I have two reality shows to talk about tonight and both are from the BBC. It is interesting to note that I am now so burned out on American reality shows that I have to turn to other countries to get my fix. This is especially true for the Next Top Model series where I am a huge fan of the Australian version for two reasons: 1) no Tyra Banks and 2) beautiful women with cool accents. Anyway, here are two shows that give the British take on things.
The first is one that I haven’t actually seen but read about today. Now we have all seen the shows where they take a normal family and act as if they transported them back in time to colonial days or Victorian England. The typical “take away all their luxuries and make them live life the way people used to.” Well, this show follows that exact same concept except they send them back to 1970. Yep, back to life forty years ago.
Apparently this makes for absolutely amazing television. The family has to learn how to cook now that they have no prepared meals or microwaves and a rather low end stove. Because it is Britain they have no central heating as apparently only a quarter of the homes did back in that time. No computer or cell phones so one of the kids had to leave a note for his parents by using a typewriter. And best of all, they are forced to wear seventies fashions. Every day or so they advance a year and gain new technologies such as Pong.
I so want to see this show because it really hits a point that I have tried to make here so many times: I have no idea what it would be like growing up in today’s world. It was life without the internet, no cable to start and then only in the living room, black and white set in the bedroom, one phone line for the house (awesome when there are seven people in the house) and hair metal was all the rage. It must seem quaint compared to things today. The thing is I am not that old. There shouldn’t be that much of a leap but there certainly is. I went to college with a typewriter and left with a computer. It really was a changing of eras.
The other show is one that Kim and I watched in Iceland. We didn’t watch much TV when we were over there because a) the entire point of the trip was to get out and do things and b) we only had like five channels and one was in Icelandic. Anyway, the BBC had a show called World’s Strictest Parents and this show was rather stunning. The concept again is simple. Take two teenagers who are performing badly at school and acting rudely at home and send them to another home for a week and have the “adoptive” parents treat them as their own and show them life under more strict conditions. Kind of like Wife Swap for Kids with a bit of SuperNanny added in.
Again, doesn’t sound like much on the surface until you realize where they sent them. These kids were sent from England to Jamaica. And we are not talking resort Jamaica here; this is the horrible poverty side of Jamaica. In the next week’s episode the kids were going to Ghana. It is just the ultimate in culture shock. These kids from rather privileged first world backgrounds are sent to the third world to interact with adults who are hard on them because that is the only way they can survive. You learn respect when you literally have to kill the chicken that will be your dinner that night. Usually on these shows the kids say that they are changed but you don’t think they really believe it but here they are just awestruck by what they have seen and how blessed their lives really are. It was really fascinating.
Oh well, off to watch my tape of Real Chance of Love Season 2.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
I "like as a friend" New York
More vacation stories…
It probably seems extremely odd that I had been to Iceland before I ever visited New York. True, I flew out of New York to get there but time spent at JFK really doesn’t count as visiting the city. I just never had a reason or much of a desire to visit the city. I always claim that it is part of my Chicago bias. I grew up in a big city that is the best place in the world so I never saw any reason to go to New York, which from my understanding was just a more crowded and less polite version of Chicago.
But it was time for me to go to the big city and I have to say that I was rather impressed especially given what it took for us to get there. We decided to take an airport shuttle van to our hotel, which was a major mistake as a) it took us an hour and a half to actually get to the hotel and b) we were packed in like sardines to the point that we had to breathe in unison. You really don’t want to have your first impression of the city be mainly “get me out of this freaking van.”
We did make it to our hotel in Times Square and I have to admit that it was quite a sight. Outside of a few parts of London I don’t think that I had ever seen anything quite like it. The sheer mass of humanity was stunning. My years in KC and Delaware have really hidden me from the density of a true big city. New York just has people everywhere. Chicago has an unbelievable amount of wide open spaces in comparison. Also, things just move fast. There is that natural sense of everyone needing to go somewhere quickly. None of this meandering stuff.
We only had one day in the city so we mainly did some touristy stuff. Had breakfast at a deli so I could have a real New York bagel, which tasted surprisingly like every other bagel I have ever had. Toured the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was awesome though I have to admit that I am not a big fan of the Dutch Masters. I just prefer the Impressionists; it is just more my style. We did a lot of shopping at places like the M&M store (yes, they have their own store) and the largest Swatch store in the US. We even saw a play because that is what you do when you are in New York.
I will have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by my time there. I would have no problem going back and exploring the city some more and let’s face it; it’s not like I even scratched the surface on things to do there. I don’t think that I could actually live there because I like my wide open spaces. It’s not that I have to live out in the middle of Montana but I like having at least a modicum of personal space. True, there is everything that you could ever want to experience in that city except for the possibility of peace and quiet. Good food though and really smart cabbies. Got to hand it to any town with good cab drivers.
It probably seems extremely odd that I had been to Iceland before I ever visited New York. True, I flew out of New York to get there but time spent at JFK really doesn’t count as visiting the city. I just never had a reason or much of a desire to visit the city. I always claim that it is part of my Chicago bias. I grew up in a big city that is the best place in the world so I never saw any reason to go to New York, which from my understanding was just a more crowded and less polite version of Chicago.
But it was time for me to go to the big city and I have to say that I was rather impressed especially given what it took for us to get there. We decided to take an airport shuttle van to our hotel, which was a major mistake as a) it took us an hour and a half to actually get to the hotel and b) we were packed in like sardines to the point that we had to breathe in unison. You really don’t want to have your first impression of the city be mainly “get me out of this freaking van.”
We did make it to our hotel in Times Square and I have to admit that it was quite a sight. Outside of a few parts of London I don’t think that I had ever seen anything quite like it. The sheer mass of humanity was stunning. My years in KC and Delaware have really hidden me from the density of a true big city. New York just has people everywhere. Chicago has an unbelievable amount of wide open spaces in comparison. Also, things just move fast. There is that natural sense of everyone needing to go somewhere quickly. None of this meandering stuff.
We only had one day in the city so we mainly did some touristy stuff. Had breakfast at a deli so I could have a real New York bagel, which tasted surprisingly like every other bagel I have ever had. Toured the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was awesome though I have to admit that I am not a big fan of the Dutch Masters. I just prefer the Impressionists; it is just more my style. We did a lot of shopping at places like the M&M store (yes, they have their own store) and the largest Swatch store in the US. We even saw a play because that is what you do when you are in New York.
I will have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by my time there. I would have no problem going back and exploring the city some more and let’s face it; it’s not like I even scratched the surface on things to do there. I don’t think that I could actually live there because I like my wide open spaces. It’s not that I have to live out in the middle of Montana but I like having at least a modicum of personal space. True, there is everything that you could ever want to experience in that city except for the possibility of peace and quiet. Good food though and really smart cabbies. Got to hand it to any town with good cab drivers.
Monday, September 28, 2009
I think I had this date before...
Some random thoughts based on comments and other moments of my life.
1) One of the wonders of having Wii Fit is that you tend to weigh yourself on a daily basis. This really does make you want to do anything and everything possible to lose weight just so you won’t have the computerized voice say “You’re overweight” every single day. Well, on Saturday I weighed myself and discovered that I had lost two pounds, which was a bit of a surprise given that I really didn’t exercise or do much of anything from when I weighed myself the day before. In fact, I realized that the only thing that I did do was get a haircut. As a result I have now decided that the foundation of my weight loss program is going to be full body waxing.
2) It shouldn’t surprise anyone that I was well aware that I could get a Ric Flair branded scratch off lottery ticket. Remember, I am the guy who was working on getting a mortgage through Ric Flair Finance. I mean, he had the patented Figure Four process! What could possibly go wrong, other than a complete meltdown of the financial system due to the fact that people were getting home loans from a pro wrestler who felt that feathered boas were a great addition to his ring gear. Sigh. It is sad that his sixteen world title reigns are matched by a nearly equal number of divorces leaving him unable to keep up with his limo riding, jet plane flying lifestyle.
3) Also, I’m not sure if I can consider the Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff as my least favorite tag team of all time. Sure, we all hated the Sheik but Volkoff was hated only because he was vaguely Russian though you always had the feeling that he was really from Detroit. Personally, I hated Ivan and Nikita Koloff more even though Ivan was from Canada and Nikita was from South Carolina.
4) I will grant the point that Kitchen Nightmares is the best Gordon Ramsay show but only if we are discussing the British version. That show should be required viewing for anyone thinking of opening a restaurant or even running their own business. The American version is so staged that it barely counts as reality television. And I still like Hell’s Kitchen as a guilty pleasure and the only cooking show on tv that gives an indication of what actually takes place in a restaurant kitchen.
5) How can anyone rank Wallowitz over Kuthrapali? True, Wallowitz broke out the Green Lantern belt buckle tonight but Kuthrapali brings it week after week. I am still a bit torn on the Penny and Leonard relationship. I want Leonard to get the girl because, well, I am a sucker for those sorts of things. The problem is there really isn’t anywhere for the story to go with them together. The four guys and Penny is funny. Leonard and Penny with Sheldon and the other two is really awkward.
6) I really liked How I Met Your Mother tonight. It at least showed that Ted has matured a little over the years (dude, you should have called her back.) It does show that Ted has set his standards so unbelievably high that you can’t imagine him getting anyone that fits his ideal. Ooh, she has cats I’ll never speak to her again. Just seems a little too judgmental. Also, weird in how they didn’t pay off the Barney and Robin arguing in the strip club. They built up tension and it didn’t go anywhere. Still Barney is awesome no matter what the setting.
1) One of the wonders of having Wii Fit is that you tend to weigh yourself on a daily basis. This really does make you want to do anything and everything possible to lose weight just so you won’t have the computerized voice say “You’re overweight” every single day. Well, on Saturday I weighed myself and discovered that I had lost two pounds, which was a bit of a surprise given that I really didn’t exercise or do much of anything from when I weighed myself the day before. In fact, I realized that the only thing that I did do was get a haircut. As a result I have now decided that the foundation of my weight loss program is going to be full body waxing.
2) It shouldn’t surprise anyone that I was well aware that I could get a Ric Flair branded scratch off lottery ticket. Remember, I am the guy who was working on getting a mortgage through Ric Flair Finance. I mean, he had the patented Figure Four process! What could possibly go wrong, other than a complete meltdown of the financial system due to the fact that people were getting home loans from a pro wrestler who felt that feathered boas were a great addition to his ring gear. Sigh. It is sad that his sixteen world title reigns are matched by a nearly equal number of divorces leaving him unable to keep up with his limo riding, jet plane flying lifestyle.
3) Also, I’m not sure if I can consider the Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff as my least favorite tag team of all time. Sure, we all hated the Sheik but Volkoff was hated only because he was vaguely Russian though you always had the feeling that he was really from Detroit. Personally, I hated Ivan and Nikita Koloff more even though Ivan was from Canada and Nikita was from South Carolina.
4) I will grant the point that Kitchen Nightmares is the best Gordon Ramsay show but only if we are discussing the British version. That show should be required viewing for anyone thinking of opening a restaurant or even running their own business. The American version is so staged that it barely counts as reality television. And I still like Hell’s Kitchen as a guilty pleasure and the only cooking show on tv that gives an indication of what actually takes place in a restaurant kitchen.
5) How can anyone rank Wallowitz over Kuthrapali? True, Wallowitz broke out the Green Lantern belt buckle tonight but Kuthrapali brings it week after week. I am still a bit torn on the Penny and Leonard relationship. I want Leonard to get the girl because, well, I am a sucker for those sorts of things. The problem is there really isn’t anywhere for the story to go with them together. The four guys and Penny is funny. Leonard and Penny with Sheldon and the other two is really awkward.
6) I really liked How I Met Your Mother tonight. It at least showed that Ted has matured a little over the years (dude, you should have called her back.) It does show that Ted has set his standards so unbelievably high that you can’t imagine him getting anyone that fits his ideal. Ooh, she has cats I’ll never speak to her again. Just seems a little too judgmental. Also, weird in how they didn’t pay off the Barney and Robin arguing in the strip club. They built up tension and it didn’t go anywhere. Still Barney is awesome no matter what the setting.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
More Iceland travel notes
Some things I discovered in Iceland that were totally unexpected…
1) Apparently the entire country is not a frozen wasteland. Given the name Iceland you expect the type of place where Superman would construct his fortress of solitude. Instead, it seemed to be more attuned to Swamp Thing as every available surface was covered with moss and lichen. It was rather pretty but given that it was in the seventies at times we seemed to be at a loss as to where all the ice was.
2) If you have ever traveled to European capitals you realize that every other building you see is actually older than the United States. That is not the case in Reykjavík as the city was basically built in the past 100 years. For some reason instead of making all of these nice, quaint buildings they decided to take pages from the old Soviet design manual. Lots of corrugated steel and squat, drab concrete structures. Part of the is necessity in a country where it is always rainy, windy and cold but it does take a little bit of joy out of the place.
3) While the majority of Icelanders speak English (enough so that we never had any issue in making our way through any situation) the primary language is Icelandic, which hasn’t changed from the Viking era. Apparently, the language has been so constant that the average person can grab a thousand year old manuscript and understand it completely. Compare that to English where it is difficult to read a 400 year old Shakespeare play much less Chaucer or Beowulf. I don’t think it is possible to read Beowulf in Old English without years of training. Anyway, Icelandic is such a foreign sounding language that not only is it impossible to understand any words but it makes all of the speakers sound like elves.
4) Because much of the island is volcanic and filled with hot springs the hot water is piped in from the hot springs themselves, which means that the water has a wonderful tinge of sulfur to it. You know that the water in the shower had warmed up when it began to smell like rotten eggs. It did wake you up in the morning; I will give it that praise.
5) Before it sounds like I am ripping too much on the water I have to say that the bottled water from the glacial springs is the best water you would ever taste in your life. The ice cube I had from an actual 12,000 year old glacier may be one of the best things that I have ever tasted. So it isn’t all bad.
6) This is more of a comment on Europe in general. I have no idea why no matter what country I travel to, no matter how good the hotel is, that they have absolutely no idea how to design a shower. I can accept the fact that I am taller than the average European so I have to stoop to get clean. But for some reason all of the showers are designed with about 12 unlabeled knobs and the shower head in the absolute worst spot imaginable. It is always fun to be dealing with jet lag and trying to reverse engineer plumbing.
7) Kim and I were there for just under a week, traveled around about half the island, and probably went through at least two thirds of the inhabited portions of the place. In that entire time we saw only two black people on the entire island. It got to be really disconcerting after awhile. We saw more tourists from mainland China.
8) Speaking of other tourists I have to tell this story. As part of one of the organized tours we took we were given the opportunity to look at a geothermal power plant. Kim had no desire to look at it and stayed in the bus reading a book. I may have had even less desire to see it because I have spent a good portion of my adult life looking at power plants and had little desire to watch a utility powerpoint presentation that I wasn’t being paid to sit through. What amazed me is how all of the other people on the tour were going up to the windows and taking pictures of the generators and the plant design. Trust me, it is my job and it is not that interesting.
9) They are really, really big on hot dogs. I have no idea why that is the case and as I discussed a few days ago they seem to be an acquired taste. It just seems to be like the most random food for them to be into. I just assumed that their entire diet consisted of fish. Oh, and don’t eat the dried fish unless you ate the fish food you gave your goldfish as a kid.
10) You have to love a country where the kids go out to the clubs at five in the evening and don’t come home until the next morning. That is dedication for you.
Best of 120 Minutes: Have to go with the Sugarcubes tonight. It’s Iceland’s number three export. And for the record, we did not stay at the Hotel Bjork though we went past it.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) The Raconteurs “Consolers of the Lonely”
2) Scott Miller and the Commonwealth “Upside Downside”
3) Robbie Fulks “Country Love Songs”
4) Neko Case “Blacklisted”
5) The Tragically Hip “Live Between Us”
1) Apparently the entire country is not a frozen wasteland. Given the name Iceland you expect the type of place where Superman would construct his fortress of solitude. Instead, it seemed to be more attuned to Swamp Thing as every available surface was covered with moss and lichen. It was rather pretty but given that it was in the seventies at times we seemed to be at a loss as to where all the ice was.
2) If you have ever traveled to European capitals you realize that every other building you see is actually older than the United States. That is not the case in Reykjavík as the city was basically built in the past 100 years. For some reason instead of making all of these nice, quaint buildings they decided to take pages from the old Soviet design manual. Lots of corrugated steel and squat, drab concrete structures. Part of the is necessity in a country where it is always rainy, windy and cold but it does take a little bit of joy out of the place.
3) While the majority of Icelanders speak English (enough so that we never had any issue in making our way through any situation) the primary language is Icelandic, which hasn’t changed from the Viking era. Apparently, the language has been so constant that the average person can grab a thousand year old manuscript and understand it completely. Compare that to English where it is difficult to read a 400 year old Shakespeare play much less Chaucer or Beowulf. I don’t think it is possible to read Beowulf in Old English without years of training. Anyway, Icelandic is such a foreign sounding language that not only is it impossible to understand any words but it makes all of the speakers sound like elves.
4) Because much of the island is volcanic and filled with hot springs the hot water is piped in from the hot springs themselves, which means that the water has a wonderful tinge of sulfur to it. You know that the water in the shower had warmed up when it began to smell like rotten eggs. It did wake you up in the morning; I will give it that praise.
5) Before it sounds like I am ripping too much on the water I have to say that the bottled water from the glacial springs is the best water you would ever taste in your life. The ice cube I had from an actual 12,000 year old glacier may be one of the best things that I have ever tasted. So it isn’t all bad.
6) This is more of a comment on Europe in general. I have no idea why no matter what country I travel to, no matter how good the hotel is, that they have absolutely no idea how to design a shower. I can accept the fact that I am taller than the average European so I have to stoop to get clean. But for some reason all of the showers are designed with about 12 unlabeled knobs and the shower head in the absolute worst spot imaginable. It is always fun to be dealing with jet lag and trying to reverse engineer plumbing.
7) Kim and I were there for just under a week, traveled around about half the island, and probably went through at least two thirds of the inhabited portions of the place. In that entire time we saw only two black people on the entire island. It got to be really disconcerting after awhile. We saw more tourists from mainland China.
8) Speaking of other tourists I have to tell this story. As part of one of the organized tours we took we were given the opportunity to look at a geothermal power plant. Kim had no desire to look at it and stayed in the bus reading a book. I may have had even less desire to see it because I have spent a good portion of my adult life looking at power plants and had little desire to watch a utility powerpoint presentation that I wasn’t being paid to sit through. What amazed me is how all of the other people on the tour were going up to the windows and taking pictures of the generators and the plant design. Trust me, it is my job and it is not that interesting.
9) They are really, really big on hot dogs. I have no idea why that is the case and as I discussed a few days ago they seem to be an acquired taste. It just seems to be like the most random food for them to be into. I just assumed that their entire diet consisted of fish. Oh, and don’t eat the dried fish unless you ate the fish food you gave your goldfish as a kid.
10) You have to love a country where the kids go out to the clubs at five in the evening and don’t come home until the next morning. That is dedication for you.
Best of 120 Minutes: Have to go with the Sugarcubes tonight. It’s Iceland’s number three export. And for the record, we did not stay at the Hotel Bjork though we went past it.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) The Raconteurs “Consolers of the Lonely”
2) Scott Miller and the Commonwealth “Upside Downside”
3) Robbie Fulks “Country Love Songs”
4) Neko Case “Blacklisted”
5) The Tragically Hip “Live Between Us”
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Now what is left to see in South Bend?
I have some sad news to report. The College Football Hall of Fame is relocating from South Bend to Atlanta. This means, well, it means absolutely nothing to most of you. Heck, all of you unless you actually happen to work there. Mainly it means that those in the South Bend region will no longer have to put up with constant commercials on how they should visit the museum. That and expect a significant reduction in the number of former Notre Dame players inducted into the hall as that was one of the ways they insured a large crowd during the ceremony. It was actually a rather nice museum though and I’ve been at both the South Bend and Kings Island incarnations.
Oh, and best sign seen at the Pittsburgh G-20 protests. “Obama: Put Arrested Development back on the air.” See, that is what we need more of in this country. I am sick and tired of people having reasoned debates about topics like health care and international conflicts. I demand presidential action regarding television sitcoms. It might be the only thing that all of us as a nation could agree upon.
Since I was out of country for the past few weeks I am a bit out of touch with several of my favorite shows. I have finally caught up with Hell’s Kitchen as they are now at the portion of the show where the only contestants left are the ones who can actually cook. Of all the reality shows on the air this one is the most fake (even though the people I know who work on the show swear to me that it is on the up and up.) More than anything about half of the contestants would have absolutely no right working in a top restaurant much less being a head chef so the first few months of the show revolve around Gordon Ramsay swearing at people who can’t cook. It is entertaining but not entirely exciting. I am still a few episodes behind on Top Chef where this season’s cast is a lot more talented than the last but that actually takes out a bit of the drama. There is such a defined top group that we are just waiting to get to the final four or five so that they can all fight it out. Plus, Vegas just doesn’t serve up as many fun food opportunities as the other cities did.
How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory had their season premieres this week. Interesting that the more I read about HIMYM online the more people refer to Ted as a bit of a douche, which to be honest is pretty true. During the first season you cheered for the guy, in the second season you were glad that he was happy with Robin but since then he has grown insufferable. That doesn’t even take into account that he is telling his kids all about all the women he slept with before he met their mother. The show is basically a vehicle for Barney and as long as he breaks out the tuxedo I am still a fan of the show.
Big Bang Theory is at a strange point in its development. The show has become entirely about Sheldon, which is great because he is the best character. Except that the conceit behind the show was that it was about Leonard and Penny as a couple and to be honest, no one really cares. The chemistry just isn’t there and we aren’t as invested in the character as we should be. It will be interesting to see where they take the plot lines this season.
Oh, and best sign seen at the Pittsburgh G-20 protests. “Obama: Put Arrested Development back on the air.” See, that is what we need more of in this country. I am sick and tired of people having reasoned debates about topics like health care and international conflicts. I demand presidential action regarding television sitcoms. It might be the only thing that all of us as a nation could agree upon.
Since I was out of country for the past few weeks I am a bit out of touch with several of my favorite shows. I have finally caught up with Hell’s Kitchen as they are now at the portion of the show where the only contestants left are the ones who can actually cook. Of all the reality shows on the air this one is the most fake (even though the people I know who work on the show swear to me that it is on the up and up.) More than anything about half of the contestants would have absolutely no right working in a top restaurant much less being a head chef so the first few months of the show revolve around Gordon Ramsay swearing at people who can’t cook. It is entertaining but not entirely exciting. I am still a few episodes behind on Top Chef where this season’s cast is a lot more talented than the last but that actually takes out a bit of the drama. There is such a defined top group that we are just waiting to get to the final four or five so that they can all fight it out. Plus, Vegas just doesn’t serve up as many fun food opportunities as the other cities did.
How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory had their season premieres this week. Interesting that the more I read about HIMYM online the more people refer to Ted as a bit of a douche, which to be honest is pretty true. During the first season you cheered for the guy, in the second season you were glad that he was happy with Robin but since then he has grown insufferable. That doesn’t even take into account that he is telling his kids all about all the women he slept with before he met their mother. The show is basically a vehicle for Barney and as long as he breaks out the tuxedo I am still a fan of the show.
Big Bang Theory is at a strange point in its development. The show has become entirely about Sheldon, which is great because he is the best character. Except that the conceit behind the show was that it was about Leonard and Penny as a couple and to be honest, no one really cares. The chemistry just isn’t there and we aren’t as invested in the character as we should be. It will be interesting to see where they take the plot lines this season.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Manufactured nostalgia
Interesting question posed to me in the comments last night. So we are faced with an A Team movie, a remake of Red Dawn, a remake of Melrose Place and every other show includes at least one vampire. Has Hollywood run out of ideas? And more importantly, how much nostalgia can be mined until it becomes meaningless.
Let’s start with the remakes of classic franchises. Seemingly every show from my youth (except for Alf for some reason) has been made into a feature film. Transformers, GI Joe, Brady Bunch, Speed Racer, Lost in Space, Flintstones, if you can name it they have probably made a movie of it. Even worse are the relaunches of television series with Melrose Place, Knight Rider, and 90210 all being prime examples. This is a phenomena that needs some further analysis.
First off, one of the reasons that Hollywood is sold on remakes is that it takes zero marketing dollars to tell people what the show is about. I have seen no commercials or adds about the new Melrose Place series but I can describe in perfect detail what the typical plot line will entail. Compare that to a show like Flash Forward, which I still don’t quite understand and I have read up on it. It is cheap and lazy to create remakes but that is what Hollywood thinks that people want.
That is another aspect of it. Remakes offer no intellectual challenge to the viewer. Now I have no problem with brain dead entertainment. I still watch pro wrestling for the sheer fact that I have no need to think while watching it. But remakes take even the most minimal requirements of attention to detail on a new show and throws them out the window. The viewer doesn’t have to pay attention to what is going on because they already know the story. We don’t need to think as to why there are giant robots on earth. The good guys are Autobots and the bad guys are Decepticons. Everyone knows this.
But if you pay attention you’ll notice that remake shows never last as long as you would think. The shows get cancelled, the movies make less money and all in all they are less successful each and every time. That is because Hollywood has completely misjudged the idea of nostalgia. I am not nostalgic for the shows of my youth. I’m nostalgic for my youth. Yes, I remember sitting on the couch watching the A Team as a ten year old and you know what I want: to go back to being a ten year old without a care in the world. My longing isn’t for a show featuring Vietnam vets who were unjustly prosecuted and now work as underground enforcers. All I want is to be a kid again. We enjoy the memories of the shows for who we were then; not for the shows themselves. And remaking the shows only causes a brief return to those moments and then we are thrust back into our boring, everyday lives.
Is Hollywood out of ideas? That seems to imply that they had any to begin with. I think they have a strong feeling that the average consumer is an idiot and they produce their products appropriately. If you hate the fact that mass media is treating you like a moron you know what you do? Ignore mass media. There is a whole lot of great art being made out there if you take the time to look. We all have hundreds of cable channels at our disposal and broadband lines capable of bringing us nearly anything that was ever made. Find what you like and tell Hollywood to take a hike. Enough people do that and they will get the message.
Let’s start with the remakes of classic franchises. Seemingly every show from my youth (except for Alf for some reason) has been made into a feature film. Transformers, GI Joe, Brady Bunch, Speed Racer, Lost in Space, Flintstones, if you can name it they have probably made a movie of it. Even worse are the relaunches of television series with Melrose Place, Knight Rider, and 90210 all being prime examples. This is a phenomena that needs some further analysis.
First off, one of the reasons that Hollywood is sold on remakes is that it takes zero marketing dollars to tell people what the show is about. I have seen no commercials or adds about the new Melrose Place series but I can describe in perfect detail what the typical plot line will entail. Compare that to a show like Flash Forward, which I still don’t quite understand and I have read up on it. It is cheap and lazy to create remakes but that is what Hollywood thinks that people want.
That is another aspect of it. Remakes offer no intellectual challenge to the viewer. Now I have no problem with brain dead entertainment. I still watch pro wrestling for the sheer fact that I have no need to think while watching it. But remakes take even the most minimal requirements of attention to detail on a new show and throws them out the window. The viewer doesn’t have to pay attention to what is going on because they already know the story. We don’t need to think as to why there are giant robots on earth. The good guys are Autobots and the bad guys are Decepticons. Everyone knows this.
But if you pay attention you’ll notice that remake shows never last as long as you would think. The shows get cancelled, the movies make less money and all in all they are less successful each and every time. That is because Hollywood has completely misjudged the idea of nostalgia. I am not nostalgic for the shows of my youth. I’m nostalgic for my youth. Yes, I remember sitting on the couch watching the A Team as a ten year old and you know what I want: to go back to being a ten year old without a care in the world. My longing isn’t for a show featuring Vietnam vets who were unjustly prosecuted and now work as underground enforcers. All I want is to be a kid again. We enjoy the memories of the shows for who we were then; not for the shows themselves. And remaking the shows only causes a brief return to those moments and then we are thrust back into our boring, everyday lives.
Is Hollywood out of ideas? That seems to imply that they had any to begin with. I think they have a strong feeling that the average consumer is an idiot and they produce their products appropriately. If you hate the fact that mass media is treating you like a moron you know what you do? Ignore mass media. There is a whole lot of great art being made out there if you take the time to look. We all have hundreds of cable channels at our disposal and broadband lines capable of bringing us nearly anything that was ever made. Find what you like and tell Hollywood to take a hike. Enough people do that and they will get the message.
Monday, September 21, 2009
What's for dinner
Some thoughts about Icelandic food…
1) Our first dinner in Iceland was Domino’s Pizza. Now some people would claim that this really breaks the spirit of traveling overseas. I respond with the following. A) I had another one of my medical misadventures on the plane (I owe Kim everything in the world for helping me through it) and neither of us were in an adventurous mood, B) jet lag killed any desire for us to leave our hotel room and C) it was the best Domino’s Pizza I have had in my entire life. Seriously, it was freaking awesome.
2) We went on a number of bus tours, which meant pre-arranged stops at tourist locations for lunch. At one we were requested to try the meat soup, which I must admit was quite tasty. However, you have to question any soup that is simply defined as being flavored by meat. Could be beef, could be lamb, could be some other small creature, you can never be quite sure.
3) As is the case with most of Europe in Iceland there is this unnerving tendency to serve every sandwich with some sort of unnamed sauce. In England everything comes lathered with butter whereas in Iceland it appears that Thousand Island dressing is the condiment of choice. This led to Kim’s continual request that our meals come as listed on the menu and not with some sort of mystery attachment.
4) Per Kim (since I never tried it) the Icelandic Brie was just off the charts good. I personally found the Icelandic hot dog to be quite good while Kim did not enjoy it in the least. It is a natural casing dog much like the Bohemian hot dogs I had as a kid and came with a mustard sauce that was quite like a remoulade. Personally, I just like the fact that I went all the way to Iceland to have a hot dog.
5) At one point we had dinner in a Mexican restaurant in which I ordered a fish and chips and Kim ordered a chicken sandwich. This made perfect sense at the time. I believe it was because they wanted thirty bucks for fajitas.
6) One of the best things we did was have dinner at a tapas restaurant (recommended by Canadians who while we can fault their health care they are good at finding places for dinner). This let us try a number of Icelandic delicacies as well as give me a chance to try a few things I had never had before like escargot. We had puffin, the national bird and mascot, which was kind of oily and gamy and not that great. Monkfish was also quite good but the star of the night was the minke whale. Yes, I tried whale and it was delicious. Like a cross between tuna and a really good steak. That and a few other dishes made it one of my best meals ever.
7) Yes, you can complain that we dined on several cute creatures, especially when you include our lamb lunch the next day that was just exquisite. I would just like to state that on our whale / bird watching expedition we saw neither whales nor puffins so we felt like they owed us for not being there. And the lamb was just too good to pass up.
8) Next to our hotel was this bakery that we passed every day but only ate at on our last day. Which was a mistake because they had this cinnamon roll covered with fudge that would make you end your diet in a second. I’m not a big pastry type person but this was pretty amazing. Inexpensive as well, which was a great change of pace.
9) At one point Kim ordered a hamburger that came with a fried egg on top of the bun. You know that you have spent a long time travelling when that seems to be a perfectly normal way to serve a hamburger.
10) If I learned one thing from our trip it is this: you can never go wrong when you order the lobster feast.
1) Our first dinner in Iceland was Domino’s Pizza. Now some people would claim that this really breaks the spirit of traveling overseas. I respond with the following. A) I had another one of my medical misadventures on the plane (I owe Kim everything in the world for helping me through it) and neither of us were in an adventurous mood, B) jet lag killed any desire for us to leave our hotel room and C) it was the best Domino’s Pizza I have had in my entire life. Seriously, it was freaking awesome.
2) We went on a number of bus tours, which meant pre-arranged stops at tourist locations for lunch. At one we were requested to try the meat soup, which I must admit was quite tasty. However, you have to question any soup that is simply defined as being flavored by meat. Could be beef, could be lamb, could be some other small creature, you can never be quite sure.
3) As is the case with most of Europe in Iceland there is this unnerving tendency to serve every sandwich with some sort of unnamed sauce. In England everything comes lathered with butter whereas in Iceland it appears that Thousand Island dressing is the condiment of choice. This led to Kim’s continual request that our meals come as listed on the menu and not with some sort of mystery attachment.
4) Per Kim (since I never tried it) the Icelandic Brie was just off the charts good. I personally found the Icelandic hot dog to be quite good while Kim did not enjoy it in the least. It is a natural casing dog much like the Bohemian hot dogs I had as a kid and came with a mustard sauce that was quite like a remoulade. Personally, I just like the fact that I went all the way to Iceland to have a hot dog.
5) At one point we had dinner in a Mexican restaurant in which I ordered a fish and chips and Kim ordered a chicken sandwich. This made perfect sense at the time. I believe it was because they wanted thirty bucks for fajitas.
6) One of the best things we did was have dinner at a tapas restaurant (recommended by Canadians who while we can fault their health care they are good at finding places for dinner). This let us try a number of Icelandic delicacies as well as give me a chance to try a few things I had never had before like escargot. We had puffin, the national bird and mascot, which was kind of oily and gamy and not that great. Monkfish was also quite good but the star of the night was the minke whale. Yes, I tried whale and it was delicious. Like a cross between tuna and a really good steak. That and a few other dishes made it one of my best meals ever.
7) Yes, you can complain that we dined on several cute creatures, especially when you include our lamb lunch the next day that was just exquisite. I would just like to state that on our whale / bird watching expedition we saw neither whales nor puffins so we felt like they owed us for not being there. And the lamb was just too good to pass up.
8) Next to our hotel was this bakery that we passed every day but only ate at on our last day. Which was a mistake because they had this cinnamon roll covered with fudge that would make you end your diet in a second. I’m not a big pastry type person but this was pretty amazing. Inexpensive as well, which was a great change of pace.
9) At one point Kim ordered a hamburger that came with a fried egg on top of the bun. You know that you have spent a long time travelling when that seems to be a perfectly normal way to serve a hamburger.
10) If I learned one thing from our trip it is this: you can never go wrong when you order the lobster feast.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
And I'm back...
Did you miss me? Was my wit and panache longed for in the midst of cyberspace? Did anyone actually notice that I had stopped writing for two weeks?
Anyway, as I said I went on sabbatical which is really a fancy way of saying I finally took a vacation. In fact this was the first time that I took five days off from work that did not involve volunteering in New Orleans in almost a decade. It has been that long since I have had a real vacation and that says something and I don’t think it is very good.
So what did I do? Well, Kim and I went to New York to Iceland back to New York to Detroit to South Bend then back to Detroit and finally home. We spent nearly a week in unseasonably warm Iceland where we saw glaciers and icebergs and waterfalls and geysers and a whole lot of gray skies. We also ate amazing food including the best ice cube you will ever taste as well as puffin (they are both cuddly and delicious.) We then went to New York, going from a country of 300,000 people to a city of 8 million. We did the museums and Times Square and saw a play and I had my first experience of life in New York. Then it was on to South Bend for the Notre Dame game and reunions with some old friends.
Obviously I have a thousand stories to tell and I will be sharing them over the next few weeks. Right now I just want to say that I am back safe and sound though the jet lag has finally caught up to me. Travelling the world via early morning flights starts to drain you once you reach your mid thirties. So, I am going to thankfully sleep in my own bed right now and get ready to go back to work in the morning. More stories to follow.
But what do you mean Tali won More to Love while I was gone? Why in the world did Luke choose her? I really have to disagree with his logic there. Mandy was robbed.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Death Cab for Cutie “Transatlanticism”
2) Tommy Malone “Soul Heavy”
3) Damien Rice “Live from Fingerprints Warts and All”
4) Various Artists “Bloodshot Records Sampler 2001”
5) Rufus Wainwright “Release the Stars”
Anyway, as I said I went on sabbatical which is really a fancy way of saying I finally took a vacation. In fact this was the first time that I took five days off from work that did not involve volunteering in New Orleans in almost a decade. It has been that long since I have had a real vacation and that says something and I don’t think it is very good.
So what did I do? Well, Kim and I went to New York to Iceland back to New York to Detroit to South Bend then back to Detroit and finally home. We spent nearly a week in unseasonably warm Iceland where we saw glaciers and icebergs and waterfalls and geysers and a whole lot of gray skies. We also ate amazing food including the best ice cube you will ever taste as well as puffin (they are both cuddly and delicious.) We then went to New York, going from a country of 300,000 people to a city of 8 million. We did the museums and Times Square and saw a play and I had my first experience of life in New York. Then it was on to South Bend for the Notre Dame game and reunions with some old friends.
Obviously I have a thousand stories to tell and I will be sharing them over the next few weeks. Right now I just want to say that I am back safe and sound though the jet lag has finally caught up to me. Travelling the world via early morning flights starts to drain you once you reach your mid thirties. So, I am going to thankfully sleep in my own bed right now and get ready to go back to work in the morning. More stories to follow.
But what do you mean Tali won More to Love while I was gone? Why in the world did Luke choose her? I really have to disagree with his logic there. Mandy was robbed.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Death Cab for Cutie “Transatlanticism”
2) Tommy Malone “Soul Heavy”
3) Damien Rice “Live from Fingerprints Warts and All”
4) Various Artists “Bloodshot Records Sampler 2001”
5) Rufus Wainwright “Release the Stars”
Thursday, September 03, 2009
I'm a ninja, it's my birthday
Well, in roughly an hour and a half I will turn 36 and will now be on the late portion of my mid thirties. To think of what has happened to me over the past year is astounding. Comparing where I was a year ago to where I am now is just mind boggling. I would never have expected any of this to happen.
Last year on my birthday I was packing up my apartment in Kansas City and moving to Delaware. After five possibly misspent years out on the Great Plains I was moving to the east coast where I knew absolutely no one. Seriously, I did not know a single person within a hundred miles of my new home. I was returning to a company I had worked for in the past but was faced with the fear that maybe after seven years away I had forgotten everything I had learned on the first go around. I was saying goodbye to the familiar and hello to a complete blank slate. Incredibly, it worked out in the best way possible.
I didn’t feel that way at first. I still don’t feel that I am an east coast guy and I will never understand the whole idea of going to the shore on weekends. Wilmington is a small city and everything seems to be a drive for me whether it is to go to a bar or a grocery store or to an area of actual culture. But I love my apartment and I have gotten used to the area. It might not feel like home just yet but it feels pretty nice.
My job is going exactly the way that I hoped that it would. It is tough to explain just how at home I am talking about power lines and how energy flows. I know it sounds like the most boring thing in the world and I am sure to most people it actually is but I just love the fact that I can model every power line in the country and figure out what will happen next. Plus, I jumped back into the industry at the perfect time as everything is up in the air again. Having gone from a company I didn’t particularly like to this is a wonderful change of pace.
But obviously the biggest moment of the past year is the one I never would have predicted no matter how much I tried. I never even fancied the thought that Kim and I would get back in touch and decide to start dating. It would have been a dream on the level of winning the lottery; it seemed that unlikely. Yet today here I am dating the woman of my dreams and happier than I have ever been. Every day I remind myself that I am the luckiest guy on the planet.
All I can say is for the first time my life is precisely where I want it to be. I have the best girlfriend ever, a job that excites me and a wonderful family. Things aren’t perfect but of course they never are. I wish I knew people out here who I didn’t work with or had a regular trivia game to play or was fifteen pounds lighter but those are all things that I can address. I do miss my friends in KC and sometimes wish I was on my way to the Brick on a Friday night to unwind but sometimes you have to move to grow. That is what this year has been all about. I am looking forward to my birthday tomorrow for all the possibilities the next year holds. After this one I feel that anything is possible.
On that note I have something to announce. As my regular readers have probably noticed the posts have been a little lacking at times recently with the occasional skipped entry. For lack of a better term, I’ve been busy with my real life and am tired as a result. I still love to write but over the past few months sitting down at the laptop and writing a page of material has grown a little tougher. So, after some thought I have decided that after four years and ten months, 1,253 posts and probably around 800,000 words I am due for a little break so I am taking a two week sabbatical. I guess that would be more of a hiatus than a sabbatical but either way I just want to take some time to recharge my creative batteries and take care of some other projects. I’m not going to stop blogging or change from the five posts a week schedule or anything. Just taking a little time off to celebrate one hell of a year.
As always, thanks to everyone who does read my thoughts from my corner of the world. See you all in two weeks. Take it away Josh…
Last year on my birthday I was packing up my apartment in Kansas City and moving to Delaware. After five possibly misspent years out on the Great Plains I was moving to the east coast where I knew absolutely no one. Seriously, I did not know a single person within a hundred miles of my new home. I was returning to a company I had worked for in the past but was faced with the fear that maybe after seven years away I had forgotten everything I had learned on the first go around. I was saying goodbye to the familiar and hello to a complete blank slate. Incredibly, it worked out in the best way possible.
I didn’t feel that way at first. I still don’t feel that I am an east coast guy and I will never understand the whole idea of going to the shore on weekends. Wilmington is a small city and everything seems to be a drive for me whether it is to go to a bar or a grocery store or to an area of actual culture. But I love my apartment and I have gotten used to the area. It might not feel like home just yet but it feels pretty nice.
My job is going exactly the way that I hoped that it would. It is tough to explain just how at home I am talking about power lines and how energy flows. I know it sounds like the most boring thing in the world and I am sure to most people it actually is but I just love the fact that I can model every power line in the country and figure out what will happen next. Plus, I jumped back into the industry at the perfect time as everything is up in the air again. Having gone from a company I didn’t particularly like to this is a wonderful change of pace.
But obviously the biggest moment of the past year is the one I never would have predicted no matter how much I tried. I never even fancied the thought that Kim and I would get back in touch and decide to start dating. It would have been a dream on the level of winning the lottery; it seemed that unlikely. Yet today here I am dating the woman of my dreams and happier than I have ever been. Every day I remind myself that I am the luckiest guy on the planet.
All I can say is for the first time my life is precisely where I want it to be. I have the best girlfriend ever, a job that excites me and a wonderful family. Things aren’t perfect but of course they never are. I wish I knew people out here who I didn’t work with or had a regular trivia game to play or was fifteen pounds lighter but those are all things that I can address. I do miss my friends in KC and sometimes wish I was on my way to the Brick on a Friday night to unwind but sometimes you have to move to grow. That is what this year has been all about. I am looking forward to my birthday tomorrow for all the possibilities the next year holds. After this one I feel that anything is possible.
On that note I have something to announce. As my regular readers have probably noticed the posts have been a little lacking at times recently with the occasional skipped entry. For lack of a better term, I’ve been busy with my real life and am tired as a result. I still love to write but over the past few months sitting down at the laptop and writing a page of material has grown a little tougher. So, after some thought I have decided that after four years and ten months, 1,253 posts and probably around 800,000 words I am due for a little break so I am taking a two week sabbatical. I guess that would be more of a hiatus than a sabbatical but either way I just want to take some time to recharge my creative batteries and take care of some other projects. I’m not going to stop blogging or change from the five posts a week schedule or anything. Just taking a little time off to celebrate one hell of a year.
As always, thanks to everyone who does read my thoughts from my corner of the world. See you all in two weeks. Take it away Josh…
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Saturdays are the best days
With college football starting up tomorrow I thought that I would take a look at the games on tap for this weekend and give my expert commentary. I’d even put my money behind my picks except that the courts have banned Delaware’s experiment with sports gambling, which is sad because it was one of the few reasons to live in Delaware. The only reason, actually.
Oregon vs. Boise State: I recommend watching this game in black and white. Partially because it will provide a nice, old timey feel to the game but mainly because a stadium that will feature a team in orange playing a team in neon green and yellow on blue turf is not something that should be watched with the naked eye. I think the color scheme will cause high definition sets to explode. If Boise State wins they get to play in a BCS bowl; if they lose, well, they remain in Idaho.
Utah vs. Utah State: It’s the battle of the Beehive State, such named because…ok, even I don’t know that one. I assume it involves bees. Winner gets domain over all of Utah or at least the portions not owned by the Mormon church which are naturally controlled by BYU.
Central Arkansas vs. Hawaii: The game is at Hawaii which means some guy who accepted a scholarship to Central Arkansas has scored a free trip to Honolulu for this game. Meanwhile, my engineering career at Illinois featured two trips to Chicago for conferences and that is about it. I knew I should have spent more time in the weight room instead of the lab.
Illinois vs. Missourah: It is the Braggin Rights challenge. This is a traditional rivalry game for the Illini, which is interesting because I have no idea what our feud is with Missouri. Outside of the people in the southern part of the state who have some St. Louis envy we consider Missouri to be the home of Branson and not much else. Having lived there for five years I can confirm that once you get past Yakov Smirnoff’s theater in Branson there really isn’t anything else of importance in the entire state. I’m hoping for an Illinois win out of spite more than anything.
Texas vs. Louisiana Monroe: Nice to see the Longhorns starting the season off with a major challenge. When I can’t tell you where Louisiana Monroe is it is a sign that their team is probably not a major contender.
Florida vs. Charleston Southern: My predicted line for Tim Tebow: 280 yards passing, 63 yards rushing, 4 TDs (3 pass, 1 run), and 5 lepers cured. I am so pissed that it was raining in May and I couldn’t get my picture taken in front of the Promise speech that they carved into the stadium wall already. First time I have ever heard of a monument to a college player who was still playing.
(One of my favorite lines ever. The Virginia basketball coach once said of a Duke benchwarmer, “If we had a guy like Taymon Domzalski on our team we would build a statue of him.” To which I replied, “Yes, and he would be fouling Thomas Jefferson.”)
Alabama vs. Virginia Tech: Wow, this should be a great game for the opening weekend. You always have to love southern football games. Huge crowds, an acceptable level of rowdiness and extremely well organized fans. Also, several guys named Bobby Joe will be on the field and we need more of that in sports.
Miami vs. Florida State: Miami wins after Florida State misses a field goal. Or after the NCAA suspends three quarters of the Seminoles team in the first half. Or they just start removing wins from Bowden’s record during the game. Man I hate Florida State.
Oregon vs. Boise State: I recommend watching this game in black and white. Partially because it will provide a nice, old timey feel to the game but mainly because a stadium that will feature a team in orange playing a team in neon green and yellow on blue turf is not something that should be watched with the naked eye. I think the color scheme will cause high definition sets to explode. If Boise State wins they get to play in a BCS bowl; if they lose, well, they remain in Idaho.
Utah vs. Utah State: It’s the battle of the Beehive State, such named because…ok, even I don’t know that one. I assume it involves bees. Winner gets domain over all of Utah or at least the portions not owned by the Mormon church which are naturally controlled by BYU.
Central Arkansas vs. Hawaii: The game is at Hawaii which means some guy who accepted a scholarship to Central Arkansas has scored a free trip to Honolulu for this game. Meanwhile, my engineering career at Illinois featured two trips to Chicago for conferences and that is about it. I knew I should have spent more time in the weight room instead of the lab.
Illinois vs. Missourah: It is the Braggin Rights challenge. This is a traditional rivalry game for the Illini, which is interesting because I have no idea what our feud is with Missouri. Outside of the people in the southern part of the state who have some St. Louis envy we consider Missouri to be the home of Branson and not much else. Having lived there for five years I can confirm that once you get past Yakov Smirnoff’s theater in Branson there really isn’t anything else of importance in the entire state. I’m hoping for an Illinois win out of spite more than anything.
Texas vs. Louisiana Monroe: Nice to see the Longhorns starting the season off with a major challenge. When I can’t tell you where Louisiana Monroe is it is a sign that their team is probably not a major contender.
Florida vs. Charleston Southern: My predicted line for Tim Tebow: 280 yards passing, 63 yards rushing, 4 TDs (3 pass, 1 run), and 5 lepers cured. I am so pissed that it was raining in May and I couldn’t get my picture taken in front of the Promise speech that they carved into the stadium wall already. First time I have ever heard of a monument to a college player who was still playing.
(One of my favorite lines ever. The Virginia basketball coach once said of a Duke benchwarmer, “If we had a guy like Taymon Domzalski on our team we would build a statue of him.” To which I replied, “Yes, and he would be fouling Thomas Jefferson.”)
Alabama vs. Virginia Tech: Wow, this should be a great game for the opening weekend. You always have to love southern football games. Huge crowds, an acceptable level of rowdiness and extremely well organized fans. Also, several guys named Bobby Joe will be on the field and we need more of that in sports.
Miami vs. Florida State: Miami wins after Florida State misses a field goal. Or after the NCAA suspends three quarters of the Seminoles team in the first half. Or they just start removing wins from Bowden’s record during the game. Man I hate Florida State.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Mickey Meets Magneto
Sorry I forgot to post last night. I was busy working on my spec script for “Wolverine Meets Goofy” for the Disney-Marvel merger. It has some wonderful dialogue like
Goofy: “Gosh golly Logan, Donald is going to be really upset when he finds out you decapitated Scrooge McDuck.”
Wolverine: “He has to learn his lesson. You fund Doctor Doom’s plan to rule the world and you end up one dead duck.”
Hey, at least Goofy makes sense as a mutant. Otherwise we are forced to deal with that age old question as to what Goofy is. He can’t be a dog because Pluto is a dog and he doesn’t talk so what the hell does that make Goofy? And why does no one have an issue with Donald Duck wearing a sailor suit sans pants and hanging out with his similarly pantsless “nephews?” Am I the only one who sees the symbolism there?
Obviously, like Doctor Octopus I am a bit up in arms at the moment over this whole merger. If I was a Marvel stockholder I would be celebrating like mad because they make out like bandits in this deal. As someone who enjoys comic books though, and who has seen how Disney has pretty much destroyed ESPN, I do fear what this might result in. I am guessing a Jonas brother as Captain America or Miley Cyrus as Scarlett Witch. It will be interesting to see just how much interplay there is between the two brands. A little would be wonderful; too much would be disastrous.
Here is something that I will talk about more as this week goes on. I have lived in Delaware for a year now. Yes, tomorrow will be one year in my new job and a year since I packed up everything that I own in Kansas City and made my way east. Heck, I am a year removed from being a trivia maven having somewhat retired from that scene. It has been quite a year if I should say so myself. But more on that later.
Goofy: “Gosh golly Logan, Donald is going to be really upset when he finds out you decapitated Scrooge McDuck.”
Wolverine: “He has to learn his lesson. You fund Doctor Doom’s plan to rule the world and you end up one dead duck.”
Hey, at least Goofy makes sense as a mutant. Otherwise we are forced to deal with that age old question as to what Goofy is. He can’t be a dog because Pluto is a dog and he doesn’t talk so what the hell does that make Goofy? And why does no one have an issue with Donald Duck wearing a sailor suit sans pants and hanging out with his similarly pantsless “nephews?” Am I the only one who sees the symbolism there?
Obviously, like Doctor Octopus I am a bit up in arms at the moment over this whole merger. If I was a Marvel stockholder I would be celebrating like mad because they make out like bandits in this deal. As someone who enjoys comic books though, and who has seen how Disney has pretty much destroyed ESPN, I do fear what this might result in. I am guessing a Jonas brother as Captain America or Miley Cyrus as Scarlett Witch. It will be interesting to see just how much interplay there is between the two brands. A little would be wonderful; too much would be disastrous.
Here is something that I will talk about more as this week goes on. I have lived in Delaware for a year now. Yes, tomorrow will be one year in my new job and a year since I packed up everything that I own in Kansas City and made my way east. Heck, I am a year removed from being a trivia maven having somewhat retired from that scene. It has been quite a year if I should say so myself. But more on that later.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
What really matters
Even though the Bears were on television tonight I still couldn’t bring myself to sit down and watch them. I think that I have reached the point in my life where I no longer need to watch preseason football. Gamble on it, possibly, but not watch it. There is just something about spending an evening watching a game that doesn’t matter that seems like a complete waste of time. True, this is from someone who watches pro wrestling on a regular basis but I hope people understand my point.
By the way, you can pick up Michael Vick Eagles jerseys at the Philadelphia airport. You know, just in case you need to pick up a last minute gift for the illegal dog ring operator in your family. Ok, as a free market person I don’t have a problem with selling the jerseys or even with Vick being in the NFL (he served out his sentence and will serve out his suspension) but I don’t think you have to have his jersey be the most prominent one on display. It just seems a little disconcerting.
I want to mention one thing that struck me as I watched the Kennedy funeral yesterday. I wasn’t able to watch all of it but I saw a good portion and it was something that I found touching and moving. Being an Irish Catholic kid I grew up with the myth of the Kennedys and having stood in front of the grave at Arlington myself I really find it to be a very thought provoking space. Yes, this is definitely a mythologizing of very flawed individuals but I view them to be what one can accomplish when you focus on the better angels of our nature. It is a world view in which we strive to be better than what we are.
That is why it really bothered me when the funeral was being politicized. I would watch the talking heads discuss whether or not Obama should have tied his speech more to health care reform. It wasn’t a political stump speech; it was a eulogy. Politics in that sense should not have been raised at all. The health care bill should not be stamped with his name on it just because Teddy would have wanted it that way. He would want a good bill that he could discuss with Hatch and McCain and have them all agree that it is the best for the country even if they did not vote the same way. Sometimes I wish we could bury a man in peace and not have every aspect be analyzed for deeper political meaning. Personal and spiritual meaning yes, political no.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Jeff Buckley “Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk”
2) Neko Case “Canadian Amp”
3) Freakwater “Feels Like the Third Time”
4) Loreena McKennitt “Live from Paris and Toronto”
5) Gillian Welch “Soul Journey”
By the way, you can pick up Michael Vick Eagles jerseys at the Philadelphia airport. You know, just in case you need to pick up a last minute gift for the illegal dog ring operator in your family. Ok, as a free market person I don’t have a problem with selling the jerseys or even with Vick being in the NFL (he served out his sentence and will serve out his suspension) but I don’t think you have to have his jersey be the most prominent one on display. It just seems a little disconcerting.
I want to mention one thing that struck me as I watched the Kennedy funeral yesterday. I wasn’t able to watch all of it but I saw a good portion and it was something that I found touching and moving. Being an Irish Catholic kid I grew up with the myth of the Kennedys and having stood in front of the grave at Arlington myself I really find it to be a very thought provoking space. Yes, this is definitely a mythologizing of very flawed individuals but I view them to be what one can accomplish when you focus on the better angels of our nature. It is a world view in which we strive to be better than what we are.
That is why it really bothered me when the funeral was being politicized. I would watch the talking heads discuss whether or not Obama should have tied his speech more to health care reform. It wasn’t a political stump speech; it was a eulogy. Politics in that sense should not have been raised at all. The health care bill should not be stamped with his name on it just because Teddy would have wanted it that way. He would want a good bill that he could discuss with Hatch and McCain and have them all agree that it is the best for the country even if they did not vote the same way. Sometimes I wish we could bury a man in peace and not have every aspect be analyzed for deeper political meaning. Personal and spiritual meaning yes, political no.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Jeff Buckley “Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk”
2) Neko Case “Canadian Amp”
3) Freakwater “Feels Like the Third Time”
4) Loreena McKennitt “Live from Paris and Toronto”
5) Gillian Welch “Soul Journey”
Thursday, August 27, 2009
My mind goes in odd directions
Some random thoughts to close out the week…
1) Moon rock at Dutch museum turns out to be petrified wood: This teaches us one important lesson: that there are trees on the moon. Ok, that is what I would take from it but then again I spent way too many years living in a state where the main debate is whether something other than intelligent design should be taught in schools. I am going to assume that all of the Dutch were too high to notice that their rock was not actually a rock. Either that or it was the geologists turn to stick his finger in the wall and thus did not have an opportunity to examine it.
2) Fat chick eliminated on More to Love: That is not really fair but it is really interesting to note that the two women eliminated in this week’s episode were the heaviest contestants remaining. As much as Luke says he wants a full figured woman it is intriguing that he got rid of the ones that best fit that description. Hell, Mandy (who should win, dump Luke immediately and get a better guy) is a fitness and dance instructor. (She also deserves props for getting super jealous and upset while watching Luke kiss Kristian. She is right, she should be no one’s second best.) And I still don’t understand how Tali is still around.
3) Poor, poor Kristian: The saddest part of this episode was the elimination of Kristian, who was the one contestant who I would say was truly in love with Luke. I mean to the point that she was picking out the china patterns. She tells Luke that she loves him, puts her heart out on the line and then is eliminated that same night. In real time it may have been a span of an hour or two. It was quite possibly the cruelest thing I have ever seen on television. She was just completely heartbroken. What really bothers me is that on shows like this the producers encourage the bachelor to keep people like Kristian around just so they can get moments like this. I will say that as someone who has felt the sting of rejection enough times that I feel for her but just remember that when you finally break through you appreciate what you have more than anything in the world.
4) Passing of Ted Kennedy: First off, I agree with people that we need to remember the bad with the good of Ted Kennedy. The man was certainly no saint and I don’t believe that he ever attempted to portray himself that way. So while Chapaquidick must be mentioned it does not have to be the focus. What should be remembered is that he was a very good politician. For being the other brother, the one who had to live up to a legacy that was mythologized beyond all belief, he did a rather amazing job. Regardless of what you feel of his political stance he did create a number of laws that have benefited society. And in my mind his eulogy at Robert’s funeral will always be one of the best speeches ever given. He will be missed.
Enjoy the weekend everyone.
1) Moon rock at Dutch museum turns out to be petrified wood: This teaches us one important lesson: that there are trees on the moon. Ok, that is what I would take from it but then again I spent way too many years living in a state where the main debate is whether something other than intelligent design should be taught in schools. I am going to assume that all of the Dutch were too high to notice that their rock was not actually a rock. Either that or it was the geologists turn to stick his finger in the wall and thus did not have an opportunity to examine it.
2) Fat chick eliminated on More to Love: That is not really fair but it is really interesting to note that the two women eliminated in this week’s episode were the heaviest contestants remaining. As much as Luke says he wants a full figured woman it is intriguing that he got rid of the ones that best fit that description. Hell, Mandy (who should win, dump Luke immediately and get a better guy) is a fitness and dance instructor. (She also deserves props for getting super jealous and upset while watching Luke kiss Kristian. She is right, she should be no one’s second best.) And I still don’t understand how Tali is still around.
3) Poor, poor Kristian: The saddest part of this episode was the elimination of Kristian, who was the one contestant who I would say was truly in love with Luke. I mean to the point that she was picking out the china patterns. She tells Luke that she loves him, puts her heart out on the line and then is eliminated that same night. In real time it may have been a span of an hour or two. It was quite possibly the cruelest thing I have ever seen on television. She was just completely heartbroken. What really bothers me is that on shows like this the producers encourage the bachelor to keep people like Kristian around just so they can get moments like this. I will say that as someone who has felt the sting of rejection enough times that I feel for her but just remember that when you finally break through you appreciate what you have more than anything in the world.
4) Passing of Ted Kennedy: First off, I agree with people that we need to remember the bad with the good of Ted Kennedy. The man was certainly no saint and I don’t believe that he ever attempted to portray himself that way. So while Chapaquidick must be mentioned it does not have to be the focus. What should be remembered is that he was a very good politician. For being the other brother, the one who had to live up to a legacy that was mythologized beyond all belief, he did a rather amazing job. Regardless of what you feel of his political stance he did create a number of laws that have benefited society. And in my mind his eulogy at Robert’s funeral will always be one of the best speeches ever given. He will be missed.
Enjoy the weekend everyone.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Beloit College Mindset List: 2009
Beloit College just published their Mindset List for the class of 2013. This is a wonderful yearly exercise in reminding you just how old you are by looking at the experiences and world view of an incoming college freshman. Reading this makes you start realizing just why you have lower back pain and an urge to watch Matlock. Here are some highlights from this year’s list.
3. The Green Giant has always been Shrek, not the big guy picking vegetables: I never even realized that they’ve stopped using the Jolly Green Giant as a mascot. Maybe someone realized that his physical presence would be a huge strain on the ecosystem and thus lower the quality of the produce. And I am not a fan of Shrek. There, I said it.
7. Magic Johnson has always been HIV positive: Wow, that is one to put into perspective. I actually remember where I was when I got that news and it was just a complete stunner. It was a death sentence at the time and the first huge name to be public about it. Now the entire view of the disease has changed.
10: Rap music has always been mainstream: It was fascinating back when I sold ringtones to look at the sales charts. The top sellers were all rap and R and B. There wasn’t a single rock track anywhere near the top of the list. To be frank, for a college freshmen today rap hasn’t just been mainstream it has been the primary form of music for their entire life.
19. They have never understood the meaning of R.S.V.P.: Well, that isn’t quite fair. I don’t know what it means either. Who cares about what the French have to say anyway?
28: Christopher Columbus has always been getting a bad rap: Ah, I remember 1992. Let’s either a) celebrate the 500th anniversary of someone discovering a place that already had people on it or b) using one guy’s road trip to symbolize the destruction of an entire society. I don’t know if I would call it a bad rap though. Maybe just some historical realignment.
30: Bobby Cox has always managed the Atlanta Braves: And has always managed them to a first round playoff exit.
31: There has always been a Cartoon Network: And thank God for that. Though it hasn’t been the same since the glory days of Sealab 2021 and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. For we are the aqua teens, we make the homies say ho and the girlies want to scream.
35: Women have always outnumbered men in college: Except on engineering campuses where the opposite is very much true. Except in environmental engineering but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: environmental engineering doesn’t count.
40: Madonna’s perspective on Sex has always been well documented: I wouldn’t say that is restricted to college freshmen. Heck, I was pretty sure where she stood when I was a freshman. That said, looking at her now would pretty much make me want to refrain from having any images of her in my mind regarding that activity. I would say that that feeling is pretty universal unless someone has developed a Skeletor fetish.
45: They have always eaten Berry Berry Kix: No wonder kids today are so fat. They can’t even enjoy a good breakfast cereal. Back in my day we lived on Cookie Crisp. It is a breakfast cereal made out of cookies! What could be better?
51: Brittney Spears has always been heard on classic rock stations: Really? Can Beloit back this data up? Is she really considered to be classic rock? I have to disagree with this one here.
52: They have never been Saved by the Bell: Wow, now I am old. I think I wrote about this before how this show is only a Gen X staple because it was on TBS all the time when we were in college so it became the show you watched before dinner. Still, to think that kids today have never seen it is pretty amazing.
57: Elizabeth Taylor has always reeked of White Diamonds: And menthol cigarettes.
58: There has always been a Planet Hollywood: No one knows why. No one can explain why these restaurants are still in existence. Quick, let’s all have an overpriced meal of bad food in a room filled with props from movies we didn’t really enjoyed. I have never seen the appeal of such places.
64: CDs have never been sold in cardboard packaging: First off, I wouldn’t be surprised if a large portion of college freshmen have never even purchased a CD. I find that disturbing in its own right given how much of a collection I have obtained over the years. But I remember the old cardboard packaging that you would tear apart in order to get to the jewel case. See, originally stores were afraid that due to the size of CDs there would be a lot of shoplifting so they created this huge packaging around them for no reason other than to create waste. Enjoy what we’ve left of the planet kids!
75: There has always been blue Jell-O: Which is a godsend for those of us who have to make jello shots for schools in which blue plays a prominent role in the team’s color scheme.
3. The Green Giant has always been Shrek, not the big guy picking vegetables: I never even realized that they’ve stopped using the Jolly Green Giant as a mascot. Maybe someone realized that his physical presence would be a huge strain on the ecosystem and thus lower the quality of the produce. And I am not a fan of Shrek. There, I said it.
7. Magic Johnson has always been HIV positive: Wow, that is one to put into perspective. I actually remember where I was when I got that news and it was just a complete stunner. It was a death sentence at the time and the first huge name to be public about it. Now the entire view of the disease has changed.
10: Rap music has always been mainstream: It was fascinating back when I sold ringtones to look at the sales charts. The top sellers were all rap and R and B. There wasn’t a single rock track anywhere near the top of the list. To be frank, for a college freshmen today rap hasn’t just been mainstream it has been the primary form of music for their entire life.
19. They have never understood the meaning of R.S.V.P.: Well, that isn’t quite fair. I don’t know what it means either. Who cares about what the French have to say anyway?
28: Christopher Columbus has always been getting a bad rap: Ah, I remember 1992. Let’s either a) celebrate the 500th anniversary of someone discovering a place that already had people on it or b) using one guy’s road trip to symbolize the destruction of an entire society. I don’t know if I would call it a bad rap though. Maybe just some historical realignment.
30: Bobby Cox has always managed the Atlanta Braves: And has always managed them to a first round playoff exit.
31: There has always been a Cartoon Network: And thank God for that. Though it hasn’t been the same since the glory days of Sealab 2021 and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. For we are the aqua teens, we make the homies say ho and the girlies want to scream.
35: Women have always outnumbered men in college: Except on engineering campuses where the opposite is very much true. Except in environmental engineering but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: environmental engineering doesn’t count.
40: Madonna’s perspective on Sex has always been well documented: I wouldn’t say that is restricted to college freshmen. Heck, I was pretty sure where she stood when I was a freshman. That said, looking at her now would pretty much make me want to refrain from having any images of her in my mind regarding that activity. I would say that that feeling is pretty universal unless someone has developed a Skeletor fetish.
45: They have always eaten Berry Berry Kix: No wonder kids today are so fat. They can’t even enjoy a good breakfast cereal. Back in my day we lived on Cookie Crisp. It is a breakfast cereal made out of cookies! What could be better?
51: Brittney Spears has always been heard on classic rock stations: Really? Can Beloit back this data up? Is she really considered to be classic rock? I have to disagree with this one here.
52: They have never been Saved by the Bell: Wow, now I am old. I think I wrote about this before how this show is only a Gen X staple because it was on TBS all the time when we were in college so it became the show you watched before dinner. Still, to think that kids today have never seen it is pretty amazing.
57: Elizabeth Taylor has always reeked of White Diamonds: And menthol cigarettes.
58: There has always been a Planet Hollywood: No one knows why. No one can explain why these restaurants are still in existence. Quick, let’s all have an overpriced meal of bad food in a room filled with props from movies we didn’t really enjoyed. I have never seen the appeal of such places.
64: CDs have never been sold in cardboard packaging: First off, I wouldn’t be surprised if a large portion of college freshmen have never even purchased a CD. I find that disturbing in its own right given how much of a collection I have obtained over the years. But I remember the old cardboard packaging that you would tear apart in order to get to the jewel case. See, originally stores were afraid that due to the size of CDs there would be a lot of shoplifting so they created this huge packaging around them for no reason other than to create waste. Enjoy what we’ve left of the planet kids!
75: There has always been blue Jell-O: Which is a godsend for those of us who have to make jello shots for schools in which blue plays a prominent role in the team’s color scheme.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Are you ready for some football
It is getting to be that time of year again. Time to fire up the grills, line up the beer bongs and break out the wacky headgear because it’s time for college football. I’ve decided to do some preseason previewing this year. I will start with my review of the Notre Dame schedule.
September 5: Nevada: Notre Dame starts off the season by taking on their historic arch enemy the Nevada Wolf Pack. Because if there is anything that strikes fear in the heart of a leprechaun (other than really tall people) it is a large number of wolves. Actually, we have Bob Davie to thank for this game as he was the coach who pushed to put games on the schedule that Notre Dame would have a chance of winning. It also helps that we no longer have to promote the first game of the season as “the only chance you will have this year to see an undefeated Irish team.”
September 12: At Michigan: Interesting to see how coaching at Michigan has evolved over the years. We’ve gone from Bo (classic, grandfatherly, can’t win a big game) to Gary Moeller (stoic, reserved, can’t win a big game) to Lloyd Carr (always looked like he was about to start sobbing, can’t win a big game) to Rich Rodriguez (voted coach most likely to have a moonshine still on the practice field, can’t win any game.) I don’t care if Michigan is still in rebuilding mode. This game is one that ND has to win to have any sort of positive momentum for the year.
September 19: Michigan State: The game is at Notre Dame this year so it means that we’re going to lose. Michigan State always wins when they play in South Bend. No one knows how or why. Even in the year when Illinois went to East Lansing and beat Michigan State (which was their first Big Ten victory in like two years and was celebrated by planting the Illinois flag at midfield) Michigan State still beat Notre Dame in front of the dome. I think it is the green uniforms. They confuse Jimmy Claussen. That said, fluffy clouds often confuse Jimmy Claussen.
September 26: At Purdue: I almost went to Purdue so I don’t make nearly as much fun of it as I could. I mean, their mascot carries around a large hammer and is obviously compensating for something but I don’t see any need to go there at this time. Also, Purdue’s student newspaper is called the Exponent. How do you know that you are going to a school that is going to have a less than active social life? When the student newspaper is a math pun. Go with the Irish here.
October 3: Washington: Ooh, we get to face Ty again. Wait, he’s not coaching there anymore? Steve Sarkisian is the head coach? What the hell is a Sarkisian? Well, if Notre Dame can’t beat a team that went winless last year we really have no right to be playing football anymore. For those wondering, I always consider this to be the best time of year to see football in South Bend. You are out of the heat of the summer, you have that first refreshing breeze of fall and the town hasn’t become an ice infested hellhole just yet.
October 17: USC: I attended the last game where Notre Dame beat USC. Bob Davie was the coach. If I knew at the time how momentous an occasion it would become I probably would have celebrated with a bit more vigor. Instead I think I went home and studied for an accounting test. Trust me, there is no school I hate more than USC. Ok, maybe Northwestern and wherever Bruce Pearl is coaching but USC is up there just because of that damn song that they play after every single down. Ooh, we gained three yards. Everybody wave their arms like a moron. This is the only ranked opponent on ND’s schedule at the moment and barring an unforeseen circumstance, like USC publishing the team’s payroll on the internet, this will most likely be their first loss of the season.
October 24: Boston College: Like Michigan State, Boston College always beats Notre Dame with teams that have absolutely no talent whatsoever. I think it is due to the accents. Claussen just gets confused in much the same way as a small dog does when confronted with a mirror. (Before anyone gets on me remember that he is 23. You know what I was doing at 23? Working for a living. I sure as hell wasn’t a college junior.) Expect a large number of pink Red Sox hats in the crowd and complaints about the Clam Chowder at the Backer.
October 31: Washington State (in San Antonio): I have no idea why this game is in San Antonio. I am guessing that one of the athletic directors just really likes the Riverwalk. Or maybe we are just doing an early scouting trip for an Alamo Bowl berth. Either way, the chili will be flowing, the ten gallon hats will be waving and the…the…insert other Texas cliché here. I mean, it is Washington State. That team will only be interesting if they can get Ryan Leaf out of prison to return to the field.
November 7: Navy: I was at the Notre Dame – Navy game in Baltimore last year. Here is what I learned. 1) It is impossible to reach the Baltimore stadium (I swear I spent an hour and a half on an off ramp), 2) Being able to drink without the fear of ushers at a game makes watching Notre Dame football much more enjoyable, 3) Navy fans are extremely cool, 4) Leaving a game during a monsoon means that I will miss the only interesting part of the entire game. I’m guessing we move our winning streak against Navy up to two here.
November 14: At Pittsburgh: I just read Michael Chabon’s “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh” which features a character named Cleveland. I take that to be the first mystery. Other mysteries include “What is the meaning of the cloud factory”, “Why is the Steelers logo only on one side of the helmet” and “My god, they still let Dave Waanstadt coach a football team?” Here is a simple gambling rule of thumb that has helped me out many a time: If you see Waanstadt on the sideline, take the other side. Hell, if he ever becomes a sideline reporter I would still take the team that is standing as far away from him as possible.
November 21: Connecticut: The Joyce Center will be rocking as the Huskies come to town for an early season matchup of two basketball….wait, this is still football? Why the hell are we playing UConn? Who the hell wants to sit in South Bend in late November and watch UConn? I now understand why everyone is making fun of our schedule this year. It just looks silly.
November 28: At Stanford: And the regular season mercifully ends. Stanford is another rival because, well, they are supposedly intelligent. Mainly they are a bunch of hippie freaks who are too corporate to go to Berkley but still they are primarily intelligent. Also, their tree mascot is often drunk during the games and I fully support intoxicated mascots at all times.
My prediction? I will go with 9-3 for the Irish this year. They could legitimately be 11-1 based on the weakness of their schedule but I just see them losing two games that they should win. That will keep them out of the BCS (where they would get smoked) but should put them in a decent bowl.
September 5: Nevada: Notre Dame starts off the season by taking on their historic arch enemy the Nevada Wolf Pack. Because if there is anything that strikes fear in the heart of a leprechaun (other than really tall people) it is a large number of wolves. Actually, we have Bob Davie to thank for this game as he was the coach who pushed to put games on the schedule that Notre Dame would have a chance of winning. It also helps that we no longer have to promote the first game of the season as “the only chance you will have this year to see an undefeated Irish team.”
September 12: At Michigan: Interesting to see how coaching at Michigan has evolved over the years. We’ve gone from Bo (classic, grandfatherly, can’t win a big game) to Gary Moeller (stoic, reserved, can’t win a big game) to Lloyd Carr (always looked like he was about to start sobbing, can’t win a big game) to Rich Rodriguez (voted coach most likely to have a moonshine still on the practice field, can’t win any game.) I don’t care if Michigan is still in rebuilding mode. This game is one that ND has to win to have any sort of positive momentum for the year.
September 19: Michigan State: The game is at Notre Dame this year so it means that we’re going to lose. Michigan State always wins when they play in South Bend. No one knows how or why. Even in the year when Illinois went to East Lansing and beat Michigan State (which was their first Big Ten victory in like two years and was celebrated by planting the Illinois flag at midfield) Michigan State still beat Notre Dame in front of the dome. I think it is the green uniforms. They confuse Jimmy Claussen. That said, fluffy clouds often confuse Jimmy Claussen.
September 26: At Purdue: I almost went to Purdue so I don’t make nearly as much fun of it as I could. I mean, their mascot carries around a large hammer and is obviously compensating for something but I don’t see any need to go there at this time. Also, Purdue’s student newspaper is called the Exponent. How do you know that you are going to a school that is going to have a less than active social life? When the student newspaper is a math pun. Go with the Irish here.
October 3: Washington: Ooh, we get to face Ty again. Wait, he’s not coaching there anymore? Steve Sarkisian is the head coach? What the hell is a Sarkisian? Well, if Notre Dame can’t beat a team that went winless last year we really have no right to be playing football anymore. For those wondering, I always consider this to be the best time of year to see football in South Bend. You are out of the heat of the summer, you have that first refreshing breeze of fall and the town hasn’t become an ice infested hellhole just yet.
October 17: USC: I attended the last game where Notre Dame beat USC. Bob Davie was the coach. If I knew at the time how momentous an occasion it would become I probably would have celebrated with a bit more vigor. Instead I think I went home and studied for an accounting test. Trust me, there is no school I hate more than USC. Ok, maybe Northwestern and wherever Bruce Pearl is coaching but USC is up there just because of that damn song that they play after every single down. Ooh, we gained three yards. Everybody wave their arms like a moron. This is the only ranked opponent on ND’s schedule at the moment and barring an unforeseen circumstance, like USC publishing the team’s payroll on the internet, this will most likely be their first loss of the season.
October 24: Boston College: Like Michigan State, Boston College always beats Notre Dame with teams that have absolutely no talent whatsoever. I think it is due to the accents. Claussen just gets confused in much the same way as a small dog does when confronted with a mirror. (Before anyone gets on me remember that he is 23. You know what I was doing at 23? Working for a living. I sure as hell wasn’t a college junior.) Expect a large number of pink Red Sox hats in the crowd and complaints about the Clam Chowder at the Backer.
October 31: Washington State (in San Antonio): I have no idea why this game is in San Antonio. I am guessing that one of the athletic directors just really likes the Riverwalk. Or maybe we are just doing an early scouting trip for an Alamo Bowl berth. Either way, the chili will be flowing, the ten gallon hats will be waving and the…the…insert other Texas cliché here. I mean, it is Washington State. That team will only be interesting if they can get Ryan Leaf out of prison to return to the field.
November 7: Navy: I was at the Notre Dame – Navy game in Baltimore last year. Here is what I learned. 1) It is impossible to reach the Baltimore stadium (I swear I spent an hour and a half on an off ramp), 2) Being able to drink without the fear of ushers at a game makes watching Notre Dame football much more enjoyable, 3) Navy fans are extremely cool, 4) Leaving a game during a monsoon means that I will miss the only interesting part of the entire game. I’m guessing we move our winning streak against Navy up to two here.
November 14: At Pittsburgh: I just read Michael Chabon’s “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh” which features a character named Cleveland. I take that to be the first mystery. Other mysteries include “What is the meaning of the cloud factory”, “Why is the Steelers logo only on one side of the helmet” and “My god, they still let Dave Waanstadt coach a football team?” Here is a simple gambling rule of thumb that has helped me out many a time: If you see Waanstadt on the sideline, take the other side. Hell, if he ever becomes a sideline reporter I would still take the team that is standing as far away from him as possible.
November 21: Connecticut: The Joyce Center will be rocking as the Huskies come to town for an early season matchup of two basketball….wait, this is still football? Why the hell are we playing UConn? Who the hell wants to sit in South Bend in late November and watch UConn? I now understand why everyone is making fun of our schedule this year. It just looks silly.
November 28: At Stanford: And the regular season mercifully ends. Stanford is another rival because, well, they are supposedly intelligent. Mainly they are a bunch of hippie freaks who are too corporate to go to Berkley but still they are primarily intelligent. Also, their tree mascot is often drunk during the games and I fully support intoxicated mascots at all times.
My prediction? I will go with 9-3 for the Irish this year. They could legitimately be 11-1 based on the weakness of their schedule but I just see them losing two games that they should win. That will keep them out of the BCS (where they would get smoked) but should put them in a decent bowl.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Next car will be a transformer
My car is growing ever closer to the point where I will have to trade it in. I would have made the deal under cash for clunkers except that my car does not qualify as a clunker nor would I ever deem myself capable of driving a clunker. But in addition to having a broken passenger side window that does not fully close and allows the rain in I now have a rather odd ventilation system. You know how your fan in your car has five levels? Well, levels one and two no longer work for me. The other three are perfectly fine, though, so I either get a ton or cool air or none at all. This requires much more planning than I would like in my driving regimen.
It is strange the attachment that we get to inanimate objects. I mean, my car is simply a combination of metal and plastic and the odd candy bar wrapper but it has been a part of my life for eight years now. I have listened to every CD I own in that car (though I now seem to have a speaker failing thus adding to the reason for an upgrade). While it is simply a thing it is rather emblematic of a time in my life. That makes letting go all the much harder.
I wonder why that is the case. I still have bags of clothes to give away to charity and the toughest part about letting go is this sense of giving up a part of myself. Even though in this case I am talking about sweaters that are over ten years old and that I wouldn’t ever wear again I still have a hard time putting them in the bin. For a time they were who I was, I wore them at times that I would like to remember and a few that I would like to forget. Now I don’t need to have clothes to recollect but there is a little bit of a draw there. We all want to hold on to portions of our past and often it is the physical items that are the toughest to let go of and move on to the next chapter. Mentally I know it is something that I just have to do but I always feel like putting it off for just one more day.
I do think that we should remember and record our past but I think you can do it without being tied to clutter. I am really happy that I have been keeping a journal for over 11 years now and can look back and see what I was thinking and how I was feeling over that time frame. I recommend it to everyone to at least try. Just sit down for fifteen minutes a night and write about whatever you feel like. You don’t have to publish it, no one else ever has to read it, just write what is on your mind. Often you will be surprised at how it turns out.
Me, I just want to get some sleep. Have another long day of Powerpoint wrangling ahead of me tomorrow. One day I will make a living as a writer and not have to focus on bullet points but until then I have to pay the bills.
It is strange the attachment that we get to inanimate objects. I mean, my car is simply a combination of metal and plastic and the odd candy bar wrapper but it has been a part of my life for eight years now. I have listened to every CD I own in that car (though I now seem to have a speaker failing thus adding to the reason for an upgrade). While it is simply a thing it is rather emblematic of a time in my life. That makes letting go all the much harder.
I wonder why that is the case. I still have bags of clothes to give away to charity and the toughest part about letting go is this sense of giving up a part of myself. Even though in this case I am talking about sweaters that are over ten years old and that I wouldn’t ever wear again I still have a hard time putting them in the bin. For a time they were who I was, I wore them at times that I would like to remember and a few that I would like to forget. Now I don’t need to have clothes to recollect but there is a little bit of a draw there. We all want to hold on to portions of our past and often it is the physical items that are the toughest to let go of and move on to the next chapter. Mentally I know it is something that I just have to do but I always feel like putting it off for just one more day.
I do think that we should remember and record our past but I think you can do it without being tied to clutter. I am really happy that I have been keeping a journal for over 11 years now and can look back and see what I was thinking and how I was feeling over that time frame. I recommend it to everyone to at least try. Just sit down for fifteen minutes a night and write about whatever you feel like. You don’t have to publish it, no one else ever has to read it, just write what is on your mind. Often you will be surprised at how it turns out.
Me, I just want to get some sleep. Have another long day of Powerpoint wrangling ahead of me tomorrow. One day I will make a living as a writer and not have to focus on bullet points but until then I have to pay the bills.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
When things start getting real
So we apparently have our first reality show murder suicide and I guess it was only a matter of time. Given that VH-1’s reality dating shows tend to dredge the bottom of the barrel in terms of contestants it seemed to almost be expected that tragedy would occur at some point. Take a bunch of people who will whore themselves out for a few minutes of fame and over time one of them will turn out to be a really bad egg.
For those who don’t know the story, Ryan Jenkins who was a contestant on “Megan Wants a Millionaire” has apparently been found dead in Canada. He is suspected of murdering a stripper he may have possibly married in Las Vegas. Her body was found missing her fingers and teeth but she was still identified by the serial numbers on her breast implants. I’m not making that last part up. I guess there is no need for inserting ID chips in everyone if breast implants can be tracked.
Now I watched that show, which has since been pulled off the air, for about five minutes a week or so ago. Basically it has Megan, a former Rock of Love contestant, trying to find her soulmate amongst a group of millionaires. Or at least guys who claim to be millionaires. Given the vetting process that was done on the contestants I have a hard time thinking that they all had that much of a net worth about them. Ryan was a contestant who was eliminated after a few episodes. This did not keep him from appearing on I Love Money 3, which he apparently won. That show also will not be seen by anyone.
I guess this story is tragic and sad. Maybe it says something about me that I am so jaded by my years of watching reality shows that something as incredibly real as this has absolutely no impact. As I’ve been mentioning when talking about More to Love, one of the main features of these reality dating shows is that the contestants aren’t considered to be real people. I can’t even consider them to be television characters. You were crushed when you found out that Col. Blake died on MASH. This story, real and involving meaningless deaths, doesn’t seem to have any impact at all.
That is the shame about reality television. It has made us numb to reality. We start viewing the world through this very cracked prism that no one can ever correctly interpret. We all become cynical and protect our souls with a layer of lead. Maybe it would be better if we stepped away from this genre for a while. Or at least started getting back to a point where it has a bit more of a human heart attached to it.
Best of 120 Minutes: I just need to listen to The Sundays at the moment.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Caroline Herring “Wellspring”
2) The Connells “Still Life”
3) U2 “The Eye of the Fly”
4) Sting “Nothing Like the Sun”
5) Cirque du Soleil “Varekai”
For those who don’t know the story, Ryan Jenkins who was a contestant on “Megan Wants a Millionaire” has apparently been found dead in Canada. He is suspected of murdering a stripper he may have possibly married in Las Vegas. Her body was found missing her fingers and teeth but she was still identified by the serial numbers on her breast implants. I’m not making that last part up. I guess there is no need for inserting ID chips in everyone if breast implants can be tracked.
Now I watched that show, which has since been pulled off the air, for about five minutes a week or so ago. Basically it has Megan, a former Rock of Love contestant, trying to find her soulmate amongst a group of millionaires. Or at least guys who claim to be millionaires. Given the vetting process that was done on the contestants I have a hard time thinking that they all had that much of a net worth about them. Ryan was a contestant who was eliminated after a few episodes. This did not keep him from appearing on I Love Money 3, which he apparently won. That show also will not be seen by anyone.
I guess this story is tragic and sad. Maybe it says something about me that I am so jaded by my years of watching reality shows that something as incredibly real as this has absolutely no impact. As I’ve been mentioning when talking about More to Love, one of the main features of these reality dating shows is that the contestants aren’t considered to be real people. I can’t even consider them to be television characters. You were crushed when you found out that Col. Blake died on MASH. This story, real and involving meaningless deaths, doesn’t seem to have any impact at all.
That is the shame about reality television. It has made us numb to reality. We start viewing the world through this very cracked prism that no one can ever correctly interpret. We all become cynical and protect our souls with a layer of lead. Maybe it would be better if we stepped away from this genre for a while. Or at least started getting back to a point where it has a bit more of a human heart attached to it.
Best of 120 Minutes: I just need to listen to The Sundays at the moment.
The five random CDs for the week:
1) Caroline Herring “Wellspring”
2) The Connells “Still Life”
3) U2 “The Eye of the Fly”
4) Sting “Nothing Like the Sun”
5) Cirque du Soleil “Varekai”
Thursday, August 20, 2009
I'll keep this short
Note to my Kansas City readers: I highly, highly recommend going to Record Bar on Sunday to see The Brunettes. Easily the best band out of New Zealand in recent memory. Plus, if you came all the way from New Zealand to play Kansas City on a Sunday night you deserve to have an audience. I promise you that it will be a great show.
Ok, I know that I typically strive to write something funny or interesting here but tonight my creativity well has dried up. Actually, I have two ideas that I want to try out (15 books that have inspired me and a review of the first episodes of Project Runway on Lifetime) but for the first one I want to put more thought into it than I could tonight and for the second I haven’t watched my tapes of the episodes yet so I can’t write a review.
(Is it weird that I still refer to it as taping a show? I can’t bring myself to write DVRing or Tivoing a show. It just sounds wrong so I keep on referring to nonexistent tapes. This is much in the same way as I constantly refer to album sales even though that format no longer exists.)
Anyway, my hope is that I will write one of those two over the weekend and then the other on Sunday. So I will make up for this lack of a quality post over the weekend. We here at Battling the Current apologize for the inconvenience. If anyone would like to volunteer to be my personal assistant in order to help me free up an hour or two in my night I would greatly appreciate it. Right now I barely have time to breathe.
Ok, I know that I typically strive to write something funny or interesting here but tonight my creativity well has dried up. Actually, I have two ideas that I want to try out (15 books that have inspired me and a review of the first episodes of Project Runway on Lifetime) but for the first one I want to put more thought into it than I could tonight and for the second I haven’t watched my tapes of the episodes yet so I can’t write a review.
(Is it weird that I still refer to it as taping a show? I can’t bring myself to write DVRing or Tivoing a show. It just sounds wrong so I keep on referring to nonexistent tapes. This is much in the same way as I constantly refer to album sales even though that format no longer exists.)
Anyway, my hope is that I will write one of those two over the weekend and then the other on Sunday. So I will make up for this lack of a quality post over the weekend. We here at Battling the Current apologize for the inconvenience. If anyone would like to volunteer to be my personal assistant in order to help me free up an hour or two in my night I would greatly appreciate it. Right now I barely have time to breathe.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The time of your life
At what point do you start feeling your age? Or start admitting that you are old? Seeing that I turn 36 in a few weeks I am starting to ponder that question.
Per the latest study, the typical white male is expected to live 76 years. This means that I am almost, but not quite, at the official halfway point of my existence. Yes, I can now have a mid-life crisis and mathematically speaking be accurate about it. Now I don’t think I am at the halfway point of my life and I certainly don’t feel it but just that idea that half my time on this planet is used up is enough to make me curl up into a ball in the corner for awhile.
Or how about this one. Back in seventh grade I was 12 years old. We all remember being 12. Thanks to Facebook we can all now relive our friendships and grudges from those days all over again. I can’t even comprehend that I have had two thirds of my life since that point. Or that half of my life has been post high school. First off, those days don’t seem that long ago but more importantly those days still hold much more sway on my psyche than they should. How many people fear a high school reunion because they feel the need to show how successful they are? In fact, isn’t that part of what Facebook is about: proving to people you once knew that you have made something of yourself. All for people that were only important half a lifetime ago.
I’m really beginning to get the sense of how time speeds up when you are older. I’ve mentioned it before but nothing lasts as long as a summer when you are ten years old. You have just enough knowledge to enjoy yourself without any of the responsibilities and the days just go on forever. I think that summer lasted five years. Now I’ve just celebrated my six month anniversary with Kim and it feels like it has been a long weekend. The time has just flown by that quickly. In two weeks I will mark my year in Delaware and a year removed from all my friends in KC. I can’t even fathom how quickly it has gone.
Here is the one hope that I hold out for myself and, not surprisingly, it revolves around theoretical physics. The idea is this: in our universe we have as constants a) the universe expanding, b) entropy increasing and c) time moving forward. Now, there is a possibility that at some point the universe will stop expanding and start contracting. It is my hope (and Hawking has at least touched on this idea in a supportive light) that when the universe starts to contract that time will start flowing backwards and we will get to live our lives in reverse. That way we will get to live our lives out one more time. Get to see everyone again and have those summers of our youth play out as we wait for the coming of spring. I just find it a pretty thought.
Wednesday Night Music Club: Only one song would be fitting
Per the latest study, the typical white male is expected to live 76 years. This means that I am almost, but not quite, at the official halfway point of my existence. Yes, I can now have a mid-life crisis and mathematically speaking be accurate about it. Now I don’t think I am at the halfway point of my life and I certainly don’t feel it but just that idea that half my time on this planet is used up is enough to make me curl up into a ball in the corner for awhile.
Or how about this one. Back in seventh grade I was 12 years old. We all remember being 12. Thanks to Facebook we can all now relive our friendships and grudges from those days all over again. I can’t even comprehend that I have had two thirds of my life since that point. Or that half of my life has been post high school. First off, those days don’t seem that long ago but more importantly those days still hold much more sway on my psyche than they should. How many people fear a high school reunion because they feel the need to show how successful they are? In fact, isn’t that part of what Facebook is about: proving to people you once knew that you have made something of yourself. All for people that were only important half a lifetime ago.
I’m really beginning to get the sense of how time speeds up when you are older. I’ve mentioned it before but nothing lasts as long as a summer when you are ten years old. You have just enough knowledge to enjoy yourself without any of the responsibilities and the days just go on forever. I think that summer lasted five years. Now I’ve just celebrated my six month anniversary with Kim and it feels like it has been a long weekend. The time has just flown by that quickly. In two weeks I will mark my year in Delaware and a year removed from all my friends in KC. I can’t even fathom how quickly it has gone.
Here is the one hope that I hold out for myself and, not surprisingly, it revolves around theoretical physics. The idea is this: in our universe we have as constants a) the universe expanding, b) entropy increasing and c) time moving forward. Now, there is a possibility that at some point the universe will stop expanding and start contracting. It is my hope (and Hawking has at least touched on this idea in a supportive light) that when the universe starts to contract that time will start flowing backwards and we will get to live our lives in reverse. That way we will get to live our lives out one more time. Get to see everyone again and have those summers of our youth play out as we wait for the coming of spring. I just find it a pretty thought.
Wednesday Night Music Club: Only one song would be fitting
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Selling your heart for fame
Yes, I watched More to Love again tonight. Watched it in real time as well as I didn’t want to run the risk of reading any spoilers that would otherwise mar my viewing of the episode. The episode was similar to the rest of them (they go on dates, the women claim to be falling in love, the women discuss their body issues while Luke feeds them massive portions of food, and ultra competitive Lauren gets eliminated) but I want to focus on something a little different tonight. I want to think about what it is like to be in Luke’s large, probably stinky shoes.
Now first off if Luke has a brain in his head he will choose Mandy to win it all and is just right now doing all of this so that the show has the proper number of episodes. For those not familiar with the show Mandy is a 25 year old fitness trainer who is attractive, intelligent and happens to have a measurable amount of self esteem, which is in short supply amongst the contestants. In fact, watching her makes me wonder just why in the world she is on the show in the first place. Sure, she is a big girl but more athlete than anything else. Easily the top choice.
But what really interests me is what has to be going on in the mind of the guy who is choosing between all of these women. On one hand this is the proverbial kid in a candy store. We will drop you in a room filled with women who are all competing to win your heart made all the more interesting in this situation as they all have low self-esteem and are pretty desperate. On the other hand you will essentially be put on television as a whore for several months. You will be shown making out with woman after woman in which it is well known that you have no interest in any of these women. In this case it helps that Luke is a complete douchenozzle or as we will from now on refer to him, a Favre.
Because at the end of the day I’m not sure how he can go through the show with either a straight face or a soul. Imagine that you are sitting there having a woman pour out her heart and soul to you about how she feels that you might be her soulmate and you start making out. Then you end it and five minutes later repeat the exact same exchange with another woman. I know that on some level of the male psyche that is considered cool but on another you know that it is cruel. He is intentionally going to break some hearts because that is part of the show. And he knows that as he is hooking up with them. At least Mystery never implied that someone was going to be “the one.” Heck, he couldn’t even guarantee his presence for the entire night. At least he was truthful about it.
Now I will admit that odds are the women are also not being honest and forthright either. Part of this is an act as well as the most flirtatious ones are most likely to stay on the show, get more air time and gain whatever popularity one obtains from being on a reality show. I doubt that many people go on these shows looking for love; most are there for the fame. But that is what makes this show compelling and slightly disturbing. I actually believe that some of these women feel that this is their only chance to find someone worthwhile and that is really sad. Luke doesn’t feel that way, as one can figure out in about five minutes, and to see someone get truly heartbroken is not enjoyable television.
Now first off if Luke has a brain in his head he will choose Mandy to win it all and is just right now doing all of this so that the show has the proper number of episodes. For those not familiar with the show Mandy is a 25 year old fitness trainer who is attractive, intelligent and happens to have a measurable amount of self esteem, which is in short supply amongst the contestants. In fact, watching her makes me wonder just why in the world she is on the show in the first place. Sure, she is a big girl but more athlete than anything else. Easily the top choice.
But what really interests me is what has to be going on in the mind of the guy who is choosing between all of these women. On one hand this is the proverbial kid in a candy store. We will drop you in a room filled with women who are all competing to win your heart made all the more interesting in this situation as they all have low self-esteem and are pretty desperate. On the other hand you will essentially be put on television as a whore for several months. You will be shown making out with woman after woman in which it is well known that you have no interest in any of these women. In this case it helps that Luke is a complete douchenozzle or as we will from now on refer to him, a Favre.
Because at the end of the day I’m not sure how he can go through the show with either a straight face or a soul. Imagine that you are sitting there having a woman pour out her heart and soul to you about how she feels that you might be her soulmate and you start making out. Then you end it and five minutes later repeat the exact same exchange with another woman. I know that on some level of the male psyche that is considered cool but on another you know that it is cruel. He is intentionally going to break some hearts because that is part of the show. And he knows that as he is hooking up with them. At least Mystery never implied that someone was going to be “the one.” Heck, he couldn’t even guarantee his presence for the entire night. At least he was truthful about it.
Now I will admit that odds are the women are also not being honest and forthright either. Part of this is an act as well as the most flirtatious ones are most likely to stay on the show, get more air time and gain whatever popularity one obtains from being on a reality show. I doubt that many people go on these shows looking for love; most are there for the fame. But that is what makes this show compelling and slightly disturbing. I actually believe that some of these women feel that this is their only chance to find someone worthwhile and that is really sad. Luke doesn’t feel that way, as one can figure out in about five minutes, and to see someone get truly heartbroken is not enjoyable television.
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