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”

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.

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.

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.