Why is Melissa Joan Hart MIA?

Weekend thoughts…
1) What I learned this weekend: Ted from How I Met Your Mother is in Not Another Teen Movie. I’d be a lot happier if I learned this through the internet rather than the fact that I spent a portion of my Saturday night lying on the couch watching Not Another Teen Movie. With the special pop-up comments on that mention exactly which teen movies were being parodied at any given time. On that point: remind me to add She’s All That to my Amazon wish list.

2) Ultimate sign that you have reached regular status: Walk into the bar and it is packed, actually having to wait outside to get in. Walk up and while still three deep at the bar have a bartender reach over the crowd to hand you your drink before you have even made eye contact with anyone. Maybe on some level I should be worried about these things but I think everyone should have at least one place where this is the norm. Or where they are the Norm.

3) I accomplished one of my 43 things this weekend! Ok, it was getting my car washed. What, you were hoping for me to attack one of those deep and meaningful goals first? To be honest, this was something that was months overdue as my car looked like absolute hell. I was at the point where I would actively tell people that I didn’t own a car as opposed to offer them a ride. It was to the point where buying a new car was becoming a legitimate option just because it would be cleaner.

4) You can tell that the holidays are approaching when I make a trip to the drug store to pick up as much Sudafed and cough drops as I possibly can. Yeah, it’s looking like I’m getting one of my annual holiday head colds. Started feeling it coming on on Friday and it’s slowly been getting worse as the weekend has progressed. Just once I would like to have a holiday weekend where I didn’t feel like I was going to have my head explode from sinus pressure. (I figure that I’ll never have a holiday weekend where my head doesn’t feel like it’s going to explode from stress.)

5) Listened to the Damien Rice CD a couple of times over the weekend and I would definitely pick it up. I’ve seen a few reviews where they thought it sounded unfinished and I can see that complaint but it really isn’t that much of an issue. It’s a little disjointed at times but the moments of pure brilliance that occur on the disc more than make up for it. Any disc that has me hitting repeat over and over again is a good one.

6) Here’s my explanation of why Damien is so cool. I made it home on Friday night in time to watch him perform ‘9 Crimes’ on Conan. It’s the first song on the disc but the first voice you hear on the song is Lisa Hannigan’s. She sings the entire first verse while Damien is just playing the piano. Then he joins in, followed by Vyvienne Long’s mournful cello and the song just builds and builds from there. It’s chilling and beautiful and daring. I know of few solo artists who would open an album with anything other than their own voice.

The five random CDs of the week (and in a first, I’ve seen all of these people in concert):
1) Richard Buckner “Meadow”
2) Blue Rodeo “Tremolo”
3) Zachary Richard “The Best of Zachary Richard”
4) Webb Wilder “Hybrid Vigor”
5) R.E.M. “Automatic for the People”

Madness of crowds

Correction: I should not have made too much fun of Kansas’ loss to Oral Roberts as Oral Roberts features the 900 foot Jesus. He’s really tough to defend in the low post. Either that or MC 900 Ft. Jesus is on the squad and even that guy has some shifty moves.

(Yeah, I’m an Illini who wouldn’t mind seeing that traitor Bill Self fail miserably. I’m just a little bitter about a coach quitting his job at a point where it was nearly impossible to find a successor. Thankfully, Weber can coach and wears cool fluorescent orange sportsjackets while doing it.)

I decided upon something tonight. I always talk about how I like seeing bands in small clubs and how I hate it when bands get big. I finally figured out why, when I first see a band typically the only people who like the band are there and they are all cool. As the band gets more popular suddenly all of these people who aren’t nearly as cool you are surround you and instead of enjoying the set all you can do is think, “Who the hell let these morons in?” It’s a dangerous tipping point.

This is on my mind since I just got back from seeing Old Crow Medicine Show and they have moved from their bluegrass following to more of a jamband following. This means that yet again I was forced to deal with hippies, white people with dreadlocks, Deadheads and a bunch of guys who think that beards make a really good fashion statement. I swear, these people will be sixth against the wall when the revolution comes. (I’d have them higher but I figure it’s going to take some time to get them to the wall. We’ll probably have to announce a Phish reunion concert in Vermont and account for van breakdowns, money crisis, and really interesting cloud formations.) While I appreciate that they support these guys (who are some of the best musicians around), it somehow takes some of the fun out of the show for me.

(And can someone please explain the beard thing to me? There were dozens of guys there with really scraggly beards. I know Kansas is behind the fashion curve but I was confused as to what decade I was supposed to be in. Now if you want to know what’s hip, check out Starzan Tees: where not doing the required reading is a prerequisite for cool.)

It was a good show but not a blowaway one. Liberty Hall never seems to mike them correctly, which has to be tough given that they only use pick up mikes and they have four vocalists. They’ve always sounded tinny in that place. It’s still amazing to see these guys go at it at full throttle. They are a bluegrass band made up of a bunch of young guys and they play like they’re in a punk band. Plus, one guy plays a guitjo and he does it extremely seriously, possibly because playing a guitjo (which is part guitar, part banjo) is nearly impossible without growing a third arm. Check them out, put them in your Pandora playlist, the usual drill.

That’s about it. I’ll have my thoughts on the new Damien Rice disc next week. My first thought is you have to listen to the song “9 Crimes”. Wow, that’s worth buying the album right there. Until then, I’ll be off on my usual adventures. Have a fun weekend, Go Irish, and may we find a way that both Ohio State and Michigan lose on Saturday.

Waiting for Zelda (the other one...)

Sometimes I wonder if it will ever be possible for me to write a novel given that what I am best at is just listing a whole bunch of random ideas. Maybe I’ll just pitch it as a breakthrough in the field of stream of consciousness writing and convince critics that this is the greatest advance in literature since the days of Joyce and Beckett. Not sure how I’ll be able to spin the Speed Racer references into something meaningful, though….

1) Contrary to popular opinion, this is not being written while waiting in line outside of a Best Buy as I attempt to purchase both a Playstation 3 and a Nintendo Wii. That’s because I’m no longer a teenager whose entire life revolves around video games. I’m now an adult whose entire life revolves around video games who can hire teenagers to wait in line for me. Hey, if outsourcing works for companies it can work for me as well. My early analysis, skip out on getting a PS3 unless you desperately want a Blu-Ray DVD player. Not many games, too high of a cost, and it’s just not going to be worth what they’ll be going for on eBay. The Wii, on the other hand, might actually be the first Nintendo system that I will be tempted to buy. The Wiimote is the first innovation in gaming that I’ve seen in ages and it just looks super cool. To the point that I’m willing to freeze myself in order to make waiting for its launch go faster.

2) Yeah, a South Park reference. I am so trying to use the phrase “Science H. Logic” in everyday conversation. I don’t really care if anyone gets it. I just want to say things like “Science be praised” and “Logic help us” around the office in an attempt to get in trouble for free speech once again.

3) Frightening statistic I learned while writing the blog this week: Do you know how many copies of the 4 Non Blondes album was sold? 5 million. I shit you not. This is an album that consists of only one song, I dare you to name another one. Yet this still went quintuple platinum. I know I argue about the long tail and the death of the big hit and how that might be a bad thing but in cases like this I have to admit, knocking a few million album sales off of that one would make the world a better place.

4) Remember when I talked about being in New Orleans and meeting the other volunteers and feeling like I was the worst person on the planet because I worked in an office selling widgets while they all seemed to be trying to save the world? Well, it’s nice to know that whenever I feel that way I can always turn to O.J. to be reassured that while my life may not be as noble as it could be, I’m definitely not at the tail end of the list. I’m not sure how you could have the gall to write a book called “Theoretically, if I wanted to kill my ex-wife and a random acquaintance who happened to be there at the time this is the exact methodology I would have utilized.” I’m not sure how Fox could bring themselves to air this. It makes “When Animals Attack” look nuanced.

5) Kansas lost to Oral Roberts tonight. At home. I’m not sure how to explain it, other than maybe the Jayhawks looked at the calendar and thought that it was March already. (Ooh, too soon?) I’ve watched a little of my Blue Devils and, uh, I think it might be a long season. I think they’re ranked 11th because of the name on the front of the jersey and not the ones on the back. I just have a feeling that their games are not going to be must see tv for me.

Cleaning out the cobwebs...

What’s bouncing around my noggin right about now…

1) Writing about Big Country and Men at Work last night made me think about what I consider to be the most underrated band in history: Midnight Oil. Talk about a band that played with passion. Every single song seemed to be focused on changing the world. They played message songs a lot less heavy handed than U2 (ok, slightly heavy handed but at least they weren’t waving flags around during their stage show). If their lead singer looked more like Bono and less like a zombie they probably would be selling out arenas to this day. Hell, if their lead singer looked like Rob Zombie they’d probably be selling out shows left and right. They deserve more than being a footnote in music history.

2) Music history is a very strange little subject. Some bands are forgotten for selling no records while others are considered icons in the industry while selling nothing in the process. No one actually bought a Stooges record, it was just great seeing Iggy Pop live. People talk about Joy Division and the Replacements with awe but at the time they could barely get noticed outside of a small underground following. I’m not saying that Hootie and the Blowfish were better, just that building a musical legacy is a crapshoot.

3) Caught a bit of Dan Rather’s new show on HD-Net. There are certain people who should not be broadcast in high definition and Dan Rather is on the list. Not saying that I would look much better, seeing my acne (which will go away when I finish puberty, or so I’ve been told) transmitted across the nation in digital quality. The weird thing about high definition is that it seems more real than real life. I mentioned before watching Tift Merritt in high def to see what she looks like, which is insane because I stood right in front of her and talked to her for a few minutes one night. Somehow seeing her on tv felt more real though. Wow, that probably needs to be added to my list of “most depressing things I’ve ever written”.

4) How I Met Your Mother update: The show seems to be regaining its footing, though it still hasn’t hit the level it was at last year. Marshall and Lilly are back together, which was necessary from a story point of view. It was either that or get rid of Allyson Hannigan and I would be greatly depressed if that happened. It’s just a matter of time before Ted and Robin break up and here is my prediction on how it will occur. (Note: I haven’t read any spoilers, I just think I understand how plots work). Robin will over the course of the year begin to think more and more about settling down and starting a family while Ted becomes more involved with the skyscraper that he is designing. In the end Robin will give a “it’s the building or me” ultimatum and the building will win. Ted will then spend a couple of episodes depressed until he finally meets his dream woman (in my plot, a returning Victoria only because she was awesome.)

5) Two great moments in the show over the last two weeks. Number one: Ted explaining to Marshall how to ask a girl out “Hands in your pockets, shoulders slightly slumped, looking upwards in a manner of shy sensitivity.” It’s worked occasionally. And this week in Atlantic City with Barney playing the most bizarre poker game imaginable culminating with Marshall yelling “Split your tiles, if you find the jelly bean you’ll triple your money.” It’s funnier on tv.

Musical Guilty Pleasures

(How neglected is my MySpace page? I couldn’t even remember the link correctly when I built the Friends of the Blog. That’s since been corrected, along with a few other additions. Just another step into turning this blog into a worldwide internet portal.)

While listening to Pandora today a song came on that I love but that my enjoyment of the song pretty much means that I should tear up my music critic membership card. I thought that I’d list some of these guilty pleasures. None of these songs are considered critical masterpieces but I guarantee you’ll be singing them for the rest of the day.

Big Country “In a Big Country”: This is the one that caused all of this. Some bands name their first album after themselves. Big Country took it further and named their first single after the band. I still think this song is one of the best ever even though it consists of only eight lines and probably half of those contradict the other half. But it had a really funky guitar line that was mixed to sound like bagpipes and was sung with such passion you really felt that declaring it a Big Country was the most important point one could make in the world. Also, watching the video as a kid made me want to be a musician in that it implied being in a band involved riding in boats, deep sea diving and racing across the countryside in ATV’s. Like learning to play guitar automatically earned you the right to be a low rent James Bond.

Asia “The Heat of the Moment”: There is no good reason to like Asia. (I mean the band, not the continent. I’m not that cynical.) Liking the band is basically saying you like bad prog rock and really fancy album covers. But for some reason you can’t really question how cool this song is. I don’t even know if you could say that it sounds two decades old. More like it’s one of those songs where you immediately sing along with the chorus. (Question: Am I right in remembering this video as having this strange, Raiders of the Lost Ark vibe, going on? Like the band members had to deal with a lot of traps that seemed to be invented by some ancient civilization that was really, really focused on guitars? Or am I thinking about something else?)

Len “Steal My Sunshine”: Look, we are all allowed to have one summer song that we can enjoy regardless of the fact that it seems like it written by the dumbest band ever. I mean, they sampled “More More More” for crying out loud. Plus, if the video was anything to go by, I think the entire song was about going out and buying ice cream. Still, this is one of those bright, happy songs that no one ever believes that I have hidden in my music collection, packed away next to albums that consist entirely of murder ballads.

(Extemporaneous Discussion: Here is the most frightening fact that I learned at work today. Christina Aguilera’s new single was written by Linda Perry. Who is Linda Perry you may ask? Is it Steve Perry after a sex change? Sadly, no, but you do know Linda Perry. Remember the incredibly frightening singer in 4 Non Blondes who sang “What’s Going On”? That’s her (technically, the song was called What’s Up but people only remember the chorus and her even scarier hat). This is who is writing your pop hits. It’s like looking behind the curtain when you see the wizard.)

The New Radicals “You Get What You Give”: I really, really like this song and am constantly bummed when I see it listed as a one hit wonder. Sure, it was the only hit but it seemed to deserve much more than to be included alongside the Macarena and Disco Duck. It was a song that preached rebellion by being silly, as opposed to most bands in the late nineties who seemed to imply that rebellion involved wearing black and cutting yourself. Plus, Danielle Brinsbois was in the band and she was also in Archie Bunker’s Place. Until Soleil Moon Frye starts a band this is the best we can hope for.

Men at Work “Down Under”: The first piece of music that I ever purchased with my own money was a Men at Work cassette. Yeah, that really doesn’t sound impressive. I should lie and say it was Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” but give me a break. I was nine. Instead I listened to Australian music that featured more instruments than technically necessary and a sense of humor that seemed to make everything they did a novelty song. Which isn’t fair since they were a good band and memorable. I hope they go down in history for the following. When Sydney was awarded the Summer Olympics in 2000 someone asked the lead singer what he felt this meant. He thought for a second and went, “Guess it means I’ll have to get the band back together.” They knew they were going to be playing at the ceremonies, that they were going to be the de facto theme song, and they figured they might as well sound good doing so. That is when you know you’ve written a good song.

Matters of Habit

(I was able to successfully update my template so that I now have my “Friends of the Blog” section added on the right. This is going to be a collection of links to my friends, part-time advertisers, and some of my favorite spots online. Should help to give people a sense of some of the websites I hit on a regular basis. As always, your mileage may vary.)

It’s strange that I made this a three day weekend and my two major accomplishments were a) cashing in my remaining loose change and b) buying my first pair of corduroys since I was maybe ten. I’m not quite sure what has made me feel so strongly against wearing brown cords. I think it might honestly be because when I broke my leg as a kid I went to the emergency room in brown cords and I blame the pants for the entire event. Yes, you could pretty much trace my lack of style to about a half dozen events in my youth.

(Now, of course, I spend half my time reading men’s magazines and focusing on the clothing sections. I’m at the point where I should just get a subscription to GQ. Or hire someone to be my wardrobe consultant, a concept that I’ve thought a lot about recently. Oh, and the cords are green and look pretty cool.)

And speaking of strange changes in habit, the following struck me on Saturday afternoon. It was while watching the Notre Dame game and since the game was on the most obscure channel ever I was forced to go to a bar to watch the game. Now, that isn’t the worst thing in the world but I prefer watching the game from home, where I don’t have to deal with bad cigar smoke and people not paying attention to the game. Also, the bar showing the game was in Kansas and just on general principle I try not to hang out in bars in Kansas. Just because if you try to order something exotic, like a Rolling Rock, they tend to stare at you blankly until you given in and go “I’ll have a Miller Lite”, which then leads to more blank stares and you end up drinking a Miller. Not a Light or a Genuine Draft or even a Genuine Draft Lite, just a plain old Miller.

(Bars in Lawrence don’t count in this discussion, mainly because I’ve come to the conclusion that Lawrence isn’t technically in Kansas. Or the Midwest, for that matter.)

Anyway, I convinced them to serve me Guinness and it dawned on me that this was the most Guinness that I have drank in a bar in an insanely long time. That’s odd because for the longest time all I would drink was Guinness. I considered it my ultimate drink. You could drink it slow and have a relatively easy night but no one would ever make fun of you because you were drinking a Guinness and it had that dark and mysterious and dangerous edge to it. It served me very well until I moved here and I had a night in which, yeah, I don’t remember much about it. Other than I spent the next day lying on my couch listening to the Nascar race. It’s bad when you are too tired to either a) watch the race, b) turn off the tv or c) change the channel.

So I decided to blame the beer, as opposed to the half a pack of cigarettes or my own stupidity. (This was during the timeframe when people had convinced me that smoking would make me look cool, which makes me the oldest person to ever fall prey to peer pressure. And the only person who started smoking when he was 30.) But I stopped drinking Guinness and moved on to Wheat and on Saturday I was wondering why I had switched in the first place. And that made me wonder just how much of my life is made up of routines that exist for absolutely no purpose. Where I park my car, how I buy groceries, the way I walk around a mall, I have extremely concise patterns for all of these things. But there’s no real reason for them. It’s all due to some small event years ago that I’ve probably forgotten about by now.

There’s a deeper meaning in this but the Bears are playing and I want to catch the end of the game.

The five random CD’s for the week.
1) Iris DeMent “My Life”
2) The New Pornographers “Mass Romantic”
3) Keb’ Mo’ “Slow Down”
4) Hank Williams III “Lovesick, Broke & Driftin’”
5) Kelly Willis “Reason to Believe”

The Terrible Twos Begin Tonight!

I have to admit, I am utterly amazed by the following fact. Tonight (well, technically tomorrow but stay with me here) marks my two year anniversary in the blogsphere. Yes, as the ever growing list of past articles shows, it was just after the 2004 presidential election that I decided that my voice must be heard, that I had to propose my plan for a better world, and thus Battling the Current was born. Which then devolved into discussions on such varied topics as Lindsay Lohan, Voltron and dozens of bands that no one has ever heard of. But that’s beside the point. What I want to make abundantly clear is that I am without a doubt a more successful blogger than J.D. Salinger, Emily Bronte and William Shakespeare combined.

(Oh yeah, you can argue that they lacked things like computers and electricity but they’re supposed to be geniuses right? You’d think they could overcome a little hardship and start up a blog.)

Kidding aside, this really does feel like a major accomplishment for me. While I’ve been keeping a writer’s journal (it’s not a diary, damnit) since 1998 I would always hit a patch of one or two months where I wouldn’t write a single world. I’ve never really taken time off from this site, though, outside of when I’ve been out of town. If I’m near a computer I would make time to sit down and write whatever was on my mind. And while not all of it has been brilliance, I’d have to say that at times I’ve been able to make people laugh and think, which is all I’ve ever wanted to accomplish in the world. Given that two years ago I was going to be happy if anyone read it at all I’m proud of what this has become.

Of course, this means that it is time for a celebration and gifts to my faithful readers. And this time, I’m going to let you decide what I should do in honor of this occasion. I could put together Battling the Current Volume 3, another compilation of great music you’ve never heard of. I wouldn’t mind the next one of those being a theme (desert island songs, only drinking songs, whatever else you could think of). I could also make good on my promise of t-shirts but I’ll need to know that there is an actual demand before I make that effort. Or, I could do what I think is the best idea yet. See, I would basically like to buy everyone who reads this a drink since you’ve all essentially sat at the end of the bar with me and listened to my stories for two years. For that you are definitely owed a shot. So, we could set up a time where we all raise a glass and I either personally, or through the wonders of the internet, pay for a round of red headed sluts. Ideas (or better concepts)?

(Oh, and if you don’t have Battling the Current Volumes 1 and 2 and would like them, let me know. It’s the easiest way to understand all of the musical references that I make.)

I’ve got plans for the site as well. I want to increase the multimedia side of things (pictures would be a nice addition). There are some overall design issues that I’ve been putting off for a while that I need to address, mainly putting up a section of my favorite links. And I might move on to Blogger Beta, which would allow for tagging so that you could now get to all of the Forgotten Television Shows and Songbooks in one click. Plus, there is my usual goal of writing better and getting more readers and making the top 200,000 in technorati. Expect to see some upgrades sooner than later.

As always, thanks to everyone who reads this. There is no bigger thrill for me than to check my email and see that people have commented on the blog. It’s gotten me through more than a few rough patches over the past two years. And expect to have much more to read in the months and years ahead. I’m off to celebrate. Quo Vadimus.

Oops I did it again

Looks like I got my prediction wrong last night. The democrats did end up taking control of the senate. That really surprised me, I figured they were going to lose in Virginia and Missouri. Claire won by a decent margin even though I would say that Talent ran better ads. Not better in that they proved his position or anything. Better in that he implied that his opponent was a tax cheat who encouraged the torture of senior citizens while living the high life in Bermuda. Now I wonder what I’ll do now that I won’t have any political ads to watch.

(In the one bright spot for republicans, Heath Shuler was elected to congress. Yes, the QB who you wouldn’t trust holding a clipboard got elected. Based on this, I expect Brett Farve to be elected king of Wisconsin in the next decade.)

But now I am very upset. Here it’s been twenty four hours since the democrats have taken over and is my life better? No. They’re just a bunch of slackers. Plus, now I won’t have as many people to blame with regards to the horrible state of the nation. Life is so much more fun when all you have to do is blame the other guy.

On to more important news, I am still reeling from the Brit-K-Fed story (which is now being referred to as Fed-Ex in a case of humor gone awry). The big development today was that Brit ended their marriage with a text message. That’s got to hurt. I’ve had break-ups through email before, which at least gives you the dignity of knowing that the other person sat down at a keyboard, looked at a screen and typed. Here, she was probably watching Dancing with the Stars and sent “ITS OVER L8R”. It’s tough to feel sorry for K-Fed because, well, the guy’s a friggin douchebag. But still, if you’ve got the phone out you could at least leave a message on his voice mail.

So where does Brit go from here? I’ll stand by my earlier prediction: expect an album in the next six months released to mixed reviews but accompanied by a Playboy shoot emphasizing her new womanly body. It’s pretty much her best option right now. It’s a vague attempt at recreating her image but to be honest, she’s a sideshow right now. Her best course of action is to admit it and make as much money off of it as she can. It’s not like people are waiting for her next single. She can’t even do the Debbie (I mean, Deborah) Gibson career track and star in Les Mis, mainly because that would require talent. Also, I don’t think that Brit would sing back up on a Circle Jerks song. So, we’re looking at Playboy, a couple of bad movies, and the top left square on Hollywood Squares. Still better than Tiffany, I’ll give her that much.

Starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick...

8:55 P.M.: And coming to you live from the Battling the Current election headquarters it is time for Decision 2006. I’m joined by experts and…ah, who am I kidding. I can’t convince people to come to my Super Bowl party, there’s no way I was going to get people to watch election tallies with me. Just envision me much like Homer Simpson right now, sitting on my couch holding a pennant that reads “Democracy”.

8:57 P.M.: So this will be another experiment in live blogging. I’ll be watching the election returns and giving my insight into the races. It’s like when I cover the Oscars, except with a lot less glamour.

9:00 P.M.: Hey, Ted Kennedy won in Massachusetts! I didn’t even know that he was running. Heck, Ted probably didn’t even know he was running. Probably showed up at the polls this morning and went, “Uh, why is my name on the ballot? Has it been six years already?”

9:02 P.M.: Chocola looks to have lost the Indiana house race. This is only of note because he was the rep for the South Bend district so I got inundated with ads for him two years ago. I always found it funny because I always assumed that he was actually Count Chocola and running on a platform of fiscal responsibility and sugary breakfast cereals for everyone. And I don’t care about those spurious claims made by Boo Berry, I considered him to be an upstanding candidate.

9:06 P.M.: For those wondering, I’m watching the ABC coverage right now. Katie Couric is just too perky for me to handle this late at night and while Brian Williams is a cyborg-in-arms I always get the feeling that he is going to start shooting laser beams from his eyes and killing half the crew. ABC is slightly calmer and features Stephanopolous, who always makes me think of Sesame Street. (I’m watching in high def as well because, ok, there is no reason for this. It just makes the graphics a little nicer.)

9:11 P.M.: I should admit my prejudices up front. I voted the way I always vote: straight ticket democratic and against all judges unless they are Irish. I mean, who the hell do the judges think they are? What gives them the right to tell me what to do? You keep the Irish ones though, just in case you ever need to appear in court. Basically, I just vote the way I was taught to in Chicago civics courses. We were basically taught that the two party system was a crock and that a benign dictatorship was much preferred.

9:21 P.M.: I’ll be bummed for one Republican loss, which is Chaffee from Rhode Island. He was a good, independent minded politician. They threw out an incredible stat, his approval rating is in the sixtieth percentile and he still gets voted out. Really shows that this a referendum on something a lot bigger than a state election.

9:29 P.M.: Speaking about tallies, I watched a bit of VH-1’s Top 100 Songs of the 80’s countdown. I had to turn it off, even though it would have been beneficial for my trivia contests. They listed The Clash’s “London Calling” the 41st best song of the 80’s. I have two issues with this. One is the fact that the song was released in 1979. The other is that if you are making any musical list and include London Calling it is ranked in the single digits. I don’t care if it is a list of wedding polkas, on that list London Calling comes in eighth.

9:32 P.M.: Oh, and a joke I should have made at trivia on Friday. After missing a question on what amendment gave women the right to vote, “I didn’t know they needed a constitutional amendment to let women vote in American Idol?”

9:35 P.M.: Looks like Phil Kline is losing in the Kansas Attorney General race. That would be nice as I’d prefer an Attorney General who, I don’t know, doesn’t break the law every five minutes. Kline is quite possibly the only Attorney General I have ever seen who considers the Constitution to be optional.

9:42 P.M.: I wonder if the other analysts don’t believe that Stephanopolous actually exists. Like maybe he’s just a figment of Charles Gibson’s imagination. (Yeah, I know that Snufflaupagus’ existence is now known by everyone on Sesame Street but in my mind, only Big Bird knows about him. And why I know that and not the names of both senators from Missouri is beyond me.)

9:51 P.M.: Ok, this is getting boring. I’m switching over to Pants Off Dance Off.

9:52 P.M.: Or maybe that should be called, “Dear God, please put your pants back on.”

9:57 P.M.: The view from the couch so far. Democrats will pick up control of the house but are going to just fall short in the senate. Which means a good deal of gridlock for two years. In my mind, that might be an improvement.

9:59 P.M.: Wow, they’ve gone an hour of breaking news coverage and still haven’t talked about the biggest news story of the day. Who cares about a Connecticut house race when Brittney Spears has filed for divorce? Where is the wall to wall coverage of this? I mean, my entire faith in the concept of marriage has been shaken to the core. If Brit and K-Fed can’t live happily ever after what hope do I have? Life is just so unfair.

10:01 P.M.: The Johnson County soccer bonds have been defeated! That will teach those seven year olds a lesson. Start playing real sports. For those not in Kansas, this was a $75M bond issue to build 20 soccer fields. Yes, that is nearly $4M per field. Apparently, nine year olds need domed fields and Jumbotron screens. Jeez, when I was a kid I was happy to have one little league field with lights.

10:04 P.M.: Time for Stewart/Colbert, which will be slightly funnier than the regular coverage.

10:15 P.M.: Hey, we got our first Mondale joke of the evening! One of my favorite moments in the history of politics was at the 1992 Democratic National Convention. At one point, PBS was talking to Mondale, McGovern and Dukakis and asking about how they viewed Clinton’s campaign. I was seriously waiting for one of them to go, “Well, he’s doing the absolute opposite of what I did so I’m pretty sure he’s doing good.”

10:21 P.M.: Checking in on the Illinois results (where I may or may not have voted a half dozen times today. Man, I love political machines.) Blago was reelected governor, beating Julie Barr-Topinka, who is actually from my hometown. As someone born and raised in Berwyn, I feel confident in saying that I really don’t think the governor should come from that town. Hell, I probably shouldn’t be allowed to operate a website after growing up in that town. It’s not that the town is on the wrong side of the tracks, it is that the tracks literally went through my front yard. I’ll assume that Lipinski the Younger also won, nearly twenty years after I won a history contest sponsored by his dad. You want to get my vote? Let me win a hundred dollar savings bond by knowing that John Marshall was a Chief Justice.

10:27 P.M.: Dan Rather just quoted Pink Floyd’s The Wall. “You can’t have your pudding unless you eat your meat.” I should probably stop drinking now.

10:31 P.M.: A marathon commercial reminds me of something. I’ve got to hand it to Lance Armstrong for breaking three hours in the NYC marathon. You have to admit, that guy’s got ball.

10:32 P.M.: Oh, stop groaning. You try being creative after watching Wolf Blitzer’s beard for four hours. Seriously, does that guy ever look in the mirror and go, “Maybe the Santa Claus look just isn’t the best one for me.”

11:04 P.M.: I’m now watching the 1980 All-Star game on ESPN Classic. Yeah, time to call it a night. Or at least take a nap until the rebroadcast of Pants Off Dance Off.

Reviewing the library...

(Before I get started I would just like to remind everyone to get out and vote and kick those bums out of power. Unless of course you would prefer to keep the bastards in charge of this country, in which case I still encourage you to vote but I also then ask that you start working on getting me a housewarming gift for my inevitable move to Sydney. Seriously, can we please inform the worst administration since Millard Fillmore that we think they shouldn’t be allowed to run a little league team, much less a country?)

Anyway, since I’m thinking of updating my DVD library I thought that I might as well list some of the discs that I do have along with my typical cynical comments. It’s not a complete list, but it will give you some insight into some deeper aspect of my personality that you may not have noticed before.

Baseketball: Or maybe not. I still find this movie to be hilarious. That makes me the only one.

Beautiful Girls: Natalie Portman’s incredible portrayal of the insanely intelligent schoolgirl almost makes up for the fact that Rosie O’Donnell plays a major role in this movie. Sadly, Natalie wasn’t a miracle worker at 14.

Glory: This is the first DVD that I ever bought. When you want to test out a new technology always go with a war film. You get explosions, bright lights and great amounts of sound and fury. It helps that this is an incredible movie, especially for a civil war buff.

Star Wars Episodes 1-6: For the record, I didn’t buy the new editions of the original films, which are actually the original films. This means that I own the “Greedo shoots first and there is a completely unnecessary scene with Jabba the Hutt included” version of the films. You know, if Lucas was half as good a filmmaker as he is a businessman the prequels may have been, oh I don’t know, interesting.

The Whit Stillman Trilogy (Metropolitan, Barcelona, and…): Ok, I don’t own Last Days of Disco on DVD yet, even though I have the movie poster hanging in my dining room. It was only vaguely released on DVD and they want like 80 bucks for it and I’m waiting for a rerelease that may never happen. Still, these films contain some of the best dialogue I’ve ever seen in a film. I wish I could write the way these characters talk.

Spider Man 1 and 2: Some say it’s a great comic book movie. I say that any film that features Kirsten Dunst with red hair is a candidate for best film ever.

Bring It On: Ok, or Kirsten Dunst as a cheerleader

The Virgin Suicides: Or Kirsten Dunst as a depressed teenager. But since I also own Lost in Translation, this is more of a case of my being a fan of Sofia Coppola than anything else.

Picnic at Hanging Rock: This is an odd little Australian film that is like Blair Witch long before that flick was even thought of. It’s spellbinding and you never know quite what is going on. The landscape becomes one of the characters as the movie progresses. Quite possibly the best film you have never heard of.

The Richard Linklatter Collection (Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Waking Life): Obviously, I’m a huge fan of Linklatter’s work in all of its idiosyncratic glory. Whether the plotless Slacker or the pick the future star Dazed and Confused, he seems to be the one director who speaks to my generation. Waking Life is easily one of my favorite films, an animated piece about the nature of dreams (just don’t use it as a date movie. Long story. La Femme Nikita worked out better for me.)

Exotica: Within six months there were three strip club movies released. In one, Jesse from Saved by the Bell tried to dance and look sexy and failed miserably. In another, Demi Moore showed that with enough plastic surgery even an older actress can have an opportunity to portray a character with absolutely no acting skills. In Exotica, Mia Kirshner dances to a Leonard Cohen song. Yeah, this movie is pretty freaking cool. (And you can get it at Target for like 8 bucks.)

The Player: I wish I could write here about Altman’s portrayal of the vanity of the movie industry, or his eight minute, no cut, opening shot or even Lyle Lovett’s incredible role as the creepy detective. But mainly I just want to point out that Tim Robbins wears really good suits throughout the entire movie. In a lot of films I’m scouring the credits to see who is on the soundtrack. In this one I’m trying to figure out who was the tailor.

Rudy: I am required by law to own this film. If I don’t, they take back my diploma.

An end of an era...

Topic #1: I think I can add this to the list of signs that you have spent way too much time in one bar. Went out on Saturday night and when I got to the bar my very first reaction wasn’t “Wow, look who is all here” or “I wonder what I should have?” It was “Cool, we got new bar stools! Maybe they’ll let me put my name on one!” The only equivalent story I have is the one night at the Backer when they took the mirror from behind the bar out to be cleaned, which resulted in Super and me staring at the wall for an hour saying things like “Something’s changed” and “This is really freaking me out” and “You never appreciate a mirror until it’s gone”. I think the only reason we changed topics was due to Donna threatening to brain us with a bottle of Jager if we didn’t shut up.

Topic #2: Pretty confident that the biggest news story of the weekend was the revelation that Doogie Howser is gay. I have to say, this one did take me by surprise and there aren’t many Hollywood stories that would do that. I mean, if it was revealed that Tom Cruise had brainwashed Katie Holmes and had her carry a baby that isn’t his, culminating in a staged wedding all in an attempt for Tom to show his manliness I’m pretty sure that my response would be a yawn. But this one made me take a second look.

First off, props to Doogie for being so open and cool about it. If you read the statement it is totally a “No big deal, just figured that I’d get it out there so no one would make an issue of it.” Plus, I think I’ve gained a hell of a lot more respect for him as an actor because he is perfect in the role of Barney, the womanizing, purely evil character on How I Met Your Mother. He pulls that off without a hitch and that’s just impressive. Especially after watching Jason Priestly trying to play a doctor in Love Monkey, which was a challenge because he wasn’t able to convince me that his character was able to read. But yeah, Doogie’s relationship with his video camera toting buddy may now take on a whole deeper level of meaning.

Topic #3: Sufjan Stevens was just insane on Austin City Limits last night. They introduced him as “being a new voice in American folk music”, which would make sense except that I don’t see to many folk acts include five violinists, two cellists, a brass section and the entire band wearing vaguely boy scout looking outfits complete with butterfly wings. Yeah, pretty sure Dylan didn’t look that way before he went electric. From my point of view, Sufjan is the first new artist I’ve heard in ages. Meaning that I don’t have anyone to compare him to, he seems to have created his own genre. That’s not something you find everyday.

Topic #4: Thanks for all of the comments and movie suggestions. I’ll start building a list and posting it and see what people think. I have a sense that I’ll fill in my Gen X collection, especially after watching Kicking and Screaming over the weekend (not the Will Ferrell one, the one about a bunch of guys who had just graduated and have no clue what to do with their lives). I’ll talk about the movie sometime this week, there were two quotes that hit me and I need to figure out how to write about them. But thanks for all the suggestions (Virginia Woolf included. Wow, you can tell that my readership has grown).

The five random CDs for the week
1) Old 97’s “Satellite Rides”
2) Various Artists “Emerald Rock”
3) Chris Mills “The Silver Line”
4) Nirvana “MTV Unplugged in New York”
5) Maggie Walters “Maggie Walters”

Loose change...

Time to close out the week in much the same way I started it, with a lot of random comments that don’t really amount to anything.

For years I always laughed at anyone who used one of those Coinstar machines. You know the ones where you put in a dollar of change and it gives you ninety one cents back. I’m the first person to call lotteries a tax on people who are bad at math but these machines are for people who have no concept of the value of money. Or at least that is what I thought until recently. I found out a few weeks ago that they will give you gift certificates to Amazon instead of cash and in the process not take a nine percent commission for counting your change.

This has been a very important discovery for me as I haven’t cashed in any of the loose change that I’ve accumulated since I moved to this town over three years ago. Given that I live a predominantly cash life this turns into an incredible amount of quarters just lying around the apartment. (Why a cash life? Mainly because I don’t want an itemized credit card statement at the end of the year telling me precisely how much I’ve spent at my favorite bar. I already have one bartender describing me as his vacation fund, I don’t need to know the specifics.) And since I spend a lot of time on Amazon this is a perfect match.

So this leads me to a question that I posed in my monthly report but no one has replied to yet. My main goal is to convert my loose change into a more impressive DVD collection. Here is my question, what are the ten DVD’s that you feel you must have in a collection in order for it to complete? Don’t care about genre or quality, just what do you think are the must-owns. Just post a list in the comments, I want to get an idea of what I should pick up. (True, I might already own some of them so don’t bother listing “Bloodbath: Wrestling’s Greatest Steel Cage Matches” because I already have that one. Hey, don’t look at me that way, I got it as a Christmas present.)

The big celebrity news is that Ryan Phillipe and Reese Witherspoon are getting divorced, which leads to the question, “Wait, they were still married?” This falls into the Chad Lowe-Hillary Swank category of where one wins the Oscar and the other’s career consists mainly of guest spots on ER. You can measure the lifespan of those relationships with a stopwatch. That said, who would’ve thought that a relationship founded on the set of Cruel Intentions would have lasted this long in the first place.

Think that will be it for the week. I’m out of ideas and don’t have any more stories from high school to share at the moment (though if I can ever dig up my prom photo I will post it.) I’m hoping that this weekend will be as interesting as last weekend’s, though this time with a slightly better conclusion. Or it will just turn into a quest to find the Morton Salt girl. As my novel used to be titled, my life really is a sitcom.

Yep, I was All-State in high school...

Earlier this week I joked about making up math pick-up lines back in high school when I spent too many weekends spent in math contests. There are a lot of stories to tell on that topic and one that no one will believe. That will be tonight’s topic, even though it breaks the first rule of Math Club in that you do not talk about Math Club.

Let’s flashback to my high school years. The younger EC doesn’t have the beer belly and wears even klunkier glasses and is less confident but also more oblivious, which in a strange way evens itself out. This made me an obvious candidate for the Math Club. However, as someone who hung out with the athletes and enjoyed music I was simultaneously the best math student and too cool for Math Club. Ok, maybe saying that I was too cool for Math Club isn’t that impressive of a statement but what I’m trying to get to here is that I didn’t look forward to solving equations after school and spending weekends in contests.

See, that was basically the entire purpose of Math Club. A few times a year you would go off on a Saturday to another school and compete against all these other schools in math. Like you would sit in a classroom, be handed a test and answer all of these questions. Incredibly, I was doing this in my free time. Theoretically it was to help me get into college but to be honest even I thought it was nuts. Basically it would turn into my buddy Shamus and I cracking jokes and ripping on every other purpose in the room (despite the fact that we were both two skinny white kids with glasses who could recite every line from Monty Python by heart).

Well, in my senior year I enter my last regional contest and ended up being one of the highest scores for my region. This meant that I was able to attend the big contest. Yes, arguably my biggest accomplishment in high school was I made the state tournament in math.

(Sigh. Is there a way to say that I was an All-State Mathalete and not sound like the biggest loser on the planet? It’d be easier to say that I spent four years of high school stealing hubcaps.)

Anyway, so my dad drives to me the state tournament at ISU. I’m the only person from my school to qualify so I’m a team of one, dressed in my usual attire of jeans and a Duke basketball t-shirt. In this crowd that stood out. Because these guys had team uniforms. Yes, the math teams all had matching outfits with cute math related sayings on them. Those that didn’t have uniforms were wearing Mathematica t-shirts with pictures of funky geometric shapes on them. I looked around the hall where everyone gathered for the opening ceremonies and I immediately thought a) these people are all freaks and b) I’m probably the only one with a date for prom in this entire room.

It got worse. They go through the welcome and the instructions and then it was time to sing the ICTM State Math Contest Song. In the words of Henry Rollins, I shit you not. Here, reprinted without anyone’s permission, are the lyrics to the ICTM State Math Contest Song.

“It’s the ICTM State Math Contest
And it’s sponsored by CNA
Algebra, Calculators, Pythagoras,
Problem solving all the way.

It’s the ICTM State Math Contest
Great questions for challenge and play
Stimulation for students, ideas for teachers,
Illinois it’s a glorious day.

Illinois it’s a glorious day.
Illinois it’s a glorious day.”

Ok, so here I am. It’s a Saturday morning. I’m somewhere in Normal, Illinois. I’m surrounded by people speaking in math puns and singing, with full enthusiasm usually reserved for a Slayer concert, a song with the words Pythagoras in it. I wasn’t psyched to win the contest. I wanted to flee the room. I expected to start to hear them chant “One of us. One of us” at any moment.

So needless to say I didn’t win. And I’m really, really proud of that fact. And while I hope that my kids will inherit my problem solving ability I also really hope that they get my love for books as well. Because, well, you can talk about poetry and seem cool. But singing about calculators? My lord, even on my geekiest day I can’t come close to touching that one.

(Side note: the reason I have the lyrics is that I kept the program from that day. I don’t know what is more disturbing, that I kept the program from a math contest that I was in fifteen years ago or that I found it in only three minutes. Apparently I do have every aspect of my life in one large, organized file.)

Growing up is hard to do...

I’ve often mentioned that there are topics that I never discuss on the blog. The two biggest ones are a) my job and b) my relationships. I avoid the first one because it has been made clear to me in no uncertain terms that I can be fired for writing about my life in a cubicle and at the present moment I really need the paycheck. The reason I don’t talk about specific relationships (either existing, hopeful, or pipe dreams that the girl isn’t even aware of) is mainly because I figure that I’ll jinx it by discussing it. And that I do believe that some things in life should be private. But, I’ve decided recently to implement a statute of limitations of three years at which point whatever may or may not have happened can be discussed at my discretion. At this point, anything that happened in 2003 is trivia and quite possibly corrupted by faulty memory.

The reason I’m bringing this up is because I’ve spent the past two days listening to John Mayer’s “Any Given Thursday”. It’s the only John Mayer CD that I own and, to be honest, I could live a full and complete life without owning any John Mayer discs. It’s not that I don’t like his music, he has a good sound and for a guy whose live disc is filled with a crowd of screaming teenage girls he is remarkably honest about his music. He wants to be a serious artist but can’t with his crowd so he’ll just have fun with it. Still, the reason I own this disc has absolutely nothing to do with John Mayer.

See, back a little over three and a half years ago (wow, that long) I had a…well, I don’t like to call it a crush. That makes it sound like I’m twelve. Let’s just say that I was rather smitten with someone and was trying desperately to figure out how to get her to go out with me. Hell, I even brought in consultants to determine the best strategy to accomplish this task. Seriously, I put more effort into this than I did in getting a job. One of the ideas was this: she likes John Mayer and recon had revealed that she didn’t have his live album so I’ll buy it, she’ll come over to my apartment, see the disc, and we can discuss his music and everything from that point will be cake.

So to sum up, I bought a two disc live album from an artist I didn’t particularly like, to impress a girl who I had a challenge talking to without making a complete fool out of myself, on the off-hand chance that I could somehow convince her to come over to my apartment and discuss music. For someone who preaches logic over everything I can be blind to the obvious more often than I like.

In the end I don’t think I ever talked about John Mayer with her. We did end up going out once, though I may or may not have been dating someone else at the time (like I said, the memory of those few weeks is really fuzzy. Damn bar golf.) But in reality it was just one of those missed opportunities that happen dozen of times in life and you just write it off to experience. Until, in my case, a random number generator tells you to listen to John Mayer.

But what really gets is me is how, no matter how much of an adult I feel that I am, everything about relationships feel like high school all over again. I had this conversation at the bar on Friday when we were talking about bad dates. I joked about going miniature golfing and feeling like I was sixteen and she said, “But that’s why you do it. It’s fun and stupid.” Which I agree with, but it still just adds to the fact that no matter what I do asking a girl out always makes me feel like a teenager. “Does she like me?” “Does she ‘like me’ like me?” “Can I call her?” “How long can I wait until I call her back?” I swear, at times I’ve just wanted to pass a note that said “Do you want to go out with me? Check yes or no?”

(I doubt that teenagers today pass notes around. Now, they probably just text message each other in class or put up a poll on their MySpace page. Or say things like, “She put me in her top 8. She must really like me.” Maybe things were better before technology.)

Guess what I’m trying to say is that I wish I could just be honest with someone and say, “Look, I like you a lot and I’m pretty sure you like me. Why don’t we go out and see what happens. Worse case is we have a few laughs and a couple of good meals. Beats watching bad television sitcoms.” But I have a feeling that being that blunt is just a recipe for disaster. So instead I have to invoke the Tao and play games and buy CDs for no apparent reason. Sixteen years later and I’m still making mix tapes in hope that they will one day work. Maybe I’ll try honesty just to see what might happen.

Penguin dreams and stranger things...

So I turn on How I Met Your Mother and what do I see? Another very large penguin staring back at me. I swear, it’s like everywhere I turn all I see are penguins. This is going to be a really tough one to explain to the therapist. “So EC, how was your week?” “Pretty good except for the fact that I am being stalked by abnormally large flightless waterfowl.” “So how does that make you feel?” Sigh.

Have a couple more thoughts and ideas that came to me over the weekend to share. I would like to say that there is a coherent theme to all of this but if you can find one please let me know.

Topic #1: For a while now I have been looking for what would be considered the ultimate in a bad cheap date. You know, something that goes beyond taking the girl to the Sizzler in terms of tackiness. I finally found it: taking a girl out to eat at the food court of a Target. I swear I saw two people eating there (which is amazing in its own right) and it honestly looked like it was a date. But to be honest, it is slightly higher quality than going to Wal-Mart. But still, wow.

Topic #2: I love the day after the time change because you have to deal with the fact that the entire country (with the exception of Arizona) is simultaneously dealing with jet lag. I do want to congratulate the state of Indiana for joining the 20th century and deciding to change their clocks this year. It was fun that at work today the clock on my desk phone was wrong for most of the day. Sadly, they fixed it before it said 5 and I could take off early and say “But the official company time said it was ok for me to go.” That said, how tough is it to make the clocks read the right time? It’s not like the time change snuck up on everybody.

Topic #3: There’s been an interesting twist to the senate race in Virginia. Apparently they are attacking the democratic candidate for statements that can be considered anti-women. These are statements that are contained in novels that he has written regarding Vietnam. So, we are now holding words that someone has written in a piece of fiction for dramatic effect against them. I don’t know if everyone know this, but fiction means that it isn’t true. See, J.K. Rowling really doesn’t know people who fly on broomsticks and speak in long expository speeches that would greatly benefit from an editor. Just that entire line of reasoning astounds me, that the only candidate you should vote for is one whose only creative endeavor can be depictions of rainbows and unicorns. It’s like people believe that the country should be one giant Thomas Kinkade painting. Personally, I’d much prefer a Jackson Pollack.

Topic #4: Best thing on television over the weekend was Alejandro Escovedo on Austin City Limits. If you caught it, you saw some of the best music imaginable. Take a standard rock band, add in two cellists and a violinist, and give them some of the most heartfelt lyrics that you can find. Really, really good performance and I can see this one being on the shortlist to be released as a DVD. This weekend will be cool as well with a set by Sufjan Stevens. He’s in a class by himself, mainly because I know of no one else who would even attempt to write an entire album based on the state of Illinois.

Time to lay off the absinthe

Some weekend highlights…

Highlight #1: So much to my surprise, I ended up at the bar on Friday night. I know, I know, how unusual. I fully expected to be discussing Wittgenstein at the institute but instead found myself at the end of the bar once again. But sometimes you just need to sit at the end of the bar and experience life. And quite possibly one of the funniest conversations that I’ve ever been in.

See, people pretty quickly realize that I’m the type of guy you can just talk to and not really worry about anything. Or at least this girl did as within two minutes of her sitting next to me she was discussing how she had just ended a date in which she had fallen asleep while watching Saw III. Much to the chagrin of her date, I must say. So, this had us discussing (with the staff as she also is one of the regulars) what were the worst moments of our dating careers. Mine was calling a girl by her roommates’ name at the end of the night, which probably isn’t my worst but it’s the one I’ll readily admit to. Yeah, even though I have no problem with embarrassing myself there are some stories that you don’t get to hear unless you are paying me.

With that as our first topic, it was fun to see where we would go from there. This was a discussion of Halloween costumes and my complete non-interest in costumes. Or at least my saying that I didn’t know what to dress as. My Waldo idea wasn’t well-received but she thought I could go as a math professor, which to be honest isn’t much of a stretch. She had the idea because a) I do give off that vibe and b) her brother was actually using that as his costume and was planning on using all sort of lame lines at the party. This meant that for the first time in the fifteen years since I thought them up I was able to break out the math pick-up lines. I’ve waited a very long time to just have a chance to use the “Hey, want to see my twelve inch slide rule?” line in conversation and have it actually be acceptable. I knew that brainstorming session at the math contest would come in handy someday.

(That would be the only thing that ever came out of a math contest that was useful for me in my later life. Well, that and the knowledge that being the coolest guy at a math contest isn’t something to be proud of.)

Anyway, it was a really fun bar conversation at the end of which I looked out the window and saw a rather large penguin staring back at me. Just standing on the street corner, looking back at me and waving. This makes me really wonder if any of this ever took place, especially given that every store I was in today also seemed to have penguins scattered around the place. For all I know I spent two hours talking to the cash register again. However, if anyone runs into someone dressed as the Morton Salt girl this week, tell her I said hi.

Highlight #2: Best costume of the weekend was the girl dressed as Rainbow Brite. It’s a surprisingly attractive look. Well, that and the guys with the signs that said “Being married to a divorced woman is committing adultery” and “The party ends in hell.” Sadly, I don’t think they were costumes. But any party that ends in hell has to be one kick-ass party.

Highlight #3: In football news, the Beavers upset the Trojans this weekend and…and…and if I comment on this I’m just going to end up on yet another HR list. I feel confident that you can come up with your own punch line.

The five random CDs of the week:
1) Liz Phair “Exile in Guyville”
2) Josh Ritter “Hello Starling”
3) Neko Case “Canadian Amp”
4) John Mayer “Any Given Thursday”
5) Big Head Todd and the Monsters “Beautiful World”

The darker side of Elmo

Woke up this morning and saw that it was going to be another gray, drab rainy day. Just like it’s been for the past week. Then I drove to work while listening to a Nick Drake CD. How I did end up lying curled up in a ball under my desk due to uncontrollable existential melancholy is beyond me. Instead, I did what I do every morning. Get to my computer, half asleep in frog pajamas, and check my emails and the news headlines. And I was greeted with this one.

“Elmo used to smuggle meth”

In my groggy state I couldn’t figure out if this meant that a) someone used an Elmo doll to hide drugs (which is just slightly better than using your AT-AT), b) back before Elmo made his way to Sesame Street he spent some time working as a drug mule or c) Elmo is very accustomed to the drug trade and is rather blasé about his involvement in it. To be honest, I’m still not sure. This does make headline of the week, barely beating out “Keg explodes at party, killing one”, which immediately made me think that this is just another reason why I should switch to scotch.

(Yes, I know I shouldn’t make jokes about fatalities and I’ll probably go to hell for it. To be honest, it’s just getting added to the list of reasons. At a minimum, I’ll be dealing with some more negative karma.)

Today was weird news story day apparently. We also had the “By being fat, Americans are wasting gasoline.” That statement is true, in that if you weigh more you will be using more gas but there is a bit of a scale issue. They used the comparison of if you weighed 100 pounds more and I don’t think that most people have “lose 100 pounds” as one of their 43 goals. What’s more, if this is such a big issue why don’t we just tell people to clean out their cars. Get rid of the golf clubs in the trunk, remove the McDonald’s bags, and throw the fuzzy dice out the window. Actually, keep the fuzzy dice. There’s no point in having a car if you can’t be cool at the same time.

Don’t really have much to say. Not much going on this weekend outside of the usual bar hopping and music. Since it is a weekend close to Halloween I can anticipate seeing the people in costume while drinking. Well, besides the Batman cast, who decided that Halloween would be better served to be in August this year. For those wondering, I don’t throw on a costume to go to a bar. It just seems like such a sad thing to do. I can understand if you were at a party but it’s a bar. Unless it is an event all you are doing is making a fool out of yourself before you’ve even started drinking. Sure, the entire point of drinking is to make a fool out of yourself but it is the process that matters. A night next to the taps is much like Buddhism, the journey is much more important than the destination.

MTV Memories

Ok, it’s late and I’m really short of ideas right now so I’m going to do something a little different. It’ll kind of be like Forgotten Television Shows except none of these shows had enough history to warrant a full page on their own. Instead, let’s look back on MTV series that I watched while in college. (Thanks to Wikipedia for refreshing my memory on this one).

Dead at 21: The story of a guy with a computer chip implanted in his brain that will kill him when he turns 21. Obviously this connected with me in college as I a) was nearing that age and b) had a professor who was working on implanting computer chips in people’s heads. (Not kidding there, he would discuss it in class). I honestly think the only thing I remember about the show was that the actor’s name was Jack Noseworthy and the guy had a rather large nose. What are the odds of that?

The Head: One of many great cartoons, this one featuring a guy with an incredibly large head which contains an alien who would drive him around (with controls and everything). This was during MTV’s time period where they were trying to come up with a lot of cult, original programming and this show actually made it to a second season (though that one kind of sucked). Mainly remembered for the side character who had an entire goldfish bowl in his mouth, which is a fact that I remember more than anything I learned in Advanced Calculus.

The ½ Hour Comedy Hour: Also known as “What you watch in your dorm room until it’s time to go to dinner”. This is back in the early nineties when seemingly every channel would dedicate time to stand up comedy routines that involved someone you’ve never seen before standing in front of a fake brick wall. Those unknowns ended up being Drew Carey, Ray Romano and every other successful sitcom star of the late 90’s. This should also get credit as being one of the launching points of Paulie Shore’s career. Okay, maybe credit isn’t the right term here.

(Oh, and technically once Fox put Tiny Toons, Animaniacs and Batman: The Animated Series that became required pre-dinner entertainment. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a dozen guys discussing the physics of Batman along with “Who is hotter: Catwoman or Poison Ivy?”)

Sandblast: Ok, even I completely forgot about this one. Honestly, this was the precursor to all of the Real World/Road Rules challenges. It was a game show featuring college students where they competed mainly by jumping off of trampolines and springboards and flying around. Oh, and there was two on two beach football. Doesn’t sound exciting but when you only have basic cable any excuse to see good looking women in swimsuits playing football works. I also remember an event where the contestants were a human field goal, launching themselves over goal posts. Look, I’m not saying it was high quality television or anything.

Election preview

Well, we’re two weeks away from the election and that means that the campaign commercials are in full swing. This goes double for me as I can stumble out of my apartment and find myself in a different state. (For the record, I mean Kansas. Technically, I stumble out of my apartment and find myself in a different state fairly often but in those instances they are states of denial, confusion and intoxication.) Anyway, here is my analysis of the local campaigns.

The big election on the Missouri side is for senator and this one actually has national implications. A win here could go a long way in deciding who controls the senate. So one might be interested in what is the main focus on the campaign? Is it a referendum on Iraq or the economy or the Bush administration or the fact that while I am impressed to know that our congressmen know how to instant message their behavior just doesn’t mesh with middle American values? Of course not, this is Missouri. Based on all of the ads that I’ve seen the main issue is the auditing of nursing homes. I wasn’t aware that this was a pressing issue to the welfare of our state. And to be honest, it’s tough to make a good attack ad when your main focus is on the elderly. It’s not like you can say, “If you elect Claire the elderly will be allowed to run wild in the streets, reaking chaos by driving very slowly in the left lane with their blinker on.”

(I miss the ads of two years ago where the focus was on whether or not to build a casino in Branson. I’m so sad that didn’t pass because it was pretty much the only way to make Branson interesting (as well as making it one step closer to being a really convenient Vegas for me). I mean, if you are being forced to watch Yakov Smirnoff shouldn’t you be allowed to gamble? Hell, Yakov should be forced to work the roulette tables. We’ll call it Russian Roulette and it would make a killing.)

(Yes, puns my friend. The lowest form of comedy.)

On the Kansas side the main issue, and I am not making this up, is a referendum to build new youth soccer fields in Johnson County. You want to talk about a sheltered life, this is what the people I work with are most concerned about. Of course, the support ads feature little kids saying “Vote yes for soccer”, utilizing the tactic of “Vote yes or you’ll make a six year old cry and what are you, a heartless bastard like the Grinch? You should be ashamed of yourself.” They also had kids out on the street corners today after work, waving signs and making me wonder how fun it must be to force a twelve year old to stand outside in forty degree weather and inhale exhaust fumes.

Personally, I really want to make ads against the soccer fields. You know something like this. “They’d like you to think that soccer is good for our children but think again. In soccer, the individual matters less than the team and no one can use their hands and work to the full extent of their abilities. And you know what that is called? Communism. Plus, you know who plays soccer? The French. So vote yes for soccer if you want your kid to grow up to be a beret wearing commie.” Hey, it would make the evening news a lot more interesting.

(Side note: At this time of year I always witness a bizarre natural phenomenon in my neighborhood. Seemingly thousands of black birds (possibly crows in that they are a) black and b) go “caw”) perch on every available space on my block for a week. I look out from my window and all I see are thousands of these things staring back at me. It’s just like in that Hitchcock film. You know, the one with the blonde. Rear Window.)

Forgotten genius...

Topic # 1: I completely forgot to discuss all of the things that I did for Sweetest Day last Saturday. (What? You forgot that Saturday was Sweetest Day? More specifically, your significant other forgot Sweetest Day? You have my complete blessing to make their lives a living hell.) So what did I do? The usual, you know, bitch and moan about my life and buy used copies of Cure CDs. Still, when Sweetest Day can be considered an official holiday my hope of increasing the recognition of National High Five Day doesn’t seem to be misplaced. I’m not kidding when I say that in high school Sweetest Day was treated like the biggest event of the fall. I’m still not sure if Hallmark invented it to sell more greeting cards or that they just take great pleasure in knowing that they can make a sixteen year old boy feel like the biggest loser on the planet for not having a girlfriend.

Topic # 2: One of the recurring topics of Battling the Current has been the decline and fall and death of the music industry to the point where I believe that I’ve spent posts counting the metaphorical maggots on the corpse of music row. But every once in a while I see something that gives me hope that maybe things aren’t as bleak as they appear. Like the headline on CNN today stating that Weird Al Yankovic has a top ten CD. How incredible is that, the guy gets a huge hit with a song called “White and Nerdy.” Look, even without hearing it I can guarantee that it is better than Justin Timberlake.

At some point someone (most likely me) will need to write a piece on Weird Al’s place in music history. The guy hits the Top 10 over 20 years after releasing Eat It and over 25 years since he broke on the scene with I Love Rocky Road. Do you know how few people can have a 25 year recording career? It’s a list of Dylan and Simon and Springsteen and that’s about it. Weird Al is now at the point where he has outlasted nearly every artist that he has parodied. You can’t really call him a one-hit wonder or a novelty act because they don’t last as long as he has. He may be the biggest genius in the smallest niche imaginable. And even more impressive is that he has somehow remained on top of every musical trend and stayed relevant in the mainstream. From Michael Jackson to Nirvana to Crash Test Dummies to Chamillionaire. I’m telling you, we might as well start reserving space in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for him.

(And don’t tell me it would ruin the sanctity of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. First of all, it’s in Cleveland. Second, it’s a sham to begin with as the inductees are friends of Rolling Stone so if it’s going to be a travesty let’s make it the best one possible.)

Topic # 3: Remember how I kept on mentioning last Spring how I was certain that a camera crew was following me and using my life as a basis for the show How I Met Your Mother? And how none of you believed me? Well, I watched my tape of last week’s episode and they showed Barney’s apartment and guess what he had in the living room of his place? A life sized stormtrooper costume. I am now officially freaked out.

I have to hand it to the show tonight for allowing Doogie Howser to hook up with Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. It’s television nostalgia synergy at its finest, plus it allowed for a full discussion of the cougar concept on national television. I also think I know how Robin and Ted will break up but I won’t spoil it for you. Just watch the show (and buy the first season DVD when it comes out in November). Because I really want to see how my life turns out.