Damn this work schedule, keeping me from commenting on inanities as I love to do so much.
A quick observation:
Of the many things being said about A-Rod opting out of his contract, one of the dumbest came from the crew of Baseball Tonight, suggesting that A-Rod's "playoff failures" should scare away potential suitors.
A-Rod's postseason OPS: .844
Jeter's postseason OPS: .846.
That .002 is the difference between the heart of a champion and hideous failure, I tell you.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Finally
Atlanta's long drought is over. No, I'm not talking about the fact that we are about to run out of water. We finally have our own WNBA franchise. (Aside to Crystal: Who said there weren't good places in Atlanta to meet women).
http://sports.espn.go.com/wnba/news/story?id=3067643
There are a few questions that I asked myself when I found this out:
1. Do they expect a city that has the lowest attendance for NBA games to support a WNBA franchise?
2. Will they outdraw the Hawks?
3. What will the mascot be? As of this posting they don't have one yet. Might I suggest the Ladyhawkes
http://sports.espn.go.com/wnba/news/story?id=3067643
There are a few questions that I asked myself when I found this out:
1. Do they expect a city that has the lowest attendance for NBA games to support a WNBA franchise?
2. Will they outdraw the Hawks?
3. What will the mascot be? As of this posting they don't have one yet. Might I suggest the Ladyhawkes
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Book Review: That Hideous Strength
Due to the fact that we agreed that this blog would only be about pop culture and not delve into religion or politics I will only say that everyone needs to read this book. This is the third book in C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy and all of them are among my favorites.
Friday, October 12, 2007
The Mitchell Report, Cover. TomKat, Inset.
The Mitchell Report is coming out. I am glowing with schadenfreude already. I can't wait to see which Major Leaguers are busted as steroid abusing freaks.
I can't help but draw a parallel between the steroid scandal and the tabloids, though. I mean, when Game of Shadows came out, ESPN ran a sidebar where you could compare skinny Pittsburgh Barry to the current Incredible Hulk model. It was almost exactly like those US Weekly shots of Farrah Fawcett one year ago, next to one of Farrah today, speculating whether or not she had plastic surgery.
Steroid watching is very much akin to tabloid reading. Which I suppose makes Troy Glaus akin to that naked girl from High School Musical, and Barry Bonds akin to Lindsay Lohan.
I can't help but draw a parallel between the steroid scandal and the tabloids, though. I mean, when Game of Shadows came out, ESPN ran a sidebar where you could compare skinny Pittsburgh Barry to the current Incredible Hulk model. It was almost exactly like those US Weekly shots of Farrah Fawcett one year ago, next to one of Farrah today, speculating whether or not she had plastic surgery.
Steroid watching is very much akin to tabloid reading. Which I suppose makes Troy Glaus akin to that naked girl from High School Musical, and Barry Bonds akin to Lindsay Lohan.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
And having mentioned music videos...
I met this guy at a wedding reception this past weekend, and we chatted about rock-n-roll. He encouraged me to check out his brother's band, the XYZ Affair.
The song is pretty damn good, and the video is good for a laugh- particularly if you are as big a fan of old-school Nickelodeon as I am.
The song is pretty damn good, and the video is good for a laugh- particularly if you are as big a fan of old-school Nickelodeon as I am.
Morning TV (or, "Rumors of my demise have been (somewhat) exaggerated")
I too must apologize for my long respite from the blog. My side of the ledger was starting to look more neglected than my front yard.
There are plenty of things that I have been meaning to write about lately. Instant replay in baseball. The baseball playoffs. My ode to liner notes. Rod Stewart.
But for now, this will be something of a quick hitter, as I just finished preparing for one trial and am now beginning to prepare for one next week. (And by quick hitter, I do not mean to imply that this is short- rather, unplanned.)
I have had the hardest time finding good background noise for my shower and shave. A couple of years ago, I tried playing the radio, starting with Dave FM. Every morning, The Police, The Eagles, Bob Marley, U2. Usually in that order. Sometimes, to trip me up, they would play Sting solo instead of The Police. I couldn't take it anymore. So finally, I got so furious that I called to complain about their lack of variety. In my phone call, I also noted to them the irony of their limited playlist, in light of their variety-trumpeting ad campaign. The intern who fielded my phone call feigned ignorance.
99X had a mess of a morning show, that had the unfortunate double-whammy of being crass and boring. There was no way I was going to listen to the regular guys. And try as I might to seem enlightened, NPR was encouraging me to go back to sleep more than it was serving as a springboard into a productive day.
Then, I had cable installed. But, as discussed in a previous post, I have grown disgusted with SportsCenter. And Mike and Mike were slowly driving me into a homicidal rage every day. (They have the unfortunate double whammy of being unfunny and stupid.)
Now, I have settled on VH1/MTV. Not bad.
For one, they actually show videos that time of day. And not too many commercials, either.
For another, the videos are almost universally entertaining. It must be a great time to be twelve years old. The videos those kids have are way better than the faux-performance videos they showed back when I actually watched MTV.
I would have loved Nickelback's "Rock Star" back in the day- it is visually compelling and superficially clever. Even now, I enjoy the spot-the-cameo game it inspires.
12 year old Babar would have also loved the Maroon 5 video for "Wake Up Call." It has hot women, a nearly-amusing "story line", and gun violence- all you need in a good video, if you ask me. And as an aside, the song is good. I defy you not to have it stuck in your head after you hear it. When I confessed this to my girlfriend, she noted that I reluctantly said the same thing about the first single from this Maroon 5 album. She asked me if I was going to buy the album. I told her that I may not have a choice.
And 12 year old Babar would have been freaking enamored of the "AYO Technology" video with 50 cent, Justin Timberlake, and scores of scantily clad ladies. In fact, I probably would have recorded it for frequent viewing. And again, what's more, it is a good song.
Throw in an aggressive new offering from the Foo Fighters, that irrepressibly catchy song from Feist (the first ever VH1 You Oughta Know artist that I didn't want to bludgeon to death with a mic stand), and a countrified Bon Jovi, and you have some good morning TV.
The only pimple on the ass of VH1: Avrile Lavigne. Her new song sucks hard. And the video is crappy-weepy. If her voice had even a hint of twang, this video would be a staple on CMT (not that there's anything wrong with that).
Anyhow, music videos are where it's at in the morning. I encourage you all to reawaken your inner pre-teen as you reawaken yourself every morning.
There are plenty of things that I have been meaning to write about lately. Instant replay in baseball. The baseball playoffs. My ode to liner notes. Rod Stewart.
But for now, this will be something of a quick hitter, as I just finished preparing for one trial and am now beginning to prepare for one next week. (And by quick hitter, I do not mean to imply that this is short- rather, unplanned.)
I have had the hardest time finding good background noise for my shower and shave. A couple of years ago, I tried playing the radio, starting with Dave FM. Every morning, The Police, The Eagles, Bob Marley, U2. Usually in that order. Sometimes, to trip me up, they would play Sting solo instead of The Police. I couldn't take it anymore. So finally, I got so furious that I called to complain about their lack of variety. In my phone call, I also noted to them the irony of their limited playlist, in light of their variety-trumpeting ad campaign. The intern who fielded my phone call feigned ignorance.
99X had a mess of a morning show, that had the unfortunate double-whammy of being crass and boring. There was no way I was going to listen to the regular guys. And try as I might to seem enlightened, NPR was encouraging me to go back to sleep more than it was serving as a springboard into a productive day.
Then, I had cable installed. But, as discussed in a previous post, I have grown disgusted with SportsCenter. And Mike and Mike were slowly driving me into a homicidal rage every day. (They have the unfortunate double whammy of being unfunny and stupid.)
Now, I have settled on VH1/MTV. Not bad.
For one, they actually show videos that time of day. And not too many commercials, either.
For another, the videos are almost universally entertaining. It must be a great time to be twelve years old. The videos those kids have are way better than the faux-performance videos they showed back when I actually watched MTV.
I would have loved Nickelback's "Rock Star" back in the day- it is visually compelling and superficially clever. Even now, I enjoy the spot-the-cameo game it inspires.
12 year old Babar would have also loved the Maroon 5 video for "Wake Up Call." It has hot women, a nearly-amusing "story line", and gun violence- all you need in a good video, if you ask me. And as an aside, the song is good. I defy you not to have it stuck in your head after you hear it. When I confessed this to my girlfriend, she noted that I reluctantly said the same thing about the first single from this Maroon 5 album. She asked me if I was going to buy the album. I told her that I may not have a choice.
And 12 year old Babar would have been freaking enamored of the "AYO Technology" video with 50 cent, Justin Timberlake, and scores of scantily clad ladies. In fact, I probably would have recorded it for frequent viewing. And again, what's more, it is a good song.
Throw in an aggressive new offering from the Foo Fighters, that irrepressibly catchy song from Feist (the first ever VH1 You Oughta Know artist that I didn't want to bludgeon to death with a mic stand), and a countrified Bon Jovi, and you have some good morning TV.
The only pimple on the ass of VH1: Avrile Lavigne. Her new song sucks hard. And the video is crappy-weepy. If her voice had even a hint of twang, this video would be a staple on CMT (not that there's anything wrong with that).
Anyhow, music videos are where it's at in the morning. I encourage you all to reawaken your inner pre-teen as you reawaken yourself every morning.
I Give Up
My team will never be great as long as Chan Gailey is the head coach. Too often in his stay on the Flats I have been tricked into thinking that we have a chance at greatness. Every time I'm disappointed. I planned on writing a longer post about how Gailey is 0-6 against UGA, or that after starting 9-2 last year, we lost our final three games by a combined total of nine points. Or that this year, with what looked like our best team overall since the Joe Hamilton era, we've started 0-3 in a crappy ACC with losses to Virginia and Maryland. But I'm not. We are probably going to beat Miami this week. And possibly Virginia Tech as well (VT always stumbles late in the season). But we'll lose to Georgia and lose in that pointless bowl game in Boise to Hawaii. So all I'll say is Go Jackets and to hell with Georgia.
Ok. I lied when I said this would be short and sweet. Why shouldn't we expect greatness from our football team. We've won a National Title more recently than UGA. But do you think that Mark Richt would be around if he had lost six straight to his biggest rival. Gailey supporters always bring up the fact that we have gone to five straight bowl games since he became coach. So what. Every one of those bowl games were meaningless. The Gator Bowl was the best bowl game we've gone to and that is the bowl game UGA goes to when they have bad years (or it's SEC non-union equivalent). We've gone to one ACC championship game and we lost 9-6 to Wake Forest. And Chan. I'm sick of the terrible offensive play calling. You had the best player in the country last year in Calvin Johnson and you did nothing with him. And this year is no different. You can't run the ball 40 times a game and expect to win against the big boys. We aren't Nebraska in 1995. Take a page from our defense and take some risks. Shotgun draw may be a way of life but it ain't mine.
Ok. I lied when I said this would be short and sweet. Why shouldn't we expect greatness from our football team. We've won a National Title more recently than UGA. But do you think that Mark Richt would be around if he had lost six straight to his biggest rival. Gailey supporters always bring up the fact that we have gone to five straight bowl games since he became coach. So what. Every one of those bowl games were meaningless. The Gator Bowl was the best bowl game we've gone to and that is the bowl game UGA goes to when they have bad years (or it's SEC non-union equivalent). We've gone to one ACC championship game and we lost 9-6 to Wake Forest. And Chan. I'm sick of the terrible offensive play calling. You had the best player in the country last year in Calvin Johnson and you did nothing with him. And this year is no different. You can't run the ball 40 times a game and expect to win against the big boys. We aren't Nebraska in 1995. Take a page from our defense and take some risks. Shotgun draw may be a way of life but it ain't mine.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Don't Call It a Comeback
Sorry for the long break. A mixture of work and illness prevented me from blogging for the last couple of weeks but I hope to make up for it this month.
So during lunch at work the other day we were talking about movies and how movies in the 70's and 80's had a lot more cussing on them than movies released today. Now, I'm not going to write about that today but it did remind me of something I've been meaning to write about for awhile. So in no particular order, here's my list of the greatest cussers in movie history.
1. Samuel L. Jackson - Pretty much every movie he's ever been in. As an aside I watched all three Lord of the Rings movies back to back and by the end my friend and I were imagining what the movie would be like if every role was played by Jackson. At the time it seemed really funny.
2. Jason Lee - Mallrats and Chasing Amy.
3. Bruce Willis - The Die Hard movies.
4. James Gandolfini - The Sopranos
5. Joe Pesci - Goodfellas, My Cousin Vinny
6. Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin - Midnight Run
7. Ben Affleck - Dazed and Confused
8. John Goodman and Jeff Bridges - The Big Lebowski
9. Sean William Scott - The American Pie Movies
10. Bill Paxton - Aliens
What are some of your favorites?
So during lunch at work the other day we were talking about movies and how movies in the 70's and 80's had a lot more cussing on them than movies released today. Now, I'm not going to write about that today but it did remind me of something I've been meaning to write about for awhile. So in no particular order, here's my list of the greatest cussers in movie history.
1. Samuel L. Jackson - Pretty much every movie he's ever been in. As an aside I watched all three Lord of the Rings movies back to back and by the end my friend and I were imagining what the movie would be like if every role was played by Jackson. At the time it seemed really funny.
2. Jason Lee - Mallrats and Chasing Amy.
3. Bruce Willis - The Die Hard movies.
4. James Gandolfini - The Sopranos
5. Joe Pesci - Goodfellas, My Cousin Vinny
6. Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin - Midnight Run
7. Ben Affleck - Dazed and Confused
8. John Goodman and Jeff Bridges - The Big Lebowski
9. Sean William Scott - The American Pie Movies
10. Bill Paxton - Aliens
What are some of your favorites?
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