Thursday, December 31, 2009
After all this time I'm coming home to you
I started writing a lead-in to the death of Jimmy Sullivan. I wanted to tie it into celebrities that have passed away recently. How their deaths fascinate and captivate us. How you hear the news and for the rest of your life you remember where you were when you heard.
It sucked. It didn't sound or read right. It was totally superficial and disingenuous.
I'll just say that I really fucking loved Jimmy Sullivan on the drums. I've been legitimately saddened since I heard he passed away. Afterlife has been going through my head almost non-stop.
There aren't a lot of musicians that can have this effect on me. Two of them were in Avenged Sevenfold and one of them is no longer with us.
I still remember the first time I saw Ax7 live.
It was years ago at Warped. Everyone else was playing 2:00 minute, typical punk tunes. Avenged Sevenfold comes onto a small side-stage and their entire set-list was four songs. It lasted thirty minutes.
They played the best show of the day. Synyster Gates and The Rev blew me away. Zachy and Shadows were incredible.
I think I've seen almost 80 bands in the last ten years and Avenged Sevenfold has consistently put on the best show, never disappointing in any of the three times I've seen 'em. They went from side-stage to main stage to headlining their own tour. But it's not going to be the same without Jimmy.
RIP Rev.
Monday, December 28, 2009
I've got a sickness, it feels like love
1 - Like millions of others out there, I'm wondering whatever happened to the idea of a holiday break.
The days went by too quickly, not a lot was accomplished, not a lot of time was spent doing something I enjoyed, too much time was spent on the road, I endured too many screaming little kids and dogs that made my eyes ache, the weather was total and complete bullshit, etc.
The problem is without a wife and kids of my own, I'm generally without an excuse when I'm asked to travel to see family. It's not that I don't want to see my folks and do the traditional Christmas thing, but one night to me is perfect. Five nights of not sleeping in your own bed, however, is excessive and dangerous.
2 - Packers in the playoffs!
I really wanted it this season, certainly more-so than others. To not make it with 10 wins in a season where Rodgers has done so well, Woodson has been a defensive MVP and Matthews emerged as a super-stud would have been a real let-down.
It looks like we'll see the Cardinals in the playoffs, and I'm totally good with that. Nothing about them scares me. I know they can look really good at times, but they're also prone to putting up a lousy showing.
The Wild Card weekend can't get here quick enough.
3 - Last night was a shit-show and probably the highlight of the break. Ben, Bobby, my aunt, uncle and I went out to celebrate my little sister's 21st. Not gonna lie, she impressed me. That little girl was downing shots and Malibu like it was her job. She almost made it the entire night, too. Then we got home and her big brother had to hold her hair while she yacked into a toilet.
4 - I've been looking at a lot of "Best of the Decade" lists. Movies, athletes, games, etc. Last week I was asked to come up with my top ten favorite albums of the decade.
It's not going to be easy. I started looking tonight but I won't be able to come up with a list until tomorrow.
So far my only locks are Saturate, Breakaway, and God Loves Ugly.
4b - Shut the fuck up on Kelly Clarkson. Breakaway was a pop masterpiece.
:)
4c - God Loves Ugly will be #1 on the list.
It's probably only 2nd to More Betterness! on my list of favorite albums of all-time.
5 - Another one bites the dust.
One of the few competent senior staff members left at SP has decided to take a job in the cities, he told me tonight. The announcement goes out tomorrow.
My hope is this is the straw that breaks the camel's back and management realizes that serious changes need to be made in their business model.
Realistically, I doubt anything comes about and SP will fall further into obscurity.
5b - I'm happy for Chris; I know this is what he's wanted for a while. But he's a good dude and a golfing buddy and one less awesome person I'll know here in town.
5c - I need out.
6 - I LOVE Penn & Teller: Bullshit!
The Tudors and The Wire and Weeds and Californication get the pub, but this is the reason to get premium channels (unless, you know, you can get the show without the need to have Cable or DirectTV...just sayin').
If you haven't seen the show, you're missing out. The two Las Vegas magicians pick a topic and call, well, bullshit on it. I'll let Wikipedia take it from here:
Many episodes aim to debunk pseudoscientific ideas, supernatural beliefs, popular fads and misconceptions, and often from a libertarian point of view, the political philosophy espoused by both Penn and Teller. The show criticizes proponents of what they perceive as nonsense and dishonesty — bullshit — often citing ulterior political or financial motives. The stated aim of the show is to apply critical thinking to misconceptions.
Hilarity ensues.
Some of the episodes are a little touching, many are startling, all are great for a good chuckle.
Seriously, get it to the top of your Netflix que.
7 - New Years plans fell through. It's never been one of my really big holidays but I was looking forward to Chicago until I decided I simply couldn't take Thursday off. Now I'm open to other ideas. The Cities? Wausau? A good time in EC?
Let me know if you've got anything.
The days went by too quickly, not a lot was accomplished, not a lot of time was spent doing something I enjoyed, too much time was spent on the road, I endured too many screaming little kids and dogs that made my eyes ache, the weather was total and complete bullshit, etc.
The problem is without a wife and kids of my own, I'm generally without an excuse when I'm asked to travel to see family. It's not that I don't want to see my folks and do the traditional Christmas thing, but one night to me is perfect. Five nights of not sleeping in your own bed, however, is excessive and dangerous.
2 - Packers in the playoffs!
I really wanted it this season, certainly more-so than others. To not make it with 10 wins in a season where Rodgers has done so well, Woodson has been a defensive MVP and Matthews emerged as a super-stud would have been a real let-down.
It looks like we'll see the Cardinals in the playoffs, and I'm totally good with that. Nothing about them scares me. I know they can look really good at times, but they're also prone to putting up a lousy showing.
The Wild Card weekend can't get here quick enough.
3 - Last night was a shit-show and probably the highlight of the break. Ben, Bobby, my aunt, uncle and I went out to celebrate my little sister's 21st. Not gonna lie, she impressed me. That little girl was downing shots and Malibu like it was her job. She almost made it the entire night, too. Then we got home and her big brother had to hold her hair while she yacked into a toilet.
4 - I've been looking at a lot of "Best of the Decade" lists. Movies, athletes, games, etc. Last week I was asked to come up with my top ten favorite albums of the decade.
It's not going to be easy. I started looking tonight but I won't be able to come up with a list until tomorrow.
So far my only locks are Saturate, Breakaway, and God Loves Ugly.
4b - Shut the fuck up on Kelly Clarkson. Breakaway was a pop masterpiece.
:)
4c - God Loves Ugly will be #1 on the list.
It's probably only 2nd to More Betterness! on my list of favorite albums of all-time.
5 - Another one bites the dust.
One of the few competent senior staff members left at SP has decided to take a job in the cities, he told me tonight. The announcement goes out tomorrow.
My hope is this is the straw that breaks the camel's back and management realizes that serious changes need to be made in their business model.
Realistically, I doubt anything comes about and SP will fall further into obscurity.
5b - I'm happy for Chris; I know this is what he's wanted for a while. But he's a good dude and a golfing buddy and one less awesome person I'll know here in town.
5c - I need out.
6 - I LOVE Penn & Teller: Bullshit!
The Tudors and The Wire and Weeds and Californication get the pub, but this is the reason to get premium channels (unless, you know, you can get the show without the need to have Cable or DirectTV...just sayin').
If you haven't seen the show, you're missing out. The two Las Vegas magicians pick a topic and call, well, bullshit on it. I'll let Wikipedia take it from here:
Many episodes aim to debunk pseudoscientific ideas, supernatural beliefs, popular fads and misconceptions, and often from a libertarian point of view, the political philosophy espoused by both Penn and Teller. The show criticizes proponents of what they perceive as nonsense and dishonesty — bullshit — often citing ulterior political or financial motives. The stated aim of the show is to apply critical thinking to misconceptions.
Hilarity ensues.
Some of the episodes are a little touching, many are startling, all are great for a good chuckle.
Seriously, get it to the top of your Netflix que.
7 - New Years plans fell through. It's never been one of my really big holidays but I was looking forward to Chicago until I decided I simply couldn't take Thursday off. Now I'm open to other ideas. The Cities? Wausau? A good time in EC?
Let me know if you've got anything.
Friday, December 25, 2009
A Happy Holidays Entry
1 - Happy Holidays, everyone.
2 - My little sister dominates Christmas every year. She comes up with thoughtful gifts for everyone and when it's time to handout the presents for the family she does an awesome job. No one is more excited to don a Santa hat and pass out gifts than my little sis.
She easily stole the show tonight, too. She made my brother a blanket and she gave me a picture to hang with four pics of the family cats, Boo and Misfit. I love it. I couldn't ask for a better gift.
3 - Speaking of Boo, he ate well tonight.
I had to give him to my folks when I moved, but I'm proud to say I raised him well. When I got him he was only a couple weeks old and the size of a fist. By the time I had to give him over to the parents he was the most social cat you've ever seen in your entire life.
He's like a friendly little dog if dogs didn't typically suck. He loves attention from anyone and everyone. He'll follow you around wherever you go. His favorite room in the house in the kitchen. Hell, he'll fetch.
Before he was even six months old I could let him outside my apartment while I grilled and he wouldn't run away. He'd walk around the courtyard and look in windows and doors while the rest of the cats that others' owned sat there and watched from behind the glass. I'd bring him outside while I read on a picnic table and he'd just stroll around or chill.
One of my neighbors told me once that I was the envy of the complex because of the little guy.
He's now three and playful and awesome as ever. Tonight at the table we had six seats made up at the dinner table. Myself, my folks and my two siblings and one for Boo. He sat there while the rest of us ate. Every once in a while I'd cut up some lobster or steak for the little guy and he'd wolf it down. Then he'd paw at me until I'd give him some more.
He got a good amount of lobster; I'm not really a seafood guy anyway.
4 - Tonight at the dinner table, though, I did feel a good amount of sadness.
Steak and lobster. That's the usual holiday or birthday meal in the King household. There's typically a good amount of scraps left over for the pets and tonight, when I was finishing up, I started putting together what would be left for our dog Bo. Only I quickly realized that Bo wasn't with us anymore.
This was the first Christmas in 15 years that Bo wouldn't be helping out with the leftovers and it hit me like a truck. I'd write more about my feelings on that tonight but nothing seems worthy of his memory.
#5 My Top 10 Christmas Flicks:
10 - Gremlins
Uhh, one of the first movies I remember watching and I love it and all...but...it's a horror flick.
9 - Bad Santa
The fact that there's a holiday movie where the best line is, "You ain't gonna shit right for a week" is a testament to how shallow this list is.
8 - National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
"Play ball!"
7 - Love, Actually
There's a damn porn scene in this one. Great flick, but I won't be showing it to the kids one day.
6 - Die Hard
Probably the second best flick on the list, but as a Christmas movie this is as high as I can put it. Yippee-k....
5 - George C. Scott's A Christmas Carol
It only took five movies to get to the first serious holiday flick...
4 - Home Alone
...and then it's fucked up by that kid who yells and sets traps for robbers.
Great flick, though.
My dad has only taken my brother and I to two flicks in our lifetimes. This was one of 'em. The other was Rambo III.
3 - Mickey's Christmas Carol
God damn I loved this 25 minute masterpiece.
2- A Charlie Brown Christmas
Words won't describe the greatness when Chuck and the gang hang around outside the tiny little tree at then end. Hell, even I start singing.
1 - It's a Wonderful Life
I could recite this flick but I still well-up when Mr. Gower realizes George saved lives in the drugstore.
I chuckle when they dance over the pool.
My heart sinks when they vote to save the savings and loan but only if George sticks around.
"I'll love you 'til the day I die."
Donna Reed beaming when the town comes to help George at the end of the flick and his brother toasting to his wonderful life.
The perfect flick.
2 - My little sister dominates Christmas every year. She comes up with thoughtful gifts for everyone and when it's time to handout the presents for the family she does an awesome job. No one is more excited to don a Santa hat and pass out gifts than my little sis.
She easily stole the show tonight, too. She made my brother a blanket and she gave me a picture to hang with four pics of the family cats, Boo and Misfit. I love it. I couldn't ask for a better gift.
3 - Speaking of Boo, he ate well tonight.
I had to give him to my folks when I moved, but I'm proud to say I raised him well. When I got him he was only a couple weeks old and the size of a fist. By the time I had to give him over to the parents he was the most social cat you've ever seen in your entire life.
He's like a friendly little dog if dogs didn't typically suck. He loves attention from anyone and everyone. He'll follow you around wherever you go. His favorite room in the house in the kitchen. Hell, he'll fetch.
Before he was even six months old I could let him outside my apartment while I grilled and he wouldn't run away. He'd walk around the courtyard and look in windows and doors while the rest of the cats that others' owned sat there and watched from behind the glass. I'd bring him outside while I read on a picnic table and he'd just stroll around or chill.
One of my neighbors told me once that I was the envy of the complex because of the little guy.
He's now three and playful and awesome as ever. Tonight at the table we had six seats made up at the dinner table. Myself, my folks and my two siblings and one for Boo. He sat there while the rest of us ate. Every once in a while I'd cut up some lobster or steak for the little guy and he'd wolf it down. Then he'd paw at me until I'd give him some more.
He got a good amount of lobster; I'm not really a seafood guy anyway.
4 - Tonight at the dinner table, though, I did feel a good amount of sadness.
Steak and lobster. That's the usual holiday or birthday meal in the King household. There's typically a good amount of scraps left over for the pets and tonight, when I was finishing up, I started putting together what would be left for our dog Bo. Only I quickly realized that Bo wasn't with us anymore.
This was the first Christmas in 15 years that Bo wouldn't be helping out with the leftovers and it hit me like a truck. I'd write more about my feelings on that tonight but nothing seems worthy of his memory.
#5 My Top 10 Christmas Flicks:
10 - Gremlins
Uhh, one of the first movies I remember watching and I love it and all...but...it's a horror flick.
9 - Bad Santa
The fact that there's a holiday movie where the best line is, "You ain't gonna shit right for a week" is a testament to how shallow this list is.
8 - National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
"Play ball!"
7 - Love, Actually
There's a damn porn scene in this one. Great flick, but I won't be showing it to the kids one day.
6 - Die Hard
Probably the second best flick on the list, but as a Christmas movie this is as high as I can put it. Yippee-k....
5 - George C. Scott's A Christmas Carol
It only took five movies to get to the first serious holiday flick...
4 - Home Alone
...and then it's fucked up by that kid who yells and sets traps for robbers.
Great flick, though.
My dad has only taken my brother and I to two flicks in our lifetimes. This was one of 'em. The other was Rambo III.
3 - Mickey's Christmas Carol
God damn I loved this 25 minute masterpiece.
2- A Charlie Brown Christmas
Words won't describe the greatness when Chuck and the gang hang around outside the tiny little tree at then end. Hell, even I start singing.
1 - It's a Wonderful Life
I could recite this flick but I still well-up when Mr. Gower realizes George saved lives in the drugstore.
I chuckle when they dance over the pool.
My heart sinks when they vote to save the savings and loan but only if George sticks around.
"I'll love you 'til the day I die."
Donna Reed beaming when the town comes to help George at the end of the flick and his brother toasting to his wonderful life.
The perfect flick.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Clay Matthews III makes me giggle like a little girl
I wasn't a fan when the Packers moved up to get an overachieving DE/LB with average stats and great bloodlines last April. I would have gone elsewhere. I thought Matthews would be great on special teams and average (AJ Hawk-like) on defense.
I'm glad to be wrong. The guy is the 2nd most untouchable player on the Packers and front-runner for Defensive Rookie of the Year. His motor is other-worldly. He's got stupid closing speed. He's strong as fuck.
Do I have a serious man-crush? Yes. Yes I do.
Alright, I'm glad I got that out of the way.
We now bring you back to your regularly scheduled heterosexual activities.
Monday, December 21, 2009
(almost) 10 Things
1 - Have you ever gotten so drunk that you can't decipher between a memory and a dream? Yea, I know how bad that sounds.
On the drive home from the Cities this morning I thought I remembered something that happened at the bar last night and I thought to myself how awesome it was. But the more I thought about it the less likely it seemed to have occurred. It just seemed so out of place regardless of how drunk everyone was. So now I'm sitting here and I'm wondering if I just dreamt it.
I have no idea.
2 - Easiest sign that I've watched too much TV over the last year: I ate raw beef tenderloin last night.
I had no idea what I was ordering at the restaurant we ate dinner at. But I remember seeing an episode of Top Chef where a contestant won with something called a beef carpaccio. I didn't remember exactly what it was but I don't get the opportunity to try something new every day so I gave it a shot.
What arrived on my plate was an incredibly thin slice of meat, and it was raw. On top of the meet was a mixture of olive-oil, salt, pepper, goat cheese, spinach and arugula. I tried it, and I shouldn't have had another bite. It was like liquified meat and truly disgusting.
That was my dinner.
2b - I told Liza that I was gonna need to do a shot of straight vodka to kill the taste from my mouth. Once we were back to the hotel I did just that.
2c - It occurred to me that something so nasty could be an easy way to drop weight. Come dinner time take a couple bites of beef carpaccio. You won't want to eat anything for the rest of the night.
Appetite destroyed.
3 - Two highlights from last night. One being the thing I think I remember but I'm not 100% sure really happened.
The other was waking up in the middle of the night because some random dude that came home with all of us was snoring like a chainsaw. He was keeping everyone awake. I grabbed my pillow and proceeded to beat the holy hell out of him with it.
The guy didn't even react. He was so stoned-drunk he just kept snoring away. So I grabbed a blanket and pillow and passed out in the bathtub. Left the snoring guy to irritate the rest of the room.
4 - Tough loss tonight. I didn't expect the Packers to win, not for a single moment in the game. Even after they scored the go-ahead TD my first thought was, "Dammit, he should have gone down at the one yard line, there's too much time left".
Sure enough, those two minutes were just enough time for Roethlisberger to go the length of the field, aided by terrible coaching and crummy penalties by the Packers.
4b - Games like this, though, are why I love sports. It's why anyone loves sports. That last minute of football seemed like a motherfucking lifetime for Packer fans. Every second was an eternity. Fans were watching with their hearts in the pits of their stomachs.
Find me something else that brings out this kind of emotion on a regular basis.
5 - Speaking of emotion, 'scared-shitless' is an emotion right?
It's a terrible feeling when you're driving in high-speed four-lane traffic and you can't see out of your windshield. Such was the case this morning on my way out of Minnesota and the Cities. We got a fair amount of snow last night and the city had been out salting the roads. Unbeknownst to me, my windshield wiper fluid was 99% gone. After two minutes on Interstate 94, I knew.
My windshield was absolutely caked. Using the wipers made it worse. I was spitting on my hand and trying to wipe off spots on the windshield so I could see while driving . I wanted to take an exit and get to a gas station but I couldn't read the signs above the roads. I could barely make out the cars in front of me.
I ended up making it to Hudson alight, obviously. But those twenty minutes were hell.
6 - iTunes has a list of your top 25 most played songs. If you don't try and manipulate the playcounts it's usually a good representation of the music you dig.
Mine, with the playcount in parentheses:
1 - Thrice - Come all you weary (135)
2 - Socialburn - Pretend (119)
3 - Something Corporate - Down (118)
4 - The Veronicas - Untouched (116)
5 - Paramore - Pressure (111)
6 - Taylor Swift - Should've said no (110)
7 - Thrice - The Whaler - (110)
8 - The Veronicas - I can't stay away - (108)
9 - Jojo - Let it rain (99)
10 - Fuel - Halos of the sun - (97)
11- Three Days Grace - Pain - (92)
12 - Damone - Overchay with me - (89)
13 - Dustin Kensrue - Please come home - (89)
14 - Paramore - Decoy - (88)
15 - Ne-yo - Because of you - (87)
16 - Paramore - Stop this song - (87)
17 - Avant - Lie about us - (86)
18 - Senses Fail - Can't be saved - (85)
19 - Thrice - red sky (84)
20 - The Veronicas - Leave me alone (81)
21 - Midtown - Your love (80)
22 - Augustana - Stars and boulevards (78)
23 - Socialburn - Utopia (78)
24 - The Wreckers - Tennessee (77)
25 - Ben Jelen - Come on (76)
Some notes...
• Other than Come All You Weary, Red Sky and Pain I don't think any of the other songs would rank in the best songs I've heard in the last three years.
• Should've Said No was the first Taylor Swift song I'd heard, which is probably why it's so high. Overall I think it's maybe her fifth or sixth best song.
• True to form, a strong showing by women on the the list. 10 songs featuring female leads.
• Lie About Us was one of my favorite tunes for a three month stretch a year ago and I nearly wore my headphones out listening to it. Then I just stopped liking it for one reason or another and I don't think I've listened to it five times in the last year.
• Jojo? Really? I love that tune but 99 times? I hope I was playing the song, hit repeat and put down the headphones for two hours.
• Good bets to make the top 25 in the next year:
1 - Orianthi - Bad News
2 - Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire
3 - Lupe Fiasco - Hip Hop Saved My Life
4 - Plumb - Damaged
5 - Rise Against - Savior
7 - This blog is the reason my movie and TV watching is behind. I've got DVD rips of The Box, Avatar, Surrogates, Paranormal Activity and seasons of Dexter, HIMYM and Californication on my hard drive. But anything requiring attention is put on the back-burner when I'm writing.
So instead of catching up on shows my pals tell me are amazing, I watch repeats of The West Wing or movies I've already seen. Inglourious Basterds has been a solid choice lately.
7b - Brad Pitt is the most underrated actor in Hollywood.
I know it's reasonable to say that someone like David Strathairn or Paul Giamatti or William Fichtner could get the vote, but can you give me one of their truly memorable roles? Can you think of a role where they truly stole every scene they were in or you bothered to watch a movie numerous times simply because of the role they played?
I give you:
- Interview With a Vampire (vampire)
- Se7en (who doesn't have that final scene ingrained in their heads? who else can you see pulling that off?)
- 12 Monkeys (insane eco-terrorist)
- Meet Joe Black (either his worst performance or one of his best...I don't know. But the guy played Death
- Fight Club (Tyler-f'ing-Durden)
- Snatch (easily my favorite acting performance ever. I'll be watching this flick forever and the major reason is Pitt)
- Snatch (I'm listing it twice. It was that awesome. I feel like I should be watching it right now)
- The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (probably his best performance ever but I hated the flick)
- Inglourious Basterds (steals every scene. It's amazing)
I loved him in Ocean's 11, Troy, Benjamin Button and Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
I know people will always rag on the guy for getting by on his looks, but he's so goddamn good as an actor and will never get the credit he deserves.
7c - Watching Inglourious Basterds right now. Definitely one of the more entertaining movies I've seen this year.
8 - Cutting it short at eight things. G'night folks.
On the drive home from the Cities this morning I thought I remembered something that happened at the bar last night and I thought to myself how awesome it was. But the more I thought about it the less likely it seemed to have occurred. It just seemed so out of place regardless of how drunk everyone was. So now I'm sitting here and I'm wondering if I just dreamt it.
I have no idea.
2 - Easiest sign that I've watched too much TV over the last year: I ate raw beef tenderloin last night.
I had no idea what I was ordering at the restaurant we ate dinner at. But I remember seeing an episode of Top Chef where a contestant won with something called a beef carpaccio. I didn't remember exactly what it was but I don't get the opportunity to try something new every day so I gave it a shot.
What arrived on my plate was an incredibly thin slice of meat, and it was raw. On top of the meet was a mixture of olive-oil, salt, pepper, goat cheese, spinach and arugula. I tried it, and I shouldn't have had another bite. It was like liquified meat and truly disgusting.
That was my dinner.
2b - I told Liza that I was gonna need to do a shot of straight vodka to kill the taste from my mouth. Once we were back to the hotel I did just that.
2c - It occurred to me that something so nasty could be an easy way to drop weight. Come dinner time take a couple bites of beef carpaccio. You won't want to eat anything for the rest of the night.
Appetite destroyed.
3 - Two highlights from last night. One being the thing I think I remember but I'm not 100% sure really happened.
The other was waking up in the middle of the night because some random dude that came home with all of us was snoring like a chainsaw. He was keeping everyone awake. I grabbed my pillow and proceeded to beat the holy hell out of him with it.
The guy didn't even react. He was so stoned-drunk he just kept snoring away. So I grabbed a blanket and pillow and passed out in the bathtub. Left the snoring guy to irritate the rest of the room.
4 - Tough loss tonight. I didn't expect the Packers to win, not for a single moment in the game. Even after they scored the go-ahead TD my first thought was, "Dammit, he should have gone down at the one yard line, there's too much time left".
Sure enough, those two minutes were just enough time for Roethlisberger to go the length of the field, aided by terrible coaching and crummy penalties by the Packers.
4b - Games like this, though, are why I love sports. It's why anyone loves sports. That last minute of football seemed like a motherfucking lifetime for Packer fans. Every second was an eternity. Fans were watching with their hearts in the pits of their stomachs.
Find me something else that brings out this kind of emotion on a regular basis.
5 - Speaking of emotion, 'scared-shitless' is an emotion right?
It's a terrible feeling when you're driving in high-speed four-lane traffic and you can't see out of your windshield. Such was the case this morning on my way out of Minnesota and the Cities. We got a fair amount of snow last night and the city had been out salting the roads. Unbeknownst to me, my windshield wiper fluid was 99% gone. After two minutes on Interstate 94, I knew.
My windshield was absolutely caked. Using the wipers made it worse. I was spitting on my hand and trying to wipe off spots on the windshield so I could see while driving . I wanted to take an exit and get to a gas station but I couldn't read the signs above the roads. I could barely make out the cars in front of me.
I ended up making it to Hudson alight, obviously. But those twenty minutes were hell.
6 - iTunes has a list of your top 25 most played songs. If you don't try and manipulate the playcounts it's usually a good representation of the music you dig.
Mine, with the playcount in parentheses:
1 - Thrice - Come all you weary (135)
2 - Socialburn - Pretend (119)
3 - Something Corporate - Down (118)
4 - The Veronicas - Untouched (116)
5 - Paramore - Pressure (111)
6 - Taylor Swift - Should've said no (110)
7 - Thrice - The Whaler - (110)
8 - The Veronicas - I can't stay away - (108)
9 - Jojo - Let it rain (99)
10 - Fuel - Halos of the sun - (97)
11- Three Days Grace - Pain - (92)
12 - Damone - Overchay with me - (89)
13 - Dustin Kensrue - Please come home - (89)
14 - Paramore - Decoy - (88)
15 - Ne-yo - Because of you - (87)
16 - Paramore - Stop this song - (87)
17 - Avant - Lie about us - (86)
18 - Senses Fail - Can't be saved - (85)
19 - Thrice - red sky (84)
20 - The Veronicas - Leave me alone (81)
21 - Midtown - Your love (80)
22 - Augustana - Stars and boulevards (78)
23 - Socialburn - Utopia (78)
24 - The Wreckers - Tennessee (77)
25 - Ben Jelen - Come on (76)
Some notes...
• Other than Come All You Weary, Red Sky and Pain I don't think any of the other songs would rank in the best songs I've heard in the last three years.
• Should've Said No was the first Taylor Swift song I'd heard, which is probably why it's so high. Overall I think it's maybe her fifth or sixth best song.
• True to form, a strong showing by women on the the list. 10 songs featuring female leads.
• Lie About Us was one of my favorite tunes for a three month stretch a year ago and I nearly wore my headphones out listening to it. Then I just stopped liking it for one reason or another and I don't think I've listened to it five times in the last year.
• Jojo? Really? I love that tune but 99 times? I hope I was playing the song, hit repeat and put down the headphones for two hours.
• Good bets to make the top 25 in the next year:
1 - Orianthi - Bad News
2 - Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire
3 - Lupe Fiasco - Hip Hop Saved My Life
4 - Plumb - Damaged
5 - Rise Against - Savior
7 - This blog is the reason my movie and TV watching is behind. I've got DVD rips of The Box, Avatar, Surrogates, Paranormal Activity and seasons of Dexter, HIMYM and Californication on my hard drive. But anything requiring attention is put on the back-burner when I'm writing.
So instead of catching up on shows my pals tell me are amazing, I watch repeats of The West Wing or movies I've already seen. Inglourious Basterds has been a solid choice lately.
7b - Brad Pitt is the most underrated actor in Hollywood.
I know it's reasonable to say that someone like David Strathairn or Paul Giamatti or William Fichtner could get the vote, but can you give me one of their truly memorable roles? Can you think of a role where they truly stole every scene they were in or you bothered to watch a movie numerous times simply because of the role they played?
I give you:
- Interview With a Vampire (vampire)
- Se7en (who doesn't have that final scene ingrained in their heads? who else can you see pulling that off?)
- 12 Monkeys (insane eco-terrorist)
- Meet Joe Black (either his worst performance or one of his best...I don't know. But the guy played Death
- Fight Club (Tyler-f'ing-Durden)
- Snatch (easily my favorite acting performance ever. I'll be watching this flick forever and the major reason is Pitt)
- Snatch (I'm listing it twice. It was that awesome. I feel like I should be watching it right now)
- The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (probably his best performance ever but I hated the flick)
- Inglourious Basterds (steals every scene. It's amazing)
I loved him in Ocean's 11, Troy, Benjamin Button and Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
I know people will always rag on the guy for getting by on his looks, but he's so goddamn good as an actor and will never get the credit he deserves.
7c - Watching Inglourious Basterds right now. Definitely one of the more entertaining movies I've seen this year.
8 - Cutting it short at eight things. G'night folks.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
It's 3:00 am and I don't have a witty or clever title. Goodnight folks.
Just something quick regarding what I read tonight...
1 - I love Mark Cuban.
I used to despise the guy when all I knew him as was a boorish NBA owner who ran onto the court to piss and moan and bitch at the refs. Then I realized he was like any other person who struck it rich and decided that instead of reading about the moves his favorite team made he'd make them himself.
Now he's one of the world's richest fans and he's doing what every guy who enjoys sports would love to do for a living: he runs a professional sports team, talks trash with opposing players, hams it up with fans and does it while sitting court-side in jeans.
I think that's basically awesome.
But he's also pretty fucking brilliant. You don't pioneer video on the web and sell it for a shit-ton without having having some ammunition above the neck.
He's got himself a blog (and a FB account and a Twitter feed in case you're wondering). Some of it is above my pay-grade but I follow along and I read with interest when he writes something new.
An entry from a few days ago caught my attention.
He wrote about motivation, a topic I've recently covered.
I loved it. But it was a quote at the end that made me stop and think:
"Success is about making your life a special version of unique that fits who you are."
I like that. I like that a lot.
2 - It got me thinking about my favorite quotes. Four have always stood out, you can find each in my Facebook info. I'm assuming if you're reading this you're also a FB pal so check 'em out if you like. Three of them start...
"Every morning in Africa..."
"I'm growing very weary..."
"The things you learn in maturity..."
I got them from my dad's office. For as long as I can remember, they've been framed on his walls or sitting at his desk, no matter what job he's held. I remember, vividly, being a young elementary school kid in Rice Lake and walking to his office after classes were finished. When I got there I'd sit while he worked and look at everything in his office. I used to love the copy machine a few doors down. I'd bring pictures and booklets from Nintendo games and he'd make blown up copies for my walls at home.
But what stood out most were the three quotes from above. I had them memorized by the time I was seven years old. Even if I hadn't committed them to memory they followed him from office to office as we moved. Schools changed, artwork changed, pictures changed, awards changed. Those three framed quotes didn't. Just simple black type on white paper in cheap frames. They always made their way to prominent places in the old man's office.
I like to think of myself as a traditionalist, so that's what I brought with me to my job in EC, the town I was born in. Those same three quotes, the same kind of black frame prominently displayed around my desk.
3 - The last quote is one I picked up on my own. Over ten years ago Bret Easton Ellis published Glamorama. It wasn't his most commercially successful by any means and it was absolutely slammed by reviewers. I picked it up because I had previously read American Psycho and The Rules of Attraction and they both made me fall in love with writing. The things that Ellis did were so unlike anything I'd ever seen. He made me wonder what could be done if conventions were challenged and laws of prose were broken.
Unfortunately, Glamorama sort of sucked. The writing was interesting, the plot wasn't.
But for whatever reason, one quote stood out:
"you show the world things and in showing the world you teach it what you want"
I actually remember where I was when I read it. I remember putting the book down and thinking about what Ellis had written. What he meant, why he might have buried it in a absurd chapter in a shitty novel.
But the quote stuck out to me. I thought about it a lot and it made sense. Everything you do in life is some sort of reflection of what you want everyone to know about you and how you want them to perceive the world around them. Whether you do it consciously or not, you're influencing others.
I don't know. I just thought it was cool concept.
3b - Before I wrote this I re-read the chapter in Glamorama that the quote comes from. If you want to experience a literary roller coaster just check out chapter 34 and try to keep up.
1 - I love Mark Cuban.
I used to despise the guy when all I knew him as was a boorish NBA owner who ran onto the court to piss and moan and bitch at the refs. Then I realized he was like any other person who struck it rich and decided that instead of reading about the moves his favorite team made he'd make them himself.
Now he's one of the world's richest fans and he's doing what every guy who enjoys sports would love to do for a living: he runs a professional sports team, talks trash with opposing players, hams it up with fans and does it while sitting court-side in jeans.
I think that's basically awesome.
But he's also pretty fucking brilliant. You don't pioneer video on the web and sell it for a shit-ton without having having some ammunition above the neck.
He's got himself a blog (and a FB account and a Twitter feed in case you're wondering). Some of it is above my pay-grade but I follow along and I read with interest when he writes something new.
An entry from a few days ago caught my attention.
He wrote about motivation, a topic I've recently covered.
I loved it. But it was a quote at the end that made me stop and think:
"Success is about making your life a special version of unique that fits who you are."
I like that. I like that a lot.
2 - It got me thinking about my favorite quotes. Four have always stood out, you can find each in my Facebook info. I'm assuming if you're reading this you're also a FB pal so check 'em out if you like. Three of them start...
"Every morning in Africa..."
"I'm growing very weary..."
"The things you learn in maturity..."
I got them from my dad's office. For as long as I can remember, they've been framed on his walls or sitting at his desk, no matter what job he's held. I remember, vividly, being a young elementary school kid in Rice Lake and walking to his office after classes were finished. When I got there I'd sit while he worked and look at everything in his office. I used to love the copy machine a few doors down. I'd bring pictures and booklets from Nintendo games and he'd make blown up copies for my walls at home.
But what stood out most were the three quotes from above. I had them memorized by the time I was seven years old. Even if I hadn't committed them to memory they followed him from office to office as we moved. Schools changed, artwork changed, pictures changed, awards changed. Those three framed quotes didn't. Just simple black type on white paper in cheap frames. They always made their way to prominent places in the old man's office.
I like to think of myself as a traditionalist, so that's what I brought with me to my job in EC, the town I was born in. Those same three quotes, the same kind of black frame prominently displayed around my desk.
3 - The last quote is one I picked up on my own. Over ten years ago Bret Easton Ellis published Glamorama. It wasn't his most commercially successful by any means and it was absolutely slammed by reviewers. I picked it up because I had previously read American Psycho and The Rules of Attraction and they both made me fall in love with writing. The things that Ellis did were so unlike anything I'd ever seen. He made me wonder what could be done if conventions were challenged and laws of prose were broken.
Unfortunately, Glamorama sort of sucked. The writing was interesting, the plot wasn't.
But for whatever reason, one quote stood out:
"you show the world things and in showing the world you teach it what you want"
I actually remember where I was when I read it. I remember putting the book down and thinking about what Ellis had written. What he meant, why he might have buried it in a absurd chapter in a shitty novel.
But the quote stuck out to me. I thought about it a lot and it made sense. Everything you do in life is some sort of reflection of what you want everyone to know about you and how you want them to perceive the world around them. Whether you do it consciously or not, you're influencing others.
I don't know. I just thought it was cool concept.
3b - Before I wrote this I re-read the chapter in Glamorama that the quote comes from. If you want to experience a literary roller coaster just check out chapter 34 and try to keep up.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Sanity's just another dream away
Alright, a quick hitter.
1- Well today was Exhibit A on why living in Wisconsin blows four months of the year.
Three weeks ago I was golfing.
This morning I got stuck in an intersection outside my place because I was going slightly up hill in eight inches of unplowed snow. My little Toyota didn't stand a chance. I had to put the car in reverse, find the first driveway I could roll up, put the car in drive and slingshot my way through what I hoped would be an open intersection.
A block later I skidded my way halfway into a major intersection and was nearly killed by a jeep going 45 mph.
Then I broke two traffic laws when I went through a red light and made an illegal turn because at the moment no one was coming and I had enough momentum to move.
So then I finally get to work and notice a distinct lack of vehicles in the parking lot. I tried to slow down and make the turn (I was again driving on an unplowed road) and I couldn't. No way could I have gone in reverse so I just kept on driving and hoped to do better the second time around.
When I finally made it in, there were five of the 25 SP employees around. Apparently some of us got calls that there wasn't any school today. A simple email to the staff wouldn't have sufficed?
Meh. Whatever.
Like I said, the weather in this state blows.
2 - You reap what you sow. As much as I hate referring to anything biblical, I think it holds true. Treat people with kindness and respect and good things will come about. Treat people carelessly and it's going to come back to bite you in the ass.
When it does, don't expect a motherfucking pity-party from me.
3 - Monday night made me a believer in the Packers D. Clay Matthews Jr is a freaking stud. Raji had his best game as a pro. Brad Jones looked like a potential impact player. Three stud starters in the front seven from one draft alone? Possible.
4 - I'd love for someone to give me a reason why people can't be open and honest in a relationship. Whether it's 17 years of marriage, four months of dating or someone you've only been seeing casually, recent evidence suggests that people would rather be shut-off or lie than just say what's on their minds.
It wasn't a good weekend for a few of the King boys in this regard.
5 - I should be in danger of getting burned out on Orianthi, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
Suffocated is probably the best song I've heard this year.
I love it. Lyrics, riffs, vocals. Yea it's straight forward but what it does it does well.
Second favorite tune on the album is Drive Away. It's got some blues guitar going on and it's a mellow change up from some of her other good tunes.
Here's an acoustic version I'm digging:
There are two or three songs I'm not in love with, but top to bottom this is the best thing I've heard all year. If you pick it up and want to go straight to the goods, here's how I'm ranking the songs.
1 - Suffocated
2 - Drive Away
3 - Bad News
4 - According to You
5 - Feels like Home
6 - Think like a Man
7 - Highly Strung
8 - God Only Knows
9 - Untogether
10 - Believe
11 - What's it gonna be
The top four are basically awesome, with Suffocated a strong candidate to make my all-time list. Five, six and seven are definitely solid. Highly Strung is a good instrumental. After that the album falls off a cliff but only What's it Gonna Be is unlistenable.
6 - Am I the only person who didn't find Arrested Development to be remotely entertaining?
I ask because I recently read a list of the top 20 shows of the decade and I hated the top two, The Wire and AD. The Wire is coma inducing and Arrested Development was the equivalent of watching three retarded chimps picking feces out of each other's hair.
But if you say you didn't enjoy AD it's like you insulted someone's mother. I've never seen a group get so defensive as I have when said I didn't think it was a funny show.
7 - Another reason my stay in Wausau was dope: my power bill in the winter. I lived in an upper, a nice one, when I was over there. I didn't turn the heat on once that winter. My power bill was around $24 every month. They actually credited me because I used such little electricity.
Over here my bill is five times as much. What the fuck is going on?
8 - Last weekend was absolutely awful. Maybe one of the worst I'd had in years. On Sunday I was looking forward to getting back to work.
This weekend is gonna be different. No traveling, no hosting guests. Doing nothing will never seem so relaxing.
9 - Your word of the day is 'somnambulant'. My text editor doesn't like it but Merriam's does. So does Strung Out when they wrote a song I love.
10 - 2:40 in the morning. G'night folks.
1- Well today was Exhibit A on why living in Wisconsin blows four months of the year.
Three weeks ago I was golfing.
This morning I got stuck in an intersection outside my place because I was going slightly up hill in eight inches of unplowed snow. My little Toyota didn't stand a chance. I had to put the car in reverse, find the first driveway I could roll up, put the car in drive and slingshot my way through what I hoped would be an open intersection.
A block later I skidded my way halfway into a major intersection and was nearly killed by a jeep going 45 mph.
Then I broke two traffic laws when I went through a red light and made an illegal turn because at the moment no one was coming and I had enough momentum to move.
So then I finally get to work and notice a distinct lack of vehicles in the parking lot. I tried to slow down and make the turn (I was again driving on an unplowed road) and I couldn't. No way could I have gone in reverse so I just kept on driving and hoped to do better the second time around.
When I finally made it in, there were five of the 25 SP employees around. Apparently some of us got calls that there wasn't any school today. A simple email to the staff wouldn't have sufficed?
Meh. Whatever.
Like I said, the weather in this state blows.
2 - You reap what you sow. As much as I hate referring to anything biblical, I think it holds true. Treat people with kindness and respect and good things will come about. Treat people carelessly and it's going to come back to bite you in the ass.
When it does, don't expect a motherfucking pity-party from me.
3 - Monday night made me a believer in the Packers D. Clay Matthews Jr is a freaking stud. Raji had his best game as a pro. Brad Jones looked like a potential impact player. Three stud starters in the front seven from one draft alone? Possible.
4 - I'd love for someone to give me a reason why people can't be open and honest in a relationship. Whether it's 17 years of marriage, four months of dating or someone you've only been seeing casually, recent evidence suggests that people would rather be shut-off or lie than just say what's on their minds.
It wasn't a good weekend for a few of the King boys in this regard.
5 - I should be in danger of getting burned out on Orianthi, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
Suffocated is probably the best song I've heard this year.
I love it. Lyrics, riffs, vocals. Yea it's straight forward but what it does it does well.
Second favorite tune on the album is Drive Away. It's got some blues guitar going on and it's a mellow change up from some of her other good tunes.
Here's an acoustic version I'm digging:
There are two or three songs I'm not in love with, but top to bottom this is the best thing I've heard all year. If you pick it up and want to go straight to the goods, here's how I'm ranking the songs.
1 - Suffocated
2 - Drive Away
3 - Bad News
4 - According to You
5 - Feels like Home
6 - Think like a Man
7 - Highly Strung
8 - God Only Knows
9 - Untogether
10 - Believe
11 - What's it gonna be
The top four are basically awesome, with Suffocated a strong candidate to make my all-time list. Five, six and seven are definitely solid. Highly Strung is a good instrumental. After that the album falls off a cliff but only What's it Gonna Be is unlistenable.
6 - Am I the only person who didn't find Arrested Development to be remotely entertaining?
I ask because I recently read a list of the top 20 shows of the decade and I hated the top two, The Wire and AD. The Wire is coma inducing and Arrested Development was the equivalent of watching three retarded chimps picking feces out of each other's hair.
But if you say you didn't enjoy AD it's like you insulted someone's mother. I've never seen a group get so defensive as I have when said I didn't think it was a funny show.
7 - Another reason my stay in Wausau was dope: my power bill in the winter. I lived in an upper, a nice one, when I was over there. I didn't turn the heat on once that winter. My power bill was around $24 every month. They actually credited me because I used such little electricity.
Over here my bill is five times as much. What the fuck is going on?
8 - Last weekend was absolutely awful. Maybe one of the worst I'd had in years. On Sunday I was looking forward to getting back to work.
This weekend is gonna be different. No traveling, no hosting guests. Doing nothing will never seem so relaxing.
9 - Your word of the day is 'somnambulant'. My text editor doesn't like it but Merriam's does. So does Strung Out when they wrote a song I love.
10 - 2:40 in the morning. G'night folks.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Yes, No, Maybe So
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a guest blogger tonight. She's a delightful tart, so read her observations on life and relationships here.
Without further ado...
I’ve decided that, in dating, there is no other response more irritating than “maybe” when it comes to making plans. What does maybe mean? You deign to spend time with me if nothing better comes along? Are you playing a game? “Yes” I get. It means, “I would love to hang out with you, thanks for asking.” Although “no” can be a little muggy, is still decipherable. If you legitimately have plans, it just means “no.” If you have no plans, it simply means “I don’t want to see you.” Either way it is much clearer than “maybe.”
If you give me a “maybe” because you potentially have plans but nothing has solidified, I can grasp that. However, if your “maybe” is vaguely dependent on your mood that day, then forget it. I don’t need to be waiting on you to make a decision about my plans. If you don’t think I’m worth hanging out with when you have absolutely nothing better to do, then I’m sorry, but you aren’t worth my time when you do decide to make plans with me.
Being “maybed” puts you in such an uncomfortable position. Do you bring the subject up again? Do you even bother contacting the person in the meantime? I hate how much control I lose with a “maybe” answer.
Just yesterday, for the first time I asked a guy I’m seeing if he would like to do something this weekend. In the entire time we’ve been dating, I have never once initiated a phone call or a date. I didn’t want to put myself in the position where he could turn me down. But, I’ve started to like him and I have been thinking maybe I should be making more of an effort. So I floated an idea by him thinking there is no way he is going to say “no” if he isn’t busy. He has pursued me steadily for months now, so why in the world would he decline?
However, the answer I got was much worse than a flat-out “no.” He said “maybe.” My mind has been trying to grasp just what that means for the past couple days. In regard to the questions I posed earlier I decided that, no, I would not be bringing the subject up again. And, no, I will not be initiating contact with him in the interim. I actually made plans for the “maybe” day. Not really sure where this is going to land me but I know that I am fairly interested to see how this is going to pan out. Both for myself and for him.
Without further ado...
I’ve decided that, in dating, there is no other response more irritating than “maybe” when it comes to making plans. What does maybe mean? You deign to spend time with me if nothing better comes along? Are you playing a game? “Yes” I get. It means, “I would love to hang out with you, thanks for asking.” Although “no” can be a little muggy, is still decipherable. If you legitimately have plans, it just means “no.” If you have no plans, it simply means “I don’t want to see you.” Either way it is much clearer than “maybe.”
If you give me a “maybe” because you potentially have plans but nothing has solidified, I can grasp that. However, if your “maybe” is vaguely dependent on your mood that day, then forget it. I don’t need to be waiting on you to make a decision about my plans. If you don’t think I’m worth hanging out with when you have absolutely nothing better to do, then I’m sorry, but you aren’t worth my time when you do decide to make plans with me.
Being “maybed” puts you in such an uncomfortable position. Do you bring the subject up again? Do you even bother contacting the person in the meantime? I hate how much control I lose with a “maybe” answer.
Just yesterday, for the first time I asked a guy I’m seeing if he would like to do something this weekend. In the entire time we’ve been dating, I have never once initiated a phone call or a date. I didn’t want to put myself in the position where he could turn me down. But, I’ve started to like him and I have been thinking maybe I should be making more of an effort. So I floated an idea by him thinking there is no way he is going to say “no” if he isn’t busy. He has pursued me steadily for months now, so why in the world would he decline?
However, the answer I got was much worse than a flat-out “no.” He said “maybe.” My mind has been trying to grasp just what that means for the past couple days. In regard to the questions I posed earlier I decided that, no, I would not be bringing the subject up again. And, no, I will not be initiating contact with him in the interim. I actually made plans for the “maybe” day. Not really sure where this is going to land me but I know that I am fairly interested to see how this is going to pan out. Both for myself and for him.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Better late than never
When I was about five or six years old my uncles gave me a CD. Heart's Bad Animals was one of the first albums I owned and I loved it. Shortly thereafter I watched a music video for Alone and immediately knew, "Yup, I'm into girls. Girls are what's for me".
It was Nancy Wilson. I considered her the sexiest thing alive before I even knew what that meant and ever since I've had an affinity for chick rock. The Go-Gos, Belinda Carlisle, Bonnie Raitt, Tsunami Bomb, Avril, Michelle Branch, Jessica Harp, Kelly Clarkson, Evanescence. You name it...
Twenty-plus years later we finally have someone to take the mantle away from Nancy, though.
Orianthi fucking rocks. I've been listening to her album Believe all afternoon and, to put it simply, I'm blown away. She can sing her ass off, she's shreds on guitar and, yea, she's hot.
Best of all, though, her tunes are actually good.
I was digging her first track "According to you" fairly quickly. It's her first single. Youtube it. Then I heard "Suffocated" and my eyebrows raised. By "Bad News" I was hooked and the album just stayed consistently solid throughout.
Guitar fans, give "Highly Strung" a listen. It'll rocks your balls off.
Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail
1 - Tonight I did one of the more heartbreaking things I've ever had to do. I was sent a letter entirely about the dissolution of a close family member's marriage. It happened very recently, very suddenly. One minute he thought he was in a happy relationship of almost twenty years. 15 seconds later it all ended and his life was ruined.
The letter was an account of how it all came about and the effect it's had on all parties, including the two young kids.
The letter needed to be edited. Grammatically correct. Language cleaned up. Not gonna lie, some of the emotion had to be dulled. It's going to be seen by someone who's used to seeing documents of a kind of standard.
Part of me wishes I wouldn't have touched it. Does the letter have a greater impact with punctuation marks, misplaced modifiers, colloquial phrases and shifts in tense? Maybe it sounds like it's coming from a husband who's weeks removed from losing what he loved the most.
Maybe that's how the letter should have read.
I don't know.
1b - Is it a bad sign that when I got the news of what happened I wasn't surprised? I didn't have any significant feelings of hatred or outrage? I still don't, even after finding out all the specifics of the situation. I feel terrible for the kids and for the man who's life has been ruined, but anger and hatred and shock and disgust aren't in the range of emotions that I've experienced.
It's not that I expect to ever hear about situations like these, it's just that when it does happen it doesn't seem to matter who it happens to, I don't react like I've been blind-sided or the air has suddenly left the room.
The question that I'm sure has plagued other members of my family, "How could she ever do this" has never entered my mind. It's just the way things are, I suppose.
1c - Maybe that leads me into my next topic: Tiger Woods.
Again, not a single thing about this story has made me bat an eye. To recap, Tiger Woods, the world's most famous and wealthy athlete, has allegedly been having an affair with a woman for the past couple years. Three other women have come out and said they have been with him too.
TMZ, the Post, Deadspin, the Sun-Times, ESPN, SI....they've been all over this shit for a week. You can't go to any news site or big time blog and not get hammered with the sordid details of Tiger's supposedly private (HA!) life.
My questions are thus:
1 - How can anyone possibly be surprised that a young, wealthy, insanely famous, successful person that spends the majority of their life on the road could be unfaithful?
2 - Why does Woods owe anyone other-than his family an apology?
3 - Why should you care?
Tiger fucked up. No doubt. But Jordan screwed around. So did Brett Favre. So did Kobe. So did a motherfucking President of the United States. So have countless other public figures that we love to hold to a higher standard.
In the case of Woods, he never professed to being man of the year. He's out there hocking Nike products, Gillette razors and Buicks. When he wasn't he was kicking ass on the gold course. Outside of that...what did anyone really know of him? The guy likes his Privacy (caps for a reason; that's what Tiger named his yacht).
Nobody is perfect. People fuck up. You feel bad for those they hurt but try not to crucify someone for acting on human impulse or because they had a moment of weakness. Everyone has fucked up in some way or another. The most you can hope for is they learn from their mistakes.
1d - Violent crime is the exception. Sorry, lock 'em up.
The letter was an account of how it all came about and the effect it's had on all parties, including the two young kids.
The letter needed to be edited. Grammatically correct. Language cleaned up. Not gonna lie, some of the emotion had to be dulled. It's going to be seen by someone who's used to seeing documents of a kind of standard.
Part of me wishes I wouldn't have touched it. Does the letter have a greater impact with punctuation marks, misplaced modifiers, colloquial phrases and shifts in tense? Maybe it sounds like it's coming from a husband who's weeks removed from losing what he loved the most.
Maybe that's how the letter should have read.
I don't know.
1b - Is it a bad sign that when I got the news of what happened I wasn't surprised? I didn't have any significant feelings of hatred or outrage? I still don't, even after finding out all the specifics of the situation. I feel terrible for the kids and for the man who's life has been ruined, but anger and hatred and shock and disgust aren't in the range of emotions that I've experienced.
It's not that I expect to ever hear about situations like these, it's just that when it does happen it doesn't seem to matter who it happens to, I don't react like I've been blind-sided or the air has suddenly left the room.
The question that I'm sure has plagued other members of my family, "How could she ever do this" has never entered my mind. It's just the way things are, I suppose.
1c - Maybe that leads me into my next topic: Tiger Woods.
Again, not a single thing about this story has made me bat an eye. To recap, Tiger Woods, the world's most famous and wealthy athlete, has allegedly been having an affair with a woman for the past couple years. Three other women have come out and said they have been with him too.
TMZ, the Post, Deadspin, the Sun-Times, ESPN, SI....they've been all over this shit for a week. You can't go to any news site or big time blog and not get hammered with the sordid details of Tiger's supposedly private (HA!) life.
My questions are thus:
1 - How can anyone possibly be surprised that a young, wealthy, insanely famous, successful person that spends the majority of their life on the road could be unfaithful?
2 - Why does Woods owe anyone other-than his family an apology?
3 - Why should you care?
Tiger fucked up. No doubt. But Jordan screwed around. So did Brett Favre. So did Kobe. So did a motherfucking President of the United States. So have countless other public figures that we love to hold to a higher standard.
In the case of Woods, he never professed to being man of the year. He's out there hocking Nike products, Gillette razors and Buicks. When he wasn't he was kicking ass on the gold course. Outside of that...what did anyone really know of him? The guy likes his Privacy (caps for a reason; that's what Tiger named his yacht).
Nobody is perfect. People fuck up. You feel bad for those they hurt but try not to crucify someone for acting on human impulse or because they had a moment of weakness. Everyone has fucked up in some way or another. The most you can hope for is they learn from their mistakes.
1d - Violent crime is the exception. Sorry, lock 'em up.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Writing doesn't suck.
So it's been about a week since the last entry and while I've had things to write about, I run hot and cold. One minute I'm amped about something and the words can't wait to come out. Five minutes later I'm off the ledge and it just doesn't seem worth it.
Last weekend I twice went out with friends. On Saturday night on the way home I was in a shitty mood and wanted to get it out on here. I got home, turned on a replay of the ball game, checked FB and lost interest.
It bugs me because I know that what I didn't write is probably now gone.
Yesterday I needed find an old file on my machine I use for work. Searching through my docs (I'm a digital pack-rat. I saved everything I typed in college. I've got shit from high school and IMs from when ICQ was new. I still have the first mp3 I ever downloaded – Sneaker Pimps - 6Underground, well over a decade ago).
But I came upon blogs and entries from my time in Wausau. Until yesterday I hadn't looked at what I'd written in over two years and I got a serious kick out of it. It wasn't like a lot of it was anything special. Just day to day observations, interactions with people, my times with friends, romantic interests and thoughts on current events.
Nothing earth shattering.
But it was all stuff that had faded with time. Although only two years removed, some of the things that made me grateful for meeting the people I did over in Wausau were tough to recall. But reading the words I'd written back then brought it all back.
• I could remember Dave's hilarious philosophy on infidelity.
• How thankful I was to own a cat when I had to take Frank's dog for a walk the week he was out of town.
• Louie letting me in on the scandalous and sordid happenings going on in Internet Marketing and then dying of laughter once I was back at my desk.
• The embarrassment when Shannon told me how she almost ran me over when she saw me jogging home shirtless from Burk's extremely early one morning (I still totally miss that Ataris's tee).
• Haaaaavvvvvve you met Brian?"
• The exact way I felt when I knocked on Jess's door, how nervous I was and being floored with the way she looked when she opened it.
The point is this: a picture isn't worth a thousand words. At least not with the way I write.
You can take a million photos and they're good to bring you a smile, but I can guarantee they won't do your experiences justice. If you want to relive the times in your life you want to remember, write. Even if they seem like insignificant observations at the time, put them in a text document and save 'em. Months and years later you'll read through them and they'll unlock memories you'd long forgotten. You'll laugh, cry, get pissed but most importantly you'll remember.
Last weekend I twice went out with friends. On Saturday night on the way home I was in a shitty mood and wanted to get it out on here. I got home, turned on a replay of the ball game, checked FB and lost interest.
It bugs me because I know that what I didn't write is probably now gone.
Yesterday I needed find an old file on my machine I use for work. Searching through my docs (I'm a digital pack-rat. I saved everything I typed in college. I've got shit from high school and IMs from when ICQ was new. I still have the first mp3 I ever downloaded – Sneaker Pimps - 6Underground, well over a decade ago).
But I came upon blogs and entries from my time in Wausau. Until yesterday I hadn't looked at what I'd written in over two years and I got a serious kick out of it. It wasn't like a lot of it was anything special. Just day to day observations, interactions with people, my times with friends, romantic interests and thoughts on current events.
Nothing earth shattering.
But it was all stuff that had faded with time. Although only two years removed, some of the things that made me grateful for meeting the people I did over in Wausau were tough to recall. But reading the words I'd written back then brought it all back.
• I could remember Dave's hilarious philosophy on infidelity.
• How thankful I was to own a cat when I had to take Frank's dog for a walk the week he was out of town.
• Louie letting me in on the scandalous and sordid happenings going on in Internet Marketing and then dying of laughter once I was back at my desk.
• The embarrassment when Shannon told me how she almost ran me over when she saw me jogging home shirtless from Burk's extremely early one morning (I still totally miss that Ataris's tee).
• Haaaaavvvvvve you met Brian?"
• The exact way I felt when I knocked on Jess's door, how nervous I was and being floored with the way she looked when she opened it.
The point is this: a picture isn't worth a thousand words. At least not with the way I write.
You can take a million photos and they're good to bring you a smile, but I can guarantee they won't do your experiences justice. If you want to relive the times in your life you want to remember, write. Even if they seem like insignificant observations at the time, put them in a text document and save 'em. Months and years later you'll read through them and they'll unlock memories you'd long forgotten. You'll laugh, cry, get pissed but most importantly you'll remember.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
What motivates you?
1 - So about a month ago I got word that my job status would change in some way, though management didn't know exactly how. They had just laid three people off and while they wanted to keep me around, my price tag left me vulnerable. Early word was that I'd go from salary to hourly and possibly work from home.
I'm not stupid. I've known since I started that, despite having unique ability within my company and in the area, I was always going to be in danger if times got bad.
So when word came down I wasn't totally blindsided and to be honest wasn't even that worried. Finding a new job wouldn't take long and I was more than willing to relocate. I like Eau Claire a lot but all my friends are either an hour west or an hour and a half east. Everyone I know here is either married or may as well be. Being the only single dude in your group sort of sucks.
So anyway, that was a month ago. Since then I've actually never been busier or had more things to accomplish at SP. I've remained on a full time basis and Sales just sold a Flex app that's going to take a minimum of 50 hours to complete.
I'm content.
2 - I'm having some difficulty coming up with a worse purchase than jewelry. It sort of hit me last night when I caught a Kay Jewelers commercial. You had your typical beautiful couple and the guy caught his wife or girlfriend by surprise with this massive rock. She of course teared up as if she couldn't be happier. Then the pricetag shows up and it hits me: could there possibly be a more irresponsible buy? Not even now in this economic climate, but ever?
If I'm dropping a grand on something it had better come in 1080p or go towards paying off a mortgage or car payment. Because when you sit back and think about it, what the hell do diamond earrings do for you? Is it really that big a thing with women that they can show off their jewelry to their girlfriends?
I know if won't happen, but my hope is that the girl I settle down with is the type that if I ever splurged and brought home something like that she'd kick me out for blowing a tuition payment for junior.
3 - What motivates you? The subject has been on my mind a lot in the last month, particularly in the last two weeks. Obviously, different things motivate different people.
Some people want to be an authority. They want to be decision makers and have control over others.
Others want to be apart of something and don't want to be on the outside looking in. They like being in a group or having affiliation.
For others it's recognition. They like getting praised or being recognized as the best at something.
Maybe you just like getting shit done or you enjoy bettering yourself. Make lists, write down goals, cross them off.
I'm not sure which one is me but I know which ones don't fit. I don't need to be a decision maker. I really have no desire to manage others and I don't need to be in control of anything. I've also never craved recognition. More often than not I'm embarrassed if I'm singled out for anything positive. If anything groups and organizations bother me. If I'm not involved with others I'm not gonna worry about it.
I'd say if there was one up there that does fit it's getting things done and seeing the results. If something isn't done I'm not comfortable until I've put in the effort to complete it. At work it might be learning a new coding technique or building an app. At home it's probably something as simple as doing the dishes or putting away the laundry. It could just be that there's a problem and it needs solving or fixing. I don't really have a choice. Things in my life need to get done or I don't sleep at night.
But what happens when there's nothing else on that list of things to do? What happens when I'm finished with my projects for work, the bills are paid and the house is clean? What gets me off my ass when there's nothing left on that list? What happens when there's nothing left to make me proactive? For almost two years I've been searching for an answer to these questions.
It only recently occurred to me that I might have found an answer: revenge.
George Herbert, a poet in the 1600s, coined the phrase "Living Well is the Best Revenge". Words to live by as far as I'm concerned. If you feel like you've been wronged or disrespected or fucked over or dissed (and I recently have), make yourself better. Much better.
That element had been missing in my life and since it's always been a massive motivator for me little has really changed for almost two years running. But all it took was a couple instances where I've felt dissed to light a fire under my ass and now my goal is to simply make myself better. Physically, socially, mentally. Better job, better relationship, better place in life. Basically the one thing that pushes me lately is the notion that one day the people that did this will think, "I made a massive fucking mistake".
3b - So it occurs to me that doing anything out of something so petty may not appear to be the most dignified or...fuck I don't even know the word.
Bleh.
A month or two ago Michael Jordan was inducted in the Basketball Hall of Fame. He went in with a class that included guys like Jerry Sloan and John Stockton. I think David Robinson went in as well.
So we're talking about a class that included some of the best basketball players and coaching minds of my generation.
However, a day after and a week after the induction ceremony only one thing was talked about: how awful Jordan came off during his speech.
Jordan has always been known to be a competitive son of a bitch. It wasn't one thing to beat you. He wanted to humiliate, embarrass and crush you until there was nothing left but a quivering pile of shit left in his wake. It didn't end on the basketball court either. Golf, gambling, checkers...everything.
What drove him was personal spite and the desire to beat you. If you told him he couldn't do something or if he felt disrespected in some way (real or manufactured in his head) he didn't rest until you were proven wrong.
One of the biggest examples of Jordan's desire to say, "I told you so" came during his induction speech. In the middle of pointing how great he was and not thanking more than one or two people (as opposed to Stockton and Robinson who couldn't thank enough people and appeared as gracious as two people could) Jordan took a moment to single out his high school coach (the man who cut him as a freshman) and say, with a point of the finger, "You made a mistake, dude".
This could have been glossed over had Jordan not personally arranged for this man to sit in the audience for the induction ceremony.
Get that? Michael Jordan – multiple MVP, gold medalist, six-time NBA Champion, six time Finals MVP, NCAA champion – harbored enough of a grudge so on the night when he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame he made a point to personally shove his success in the face of a high school coach who thought he wasn't good enough almost thirty years ago.
When i saw Jordan's acceptance speech I was horrified, uncomfortable and embarrassed. How could the world's most famous athlete have such little tact? How could he be so small?
Then the stories came out. I'd read Sam Smith's The Jordan Rules a decade ago so I knew what young Jordan was like. But I'd figured success and age had changed him. It didn't happen. The media was quick to come and say that the public shouldn't be surprised by the events that night. It's who Jordan was. Personal slights (real or imaginary) were what drove MJ. He was always the guy who wouldn't rest until he could give a massive "FUCK YOU" to the people he felt screwed him over and it wasn't a surprise to see him use the national stage to do so one more time.
3c - So how does that fit in with what I'm talking about? Maybe not much, if anything at all. But I think if you realize what motivates you, take the reigns and go. For Jordan, it was to shove it in the faces of those who said or felt he couldn't do something. For others it's to make someone else happy or get their approval. Some people are legitimately altruistic and feel that it's their duty to give back or help out and that's what drives them. Others just need to belong.
3d - I don't need or want anyone's approval, I'm more or less apathetic to the plight of others (though I do feel strongly about certain causes) and, with respect to John Donne, I think every man is an island.
So yea, I have what motivates me and I won't apologize for it. What's good for MJ is good enough for me.
4 - So Chicago is four hours away and I've never been there save a trip to the museum when I was like ten years old. I'm going there for New Years and we need help. If you're familiar with the town, shoot me an email or look me up on FB. I need some help.
5 - OGTs
See #3 :)
6 - The West Wing is something I've mentioned on here before, but I have to say again how awesome it is.
Tonight I got home from work, went back into town to work out for an hour, got home and watched the Badgers and decided to turn in around 11:00. Typical night. I got in bed, fired up a West Wing DVD from Season 1 and here I am, at 1:30 in the morning and I'm wide awake. I blame Aaron Sorkin.
The West Wing was supposed to be white noise, something to distract me while I fell asleep. But it kept me so captivated that I woke up. I wasn't tired anymore. My synapses were firing and I needed to write. The stupid thing is the episode I turned on was from season one. I'd seen it at least ten times. But the writing is so good and the subjects were so thought provoking that I couldn't help but pay attention. GDP and the effects on inflation, amendments to bills, child labor laws, appointments in the cabinets, security threats from white supremacists...all in one episode. I couldn't turn away.
So now it's almost two hours later, I've been cranking away at this blog since and it's mostly because it's the only way to clear my head.
7 - I called the folks this afternoon to let them know when I'll be home this week. Last year was the first time I'd made anything for Thanksgiving. I brought a broccoli casserole and the dish was gone inside of 15 minutes. People were going back for seconds. Nothing but compliments. It's one of the reasons why I've been so into cooking ever since.
This year I'm totally clueless. I have absolutely no idea what to make and I'm searching for ideas. Everything on the table is traditional and classic and that isn't what I'm good at. If anyone has a family recipe that could help me out, drop me a line. Thanksgiving is a day away and I'm a little desperate.
8 - Since I feel like I'm heading down the home stretch of this blog I started a new episode of the West Wing. Toby is being Toby, the pissed off intellectual who loves nothing more than a fight. I youtubed for a scene and the first few that came up were actually from the episode I was watching. He's great.
But instead I'll go with one from the pilot episode of the West Wing, and it ranks up there with the best TV scenes I've ever come across. Josh made a gaffe on national TV when he insulted the religious right. Consequently Toby made a meeting with heads of the religious right so CJ and Josh could apologize. Things didn't go as planned and President Bartlett makes a memorable opening.
9 - 2:00 am and I'm out. 'Til next time.
I'm not stupid. I've known since I started that, despite having unique ability within my company and in the area, I was always going to be in danger if times got bad.
So when word came down I wasn't totally blindsided and to be honest wasn't even that worried. Finding a new job wouldn't take long and I was more than willing to relocate. I like Eau Claire a lot but all my friends are either an hour west or an hour and a half east. Everyone I know here is either married or may as well be. Being the only single dude in your group sort of sucks.
So anyway, that was a month ago. Since then I've actually never been busier or had more things to accomplish at SP. I've remained on a full time basis and Sales just sold a Flex app that's going to take a minimum of 50 hours to complete.
I'm content.
2 - I'm having some difficulty coming up with a worse purchase than jewelry. It sort of hit me last night when I caught a Kay Jewelers commercial. You had your typical beautiful couple and the guy caught his wife or girlfriend by surprise with this massive rock. She of course teared up as if she couldn't be happier. Then the pricetag shows up and it hits me: could there possibly be a more irresponsible buy? Not even now in this economic climate, but ever?
If I'm dropping a grand on something it had better come in 1080p or go towards paying off a mortgage or car payment. Because when you sit back and think about it, what the hell do diamond earrings do for you? Is it really that big a thing with women that they can show off their jewelry to their girlfriends?
I know if won't happen, but my hope is that the girl I settle down with is the type that if I ever splurged and brought home something like that she'd kick me out for blowing a tuition payment for junior.
3 - What motivates you? The subject has been on my mind a lot in the last month, particularly in the last two weeks. Obviously, different things motivate different people.
Some people want to be an authority. They want to be decision makers and have control over others.
Others want to be apart of something and don't want to be on the outside looking in. They like being in a group or having affiliation.
For others it's recognition. They like getting praised or being recognized as the best at something.
Maybe you just like getting shit done or you enjoy bettering yourself. Make lists, write down goals, cross them off.
I'm not sure which one is me but I know which ones don't fit. I don't need to be a decision maker. I really have no desire to manage others and I don't need to be in control of anything. I've also never craved recognition. More often than not I'm embarrassed if I'm singled out for anything positive. If anything groups and organizations bother me. If I'm not involved with others I'm not gonna worry about it.
I'd say if there was one up there that does fit it's getting things done and seeing the results. If something isn't done I'm not comfortable until I've put in the effort to complete it. At work it might be learning a new coding technique or building an app. At home it's probably something as simple as doing the dishes or putting away the laundry. It could just be that there's a problem and it needs solving or fixing. I don't really have a choice. Things in my life need to get done or I don't sleep at night.
But what happens when there's nothing else on that list of things to do? What happens when I'm finished with my projects for work, the bills are paid and the house is clean? What gets me off my ass when there's nothing left on that list? What happens when there's nothing left to make me proactive? For almost two years I've been searching for an answer to these questions.
It only recently occurred to me that I might have found an answer: revenge.
George Herbert, a poet in the 1600s, coined the phrase "Living Well is the Best Revenge". Words to live by as far as I'm concerned. If you feel like you've been wronged or disrespected or fucked over or dissed (and I recently have), make yourself better. Much better.
That element had been missing in my life and since it's always been a massive motivator for me little has really changed for almost two years running. But all it took was a couple instances where I've felt dissed to light a fire under my ass and now my goal is to simply make myself better. Physically, socially, mentally. Better job, better relationship, better place in life. Basically the one thing that pushes me lately is the notion that one day the people that did this will think, "I made a massive fucking mistake".
3b - So it occurs to me that doing anything out of something so petty may not appear to be the most dignified or...fuck I don't even know the word.
Bleh.
A month or two ago Michael Jordan was inducted in the Basketball Hall of Fame. He went in with a class that included guys like Jerry Sloan and John Stockton. I think David Robinson went in as well.
So we're talking about a class that included some of the best basketball players and coaching minds of my generation.
However, a day after and a week after the induction ceremony only one thing was talked about: how awful Jordan came off during his speech.
Jordan has always been known to be a competitive son of a bitch. It wasn't one thing to beat you. He wanted to humiliate, embarrass and crush you until there was nothing left but a quivering pile of shit left in his wake. It didn't end on the basketball court either. Golf, gambling, checkers...everything.
What drove him was personal spite and the desire to beat you. If you told him he couldn't do something or if he felt disrespected in some way (real or manufactured in his head) he didn't rest until you were proven wrong.
One of the biggest examples of Jordan's desire to say, "I told you so" came during his induction speech. In the middle of pointing how great he was and not thanking more than one or two people (as opposed to Stockton and Robinson who couldn't thank enough people and appeared as gracious as two people could) Jordan took a moment to single out his high school coach (the man who cut him as a freshman) and say, with a point of the finger, "You made a mistake, dude".
This could have been glossed over had Jordan not personally arranged for this man to sit in the audience for the induction ceremony.
Get that? Michael Jordan – multiple MVP, gold medalist, six-time NBA Champion, six time Finals MVP, NCAA champion – harbored enough of a grudge so on the night when he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame he made a point to personally shove his success in the face of a high school coach who thought he wasn't good enough almost thirty years ago.
When i saw Jordan's acceptance speech I was horrified, uncomfortable and embarrassed. How could the world's most famous athlete have such little tact? How could he be so small?
Then the stories came out. I'd read Sam Smith's The Jordan Rules a decade ago so I knew what young Jordan was like. But I'd figured success and age had changed him. It didn't happen. The media was quick to come and say that the public shouldn't be surprised by the events that night. It's who Jordan was. Personal slights (real or imaginary) were what drove MJ. He was always the guy who wouldn't rest until he could give a massive "FUCK YOU" to the people he felt screwed him over and it wasn't a surprise to see him use the national stage to do so one more time.
3c - So how does that fit in with what I'm talking about? Maybe not much, if anything at all. But I think if you realize what motivates you, take the reigns and go. For Jordan, it was to shove it in the faces of those who said or felt he couldn't do something. For others it's to make someone else happy or get their approval. Some people are legitimately altruistic and feel that it's their duty to give back or help out and that's what drives them. Others just need to belong.
3d - I don't need or want anyone's approval, I'm more or less apathetic to the plight of others (though I do feel strongly about certain causes) and, with respect to John Donne, I think every man is an island.
So yea, I have what motivates me and I won't apologize for it. What's good for MJ is good enough for me.
4 - So Chicago is four hours away and I've never been there save a trip to the museum when I was like ten years old. I'm going there for New Years and we need help. If you're familiar with the town, shoot me an email or look me up on FB. I need some help.
5 - OGTs
See #3 :)
6 - The West Wing is something I've mentioned on here before, but I have to say again how awesome it is.
Tonight I got home from work, went back into town to work out for an hour, got home and watched the Badgers and decided to turn in around 11:00. Typical night. I got in bed, fired up a West Wing DVD from Season 1 and here I am, at 1:30 in the morning and I'm wide awake. I blame Aaron Sorkin.
The West Wing was supposed to be white noise, something to distract me while I fell asleep. But it kept me so captivated that I woke up. I wasn't tired anymore. My synapses were firing and I needed to write. The stupid thing is the episode I turned on was from season one. I'd seen it at least ten times. But the writing is so good and the subjects were so thought provoking that I couldn't help but pay attention. GDP and the effects on inflation, amendments to bills, child labor laws, appointments in the cabinets, security threats from white supremacists...all in one episode. I couldn't turn away.
So now it's almost two hours later, I've been cranking away at this blog since and it's mostly because it's the only way to clear my head.
7 - I called the folks this afternoon to let them know when I'll be home this week. Last year was the first time I'd made anything for Thanksgiving. I brought a broccoli casserole and the dish was gone inside of 15 minutes. People were going back for seconds. Nothing but compliments. It's one of the reasons why I've been so into cooking ever since.
This year I'm totally clueless. I have absolutely no idea what to make and I'm searching for ideas. Everything on the table is traditional and classic and that isn't what I'm good at. If anyone has a family recipe that could help me out, drop me a line. Thanksgiving is a day away and I'm a little desperate.
8 - Since I feel like I'm heading down the home stretch of this blog I started a new episode of the West Wing. Toby is being Toby, the pissed off intellectual who loves nothing more than a fight. I youtubed for a scene and the first few that came up were actually from the episode I was watching. He's great.
But instead I'll go with one from the pilot episode of the West Wing, and it ranks up there with the best TV scenes I've ever come across. Josh made a gaffe on national TV when he insulted the religious right. Consequently Toby made a meeting with heads of the religious right so CJ and Josh could apologize. Things didn't go as planned and President Bartlett makes a memorable opening.
9 - 2:00 am and I'm out. 'Til next time.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
F bombs as the best form of therapy.
1 - Since I've lived in the northern half of the state, namely Eau Claire and Menomonie, the Bucks have been blacked out because the NBA denotes the Wolves as the local team. It's ridiculous. It's not as if the Bucks are in the same league of popularity of Packers or Brewers up here, but there's more Bucks fans than Wolves fans.
So every year I'd write the NBA and the Bucks and Charter and DirecTV and every year I'd get no where. Back in September, like I had in the past, I wrote my letters and emails and made the phone calls to the companies that made the decisions on the matter.
This week I got good news.
The Wolves granted the Bucks permission to broadcast games in Eau Claire. All that needed to happen was for DirecTV and other cable providers to carry them. It seemed like no big deal. DirecTV carries FSN-Wisconsin and if you buy the sports pack you get that channel.
As it happens to be, here was the press release I saw this afternoon:
I'm a little proud. It's about five years late but it makes me feel like the phone calls to the Bucks PR department, the email correspondence with Bucks beat writers, the pissing and moaning I did with DirecTV wasn't for nothing. Speaking of which...
2 - I should feel different, having worked technical phone support for a software company for a few weeks when I was done with school. But when your issue is with a company like DirecTV, I don't care. If I'm gonna be dicked around I'll feel free to blow up on the poor sap on the other line.
The Bucks had a game on FSN earlier in the week. I'd heard that the Bucks would finally be broadcasting up here so when I got the game I didn't think much of it until I got a call from someone in EC saying they weren't getting the game. I checked my DirecTV lineup and to my amazement I'd been charged $140 for NBA League Pass. I didn't want it but because I'd puchased it last season they re-upped without alerting me. No phone call, no email, no notice in the mail.
I got right on the phone and demanded my money be refunded and League Pass be removed from my account. The Bucks were now broadcast in EC. What the hell use for LP would I have.
Even though the season just started and the free preview ended last week, some dick on the phone said that there was nothing that could be done. The deadline to cancel had been a couple days prior. So I flew off the handle and it's a good thing I was outside. I was yelling into the phone and there wasn't a four letter word I didn't drop. My last words before hanging up were, "This is fucking bullshit and I'm calling the better business bureau motherfucker!"
If he were anything like me when I used to work phones he probably laughed when I hung up. I vented, yelled a lot, called him a name or two but what does he care?
Whatever.
15 minutes later I was still pissed to the point where I didn't care to have DirecTV anymore. I called back and told the first person I got on the phone that because I was being charged for some shit I didn't order I no longer wanted DTV service and I wanted it canceled.
Ten seconds later I was on the phone with a different woman. "Oh, I see you were charged for LP and you didn't want it? Let me just get that off your account and get you a credit. Really sorry about that!"
Funny what happens when you threaten to take money out of their pockets.
3 - Speaking of the Bucks, our Young Buck has 17 points in the first quarter. This could be another big night for the twenty year old.
4 - The reason why I would have had no problem canceling our satellite TV service is for one reason: NinjaVideo.net
For over a year it the was best kept secret on the net. Every TV show and new release out there, updated daily, all in high quality Divx format. You could watch DVD quality rips of movies on your PC before they were even out in rental. Miss your favorite TV show? Check Ninjavideo. Can't find season 2 of 24 or the complete series of Firefly in your local rental store? Go to Ninjavideo.
But then PC World named it as one of it's top 100 products of 2009 and the site has rightfully blown up.
Their library is stupid-awesome and easy to access. You open up the applet, enter a code to prevent bots and restrict access, and in 60 seconds you're watching whatever you want in DVD quality.
The best part? The Divx codec they use. If you right-click on your Divx player you're able to change preferences for the player. One of the preferences is where the video is cached on your hard drive. Typically it's at a setting of 556 megabytes and the file is automatically deleted when you want to watch something else. But if you want to start a library of content it's incredibly easy. Create a new folder somewhere, set your player to save the video files in this location and change the cache size to something huge, like 40GB. When you click to start a new video in Ninjavideo's player, the download starts. Click pause on the playback and forget about it. 10 minutes later the movie is on your hard drive. Change the extension to AVI and you're free to do with it what you wish.
With TV episodes I like to convert them to m4v and watch them on my iPhone while I workout.
With movies I like to stream them to my TV in the living room using my network and a PS3.
With a computer, a high speed network and a Xbox 360 or PS3 you can have yourself your own little DVR setup without ever needing cable or satellite TV. Watch TV and movies on your time, no commercials. The only monthly payment is to your ISP.
If I wasn't such a huge sports fan I'd be all over it :/
5 - The rest of the weekend should be dope. I took the day off to make the place spotless and do some needed work. Tonight I'm going out, tomorrow it's golfing, place to myself.
I love it.
6 - Family recipe for the dinner I made tonight:
Classic Beef Stroganoff
1/2 to 3/4 lb beef sirloin or round steak about 1/2 inch thick
2 tbsp butter or margarine
1/4 lb mushrooms, sliced
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup water
1 beef bouillon cube
1 tbsp catsup
1 small clove garlic, finely chopped or 1/8 tsp instant minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
Poppy Seed Noodles
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp flour
1/2 cup dairy sour cream
Cut meat into strips, 1.5 x .5 inch. Melt butter in 8 inch skillet; cook and stir mushrooms and onion until onion is tender. Remove vegetables from skillet.
In same skillet, brown meet over medium heat. Stir in half cup of water, bouillon cube, catsup, garlic and salt. Reduce heat; cover and simmer 15 minutes (45 minutes if using round steak; if necessary, add small amount of water). While meat simmers, prepare noodles.
Mix 1/4 cup water and the flour; stir into meat mixture. Add mushrooms and onion. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 minute. Stir in sour cream and heat through. Serve on noodles.
7 - This week Brandon Jennings was on the cover of ESPN.com for a feature story, was mentioned on Pardon the Interuption and Around the Horn, interviewed nationally on the Jim Rome Show and again on the Scott Van Pelt Show.
This is a Milwaukee Buck we're talking about here.
I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone.
7b - At the half, 20 points on 8-10 shooting, 4 assists, no turnovers. The Bucks are missing three of their four best players and are still leading the healthy Bobcats by 10.
8 - OGTs
Update on Sunday. She looked cute as hell today.
9 - Cutting this one a little short. Maybe more when I get home. Hopefully not.
So every year I'd write the NBA and the Bucks and Charter and DirecTV and every year I'd get no where. Back in September, like I had in the past, I wrote my letters and emails and made the phone calls to the companies that made the decisions on the matter.
This week I got good news.
The Wolves granted the Bucks permission to broadcast games in Eau Claire. All that needed to happen was for DirecTV and other cable providers to carry them. It seemed like no big deal. DirecTV carries FSN-Wisconsin and if you buy the sports pack you get that channel.
As it happens to be, here was the press release I saw this afternoon:
FOX SPORTS WISCONSIN TO TELEVISE MILWAUKEE BUCKS
GAMES IN EAU CLAIRE, WISCONSIN DURING THE 2009-10 SEASON
The Milwaukee Bucks and FOX Sports Wisconsin are pleased to announce television coverage of Milwaukee Bucks games in the Eau Claire, Wisconsin television market for the 2009-10 NBA Season. FOX Sports Wisconsin coverage of Bucks games may be found on the following channels in the Eau Claire area: Charter Communications (digital only) – Channel 91; DirecTV – Channel 669; and DISH Network – currently no dedicated channel but typically between 444 and 450. Eau Claire area customers of other cable or satellite services should contact their providers for further details.
Fox Sports Wisconsin’s Bucks programming includes 70 home or road games telecast, all including the 2009 Emmy award winning Bucks Live pre- and post-game programming. Thirty-five games are telecast in high definition (HD), ten more than last season.
The complete 2009-10 Milwaukee Bucks FOX Sports Wisconsin telecast schedule may be found on Bucks.com. http://www/bucks/schedule/index.html.
I'm a little proud. It's about five years late but it makes me feel like the phone calls to the Bucks PR department, the email correspondence with Bucks beat writers, the pissing and moaning I did with DirecTV wasn't for nothing. Speaking of which...
2 - I should feel different, having worked technical phone support for a software company for a few weeks when I was done with school. But when your issue is with a company like DirecTV, I don't care. If I'm gonna be dicked around I'll feel free to blow up on the poor sap on the other line.
The Bucks had a game on FSN earlier in the week. I'd heard that the Bucks would finally be broadcasting up here so when I got the game I didn't think much of it until I got a call from someone in EC saying they weren't getting the game. I checked my DirecTV lineup and to my amazement I'd been charged $140 for NBA League Pass. I didn't want it but because I'd puchased it last season they re-upped without alerting me. No phone call, no email, no notice in the mail.
I got right on the phone and demanded my money be refunded and League Pass be removed from my account. The Bucks were now broadcast in EC. What the hell use for LP would I have.
Even though the season just started and the free preview ended last week, some dick on the phone said that there was nothing that could be done. The deadline to cancel had been a couple days prior. So I flew off the handle and it's a good thing I was outside. I was yelling into the phone and there wasn't a four letter word I didn't drop. My last words before hanging up were, "This is fucking bullshit and I'm calling the better business bureau motherfucker!"
If he were anything like me when I used to work phones he probably laughed when I hung up. I vented, yelled a lot, called him a name or two but what does he care?
Whatever.
15 minutes later I was still pissed to the point where I didn't care to have DirecTV anymore. I called back and told the first person I got on the phone that because I was being charged for some shit I didn't order I no longer wanted DTV service and I wanted it canceled.
Ten seconds later I was on the phone with a different woman. "Oh, I see you were charged for LP and you didn't want it? Let me just get that off your account and get you a credit. Really sorry about that!"
Funny what happens when you threaten to take money out of their pockets.
3 - Speaking of the Bucks, our Young Buck has 17 points in the first quarter. This could be another big night for the twenty year old.
4 - The reason why I would have had no problem canceling our satellite TV service is for one reason: NinjaVideo.net
For over a year it the was best kept secret on the net. Every TV show and new release out there, updated daily, all in high quality Divx format. You could watch DVD quality rips of movies on your PC before they were even out in rental. Miss your favorite TV show? Check Ninjavideo. Can't find season 2 of 24 or the complete series of Firefly in your local rental store? Go to Ninjavideo.
But then PC World named it as one of it's top 100 products of 2009 and the site has rightfully blown up.
Their library is stupid-awesome and easy to access. You open up the applet, enter a code to prevent bots and restrict access, and in 60 seconds you're watching whatever you want in DVD quality.
The best part? The Divx codec they use. If you right-click on your Divx player you're able to change preferences for the player. One of the preferences is where the video is cached on your hard drive. Typically it's at a setting of 556 megabytes and the file is automatically deleted when you want to watch something else. But if you want to start a library of content it's incredibly easy. Create a new folder somewhere, set your player to save the video files in this location and change the cache size to something huge, like 40GB. When you click to start a new video in Ninjavideo's player, the download starts. Click pause on the playback and forget about it. 10 minutes later the movie is on your hard drive. Change the extension to AVI and you're free to do with it what you wish.
With TV episodes I like to convert them to m4v and watch them on my iPhone while I workout.
With movies I like to stream them to my TV in the living room using my network and a PS3.
With a computer, a high speed network and a Xbox 360 or PS3 you can have yourself your own little DVR setup without ever needing cable or satellite TV. Watch TV and movies on your time, no commercials. The only monthly payment is to your ISP.
If I wasn't such a huge sports fan I'd be all over it :/
5 - The rest of the weekend should be dope. I took the day off to make the place spotless and do some needed work. Tonight I'm going out, tomorrow it's golfing, place to myself.
I love it.
6 - Family recipe for the dinner I made tonight:
Classic Beef Stroganoff
1/2 to 3/4 lb beef sirloin or round steak about 1/2 inch thick
2 tbsp butter or margarine
1/4 lb mushrooms, sliced
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup water
1 beef bouillon cube
1 tbsp catsup
1 small clove garlic, finely chopped or 1/8 tsp instant minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
Poppy Seed Noodles
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp flour
1/2 cup dairy sour cream
Cut meat into strips, 1.5 x .5 inch. Melt butter in 8 inch skillet; cook and stir mushrooms and onion until onion is tender. Remove vegetables from skillet.
In same skillet, brown meet over medium heat. Stir in half cup of water, bouillon cube, catsup, garlic and salt. Reduce heat; cover and simmer 15 minutes (45 minutes if using round steak; if necessary, add small amount of water). While meat simmers, prepare noodles.
Mix 1/4 cup water and the flour; stir into meat mixture. Add mushrooms and onion. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 minute. Stir in sour cream and heat through. Serve on noodles.
7 - This week Brandon Jennings was on the cover of ESPN.com for a feature story, was mentioned on Pardon the Interuption and Around the Horn, interviewed nationally on the Jim Rome Show and again on the Scott Van Pelt Show.
This is a Milwaukee Buck we're talking about here.
I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone.
7b - At the half, 20 points on 8-10 shooting, 4 assists, no turnovers. The Bucks are missing three of their four best players and are still leading the healthy Bobcats by 10.
8 - OGTs
Update on Sunday. She looked cute as hell today.
9 - Cutting this one a little short. Maybe more when I get home. Hopefully not.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Yea, only six things tonight
Gonna try and make this reasonably quick hit.
1 - I need to watch more Henry Fonda flicks. He's like Cary Grant if Cary Grant wasn't constantly acting like he was trying to fuck the starlet on the set.
12 Angry Men was on earlier this evening and having never seen it I gave it a shot. I knew the reputation. If you go to IMDB you'll see that users rank it as the 8th best film of all time.
I won't go that far, but it was awesome. It consistently reminded me of Glengarry Glen Ross, for obvious reasons. Both were based upon plays, both predominantly took place in one room. Both were driven by dialog and emotion from strong male leads.
It was only the second Henry Fonda vehicle I'd seen. The first was Mister Roberts, a favorite of mine I used to watch with my late Grandpa King. I'm gonna make an effort to check out the rest of his works.
2 - My philosophy on the NBA is if you want to compete you need stars. No shit, right? The problem is the NBA, unlike every other sport, is predictable. In August, two months before the season starts, you can pick out the five teams with a chance to contend. Everyone else is tugging it.
It's the same with the draft 90% of the time. If you get a top pick in the draft it's fairly easy to predict future success. When you draft a Yao Ming, Tim Duncan, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, etc. it's easy to see 50 win seasons and conference championships in the near future.
But what happens when you're one of the five or so teams that doesn't have a top talent but isn't bad enough to draft at the top of round one? Basically, you're fucked. You're going to acquire mediocre talent in the draft and continue to win half your games. Never good enough to contend, never bad enough to land one of those high picks in the draft.
Sooo...this year appears to have seen an exception. More amazingly, my Bucks are the benefactors.
The Bucks were in NBA purgatory last year. Not awful, not good. Because of that they got the 10th pick in last June's draft. Usually this is where teams pick bench players to round out the roster. Maybe they get lucky and get a solid starter.
The Bucks, however, got a 20 year old stud named Brandon Jennings. Nine teams passed on this 20 year old point guard that's currently averaging 20 points, 5 boards and 5 assists. Did I mention how young he is?
2b - The previous few paragraphs were written on Friday night. The next night Brandon Jennings went out and scored 55 points, dropped five dimes and pulled down five boards in a win against the Warriors.
Then the internet blew up.
Brandon Jennings was the top trending topic on Twitter. He was on the front page of every sports site in the US. People were claiming, only a couple weeks into the season, that the Rookie of the Year award was locked up. Not only were people talking All Star (unheard of in a rookie year), but Most Valuable Player.
You know how there are moments in your life you won't ever forget? You remember everything about them? I will never forget how on a Saturday night in the Cities I was sitting on a couch at a party, looking at the box score in my iPhone, seeing Brandon Jennings with 55 points and doing a triple take.
By the way, that 25/5/5 he's currently carrying? Only two players averaged at least that last season: Dwayne Wade and LeBron James.
3 - Speaking of Saturday night, it was great. I don't make it over to the Cities but once or twice a year and I almost always have a good time. Going downtown is usually a blast and it makes the bars I'm used to seem like steaming piles of shit. It's nice to go out and not run into loads of annoying 20 and 21 year olds.
Met Neder for the first time despite having talked with her for almost two years now. Saw 'Liza for the first time in a year. Met their friends, all of them being super cool. They reminded me of the posse I had in Wausau when we were at our best. If nothing else it illustrated what's missing here in EC. I've met a lot of great people in the last two years, but it's different.
Best part of the night were the guys I drank with. Awesome, awesome cats. Talked sports, funny, really good dudes. I personally blame them for my memory getting foggy at the end of the night. They started buying shots so then I had to by a couple rounds and I woke up the next morning hoping I didn't embarrass myself by busting out a couple of my ridiculous pickup lines on some of the lovelies I'd met.
Neder assures me I was normal, so cool.
4 - If nothing else, this weekend made me realize that life needs to be more than work. If that's what's keeping you where you are or keeping you from being happiest, something is wrong. I took a job in Mankato, away from family and friends, because of money. Then I turned around and took another in EC for the same reason. I don't want to make that mistake again. Friends are more important.
5 - So today Allen Iverson was waved by the worst organization in the NBA, the Memphis Grizzlies. It's a polarizing end to what is probably the most polarizing career in NBA history.
For 99% of NBA fans, there have always been two options: either you love Allen Iverson, or you despise him. There has never been much middle room for the little lightning bug that was largely responsible for the NBA's 'thug' image. The tattoos, the cornrows, infamous "We talkin' bout practice" press conference, the street-ball style of play...Iverson was anti-everything David Stern wanted the NBA to represent.
But, like other similarl athletes, he wound up being vehemently loved by the fans he did have. Think Randy Moss. Think pre-dogfight Michael Vick. Iverson was so ridiculously talented and cool that it was easy to see how he could win over fans. It didn't matter if he didn't get himself a ring or might have been a detriment, even at his best, to his team. It was hard not to admire the way he played.
Personally, I loved watching AI play. The guy was maybe 5'10", 160. But he attacked the hoop like someone who was eight inches and 50 lbs bigger. Once he was on the court, nobody could ever accuse him of giving anything less than 100%. He took a massive beating night in and night out and he always got back up. I have nothing but respect for AI, despite his reputation. I'm going to miss watching him play.
6 - First post on the Apple laptop I picked up today. So choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.
1 - I need to watch more Henry Fonda flicks. He's like Cary Grant if Cary Grant wasn't constantly acting like he was trying to fuck the starlet on the set.
12 Angry Men was on earlier this evening and having never seen it I gave it a shot. I knew the reputation. If you go to IMDB you'll see that users rank it as the 8th best film of all time.
I won't go that far, but it was awesome. It consistently reminded me of Glengarry Glen Ross, for obvious reasons. Both were based upon plays, both predominantly took place in one room. Both were driven by dialog and emotion from strong male leads.
It was only the second Henry Fonda vehicle I'd seen. The first was Mister Roberts, a favorite of mine I used to watch with my late Grandpa King. I'm gonna make an effort to check out the rest of his works.
2 - My philosophy on the NBA is if you want to compete you need stars. No shit, right? The problem is the NBA, unlike every other sport, is predictable. In August, two months before the season starts, you can pick out the five teams with a chance to contend. Everyone else is tugging it.
It's the same with the draft 90% of the time. If you get a top pick in the draft it's fairly easy to predict future success. When you draft a Yao Ming, Tim Duncan, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, etc. it's easy to see 50 win seasons and conference championships in the near future.
But what happens when you're one of the five or so teams that doesn't have a top talent but isn't bad enough to draft at the top of round one? Basically, you're fucked. You're going to acquire mediocre talent in the draft and continue to win half your games. Never good enough to contend, never bad enough to land one of those high picks in the draft.
Sooo...this year appears to have seen an exception. More amazingly, my Bucks are the benefactors.
The Bucks were in NBA purgatory last year. Not awful, not good. Because of that they got the 10th pick in last June's draft. Usually this is where teams pick bench players to round out the roster. Maybe they get lucky and get a solid starter.
The Bucks, however, got a 20 year old stud named Brandon Jennings. Nine teams passed on this 20 year old point guard that's currently averaging 20 points, 5 boards and 5 assists. Did I mention how young he is?
2b - The previous few paragraphs were written on Friday night. The next night Brandon Jennings went out and scored 55 points, dropped five dimes and pulled down five boards in a win against the Warriors.
Then the internet blew up.
Brandon Jennings was the top trending topic on Twitter. He was on the front page of every sports site in the US. People were claiming, only a couple weeks into the season, that the Rookie of the Year award was locked up. Not only were people talking All Star (unheard of in a rookie year), but Most Valuable Player.
You know how there are moments in your life you won't ever forget? You remember everything about them? I will never forget how on a Saturday night in the Cities I was sitting on a couch at a party, looking at the box score in my iPhone, seeing Brandon Jennings with 55 points and doing a triple take.
By the way, that 25/5/5 he's currently carrying? Only two players averaged at least that last season: Dwayne Wade and LeBron James.
3 - Speaking of Saturday night, it was great. I don't make it over to the Cities but once or twice a year and I almost always have a good time. Going downtown is usually a blast and it makes the bars I'm used to seem like steaming piles of shit. It's nice to go out and not run into loads of annoying 20 and 21 year olds.
Met Neder for the first time despite having talked with her for almost two years now. Saw 'Liza for the first time in a year. Met their friends, all of them being super cool. They reminded me of the posse I had in Wausau when we were at our best. If nothing else it illustrated what's missing here in EC. I've met a lot of great people in the last two years, but it's different.
Best part of the night were the guys I drank with. Awesome, awesome cats. Talked sports, funny, really good dudes. I personally blame them for my memory getting foggy at the end of the night. They started buying shots so then I had to by a couple rounds and I woke up the next morning hoping I didn't embarrass myself by busting out a couple of my ridiculous pickup lines on some of the lovelies I'd met.
Neder assures me I was normal, so cool.
4 - If nothing else, this weekend made me realize that life needs to be more than work. If that's what's keeping you where you are or keeping you from being happiest, something is wrong. I took a job in Mankato, away from family and friends, because of money. Then I turned around and took another in EC for the same reason. I don't want to make that mistake again. Friends are more important.
5 - So today Allen Iverson was waved by the worst organization in the NBA, the Memphis Grizzlies. It's a polarizing end to what is probably the most polarizing career in NBA history.
For 99% of NBA fans, there have always been two options: either you love Allen Iverson, or you despise him. There has never been much middle room for the little lightning bug that was largely responsible for the NBA's 'thug' image. The tattoos, the cornrows, infamous "We talkin' bout practice" press conference, the street-ball style of play...Iverson was anti-everything David Stern wanted the NBA to represent.
But, like other similarl athletes, he wound up being vehemently loved by the fans he did have. Think Randy Moss. Think pre-dogfight Michael Vick. Iverson was so ridiculously talented and cool that it was easy to see how he could win over fans. It didn't matter if he didn't get himself a ring or might have been a detriment, even at his best, to his team. It was hard not to admire the way he played.
Personally, I loved watching AI play. The guy was maybe 5'10", 160. But he attacked the hoop like someone who was eight inches and 50 lbs bigger. Once he was on the court, nobody could ever accuse him of giving anything less than 100%. He took a massive beating night in and night out and he always got back up. I have nothing but respect for AI, despite his reputation. I'm going to miss watching him play.
6 - First post on the Apple laptop I picked up today. So choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Music for the tortured soul
I love me a good list, so I went through my iTunes and picked out the country tunes I'd liked at one point or another. I came up with a list of 184. The vast majority were from the late 80s-early 90s. The stuff my folks played when I was younger and I grew up on. Then there's a gap you get a handful of songs from the late 90s, stragglers that got through my wall of alt-rock. Include a band like the Dixie Chicks in this group. Then another big gap and you get to the poppish 'country' I started to like in the late 2000s. Ryan Adams, The Wreckers, Dustin Kensrue, Taylor Swift.
So from that list of 184 I decided I was gonna narrow it down to my top ten country tunes of all time. I made another list and went through the 184, taking any song I could conceivably see being near my Top 10. Well ho-ly-shit I wound up with 30 and they were all so awesome I decided that my top ten would be expanded by 20 tracks.
I did, however, rank 'em.
If you know anything about these tunes, you'll probably notice a distinct theme...
1 - George Strait - I can still make Cheyanne
2 - Tracy Lawrence - Texas Tornado
3 - Keith Whitley - I'm over you
4 - Garth Brooks - The dance
5 - Little Texas - White might have been
6 - McBride & the Ride - Sacred Ground
7 - Garth Brooks - What she's doing now
8 - Dixie Chicks - You were mine
9 - Diamond Rio - You're gone
10 - Keith Whitley - When you say nothing at all
11 - Alan Jackson - Gone crazy
12 - Taylor Swift - Tim McGraw
13 - Tim McGraw - Don't take the girl
14 - Trisha Yearwood - She's in love with the boy
15 - Vince Gill - Whenever you come around
16 - Tim McGraw - It's your love
17 - The Wreckers - Lay me down
18 - Little Texas - My love
19 - Ryan Adams - Wonderwall
20 - Sawyer Brown - All these years
21 - The Wreckers - Tennessee
22 - John Michael Montgomery - How was I to know
23 - Jow Diffie - Night to remember
24 - Vince Gill - Trying to get over you
25 - Clint Black - Still holding on
26 - Patty Loveless - You don't even know who I am
27 - Ty Herndon - A man holding on to a woman letting go
28 - The Wreckers - The good kind
29 - Shania Twain - The woman in me
30 - Toby Keith - You shouldn't kiss me like this
By my count, eight of the top ten are about a relationship that's done. 20 of the thirty. It's music for the broken-hearted, no joke.
That said, it's so fucking good. I haven't listened to the majority of these tunes in many years and giving this PL a listen now it's easy to see why I loved them all in the first place.
So from that list of 184 I decided I was gonna narrow it down to my top ten country tunes of all time. I made another list and went through the 184, taking any song I could conceivably see being near my Top 10. Well ho-ly-shit I wound up with 30 and they were all so awesome I decided that my top ten would be expanded by 20 tracks.
I did, however, rank 'em.
If you know anything about these tunes, you'll probably notice a distinct theme...
1 - George Strait - I can still make Cheyanne
2 - Tracy Lawrence - Texas Tornado
3 - Keith Whitley - I'm over you
4 - Garth Brooks - The dance
5 - Little Texas - White might have been
6 - McBride & the Ride - Sacred Ground
7 - Garth Brooks - What she's doing now
8 - Dixie Chicks - You were mine
9 - Diamond Rio - You're gone
10 - Keith Whitley - When you say nothing at all
11 - Alan Jackson - Gone crazy
12 - Taylor Swift - Tim McGraw
13 - Tim McGraw - Don't take the girl
14 - Trisha Yearwood - She's in love with the boy
15 - Vince Gill - Whenever you come around
16 - Tim McGraw - It's your love
17 - The Wreckers - Lay me down
18 - Little Texas - My love
19 - Ryan Adams - Wonderwall
20 - Sawyer Brown - All these years
21 - The Wreckers - Tennessee
22 - John Michael Montgomery - How was I to know
23 - Jow Diffie - Night to remember
24 - Vince Gill - Trying to get over you
25 - Clint Black - Still holding on
26 - Patty Loveless - You don't even know who I am
27 - Ty Herndon - A man holding on to a woman letting go
28 - The Wreckers - The good kind
29 - Shania Twain - The woman in me
30 - Toby Keith - You shouldn't kiss me like this
By my count, eight of the top ten are about a relationship that's done. 20 of the thirty. It's music for the broken-hearted, no joke.
That said, it's so fucking good. I haven't listened to the majority of these tunes in many years and giving this PL a listen now it's easy to see why I loved them all in the first place.
Monday, November 2, 2009
All's well that ends...
1) It occurred to me 10 minutes ago, when I was starting to nod off, that I could get 8 full hours of sleep for the first time in a decade. Not wanting to break that kind of streak I got up to deliver what will almost assuredly be a quick few things.
2) The Game...
An author I enjoy reading has a column on the Levels of Losing. If you're not a sports fan, you won't understand, nor care to read it. But it's a solid description on what a fan goes through on any particular loss.
You can find it here.
I had to email Bill tonight, though...
*note: he's a ridiculous Boston Celtics fan, worships Larry Bird and grew up in the Boston Garden*
"Sorry Bill.
Nothing on your list fits or compares to what I witnessed in Lambeau just a few short hours ago.
Imagine Bird giving the Garden a massive "eff you" after killing the Celts season. To quote a crappy movie, "Multiply it by infinity, take it to the depths of forever, and you will still have barely a glimpse of what I'm talking about."
I would ask for a new level but words really don't do this kind of loss justice."
It's true. Today killed my spirit, my soul, my emotion...I feel like I'm living in limbo, just hovering above and outside of everything else that is going on. I can't feel anything and nothing seems real.
This one loss accomplished all that.
3) To rid today's events from my mind I've decided to drink as much gin as possible. I'm well on my way.
2) The Game...
An author I enjoy reading has a column on the Levels of Losing. If you're not a sports fan, you won't understand, nor care to read it. But it's a solid description on what a fan goes through on any particular loss.
You can find it here.
I had to email Bill tonight, though...
*note: he's a ridiculous Boston Celtics fan, worships Larry Bird and grew up in the Boston Garden*
"Sorry Bill.
Nothing on your list fits or compares to what I witnessed in Lambeau just a few short hours ago.
Imagine Bird giving the Garden a massive "eff you" after killing the Celts season. To quote a crappy movie, "Multiply it by infinity, take it to the depths of forever, and you will still have barely a glimpse of what I'm talking about."
I would ask for a new level but words really don't do this kind of loss justice."
It's true. Today killed my spirit, my soul, my emotion...I feel like I'm living in limbo, just hovering above and outside of everything else that is going on. I can't feel anything and nothing seems real.
This one loss accomplished all that.
3) To rid today's events from my mind I've decided to drink as much gin as possible. I'm well on my way.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Someone actually sent me an email with this one line, and he was serious
"Is there a better day of the year than opening night for the Bucks?"
So, I thought about it...sure.
• NFL Draft
• NBA Draft
• Opening Day for MLB
• Every NFL Sunday
• NBA Trade Deadline
• Opening day for Free Agency
• NFL Combine week
• Senior Bowl
• New Years Bowl Games
• NCAA Football's National Championship Game
• Every day of the NCAA Tourney
• Sunday at the Masters, US Open, British Open, PGA
• Kentucky Derby or any of the other two provided there's a shot a Triple Crown
• MLB Draft
• MLB Trade deadline
• Friday
• Christmas
• Thanksgiving
• Any holiday that gets me a day off
• Halloween
• Any Tuesday in which a good new movie arrives for rental
• Any Thursday with a new episode of Supernatural
• Men's Final at the Open and Wimbledon
• Any day I get Ciciones Cajun pasta
• Any day I get to cook for someone
I don't know. Those are just off the top of my head.
Friday, October 23, 2009
If You Really Wanna Hear About It
1) Quick question: you had it to do all over again, what profession would you get into?
a) Politician - I never would have picked this five years ago. But after five years of getting everything I want via my powers of persuasion and charm and speech, I think I could have done some serious good. No joke, I could talk a dog off a meat truck.
b) Sportswriter - My family thinks I was made for it. I probably was. I follow sports like it's my job, I can write and I've got alcohol issues. If I could be the next Dan Jenkins I would die a happy man.
c) General Manager - I used to think that being a GM was something way above my level of sports expertise. Not any more. I'm totally convinced I could do John Hammond's job. Or Zeke's. Or whoever the hell is doing the job in Memphis.
d) Web developer - My current job.
Honestly, I like my current career. I don't arrive home stressed. I'm good at my job. I've got responsibilities and a say in what we develop. I'm about to be on the street but that's not an indictment on my abilities. I could have another job in two weeks if I wanted one.
***
***
4 - Six months ago Ben swiped and broke my $170 Bose headphones. I MacGyver'd this shit outta 'em and now they're working. But for the time in between I was listening to earbuds and generic headphones and I got used to the sound quality. I forgot how amazing a great set of headphones could sound.
I implore you: buy a top-notch set of headphones. Not Skull Candy shit or Sony or Phillips...go top shelf.
Normally I'm not a Bose guy. I love the highs but they lack the depth and base in their home audio. But their headphones are sick.
Reviews are up and down, but if i was ever gonna recommend a set it'd be these:
http://www.amazon.com/around-ear-headphones-personal-portable-listening/dp/B000MMWT9Q/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1256281424&sr=8-4
No lie, $140 is a steal.
***
6 - Gonna share the recipe for a perfect steak.
Marinade:
1 1/2 tbs butter per 12 oz steak
1 tbs garlic powder
1 tbs onion power
2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
1/4 c. steak sauce
Bring that shit to a mild boil in a small pot and immediately remove it from heat. Stir.
Place the steak on a broiler pan and baste the top and sides in the marinade. I recommend a NY strip, but any reasonably thick cut of meat should be great.
Give it a liberal coat of pepper. Apply a thin layer of regular salt and Lowery's seasoning salt.
Start the oven broiler on high heat and put the steak in the oven 4-6 inches from the broiler. Leave in the oven for five minutes.
Take it out and flip the steak. Repeat the baste, salt, pepper steps.
Place back in the oven for three minutes.
Take it out and let it sit for four minutes. The steak will continue cooking and end medium.
Top with a dollop of garlic butter and enjoy.
7 - Is it a fundamental thing with women that they believe that they can change or mold men into being the person that they want to marry? I only ask because lately women have bugged the shit outta me. Guys don't change.
8 - Ti'll tomorrow.
a) Politician - I never would have picked this five years ago. But after five years of getting everything I want via my powers of persuasion and charm and speech, I think I could have done some serious good. No joke, I could talk a dog off a meat truck.
b) Sportswriter - My family thinks I was made for it. I probably was. I follow sports like it's my job, I can write and I've got alcohol issues. If I could be the next Dan Jenkins I would die a happy man.
c) General Manager - I used to think that being a GM was something way above my level of sports expertise. Not any more. I'm totally convinced I could do John Hammond's job. Or Zeke's. Or whoever the hell is doing the job in Memphis.
d) Web developer - My current job.
Honestly, I like my current career. I don't arrive home stressed. I'm good at my job. I've got responsibilities and a say in what we develop. I'm about to be on the street but that's not an indictment on my abilities. I could have another job in two weeks if I wanted one.
***
***
4 - Six months ago Ben swiped and broke my $170 Bose headphones. I MacGyver'd this shit outta 'em and now they're working. But for the time in between I was listening to earbuds and generic headphones and I got used to the sound quality. I forgot how amazing a great set of headphones could sound.
I implore you: buy a top-notch set of headphones. Not Skull Candy shit or Sony or Phillips...go top shelf.
Normally I'm not a Bose guy. I love the highs but they lack the depth and base in their home audio. But their headphones are sick.
Reviews are up and down, but if i was ever gonna recommend a set it'd be these:
http://www.amazon.com/around-ear-headphones-personal-portable-listening/dp/B000MMWT9Q/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1256281424&sr=8-4
No lie, $140 is a steal.
***
6 - Gonna share the recipe for a perfect steak.
Marinade:
1 1/2 tbs butter per 12 oz steak
1 tbs garlic powder
1 tbs onion power
2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
1/4 c. steak sauce
Bring that shit to a mild boil in a small pot and immediately remove it from heat. Stir.
Place the steak on a broiler pan and baste the top and sides in the marinade. I recommend a NY strip, but any reasonably thick cut of meat should be great.
Give it a liberal coat of pepper. Apply a thin layer of regular salt and Lowery's seasoning salt.
Start the oven broiler on high heat and put the steak in the oven 4-6 inches from the broiler. Leave in the oven for five minutes.
Take it out and flip the steak. Repeat the baste, salt, pepper steps.
Place back in the oven for three minutes.
Take it out and let it sit for four minutes. The steak will continue cooking and end medium.
Top with a dollop of garlic butter and enjoy.
7 - Is it a fundamental thing with women that they believe that they can change or mold men into being the person that they want to marry? I only ask because lately women have bugged the shit outta me. Guys don't change.
8 - Ti'll tomorrow.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
We interupt your regularly scheduled blog
So I was balls deep into a blog about the last five days and it was going well. I'll have it done tomorrow.
But I ran into a thread on PCs vs Macs and to my dying day I'll defend the motherfuck out of my favorite little machines.
Here was what the instigator said:
My reply:
His reply:
and another person jumped on...
And this is what killed my blog writing for tonight. This reply:
I'm a geek. And it's 1:42 am. Time to pop in an episode of something awesome and get in bed.
But I ran into a thread on PCs vs Macs and to my dying day I'll defend the motherfuck out of my favorite little machines.
Here was what the instigator said:
its a trend to get a mac... i see so many people with them and all they use them for is word processing and surfing the internet. if you have the money, why not? but you can easily do that stuff with a PC for 1/2 the price.
My reply:
I've seen that excuse for ten years. That buying a mac is a trendy thing to do. At what point does it stop being a trend? As for the reason people wouldn't go with a PC, I think most would prefer not having to worry about malware, spyware and viruses killing their machine.
His reply:
being a fashion statement is not an excuse, its just something ive simply observed. why spend an extra $1000 for a prettier screen if you're going to be doing the same things. as for the malware, spyware and viruses, i've had a few problems on my pc with them, but it's never anything i couldn't fix. i take care of my computers... as for the general population, maybe they don't.
every single future project moving forward will be intel base required. this includes the later versions of Xcode (which i primarily use for apps)... i know there are work arounds, but if you've ever done any app programming, you'd know certificate issues and approval from the apple store can be a real pain... having a tinkered with copy of xcode just complicates things tremendously more.
anyways my main point wasn't to compare the older macs with the newer one, it was to simply state that macs are VERY expensive and to the average person, you can handle all your needs on a pc for half the price.
and another person jumped on...
Just look the price of any macbook... It's a fashion statement.
And this is what killed my blog writing for tonight. This reply:
I've made similar posts here in the past, but I own two Macs and three PCs. Two still work as well as the day I bought them and the other three won't boot. I can let you guess which work and which don't.
So I ask you, what was the better investment?
Was it the Alienware laptop, the Dell laptop, the do-it-yourself PC that gave me a good six months before going to ****?
Or was it the two Macs that do everything I need and still do it as well as the day they were bought?
I'm not an idiot when it comes to computers. I worked three years as a PC repairman and computer technician while in college. In that time I must have taken a look at 120 PCs. I never looked at a single Mac. I also work as a web developer and have to do testing on a PC every day.
The bottom line is if you buy a Mac and don't drop it you should have it for a decade or more. That's without having to buy Norton or McAfee or download constant security patches or worry that the attachment you receive or the website you visit is going to destroy your computer.
You're paying extra for the knowledge that your OS is light years better than what's available on a PC, it's more secure, more stable, less prone to depreciation and simply works more logically. But if Windows blows your skirt up, you can even dual boot.
To be honest I don't know why the general public would waste their money on a PC. Gaming I guess? I don't know about that.
I'm a geek. And it's 1:42 am. Time to pop in an episode of something awesome and get in bed.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
I'll think of a better title tomorrow
it's 5:20 in the morning. I just had one of the longest days of my life and I just got home.
M O T H E R F U C K E R.
Goodnight.
M O T H E R F U C K E R.
Goodnight.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
There's a light inside my head, flickering, but almost dead
1 - First of all, that fucking moon deserved it.
Frankly, it was a ticking time bomb and you don't screw around with diplomacy or threat level dossiers with the Moon hanging over our heads. It's been trying to gain our flank for a millennia but you never know when disaster could strike. It could happen at any time. Obama saw a threat and fired the first shot; lets see if the Moon bothers us ever again.
Also, you right wingers that thought the President was weak? screw countries, he took on an entire heavenly body.
2 - If you're of the faint of heart, skip to number three. But on Sunday I made the most delicious sandwich...a grilled PB&J with BACON. The smokey, the sweet....yum.
2b - Then I went to the gym :/
3 - It's weird how one person can make the same phrase repeat in your head every time you see or think about 'em. Every time I see the current OOMA or she finds her way into my thought process, all I can think is, "She's so fucking cute". Just those four words. Sometimes I even have to shake my head. She's just sooo....fucking....cute.
4 - The mom continues to impress.
There I am in 4th place, and there she is in 2nd. She's also dominating in the percentage correctly picked. 76.32 is tops in our league of 92 people.
I shudder to think what she'd do in Vegas.
5 - Party this weekend. It's EC's homecoming and Wausau homies are coming over for some shenanigans. I'm offering up a quick sorry to those that are certain to receive drunk texts.
6 - I've been on a serious West Wing kick lately and while I love the show, it's also a little depressing. All of these politicians are idealized versions of what we all want to see in our representatives. They're thoughtful, intelligent and driven to make our country a better place. I can't say that about the people we elect in the real world. Obama was nice change from the brainless hack we had in there for the last eight years, but I'm gonna need to see some results soon. Health care would be a great start.
But seriously, wouldn't you like to see someone that can give you chills? Someone that can inspire?
Wouldn't you like to see someone like Texas congressman Matt Santos? Check out this speech (supposed to be one of concession at the National Democratic Convention but winds up being something totally different).
Fuck.
Tell me that doesn't give you some serious goose bumps.
7 - Now, maybe you aren't a big sports fan. Maybe you don't know anything about basketball.
But trust me when I say this is the most fucked up shot chart I've ever seen.
It was from last night's Bucks game. They're gonna be so god damn bad this season.
The masochist in me can't wait to see it.
8 - So Rush Limbaugh wants to buy an NFL team and the Players Union is outraged. Even the owner of the Colts came out against it.
I agree(d).
Now......I'm not entirely sure.
I was listening to the radio and heard a take on it that made me reconsider. It was pointed out that almost 500 NFL players have been cited for serious offenses since 2000. Drug use, gun charges, drunk driving, battery, spousal abuse...you name it. Yet all these guys get second chances and now they're the same people that are taking the moral high ground against Limbaugh.
I don't mind it if someone wants to voice their opinion and I'm certainly no fan of Limbaugh, but I can't stomach hypocrisy. So the Players Union won't support Rush's bid, but they'll welcome felons into their league? The owners don't want him in their brethren but they'll sign a defensive end that killed a woman or a cornerback that paralyzed another man via gunshot?
It's bullshit.
9 - I hate it when someone asks me to critique a design and I can't offer up any suggestions. Ben asked me for my thoughts on a logo he put together and all I could say was, "I like it. Great job".
But the fact is he's the best graphic designer I've ever worked with and he does phenomenal stuff.
10 - This blog is running a little long, I know. But in my family, someone who uses one word to say something when they could have used ten just isn't trying hard enough.
Frankly, it was a ticking time bomb and you don't screw around with diplomacy or threat level dossiers with the Moon hanging over our heads. It's been trying to gain our flank for a millennia but you never know when disaster could strike. It could happen at any time. Obama saw a threat and fired the first shot; lets see if the Moon bothers us ever again.
Also, you right wingers that thought the President was weak? screw countries, he took on an entire heavenly body.
2 - If you're of the faint of heart, skip to number three. But on Sunday I made the most delicious sandwich...a grilled PB&J with BACON. The smokey, the sweet....yum.
2b - Then I went to the gym :/
3 - It's weird how one person can make the same phrase repeat in your head every time you see or think about 'em. Every time I see the current OOMA or she finds her way into my thought process, all I can think is, "She's so fucking cute". Just those four words. Sometimes I even have to shake my head. She's just sooo....fucking....cute.
4 - The mom continues to impress.
There I am in 4th place, and there she is in 2nd. She's also dominating in the percentage correctly picked. 76.32 is tops in our league of 92 people.
I shudder to think what she'd do in Vegas.
5 - Party this weekend. It's EC's homecoming and Wausau homies are coming over for some shenanigans. I'm offering up a quick sorry to those that are certain to receive drunk texts.
6 - I've been on a serious West Wing kick lately and while I love the show, it's also a little depressing. All of these politicians are idealized versions of what we all want to see in our representatives. They're thoughtful, intelligent and driven to make our country a better place. I can't say that about the people we elect in the real world. Obama was nice change from the brainless hack we had in there for the last eight years, but I'm gonna need to see some results soon. Health care would be a great start.
But seriously, wouldn't you like to see someone that can give you chills? Someone that can inspire?
Wouldn't you like to see someone like Texas congressman Matt Santos? Check out this speech (supposed to be one of concession at the National Democratic Convention but winds up being something totally different).
Fuck.
Tell me that doesn't give you some serious goose bumps.
7 - Now, maybe you aren't a big sports fan. Maybe you don't know anything about basketball.
But trust me when I say this is the most fucked up shot chart I've ever seen.
It was from last night's Bucks game. They're gonna be so god damn bad this season.
The masochist in me can't wait to see it.
8 - So Rush Limbaugh wants to buy an NFL team and the Players Union is outraged. Even the owner of the Colts came out against it.
"I, myself, couldn't even consider voting for him," Irsay said at today's NFL owners meetings. "When there are comments that have been made that are inappropriate, incendiary and insensitive... our words do damage, and it's something we don't need."
I agree(d).
Now......I'm not entirely sure.
I was listening to the radio and heard a take on it that made me reconsider. It was pointed out that almost 500 NFL players have been cited for serious offenses since 2000. Drug use, gun charges, drunk driving, battery, spousal abuse...you name it. Yet all these guys get second chances and now they're the same people that are taking the moral high ground against Limbaugh.
I don't mind it if someone wants to voice their opinion and I'm certainly no fan of Limbaugh, but I can't stomach hypocrisy. So the Players Union won't support Rush's bid, but they'll welcome felons into their league? The owners don't want him in their brethren but they'll sign a defensive end that killed a woman or a cornerback that paralyzed another man via gunshot?
It's bullshit.
9 - I hate it when someone asks me to critique a design and I can't offer up any suggestions. Ben asked me for my thoughts on a logo he put together and all I could say was, "I like it. Great job".
But the fact is he's the best graphic designer I've ever worked with and he does phenomenal stuff.
10 - This blog is running a little long, I know. But in my family, someone who uses one word to say something when they could have used ten just isn't trying hard enough.
My religious thoughts for the night
1 - This happened over a year ago and I remember reading about it back then, but the verdict came down last week.
From the AP.
This interested me for a few reasons.
- a mother and father, among others, prayed around young Kara while she lay on the ground dying. She did. It was only then that someone had the bright idea to call 911
- it happened in a town I recently lived in.
- I have a heart and it bleeds when I read stories like these.
I want to rant. I won't. I'll just tell an anecdote I heard once...
A man lived by the river. He heard a radio report that the river was gonna rush up and flood the town. That all the residents should evacuate their homes.
But the man said, "I'm religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me."
The waters rose up, a man in a boat came by and shouted, "Hey, hey you! You in there! The town is flooding. Let me take you to safety".
But the man shouted back, "I'm religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me".
A helicopter was hovering over head and a guy with a megaphone shouted, "Hey you, you down there. The town is flooding. Let me drop this ladder and take you to safety".
But the man shouted back that he was religious, that he prayed, that god loved him and god would take him to safety.
Well, the man drowned.
So he's standing at the gates of St. Peter and he demands an audience with god.
"Lord," he says, "I'm a religious man. I pray. I thought you loved me. Why did this happen?"
God said, "I sent you a radio report, a helicopter and a guy in a boat. What the hell are you doing here?"
From the AP.
This interested me for a few reasons.
- a mother and father, among others, prayed around young Kara while she lay on the ground dying. She did. It was only then that someone had the bright idea to call 911
- it happened in a town I recently lived in.
- I have a heart and it bleeds when I read stories like these.
I want to rant. I won't. I'll just tell an anecdote I heard once...
A man lived by the river. He heard a radio report that the river was gonna rush up and flood the town. That all the residents should evacuate their homes.
But the man said, "I'm religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me."
The waters rose up, a man in a boat came by and shouted, "Hey, hey you! You in there! The town is flooding. Let me take you to safety".
But the man shouted back, "I'm religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me".
A helicopter was hovering over head and a guy with a megaphone shouted, "Hey you, you down there. The town is flooding. Let me drop this ladder and take you to safety".
But the man shouted back that he was religious, that he prayed, that god loved him and god would take him to safety.
Well, the man drowned.
So he's standing at the gates of St. Peter and he demands an audience with god.
"Lord," he says, "I'm a religious man. I pray. I thought you loved me. Why did this happen?"
God said, "I sent you a radio report, a helicopter and a guy in a boat. What the hell are you doing here?"
Thursday, October 8, 2009
God dammit, one more
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_on_sc/us_sci_before_lucy
Do you ever get those moments when your brain is trying to wrap your head around everything you're reading or hearing and you have to step back and say, "Wait, hold up".
That was me a few paragraphs into the above link.
They throw out this stat that human evolution started a million years before currently accepted science, and it's treated more like a byline than anything.
Seriously, hold up a sec. We're talking about a jump of almost 25% of human existence in a single yahoo article.
I'm turning the computer off for the night. This is too much to get my head around at 3:03 in the morning.
Do you ever get those moments when your brain is trying to wrap your head around everything you're reading or hearing and you have to step back and say, "Wait, hold up".
That was me a few paragraphs into the above link.
They throw out this stat that human evolution started a million years before currently accepted science, and it's treated more like a byline than anything.
Seriously, hold up a sec. We're talking about a jump of almost 25% of human existence in a single yahoo article.
I'm turning the computer off for the night. This is too much to get my head around at 3:03 in the morning.
Oh, one more thing
The best stretch of music on any album I've heard in recent memory belongs to tracks four, five, six and seven on Breaking Benjamin's Dear Agony.
#4 - Give Me a Sign
#5 - Hopeless
#6 - What Lies Beneath
#7 - Anthem of the Angels
Ridiculously good. I've been conditioned to expect crummy music the more an artist or band churns out music, but I'm thrilled to say that the recent stuff from old favorites has been awesome.
#4 - Give Me a Sign
#5 - Hopeless
#6 - What Lies Beneath
#7 - Anthem of the Angels
Ridiculously good. I've been conditioned to expect crummy music the more an artist or band churns out music, but I'm thrilled to say that the recent stuff from old favorites has been awesome.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Her eyes, shades on the darkside, neutralize every man in sight
Quick hitters today:
1 - For the first time in a while I've got new music to digest.
AFI - Crash Love
Paramore - Brand New Eyes
Breaking Benjamin - Dear Agony
Three Days Grace - Life Starts Now
Early returns make me think they're all winners. I'll say more once I get through my 4th and 5th listens.
2 - I shouldn't have even come to work today. I've been totally useless to SP. My accomplishments have been:
• Got the guest list in order for tonight
• Debated the Milwaukee Bucks at RealGM.com for a good two hours
• Picked up the latest AFI and TDG.
• Figured out what food I'd be providing later
• wrote most of this blog
3 - OGT's.
At what point do you sort of start to feel guilty about who you're dating? In high school it'd happen if you were a senior dating the super hot freshman or sophomore. In college it was calling your layup at bar-time and getting her out of your place before your boys woke up the next morning. Is there an equivalent now when you become a young professional?
3b - If this goes bad what'll hurt most is probably the notion that I'll have to get my coffee somewhere else in the morning.
3c - I should have thought this through long ago.
4 - Crash Love is the surprise of the year. Like I keep looking at the iPod to make sure I'm actually listening to AFI. It's remarkable.
5 - My mom is funny. Year in and year out she straight dominates an NFL pick 'em pool myself, her and about 120 other family and friends are in. She might win $600 over the course of a year.
So when I got a phone call at 9:30 last night I knew it was gonna be her. I had just nailed 14/15 games on the day, only losing my lowest pick. I was in 4th place on the week and depending on tonight's game I could either be 2nd or 4th on the week.
If the Vikes win I'm in the money.
If the Pack wins I'm happy as shit for the week and likely longer.
6 - Another question was posed this weekend. What do you think is better: a great TV show or a great movie.
I didn't even think it was a question. Great TV easily.
Look, I love Casablanca. But if it's Bogie for 90 minutes or President Josiah Bartlett for 100 hours, I'm going with The West Wing.
I loved Se7en, but give me four seasons of Battlestar Galactica.
Here is what someone else had to say on the subject:
Good call. I love my TV dramas. Not CSI or ER or Law & Order. I'm talking long arches, the ones that take years to wrap up. The ones with twists out of left field, characters being killed off, stories that make you think and trigger emotion. The best movies can do that, but not all. The best dramas can invoke those thoughts dozens of times over the course their runs.
7 - Speaking of good drama, last night before I fell asleep I watched what is one of the greatest episodes of TV in the last ten years.
It's the second to last episode of season 4 of The West Wing. It's called Commencement.
Let me set the scene:
- The President's daughter just graduated from Georgetown and she's set to tour Europe with her lame French boyfriend for the summer
- They're celebrating at a DC night club before they fly away
- The President, the NSA and the Joint Chiefs had a middle-eastern diplomat killed a year earlier because he had ties to a terrorist cell
- A reporter has figured it out and is now questioning the Press Secretary. Not wanting to call it, "That time we killed the brown dude", they refer to it as the "Mudross Research Project".
- Everything else isn't exactly important for the sake of the following video (though it is fucking awesome when Mary Louise Parker asks, "Donna, are you in love with Josh"...all the more reason to watch the show!)
How it was done is something I don't know if I'll ever see on TV again. Everything about it was perfect. The soundtrack, the camera work, the dialogue, the shifting between characters...it was all awesome. When you see the reaction and then the closing credits, no joke, you'll get chills.
I cut it up and dropped it on youtube:
8 - 12:18 am...
This one hurts. It isn't the loss. It isn't because I thought this one could have necessarily been ours. It's not even because we stopped AD cold. It's because Favre won it and he didn't even have to work for it.
I would have to watch the game again, but it appeared as if the Packers were able to stop Peterson with their front seven, sometimes six. Give the line and the linebackers credit, they stayed true to their gaps and didn't make many mistakes tackling.
But my god...the defensive playcalling on obvious passing downs. How, in the name of everything holy, can you only rush three against a guy that's been in the league for nearly two decades. Give this guy time to throw and of course he's going to pick you apart.
Yes, the DBs had some mental errors. But any defense is gonna give up big passing plays when the QB has time to bake a cake in the pocket. Favre never once in looked uncomfortable. It was rare that he was forced to give up the ball early. For fuck's sake, if he's picking you apart when you're dropping eight, could it really hurt to rush five or six? Whatever happened to the exotic schemes we saw against Cutler? What we saw tonight was the Bob Sanders defense all over again, and it just leaves me feeling disgusted.
Second, not all the sacks were on the offensive line. That unit on the left side obviously didn't play well, but Rodgers has got to learn to GET RID OF THE FUCKING BALL. The safety is entirely on him. So were at least three of the other sacks. Against line like that, he's got to have that clock in his head ticking. 1, 2, 3, get rid of the ball or fucking run with it. Again, without watching it a second time I don't know how much the play calling had to do with this. But if Rodgers doesn't have an easy checkdown on every throw, namely to the TE, something is seriously wrong.
The Packers offense is obviously at its best when Rodgers can take a couple steps and deliver a quick strike. Make him roll out, maybe. But if he's gotta take a 5 or 7 step drop he's gonna get killed. The line can't block that long and Rodgers holds the ball too often.
This game could have been different. Lee drops a TD that turns out to be a death sentence. Rodgers throws a terrible INT deep in their territory. The fumble.
This is a game that I think looks worse than it really was and it was for the eye popping plays. The sacks, the big strikes by Favre. Lost in the shuffle was the fact that the Packers ran the ball when they attempted it. Rodgers had a good completion percentage and yards per attempt. They stopped AD cold.
Despite the defensive scheme and the sacks, this game was still relatively close.
9 - Good turnout here, though.
I'm surprised we didn't get complaints from the neighbors but it was a good time.
Getting the food and making it was a pain in the ass. Only now is it dawning on me that I paid $91 for food and drinks tonight. There are a lot of leftovers but unless I want to live at the gym this week I'm not sure how much I want to indulge on cream cheese, Mayo, beef, sour cream and Velveeta.
9b - I liked the compliments on got on my place. Everyone that came through mentioned how great it looked. Glad to know the hard work didn't go unnoticed.
9c - Neither did the food. "Fucking amazing" was the term I most often heard.
*
1 - For the first time in a while I've got new music to digest.
AFI - Crash Love
Paramore - Brand New Eyes
Breaking Benjamin - Dear Agony
Three Days Grace - Life Starts Now
Early returns make me think they're all winners. I'll say more once I get through my 4th and 5th listens.
2 - I shouldn't have even come to work today. I've been totally useless to SP. My accomplishments have been:
• Got the guest list in order for tonight
• Debated the Milwaukee Bucks at RealGM.com for a good two hours
• Picked up the latest AFI and TDG.
• Figured out what food I'd be providing later
• wrote most of this blog
3 - OGT's.
At what point do you sort of start to feel guilty about who you're dating? In high school it'd happen if you were a senior dating the super hot freshman or sophomore. In college it was calling your layup at bar-time and getting her out of your place before your boys woke up the next morning. Is there an equivalent now when you become a young professional?
3b - If this goes bad what'll hurt most is probably the notion that I'll have to get my coffee somewhere else in the morning.
3c - I should have thought this through long ago.
4 - Crash Love is the surprise of the year. Like I keep looking at the iPod to make sure I'm actually listening to AFI. It's remarkable.
5 - My mom is funny. Year in and year out she straight dominates an NFL pick 'em pool myself, her and about 120 other family and friends are in. She might win $600 over the course of a year.
So when I got a phone call at 9:30 last night I knew it was gonna be her. I had just nailed 14/15 games on the day, only losing my lowest pick. I was in 4th place on the week and depending on tonight's game I could either be 2nd or 4th on the week.
If the Vikes win I'm in the money.
If the Pack wins I'm happy as shit for the week and likely longer.
6 - Another question was posed this weekend. What do you think is better: a great TV show or a great movie.
I didn't even think it was a question. Great TV easily.
Look, I love Casablanca. But if it's Bogie for 90 minutes or President Josiah Bartlett for 100 hours, I'm going with The West Wing.
I loved Se7en, but give me four seasons of Battlestar Galactica.
Here is what someone else had to say on the subject:
Anyway, both have their own strengths. I would personally prefer comedy, and since I think it is generally more effectively designed for a TV format, I would say I prefer TV--I definitely spend a lot more time watching shows than movies simply because there is a lot more entertainment out there. And in the last decade general movie quality has been relatively weak, while TV quality has been outstanding. TV is kicking the crap out of film right now.
I think the general rule with lots of things--but with TV in particular--is that over time, things go to greater extremes. There isn't as much on now that's just kind of "meh". Like things like Friends, or That 70's Show where you're like "this isn't terrible, but ultimately...meh". Most things now are either total dogs**t, or really damn good. And if you avoid the dogs**t, you'll see what's so great about a lot of TV now. It's diverse (not stupid diverse--I mean real diversity--formats, styles, approaches), it's smart, and it's more boundless than ever. We are in a golden age of television. So as an over all question, it's debatable. Right now, I think it's definitely TV.
Good call. I love my TV dramas. Not CSI or ER or Law & Order. I'm talking long arches, the ones that take years to wrap up. The ones with twists out of left field, characters being killed off, stories that make you think and trigger emotion. The best movies can do that, but not all. The best dramas can invoke those thoughts dozens of times over the course their runs.
7 - Speaking of good drama, last night before I fell asleep I watched what is one of the greatest episodes of TV in the last ten years.
It's the second to last episode of season 4 of The West Wing. It's called Commencement.
Let me set the scene:
- The President's daughter just graduated from Georgetown and she's set to tour Europe with her lame French boyfriend for the summer
- They're celebrating at a DC night club before they fly away
- The President, the NSA and the Joint Chiefs had a middle-eastern diplomat killed a year earlier because he had ties to a terrorist cell
- A reporter has figured it out and is now questioning the Press Secretary. Not wanting to call it, "That time we killed the brown dude", they refer to it as the "Mudross Research Project".
- Everything else isn't exactly important for the sake of the following video (though it is fucking awesome when Mary Louise Parker asks, "Donna, are you in love with Josh"...all the more reason to watch the show!)
How it was done is something I don't know if I'll ever see on TV again. Everything about it was perfect. The soundtrack, the camera work, the dialogue, the shifting between characters...it was all awesome. When you see the reaction and then the closing credits, no joke, you'll get chills.
I cut it up and dropped it on youtube:
8 - 12:18 am...
This one hurts. It isn't the loss. It isn't because I thought this one could have necessarily been ours. It's not even because we stopped AD cold. It's because Favre won it and he didn't even have to work for it.
I would have to watch the game again, but it appeared as if the Packers were able to stop Peterson with their front seven, sometimes six. Give the line and the linebackers credit, they stayed true to their gaps and didn't make many mistakes tackling.
But my god...the defensive playcalling on obvious passing downs. How, in the name of everything holy, can you only rush three against a guy that's been in the league for nearly two decades. Give this guy time to throw and of course he's going to pick you apart.
Yes, the DBs had some mental errors. But any defense is gonna give up big passing plays when the QB has time to bake a cake in the pocket. Favre never once in looked uncomfortable. It was rare that he was forced to give up the ball early. For fuck's sake, if he's picking you apart when you're dropping eight, could it really hurt to rush five or six? Whatever happened to the exotic schemes we saw against Cutler? What we saw tonight was the Bob Sanders defense all over again, and it just leaves me feeling disgusted.
Second, not all the sacks were on the offensive line. That unit on the left side obviously didn't play well, but Rodgers has got to learn to GET RID OF THE FUCKING BALL. The safety is entirely on him. So were at least three of the other sacks. Against line like that, he's got to have that clock in his head ticking. 1, 2, 3, get rid of the ball or fucking run with it. Again, without watching it a second time I don't know how much the play calling had to do with this. But if Rodgers doesn't have an easy checkdown on every throw, namely to the TE, something is seriously wrong.
The Packers offense is obviously at its best when Rodgers can take a couple steps and deliver a quick strike. Make him roll out, maybe. But if he's gotta take a 5 or 7 step drop he's gonna get killed. The line can't block that long and Rodgers holds the ball too often.
This game could have been different. Lee drops a TD that turns out to be a death sentence. Rodgers throws a terrible INT deep in their territory. The fumble.
This is a game that I think looks worse than it really was and it was for the eye popping plays. The sacks, the big strikes by Favre. Lost in the shuffle was the fact that the Packers ran the ball when they attempted it. Rodgers had a good completion percentage and yards per attempt. They stopped AD cold.
Despite the defensive scheme and the sacks, this game was still relatively close.
9 - Good turnout here, though.
I'm surprised we didn't get complaints from the neighbors but it was a good time.
Getting the food and making it was a pain in the ass. Only now is it dawning on me that I paid $91 for food and drinks tonight. There are a lot of leftovers but unless I want to live at the gym this week I'm not sure how much I want to indulge on cream cheese, Mayo, beef, sour cream and Velveeta.
9b - I liked the compliments on got on my place. Everyone that came through mentioned how great it looked. Glad to know the hard work didn't go unnoticed.
9c - Neither did the food. "Fucking amazing" was the term I most often heard.
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