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.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
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.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Have you ever noticed...
Some thoughts from the past couple of days…
1) We had a decent sized snow storm last week. Nothing too bad but enough to make driving a little tricky especially given that part of my daily drive is on a two lane road that passes for a major street in the wonderful world that is Delaware. Yes, the best way to go north / south in the state is using a two lane route that features more hills and blind curves than you could ever imagine. Well, while driving home after the storm on this road I found myself caught behind a guy riding a bicycle who was in the dead center of my lane. My 45 mph speed limit lane. I had two thoughts. A) It is really tough to pass a bicyclist when doing so would entail a head on collision and B) While I am all for helping the environment and reducing gasoline consumption it is January so get in a damn car.
2) Given all of my air travel you would think I would have had to do this sooner but I finally was forced to go through one of those airline screener machines. You know, one of those that caused the entire “Don’t touch my junk” debate from a few months ago that no one remembers now. Had to go through one at Philly and it was a pretty unmemorable experience. The only annoying thing is that you have to empty everything out of your pockets and I mean everything. I had to go through extra screening because I had a packet of breathstrips in my back pocket so maybe it is a little intense.
3) Ricky Gervais got in trouble at the Golden Globes for making fun of rich, famous people. This tells us two things. The first is that rich, famous people cannot take a joke to save their lives. The second thing is that the only way for people to give a damn about the Golden Globes is for rich, famous people to be insulted during the ceremony. Otherwise the whole thing is about as spontaneous as Wrestlemania and roughly as relevant. Hell, they gave an acting award to Pia Zadora once.
4) Yes I am overjoyed that my Bears are in the NFC Championship game against the hated Green Bay Packers. There is no hate quite like the Chicago vs. Wisconsin hate. It is a war based on one side having culture and nightlife while the other side has trees and, uh, cheese. Seriously, no one lives in Wisconsin on purpose. At best people view it as a way of serving their time in Purgatory on Earth. At worst it is just a bunch of people who consider Minnesota too cold and Canada too exciting.
5) As part of my weight loss routine I am using EA Active 2.0 and I have to say that this is easily the best version yet. While I still don’t think that it gives the best upper body workout this iteration can be absolutely cruel when it comes to cardio. Apparently I am incapable of doing mountain climbers without feeling as though my entire body is about to collapse in pain. I know people joke about using the Wii as a way to get fit but if you want a less intimidating way to start your workout program this is definitely a way to start.
1) We had a decent sized snow storm last week. Nothing too bad but enough to make driving a little tricky especially given that part of my daily drive is on a two lane road that passes for a major street in the wonderful world that is Delaware. Yes, the best way to go north / south in the state is using a two lane route that features more hills and blind curves than you could ever imagine. Well, while driving home after the storm on this road I found myself caught behind a guy riding a bicycle who was in the dead center of my lane. My 45 mph speed limit lane. I had two thoughts. A) It is really tough to pass a bicyclist when doing so would entail a head on collision and B) While I am all for helping the environment and reducing gasoline consumption it is January so get in a damn car.
2) Given all of my air travel you would think I would have had to do this sooner but I finally was forced to go through one of those airline screener machines. You know, one of those that caused the entire “Don’t touch my junk” debate from a few months ago that no one remembers now. Had to go through one at Philly and it was a pretty unmemorable experience. The only annoying thing is that you have to empty everything out of your pockets and I mean everything. I had to go through extra screening because I had a packet of breathstrips in my back pocket so maybe it is a little intense.
3) Ricky Gervais got in trouble at the Golden Globes for making fun of rich, famous people. This tells us two things. The first is that rich, famous people cannot take a joke to save their lives. The second thing is that the only way for people to give a damn about the Golden Globes is for rich, famous people to be insulted during the ceremony. Otherwise the whole thing is about as spontaneous as Wrestlemania and roughly as relevant. Hell, they gave an acting award to Pia Zadora once.
4) Yes I am overjoyed that my Bears are in the NFC Championship game against the hated Green Bay Packers. There is no hate quite like the Chicago vs. Wisconsin hate. It is a war based on one side having culture and nightlife while the other side has trees and, uh, cheese. Seriously, no one lives in Wisconsin on purpose. At best people view it as a way of serving their time in Purgatory on Earth. At worst it is just a bunch of people who consider Minnesota too cold and Canada too exciting.
5) As part of my weight loss routine I am using EA Active 2.0 and I have to say that this is easily the best version yet. While I still don’t think that it gives the best upper body workout this iteration can be absolutely cruel when it comes to cardio. Apparently I am incapable of doing mountain climbers without feeling as though my entire body is about to collapse in pain. I know people joke about using the Wii as a way to get fit but if you want a less intimidating way to start your workout program this is definitely a way to start.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
My 2011 New Year's Resolutions
After much delay here are my 2011 New Year’s Resolutions. Keep them handy in order to taunt me about how horrible a person I am. Or at least so you can refer to me as an utter failure. Anyway, here they are.
Resolution #1: Get my weight down to 185 pounds: I’m at about 195 right now with 190 being the high end of the “normal” weight range for my height. I think that 185 will be a good weight for me to be at and is certainly achievable. That would still take another ten pounds of fat off my frame (and 30 pounds from the heaviest version of me that has waddled around the planet) and should leave me fairly healthy. I use weight because it would be a good measure of fitness but I have another resolution that fits into this category…
Resolution #2: Run a 5K in less than my age: That would technically be in under 37 minutes (though if I wait until after September I can do it in under 38 minutes). I know that doesn’t sound too impressive and in college I was able to run consistently under 30 minutes (not superstar speed but better than a couch potato) but I think this would be a big accomplishment for someone with my background. I’ve already cut my time on the treadmill down from about 44 minutes to 39 minutes but I really want to do this in a real, outdoors, 5K.
Resolution #3: Write 125,000 words in the blog this year: That is the equivalent of writing five 500 word posts a week for 50 weeks. I know that for years I kept a solid five days a week writing schedule but because of my life and my job that has gotten much tougher. My laptop is not always conveniently by my side and some nights I just have more things to do. That said, if I can’t write a post one night maybe I can make it up by writing more detailed posts another night. It is worth a shot.
Resolution #4: Get 100 visits in a day per Blogger stats: I would still like to see this blog get some real traffic if just because I think it would be cool to know that 100 people checked out what I wrote on a given day. I’ve certainly gotten visitors from around the world and had commenters from everywhere but it would be nice to increase my overall readership.
Resolution #5: Learn how to cook healthy meals: I still don’t really know how to cook and I certainly don’t know how to cook a healthy meal. I basically know how to heat things that came in prepackaged materials. This is actually a good thing since it means that I have no bad habits to unlearn as I start on a path towards being healthy.
Resolution #6: Read 50 books this year: It is certainly a stretch goal as I don’t know if I have ever read that many books in a year but I think it would be great if I can read a book a week. It is interesting that in the past few years I have started to watch much less television but have spent more time reading (which would probably hurt my chances at trivia now that I think about it.) Reading forces me to spend less time watching television or surfing the internet and that is a really good thing.
Resolution #7: Reader’s Choice: Yes, once again I leave it to my faithful readers to tell me what I should do this year. What do you think is the best step that I could take to improve myself? What fun task must I do to prove my worth? Put your best ideas in the comments.
Resolution #8: Send out my monthly email reports: After I finished grad school I started sending out monthly emails about my life to a group of my friends. As I’ve said on a few occasions I never really did it because I felt that my life was that interesting. I was living in KC at the time; by definition it could not be interesting. But it was my way of staying in touch with everyone and it worked wonders. Over the past year I really fell out of the habit though and I would really like to get back to the old days of every month writing my friends and updating them on what is going on in my neck of the woods. I just find it a neat thing to do.
Resolution #9: Be More Assertive: One of the really strange aspects of my personality is that while I am really smart and typically know what needs to be done I have no assertiveness at all. Hell, at times just making a phone call can be rather difficult. That is a silly habit that just needs to stop. I’ve accomplished too much in life to not feel the initiative to take a hold of things.
Resolution #10: Be the best husband that I can be: Sometimes it is hard for me to grasp that it won’t be long until I am married and I will add husband to my list of duties. I have to admit that I am still learning how relationships work (I’ve now been with Kim longer than every other relationship I’ve had put together and that is being nice and counting girls I went and had coffee with as a “relationship”) and I screw up a hell of a lot of the time. But I am learning from my mistakes and I’m improving. All I want to do is be the best version of me that I can possibly be for Kim. It’s a nice goal to have.
Resolution #1: Get my weight down to 185 pounds: I’m at about 195 right now with 190 being the high end of the “normal” weight range for my height. I think that 185 will be a good weight for me to be at and is certainly achievable. That would still take another ten pounds of fat off my frame (and 30 pounds from the heaviest version of me that has waddled around the planet) and should leave me fairly healthy. I use weight because it would be a good measure of fitness but I have another resolution that fits into this category…
Resolution #2: Run a 5K in less than my age: That would technically be in under 37 minutes (though if I wait until after September I can do it in under 38 minutes). I know that doesn’t sound too impressive and in college I was able to run consistently under 30 minutes (not superstar speed but better than a couch potato) but I think this would be a big accomplishment for someone with my background. I’ve already cut my time on the treadmill down from about 44 minutes to 39 minutes but I really want to do this in a real, outdoors, 5K.
Resolution #3: Write 125,000 words in the blog this year: That is the equivalent of writing five 500 word posts a week for 50 weeks. I know that for years I kept a solid five days a week writing schedule but because of my life and my job that has gotten much tougher. My laptop is not always conveniently by my side and some nights I just have more things to do. That said, if I can’t write a post one night maybe I can make it up by writing more detailed posts another night. It is worth a shot.
Resolution #4: Get 100 visits in a day per Blogger stats: I would still like to see this blog get some real traffic if just because I think it would be cool to know that 100 people checked out what I wrote on a given day. I’ve certainly gotten visitors from around the world and had commenters from everywhere but it would be nice to increase my overall readership.
Resolution #5: Learn how to cook healthy meals: I still don’t really know how to cook and I certainly don’t know how to cook a healthy meal. I basically know how to heat things that came in prepackaged materials. This is actually a good thing since it means that I have no bad habits to unlearn as I start on a path towards being healthy.
Resolution #6: Read 50 books this year: It is certainly a stretch goal as I don’t know if I have ever read that many books in a year but I think it would be great if I can read a book a week. It is interesting that in the past few years I have started to watch much less television but have spent more time reading (which would probably hurt my chances at trivia now that I think about it.) Reading forces me to spend less time watching television or surfing the internet and that is a really good thing.
Resolution #7: Reader’s Choice: Yes, once again I leave it to my faithful readers to tell me what I should do this year. What do you think is the best step that I could take to improve myself? What fun task must I do to prove my worth? Put your best ideas in the comments.
Resolution #8: Send out my monthly email reports: After I finished grad school I started sending out monthly emails about my life to a group of my friends. As I’ve said on a few occasions I never really did it because I felt that my life was that interesting. I was living in KC at the time; by definition it could not be interesting. But it was my way of staying in touch with everyone and it worked wonders. Over the past year I really fell out of the habit though and I would really like to get back to the old days of every month writing my friends and updating them on what is going on in my neck of the woods. I just find it a neat thing to do.
Resolution #9: Be More Assertive: One of the really strange aspects of my personality is that while I am really smart and typically know what needs to be done I have no assertiveness at all. Hell, at times just making a phone call can be rather difficult. That is a silly habit that just needs to stop. I’ve accomplished too much in life to not feel the initiative to take a hold of things.
Resolution #10: Be the best husband that I can be: Sometimes it is hard for me to grasp that it won’t be long until I am married and I will add husband to my list of duties. I have to admit that I am still learning how relationships work (I’ve now been with Kim longer than every other relationship I’ve had put together and that is being nice and counting girls I went and had coffee with as a “relationship”) and I screw up a hell of a lot of the time. But I am learning from my mistakes and I’m improving. All I want to do is be the best version of me that I can possibly be for Kim. It’s a nice goal to have.
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Thoughts on Arizona
I was going to post my 2011 resolutions tonight but news events (and a late flight) have made me change plans. I’ll write about my resolutions tomorrow because tonight I want to give my thoughts on the tragedy in Arizona. And it truly is a tragedy, any time that six innocent people are killed and many more wounded for nothing more than wanting to meet their congressperson it is truly a tragedy.
The first thing I want to touch upon is just how tough it is to get reliable information at the beginning of a story like this. I happened to flip on CNN right as the story broke so I was able to watch all the conflicting stories come across including multiple conflicting reports as to whether or not the congressperson was alive or not. It is a bit of a curse of the 24 hour news cycle. At times there is no news and minor stories get played into national issues (anyone heard anything about the New York mosque recently?) but in a breaking story everyone must break the news first and in a case like this the first reports are almost certainly wrong. Everyone is confused in a situation like this and it always takes a little time for the truth to come out.
The second point, which is also pointed at the media and the general public, is how quick people are to assign motive and place blame before any information is known and I speak of this from personal experience. If you check the blog archives on the night of the Virginia Tech shooting I posted my thoughts on the event with the assumption that the shooter was an engineering student who cracked under the pressure of school. While I still stand by what I said that night about the pressures placed on students I was completely and utterly wrong about the motive and I am a little ashamed of my post as a result.
The same case is at play here. Within an hour people were blaming inflammatory political speech and the heated political climate as the reason for the shooting without knowing if the shooter was left wing or right wing or just a maladjusted, mentally unstable young man. Assassination attempts do not have to have political causes. John Hinckley shot Reagan in an attempt to impress Jodie Foster. Until more information is known making wild speculations typically makes the situation worse.
This is not the same as my condoning the current level of political discourse in the country. I pretty much hate it. I dislike the fact that hatred has come into play in politics at a level that I have never seen before. I would love to see things calm down and more rational voices be heard. One can disagree with another’s view without comparing them to Hitler. But at the end of the day I am a free speech advocate and that means I must protect the rights of people to say things that I hate so while I wish people would dial down the rhetoric I will in no way try to force them to do so.
(I also find it moving and symbolic that during the Constitution reading last week Congresswoman Gifford read the first amendment because the fact that we have a first amendment allows us to avoid violent political action being a common occurrence.)
My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families. I do hope that we learn something from this tragedy even if it is only getting a greater sense of how precious life is.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Howie Day “Australia”
2) Immaculate Machine “Ones and Zeros”
3) Zachary Richard “The Best of Zachary Richard”
4) Wilco “Sky Blue Sky”
5) Tori Amos “Little Earthquakes”
The first thing I want to touch upon is just how tough it is to get reliable information at the beginning of a story like this. I happened to flip on CNN right as the story broke so I was able to watch all the conflicting stories come across including multiple conflicting reports as to whether or not the congressperson was alive or not. It is a bit of a curse of the 24 hour news cycle. At times there is no news and minor stories get played into national issues (anyone heard anything about the New York mosque recently?) but in a breaking story everyone must break the news first and in a case like this the first reports are almost certainly wrong. Everyone is confused in a situation like this and it always takes a little time for the truth to come out.
The second point, which is also pointed at the media and the general public, is how quick people are to assign motive and place blame before any information is known and I speak of this from personal experience. If you check the blog archives on the night of the Virginia Tech shooting I posted my thoughts on the event with the assumption that the shooter was an engineering student who cracked under the pressure of school. While I still stand by what I said that night about the pressures placed on students I was completely and utterly wrong about the motive and I am a little ashamed of my post as a result.
The same case is at play here. Within an hour people were blaming inflammatory political speech and the heated political climate as the reason for the shooting without knowing if the shooter was left wing or right wing or just a maladjusted, mentally unstable young man. Assassination attempts do not have to have political causes. John Hinckley shot Reagan in an attempt to impress Jodie Foster. Until more information is known making wild speculations typically makes the situation worse.
This is not the same as my condoning the current level of political discourse in the country. I pretty much hate it. I dislike the fact that hatred has come into play in politics at a level that I have never seen before. I would love to see things calm down and more rational voices be heard. One can disagree with another’s view without comparing them to Hitler. But at the end of the day I am a free speech advocate and that means I must protect the rights of people to say things that I hate so while I wish people would dial down the rhetoric I will in no way try to force them to do so.
(I also find it moving and symbolic that during the Constitution reading last week Congresswoman Gifford read the first amendment because the fact that we have a first amendment allows us to avoid violent political action being a common occurrence.)
My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families. I do hope that we learn something from this tragedy even if it is only getting a greater sense of how precious life is.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Howie Day “Australia”
2) Immaculate Machine “Ones and Zeros”
3) Zachary Richard “The Best of Zachary Richard”
4) Wilco “Sky Blue Sky”
5) Tori Amos “Little Earthquakes”
Friday, January 07, 2011
The complete 2010 booklist
Just for completeness sake here is the full list of all of the books I read in 2010 in case you want to compare your reading habits to mine. Or, consider it a simple way for me to make up a missed blog post. My 2011 New Year’s Resolutions will be posted on Sunday.
1) “What the Dog Saw” Malcolm Gladwell
2) “The Essential Book of Useless Information” Don Voorhees
3) “The World Without Us” Alan Weisman
4) “Lost in a Good Book” Jasper Fforde
5) “Debunked!” Richard Roeper
6) “Ring of Hell” Matthew Randazzo
7) “In Cold Blood” Truman Capote
8) “Why New Orleans Matters” Tom Piazza
9) “The Unnamed” Joshua Ferris
10) “Inventory” The Onion A.V. Club
11) “Game Change” John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
12) “Revenant” Carolyn Haines
13) “Little Wars” H. G. Wells
14) “The Pluto Files” Neil DeGrasse Tyson
15) “M is for Magic” Neil Gaiman
16) “American On Purpose” Craig Ferguson
17) “Stuff White People Like” Christian Lander
18) “Boomsday” Christopher Buckley
19) “The Watchman” Robert Crais
20) “Are We Winning?” Will Leitch
21) “In Defense of Food” Michael Pollan
22) “The Big Short” Michael Lewis
23) “The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake” Aimee Bender
24) “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future” Michael J. Fox
25) “No Country for Old Men” Cormac McCarthy
26) “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Burrows
27) “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” Stieg Larson
28) “Packing for Mars” Mary Roach
29) “Super Sad True Love Story” Gary Shytengart
30) “Lies the Government Told You” Andrew Napolitano
31) “Don’t Vote It Just Encourages Them” P.J. O’Rourke
32) “The Graveyard Book” Neil Gaiman
33) “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains” Nicholas Carr
34) “At Home: A Short History of Private Life” Bill Bryson
35) “Earth: The Book” Jon Stewart
36) “Stiff” Mary Roach
37) “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim” David Sedaris
38) “Written on the Body” Jeanette Winterson
39) “21 Dog Years” Mike Daisey
40) “Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me” Edited by Ben Karlin
41) “Naked” David Sedaris
42) “Antony and Cleopatra” William Shakespeare
1) “What the Dog Saw” Malcolm Gladwell
2) “The Essential Book of Useless Information” Don Voorhees
3) “The World Without Us” Alan Weisman
4) “Lost in a Good Book” Jasper Fforde
5) “Debunked!” Richard Roeper
6) “Ring of Hell” Matthew Randazzo
7) “In Cold Blood” Truman Capote
8) “Why New Orleans Matters” Tom Piazza
9) “The Unnamed” Joshua Ferris
10) “Inventory” The Onion A.V. Club
11) “Game Change” John Heilemann and Mark Halperin
12) “Revenant” Carolyn Haines
13) “Little Wars” H. G. Wells
14) “The Pluto Files” Neil DeGrasse Tyson
15) “M is for Magic” Neil Gaiman
16) “American On Purpose” Craig Ferguson
17) “Stuff White People Like” Christian Lander
18) “Boomsday” Christopher Buckley
19) “The Watchman” Robert Crais
20) “Are We Winning?” Will Leitch
21) “In Defense of Food” Michael Pollan
22) “The Big Short” Michael Lewis
23) “The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake” Aimee Bender
24) “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future” Michael J. Fox
25) “No Country for Old Men” Cormac McCarthy
26) “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society” Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Burrows
27) “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” Stieg Larson
28) “Packing for Mars” Mary Roach
29) “Super Sad True Love Story” Gary Shytengart
30) “Lies the Government Told You” Andrew Napolitano
31) “Don’t Vote It Just Encourages Them” P.J. O’Rourke
32) “The Graveyard Book” Neil Gaiman
33) “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains” Nicholas Carr
34) “At Home: A Short History of Private Life” Bill Bryson
35) “Earth: The Book” Jon Stewart
36) “Stiff” Mary Roach
37) “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim” David Sedaris
38) “Written on the Body” Jeanette Winterson
39) “21 Dog Years” Mike Daisey
40) “Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me” Edited by Ben Karlin
41) “Naked” David Sedaris
42) “Antony and Cleopatra” William Shakespeare
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
2010 Booklist
As some people know I have kept track of every book that I have read since 1998. Pretty much everything you need to know about me can be explained via that one sentence. The only thing that would surprise people is that it is in a Word document and not a spreadsheet (though I do note how long it took me to read each book.) I finished 42 books in 2010 and thought that I would give some highlights of what was on my reading list last year.
“The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman: Ever wonder if the planet would be a better place if we all simply left and handed things back over to the plants and animals? Well here is your chance to find out. This is the book that led to the several Life After People television specials that featured wonderful computer generated images of just how everything that we have built will simply crumble to the ground in fifty years and in a few thousand years there will be no evidence that we were even here, except for some patches of contaminated soil. An interesting read though not what one might call uplifting.
“Ring of Hell” by Matthew Randazzo: As I’ve said in the past I allow myself to read one pro wrestling book each year. Otherwise my reading list could become overwhelmed with things like autobiographies by “The Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiasie. This book looked at the life and death of Chris Benoit, someone who was one of my absolute favorite wrestlers of all time which makes the fact that he murdered his wife and son and then committed suicide all the more troubling. There are some issues with the book but it gives a view into the really dark side of pro wrestling as the wear and tear and constant concussions drive a seemingly normal person to commit the most heinous act one could ever imagine.
“In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote: This probably counts as my piece of classic literature this year. Though it starts slow this is such an amazing book as it marks a change in both the nature of non-fiction and essentially introduces the true crime genre of literature. Capote does an amazing job capturing what it is like in west Kansas and just how random the events that took place were.
“The Unnamed” by Joshua Ferris: My favorite novel of the year. The story of a man who cannot control the fact that at random points in his life he must stand up and start walking. He doesn’t know where he will walk or why or for how long. He just starts walking and cannot control it. I know the premise seems to be a bit out there but how the author ties this into how he relates with his family and relationships results in one of the most striking books that I have read in ages. I strongly encourage people to give this book a try.
“The Pluto Files” by Neil DeGrasse Tyson: Neil likes to state that it isn’t really his fault that Pluto is no longer a planet but you know what? It’s his damn fault. He’s the one who removed it from the list at the New York Planetarium so he innately approved of its removal from planethood. Well I like Pluto and feel that having nine planets in our solar system is only natural so screw you Prof. Tyson.
“American on Purpose” by Craig Ferguson: I wish I was younger and / or less employed so that I could stay up later and watch Craig Ferguson. I’ve only caught small bits of his late night show and I’ve greatly enjoyed them and his autobiography fits right in. Just an amazing story about his life as a comic and his battle with alcoholism. The guy is truly one of a kind and while I’m not one to typically recommend television personality autobiographies this is a good one to read.
“Are We Winning” by Will Leitch: I should note that Will is a fellow Illini and was a year behind me at school and was quite possibly on the team that beat me in the finals of the Intramural Sports Trivia competition. This book is about baseball and how we use baseball to bond with our fathers. It also focuses on the Cubs – Cardinals rivalry and if you are a fan of either team or have an undying hatred for either team that adds to the insight. Another good book by the founder of Deadspin and the guy whose career I wish I had.
“The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake” by Aimee Bender: The story of a girl who when she eats food she experiences the emotions of the person who made it or even of the factory where the food came from. Also a story of what it means to be considered a genius at a young age only to grow up and find out you really aren’t that special after all. I’m still not quite sure I understood everything that went on in this book but I was glad that I read it.
“No Country for Old Men” by Cormac McCarthy: I’ll just quote something I read this week: “Everything in life is debatable except for Cormac McCarthy.”
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larson: Yes, I did read this book. Look, I spend half my life in airports so I feel as though I was required to read it. It is certainly a fun murder mystery that keeps you guessing throughout while teaching you more about Swedish journalism and the intricacies of Nordic legal systems than you would ever really care to know about. Even though the book has a great plot and unique characters I’m more than a bit surprised that it has become such a huge hit. On the surface it just doesn’t seem like a book that would connect with the mainstream American audience.
“Super Sad True Love Story” by Gary Shytengart: A novel that takes place in the near future where everyone is a blogger and the most important thing in your life is your credit score. I guess that means that this novel takes place next Tuesday. This is one of those books with two narrators so you spend it going back and forth and while that is an interesting literary device I have yet to find a book where that doesn’t result in you wishing this chapter would be over so you could get back to the narrator you like. Also this is quite possibly the only book that puts a precise dollar value on immortality.
“Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim” and “Naked” by David Sedaris: I should note that I also read “Stuff White People Like” this year and David Sedaris was listed as, well, something white people like. What I found interesting about him is that while I love him as a humorist I don’t find myself laughing when I read his work. It is funny but not in a punch line sort of way. I think this hits me because that is more along the lines of when I am best as a writer. I like to consider myself a writer of humorous essays but I do not have that natural punch line timing of a comic. Typically when I try to write that way it falls incredibly flat. I’m more suited to writing in a subdued style where the humor is there but it isn’t hitting you over the head.
“Antony and Cleopatra” by William Shakespeare: I end every year by reading a new Shakespeare play and this year it was time to go to ancient Rome where life is basically one big episode of the Real Housewives of Alexandria. In essence, Cleopatra is bipolar, Antony can’t do anything correctly including kill himself and Caesar is really Octavian though he is called Caesar the entire play despite the fact that this just confuses everyone into thinking that it refers to Julius Caesar. Not one of the bard’s best works though the scene of Cleopatra beating the crap out of a messenger for bringing bad news is all kinds of awesome.
Wednesday Night Music Club: I think all alarm clocks should be reprogramed to go off with Arcade Fire’s “Ready to Start.” No one would sleep late again.
“The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman: Ever wonder if the planet would be a better place if we all simply left and handed things back over to the plants and animals? Well here is your chance to find out. This is the book that led to the several Life After People television specials that featured wonderful computer generated images of just how everything that we have built will simply crumble to the ground in fifty years and in a few thousand years there will be no evidence that we were even here, except for some patches of contaminated soil. An interesting read though not what one might call uplifting.
“Ring of Hell” by Matthew Randazzo: As I’ve said in the past I allow myself to read one pro wrestling book each year. Otherwise my reading list could become overwhelmed with things like autobiographies by “The Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiasie. This book looked at the life and death of Chris Benoit, someone who was one of my absolute favorite wrestlers of all time which makes the fact that he murdered his wife and son and then committed suicide all the more troubling. There are some issues with the book but it gives a view into the really dark side of pro wrestling as the wear and tear and constant concussions drive a seemingly normal person to commit the most heinous act one could ever imagine.
“In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote: This probably counts as my piece of classic literature this year. Though it starts slow this is such an amazing book as it marks a change in both the nature of non-fiction and essentially introduces the true crime genre of literature. Capote does an amazing job capturing what it is like in west Kansas and just how random the events that took place were.
“The Unnamed” by Joshua Ferris: My favorite novel of the year. The story of a man who cannot control the fact that at random points in his life he must stand up and start walking. He doesn’t know where he will walk or why or for how long. He just starts walking and cannot control it. I know the premise seems to be a bit out there but how the author ties this into how he relates with his family and relationships results in one of the most striking books that I have read in ages. I strongly encourage people to give this book a try.
“The Pluto Files” by Neil DeGrasse Tyson: Neil likes to state that it isn’t really his fault that Pluto is no longer a planet but you know what? It’s his damn fault. He’s the one who removed it from the list at the New York Planetarium so he innately approved of its removal from planethood. Well I like Pluto and feel that having nine planets in our solar system is only natural so screw you Prof. Tyson.
“American on Purpose” by Craig Ferguson: I wish I was younger and / or less employed so that I could stay up later and watch Craig Ferguson. I’ve only caught small bits of his late night show and I’ve greatly enjoyed them and his autobiography fits right in. Just an amazing story about his life as a comic and his battle with alcoholism. The guy is truly one of a kind and while I’m not one to typically recommend television personality autobiographies this is a good one to read.
“Are We Winning” by Will Leitch: I should note that Will is a fellow Illini and was a year behind me at school and was quite possibly on the team that beat me in the finals of the Intramural Sports Trivia competition. This book is about baseball and how we use baseball to bond with our fathers. It also focuses on the Cubs – Cardinals rivalry and if you are a fan of either team or have an undying hatred for either team that adds to the insight. Another good book by the founder of Deadspin and the guy whose career I wish I had.
“The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake” by Aimee Bender: The story of a girl who when she eats food she experiences the emotions of the person who made it or even of the factory where the food came from. Also a story of what it means to be considered a genius at a young age only to grow up and find out you really aren’t that special after all. I’m still not quite sure I understood everything that went on in this book but I was glad that I read it.
“No Country for Old Men” by Cormac McCarthy: I’ll just quote something I read this week: “Everything in life is debatable except for Cormac McCarthy.”
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larson: Yes, I did read this book. Look, I spend half my life in airports so I feel as though I was required to read it. It is certainly a fun murder mystery that keeps you guessing throughout while teaching you more about Swedish journalism and the intricacies of Nordic legal systems than you would ever really care to know about. Even though the book has a great plot and unique characters I’m more than a bit surprised that it has become such a huge hit. On the surface it just doesn’t seem like a book that would connect with the mainstream American audience.
“Super Sad True Love Story” by Gary Shytengart: A novel that takes place in the near future where everyone is a blogger and the most important thing in your life is your credit score. I guess that means that this novel takes place next Tuesday. This is one of those books with two narrators so you spend it going back and forth and while that is an interesting literary device I have yet to find a book where that doesn’t result in you wishing this chapter would be over so you could get back to the narrator you like. Also this is quite possibly the only book that puts a precise dollar value on immortality.
“Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim” and “Naked” by David Sedaris: I should note that I also read “Stuff White People Like” this year and David Sedaris was listed as, well, something white people like. What I found interesting about him is that while I love him as a humorist I don’t find myself laughing when I read his work. It is funny but not in a punch line sort of way. I think this hits me because that is more along the lines of when I am best as a writer. I like to consider myself a writer of humorous essays but I do not have that natural punch line timing of a comic. Typically when I try to write that way it falls incredibly flat. I’m more suited to writing in a subdued style where the humor is there but it isn’t hitting you over the head.
“Antony and Cleopatra” by William Shakespeare: I end every year by reading a new Shakespeare play and this year it was time to go to ancient Rome where life is basically one big episode of the Real Housewives of Alexandria. In essence, Cleopatra is bipolar, Antony can’t do anything correctly including kill himself and Caesar is really Octavian though he is called Caesar the entire play despite the fact that this just confuses everyone into thinking that it refers to Julius Caesar. Not one of the bard’s best works though the scene of Cleopatra beating the crap out of a messenger for bringing bad news is all kinds of awesome.
Wednesday Night Music Club: I think all alarm clocks should be reprogramed to go off with Arcade Fire’s “Ready to Start.” No one would sleep late again.
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
Might as well reprint those Free Lindsay shirts
(Yes that was a rather heartrending episode of How I Met Your Mother last night. Sadly I had the ending spoiled for me before I had a chance to watch it (damn you Facebook) but it still hit pretty hard. I don’t want to spoil it here but I will say that the episode was amazingly constructed and makes perfect sense when you realize that over the course of the series the show has never been a typical “ha ha” sitcom. There has always been a running plot on how these characters are becoming adults and dealing with a lot of those issues in a very realistic way.)
In a case of good news and bad news My Beloved Lindsay is out of rehab but may have to go to jail on a parole violation. Which of those is good news and which is bad news is really left for the reader to decide. And the whole going to prison thing is so a non-Hollywood thing. Really, when was the last time you saw one of these starlets actually have to do any real time for their actions. I know that the California prison system is overcrowded but I think we could find a little space in a closet somewhere to place a Lohan or a Hilton. They are rather thin and should be easily stackable.
Keeping with the celebrity news Snooki from the Jersey Shore has written a novel so add her name to the list of people who have been able to get a novel published before me. Yeah, fifteen plus years spent slaving away at a manuscript, six years blogging in an effort to catch the eye of an agent, and an orange midget who can’t even properly spell her own name is somehow able to land a publishing deal. I would really like to know if she has even read her own book. We all know that she didn’t write it; I legitimately want to know if she took the time to sit down and read it.
Oh, and Taylor Swift broke up with a Gyllenhall and is now back on the market, which just happens to correspond with my blog post where I say awfully nice things about her. Not that is anything more than a coincidence or anything… Actually, it is totally a coincidence. I’m more than happy with where my life is right now. I’m more upset by the fact that I am aware of Taylor Swift’s dating life given that it has absolutely no bearing on my life whatsoever.
Last thing, corresponding with tonight’s debut of the new season of The Biggest Loser I am embarking on a weight loss program. Actually I’ve already started it but it is always nice to tie it in with the Biggest Loser because at least I know that I weigh less than they do. Anyway, if anyone wants to send me some diet or exercise advice I would be more than happy to receive it. I really do need to knock off these last few pounds so that I will no longer be considered overweight. I will be much happier knowing that I was at a healthy weight on my wedding day.
In a case of good news and bad news My Beloved Lindsay is out of rehab but may have to go to jail on a parole violation. Which of those is good news and which is bad news is really left for the reader to decide. And the whole going to prison thing is so a non-Hollywood thing. Really, when was the last time you saw one of these starlets actually have to do any real time for their actions. I know that the California prison system is overcrowded but I think we could find a little space in a closet somewhere to place a Lohan or a Hilton. They are rather thin and should be easily stackable.
Keeping with the celebrity news Snooki from the Jersey Shore has written a novel so add her name to the list of people who have been able to get a novel published before me. Yeah, fifteen plus years spent slaving away at a manuscript, six years blogging in an effort to catch the eye of an agent, and an orange midget who can’t even properly spell her own name is somehow able to land a publishing deal. I would really like to know if she has even read her own book. We all know that she didn’t write it; I legitimately want to know if she took the time to sit down and read it.
Oh, and Taylor Swift broke up with a Gyllenhall and is now back on the market, which just happens to correspond with my blog post where I say awfully nice things about her. Not that is anything more than a coincidence or anything… Actually, it is totally a coincidence. I’m more than happy with where my life is right now. I’m more upset by the fact that I am aware of Taylor Swift’s dating life given that it has absolutely no bearing on my life whatsoever.
Last thing, corresponding with tonight’s debut of the new season of The Biggest Loser I am embarking on a weight loss program. Actually I’ve already started it but it is always nice to tie it in with the Biggest Loser because at least I know that I weigh less than they do. Anyway, if anyone wants to send me some diet or exercise advice I would be more than happy to receive it. I really do need to knock off these last few pounds so that I will no longer be considered overweight. I will be much happier knowing that I was at a healthy weight on my wedding day.
Monday, January 03, 2011
The 10 Best Selling Albums of 2010
Given that we are at the end of the year / start of a new year I figured that I would take a look back at the year in music by discussing the ten bestselling albums of the year. Note that I have no idea how this list was created nor do I own or could even say that I have listened to any of these albums so this will essentially be snarky comments on things that I have no clue about. Not much difference than the rest of my posts when you think about it.
(By the way, Katy Perry, who has horrible skin, came in at number eleven which just goes to show that even sleeping with a muppet does not guarantee chart success.)
#10: Alicia Keys “The Element of Freedom”: I believe the element of freedom is bismuth. One of the things that you will notice about the top selling artists is that with a few, very minor exceptions, they could have appeared on the bestsellers list in 2000. I’m pretty sure Alicia Keys has been around that long. Basically the only people who still actually buy music are people who were buying music in 2000 and haven’t updated their taste in music since then.
#9: Sade “Soldier of Love”: Or 1990 for that matter. Every time I think of Sade I end up thinking about Chaka Kahn whose only song, hell the only lyric I know, is her going “Chaka Kahn Chaka Kahn”. I have no idea why this sticks in my head the way it does. Anyway, you really can’t talk smack about Sade because she just has way too good of a voice. I’m actually happy to see her on the list.
#8: Michael Buble “Crazy Love”: I’ll hand it to Michael Buble for seeing a niche and exploiting it. There is always going to be a need for Frank Sinatra type music and with Frank gone (barring a Tupac like comeback) he decided to dedicate himself to being the guy still making that big band style music. There will always be a market for it because it is a really timeless brand of music. Plus, it is music that you buy for your parents or grandparents and thus he is much more likely to sell physical copies of his music and get paid as opposed to people just stealing it online.
#7: Susan Boyle “The Gift”: Sigh. For a moment there it was looking like this list would be a reality show free zone. Again, I doubt that anyone bought this for themselves. It is called “The Gift” because everyone bought it as a gift for that person that they kind of know but don’t really want to go through the effort of thinking through an actual present. It is the musical equivalent of a Chili’s gift card. I’m sorry but given the fact that her entire story is “non-attractive people can sing, too!” is too cynical even for someone like me to get behind. The fact that this is her main selling point just makes me disgusted about the music business in general.
#6: Black Eyed Peas “The E.N.D.”: Oh please be the end. I would be overjoyed if this is the end of one of the most annoying bands in existence. Outside of “Let’s Get It Started”, which was overplayed the third time it hit the airwaves, I’ve really had no patience for this band especially given that it features Fergie who hits the trifecta of not being able to sing, dance, or look attractive. It’s basically dance music for people who don’t actually like dance music or hip hop for those unfamiliar with hip hop. If you are listening to the Black Eyed Peas you need to be aware that whatever aspect of their music that you like there are a number of people out there who do that much, much better.
#5: Taylor Swift “Speak Now”: No one is going to believe this but I actually like Taylor Swift. I first heard her three or four years ago (whenever Teardrops on my Guitar originally came out) and I found her to be a perfectly acceptable country artist. Good singer who made it through a lot of hard work as opposed to a reality show victory. I’m really happy that she is making it big though I think she is hitting the overexposure level and is going to have to be a little careful if she wants to have a long career. Still, nice to see her make a strong showing.
#4: Lady Antebellum “Need You Now”: The second country entry on the list, which shows that since music sales have dropped the individual genres are now on a much more even playing field than ever before. Basically my only knowledge of this band is that someone told me I should style my hair like one of the guys in the band for my wedding. I’m not even sure who it is or what his hair looks like but I will just automatically assume that it is a bad idea. I just have a feeling that fifteen years ago someone was told “You should wear your hair like that Billy Ray Cyrus guy at your wedding!” I would like to at least be in my own wedding pictures.
#3: Justin Bieber “My Worlds”: As I’ve been mentioning the fun thing about the music business now is the fact that since most people my age and younger get their music online (often through nefarious methods) the acts that would have been best sellers when I was in college no longer breakthrough on the charts. Mainly the people who are buying music tend to be rather old or tweens. Hence the popularity of Justin Bieber whose market consists entirely of twelve year old girls who have money to buy music but haven’t learned how to use Bit Torrent yet. Again, I know nothing of his actual music and God willing I never will. I think I can live a full and productive life without ever hearing him sing.
#2: Eminem “Recovery”: Eminem is still alive? Good for him. I have actually heard some tracks from this album and it looks as though he is back in serious mode and making some really good music. Eminem has always had this strange tendency of going beyond putting humor into his songs to actually becoming something along the lines of a hip hop Weird Al. Just look at a few of the videos and ask yourself “Could Weird Al star in this?” That is what makes his career so tough to figure out. He can produce some of the darkest, most intense, stuff you’ll ever hear but the next single will be a comedy track.
#1: Lady Gaga “The Fame (Monster)”: Yes, this was the year of Lady Gaga who seems to have entered the realm of being famous for being famous. Now I know that she does make music and I’ve heard some but even someone who is oblivious to the music scene probably knows her as that woman who wears all of the wild outfits. She really did create an image of Madonna for the 21st Century as her fame is more dependent on her than her musical output. In this day and age that is what you need to do to be a superstar. Without MTV or consistent radio play the only way to become famous is to act as though you are famous already and have the internet cover you as someone who is important. It’s fascinating from a cultural perspective at least.
(By the way, Katy Perry, who has horrible skin, came in at number eleven which just goes to show that even sleeping with a muppet does not guarantee chart success.)
#10: Alicia Keys “The Element of Freedom”: I believe the element of freedom is bismuth. One of the things that you will notice about the top selling artists is that with a few, very minor exceptions, they could have appeared on the bestsellers list in 2000. I’m pretty sure Alicia Keys has been around that long. Basically the only people who still actually buy music are people who were buying music in 2000 and haven’t updated their taste in music since then.
#9: Sade “Soldier of Love”: Or 1990 for that matter. Every time I think of Sade I end up thinking about Chaka Kahn whose only song, hell the only lyric I know, is her going “Chaka Kahn Chaka Kahn”. I have no idea why this sticks in my head the way it does. Anyway, you really can’t talk smack about Sade because she just has way too good of a voice. I’m actually happy to see her on the list.
#8: Michael Buble “Crazy Love”: I’ll hand it to Michael Buble for seeing a niche and exploiting it. There is always going to be a need for Frank Sinatra type music and with Frank gone (barring a Tupac like comeback) he decided to dedicate himself to being the guy still making that big band style music. There will always be a market for it because it is a really timeless brand of music. Plus, it is music that you buy for your parents or grandparents and thus he is much more likely to sell physical copies of his music and get paid as opposed to people just stealing it online.
#7: Susan Boyle “The Gift”: Sigh. For a moment there it was looking like this list would be a reality show free zone. Again, I doubt that anyone bought this for themselves. It is called “The Gift” because everyone bought it as a gift for that person that they kind of know but don’t really want to go through the effort of thinking through an actual present. It is the musical equivalent of a Chili’s gift card. I’m sorry but given the fact that her entire story is “non-attractive people can sing, too!” is too cynical even for someone like me to get behind. The fact that this is her main selling point just makes me disgusted about the music business in general.
#6: Black Eyed Peas “The E.N.D.”: Oh please be the end. I would be overjoyed if this is the end of one of the most annoying bands in existence. Outside of “Let’s Get It Started”, which was overplayed the third time it hit the airwaves, I’ve really had no patience for this band especially given that it features Fergie who hits the trifecta of not being able to sing, dance, or look attractive. It’s basically dance music for people who don’t actually like dance music or hip hop for those unfamiliar with hip hop. If you are listening to the Black Eyed Peas you need to be aware that whatever aspect of their music that you like there are a number of people out there who do that much, much better.
#5: Taylor Swift “Speak Now”: No one is going to believe this but I actually like Taylor Swift. I first heard her three or four years ago (whenever Teardrops on my Guitar originally came out) and I found her to be a perfectly acceptable country artist. Good singer who made it through a lot of hard work as opposed to a reality show victory. I’m really happy that she is making it big though I think she is hitting the overexposure level and is going to have to be a little careful if she wants to have a long career. Still, nice to see her make a strong showing.
#4: Lady Antebellum “Need You Now”: The second country entry on the list, which shows that since music sales have dropped the individual genres are now on a much more even playing field than ever before. Basically my only knowledge of this band is that someone told me I should style my hair like one of the guys in the band for my wedding. I’m not even sure who it is or what his hair looks like but I will just automatically assume that it is a bad idea. I just have a feeling that fifteen years ago someone was told “You should wear your hair like that Billy Ray Cyrus guy at your wedding!” I would like to at least be in my own wedding pictures.
#3: Justin Bieber “My Worlds”: As I’ve been mentioning the fun thing about the music business now is the fact that since most people my age and younger get their music online (often through nefarious methods) the acts that would have been best sellers when I was in college no longer breakthrough on the charts. Mainly the people who are buying music tend to be rather old or tweens. Hence the popularity of Justin Bieber whose market consists entirely of twelve year old girls who have money to buy music but haven’t learned how to use Bit Torrent yet. Again, I know nothing of his actual music and God willing I never will. I think I can live a full and productive life without ever hearing him sing.
#2: Eminem “Recovery”: Eminem is still alive? Good for him. I have actually heard some tracks from this album and it looks as though he is back in serious mode and making some really good music. Eminem has always had this strange tendency of going beyond putting humor into his songs to actually becoming something along the lines of a hip hop Weird Al. Just look at a few of the videos and ask yourself “Could Weird Al star in this?” That is what makes his career so tough to figure out. He can produce some of the darkest, most intense, stuff you’ll ever hear but the next single will be a comedy track.
#1: Lady Gaga “The Fame (Monster)”: Yes, this was the year of Lady Gaga who seems to have entered the realm of being famous for being famous. Now I know that she does make music and I’ve heard some but even someone who is oblivious to the music scene probably knows her as that woman who wears all of the wild outfits. She really did create an image of Madonna for the 21st Century as her fame is more dependent on her than her musical output. In this day and age that is what you need to do to be a superstar. Without MTV or consistent radio play the only way to become famous is to act as though you are famous already and have the internet cover you as someone who is important. It’s fascinating from a cultural perspective at least.
Sunday, January 02, 2011
New Year's Resolutions Revisited
Everyone has their own traditions for New Years. Maybe it involves spending the day with family or trying out the latest hangover cure or, if you are the Big Ten, losing every single game you possibly could. For me the New Year marks several things. It means that I start a new Word document for my writer’s journal which is now entering its fourteenth year. Yes, that means essentially fourteen years of keeping a diary. I’d say that I am a teenage girl but even teenage girls don’t keep diaries for fourteen years. But my main focus of the New Year is making my resolutions.
However, before I post my 2011 Resolutions I thought that I should check how I did on the 2010 edition. Because resolutions are meaningless without public accountability.
Resolution # 1: Get my weight down to under 190 pounds: As of this morning I weigh 196 pounds. Technically I did not reach my goal but this is down from my peak weight of about 215 earlier this year so it is still a loss of 15 to 20 pounds which is pretty impressive for a non-Biggest Loser contestant. The even better news is that I have been able to keep the weight off all year. I still have more to lose, especially going into the wedding, but at least I made progress on this one.
Resolution # 2: Be more attentive: I have worked a lot at not being so much a slave to multitasking. Essentially what would happen is I would be talking to Kim and she would notice that I was fading from the conversation because I was doing something online. I used to think that I could do two things at once but now I’ve come to realized that I just tend to do two things badly in that instance. I still fail too often (Triple Town on the Kindle can apparently take control of my mind) but I would like to think that I am in the moment more now than I was at the beginning of the year.
Resolution # 3: Complete a 3,000 piece jigsaw puzzle by myself: Done. Took me four months of sitting on the floor of my apartment with the most evil jigsaw puzzle ever made (I swear to God it was one third sky and the sky was the easiest part of the puzzle) but I did it. It is sad to think just how much joy I take out of completing something like that. There are times in my life where I have to take on a challenge where for me to succeed I have to have the will to finish more than anything else.
Resolution # 4: Have breakfast every day: Technically true if you consider coffee on its own as breakfast. Horribly untrue if you believe that breakfast should consist of something other than a Fiber One bar (and trust me, there is no joy in eating a Fiber One bar.) Given how much effort I am putting into losing weight you would think that eating breakfast, which is always stated as the first thing you should do to lose weight, would be easier to do. Focus for this year, obviously.
Resolution # 5: Get to work earlier: Sigh. Yeah, I failed at this one. I have no idea why it can be so tough for me to get out of bed in the morning. I will be awake, listening to NPR, but can’t take those few steps out of bed. I even keep an alarm clock on the other side of the room but when it goes off I get out of bed, turn it off, and then promptly get back under the covers. Maybe my bed is just too comfy. Or I’m lazy. One of the two.
Resolution # 6: Learn to cook to the point that I can make dinner for Kim: Well, I never made dinner for Kim so I guess this one should be considered a failure. I still have a desire to learn how to cook and I am making some progress but I still have a great deal of distance to go before I could legitimately say that I know how to cook. But again, given that I am going to be really health focused this year I think this might show up on my new list.
Resolution # 7: Reader’s Choice: If I remember correctly the reader’s choice for this year was to take up swimming. I don’t believe I swam at all this year. I didn’t even buy goggles though let’s face it; the goggles do nothing. I apologize to all of my readers out there.
Resolution # 8: Have 100 people read the blog in one day: I’m not sure if I broke this level or not. I did have some pretty popular days per Blogger stats and I became the number one link on google for searches for “strawberry shortcakes enemy”, which should count for something. Plus, I had a reader from Greenland and a Greenland reader must be worth like, 20 Canadians. I’ll admit that I really fell out of the blogging habit this year for a lot of reasons but it is nice to know that I still have an audience.
Resolution # 9: Expand my musical tastes: I surprisingly failed at this one. I probably bought less music this year than at any point since I was 16 years old. And I didn’t download stuff for free either; I just simply did not search out new music. On some level I blame the death of the music magazines and my lack of concert attendance as it is much tougher for me to find out about new acts than it used to be. But mainly I think I just needed to give my ears a year off. Maybe this year I’ll be able to hear new music without being so blasé about it.
Resolution # 10: Prepare to be the best husband that I can be: If there was anything this year was about it was this and I am still a work in progress. I always thought that being in a relationship would be easy; I am a nice, caring guy so just being myself would be all that is required. However, I never noticed the selfish guy who also existed there because when you aren’t in a relationship being selfish really isn’t that big of a deal. Plus, I have now been with Kim longer than all of my previous relationships put together and that is even if you consider going to get coffee with a girl to be equivalent to dating. In essence, I’ve never dealt with the issues that arise when you are in a real relationship.
I still screw up from time to time. More often than that to be precise. But I am pissed to no end at myself when I screw up and am trying everything I can to be the best that I can be. I am the luckiest man alive to be with Kim. It’s the least that I can do to try to be my best in return.
Best of 120 Minutes: Old school Wilco tonight. I just can’t find the time to write my mind the way I want it to read.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Cowboy Junkies “Rarities, B Sides, and Slow, Sad Waltzes”
2) Rilo Kiley “More Adventurous”
3) The Tragically Hip “Road Apples”
4) Belly “Star”
5) Alejandro Escovedo “Gravity”
However, before I post my 2011 Resolutions I thought that I should check how I did on the 2010 edition. Because resolutions are meaningless without public accountability.
Resolution # 1: Get my weight down to under 190 pounds: As of this morning I weigh 196 pounds. Technically I did not reach my goal but this is down from my peak weight of about 215 earlier this year so it is still a loss of 15 to 20 pounds which is pretty impressive for a non-Biggest Loser contestant. The even better news is that I have been able to keep the weight off all year. I still have more to lose, especially going into the wedding, but at least I made progress on this one.
Resolution # 2: Be more attentive: I have worked a lot at not being so much a slave to multitasking. Essentially what would happen is I would be talking to Kim and she would notice that I was fading from the conversation because I was doing something online. I used to think that I could do two things at once but now I’ve come to realized that I just tend to do two things badly in that instance. I still fail too often (Triple Town on the Kindle can apparently take control of my mind) but I would like to think that I am in the moment more now than I was at the beginning of the year.
Resolution # 3: Complete a 3,000 piece jigsaw puzzle by myself: Done. Took me four months of sitting on the floor of my apartment with the most evil jigsaw puzzle ever made (I swear to God it was one third sky and the sky was the easiest part of the puzzle) but I did it. It is sad to think just how much joy I take out of completing something like that. There are times in my life where I have to take on a challenge where for me to succeed I have to have the will to finish more than anything else.
Resolution # 4: Have breakfast every day: Technically true if you consider coffee on its own as breakfast. Horribly untrue if you believe that breakfast should consist of something other than a Fiber One bar (and trust me, there is no joy in eating a Fiber One bar.) Given how much effort I am putting into losing weight you would think that eating breakfast, which is always stated as the first thing you should do to lose weight, would be easier to do. Focus for this year, obviously.
Resolution # 5: Get to work earlier: Sigh. Yeah, I failed at this one. I have no idea why it can be so tough for me to get out of bed in the morning. I will be awake, listening to NPR, but can’t take those few steps out of bed. I even keep an alarm clock on the other side of the room but when it goes off I get out of bed, turn it off, and then promptly get back under the covers. Maybe my bed is just too comfy. Or I’m lazy. One of the two.
Resolution # 6: Learn to cook to the point that I can make dinner for Kim: Well, I never made dinner for Kim so I guess this one should be considered a failure. I still have a desire to learn how to cook and I am making some progress but I still have a great deal of distance to go before I could legitimately say that I know how to cook. But again, given that I am going to be really health focused this year I think this might show up on my new list.
Resolution # 7: Reader’s Choice: If I remember correctly the reader’s choice for this year was to take up swimming. I don’t believe I swam at all this year. I didn’t even buy goggles though let’s face it; the goggles do nothing. I apologize to all of my readers out there.
Resolution # 8: Have 100 people read the blog in one day: I’m not sure if I broke this level or not. I did have some pretty popular days per Blogger stats and I became the number one link on google for searches for “strawberry shortcakes enemy”, which should count for something. Plus, I had a reader from Greenland and a Greenland reader must be worth like, 20 Canadians. I’ll admit that I really fell out of the blogging habit this year for a lot of reasons but it is nice to know that I still have an audience.
Resolution # 9: Expand my musical tastes: I surprisingly failed at this one. I probably bought less music this year than at any point since I was 16 years old. And I didn’t download stuff for free either; I just simply did not search out new music. On some level I blame the death of the music magazines and my lack of concert attendance as it is much tougher for me to find out about new acts than it used to be. But mainly I think I just needed to give my ears a year off. Maybe this year I’ll be able to hear new music without being so blasé about it.
Resolution # 10: Prepare to be the best husband that I can be: If there was anything this year was about it was this and I am still a work in progress. I always thought that being in a relationship would be easy; I am a nice, caring guy so just being myself would be all that is required. However, I never noticed the selfish guy who also existed there because when you aren’t in a relationship being selfish really isn’t that big of a deal. Plus, I have now been with Kim longer than all of my previous relationships put together and that is even if you consider going to get coffee with a girl to be equivalent to dating. In essence, I’ve never dealt with the issues that arise when you are in a real relationship.
I still screw up from time to time. More often than that to be precise. But I am pissed to no end at myself when I screw up and am trying everything I can to be the best that I can be. I am the luckiest man alive to be with Kim. It’s the least that I can do to try to be my best in return.
Best of 120 Minutes: Old school Wilco tonight. I just can’t find the time to write my mind the way I want it to read.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Cowboy Junkies “Rarities, B Sides, and Slow, Sad Waltzes”
2) Rilo Kiley “More Adventurous”
3) The Tragically Hip “Road Apples”
4) Belly “Star”
5) Alejandro Escovedo “Gravity”
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