whims of pop culture and the meandering path that is my life I just took some time off. I mean it’s not like I’ve done anything over the past few months…
Nope, I just got married, moved (to two different places) and started a new job. All in basically the same week. No challenges there at all.
Essentially the past several months of my life have been the most stressful that I have ever experienced. Basically every aspect of my daily routine was flipped upside down at once and it is only now that I am beginning to feel as though I’ve found my feet again. There were good times and bad times during that stretch and I was so busy addressing those issues that I just did not have the time or inclination to sit down and write every night. At some point in your life you realize that writing about Lindsay Lohan is not precisely the best way to spend your free time.
(That said, the fact that I timed my wedding with her being confined to house arrest may not be as coincidental as it may seem.)
But throughout all of this I have been intending to restart the blog. I haven’t had time to write and there were so many other priorities that it was placed in the back of my mind but it was always there. Writing is just a part of who I am. The sheer act of sitting down every night and writing for fifteen or twenty minutes just helps me relax. I’ve never even focused on how many people read this (or if it is written in proper English). I just like having an outlet to unload whatever is on my mind at the moment. Now that I finally feel like I have a schedule I really feel the need to start writing again.
Over the past few months, going back even before I stopped writing, I had been struggling with just what this blog is supposed to be about. When I started it in 2004 the goal was pretty simple: I was going to write about my efforts to build a social life in Kansas City while riffing on pop culture and music. And that was a blast, writing bar stories and talking about my horrible dating techniques. But then Kim came back into my life and we got engaged and are now, and I still can’t quite believe this, actually married. That part of my life, the guy sitting alone at the end of the bar sarcastically commenting on everything that crosses his path, is no longer there. And that put the blog in a strange place because I wasn’t sure what I was writing about anymore. Or to be honest, who was this EC character that was the focal point of the blog.
I’ve figured it out recently. After getting married I now really feel like an adult. It is probably sad that I am saying this at 37 but it really is true. My thinking has changed, my focus has changed and all of the little bull shit that I used to do and say now really bothers me. Not that I still don’t do it, I can still be the cynical asshole, but I’ve realized that is not who I want to be anymore. I want to be a good husband and a good guy and just be that person I’ve always wanted to be. I’m married to the woman of my dreams, someone who makes me smile just by being in the same room as her, and I want to be the man she deserves.
So that is what this blog is now going to be about. How I make that next step in my transformation: from that delayed adolescence that seems to plague Gen X males to being a full fledged adult. There will still be discussions about pop culture (such as a discussion of the 30 years of MTV tomorrow) and all of my usual tangents but that is going to be my new focus. It’s going to be a long journey and I’m still not quite sure how I will get there but I will comment on it all the same. I’ve got a co-pilot with me now, that makes all the difference in the world.
Ok, and we’re back.
So yeah, this blog has been out of commission for several months. In fact, I don’t think I’ve posted anything for nearly five months, which is pretty amazing since I kept up a five night a week posting habit for over six years. After a period of spending most of my free time categorizing the whims of pop culture and the meandering path that is my life I just took some time off. I mean it’s not like I’ve done anything over the past few months…
Nope, I just got married, moved (to two different places) and started a new job. All in basically the same week. No challenges there at all.
Essentially the past several months of my life have been the most stressful that I have ever experienced. Basically every aspect of my daily routine was flipped upside down at once and it is only now that I am beginning to feel as though I’ve found my feet again. There were good times and bad times during that stretch and I was so busy addressing those issues that I just did not have the time or inclination to sit down and write every night. At some point in your life you realize that writing about Lindsay Lohan is not precisely the best way to spend your free time.
(That said, the fact that I timed my wedding with her being confined to house arrest may not be as coincidental as it may seem.)
But throughout all of this I have been intending to restart the blog. I haven’t had time to write and there were so many other priorities that it was placed in the back of my mind but it was always there. Writing is just a part of who I am. The sheer act of sitting down every night and writing for fifteen or twenty minutes just helps me relax. I’ve never even focused on how many people read this (or if it is written in proper English). I just like having an outlet to unload whatever is on my mind at the moment. Now that I finally feel like I have a schedule I really feel the need to start writing again.
Over the past few months, going back even before I stopped writing, I had been struggling with just what this blog is supposed to be about. When I started it in 2004 the goal was pretty simple: I was going to write about my efforts to build a social life in Kansas City while riffing on pop culture and music. And that was a blast, writing bar stories and talking about my horrible dating techniques. But then Kim came back into my life and we got engaged and are now, and I still can’t quite believe this, actually married. That part of my life, the guy sitting alone at the end of the bar sarcastically commenting on everything that crosses his path, is no longer there. And that put the blog in a strange place because I wasn’t sure what I was writing about anymore. Or to be honest, who was this EC character that was the focal point of the blog.
I’ve figured it out recently. After getting married I now really feel like an adult. It is probably sad that I am saying this at 37 but it really is true. My thinking has changed, my focus has changed and all of the little bull shit that I used to do and say now really bothers me. Not that I still don’t do it, I can still be the cynical asshole, but I’ve realized that is not who I want to be anymore. I want to be a good husband and a good guy and just be that person I’ve always wanted to be. I’m married to the woman of my dreams, someone who makes me smile just by being in the same room as her, and I want to be the man she deserves.
So that is what this blog is now going to be about. How I make that next step in my transformation: from that delayed adolescence that seems to plague Gen X males to being a full fledged adult. There will still be discussions about pop culture (such as a discussion of the 30 years of MTV tomorrow) and all of my usual tangents but that is going to be my new focus. It’s going to be a long journey and I’m still not quite sure how I will get there but I will comment on it all the same. I’ve got a co-pilot with me now, that makes all the difference in the world.
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Let's get ready for a Super Blog
5:42 P.M.: And we are coming to you live from the Battling the Current Sports Headquarters for Super Blog 45! I am joined by…uh…Voltaire the Gargoyle that sits on my bookcase and Stanley the Black Bear carved out of a log that Kim and I got in Tennessee that sits on my dining room table. Yeah, my Super Bowl parties leave something to be desired.
5:43 P.M.: For those who haven’t been a part of my previous live blogs the rules are pretty simple. I watch and make cynical comments about what I see. Such as seeing Frank Caliendo impersonating Charles Barkley is both unfunny and vaguely disturbing.
5:46 P.M.: This is a strange game for me as I don’t really have a rooting interest. I’ve got a natural hatred for the Packers and cheering for Ben Rothelisberger makes me feel like I need to take a shower. I’m still pulling for the Steelers because I can’t stand to see people from Wisconsin happy,
5:49 P.M.: Also, I just want to state that for last year’s Super Bowl Kim and I happened to find ourselves in New Orleans watching the Saints win the Super Bowl in what was the biggest party that I have ever been a part of. Somehow I have a feeling that the experience in Delaware is not going to be quite the same.
6:18 P.M.: I apparently missed the reading of the Declaration of Independence and the team introductions due to watching the Puppy Bowl. But Jack the Black Lab is so cute! I turned back in time to see the Walter Payton award. I’m still pissed at Ditka for letting the Fridge score a touchdown in the Super Bowl over Payton.
6:20 P.M.: We now have someone from Glee singing America the Beautiful. No explanation is given other than “Hey, what can we do to get one of those kids from Glee on the show.”
6:22 P.M.: Christina Aguilera gets the nod for the national anthem. She has five Grammys? Who knew. I wish she would just sing the song straight. It’s not meant to be sung like you are auditioning for American Idol.
6:27 P.M.: Coin toss time! I’ve got 50 bucks on a Heads / Steelers parlay. Not that I have a gambling problem or anything…
6:30 P.M.: Richard Dent made the Hall of Fame. That is cool. And how the hell Ed Sabol from NFL Films took this long to get in is a travesty. Probably due to the fact that he made a mint by signing the deal before the league knew how much it was worth.
6:31 P.M.: Deion Sanders tosses it and it is heads! Got half of my parlay right though as the Steelers had tails. Oh well, at least Deion properly tossed the coin. Now on to the kickoff. Finally.
6:37 P.M.: Steelers go three and out but the punt is a comedy of errors leading to one of those fun fumble scrums but the Packers recover. Packers at least get a first down but do nothing much else. Time to the commercials.
6:44 P.M.: Bud Light gets the first commercial and, meh. Audi at least provides us with a Kenny G cameo for those of us who were wondering if Kenny G was still alive or not.
6:47 P.M.: Rashard Mendenhall is a former Illini. Just saying…
6:50 P.M.: Doritos is using the “let’s really disturb our customers” advertising technique while Pepsi just went with the always successful “let’s see a pretty girl get injured”. People getting hit in the head is fun!
6:57 P.M.: The Rock and Vin Diesel in the same movie? Maybe Vin could let the Rock know how his career is going to turn out. And Alex Rodriguez being with Cameron Diaz is both sad but fitting. Packers have put together the first actual drive of the game and are near the Steelers 30.
7:00 P.M.: Green Bay touchdown on a really nice pass play. The Old Milwaukee is flowing right now as well as wheels of cheddar.
7:02 P.M.: Seriously, I think Pepsi Max’s slogan is “Drink it or use it to bean someone in the head. Or the groin. Groin is probably funnier.”
7:07 P.M.: Well Big Ben just lobbed one up there in the vague direction of a receiver and Nick Collins intercepts it and takes it to the house making it a 14 – 0 Packers lead. I might be forced to do Puppy Bowl coverage. At least I’m not Eminem and have reached the point where I have to shill iced tea for a living.
7:23 P.M.: Steelers put together a nice little drive but it fizzles out with just a field goal to make it 14 – 3. I can also go without hearing the song Tiny Dancer or seeing another Transformers movie.
7:33 P.M.: The Volkswagen mini-Vader commercial is pretty awesome even if only for the fact that the commercial reminds me of myself when I was younger. I am not sure about the Thor movie though mainly because I was never a big fan of the Thor character. It just never seemed realistic to have a Norse god in comic books. Being bitten by a radioactive spider giving you the abilities of a spider makes sense; Norse gods less so. But hey, it’s another Natalie Portman movie. The Avengers might feature Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johannsen, Natalie Portman and Robin from How I Met Your Mother.
7:36 P.M.: I know that I am not doing much game analysis as for the most part I don’t have that much to say. The Steelers are moving the ball now but they are pretty beat up and it is only the first half. There is a lot of hard hits though no concussions so far.
7:40 P.M.: Snickers follows up on last year’s Betty White commercial by having Richard Lewis and Roseanne with Roseanne being hit by a log. I’m not anticipating either of them having as big a career comeback as Betty White did. Oh, and careerbuilder.com goes for the “monkeys equals jobs again.”
7:42 P.M.: Ben throws another interception. I’m hoping Byron Leftwitch makes it into the game if only because he was shown wearing his iPod on the sideline earlier.
7:45 P.M.: Another touchdown for Green Bay on a Rodgers to Jennings pass. This game is getting out of hand pretty fast. 21 – 3 Green Bay with about two minutes left in the first half.
7:50 P.M.: I really don’t need my car to access Facebook for me. In fact, I can’t think of a single time that I’ve been in my car and thought “you know what, I really wonder what random people I went to high school with are posting to Facebook right now.” Oh, and Carmax has the best commercial that I have seen so far tonight.
7:56 P.M.: Steelers put together a nice two minute drill combined with injuring much of the Green Bay secondary. That results in a touchdown to bring the score to 21 – 10. Game has gotten better but it really hasn’t been a spectacular game in any sense of the word. It’s been most notable for the number of players who have come off the field injured which is great for those of us who think that an eighteen game regular season is the worst idea ever.
8:00 P.M.: Halftime. Black Eyed Peas for those of you who are interested. I’m going to watch some puppies.
8:21 P.M.: Well, at least we know where all the excess Tron costumes went to…
8:31 P.M.: Charles Woodson is out of the game. As much as I want the Steelers to win I would prefer it not be a result of everyone on the Packers getting hurt. Also, even though a lot of people weren’t behind Woodson getting the Heisman all those years ago he did turn into one hell of an NFL player.
8:36 P.M.: Packers shooting themselves in the foot here. Dropped pass that could have been big and then a bad facemask penalty on the punt. Also, has the eTrade baby gotten older. And I am embarrassed to see Ozzy on the same set as Justin Bieber. Mainly because I am embarrassed to see Justin Bieber on a set.
8:42 P.M.: Rashard Mendenhall for the touchdown. Oskee Wow Wow!!! Note: I have no idea what Oskee Wow Wow and I have never met a fellow Illini who knew what it meant either. Steelers with all the momentum though they are down 21 – 17. Packers defense is just completely beat up at the moment and they don’t have a running game to try to hold a lead.
8:43 P.M.: “Cram it in the boot?” Yeah, that sounds vaguely….yeah. I’m pretty sure that will be talked about around the water cooler tomorrow though I don’t know if any offices have water coolers anymore.
8:49 P.M.: Packers have absolutely nothing going right now. Dropped pass, sack, they haven’t had a single good play in the second half. Apparently they were too depressed by the Black Eyed Peas halftime set and are in no condition to play now. Oh, and Groupon is using the “screw helping the planet when you can get a good deal on a dinner” advertising philosophy.
9:03 P.M.: Interesting little series of events there. Steelers try a 52 yard field goal and they would have been better off having that girl who delivered the game ball who wanted to be the first female NFL kicker take the try. Packers get the ball in good field position and immediately makes a nice play. In between Chrysler was alternating between advertising a car and Detroit itself with the second Eminem sighting of the night.
9:21 P.M.: End of the third quarter with the Steelers driving while down 21 – 17. I’m tiring. Please send buffalo wings or cute puppy dogs.
9:25 P.M.: Mendenhall, who probably never went to class anyway, fumbles the ball away to start the fourth quarter.
9:31 P.M.: Packers make a number of good plays ending with a Rodgers to Jennings touchdown pass. The story of the game has been the Steelers turning the ball over and the Packers making them pay. Also, Johnny Depp is apparently playing a lizard or Hunter S. Thompson or maybe both simultaneously. 28 – 17 Packers.
9:41 P.M.: Here is the problem with living in the eastern time zone. I’m dead tired right now and there is still eight minutes left in the game with the Steelers driving. This game is going to go down to the wire especially now that Pittsburgh just scored on a really nice pass to Wallace to make it 28 – 25 (including an option play to Radall-El (who is still in the NFL)). If I was in the Midwest it would be an hour earlier but no. Heck, if I wanted to watch Glee I would be up until midnight.
9:44 P.M.: Great Bridgestone commercial involving a beaver. Less impressive GoDaddy commercial involving….yeah, I’m better off not going there. I can’t wait until Jillian Michaels uses this as encouragement on the Biggest Loser, “work hard and you can be a GoDaddy girl.”
9:52 P.M.: While the Steelers have cut it close a big pass to Jennings and a run that actually moves the ball forward for once and the Packers have it within a long field goal range. They are slowly beginning to run down the clock with four minutes left.
9:56 P.M.: Packers add a field goal with two minutes left so it is 31 – 25. The game has turned into what most people thought it would: the ball in Roethlisberger hands with a chance to win. Should be a fun ending. Also, for once all of the people who ended up on the five line in the office pool have a chance to win. There is nothing worse in an office pool than ending up with a five.
10:03 P.M.: One minute left with third and five from the Steelers 33 and it is incomplete. One play left for the Steelers. And it is incomplete. That is ballgame.
10:05 P.M.: Not a bad game. More interesting than I thought it would be much of the time. The Steelers had every chance to win the game but they kept on blowing their chances. Turn it over three times and you will lose. Simple as that.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) The Blacks “Just Like Home”
2) Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit “Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit”
3) The Sundays “Blind”
4) The Shins “Chutes Too Narrow”
5) Terrence Simien “Jam the Jazzfest”
5:43 P.M.: For those who haven’t been a part of my previous live blogs the rules are pretty simple. I watch and make cynical comments about what I see. Such as seeing Frank Caliendo impersonating Charles Barkley is both unfunny and vaguely disturbing.
5:46 P.M.: This is a strange game for me as I don’t really have a rooting interest. I’ve got a natural hatred for the Packers and cheering for Ben Rothelisberger makes me feel like I need to take a shower. I’m still pulling for the Steelers because I can’t stand to see people from Wisconsin happy,
5:49 P.M.: Also, I just want to state that for last year’s Super Bowl Kim and I happened to find ourselves in New Orleans watching the Saints win the Super Bowl in what was the biggest party that I have ever been a part of. Somehow I have a feeling that the experience in Delaware is not going to be quite the same.
6:18 P.M.: I apparently missed the reading of the Declaration of Independence and the team introductions due to watching the Puppy Bowl. But Jack the Black Lab is so cute! I turned back in time to see the Walter Payton award. I’m still pissed at Ditka for letting the Fridge score a touchdown in the Super Bowl over Payton.
6:20 P.M.: We now have someone from Glee singing America the Beautiful. No explanation is given other than “Hey, what can we do to get one of those kids from Glee on the show.”
6:22 P.M.: Christina Aguilera gets the nod for the national anthem. She has five Grammys? Who knew. I wish she would just sing the song straight. It’s not meant to be sung like you are auditioning for American Idol.
6:27 P.M.: Coin toss time! I’ve got 50 bucks on a Heads / Steelers parlay. Not that I have a gambling problem or anything…
6:30 P.M.: Richard Dent made the Hall of Fame. That is cool. And how the hell Ed Sabol from NFL Films took this long to get in is a travesty. Probably due to the fact that he made a mint by signing the deal before the league knew how much it was worth.
6:31 P.M.: Deion Sanders tosses it and it is heads! Got half of my parlay right though as the Steelers had tails. Oh well, at least Deion properly tossed the coin. Now on to the kickoff. Finally.
6:37 P.M.: Steelers go three and out but the punt is a comedy of errors leading to one of those fun fumble scrums but the Packers recover. Packers at least get a first down but do nothing much else. Time to the commercials.
6:44 P.M.: Bud Light gets the first commercial and, meh. Audi at least provides us with a Kenny G cameo for those of us who were wondering if Kenny G was still alive or not.
6:47 P.M.: Rashard Mendenhall is a former Illini. Just saying…
6:50 P.M.: Doritos is using the “let’s really disturb our customers” advertising technique while Pepsi just went with the always successful “let’s see a pretty girl get injured”. People getting hit in the head is fun!
6:57 P.M.: The Rock and Vin Diesel in the same movie? Maybe Vin could let the Rock know how his career is going to turn out. And Alex Rodriguez being with Cameron Diaz is both sad but fitting. Packers have put together the first actual drive of the game and are near the Steelers 30.
7:00 P.M.: Green Bay touchdown on a really nice pass play. The Old Milwaukee is flowing right now as well as wheels of cheddar.
7:02 P.M.: Seriously, I think Pepsi Max’s slogan is “Drink it or use it to bean someone in the head. Or the groin. Groin is probably funnier.”
7:07 P.M.: Well Big Ben just lobbed one up there in the vague direction of a receiver and Nick Collins intercepts it and takes it to the house making it a 14 – 0 Packers lead. I might be forced to do Puppy Bowl coverage. At least I’m not Eminem and have reached the point where I have to shill iced tea for a living.
7:23 P.M.: Steelers put together a nice little drive but it fizzles out with just a field goal to make it 14 – 3. I can also go without hearing the song Tiny Dancer or seeing another Transformers movie.
7:33 P.M.: The Volkswagen mini-Vader commercial is pretty awesome even if only for the fact that the commercial reminds me of myself when I was younger. I am not sure about the Thor movie though mainly because I was never a big fan of the Thor character. It just never seemed realistic to have a Norse god in comic books. Being bitten by a radioactive spider giving you the abilities of a spider makes sense; Norse gods less so. But hey, it’s another Natalie Portman movie. The Avengers might feature Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johannsen, Natalie Portman and Robin from How I Met Your Mother.
7:36 P.M.: I know that I am not doing much game analysis as for the most part I don’t have that much to say. The Steelers are moving the ball now but they are pretty beat up and it is only the first half. There is a lot of hard hits though no concussions so far.
7:40 P.M.: Snickers follows up on last year’s Betty White commercial by having Richard Lewis and Roseanne with Roseanne being hit by a log. I’m not anticipating either of them having as big a career comeback as Betty White did. Oh, and careerbuilder.com goes for the “monkeys equals jobs again.”
7:42 P.M.: Ben throws another interception. I’m hoping Byron Leftwitch makes it into the game if only because he was shown wearing his iPod on the sideline earlier.
7:45 P.M.: Another touchdown for Green Bay on a Rodgers to Jennings pass. This game is getting out of hand pretty fast. 21 – 3 Green Bay with about two minutes left in the first half.
7:50 P.M.: I really don’t need my car to access Facebook for me. In fact, I can’t think of a single time that I’ve been in my car and thought “you know what, I really wonder what random people I went to high school with are posting to Facebook right now.” Oh, and Carmax has the best commercial that I have seen so far tonight.
7:56 P.M.: Steelers put together a nice two minute drill combined with injuring much of the Green Bay secondary. That results in a touchdown to bring the score to 21 – 10. Game has gotten better but it really hasn’t been a spectacular game in any sense of the word. It’s been most notable for the number of players who have come off the field injured which is great for those of us who think that an eighteen game regular season is the worst idea ever.
8:00 P.M.: Halftime. Black Eyed Peas for those of you who are interested. I’m going to watch some puppies.
8:21 P.M.: Well, at least we know where all the excess Tron costumes went to…
8:31 P.M.: Charles Woodson is out of the game. As much as I want the Steelers to win I would prefer it not be a result of everyone on the Packers getting hurt. Also, even though a lot of people weren’t behind Woodson getting the Heisman all those years ago he did turn into one hell of an NFL player.
8:36 P.M.: Packers shooting themselves in the foot here. Dropped pass that could have been big and then a bad facemask penalty on the punt. Also, has the eTrade baby gotten older. And I am embarrassed to see Ozzy on the same set as Justin Bieber. Mainly because I am embarrassed to see Justin Bieber on a set.
8:42 P.M.: Rashard Mendenhall for the touchdown. Oskee Wow Wow!!! Note: I have no idea what Oskee Wow Wow and I have never met a fellow Illini who knew what it meant either. Steelers with all the momentum though they are down 21 – 17. Packers defense is just completely beat up at the moment and they don’t have a running game to try to hold a lead.
8:43 P.M.: “Cram it in the boot?” Yeah, that sounds vaguely….yeah. I’m pretty sure that will be talked about around the water cooler tomorrow though I don’t know if any offices have water coolers anymore.
8:49 P.M.: Packers have absolutely nothing going right now. Dropped pass, sack, they haven’t had a single good play in the second half. Apparently they were too depressed by the Black Eyed Peas halftime set and are in no condition to play now. Oh, and Groupon is using the “screw helping the planet when you can get a good deal on a dinner” advertising philosophy.
9:03 P.M.: Interesting little series of events there. Steelers try a 52 yard field goal and they would have been better off having that girl who delivered the game ball who wanted to be the first female NFL kicker take the try. Packers get the ball in good field position and immediately makes a nice play. In between Chrysler was alternating between advertising a car and Detroit itself with the second Eminem sighting of the night.
9:21 P.M.: End of the third quarter with the Steelers driving while down 21 – 17. I’m tiring. Please send buffalo wings or cute puppy dogs.
9:25 P.M.: Mendenhall, who probably never went to class anyway, fumbles the ball away to start the fourth quarter.
9:31 P.M.: Packers make a number of good plays ending with a Rodgers to Jennings touchdown pass. The story of the game has been the Steelers turning the ball over and the Packers making them pay. Also, Johnny Depp is apparently playing a lizard or Hunter S. Thompson or maybe both simultaneously. 28 – 17 Packers.
9:41 P.M.: Here is the problem with living in the eastern time zone. I’m dead tired right now and there is still eight minutes left in the game with the Steelers driving. This game is going to go down to the wire especially now that Pittsburgh just scored on a really nice pass to Wallace to make it 28 – 25 (including an option play to Radall-El (who is still in the NFL)). If I was in the Midwest it would be an hour earlier but no. Heck, if I wanted to watch Glee I would be up until midnight.
9:44 P.M.: Great Bridgestone commercial involving a beaver. Less impressive GoDaddy commercial involving….yeah, I’m better off not going there. I can’t wait until Jillian Michaels uses this as encouragement on the Biggest Loser, “work hard and you can be a GoDaddy girl.”
9:52 P.M.: While the Steelers have cut it close a big pass to Jennings and a run that actually moves the ball forward for once and the Packers have it within a long field goal range. They are slowly beginning to run down the clock with four minutes left.
9:56 P.M.: Packers add a field goal with two minutes left so it is 31 – 25. The game has turned into what most people thought it would: the ball in Roethlisberger hands with a chance to win. Should be a fun ending. Also, for once all of the people who ended up on the five line in the office pool have a chance to win. There is nothing worse in an office pool than ending up with a five.
10:03 P.M.: One minute left with third and five from the Steelers 33 and it is incomplete. One play left for the Steelers. And it is incomplete. That is ballgame.
10:05 P.M.: Not a bad game. More interesting than I thought it would be much of the time. The Steelers had every chance to win the game but they kept on blowing their chances. Turn it over three times and you will lose. Simple as that.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) The Blacks “Just Like Home”
2) Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit “Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit”
3) The Sundays “Blind”
4) The Shins “Chutes Too Narrow”
5) Terrence Simien “Jam the Jazzfest”
Thursday, February 03, 2011
The return of Beavis
I am not sure if I should take the following news with joy or dread: MTV is bringing back Beavis and Butthead. Yes, there are going to be all new episodes and everything. One of the best shows of the 90’s will return to the airwaves and…and…well, hopefully not ruin another aspect of my youth.
Now don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Beavis and Butthead. I own every DVD of the show that they have ever released, watched it religiously in my dorm room and post graduation and still quote episodes pretty much verbatim. I still think it is at times the funniest thing I have ever seen and Mike Judge has gone on to prove just how much of a comic genius that he is. However, I have a bad feeling about this.
Partly this is due to the fact that MTV has become a big pile of suck. Now I completely understand that I have aged out of MTV’s target market but I would at least think that I would understand what teenagers want to watch. Jersey Shore has its moments and it was fun when you could laugh at the characters but now you laugh at them while realizing that they are millionaires, which takes a lot of the fun out of it. Shows like Teen Mom or Baby Daddy or House of Skanks don’t really make one have great faith in the network.
Then there is the fact that a huge portion of the comedy in Beavis and Butthead were the critiques of the music videos. Some of the best parts were the two of them absolutely ripping on the bands or even praising something for being surprisingly awesome. That worked because MTV was all about videos at the time and everyone had a video. Now MTV does not show videos at all and I’m not sure if bands even make them other than to put something on YouTube. I’m not sure how they recreate those moments.
But I guess what is really worrying me is that Beavis and Butthead are ultimate symbols of the 90’s and Gen X and I don’t know if they will translate well into the 2010s. You can make the argument that dumb kids are dumb kids and that the humor is pretty much universal but I think that there is a basis to the entire setup that is pure 90s. The Metallica and AC/DC t-shirts (with Stewart wearing a Winger one). The sitting around watching basic cable. The endless quest for finding something to do. There were no cel phones or internet. In a modern version of Beavis and Butthead they would be online all day, watching midget porn and insulting people in newsgroups. They’d be abusing people on Facebook. It just isn’t the same. True it is just a case of misspent youth but the time I grew up is different than the present. You just can’t drop the characters in and have them act exactly the same.
Still, if we can get an appearance from Daria I won’t complain. And I always wondered what happened to Principal Vickers.
Now don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Beavis and Butthead. I own every DVD of the show that they have ever released, watched it religiously in my dorm room and post graduation and still quote episodes pretty much verbatim. I still think it is at times the funniest thing I have ever seen and Mike Judge has gone on to prove just how much of a comic genius that he is. However, I have a bad feeling about this.
Partly this is due to the fact that MTV has become a big pile of suck. Now I completely understand that I have aged out of MTV’s target market but I would at least think that I would understand what teenagers want to watch. Jersey Shore has its moments and it was fun when you could laugh at the characters but now you laugh at them while realizing that they are millionaires, which takes a lot of the fun out of it. Shows like Teen Mom or Baby Daddy or House of Skanks don’t really make one have great faith in the network.
Then there is the fact that a huge portion of the comedy in Beavis and Butthead were the critiques of the music videos. Some of the best parts were the two of them absolutely ripping on the bands or even praising something for being surprisingly awesome. That worked because MTV was all about videos at the time and everyone had a video. Now MTV does not show videos at all and I’m not sure if bands even make them other than to put something on YouTube. I’m not sure how they recreate those moments.
But I guess what is really worrying me is that Beavis and Butthead are ultimate symbols of the 90’s and Gen X and I don’t know if they will translate well into the 2010s. You can make the argument that dumb kids are dumb kids and that the humor is pretty much universal but I think that there is a basis to the entire setup that is pure 90s. The Metallica and AC/DC t-shirts (with Stewart wearing a Winger one). The sitting around watching basic cable. The endless quest for finding something to do. There were no cel phones or internet. In a modern version of Beavis and Butthead they would be online all day, watching midget porn and insulting people in newsgroups. They’d be abusing people on Facebook. It just isn’t the same. True it is just a case of misspent youth but the time I grew up is different than the present. You just can’t drop the characters in and have them act exactly the same.
Still, if we can get an appearance from Daria I won’t complain. And I always wondered what happened to Principal Vickers.
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
Why do I have a feeling that tomorrow will be exactly like today?
Lots of random thoughts tonight…
1) The groundhog either a) did not see his shadow today so spring will be arriving early or b) the groundhog was buried under an avalanche of snow and will not be able to see this spring whether it arrives early or not. According to the Pitch, option B may have actually occurred in KC where they attempted to install a groundhog at the Liberty Memorial without taking into account the fact that a blizzard was on its way. Poor little guy.
2) I have to admit that I am kind of bummed that I have missed out on the storm of the century. Everyone I know in Chicago is sending out pictures of four foot snow drifts and all I had out in Delaware was some freezing rain overnight. No snow days for us. Now it is true that I am glad that I do not have to dig out from the storm but I bet that it must have been amazing to watch. You just don’t get a good blizzard every year. Except if you go to Dairy Queen.
3) I was all behind the overthrow of the Egyptian government until I found out that the pro-Mubarek protesters beat up Andersen Cooper, which makes me think that maybe Mubarek isn’t that bad of a guy after all. Next time maybe Andersen will wear a collared shirt before he reports from some troubled region.
4) Oh, and I saw someone else post this comment today and I just have to steal it. Why doesn’t Egypt build pyramids anymore? It is all that they are known for yet they haven’t built one for what, 4,000 years now? The least they could do is provide us with another pyramid every 500 years or so don’t you think?
5) For the record My Beloved Lindsay did not steal that necklace. I gave it to her as a gift and I will testify to that in a court of law, presuming of course that the judge has little understanding of perjury laws. So basically I would testify in California to that.
6) Best headline on television today “Men on camels beating protestors with bats.” You don’t see that one every day.
Wednesday Night Music Club: Not sure if I ever posted this before. Probably my favorite Josh Ritter song.
1) The groundhog either a) did not see his shadow today so spring will be arriving early or b) the groundhog was buried under an avalanche of snow and will not be able to see this spring whether it arrives early or not. According to the Pitch, option B may have actually occurred in KC where they attempted to install a groundhog at the Liberty Memorial without taking into account the fact that a blizzard was on its way. Poor little guy.
2) I have to admit that I am kind of bummed that I have missed out on the storm of the century. Everyone I know in Chicago is sending out pictures of four foot snow drifts and all I had out in Delaware was some freezing rain overnight. No snow days for us. Now it is true that I am glad that I do not have to dig out from the storm but I bet that it must have been amazing to watch. You just don’t get a good blizzard every year. Except if you go to Dairy Queen.
3) I was all behind the overthrow of the Egyptian government until I found out that the pro-Mubarek protesters beat up Andersen Cooper, which makes me think that maybe Mubarek isn’t that bad of a guy after all. Next time maybe Andersen will wear a collared shirt before he reports from some troubled region.
4) Oh, and I saw someone else post this comment today and I just have to steal it. Why doesn’t Egypt build pyramids anymore? It is all that they are known for yet they haven’t built one for what, 4,000 years now? The least they could do is provide us with another pyramid every 500 years or so don’t you think?
5) For the record My Beloved Lindsay did not steal that necklace. I gave it to her as a gift and I will testify to that in a court of law, presuming of course that the judge has little understanding of perjury laws. So basically I would testify in California to that.
6) Best headline on television today “Men on camels beating protestors with bats.” You don’t see that one every day.
Wednesday Night Music Club: Not sure if I ever posted this before. Probably my favorite Josh Ritter song.
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Monthly Book Report: January 2011
I’m going to start a new recurring column today. Nick Hornby used to have a monthly column in which he would discuss the books he bought and read over the past month with no real structure other than that consideration. As my dream is to have Nick Hornby’s career I’ll just steal the idea straight out. I’ll also mention the format of the books as that may play a role in some cases. Anyway, here is January 2011.
Books Purchased:
“Gunn’s Golden Rules” by Tim Gunn with Ada Calhoun (Physical)
“An Object of Beauty” by Steve Martin (Kindle)
Books Read:
“The Childless Revolution” by Madelyn Cain (Physical)
“The Power and the Glory” by Graham Greene (Physical)
“Gunn’s Golden Rules” by Tim Gunn with Ada Calhoun (Physical)
“An Object of Beauty” by Steve Martin (Kindle)
Month in Review:
I started tracking every book I read in 1998. Technically that wasn’t even the start of my keeping track of what I have read. I have had since high school a copy of the Cliff Notes of Catcher in the Rye in which I faithfully check off on the back every book that I have read which have Cliff Notes available. At one point I even said I was going to read every book on the back of Cliff Notes in alphabetical order but then quickly realized that was probably a sign of a mental condition that I should not publicize. Even in grade school I had a list of books that were considered proper reading for my age and I would mark those off as well. Some people read for pleasure, I seem to read out of a need to check off items on a list.
I mention this because when I started keeping track in 1998 I gave myself a list of three criteria that I must meet every year. One was to read a Shakespeare play, which is typically done in December. Another was to read a book by a female author, which I must sadly admit was often met by reading the latest edition of Harry Potter. And one was to read a book that was challenging and literary, which was typically done in January because it was cold and I had nothing better to do than sit inside and read.
This year the challenge book was “The Power and the Glory”, which took me several tries over several years to read. Some books simply don’t grab you right away if you are not in the right frame of mind. This book with its languid start and focus on a nameless priest creates a slight struggle for the reader until the story engulfs you and you must continue forward, which is basically the same as the plot. It is always amazing when a writer can use the very nature of his words to create the same environment that the protagonist is experiencing.
In this case, an alcoholic priest in Mexico in the early 20th century is being hunted down by the government as it has banned the Catholic church and he is the last priest in his state. Greene details his struggles as the flawed man tries to do the right thing even when he doesn’t know what that is. It is a wonderful book that makes you think while still having a wonderful cinematic quality to it (which makes sense as Greene would go on to write the screenplay for The Third Man). It took me a long time to understand this book but I am glad I made the effort.
Another book that made me think this month was “The Childless Revolution” by Madelyn Cain, which examines what it means in American society for a woman to be childless. As more and more couples choose not to have children or wait until later to try to have children there has entered a rather quiet but important demographic of women who do not have children and the view of society towards them is changing and will need to change. Essentially, there is a portion of society that still feels as though a woman must be a mother while in reality a woman may not become one due to choice or chance or happenstance. It’s a fascinating look at the question of what defines us and made me rethink a lot of my view of the subject.
Not all books cause you to think that deeply as “Gunn’s Golden Rules” provides Tim Gunn from Project Runway as your life coach. As someone who has been forced to go through career coaching before I can guarantee you that I would prefer to have Tim Gunn over anyone else mainly because he could give me fashion advice while gossiping about Heidi Klum. His coaching advice can best be described as “Be nice, be polite, and always go with the Empire waist.” Do with it what you will.
Finally, while I read mainly paper books this month I did read Steve Martin’s latest novel on the Kindle, which usually isn’t that big of a deal for me. I like the Kindle and read faster on it and it is the best thing in the world for travel. However, his novel is about art with numerous pictures of paintings and I am guessing that they were never meant to be reproduced in black and white on a computer screen. I would not say that it is one of his best novels (The Pleasure of my Company is much better) but he has a rather stunning writing style. His books read as though you are sitting next to him in an oversized chair slowly drinking scotch. It is languid and precise and while nothing big happens you always feel the need to find out what happens next.
Books Purchased:
“Gunn’s Golden Rules” by Tim Gunn with Ada Calhoun (Physical)
“An Object of Beauty” by Steve Martin (Kindle)
Books Read:
“The Childless Revolution” by Madelyn Cain (Physical)
“The Power and the Glory” by Graham Greene (Physical)
“Gunn’s Golden Rules” by Tim Gunn with Ada Calhoun (Physical)
“An Object of Beauty” by Steve Martin (Kindle)
Month in Review:
I started tracking every book I read in 1998. Technically that wasn’t even the start of my keeping track of what I have read. I have had since high school a copy of the Cliff Notes of Catcher in the Rye in which I faithfully check off on the back every book that I have read which have Cliff Notes available. At one point I even said I was going to read every book on the back of Cliff Notes in alphabetical order but then quickly realized that was probably a sign of a mental condition that I should not publicize. Even in grade school I had a list of books that were considered proper reading for my age and I would mark those off as well. Some people read for pleasure, I seem to read out of a need to check off items on a list.
I mention this because when I started keeping track in 1998 I gave myself a list of three criteria that I must meet every year. One was to read a Shakespeare play, which is typically done in December. Another was to read a book by a female author, which I must sadly admit was often met by reading the latest edition of Harry Potter. And one was to read a book that was challenging and literary, which was typically done in January because it was cold and I had nothing better to do than sit inside and read.
This year the challenge book was “The Power and the Glory”, which took me several tries over several years to read. Some books simply don’t grab you right away if you are not in the right frame of mind. This book with its languid start and focus on a nameless priest creates a slight struggle for the reader until the story engulfs you and you must continue forward, which is basically the same as the plot. It is always amazing when a writer can use the very nature of his words to create the same environment that the protagonist is experiencing.
In this case, an alcoholic priest in Mexico in the early 20th century is being hunted down by the government as it has banned the Catholic church and he is the last priest in his state. Greene details his struggles as the flawed man tries to do the right thing even when he doesn’t know what that is. It is a wonderful book that makes you think while still having a wonderful cinematic quality to it (which makes sense as Greene would go on to write the screenplay for The Third Man). It took me a long time to understand this book but I am glad I made the effort.
Another book that made me think this month was “The Childless Revolution” by Madelyn Cain, which examines what it means in American society for a woman to be childless. As more and more couples choose not to have children or wait until later to try to have children there has entered a rather quiet but important demographic of women who do not have children and the view of society towards them is changing and will need to change. Essentially, there is a portion of society that still feels as though a woman must be a mother while in reality a woman may not become one due to choice or chance or happenstance. It’s a fascinating look at the question of what defines us and made me rethink a lot of my view of the subject.
Not all books cause you to think that deeply as “Gunn’s Golden Rules” provides Tim Gunn from Project Runway as your life coach. As someone who has been forced to go through career coaching before I can guarantee you that I would prefer to have Tim Gunn over anyone else mainly because he could give me fashion advice while gossiping about Heidi Klum. His coaching advice can best be described as “Be nice, be polite, and always go with the Empire waist.” Do with it what you will.
Finally, while I read mainly paper books this month I did read Steve Martin’s latest novel on the Kindle, which usually isn’t that big of a deal for me. I like the Kindle and read faster on it and it is the best thing in the world for travel. However, his novel is about art with numerous pictures of paintings and I am guessing that they were never meant to be reproduced in black and white on a computer screen. I would not say that it is one of his best novels (The Pleasure of my Company is much better) but he has a rather stunning writing style. His books read as though you are sitting next to him in an oversized chair slowly drinking scotch. It is languid and precise and while nothing big happens you always feel the need to find out what happens next.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
The greatest hypothetical question ever
Saw this on Reddit this evening and it is the best question that I have been posed in a long time. You can choose from one of the following ten magical items. Which one do you choose and why?
1) A pot that can produce 1,000 kilograms of any food a day.
2) A bracelet that keeps weather perfect wherever you go and within a 250 kilometre radius.
3) A necklace that allows you to touch books and instantly absorb knowledge from them, without reading.
4) An unlimited bottle of perfume that will make you wildly attractive to the opposite sex (or same sex if you’re gay), which cannot be used on anyone you love.
5) A watch that allows you to reverse time by a minute or less per day.
6) A bell that when rang fixes any one object at a time, excluding living things, within a minute.
7) A chocolate bar, with twelve pieces, that makes anyone who eats a single piece invincible and youthful until the age of 160.
8) A no fuel required, maintenance free, eight person van that can take you anywhere on the planet within one second.
9) A remote control that allows you and another person to change, superficially, into anyone you want; the effect lasts until you decide to revert.
10) An immortal dog that poops out one gold coin every time it goes to the bathroom.
I’ll break these down one by one to get to my decision.
1) This quickly caught my attention as I immediately think “I can feed the planet!” Except that a) 1,000 kilos of food really isn’t that much when split amongst six billion people and b) almost no famines are a result of a lack of food (politics and war are the causes). You could also use it under the idea of “I’ll never have to go to the grocery store” or “I could hike that Appalachian Trail without having to pack food” except that then you would still have to deal with 1,000 kilos of food. I’ll pass.
2) No real interest in this one. Besides the fact that you would really screw up the weather pattern I’m not really interested in perfect weather. Last night we had a huge snowstorm that made it look like I had suddenly been transported to Hoth. I like watching a thunderstorm. If I wanted life to be constantly 75 and sunny I would move to California.
3) Very tempting especially for someone who craves knowledge as much as I do. However, outside of being able to totally kick Ken Jenning’s ass at Jeopardy I’m not sure how much use I would be able to get out of this. Knowledge does not equal ingenuity so even though I may know everything about a subject it does not mean that I can make that leap to the next step. Plus, it would mean I would no longer have to read and a life without books sounds rather boring.
4) Easily skipped. The only person whose opinion I care about in that matter is the woman I love.
5) A lot of people online chose this one and while I understand why it doesn’t make the top of my list. One reason people gave was “you can make a ton of money gambling” but I feel that the one minute rule would make going to a casino rather annoying as you could only play fast paced games and it just seems like an awfully difficult way to become rich. The better reason is that you could take back all of the stupid things you do in life. All of those boneheaded statements or actions that you immediately want to take back but can’t. That has an awful lot of value but for me it sometimes takes more than a minute for it to sink in just how stupid I was. It is horrible in real life knowing that you can’t go back in time and change things. Now imagine that you had the ability but didn’t recognize in time for you to do so.
6) Well, you could make a mint running the ultimate repair shop but other than that I’m not sure what use I would get out of this. It might be the most practical choice on the list but if I have a chance to get my hands on a magic item I am not going with what is practical.
7) Wow. Reminiscent of Hob Gadling in the Sandman who said “Death is a mug’s game. I’m not playing.” There is something to be said about being able to live a long and healthy life but the important thing to remember is that life is what you make of it. If you are a miserable person you would simply be miserable for 160 years. The world could be a sucky place for 160 years. You could see disco come back three or four times. That said, the ability to provide this to those you love as well makes it all the much better. There is nothing worse than having to say goodbye much too soon. Very tempting.
8) This is one of my two final choices. First off, this van will give you one of the most important things in the world: time. Think about all of the time you spend in traffic. Every day I spend an hour driving back and forth to work. That is 200 hours a year spent doing nothing. Imagine getting all of that time back. Then add on the ability to travel anywhere you want instantly. Screw having perfect weather, you could go to wherever the weather you want is. No going to airports to travel. You have the magic van and you can take your friends along with you. Hopefully it has a killer stereo system.
9) A while back this may have been more tempting but I have spent years getting adjusted to life in my own skin. I don’t really feel a need to be in anyone else’s. Sure, it would be cool to look like someone who is famous but that isn’t the same as being famous. Just not worth it.
10) My other final choice. You’ll be rich owning this dog but not super rich. You’ll just always make a little money every day. More importantly, you will always have a loving dog by your side who will be with you for the rest of your life. Think about the favorite dog you ever had and know that he or she would never leave you, will always be there at the window when you get home and will love you unconditionally until the end of time. Would it get any better than that?
So I have to choose between the magic van and the wonder dog. And I’m going to weasel out a little by putting in the following qualification. If I can state the dog that I will choose (meaning I can choose one that I already love and know I would want for the rest of my life) I would take the dog. If it is a random dog (meaning that it would most likely be a small, yippy dog that will essentially be nothing more than a gold coin dispenser to me) then I will take the van.
Thoughts? What would you choose?
1) A pot that can produce 1,000 kilograms of any food a day.
2) A bracelet that keeps weather perfect wherever you go and within a 250 kilometre radius.
3) A necklace that allows you to touch books and instantly absorb knowledge from them, without reading.
4) An unlimited bottle of perfume that will make you wildly attractive to the opposite sex (or same sex if you’re gay), which cannot be used on anyone you love.
5) A watch that allows you to reverse time by a minute or less per day.
6) A bell that when rang fixes any one object at a time, excluding living things, within a minute.
7) A chocolate bar, with twelve pieces, that makes anyone who eats a single piece invincible and youthful until the age of 160.
8) A no fuel required, maintenance free, eight person van that can take you anywhere on the planet within one second.
9) A remote control that allows you and another person to change, superficially, into anyone you want; the effect lasts until you decide to revert.
10) An immortal dog that poops out one gold coin every time it goes to the bathroom.
I’ll break these down one by one to get to my decision.
1) This quickly caught my attention as I immediately think “I can feed the planet!” Except that a) 1,000 kilos of food really isn’t that much when split amongst six billion people and b) almost no famines are a result of a lack of food (politics and war are the causes). You could also use it under the idea of “I’ll never have to go to the grocery store” or “I could hike that Appalachian Trail without having to pack food” except that then you would still have to deal with 1,000 kilos of food. I’ll pass.
2) No real interest in this one. Besides the fact that you would really screw up the weather pattern I’m not really interested in perfect weather. Last night we had a huge snowstorm that made it look like I had suddenly been transported to Hoth. I like watching a thunderstorm. If I wanted life to be constantly 75 and sunny I would move to California.
3) Very tempting especially for someone who craves knowledge as much as I do. However, outside of being able to totally kick Ken Jenning’s ass at Jeopardy I’m not sure how much use I would be able to get out of this. Knowledge does not equal ingenuity so even though I may know everything about a subject it does not mean that I can make that leap to the next step. Plus, it would mean I would no longer have to read and a life without books sounds rather boring.
4) Easily skipped. The only person whose opinion I care about in that matter is the woman I love.
5) A lot of people online chose this one and while I understand why it doesn’t make the top of my list. One reason people gave was “you can make a ton of money gambling” but I feel that the one minute rule would make going to a casino rather annoying as you could only play fast paced games and it just seems like an awfully difficult way to become rich. The better reason is that you could take back all of the stupid things you do in life. All of those boneheaded statements or actions that you immediately want to take back but can’t. That has an awful lot of value but for me it sometimes takes more than a minute for it to sink in just how stupid I was. It is horrible in real life knowing that you can’t go back in time and change things. Now imagine that you had the ability but didn’t recognize in time for you to do so.
6) Well, you could make a mint running the ultimate repair shop but other than that I’m not sure what use I would get out of this. It might be the most practical choice on the list but if I have a chance to get my hands on a magic item I am not going with what is practical.
7) Wow. Reminiscent of Hob Gadling in the Sandman who said “Death is a mug’s game. I’m not playing.” There is something to be said about being able to live a long and healthy life but the important thing to remember is that life is what you make of it. If you are a miserable person you would simply be miserable for 160 years. The world could be a sucky place for 160 years. You could see disco come back three or four times. That said, the ability to provide this to those you love as well makes it all the much better. There is nothing worse than having to say goodbye much too soon. Very tempting.
8) This is one of my two final choices. First off, this van will give you one of the most important things in the world: time. Think about all of the time you spend in traffic. Every day I spend an hour driving back and forth to work. That is 200 hours a year spent doing nothing. Imagine getting all of that time back. Then add on the ability to travel anywhere you want instantly. Screw having perfect weather, you could go to wherever the weather you want is. No going to airports to travel. You have the magic van and you can take your friends along with you. Hopefully it has a killer stereo system.
9) A while back this may have been more tempting but I have spent years getting adjusted to life in my own skin. I don’t really feel a need to be in anyone else’s. Sure, it would be cool to look like someone who is famous but that isn’t the same as being famous. Just not worth it.
10) My other final choice. You’ll be rich owning this dog but not super rich. You’ll just always make a little money every day. More importantly, you will always have a loving dog by your side who will be with you for the rest of your life. Think about the favorite dog you ever had and know that he or she would never leave you, will always be there at the window when you get home and will love you unconditionally until the end of time. Would it get any better than that?
So I have to choose between the magic van and the wonder dog. And I’m going to weasel out a little by putting in the following qualification. If I can state the dog that I will choose (meaning I can choose one that I already love and know I would want for the rest of my life) I would take the dog. If it is a random dog (meaning that it would most likely be a small, yippy dog that will essentially be nothing more than a gold coin dispenser to me) then I will take the van.
Thoughts? What would you choose?
Monday, January 24, 2011
They could be twins...
(I just saw another picture of Chastity Bono post-sex change operation and I have to say that she looks exactly like Charlie Weis. I mean put a headset on her, uh him, and put her…I mean him on the Notre Dame sidelines and people will think that we’ve entered a time warp. To be honest it would probably be an upgrade in coaching as well.)
I know that this is strange coming from someone who just complained about the cold yesterday but does it bother anyone else that schools in the northeast were cancelled because it was cold out? That has always annoyed me and I see it much more now than I ever recalled as a kid. We did have school canceled once or twice but those were the fifty below wind chill days where death was a legitimate possibility. It is cold out and I’m glad that my car has heated seats but it is not that bad out there. Go to class.
Otherwise I’ve pretty much got nothing. I find it really odd that there is so much talk about whether or not Jay Cutler quit on the Bears yesterday. There was nothing that I saw that made it look like he quit. He was heading to the locker room well ahead of his teammates at the end of the first half (while the Packers still had a play to go) and I don’t know of any starter period who would be doing that unless he was hurt and was going to get checked out. And as several people have said, it’s not like he hasn’t got the crap knocked out of him all season so why would he choose the biggest game of his career to choose to not play? Doesn’t make sense at all and a torn ligament seems to show that he was right. Basically he was too hurt to be effective and a healthy third string quarterback gave the team a better chance to win than a hurt Cutler.
I know we all live off of the stories of the injured player taking the field and leading his team to victory. More often it is the injured player taking the field and running a rather ineffective offense until he further injures himself and is forced to leave the game. Not everything in life works out like a movie script. And hell, if the Bears would have won the game wouldn’t everyone be praising the fact that the team took out the injured quarterback in order to have a chance to win?
I know that this is strange coming from someone who just complained about the cold yesterday but does it bother anyone else that schools in the northeast were cancelled because it was cold out? That has always annoyed me and I see it much more now than I ever recalled as a kid. We did have school canceled once or twice but those were the fifty below wind chill days where death was a legitimate possibility. It is cold out and I’m glad that my car has heated seats but it is not that bad out there. Go to class.
Otherwise I’ve pretty much got nothing. I find it really odd that there is so much talk about whether or not Jay Cutler quit on the Bears yesterday. There was nothing that I saw that made it look like he quit. He was heading to the locker room well ahead of his teammates at the end of the first half (while the Packers still had a play to go) and I don’t know of any starter period who would be doing that unless he was hurt and was going to get checked out. And as several people have said, it’s not like he hasn’t got the crap knocked out of him all season so why would he choose the biggest game of his career to choose to not play? Doesn’t make sense at all and a torn ligament seems to show that he was right. Basically he was too hurt to be effective and a healthy third string quarterback gave the team a better chance to win than a hurt Cutler.
I know we all live off of the stories of the injured player taking the field and leading his team to victory. More often it is the injured player taking the field and running a rather ineffective offense until he further injures himself and is forced to leave the game. Not everything in life works out like a movie script. And hell, if the Bears would have won the game wouldn’t everyone be praising the fact that the team took out the injured quarterback in order to have a chance to win?
Sunday, January 23, 2011
We'll just cry in our pizza
Well, I guess I am happy that I decided not to live blog the Bears game this afternoon. I thought about it then realized that I had too many other things to take care of than to dedicate three plus hours in front of the television and my laptop and in the end that saved me a great deal of heartache. Basically this post would just be “Oh wow, another incomplete pass…”, “Cutler is playing like crap today”, “Is Todd Collins the drunk Collins quarterback or the vaguely good Collins quarterback or neither” and “Why is the Bears season resting on the shoulders of a quarterback that I have never heard of before? Not in the sense that I didn’t know that he was on the Bears. I haven’t heard of this guy in college or the pros.” That said, I never fault a team for over achieving and no one expected the Bears to get this far at the beginning of the season. Hell, some people had them coming in last in the division.
I’ve also discovered that I’ve either become less of a Chicagoan as I’ve spent a decade now not living in the city or old age has finally caught up to me in terms of the weather. I spent most of my life shrugging off the cold. I often mention the fact that I once went to class when the air temperature was fifteen below zero (and a wind chill in the range of minus forty.) And this was for a 9 AM college class when I was a senior. Hell, I didn’t even have to go; I just went because there was no way a little wind was going to stop me from doing my job. Now, I go outside and it is twenty degrees out and I am just dying. I’m shivering and my fingertips ache (probably due to my walking to a freaking psychology class in below zero weather). I’ve become a snowbird in waiting.
Oh, and I guess I will say right now that I am very upset regarding the television schedule this week. Both How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory are repeats and The Biggest Loser is only going to be an hour due to the State of the Union address. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this country needs to get its priorities straight. A speech regarding our future should not preclude us from watching the two hours of joy that comes from watching obese people exercise. Especially since last week two of the contestants somehow gained nine pounds apiece while on the show. I don’t think I’ve ever gained nine pounds in a week in my life. I don’t know how you do that on a weight loss show.
Also, is it just me or has everyone fallen a bit out of favor with The Big Bang Theory. I don’t know if it is the move to Thursday or just the fact that it has been a real lackluster season but it has gone to one of my favorite shows ever to one that I watch when I get around to it. I’ve missed episodes and I have a few sitting on my DVR that I will watch eventually but I am in no hurry to see. Meanwhile I get upset if I miss an episode of Holmes Inspection, which has taught me to never hire a contractor in Canada. But I want the Big Bang Theory to be good and this season just isn’t working and I don’t know why. The addition of Blossom is good, the Bernadette character is hysterical and Penny and Leonard actually make sense as a broken up couple which is weird given they had no chemistry as an actual couple which is made even more bizarre by the fact that they were dating in real life. Anyone else feel this way?
That is about it. Let’s all be safe out there this week.
Best of 120 Minutes: For some reason I was struggling to think of a song to post tonight and Primus jumped into my head. Two things: 1) I never did get a chance to see these guys in concert and I kind of feel bad about it and 2) I completely forgot about the nachos subplot in this video.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Tift Merritt “Home is Loud”
2) Josh Rouse “El Turista”
3) Liz Phair “Liz Phair”
4) Golden Smog “Weird Tales”
5) Guided by Voices “Human Amusements at Hourly Rates”
I’ve also discovered that I’ve either become less of a Chicagoan as I’ve spent a decade now not living in the city or old age has finally caught up to me in terms of the weather. I spent most of my life shrugging off the cold. I often mention the fact that I once went to class when the air temperature was fifteen below zero (and a wind chill in the range of minus forty.) And this was for a 9 AM college class when I was a senior. Hell, I didn’t even have to go; I just went because there was no way a little wind was going to stop me from doing my job. Now, I go outside and it is twenty degrees out and I am just dying. I’m shivering and my fingertips ache (probably due to my walking to a freaking psychology class in below zero weather). I’ve become a snowbird in waiting.
Oh, and I guess I will say right now that I am very upset regarding the television schedule this week. Both How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory are repeats and The Biggest Loser is only going to be an hour due to the State of the Union address. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this country needs to get its priorities straight. A speech regarding our future should not preclude us from watching the two hours of joy that comes from watching obese people exercise. Especially since last week two of the contestants somehow gained nine pounds apiece while on the show. I don’t think I’ve ever gained nine pounds in a week in my life. I don’t know how you do that on a weight loss show.
Also, is it just me or has everyone fallen a bit out of favor with The Big Bang Theory. I don’t know if it is the move to Thursday or just the fact that it has been a real lackluster season but it has gone to one of my favorite shows ever to one that I watch when I get around to it. I’ve missed episodes and I have a few sitting on my DVR that I will watch eventually but I am in no hurry to see. Meanwhile I get upset if I miss an episode of Holmes Inspection, which has taught me to never hire a contractor in Canada. But I want the Big Bang Theory to be good and this season just isn’t working and I don’t know why. The addition of Blossom is good, the Bernadette character is hysterical and Penny and Leonard actually make sense as a broken up couple which is weird given they had no chemistry as an actual couple which is made even more bizarre by the fact that they were dating in real life. Anyone else feel this way?
That is about it. Let’s all be safe out there this week.
Best of 120 Minutes: For some reason I was struggling to think of a song to post tonight and Primus jumped into my head. Two things: 1) I never did get a chance to see these guys in concert and I kind of feel bad about it and 2) I completely forgot about the nachos subplot in this video.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Tift Merritt “Home is Loud”
2) Josh Rouse “El Turista”
3) Liz Phair “Liz Phair”
4) Golden Smog “Weird Tales”
5) Guided by Voices “Human Amusements at Hourly Rates”
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Tiger mothers and other thoughts
Have a few more random notes for the night.
1) I’ve already achieved one of my New Year’s resolutions. Last Sunday this blog received over 200 hits completely shattering my goal of breaking 100. For the record, I was not one of those hits as I took the entire day off from the blog. I assume this means that I was linked to by something though I have no real clue what it could possibly be. Still, great to know that I have readers out there.
2) Here is one of those strange stats I found out while trying to figure out how I go that much traffic. If you use google this site is one of the top links if you a) search for “strawberry shortcake’s enemy” or b) images of Rolos candy. I have no idea why either is the case but I get a surprising amount of traffic from it.
3) I also did find proof that I am still listed as a blogger who supports Funkhouser for mayor of Kansas City and I guess that I will now officially state that I am fully behind keeping the Funk in Kansas City. No town is in more desperate need of funk than KC. Hey, he brought the Chiefs a home playoff game. What more could you want? Plowed streets? A sports arena that actually showcases, you know, sports of some kind?
4) I am glad to see that the Biggest Loser is now letting us know a little more about the level of workouts that the contestants are doing and how we might measure up. As in last night I was slightly slower doing my 5K on a treadmill than two morbidly obese people running a tag team 5K on a treadmill. I’m not sure what my response to that should be. I guess I am roughly as fit as two really fat people put together. That doesn’t sound nearly as impressive as I would like.
5) There is a lot of press around that Tiger Mother book that basically states that the proper way to raise a child is by forcing them to be successful at everything, do not have them participate in sports, and grow up friendless which, now that I think about it, sounds surprisingly like my childhood. Actually, I’m pretty appalled by what I’ve read in the media about the parenting technique because it just sounds like the perfect way to have a kid burn out at 16. I actually wasn’t pressured into being the top student at the expense of everything else. It just happened to be the way I am and I found that my competitive streak was better suited for academics than sports. My parents didn’t push me in any way; they were amazingly supportive.
The reason I say this burns kids out is something I learned in electrical engineering and saw a ton of people suffer from in my MBA program, which is the higher the level of education you go the more likely you are to become average. When I entered EE I went from being one of the smartest people around to being pretty typical. Some classes I was above average, some I was below. That is a huge shot to your ego and not everyone can adjust to it. I was prepared for it in grad school but others weren’t. It is amazing to sit in a room filled with brilliant people during orientation and realize that from this moment on half the people here are below average.
The other thing, and a few commentators have brought this out, is that this whole parenting method is presented as a Chinese thing when in reality it is simply an immigrant thing. All immigrant groups place a focus on their children becoming successful and academics is the easiest path to success. The pressure to do your best is not new to society at all. I was raised to understand that school was important, that college was not expected but required and that the biggest thing at the end of the day is not how well you did but rather that you did your very best. If I was raised any other way I don’t think I would have turned out nearly as well.
1) I’ve already achieved one of my New Year’s resolutions. Last Sunday this blog received over 200 hits completely shattering my goal of breaking 100. For the record, I was not one of those hits as I took the entire day off from the blog. I assume this means that I was linked to by something though I have no real clue what it could possibly be. Still, great to know that I have readers out there.
2) Here is one of those strange stats I found out while trying to figure out how I go that much traffic. If you use google this site is one of the top links if you a) search for “strawberry shortcake’s enemy” or b) images of Rolos candy. I have no idea why either is the case but I get a surprising amount of traffic from it.
3) I also did find proof that I am still listed as a blogger who supports Funkhouser for mayor of Kansas City and I guess that I will now officially state that I am fully behind keeping the Funk in Kansas City. No town is in more desperate need of funk than KC. Hey, he brought the Chiefs a home playoff game. What more could you want? Plowed streets? A sports arena that actually showcases, you know, sports of some kind?
4) I am glad to see that the Biggest Loser is now letting us know a little more about the level of workouts that the contestants are doing and how we might measure up. As in last night I was slightly slower doing my 5K on a treadmill than two morbidly obese people running a tag team 5K on a treadmill. I’m not sure what my response to that should be. I guess I am roughly as fit as two really fat people put together. That doesn’t sound nearly as impressive as I would like.
5) There is a lot of press around that Tiger Mother book that basically states that the proper way to raise a child is by forcing them to be successful at everything, do not have them participate in sports, and grow up friendless which, now that I think about it, sounds surprisingly like my childhood. Actually, I’m pretty appalled by what I’ve read in the media about the parenting technique because it just sounds like the perfect way to have a kid burn out at 16. I actually wasn’t pressured into being the top student at the expense of everything else. It just happened to be the way I am and I found that my competitive streak was better suited for academics than sports. My parents didn’t push me in any way; they were amazingly supportive.
The reason I say this burns kids out is something I learned in electrical engineering and saw a ton of people suffer from in my MBA program, which is the higher the level of education you go the more likely you are to become average. When I entered EE I went from being one of the smartest people around to being pretty typical. Some classes I was above average, some I was below. That is a huge shot to your ego and not everyone can adjust to it. I was prepared for it in grad school but others weren’t. It is amazing to sit in a room filled with brilliant people during orientation and realize that from this moment on half the people here are below average.
The other thing, and a few commentators have brought this out, is that this whole parenting method is presented as a Chinese thing when in reality it is simply an immigrant thing. All immigrant groups place a focus on their children becoming successful and academics is the easiest path to success. The pressure to do your best is not new to society at all. I was raised to understand that school was important, that college was not expected but required and that the biggest thing at the end of the day is not how well you did but rather that you did your very best. If I was raised any other way I don’t think I would have turned out nearly as well.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Shane McGowan must be spinning in his grave and/or gutter
Nothing saddens me more than when television reminds me of just how incredibly old I am. One day you are the king of the world and the next day you are a nonsubstative demographic. And there is nothing that makes a Gen Xer feel quite so old as watching a commercial that uses The Pogues to sell minivans.
It wasn’t always this way. For one brief moment (roughly from 1992 to whenever the Spice Girls topped the charts) Gen X actually ruled the pop culture roost. Heck, even later on we still had some market power. We were a small generation but a rather prolific one from an artistic standpoint. Plus we all got rich from the dot com boom (or so the news media would lead you to believe) so we all had money to spend. Now we have all become hockey moms.
I know this sounds as though I am going a little overboard given all this really means is that someone in an ad agency decided the Pogues would make good background music but it is more than that. First of all, as opposed to how Moby songs are always placed in commercials to the point that you don’t recognize the song this commercial literally uses the first two verses of “If I Should Fall From Grace With God” precisely as they were recorded. The song is the focus of the commercial. But, even though it is the focus, there is absolutely no connection between the song and what is happening in the commercial. I’m pretty sure that Shane McGowan did not have little kids playing hockey in mind while writing the song. In fact, other than the use of the word “boys” repeatedly in the song I can’t think of a single connection between the song and the commercial.
No, the real reason they are promoting mini-vans with The Pogues is the simple fact that those of us who listened to The Pogues are now at an age where we need to buy mini-vans. This song was released in 1988, when I was a sophomore in high school. Pretty much anyone who was influenced by this song when it was first released is now seriously thinking about having a roomy third row seat.
Part of me wants to stand up and scream and yell that this isn’t true. That Gen X has not reached the point where we are all going to settle down and live happy little suburban lives. That is not what our generation is about. But then I get to thinking that I will be getting married soon and I will be the last, or at least close to the last, of my high school class to get married. Hell, I’ve probably been lapped in terms of the number of marriages. Thanks to Facebook I know that classmates of mine have kids in high school already. I hate to admit it but if you owned a Pogues cassette tape in high school you probably do need to look into investing in a mini-van right about now.
I’ve always wondered what drives a mid-life crisis. I’ve always assumed that it is the realization that your life is conceivably half over and you haven’t accomplished anything that you set out to do or even come close to becoming the person you envisioned. It might be worse now. Today your midlife crisis is driven by having the cultural of your youth served back to you in order to sell you products for your adulthood. Thirty years from now I am going to hear Nirvana songs used to sell me on retirement property. I’m not sure there is a convertible that I could buy to make that existential ache go away.
So before the song gets inevitably tied to little tykes skating here is The Pogues performing If I Should Fall From Grace With God the way it was meant to be played: raw, raucous and with the unnerving suspicion that Shane is so drunk he cannot see the crowd in front of him.
It wasn’t always this way. For one brief moment (roughly from 1992 to whenever the Spice Girls topped the charts) Gen X actually ruled the pop culture roost. Heck, even later on we still had some market power. We were a small generation but a rather prolific one from an artistic standpoint. Plus we all got rich from the dot com boom (or so the news media would lead you to believe) so we all had money to spend. Now we have all become hockey moms.
I know this sounds as though I am going a little overboard given all this really means is that someone in an ad agency decided the Pogues would make good background music but it is more than that. First of all, as opposed to how Moby songs are always placed in commercials to the point that you don’t recognize the song this commercial literally uses the first two verses of “If I Should Fall From Grace With God” precisely as they were recorded. The song is the focus of the commercial. But, even though it is the focus, there is absolutely no connection between the song and what is happening in the commercial. I’m pretty sure that Shane McGowan did not have little kids playing hockey in mind while writing the song. In fact, other than the use of the word “boys” repeatedly in the song I can’t think of a single connection between the song and the commercial.
No, the real reason they are promoting mini-vans with The Pogues is the simple fact that those of us who listened to The Pogues are now at an age where we need to buy mini-vans. This song was released in 1988, when I was a sophomore in high school. Pretty much anyone who was influenced by this song when it was first released is now seriously thinking about having a roomy third row seat.
Part of me wants to stand up and scream and yell that this isn’t true. That Gen X has not reached the point where we are all going to settle down and live happy little suburban lives. That is not what our generation is about. But then I get to thinking that I will be getting married soon and I will be the last, or at least close to the last, of my high school class to get married. Hell, I’ve probably been lapped in terms of the number of marriages. Thanks to Facebook I know that classmates of mine have kids in high school already. I hate to admit it but if you owned a Pogues cassette tape in high school you probably do need to look into investing in a mini-van right about now.
I’ve always wondered what drives a mid-life crisis. I’ve always assumed that it is the realization that your life is conceivably half over and you haven’t accomplished anything that you set out to do or even come close to becoming the person you envisioned. It might be worse now. Today your midlife crisis is driven by having the cultural of your youth served back to you in order to sell you products for your adulthood. Thirty years from now I am going to hear Nirvana songs used to sell me on retirement property. I’m not sure there is a convertible that I could buy to make that existential ache go away.
So before the song gets inevitably tied to little tykes skating here is The Pogues performing If I Should Fall From Grace With God the way it was meant to be played: raw, raucous and with the unnerving suspicion that Shane is so drunk he cannot see the crowd in front of him.
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