Bill Daniels' Worthless Observations

Reflections on the 2010 Winter Olympics

2010-03-04T23:22:00.001-05:00

It seems like it was just a year and a half ago that we were watching a beautiful Chinese girl lip sync to the ugly girl back stage, and already the 2010 Winter Olympics is over. Well they’ve been over for like a week now. But I like to stay well behind the trends in life, and I figure that writing should be no different.

The U.S.A. Men’s Ice Hockey team won a silver medal. Because they handed out the medals right after they lost the final game, I’m not sure they would have been much less enthusiastic had nooses been placed around their necks. It was an exciting game with the U.S. scoring a tying goal to force it in to overtime with less than a minute to play, causing Canadians all over to say “@#$%!!!! Eh?”.

The U.S.A. won the gold medal in the four-man bobsled. I kinda like the bobsled, its a little like a race car. I harbor a secret dream that I am a natural born bobsledder. The best ever. But having spent a large part of my life in the South, I’ve never lived anywhere with a public bobsled track… even in the Northern states I think these are a little hard to come by. As long as I don’t have a chance to bobsled, the dream lives, unless somebody with a brain doesn’t come along and say “that doesn’t make any sense at all”. Don’t spoil my dream.

Apolo Ohno won 873 bronze and silver medals in short track speed skating, a sport I don’t remember seeing until the last decade or so, but I enjoy watching.

For the next four years, Curling goes back to being the sport we ridicule as being the dumbest sport ever. Honestly, I have no idea why it gets a reprieve during the Olympics.

The TV coverage the last day of the Olympics seemed to consist largely of cross-country skiing. I hadn’t noticed any cross-country skiing on television before then, and when I turned it on I understood why. Cross country skiing is probably one of the worst things ever covered on television. It has all the appeal of race walking, except with skis. I’m honestly not certain if that makes it better or worse. It should be aired opposite poker, thus making poker seem like an actual sport.

The Russian team did not perform nearly was well as they had hoped, winning only 10 gold medals. This does not, of course, count the Borscht Relay, which is still only an exhibition event. A figure skater named Evgeni Plushenko won a silver medal, but told everybody at home that it was platinum. I’m curious if anybody is buying it.

Speaking of figure skaters, just when you thought that stereotypes about male figure skaters had reached their peak, a man named Johnny Weir dared to raise the bar.

Its an amazing thing. Nations from across the world, nearly every nation in the world, came together and put aside their differences for a couple of weeks, and competed in games that actually make even less sense than the games they compete in during the Summer Olympics. And during this time, we put aside all our petty qualms about economic theories, invading other nations, and blatant human rights violations and just played games. And I just can’t help but be filled with the thought, “Damn, I wanted our boys to win that hockey game”.

Reflections on Professional Wrestling and Downhill Skiing

2010-02-21T22:52:00.001-05:00

I was in a Mexican restaurant this evening, I sat at the bar and had dinner alone. Chicken soup… why is it that Mexican restaurants have such good soup and there doesn’t seem to be anything in it? Other restaurants have horribly overpriced soup that is obviously from a can, but Mexican places have soup that seems to consist of nothing but chicken broth, potatoes carrots, chicken and avocados and it is wonderful. Note to self: learn to make soup.

There were two televisions on, one tuned to some sort of men’s Olympic skiing event, the other to professional wrestling. So depending on your point of view, there is between zero and two sports on. There was no sound on, but that didn’t matter much, because the wrestling was on a Spanish speaking channel. I’m not sure about the skiing, but what difference could it really make? What could they say? “He’s trying to go faster”, “uh, yeah, he fell, that’s gonna hurt his time”, or “He caught an edge there, but he seems to be okay. He's in good shape, exce... uh, I think he's, he's a li.... (Gun shot. Skier falls.) Uh oh! He seems to have been accidentally shot by [name removed so as not to be sued if anybody ever reads this]! Yes, and I'm afraid [another name I’m removing] is out of this race.” (this is a reference to a 30+ year old SNL sketch that would be much funnier if I could find the sketch online, but I can’t).

On the other television, is wrestling. WWE Raw, I guess. In this case, the sound (in English) might actually have helped. Because I would like an explanation of why any adult would watch this. Women aren’t watching this. I’m sure if flipping past they would notice the ridiculous build on the steroid addled truck-sized freaks in the ring, but they’re not going to stay there all day just because there are nice looking people of the opposite sex. Why? Because they’re women.

So, we’ve established that the audience is men. Adolescents, right? Pre-teens. Because one you notice girls, you’re done with this, right? Actually, no. Looking in the audience there are grown men, some of whom we would assume have spent the night in the company of a woman at some point, who actually paid for a ticket, battled traffic, paid $10 for parking and maybe even bought a $9 beer, sitting there watching two muscle-bound men pretend to hurt each other. I enjoy MMA. If they actually hurt each other, I get it. But this is just ridiculous to watch. I don’t get it. If you are watching professional wrestling, ask yourself the following question “Have I spent the night with a woman?” If the answer is yes, change the channel.

All of this naturally begs the question... how boring is downhill skiing? It was only a minute, but I watched professional wrestling long enough to contemplate this.

Can I blog from my iPod touch?

2010-02-02T22:06:00.001-05:00

Yes. And it cases "iPod" for me too. I dont see using this much, buy nice to know it's there.

A Transparent Drawing (I suppose it could be white)

2010-01-10T23:42:00.001-05:00

There was a viral trend on Facebook last week. Specifically, women were posting the color or the bra they were wearing. Nobody seems to know where it started. Most people seem to think that this was done to increase breast cancer awareness. I’m not sure if it did that. I would say it was a step forward in bra awareness, and bra awareness goes hand in hand with breast awareness. Generally I try to avoid putting words into other people’s mouths, but this time I’m going to go out on a limb and speak for men everywhere and say “Ladies, we are aware”. We are aware of bras, the fact that they come in a wide array of colors, and, above all, we are aware of their contents. I am not sure this did anything to increase cancer awareness. But it did get men thinking about breasts, although to be fair, some portion of the men who read this were thinking of breasts already.

Breast cancer is a horrible disease. I am not only aware of it, but as a married man I worry about it from time to time. Its not the kind of thing you like to think about. There are numerous campaigns to increase breast cancer awareness. One seems to be to color things pink. Normal things, things we need (or at least use) on a day to day basis. The following are actual items that have been colored pink, and then made available to the world for sale. Some are merely colored pink to increase awareness, others donate a portion of their proceeds to a research foundation:

The Snuggie, the blanket with sleeves, which I will eventually write about. Not the pink one specifically, just the success of a blanket with sleeves is enough to address. I want to wait another couple of years to be sure I am on the cutting edge of pop culture.
An 18 Volt Cordless drill. I want to stress this, it isn’t worth going with less than 18 volts. If you come across a pink 12 volt drill, avoid it, spend the extra money on the 18 volt model.
An Air Purifier. Why Not? It would be more ironic if it were a smokeless ashtray (I’m shocked they still make these).

I’m not making light of this, and I actually applaud their efforts. I do wonder if they might not do better just to sell a special version of the product where they donate some portion of the proceeds to a cancer research foundation, without actually coloring the item pink. Personally, if I’m shopping for a drill, I would probably be happy to give a few bucks to a cancer research foundation at the same time. I don’t want a pink drill.

My favorite campaign is Save the Ta-tas. I have no idea how effective these people are. I don’t know if they raise much money. But I appreciate their candor. Just come right out and say it, Save the Ta-tas. I would like to have been a fly on the wall for the argument where they chose “Ta-Tas” over “boobs”.

I cannot cure cancer. I am not making light of it, but there is another disturbing trend involving the breast that really gets no attention at all, and it is completely curable. So I’d like to talk about that for a minute. This other situation, I am going to make light of. And that is breast tattoos (I try to stay family friendly, and that is going to keep me from posting a link for this).

Ladies, before you consider this sort of thing, I want to give you a clear analog for breast tattoos. It is as though you are standing in front of the Mona Lisa with a package of Sharpies thinking “I want to liven this up a little”. There are works of beauty in the world that nobody should draw on top of, because there is simply no way you will make it any better.

It seems appropriate to include a link to a breast cancer foundation. There are a lot of them, so I will just go with the one that seems most popular right now, Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

If you thought this was funny, please tell a friend. If you thought it wasn’t please tell me (just post a comment).

Technorati Tags: Facebook viral color trend,bra,color,breast cancer,breast tattoo,mona lisa

A Brief Rant About Movies

2010-01-04T00:06:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I find myself complaining about the fact that there is little originality in movies lately. Its all incredibly formulaic, or simply remakes of old movies. From time to time this probably makes sense. For example, there's a great number of Stephen King movies that had little or nothing at all to do with the original story, so they could make a version of The Lawnmower Man that resembled the actual short story. Actually upon reading that description, maybe that's not such a great idea. I don't read Stephen King, what the hell do I know?

More often than not the old movie remakes are simply unnecessary. Even worse, they are often remakes of old television shows. So according to the Internet, CHiPs may be headed for the big screen. Arrested Development, which would make a fantastic movie, I am actually hearing less and less about.

Let's think about CHiPs for just a moment, shall we? When I was seven, I thought this show was fantastic. Now I'm 38 and I'm just in awe of the fact that there was one TV show where both of the following statements are true:

Erik Estrada was sewn into his pants by a costume technician (or whatever you call such a person)
Bruce Jenner was an actor
OK, I know I said there was two things.. but how the hell did that happen? "He won a decathlon, so we figure he can handle playing a highway patrolman"

The real problem with this, which I will state without humor, is that the remakes are generally bad, or at least not as good as the original.

One of my favorite 80s movies was Urban Cowboy, a story of a man who falls in love with a woman, and then a mechanical bull, then another woman, then the same woman all over again. I appreciate its originality. The first time I watched it, I found the story arc surprising. Its very original. And "original" may well mean "stupid", I'm not sure. It was 1980, it was a different time. Country music was very popular, and apparently the powerful mechanical bull lobby had gotten its hooks into Hollywood. At least I haven't heard anything about this one being remade.

While I was sitting here contemplating what to write about, I saw a commercial for a movie called "Tooth Fairy". In this movie, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson plays a hockey enforcer sentenced to make amens for beating people up on the ice by being a tooth fairy. This movie sounds awful to me, but I can't figure out anything that it is a remake of, and the idea is fairly original. So they've got that working for them (this is a vague reference to Carl in Caddyshack. Watch the movie again, its funny. I think there's a remake planned).

Think this is funny? Please tell a friend. Think its terrible? Tell me. Just leave a comment.

My Trip to MedicocreBuy

2009-08-12T00:15:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was North Carolina's sales tax holiday - this means there is no sales tax on items the kids will need to go back to school. To adults it means, "What else can I buy while there is no sales tax?" To men specifically it means, "Maybe I should upgrade the computer".
I have been considering purchasing a netbook for some time now. The reason is obvious, not having enough computers is what is hindering my writing. I'm full of great ideas, but I only have two computers at home, one of which is a notebook, and I'm surrounded by computers at work, where I get a lunch hour well suited to writing blog articles. A while back I looked at the history on my blog and really cringed at the number of "I'm not writing much lately" entries. I swore I wouldn't do those anymore, so I haven't written much. Not because I had no ideas, no talent, or am just plain lazy, but because I don't have a computer even smaller than my 15" notebook that I can carry everywhere - unlike that cumbersome BEAST that is my regular notebook. My problem is the lack of a netbook. This is sarcasm, get it?
Sunday afternoon, I was on my own. My wife was shopping for the kids, who were visiting my parents. So I headed for MediocreBuy (I made up the name to protect the innocent and avoid lawsuits). They had a sign outside "Follow the blue line for tax free computers". I didn't follow the blue line. That's right, I can't be tamed. Also, I know where the computers are in MediocreBuy and I knew that it was easier to just walk straight to the rear of the store - the line sort of meandered around the side.
So I walk to the back only to discover, they have blocked off the computer department. I went back and followed the blue line, which ended at a rope... well not a rope, it was one of those things that is kind of like a seatbelt between two poles, but it serves the same purpose as the velvet ropes they used to use for this sort of application. If only I had a Studio 54 joke to go here.
When I spoke to the person guarding the "rope", they explained I could not just go browse, I would have to wait about 20 minutes until they finished with the other people on the list. I asked the rope attendant to please tell the manager that I would be taking my business elsewhere, I would not be waiting in line to browse.
Unfortunately, the story ends there. I was really just browsing, and in the end decided I would investigate the possibilities that I had no ideas, no talent, or am just plain lazy. But friends of mine left and bought a computer elsewhere... and maybe they think I did too. I certainly showed them.

A Brush with Greatness

2009-08-09T18:23:00.000-04:00

I had to take a business trip at the end of this past April. Now I don't want to brag, but when my company sends me on business, I get to fly "coach". This particular trip I was flying on Southwest, so not only was I flying coach, I was flying general admission. Essentially the same method of ordering people that has cased numerous concert goers to be trampled to death was being used to board my airplane. I think this may have been my fault - I think perhaps I could have been assigned a seat if I had gotten a boarding pass ahead of time.
It was Monday afternoon, and I was in the extreme North part of Terminal A at RDU airport (actually I have no idea if it is North, but it is all the way at the end of a very long building that has been added on to a couple of times). The scene here was about as upscale as WalMart very late at night. Airports are such an odd grouping of people under stress there was no doubt in my mind that something interesting would happen that I would write about 5 months later.
The first noteworthy thing that happened was several flights, including mine, being delayed. I don't remember exactly why - but it was either that a crew had worked too many hours and had to be replaced, or an airplane had to be repaired. As I walked through the crowded terminal I saw a man in his 30s explaining to some sort of employ from Southwest that this was why the airlines are in such trouble, that planes were late and people didn't want to fly, that they needed to hurry up and get back on schedule. I'm not sure how to stress this, but the person who was saying this was rather upset, and seemed to have no idea that the fact people don't like to wait for their flights might already have dawned on the airline. I want to state for the record, when you are finding the crew to fix my airplane, take your time and find the best rested people you can. And when you are fixing my airplane, please take all the time you need. I don't want you worrying that anybody on that plane might be in a rush when you're tightening a lugnut on the airplane I am about to fly on.
I didn't feel like explaining that to the gentleman who was making the small scene in the terminal, because I would have been within his reach and I wasn't sure how he handled disagreements. So, I made my way to an empty seat, "excuseme'd" past a tall black man who looked to be in his 50s, and sat down. I looked over at the man, who was nodding off, and thought "wow, that's him"..."nah", "but it must be", "nah". After a few minutes of this, the man woke up and stood to stretch his legs. I approached him and said "Hi, were you just at Charlie Goodnights? He slowly answered "yeah, I was". At that moment I realized I was in the presence of entertainment greatness. I was sharing my fairly miserable, running late, general admission flight to Las Vegas with none other than Jimmy "JJ" Walker. I took out my phone and asked if I could get a picture with him. He very politely said "It would make things a little easier for me if I didn't have to" - which I took to mean "if anybody else recognizes me I'll have a terminal full of idiots screaming DIN-O-MITE at me". He offered a handshake instead, which I thought was a nice way to handle the situation.
Above is what that picture might have looked like. I cropped Ann Coulter out of this picture (which as far as I saw was not copyrighted).

On Seeing the Blue Angels Through a Grocery Store Window

2009-05-17T23:41:00.000-04:00

The Blue Angels were appearing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base a couple of weeks ago. I didn't feel like going. I'm not sure why. My parents took Child 1.0. I was happy he was getting to go, but a little upset with myself for not going. I attended these regularly as a youth. I grew up on air force bases, and like all young boys growing up on air force bases I fully intended to be a fighter pilot. Of course in reality, its very hard to get into the Air Force Academy, and that is more or less what is required. So sooner or later, as John Mellencamp once stated, "those old crazy dreams just kinda came and went" .

So the fine Saturday afternoon my son was at the air show with my parents, I found myself in the grocery store picking up a couple of items for my brother-in-law's birthday dinner. Its a newer store and has those windows that are eight feet off the ground so that you can't crash your car through them and steal tampons and cigarettes and other things its funny to picture people bothering to crash a car through a picture window to steal. I looked through that window and the saw the Blue Angels fly by in formation. It looked a lot like the picture here. I found myself pointing at them, while nobody looked at what I was pointing at. Although a few people just stared at me standing there pointing like an idiot.

At this moment, standing in Food Lion, pointing through the eight-foot-off-the-ground window like an idiot, I realized that every decision that led me to this point in my life had been wrong. I don't want to do "this", I want to do "that". And I don't think for a minute I ever for a minute wanted to join The Navy until that moment.

Naturally, I did the only sensible thing a 300 pound man looking down the barrel at 40 with a wife and two children can do when he realized he desperately wants to be a Navy fighter pilot. I went home and watched Top Gun while I walked on the treadmill. Seeing Top Gun in the theater when I was... 14 I think, was one of those kinda magical moments. I've seen it several times through the years, but I hadn't watched the whole thing un-edited in a long time. This particular watching it dawned on me, Top Gun sure has a lot of men that aren't dressed. I'm not sure why this never occurred to me as a youth. Maybe its because back then I wasn't ashamed to take my own shirt off.

Thanks to my buddy Chad for the picture.

A Paragraph of Unrelated Thoughts

2009-05-11T01:19:00.000-04:00

It'd be interesting to know the ratio of blogs written to people who can't sleep. Seems to me like it'd be high. Then there are those people who kinda document they're entire lives from their phones etc, so I suppose a lot of people aren't blogging late at night... they're doing it at work.

The Carolina Hurricanes played tonight. OW. Not good.

Happy Mother's Day.

Go Canes! Go Cubs

While Listening to Local Talk Radio...

2009-04-22T00:05:00.001-04:00

About a month ago, I was driving East of “the triangle” area of North Carolina. I was listening to Allan Handelman on 101.1. FM . Allan is actually listed in Talkers magazine's top 100 talk radio personalities in the country, although they seem to have misspelled his name. Somebody did, and I'm going to assume that his website is right. I used to like his show more than I do now, I think its because when he was on once a week on Sunday nights it was a little less time to fill and the guests and topics were better. Now he's on fifteen or twenty hours a week, and I find the topics and guests less interesting. In his defense, it is a lot of time to fill.

This particular Friday afternoon, he had Michael Molenda, the editor of Guitar Player magazine. As a guitar fanatic, I subscribed to Guitar Player for years, but I stopped reading it a few years ago. Still, I always enjoyed Mr. Molenda's editor notes. I had my family in the car. I suspect I'm not the only man who is occasionally both thankful for his family, and wants to be alone. Because as I was driving East I knew I would lose the radio station pretty soon, and my wife and kids would not stop talking so I could hear. I'm getting grouchier and grouchier and eventually I snap and start yelling for everybody to be quiet. It didn't seem like so much to ask. I do a lot of things for everybody else, I just wanted five to ten minutes of quiet. I didn't even need absolute silence, just enough that I could listen to the radio.

Finally, everybody is quiet. Its not because I yelled at them. Trust me,nobody cared. Maybe they were just all talked out. For whatever reason, there was enough quiet for me to hear the following conversation. Its paraphrased, but roughly speaking, this was it:

Allan Handelman: “Hi caller, you're on the air with Michael Molenda, the editor of Guitar Player magazine”

Caller: “Hi Allan. Love your show. Its great”

I probably shouldn't have included this part. As we all know there are strict FCC guidelines that state that all calls to a talk radio show must start this way.

Allan Handelman: “Thanks. Do you have a question for Michael Molenda, the editor of Guitar Player magazine?”

Caller: “Yeah, I was thinking that the problem with music today is that bands just don't stick together like they used to. Like remember when that drummer from Def Leppard lost his arm in a car accident I think it was? Or was it both arms? But they stuck with him..”

Michael Molenda: “Yeah, I uh....”

Ok, lets go back and focus on the obvious problem:

Caller: “... remember when that drummer from Def Leppard lost his arm...? Or was it both arms? But they stuck with him”

(crickets chirp)

Yeah, words escape me too. I don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure they escaped Michael Molenda too. It was the drummer with NO arms. This is what I raised my voice and told my family to be quiet for. Not to hear a good question for a guy with a lot of knowledge about guitars and guitar playing. Not to hear about the progression of Eddie Van Halen's playing through the 1980s. Not to hear about the advancements in digital modeling of classic amplifiers and effects. Not to hear about the return of guitar solos in rock music. I told everybody to be quiet so I could hear that the problem is that bands don't stick together. Like Def Leppard and their no armed drummer.

A Brief Word About Irony

2009-03-05T00:01:00.000-05:00

I pride myself on my ability to spell. I never won a spelling bee or anything, but I can spell, and worry about making typos because I don't want people to think I'm stupid. BLOGGER'S SPELL CHECK BUTTON NO LONGER APPEARS DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHY? Like most people I have a few words that are trouble spots. "Barrel" was one for years, but I fixed this. The waitresses at Cracker Barrel have it written on their aprons, and I ate there enough I learned. Two r's, one l.

I have trouble with the word "misspell". I can't figure out how many S's. And I'm not going to look it up, because what's the fun in that (I mean in this particular case). BLOGGER'S SPELL CHECK BUTTON NO LONGER APPEARS DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHY?

Behind The Music

2009-02-27T00:51:00.000-05:00

I don't have time for the long rant I would like, but I used to enjoy VH-1's Behind the Music. I don't even know when the last new one was made, and the only ones they re-run are Pantera and Ratt. Wanna Save The Music? Why not put some music back on television instead of bad reality television?

(also, I'm hooked on Celebrity Rehab/Sober House... and it is the epitome of bad reality television)

Drive-By Truckers: Brighter Than Creation's Dark

2009-02-26T01:06:00.003-05:00

I've enjoyed Drive-By Truckers since around 2004, when a friend turned me on to their Southern Rock Opera album (which was already a couple of years old).

Brighter Than Creation's Dark isn't new, its about a year and a half old at this point. I got it for Christmas but didn't immediately listen to it... I just wasn't in that mode. Their Austin City Limits performance reminded me that I needed to pull it out and listen to it - but I didn't right away. This is because I only have it on my iPod, and my headphones at work are plugged into the back of my computer and hard to get to, and THERE IS NO WAY TO COPY MUSIC FROM AND IPOD TO A COMPUTER THAT IT ISN'T SYNCHED TO THAT I AM AWARE OF.

One day this week I was upset on the way to work and felt that the best way to handle it was to shut my mouth, so that's what I did... and I listened to Brighter Than Creation's Dark on my iPod. I haven't been able to stop listening to this album since. I think its brilliant.

Here are some tracks from Brigher Than Creation's Dark. These are live, and I think it is legal for me to put them up here like this. I hope so, I'm trying to help not hurt. If you enjoy these tracks, please support the band by picking up the album.

SeeqPod - Playable Search

The Cubs won their first spring training game today, which means absolutely nothing, but I hope they are good this year.

Please leave a comment if you liked this, or hated it, or you know how to get music from an iPod to a computer that it wasn't synched with, or what happened to Blogger's spell checker.

I Promised Myself I'd Write More...

2009-02-25T00:43:00.000-05:00

I promised myself I'd write more, but I don't have anything specific in mind, so I don't know what will shape up here. Jim Norton made the point that reality television has sold everybody on the idea that their lives are interesting, when in fact that is not true for most of us. I try not to be "that guy", and I'm not trying to be now. But I figure better to write about the nothingness around me and maybe grow as a writer than to sulk about how I'm sure I'd be a great writer if only I had a subject.

The first spring training games are tomorrow. I have mixed emotions about this because while I love the Cubs, the truth is that maybe the only thing more worthless than all-star games are pre-season games. The Cubs let me feeling pretty beatenup at the end of last season. They made some moves in the off season, the one that is bugging me is letting Kerry Wood go. He went to the Cleveland Indians, who I kind of think of as "The other Cubs", except that when the Indians make it to the post season they occasionally win games. For the last two years the Cubs have had a strict policy of not winning in the post season. I understand this makes it easier on the people who deal with the stats.

As I write this the Carolina Hurricanes are losing, badly, in the background. The Canes have become only the second team to ever win a Stanely Cup and then miss the playoffs two years in a row. To think people said hockey wouldn't work in North Carolina. Based on the game I see here, we might be heading for a record (three years with no playoffs).

What do you know... I wanted to write about sports. Odd, I know very little about sports. I imagine it showed in my performance.

Leave me a comment if you like. Blogger's spell checker is MIA, so if I misspelled anything I blame them.

Timezone woes and NASCAR

2009-02-23T23:10:00.000-05:00

I'm a bit of a NASCAR fan. I phrase it that way because it definitely seems to be waining a bit as time goes on. I used to watch more. Over time I've started watching less. There are a number of reasons for this. The big one is that the drivers I grew up following in my 20s were older than me and retired (or died), and I don't like the new younger drivers that replaced them as much.

The thing bugging me right now is that as the sport has become more national, and international, they start races later and later to accomodate the West coast viewers. Unfortunately yesterday's race was on the West coast and did not actually start until sometime after 6pm EST. This is a pretty inconvenient time if you typically have a "No TV during dinner" policy. Thankfully we also have a "Honey, its not TV, its sports" policy that is made to cover hockey and baseball, but can be exteneded to racing and football as well.

As I've blogged about before, California Speedway doesn't make for the most exciting racing. There's "plenty of room to pass". I imagine this is great if you're a race car driver, who doesn't want to have to bang into other cars in order to pass them. Unfortunately, its a bit boring if you're a spectator who likes ars to have to bang into each other in order to pass them.

So the race started late, and was the primetime viewing for Fox for the evening. Why would you pick what is bound to be a boring race to be one of the few shown in primetime? I came up with a theory this morning: The Oscars were on ABC.

The Oscars an annual television program where we celebrate movies that most of us have never heard of for being the best movies of the year. And more importantly the actors and directors tell us how we should feel about social and political issues. They obviously deserve our respect because they pretend to be other people for a living, which is far more noble than the "jobs" most of us do at "work". And as Opie and Anthony sometimes point out, anybody speaking into a microphone is an expert. Obviously the folks at NASCAR were trying to put their boring race on at the same time as the Oscars to try to make the race seem more exciting by comparison. Something called "Slumdog Millionaire" that I'm pretty sure I never heard of until people started talking about it winning Oscars won 743,987 awards.

As it turns out, the end of the race was pretty exciting, because there were times when Jeff Gordon got as close as half a mile to Matt Kenseth, who won the race. Frankly it is more entertaining when you're on the highway trying to a get picture of a good bumper sticker with your phone, but at least you don't get paid millions of dollars for that.

Love it? Hate it? Leave me a comment. Blogspot's spell checker is MIA, so if I misspelled a word just assume that I spell very well but made a typo and I am no longer able to identify typos if they don't have a squiggly red line under them.

"The Oscars" is some kind of trademark owned by somebody else... click the link they probably little r's and c's inside of circles that signify something.

My Prescription for the Nation

2008-11-22T11:04:00.007-05:00

Things aren't going real well here in the U.S. right now. Banks have failed, the stock market has become some kind of bizarre yo-yo, the "Big 3" here in the America are in big trouble. I'm struggling to find the humor in this situation but so far I'm not finding much.

Everywhere you go, you hear people talking about how bad things are. Honestly, if you still have a job things aren't much different than they were a year ago. We are dealing with some inflation, I mostly see it at the grocery store. But on the other hand, gas is under $2 again for the first time over 5 years (I guess it dipped under once or twice, but this is the first time in 5 years I've paid less than $2 for gas). I'm sure its a lousy time to be in any commission business, or own a small business, but by-and-large most of us who have jobs are in about the same boat we were before.

Nonetheless everywhere you go, people are walking around staring at their shoes. Just staring down and muttering "its over man" and bits about inflation, deflation, hyper-inflation, regular-flation, supersized-flation, the combo-meal-flation, and other terms invented on CNBC. Frankly, I think we might be giving the people who tell us about this on television a little too much credit.

The first week of June this year, oil was around $140/barrel. I was in a hotel room watching CNBC tracking it like a sports score. I'm still not sure why. And they were telling us by the end of the year that we would see $200/barrel oil, and in the next few years gas prices around $8-$12/gallon. It never hit $200/barrel. I believe it topped out at $144, but I'm not exactly sure. It was right around $144 though.

Right now oil is $51.25/barrel. It has been as low as $48 and change per barrel. Some sources are saying it could go as low as $40/barrel or even $35/barrel by the end of the year. This is great right? Cheap gas for everybody? No, not according to CNBC. This is deflation, which apparently is the worst flation of them all. I listened to this the other day a little stunned and confused. Maybe they're right. Maybe this is deflation and its terrible. But they weren't right about the $200/barrel oil by the end of this year. If the only thing that's good is cheap gas, I'm going to do my best to enjoy it.

Switching gears... in 1976 there was a film called Rocky. It was written by, and starred Sylvester Stalone. It was made for the paltry sum of 1.1 million dollars. It grossed 117 million. It was nominated for 9 Oscars and won 3, including best picture. It launched a series of six films, all of which are pretty much worth seeing, provided that you are a man. It might help to be American too, I'm not sure. I will mention that Rocky IV did not age well after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Did I mention it was written by Sylvester Stallone? I'm not sure this would be a selling point for a movie these days.

I was disappointed there was not a Rocky marathon on television this past 4th of July because it is such a great American story. In case you've been living in a cave insulting our new president for the last 30 years, the story is basically about a man who is too stubborn and stupid to stay down when he is obviously beaten. Nothing is more American than that. The plot of Rocky II is the story of a man who is too stubborn and stupid to stay down when he is obviously beaten. The plot of Rocky III is the story of a man who is too stubborn and stupid to stay down when he is obviously beaten. Rocky IV and Rocky V bare a striking resemblance to the previous plots. Rocky Balboa differs a bit, in that the name does not contain number, so I have to break up the numbering scheme I had used so far to tell you that it is the story of a man who is too stubborn and stupid to stay down when he is obviously beaten.

My prescription for the nation is to watch a Rocky movie. I'd start with the first one and watch as many as you have to until you can stop staring at your shoes. We invented the airplane. We put men on the moon. We invented the solid body electric guitar and multi-track recording. We will weather this storm too.

Predictions for the Next Administration

2008-10-28T22:13:00.005-04:00

Normally I try to stay apolitical here. If you look, the last piece I wrote that acknowledged an election covered the fact that women refuse to operate a toilet seat. But I have some predictions I need to get written down publicly somewhere so if I'm right I can say "see I told you so" (picture me pointing to the date on this post on my computer monitor). So, I will have to reveal my political views, as they are right this moment anyway.

In the rare cases I actually get comments, they usually come in the middle of the night on a post that I wrote over a year ago... so if you are reading these and I'm wrong about my predictions, take a gander up towards the top and see if I posted a "I was wrong" post before you bother posting a "see I told you so" comment that will cause me to picture you pointing at your monitor... because I will picture you fat with a bad haircut... like me.

Now the predictions:

If Barack Obama wins the U.S. presidential election November 4, 2008 I predict:

Despite claims that "Middle class families will see their taxes cut – and no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase", I predict there will be tax increases on families making far less. I am going to say if you make $45,000 per year, or a family making $75,000 per year, your taxes will be raised by March 1, 2010. If I'm within $25,000, give me a break on the comments, OK? I was correct in my assertion that they raised taxes.
Barack Obama's website claims "Military experts believe we can safely redeploy combat brigades from Iraq at a pace of 1 to 2 brigades a month that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 – more than 7 years after the war began." If I am reading that correctly, that says we will be out of Iraq in summer 2010, although it also claims "...a residual force will remain in Iraq and in the region to conduct targeted counter-terrorism missions against al Qaeda in Iraq and to protect American diplomatic and civilian personnel." Since the last statement does not define a number, I am a bit suspicious of it. My prediction: at the beginning of 2011, our troop commitment in Iraq will be 50-75% of what it is now, and will never drop below 25% of what it is now. We have troops on the ground in a part of the world where we are likely to deploy again. I don't see that changing, regardless of who is elected. (See how I talked in percentages? I don't know the numbers, and I don't intend to look them up because I'm a guy on a notebook computer rambling out an unfunny stand up routine, not a journalist.)
Almost immediately, our conflict in Iraq will be referred to as an "occupation", or some term far more flowery than "war". The media will gladly oblige, although here or there it will be pointed out that the terminology changed. Maybe on Fox... by the way, the whole media is liberal leaning, quit whining about one station (Jim Norton pointed this out on Opie and Anthony). Furthermore, if you're going to gripe about Fox News, gripe about the fact that it is a horrible news station, not that it leans a little bit right (and yes, its a little bit, everything else is just leaning a little left, that's why it seems that way). Truth is, "occupation" is a more accurate term at this point. This doesn't mean that people aren't getting hurt and killed, and it doesn't mean that isn't tragic. It just means that "war" is a bit heavy handed to describe what is going on right now.

That's it. That's all I am predicting right now, let's see if I'm right.

I believe in the church of baseball

2008-10-03T23:44:00.003-04:00

...and other quotes from the movie Bull Durham. I posted about the Cubs at my other blog. Please read.

Summer is Over

2008-09-04T23:14:00.004-04:00

Summer is over. Perhaps not according to the calendar, or science, but school started, and I'm still trained that this means summer is over.

It was a rough summer. Looking back I realize my summer wasn't all that bad. I had an emergency room trip with Child 1.0 (who has his first good scar; he's 5, its about time), and I also had to find Child 1.0 a new daycare. Nonetheless I feel like some good people have been tested awfully hard. I believe everything happens for a reason, but there are a number of happenings I do not see any reason for so far.

I have faith that fall and winter will be better. ECU beat Virginia Tech last weekend. That might be the start.

Nothing Funny

2008-08-07T22:47:00.001-04:00

I do this to try to be funny. Very little was funny in July. I'm hoping August will be funnier.

How Worthless Observations Work

2008-07-12T21:50:00.011-04:00

When you spend time writing an Internet humor column that is read by almost nobody, it stands to reason that a small fraction of almost nobody have asked themselves, "How does he constantly make those observations?... those worthless observations". Well it goes like this:

See ordinary situation
Notice something ridiculous
Try to use lots of side jokes and links to wikipedia to make it look like you did something

Try to find an uncopyrighted picture to use at the top - If one is unavailable, use picture of Cubs hat.
Swear profusely at the editor provided by blogspot, it is quirky about lists, which I rely on. I'm not sure why lists are funny, but they are.

I like NASCAR racing. There are two kinds of people in the world, those who think that NASCAR is boring, and those who enjoy it. By neatly dividing the world into these two categories I have sort of glossed over people with motor coaches who follow from track to track like people used to follow The Grateful Dead, people who get tattoos of their favorite driver's number even though he is likely only a contract dispute away from it changing. Well, certainly these folks are in the "enjoy" category. The people who think that it is boring don't do anything fantastic in protest to make worthless observations about.

Even as a fan of the sport, there's good races and bad - and bad generally means boring. It varies from track to track. There is a common misconception that race fans just like to see wrecks. By and large this is not true, although a good wreck is a little like a hockey fight. You could enjoy the sport without it, but it makes things a lot more interesting. What makes for a boring race is a track designed by a traffic engineer that is made with plenty of room to pass. What you want for a race track is enough room to pass. If there is never an issue with two cars battling for the same piece of space, this will not make for an exciting race.

Tonight I found myself wanting to write, but I had a rough week and not too much seemed funny, or ridiculous enough to make a worthless observation about. Then I turned on tonight's Sponsorship 500 on television. I'm not saying that this was a boring race, but at one point I looked up and former crew chief Larry McReynolds was performing a version of the classic "Saw a Woman in Half Trick". Ah, that's good ridiculous.... throw in a few wikipedia links and a picture, and I have something fit for almost nobody to read.

I was able to find a diagram of sawing a woman in half... but the Cubs won today. I'm just trying to be funny. If you read this please click here to and drop me an honest comment so I at least know somebody was paying attention.

Stunning Revelations in Pizza Acquisition

2008-07-06T23:03:00.005-04:00

Earlier this afternoon I was watching last night's Nextel Cup Race (I haven't finished it yet, so when none of my ones of readers don't post comments, don't tell me who won). They have a new layout where they don't seem to go to commercial during green flag racing, they just show the commercial in a smaller screen. This eliminates the most famous phrase in auto racing, "While we were away". Also, it answers the question if accidents occur if there are no commercials.

One of the "commercials" that appeared at the bottom of the screen was for Papa John's Pizza, who to be honest I don't order from very 0ften, but I do find them to be the best of the chain pizza places. For years, you have been able to order a pizza from Papa John's online. Call me old-school, I like to talk to somebody when I'm ordering a pizza. After watching fireworks with my family Friday night, it was proven to me once again that most McDrivethru's cannnot tell the difference between "only onion" and "no onion", so I figure the odds of getting the pizza I wanted, delivered to the proper address, in a timely fashion, are somewhere in the neighborhood of George W. Bush's current approval rating (note, this is my topical/political humor for the evening). I should probably give them a chance, but frankly there is another pizza place closer that has a pretty good deal if I pick it up myself.

However, the "commercial" pointed out that there is a new URL: mobile.papajohns.com. This is that you use to order a pizza, from the website, with your mobile phone.

So unless I have missed something, this means that finally, in 2008, you can order a pizza from a mobile phone. Well I for one say "its about damn time" (that was my adult humor, to prove I'm not totally 'G' Rated). I'm all for ordering pizzas with a phone. I'm not so certain about these half-screen commercials, but I think its probably good.

The Cubs hat? Well, they took two of three from the Cardinals in St. Louis. Things are looking... not too bad.

I'm just trying to be funny. If you read this please click here to and drop me an honest comment so I at least know somebody was paying attention. Also, if you can think of a reason you would order a pizza using a mobile device and not just call to order the pizza, please let me know that too.

...and there is Love

2008-04-11T23:41:00.010-04:00

Last Saturday, my friend Tom got married to a nice woman named Tara. I have only met her once, and briefly at that, but as far as I can tell she has sort of a calming influence on him - and this is a good thing. I was unable to attend the wedding. The phrase "unable to attend" should read "my wife and I decided that if we beg our folks to watch our kids for the weekend, we should probably go away somewhere and try to remember what we had in common before we had children". This doesn't mean that we didn't wish we were there. But one of the odd things about weddings is that it can be very difficult to actually see the people you are there to see. And in this case, I think Tom may have actually been relieved to have two less visitors from out of town.

That same night, the Carolina Hurricanes season ended when the Washington Capitals beat the Florida Panthers 3-1, mathematically eliminating the 'Canes. They became the first team ever to win a Stanley Cup and then miss the playoffs two seasons in a row. This wasn't a total shock after the year they had, but there was a lot of hope the last couple of weeks it looked like they would win the division. Between this and missing Tom and Tara's wedding (even if it was our choice), it was not a very good day.

I wasn't sure what to write about Tom getting married. I haven't written a lot lately but figured I needed to address it. So over the last week I've been thinking about Saturday and I came to the following conclusion: I will trade the Hurricanes having a Cup run this year for the two of you to have a long and happy marriage. And I'll do it gladly. I'd probably trade next year too - although I'd like them to make the playoffs first, okay?

The Chicago Cubs are 6-4, not the greatest starting record, but Kerry Wood is looking pretty convincing as a closer, Fukudome seems to be paying off, and I'm hopeful. Please realize that marriage is a lot of work. Tom and Tara, you can have the Hurricanes, please don't make me sacrifice the Cubs (I'm not saying I wouldn't do it).

Attached is the ultimate sappy love song. It seems appropriate. Congratulations and good luck.

Its Baseball Season...

2008-04-03T22:49:00.004-04:00

Baseball. America's Pastime. A sport which moves at such a blistering pace that curling was actually invented to make baseball seem fast paced by comparison. I love baseball, but it can be a little hard to get excited about it when hockey season is not over yet and my beloved Carolina Hurricanes, a team who has won a championship in my lifetime. Let's just leave it at "my lifetime" and not explore the whole 100 years scenario.

The Cubs won their first game today, flying out of the gates with a 1-2 start. This is not that bothersome for the following reasons:

The baseball season is 162 games
We know for certain they will not match 1997's 0-14 start.

Last October, sometime after the Cubs 0-3 playoff performance, I registered http://chicagocubsbrokemyheartagain.blogspot.com/. I intended to write something recapping the Cubs 2007 season, but I never did. I didn't feel funny. But as a Cubs fan I was smart enough not to include the year in the title. Hopefully I won't need it this year, but it is there for us.

Just Haven't Felt Like It

2008-03-28T00:41:00.005-04:00

My purpose here is to try to be the modern version of a newspaper humor columnist. This means I hope that I am funny.

I think I did some good work here, but I can't seem to push myself forward, because nothing seems that funny right now. I'm stuck in some kind of mid-30s funk. Not exactly depressed, more like numb - and cynical.

So let's look back at some of the things that happened in 2007, in no particular order. Maybe something will be funny and I'll feel like writing tomorrow:

The Chicago Cubs made the playoffs. They lost three straight games. It was painful
Van Halen toured with David Lee Roth for the first time since the Reagan administration. Just to keep things interesting Edward Van Halen's 16 year old son Wolfgang on bass rather than veteran bass player Michael Anthony. The shows were pretty good, and nothing really unusual happened... in 2007
The Police went on tour for the first time since the Reagan administration. Rather than replace Sting with some body's child they decided to keep the original band intact. I didn't go, I imagine the shows were spectacular. I read Andy Sumner's memoir, "One Train Later". He's very English and wordy
The war in Iraq sucks. Most people say we should bring our boys home, and will continue to until we do and then will say we should have saw things through
There is nothing funny here: A little jerk who doesn't deserve to have his name mentioned killed 32 people at Virginia Tech before he committed suicide. It is my sincere wish that the news stop showing these people and calling them by name. They don't deserve it. Also I wish people who are suicidal and don't want help would cut to the chase and not take out people who are just trying to live there life on the way.
The Carolina Hurricanes, 2006 Stanley Cup Champions, failed to make the playoffs
Don Imus got fired. He shouldn't have
Dog the Bounty Hunter got fired. I'm not sure if he should have or not, but his son really sold him out
I came to the following conclusion: I wish nobody would say the 'N' word. The current rules seem to be that black people can say it and white people can't. I was born after the civil rights movement, and of course over a hundred years after slavery. Horrible things happened. If the rule is that black people can say it and white people can't, I'm OK with that.
Jane Wyman, one time wife of future president Ronald Reagan, died. Not to make light of her passing, but I had no idea she was alive.
Evel Knievel died. Its pretty amazing the man was alive. My oldest son is about the age I was when he was huge - it makes me feel old.
Kevin DuBrow, singer for the 1980s rock band Quiet Riot died of a cocaine overdose.
Musician and noted family man Ike Turner died of a cocaine overdose.
Cocaine is bad. This was known in 1987 when Kevin and Ike's combined ages was less than 100. Still true now.
North Carolina is in a such a drought, people hope that a tropical storm hits. It misses.

OK, that's it. Maybe in the next few days, something will be funny.

I don't feel like writing

2007-08-28T23:41:00.000-04:00

I am posting because I don't want this blog to go dormant, but I really have nothing to say. Plenty to talk about. I'm sure everybody is dying to hear opinion #2,367,267 about Michael Vick, especially since I don't know much about football and even less about dog fighting.

My Van Halen tickets arrived in the mail yesterday. Big tour coming up... plenty of speculation. I don't feel like it.

Finally, I'm going to turn thirty-six, and I'm not thrilled about it. Could this be the root of why I don't feel like writing? I don't think so, but its not helping any. Maybe tomorrow.

Go Cubs Go

2007-08-01T22:04:00.000-04:00

I had a terrific rant all lined up about VH1's "Save the Music" campaign, which I find to be just a bit more hypocritical than [name of politician or televangelist goes here, I'm leaning toward Al Sharpton], and the fact that MTV came on the air 26 years ago today. I was angry, and was even going to use the word "A**" right in the title. That's right, I said "A**". Don't push me, I have plenty of non-alphanumeric characters to go choose from.

But I can gripe about that some other time, because I'm pretty sure I will still think that MTV, MTV2, VH1, VH1-Classic, and MTV-no-music, are horrible television stations that are largely responsible for the horrible state of music today.

The Chicago Cubs are tied for first place in the NL Central division. They are also (at the time I am writing this) in a three-way tie for the wild card. If the season ended today, the Cubs would make the playoffs, and Barry Bonds would still be one home run short of the all time home run record. Bonds is gonna break that record, that's just the way things are. But the Cubs are in the race. I Believe.

Tom Snyder, the Chicago Cubs, and Barry Bonds

2007-07-30T23:44:00.000-04:00

Tom Snyder was a television talk showhost and personality. At one point Dan Aykroyd's parody of Tom Snyder on the old NBC Tomorrow show became as well known as Tom himself. I'm a little young for that show, but got hooked on his incarnation of The Late Late Show on CBS in the 90's. It promptly went off the air(as did Sports Night, Bands on the Run, Boomtown, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip). If you really enjoy a television show, the last thing you want is for me to become a fan. I have been waiting for Mr. Snyder to resurface on television or maybe satellite radio for the last seven or eight years.

The picture to the left is of Mr. Snyder in 1968. I could not find one from this century with a "clear license", so I'll go with the one that is nearly 40 years old, but has a GNU Free Documentation License. Here is one of Tom's classic interviews an interview with John Lydon and some lesser former Sex Pistol .

Tom died of leukemia sometime Sunday (7/30/2007). We'll miss you Tom.

"Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air."

On to the Chicago Cubs. I had hoped to blog about the Cubs sliding into first place tonight, but they lost, and therefore remain one game behind the Milwaukee Brewers. On the whole, the biggest problem with being a Cubs fan seems to be their propensity to lose baseball games.

Apparently in Chicago some people have adopted the mantra "Its gonna happen". I'm not feeling that positive, and at this point I think I prefer the "We Believe" slogan adopted at East Carolina University in 1991 as the Pirates went on to finish ranked 9th in the country. Either way, the Cubs are still a strong contender for the NL Central division, and despite losing tonight, I have high hopes for tomorrow. I believe.

Finally, I have ones of readers all over the world, and absolutely none of them have said "Bill, how do you feel about Barry Bonds?" I've heard a lot of people suggest that when Barry breaks Hank Aaron's record there should be an asterisk, because of the whole steroid debacle. Here's the problem: nobody ever caught him. There are people who belong in prison, some of them ex-football players turned actors, who belong in prison. But we endured the legal process and they were found not guilty. I think Barry used steroids, but nobody ever caught him. Its even debatable how hard they tried. I think I may finally understand the phrase "Don't hate the player, hate the game".

That said, a tearful apology from Barry a year ago would have probably fixed all of this. But unless he bets on baseball in the next few days, he will break the record. The betting on baseball scenario is my favorite.

The Chicago Cubs, Van Halen, and Dogs

2007-07-23T21:31:00.000-04:00

I'm still trying to figure out how to keep this interesting, which means, I have to post something, which means I am going to have to run a few things together... they won't initially have appear to have anything to do with each other, but once a barely experienced amateur writer like yours truly tweaks them for a while, you will be certain they have nothing to do with each other.

My mother once told me, "You didn't have a normal childhood, you're a Cubs fan". If you're a Cubs fan you understand. If you aren't, I can't explain it to you, but this makes sense. Red Sox fans, Indians fans, and maybe Toronto Maple Leaf fans would also understand. This year the Chicago Cubs don't stink. In fact, they're threatening to crawl into the post season. History has shown me that if I want to talk about the Cubs on a hot streak, I should do it fast. They just lost two in a row, hopefully I'm not too late. Those two losses aside I have a hunch if you're a Cubs fan, this might be a season that you don't want to miss. Here's a funny and somewhat related youtube link.

On to Van Halen. I've been a Van Halen fan since I was old enough to be a "fan" of one band over another. In 1985, David Lee Roth left Van Halen, which kind of sent shock waves through suburban America. Back then we didn't have all the media access that we have today, so information and rumors about this kinda bounced though the halls of high schools. He was replaced by Sammy Hagar, fracturing the Van Halen fan base and causing a lot of arguments. Most people agree that the earlier work was better ( I would say the first four albums are probably the best), but the Hagar era definitely has bright spots, and singers are replaceable. Its like this, "Those who can, play guitar. Those who can't, sing". Am I just be controversial to try to drum up traffic? Probably, but I do have a child named after Edward Van Halen. Anyway, news is expected any day now that Van Halen will be doing a fall tour with their original line up, except that bass player Michael Anthony has been replaced by Eddie Van Halen's sixteen year old son Wolfgang. But nobody will care that much and tickets will sell a little better than they did for the 2004 tour with Sammy Hagar. Why? Because bass players are replaceable too. You want job security, learn to play guitar. Personally I'm on the edge of my seat going "eh". If they'd done this ten years ago, it would have sold better, and I wouldn't need a baby sitter.

Finally the last thing on my mind: Everybody loves dogs. I realized this a couple of years ago as part of a story that I cannot relate here, but people will overlook you mistreating another human being, but be far more upset if you mistreat a dog. Everybody loves dogs. I knew this, and I'm sure Michael Vick knows it now. He would be more popular in the public eye if he ran a prostitution ring. Legally, I imagine he's better off in his current situation, but you have to keep in mind that not only am I not a lawyer, I have no idea whatsoever what I am talking about. But if you happen to be involved in a dogfighting operation and didn't realize that everybody loves dogs, or you think that you love dogs, know this: Everybody loves dogs. They love them wandering up, hanging their tongues out and hoping you scratch them behind the ear. They love them hanging out under a high chair waiting to see what the baby drops. They love that dogs are never concerned about how they look when they wake up, and dogs are never too concerned about how they smell (people don't want dogs to smell bad, but they admire that kind of freedom and lack of shame). If you get caught running an operation where you force dogs to kill each other, you will become only slightly more popular than a pedophile IRS agent. Don't mess with dogs.

I Never Said Goodbye

2007-07-12T19:43:00.000-04:00

"I Never Said Goodbye" is an album released by Sammy Hagar after he joined Van Halen. I believe he was contractually obligated to Geffen Records, and owed them one more album. To know for certain would require "research", which journalists are big on, but I'm not a journalist, I'm a blogger... I guess. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be irresponsible, or making any indictments of the blogging community in general. In this case it just really doesn't matter if it was a contractual obligation to Geffen Records, I was just looking for a clever name.

I started this blog because I wanted to be a humor columnist, like Lewis Grizzard or Mike Royko. Well, I wanted to be alive, so I guess I wanted to be more like Dave Barry. "Blog" seemed like a bit of a buzzword, the flavor of the month. I Didn't Want a Blog, or so I thought. But it a friend of mine convinced me it was the most practical way to reach people so I got started.

Then I took some time off. I didn't plan to, which is why I never said goodbye (or "seeya later"). I just went and wrote some other things, and didn't do this while I was busy with those other things. To be specific, I wrote a screenplay. To be more specific, I wrote a filthy screenplay. I don't know why. I put in anything I thought was funny, and it came out pretty dirty. I'd love to say that it was "adult", but filthy or dirty might be more appropriate. It had a sex scene. I never dreamed I would write something like that, but it was funny. It wasn't pure pornography - it was somebody explaining something that happened in the past, and it turned out it was a lie. But it was a very graphic lie. I was shocked I wrote it. I thought it was funny though, so I left it in.

The screenplay will never see the light of day.

I had no idea how to sell or distribute a screenplay. I was pretty sure it was too filthy for even HBO to air, and I had a hunch that it wasn't very good. So I decided there was only one thing to do - convert it to a book. Of course, I had no idea how to write a book either. So I started going through page by page, creating background information for each character, adding all of the back story that was not necessary when it was to be a TV show. I converted about one-third of it, when for no apparent reason I lost interest. I re-read a bit of a couple of days ago, and I really think it is funny.

The book will never see the light of day.

My silly pipe dream about being a humor columnist was till kind of hanging out in the back of my mind. It is really unnecessary, because I have a really great job. But I guess we're always inclined to look toward the future, and as much as I love my job I might like to do something else when I am 50.

But I came to realize that while newspapers are a fairly reasonable form of media right now, trying to be a newspaper columnist right now is a little like trying to be a pinsetter in 1935 (because Gottfried Schmidt invented the mechanical pinsetter in 1936). Newspapers are history, like the phone book, rabbit ear antennas with foil on ends, and anything being colored avocado green. Well guacamole is still avocado green, as are avocados, but I don't understand why the hell anybody ever thought it was a good color for kitchen appliances.

So for better or worse, I'm back. I doubt anybody will notice the difference. But this time I'm not trying to write a newspaper column here, I want to be a blogger. And I want to be a good one.

While Driving Through Beautiful Eastern North Carolina

2006-11-28T00:11:00.000-05:00

While driving on the highway in Eastern North Carolina on Sunday, I passed a car with the words Redneck Hottie written on the back window in large purple letters. I'll pause for a second and let that sink in...

OK. I should clarify a few things now:

Yes, as far as I'm aware this could be the first time that this combination of words has been written on the back window of an automobile in purple letters.
I'm hopeful that regardless of whether or not this was the first time that the phrase Redneck Hottie ever appeared in large purple letters on a car window, this will be the first blog ever written about about the phrase Redneck Hottie appearing in large purple letters on a car window.
This was not a pickup truck. In fact, it was a Toyota Camry, a pretty non-redneck vehicle.
As it was not a pickup truck, a gun rack was not involved.

Looking back on it, in all likelihood this person was an ECU fan driving home from the ECU/NC State football game. For the record, I attended ECU when their football team was ranked 9th in the nation. I do not remember the term Redneck Hottie ever being used, in team colors or otherwise.

In summation let me say this: Once you have driven vehicle with the phrase Redneck Hottie written on it in large letters, you've pretty much assured that at least half of this phrase is true.

Reflections On How the 1980s Ran Together

2006-11-21T00:11:00.000-05:00

Not literally... well maybe that happened too, but it really doesn't matter to me right now. Believe me, if I can figure out how to exploit that for a couple of cheap laughs, I'll do it. Right now I'm talking about how things in 1980s movies ran together. Or rather, how movie makers ran them together.

What do the movies Footloose, Better Off Dead, Real Genius, and Scarface all have in common? Copious amounts of violence? No. The footage of Kevin Bacon as a dancing teenager being chained to a bathtub and silenced by a chainsaw was (regrettably) left on the cutting room floor. Also most of the cocaine trade in Miami was pulled from Real Genius.

Footnote: I don't think the Real Genius clip is real. The Better Off Dead clip isn't actually the montage, but its a claymation hamburger playing Van Halen on a guitar that is almost correct - it doesn't get any better than this.
Footnote 2: I miss claymation. Someday I'll write about The California Raisins, The Noid, and something else. The way I remember it, all of 1986 was claymated, but those are all I can remember right now.
Footnote 3: Adam West beating The Noid to death was one of the greatest moments in television history.

What these movies all have in common is the 1980s style montage. This is where about two-thirds of the way through a ninety minute movie, music would play while we watched a collage of the good guy characters doing whatever they needed to do to achieve their goal, which always involved winning the girl, who was always Molly Ringwald. Lately, these have been spoofed in current television shows. For example, here is Family Guy's "1980s Style Fixin' Stuff Up Montage". I'm not sure it is necessary to include here, but it took me hours to find it, so it goes in.
Footnote 1: In the case of Scarface replace "good guy characters doing whatever they needed to do to achieve their goal, which always involved winning the girl" with "bad guys who were the main characters achieving their goal, which was selling large quantities of drugs". It ended poorly for them. Well the montage ended fine, but the movie itself ended badly.

These were everywhere in the 1980s. Inexplicably, they went away in somewhere early in the 1990s. I suppose it is because most art took a "deeper" turn in the 1990s. Out were movies like Footloose and Better Off Dead, in were deeper, more serious films like BASEketball and Booty Call. The same thing happened in music.

I'm no student of film, but it seems the montage served two basic purposes:

To show time passing while somebody is learning how to dance, in order to woo Molly Ringwald
To actually pass some time when a ninety-one minute script falls two minutes short because the whole film can be explained in a paragraph.

This begs the following question: Why did Scarface have one of these scenes? The movie nearly happens in real-time. The extended DVD version is nine and a half days long. I should know, I own it. But it is a little difficult to watch when you have to little kids and rarely have nine and a half days free after they go to bed.

I can't end this without mentioning Barney being chained to a bathtub in a Scarface-esque drug-deal-gone-wrong scene. Ever since I wrote the last paragraph I can't let it go. Is it dark? Sure. But its "funny dark".

Think this was funny? Email me here. Didn't think it was funny? Use the same link.

What Is Bothering Me on Election Night

2006-11-07T22:31:00.000-05:00

What is bothering me this election night is a problem that is not specific to people here in the Southeast United States, or even the United States in general. I imagine this is an issue that affects people worldwide. Well it might just be an American issue, I'm really not certain. Unfortunately, it does not appear on a ballot here in the red states. Or the blue states, I can't remember which one we are. One thing is for sure: if you put me in charge I'll make the states red and green and color blind men everywhere will just see a map. But red, blue, yellow, or pink - this issue does not appear on a ballot anywhere in the country.

The issue is this: "Why are men the only ones who can operate a toilet seat?" If you saw the bathrooms in my college dormitory it would be obvious that a lot of men are actually incapable of operating one, or of managing to "aim through" one that is down.

As men, there a few things that are just expected of us. Things that go beyond equal rights. We generally deal with the bugs. We have to squish the yucky ones, we have to shuttle the more benign ones outside (I imagine that roaches really hate crickets and find the fact that they generally get a free ride outside arbitrary and unfair. Crickets make a lot of racket and roaches are quiet (except the hissing ones), and roaches don't realize that they are completely gross and that their ability to multiply strikes fear into the hearts of homeowners everywhere. Roaches merely think that they are "family oriented"). Basically anything pest oriented falls on us. Women aren't big on emptying a mousetrap. But when a man just throws one away rather than pry out a dead mouse, they will point out that it could have been reused.

A lot of things fall on us. The thing is we don't mind dealing with the pests, yard work, oil changes, tire rotation, barbecuing, light bulb changing, etc. There are a few reasons for this, not the least of which is that men like to see women naked, and will therefore do what they say most of the time. Here are some other less logical reasons:

Pests - You can't claim to be grossed out by bugs when you spend as much time scratching as we do.
Yard work - Men like things that allow us to use moderately dangerous machines and see what happens when we run things over with the mower.
Oil changes - We like cars.
Tire rotation - See "Oil changes"
Barbecuing - We like fire, and to cook on fire makes us feel like we are in touch with our caveman roots.
Light bulb changing - While we agree that men and women are equal - we are simply taller.

But for some reason I do not understand we are expected to raise the toilet seat when need be, and lower it when we are done. I feel that women are perfectly able to operate a toilet seat, and as it does not involve bugs, internal combustion engines, fire, or reaching over ones' head, I see no reason we should be the only ones who can handle this.

So I say politely, "Ladies, if it is up, put it down".

Think this was funny? Email me here. Didn't think it was funny? Use the same link.

It's Over...

2006-10-29T22:16:00.000-05:00

...for this year. In what I'll just call "something of any upset", the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Detroit Tigers 4 games to 1 to win the World Series. When asked for a comment Detroit Tiger's manager Jim Leyland said "I suppose it is odd that I smoke and manage a professional sports team, but I don't like chewing tobacco".

What a lot of people in the sports community seem to be latching onto is the fact that the Cardinals were 83-78 in the regular season. Just two games over .500. Fans in Philadelphia were so angered by this they coughed cheesesteak out of their nose. Why? Because the only other Philadelphia joke I can come up with involves the Rocky statue, but I can't make it work. Also because the Philadelphia Phillies had a better regular season record than the St. Louis Cardinals, but did not make the playoffs.

(Note to the Philadelphia Phillies:"The Philadelphia Phillies" is the best you could come up with? Why not just the "Philadelphia Philadelphians"? Nothing else noteworthy happens in Philadelphia? Milwaukee has The Brewers, a reference to the fact that they make quite a bit of beer in Milwaukee (this will end when some genius decides its a bad influence on our children), L.A. has The Dodgers, an obvious reference to avoiding gunfire, and Chicago has the Cubs - which I frankly don't understand, but at least its not the "Chicago ChiGuys". They almost have a theme going with The Bears, but then they also have The Bulls which doesn't make any sense... but at least they could pick an animal. Also [owner of Philadelphia Phillies name goes here], if you picked another team name, you could have a real mascot instead of whatever the hell the Philly Phanatic is. Maybe you could work in that bell with the crack in it)

So the good phans in the great sport city of Philadelphia are probably upset. And I really share the pain of the Detroit Tiger fans. We all thought they had it in the bag, but I like to say "that's why they play the games" (If they didn't "play the games" the Stanley Cup wouldn't have spent so much time in the Southeast lately, they'd leave it in Canada, or maybe occasionally New York. But it turns out you can have a winning hockey team anywhere you can manufacture ice and import Canadians - you can't raise a winning hockey team in the Southeast, but you can have a winning hockey team in the Southeast).

In the end a life long Cubs fan is left with this: "83-78, we could get there from here".

Think this was funny? Email me here. Didn't think it was funny? Use the same link.

I'm Nuts about these Nuts

2006-10-23T23:07:00.000-04:00

The good folks at Diamond Foods have been making smoked almonds for as long as I can remember. That was pretty much the end of it; they came in regular and smoked. This brings to mind the following questions:

Why smoked, why not boiled, dry roasted, honey roasted, or one of the other more traditional nut cooking methods?

Do they smoke these in some sort of giant tee-pee, at the same time they do some fish and a couple of pigs, or just use smoke flavoring?

Bill just used a semi colon... did he do it properly?

I can answer the last question - there are only eleven people on earth that know how to use a semi colon properly. Even fewer understand the balk rule. The intersection of these sets is rather odd, there is exactly one person on earth who understands exactly when to use a semi-colon and the balk rule. Oddly enough it is Russian dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov (Russian: Михаил Николаевич Барышников). I know what you're thinking... "Bill my 8th grade English teacher knew how to use a semi-colon." I'm sure she did, but I was talking about people. Also you're probably wondering why I included the Cyrillic version of Baryshnikov's name... I just think it looks cool.

Anyway, we were talking about nuts, and I think that Diamond Foods has come up with the greatest advance in nuts since the invention of dry roasting. Dry roasting is a process that I know nothing about, but I assume that Mr. Peanut was somehow involved. I suppose it could be reseached easily enought. Get back to me on that ok?

What Diamond came up with is the "Wasabi and Soy Sauce Almond". Why, I don't know. I hate to think 0f the ideas that must have failed - poodles may have been involved. But these have a sudden burst of horseradish that just sorta goes away, followed by almond flavor (which I think may actually be natural). I highly recommend them.

I don't get money from Blue Diamond... or anybody else. Think this was funny? Email me here. Didn't think it was funny? Use the same link.

State Fair, Inc

2006-10-13T23:37:00.000-04:00

Here at State Fair, Inc. we are dedicated to bringing fair goers the newest and most innovative fried foods in the world. We were the inspiration for both the cornballer and that "deep fry just like at the carnival in your home" kit on Bob and Tom. A few years ago we amazed the world when we offered the deep fried candy bar. People say that there is no pioneer spirit left in this country, but they must be wrong - because not since Orville and Wilbur Wright have people in North Carolina subjected themselves to such personal risk for the good of society. But thankfully fried food innovation did not stop on that fateful day of December 16, 1903 when Orville and Wilbur became the very first people to deep fry a candy cane. Pioneer spirit lives on(Unfortunately the deep fried candy cane is sometimes over looked because they did something the following day too.)

This year we are proud to offer fair goers Deep-fried Coca-Cola. Some people said it couldn't be done. Cardiologists and dentists world wide said it shouldn't be done. But we did it. You can't defeat the pioneer spirit. The real breakthrough came in the realization that it was impossible to actually deep fry Coca-Cola, you have to deep fry batter and flavor that with with Coca-Cola. Fred "Lefty","Nine-Finger","No-nose" Jenkins gave his life for this valuable information. Now he's talking shop with Rudolph Diesel. You can't kill pioneer spirit.

This year we are also proud to offer fried Oreos, fried Twinkies, fried Moon Pies, and fried cheeseburgers. The lucky residents of South Carolina will also be treated to deep fried Ho-Hos, as the legislation regarding the regulation of deep fried Ho-Hos is still pending in South Carolina.

http://www.wral.com/statefair/10052413/detail.html

If You're a Yankees Fan, Just Don't Read This...

2006-10-10T00:23:00.000-04:00

...unless you're going to send the link to all your friends and increase my hits. My ego could use the boost. You were warned.

I try to be positive in life. I'd rather pull for a winner than hope somebody loses. This is how I would like to live my life. But in reality, if the New York Yankees lose, I'm generally pretty happy. And they did just that - again. At least they did it on a budget. That A-Rod guy seems like a bargain at $25 million for ten years.... what's that? Oh, its $25 million per year for ten years. Well, Howard Stern still makes more money, maybe A-Rod will work out. I do think it would be funny if until he comes through in the post season they make him answer to his middle name, Emmanuel.

Yankee fans think that people hate the Yankees because they win so much. Actually not true - we hate Yankee fans... you know who you are... and we do it for the following reasons:

If you're going to say "we" when you refer to the Yankees, please be ready to tell me when you played for them. If you did, odds are you have the best pickup line in any bar (unless there happens to be an astronaut hanging out (kinda funny to picture them leaning against the bar talking to a girl while wearing the space suit)), but otherwise don't say "we" - because "you" didn't do anything. You didn't even spend Steinbrenner's money (which is another topic altogether).

The Yankees have won 26 championships. Twenty of them were before I was born, and I don't care about them. You might as well stomp about talking about how many presidencies your political party won since 1789 (or whenever they invented political parties in this country).

Don't go on about the Red Sox, or the Cubs, or whoever not making the post season. Steinbrenner spent nearly $200 million and won one playoff game. They lost to a team that hasn't seen a league championship series since 1984 managed by a career minor league chain smoker.

Go ahead and blame Joe Torre - There's a home for you in Chicago, Joe.

If you live in the Southeast and haven't been to a game in 5 years or more, don't go about acting as though you're super fan. Even with the disparity in coverage, you only have to watch about 12 games a year. But even in the age Fox Sports XXX the Cubs are still on WGN a couple of games a week.

As for me... I'll stay a Cubs fan. Just wait 'til next year - hopefully they aren't "The best team in baseball... on paper" next year. It didn't work out well this year.

Its Over Johnnie

2006-10-02T21:39:00.000-04:00

I'm back (picture that Eminem song about "guess whose back" playing in the background while you contemplate the fact that I don't know the name of the song and must not actually like Eminem very much). I've explained before that Bill Daniels is my alter-ego. It turns out my actual ego had a rough couple of weeks and nothing seemed funny. What I'm trying to do here is more of a humor column than a traditional blog, so I tend not to force things when nothing seems funny. If anybody wants to pay me to write for their website/newspaper/[put something ridiculous and funny here] I will be happy to force it. I seem able to in my professional life.

Now on to the title - it will help if I explain a couple of things:

Dusty Baker's real name is Johnnie
I like the Opie and Anthony show, and they play the "its over Johnnie" sound clip sometimes
The sound clip is from the end of First Blood
In David Morrell's book First Blood Rambo dies, sparing us sequels.
I think Morrell might have spelled "Johnnie" "Johnny", but I don't care enough to look it up
I could look it up, I have the paperback I borrowed from my friend Sean just under 20 years ago (Sean - let me know if you want it back)
I'm too lazy to come up with a name that rhymes with Sean, although sometimes I think it is funny to protect people's identity when it is clearly not necessary
Even though Rambo died in the first book, David Morrell wrote the first sequel - losing any brownie points he may have gained by killing Rambo in the first book.
The Chicago Cubs fired Dusty Baker today

I had the thought last week that the only comment I had on baseball season was that I was looking forward to the end - like somebody with a terminal disease. Then I realized that Bill Daniels' sense of humor isn't as dark as mine and decided against it. Boy am I glad I didn't write about that.

But the regular season is over, and the Chicago Cubs, called the "best team in the league - on paper" before the season started, finished a respectable 66-96, getting edged out by Tampa Bay and Kansas city overall, but still clinching the worst record in the National League by one game.

Hockey season starts Wednesday.

Hey, you could probably buy my vote

2006-09-12T22:55:00.000-04:00

Ok, maybe not buy it, but you could get me to vote for you. Just run on an issue that's important to me.

But Bill, you say, I thought you were and imaginary alter-ego and therefore avoided all issues of politics and religion? Well that's true, unless I think it might be funny. And there is no shortage of funny issues regarding politics and religion. Maybe someday I'll create another alter-ego that doesn't pull any punches, talks about politics and nut-jobs and gets upset and swears... but not right now.

So you want me to vote for you? Here's what you do:

Promise that during your time in office that most popular media outlets will not play anything from the Lynyrd Skynyrd catalog. Or any version of the song Hotel California. Or anything by Led Zeppelin. Or any Pink Floyd song recorded after 1973. Nobody ever plays the ones recorded before then anyway.
Once again, I thought I needed a list, but actually that's it. Run on the "No more Lynyrd Skynyrd, any version of Hotel California, anything by Led Zeppeln, or any Pink Floyd song recorded after 1973"* platform, and you have Bill Daniels' vote.

* This included playing "Sweet Home Alabama" between plays at professional hockey games, which makes just slightly more sense than whatever the hell the chicken dance** is.

** According to Wikipedia, "It has become a staple dance at weddings and at Oktoberfests." This bascially means that something called the chicken dance is popular at affairs that serve a LOT of beer. I ask, does this even need to be written, or is sort of self-explanatory?

Why Lynyrd Skynyrd? Are they the worst rock band ever? No - I'm sure they're not. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Styx is... I'll write about that another time. Actually I love all of the bands concerned here (except Styx). But frankly if I have to hear the Ballad of Curtis Lowe again, I could go into a homicidal rage. Or I might just learn to avoid classic rock stations. But that latter hasn't happened so far, so I'm a little concerned. Hotel California, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd are just along for the ride.

I was really hoping to get another couple of paragraphs out of this, but it looks like it ends right about here.

Interesting Quote Wednesday 9/13/2006

2006-09-12T21:23:00.000-04:00

"It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown"

--Linus van Pelt

The Darn Chicago Cubs

2006-09-11T23:11:00.000-04:00

Keep a couple of things in mind:

Bill Daniels is my pseudonym and alter ego. He's nicer than I am, uses nicer language, he's a nice guy.
I guess that's it... it seemed like I was going to need a list.

This weekend Bill Daniels and I - who are really the same person - flew from what we put in our profile as "Averagetown, Southeast, USA" to Atlanta, GA to visit my friend who I'll call "Strom". Besides visiting, I did this to see the Chicago Cubs play the Atlanta Braves, a baseball team I hate with every portion of my being. This brought up a number of issues for me:

Strom is a huge Braves fan, and a nice guy. He got us free tickets that were so good, I couldn't even manage to crack jokes about the seats being lousy.
I like Strom, so I almost felt a little guilty about hating the Braves so much.
Even though I have a wife and two children, I went alone.
I took an airline that once parked a DC-9 in the everglades. This isn't meant to be funny, just matter of fact. To be fair, they have changed names since then, and hopefully maintenance habits.
The only hope the Cubs have this season is a strike that lasts well into the winter months. Where are Gary Bettman and Bob Goodenow when you really need them?

So I went. And the Cubs lost. I got to see Matt Murton's home run, and things looked promising until the bottom of the third inning. Kinda like all those times you blew a 300 game in the second frame, y'know? I'm not nearly as nice as Bill Daniels, so the stream of obscenities, sometimes yelled at the umpire, rarely included the word "Darn". At least Strom got us good enough seats that the umpires may have heard me.

(actually I didn't use obscenities while yelling at the umpire, there were children in front of me. I find yelling at umpires therapeutic, I recommend it)

Interesting Quote Wednesday 9/6/2006

2006-09-06T22:53:00.000-04:00

Normally I poke fun at myself for not writing things that are timely. I try to be current, but generally wind up writing things that are neutral at best (like I Love Coffee). Tonight, unfortunately, one doesn't have to think too hard to be current:

"The one thing I would want to be remembered for is passion and enthusiasm. Conservation is my life, my job, my whole persona."
-- Steve Irwin

I liked his show. Seemed like a good guy over all. Did a lot of good stuff for animals, and kids liked him. I'm kinda glad my kids aren't old enough to have watched the show.

Interesting Quote Wednesday 8/30/2006

2006-09-05T21:36:00.000-04:00

"I fell asleep at the computer and never found a quote"

-Bill Daniels

Fear not, tomorrow it'll be Wednesday again, and I'll try to be better rested.

I Love Coffee

2006-08-29T23:44:00.000-04:00

The title says it all - I love coffee. Do I need a cup or two to function properly in the morning? Am I addicted to caffeine?

Could be. I have actually quit drinking it once or twice, but always come back. Why? The answer is two-fold actually:

A coffee habit isn't exactly a big problem. As addictions go its legal, socially acceptable, and doesn't generally leave people on the street.
I love coffee.
It is really annoying me that I put this in as a numbered list, but the numbers are getting clipped by the picture of the caffeine molecule.
I want to keep the picture, I think its cool. Plus its public domain, and the first picture I found of coffee beans wasn't. I didn't feel like looking for a second coffee bean picture.
I think I ran this list out long enough now that you can actually see some numbered items and maybe now you can tell that "A coffee habit..." was number one and "I love coffee" was number two.
Ok, I guess the answer wasn't really two fold, it was six-fold. Or five-fold anyway - maybe this one doesn't count.
In its final published form, the numbers don't seem to be clipped, possibly leaving you somewhat bewildered about numbers 3-6.

As far as I knew until about 1992, coffee "beans" were the little ground pieces that I was so familiar with. But, probably thanks to Starbucks, at some point people decided it would be cooler to make actual coffee beans (which are bean shaped, not the individual ground pieces as I had thought) available to the normal man. I guess its is all because somebody invented a coffee grinder smaller than a Buick that could be sold to every household in America. This was neatly followed by the home espresso machine. The espresso machine is what you use if instead of spending three minutes making eight cups of coffee you want to make one cup of coffee in just under an hour - before cleaning time.

What prompted this rant against "fancy" coffee from somebody who loves coffee as much as myself? My office has a trick coffee grinder. It is a fancy, high-end, semi-industrial model with a dial you turn that allows you to specify how much coffee you want to grind. It then randomly grinds an amount between one pot's worth of beans, and one quarter teaspoon. We started getting ground coffee again, which I am incredibly thankful for. Believe it or not, when a ziploc bag of coffee is stored inside tupperware (or a non-copyrighted tupperware-like facsimile), it just doesn't matter - to me anyway. I find the trick grinder so irritating I am writing this even though we're back on "normal" coffee. Plus I wanted to write, and this was the only thing that came to mind.

So, a couple of words to the wise:

Just buy "coffee", not beans. At least for first thing in the morning. After your first cup you can better handle grinding, cleaning, etc.
Don't stand between Bill and the coffee, at least not before 10:00a.m.

The New Cars

2006-08-28T23:15:00.000-04:00

I haven't been able to write much lately - I try to stick to funny things, and I guess nothing seems funny. I thought I would finally break through... I had this terrific rant about the price of tickets to see The New Cars, but it turns out I was simply wrong. I'd say they're still a little high, but in line with the other tours going on this summer - they all cost too much. But it turns out that the $199 tickets I saw on the official website are a special deal that includes a "meet and greet" with the band. I'd shake your hand in the parking lot for free, but then I never put a single in the top 40.

The only other funny thing that has happened is embarrassing. I thought - I was certain - that the word "significant" was "signifiGant". I didn't really think that the 'g' was capitalized, but I wanted it to stand out. Generally, I spell pretty well. There are words I have trouble with, but I tend to know what they are (barrel, tomorrow...) and pay special attention to them. This I was just wrong about, and clueless too. I wouldn't even have pronounced it right. This should probably explain why I haven't "made it" as a writer, and should not expect to anytime soon.

In sports news - I'm still a Cubs fan, and the Cubs are really, really, really, really bad this year. I'm not sure why I still check scores. I've never claimed to be an optimist, and I've certainly never been accused of being one, but I guess that one little part of me must hold out hope.

Interesting Quote Wednesday 8/24/2006

2006-08-24T01:11:00.000-04:00

"I didn't have a scouting report on him. Obviously he can hit 65 mph fastballs."- Mark Grace

On September 2nd 2002 Mark Grace - a career first baseman - pitched the 9th inning as his team lost 19-1. The quote above was on giving up a home run to Dave Ross - the first of his major league career.

Its been a rough year to be a Cubs fan. Yeah, I know, Mark Grace played for Arizona in 2002, but he's still a Cub to me.

I can't get this to format correctly, but I am now well into "Tired at Work Thursday", so I'm going to have to let it go.

It Is "Interesting Quote Wednesday"

2006-08-17T00:35:00.000-04:00

I recently voiced a number of ideas I've had to generate traffic. Most of them were stupid, ridiculous things that I made up to try to be funny. Also, it might be the first blog entry in history to mention both U2 and Cutting Crew. But I hinted at Interesting Quote Wednesday, which I've decided to try. For normal people, espcially those on the East coast of the United States, it will be Intersting Quote Thursday, because I stay up kind of late when I write.

Here is today's quote:

"Fantastic!"
- Michael Collins

This might bear a little bit of explanation. On July 20th, 1969, we landed men on the moon. As far as I know we did this just because it was there. Some amazing advancements we take for granted came out of the space program, and I was always told that Velcro was one of them, although I see no mention of it in my almost 30 seconds of research. Right this minute, I'm not sure the American spirit is one to go somewhere just to prove it can be done. I think we will again, but right now I'm not sure.

Anyway - we did it. At about 3:18 p.m. Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin landed the lunar module on the surface of the moon, and Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin spoke the first words said on the moon: "Contact light." After which he began to contemplate who gave him the nickname "Buzz", and that it might not have been a compliment.

The next sets of words spoken from the moon were spoken by Neil Armstrong who said:

Shutdown.

and then:

Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed

Which is pretty poignant considering he was busy contemplating why he was never given a nickname. Then Charlie Duke of mission control said:

Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You've got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot.

And then Michael Collins, left orbiting the moon in the command module said "Fantastic!". He actually said he never felt lonely, that he knew his part of the mission was as important as the other two parts. But you'd have to agree that Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin and Neil "I don't have a nickname" Armstrong are pretty much household names - in the United States anyway. But Michael Collins doesn't come up that often, so he is honored with this week's "Interesting Quote Wednesday". Tune in again next week for "Interesting Quote Wednesday", which of course will really be on Thursday for most of you.

Thanks to skygod.com for a page full of great space program quotes.

If I Were On South Park...

2006-08-15T22:20:00.000-04:00

If I ever "got on down to South Park", I might look like this. I actually look nothing like this, but I do have long hair and a goatee. The goatee is usually obscured by the fact that I don't shave as often as a responsible man in his mid-thirties should. Also, I have a lot of red t-shirts. I am thankful that the Eric Cartman body was not available.

So how did I come up with this? I came across the link below on a message board. I have to leave it "below" because it seems to becausing some trouble mixed in with regular text.

If you try it your first question will be "How Do I Save It?". That part is left as an exercise. That's what all the hard problems in computer science books say about the part you really need to know.

http://images.southparkstudios.com/games/create/index.html

Worthless Observations On Trying to Be Funny, and 1987 Trivia

2006-08-14T23:22:00.000-04:00

I really try to be current here. I do try. Obviously, I have failed miserably since the Stanley Cup Finals. Why? Because I lead an incredibly boring life, and don't falter under the impression that it will be interesting to you. But I really do want to write. I went through all the trouble to pick out a pseudonym and fake names that rhyme with the real names of most of my friends.

I could stop trying to be funny and talk about what is in the news, but frankly I don't understand most of it. We're fighting a war, or I suppose dealing with an occupation at this point. I'm not sure how its going - but people don't like it - that's probably a good thing. If we ever fought a war that too many people really liked that might be scary. Israel has a ceasefire in a war that I don't really understand but I think they're fighting it in Lebanon, but they aren't fighting with Lebanon per se. People don't like the President much, but I think that's been covered. I hear the price of gas is high.... I hear that every ten minutes or so, so I don't think there is any point in me covering it here.

So I need something funny to talk about and since I can't think of anything current, I'll settle for something that happened in 1987. But we'll do that in a minute.

I also want to address how to get people here and how to get some feedback on exactly how bad my attempts are. I had a few thoughts:

Do something controversial. Pick some group of people who annoy me, and verbally assault them. If people notice it might generate some traffic. So I did that with a group of people that I find truly annoying, those who imitate characters in Austin Powers movies. By and large the one person who read it didn't seem to get it. Perhaps I should have picked something more tangible, like a political group, or an orange (see, now you wonder what I'm talking about - you want to click that link - go ahead).
Recurring features. It works for bad morning radio. So I was wondering how many people would tune in on a given day of a week to see something in a recurring theme. I had ideas for a couple of possible themes:

Quotes by Rudolph Diesel Wednesday
Reality TV wrapup Wednesday
Something on a day other than Wednesday
Random links to thing I already wrote Tuesday
I am not aware of any other quotes by Rudolph Diesel, hate reality television, and
it really seems like I ought to start on Wednesday because its right in the middle of the week.

If you use bullets instead of numbers, and say something vague like "I had a few thoughts", you don't have to keep changing the numbers around when you get a new idea (or forget one).

So please, if you think its worth reading, tell a friend. And if you don't, tell me. You only have to tell me once, it won't take much time.

In 1987 a song by Cutting Crew - (I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight - was on the charts at roughly the same time as a song by a band called U2 - With or Without You. The two events are linked in my mind. I specifically remember sitting and talking to a friend who was a police officer at the guard shake of the Air Force base that I lived on while both of these songs played on the radio. That one thing linked the two songs in my mind.

(I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight was one of the top hits of 1987. Cutting Crew were nominated for the Best New Artist Grammy, and sank into relative obscurity. Its not that there subsequent records were not good, but those are the rules: You get the Best New Artist Grammy, you've had your hit. Just ask these guys. Here in 2006, nearly twenty years later, a version of Cutting Crew with as many as one original band member have released a new album. I hope it does well.

As for that other band - I'm not sure whatever happened to them. I hope they saved some money.

Maybe I'll be Funny Tomorrow

2006-08-14T00:51:00.000-04:00

It is a lot of pressure knowing that ones of people come to this very website everyday looking for a laugh. Unfortunately, I just can't come up with anything to write about tonight. I hope I'll be funny tomorrow.

All in all it was a good day - the Cubs won.

An interesting quote

2006-08-10T00:24:00.000-04:00

With hindsite on our side, it is easy to quote a prediction that doesn't make the speaker look too bright. For example:

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."- Popular Mechanics, 1949

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

I happened to trip upon a quote today that made speaker look pretty visionary. And that visionary man is Rudolf Diesel. I had always thought that Diesel died when one of his diesel motors exploded, but two sources say that nobody knows for sure.

Here's the quote:
"The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today, but such oils may become in the course of time as important as petroleum and the coal tar products of the present time." - Rudolf Diesel, Patent application, 1912

The X Games

2006-08-07T23:47:00.000-04:00

The X Games were this past weekend... The X Games are what ultimately occured when a group of atheletes looked at film of Joe Theisman writhing in pain after his final play on the football field and said "heh, wuss". First there was "MTV Sports", which was hosted by Dan Cortese - who I like to think of as "the poor man's Keanu Reeves". Every week he would go out with a group of people who were riding mountain bikes down the side of mountains, bungee jumping, etc. It was the early 90s and Extreme sports were all the rage. In fact, everything became extreme. Soda, deodorant, toothpaste, paper plates. Pretty much anything you could sell got the word extreme plastered on it. I think when they came up with extreme programming that was the end of the line. Because it was sort of like saying "extreme geek" or "extremely uncool. Perhaps that's why just the 'X' stuck.

The X Games pretty much involve people taking bicycles, skateboards, and mortorcycles, riding them over jumps as high as they possibly can, and doing tricks while in the air. There used to be a few more games, but I imagine that bungee jumping on television just didn't hold the same alure after Fox's "When Bungee Jumping Goes Bad".

I love the X Games. I'm not sure why. I've always liked watching this sort of thing, and never seriously entertained doing any of it. You see, when I saw the replay of Joe Theisman's last play that Tuesday morning in 1985 I didn't go "heh, wuss" - I went "My God, he may never walk again", and since he did, I figure I might not - so don't tempt fate.

My favorite is watching the bikes. The greatest X Games althelte ever is bike rider Dave Mirra. I have a lot in common with Dave. He lives in Greenville, NC, and I used to live there. I had a bicycle as a child, he rides a bicycle professionally. He got Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher, and I have seen several episodes of both Punk'd and That 70s Show. So maybe that explains my love for the X Games, with Dave and I being so close and all. Dave Mirra suffered a lacerated liver during practice this year and was not able to compete.

The highlight of this years X Games seems to be Travis Pastrana doing a double backflip on a motorcycle. This marks the first time this trick has been performed succesfully in competition, yet he didn't receive a perfect 10 in the scoring. I just want to reiterate - this young man flipped a motorcycle that he was riding twice in the air - and didn't receive a 10. I was hoping for a Nadia Comaneci reference here, but I can't seem t0 make it work.

Snakes on a Plane

2006-08-06T01:28:00.000-04:00

Snakes on a Plane is the next summer blockbuster coming out. It opens August 18, 2006 - and features the generally mild mannered Samuel L Jackson. I suspect it is about snakes on an airplane. But then again I'm not sure The Piano was really about a piano. Somebody told me it was supposed to be erotic, but after 20 minutes decided that no amount of sex could save that movie and gave up. So I don't really know for sure, and there was a piano there - but I had a feeling that the movie was about something deeper than the piano - if you were to watch the whole thing.

In 1988 there was a hit movie called "Die Hard". It featured Bruce Willis as a New York cop who is in a building in Los Angeles when a group of European terrorists (in the 1980's these were technically reffered to by the term "Eurotrash") take over the building to steal a bunch of stuff and try to kill everybody. Bruce Willis kills all of them instead. Had Bruce Willis been killed by the bad guys the movie would have lasted twenty-eight minutes and had a sad ending. This version didn't do well in screen tests. So they went with the "sell out" ending, and not only did it do well, it spawned sequels - Die Hard 2, Die Hard Goes to College, Die Hard Meets Earnest, etc. As we speak, "Die Hard - Isn't Bruce Willis Getting Kinda Old For This Stuff, and is the Situation With Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, and Bruce Willis a Little Creepy?" is in pre-production.

I'm not a film expert, but I have seen some on television. It seems there was a period after the release of Die Hard where all the new action movie ideas were pitched relative to Die Hard. "Die Hard on a Bus", "Die Hard on a Boat", "Die Hard on the set of Regis and Kathy Lee where We're a Kinda Rooting for the Bad Guys". I guess Snakes on a Plane was pitched as "Die Hard on a Plane with Snakes".

So why am I writing about the movie Snakes on a Plane, which I frankly have no interest in? Well, I'm hoping if I mention Snakes on a Plane enough times, I might get some accidental traffic from search engines. Also - I wanted to share this link. You can set it up to have a pre-recorded version of Samuel L Jackson call a friend and tell them to go see Snakes on a Plane. Its very funny - certainly more fun than working.

A Funny Thing Happend at Sam's Club

2006-08-01T23:34:00.000-04:00

Usually these stories are titled "A funny thing happened on the way to ...", but this is probably as witty as I'm going to be for tonight.

Sam's Club - a giant warehouse filled with the largest possible quantity of every known food item in the universe. For those of you unfamiliar with Sam's Club, its like Costco. For those of you unfamiliar with Costco, its like the price club where Kramer bought the Beef-A-Reeno (note to people who "don't get Seinfeld" - the rest of us "don't get" you).

I have often joked it would make a pretty good reality show to send hungry people into Sam's Club with $100 and see what they came out with. It wouldn't be any Tommy Lee Goes to College, but it might have a short run on the reality TV list. Why? Because hungry people love peanut butter, Sam's Club carries very large containers of peanut butter, and somebody eating peanut butter directly from a five gallon bucket is extremely funny.

So my wife and I stop by Sam's on the way home from work to get diapers and formula. Why, because there couldn't be anything more boring. I like to think that I used to be cool, but the truth is that I just didn't have kids and didn't have to stop at Sam's for these particular items.

No trip to Sam's is complete without a swing through the clearance section, and there it was - a 61" television marked down to less than half its original price. $1150 - it comes out to $18 per inch (diagonally of course, to measure a television horizontally would just be pandemonium). Long story short, we took home the diapers, formula, and the television. Special thanks to my friend "Terry" (whose identity I will protect by using a fake name that rhymes with his real name), and his wife who is also my friend but her name doesn't rhyme with anything...., wait a minute... his wife "Oksana". She'll be thrilled to know I made her a Russian figure skater. Well better that than to be left out I suppose.

And I guess there isn't much left to say, except that when I'm standing across the room - I never squint to see the television. It is maximum strength television. You can see the picture of course, but there isn't really anything to give a relative size. I could have stood next to it, but

You would see my face and I would give away my true identity, thus spoiling my pseudonym and bad jokes about protecting people's identity by using names that rhyme with their real names.
You would be able to see that I am fat
I'm really starting to question this whole pseudonym/fake name joke thing. I suppose it will make more sense if anybody I don't know personally ever reads this.

And as is the true test of any video device for a man in his mid-thirties - Star Wars looks great on it. Thank you, George Lucas, for releasing these on DVD. And profane insults for making Greedo shoot first and then re-releasing the original-originals again next year.

If you read this, please drop me a line with an honest comment, that way I know if anybody is paying attention. Although I guess I probably look like a guy who would ramble on when nobody is paying attention anyway.

I'll be back...

2006-07-31T23:52:00.000-04:00

It's been a little while, but I'll be back. Too late to start something new tonight, but I have riveting commentary on how my new computer looks a lot like a new bed, a funny thing happening while picking up diapers and formula, loss of internet service, and the Chicago Cubs (for those who didn't catch the hi-lights, tonight's 15-4 loss was a lot closer than it looked).

The Practical Uses of the Pomegranate

2006-07-22T01:27:00.000-04:00

I think that anybody caught imitating a Mike Myers character from the Austin Powers movies should be beaten with a pillow case full of ripe pomegranates. Its a joke, I would never imply that anybody should hit anybody else with anything I chose the pomegranate for several reasons:

It is the most ridiculous fruit I could think of. As far as I know, I have never seen a pomegranate face to face. I actually had a hard time finding the link for it because I misspelled it so badly.
When ripe, I would imagine it softens like most fruit does when it ripens.
A pillow case full of ripe fruit shouldn't severely wound anybody Its a joke, I would never imply that anybody should hit anybody else with anything, merely teach them that going about saying "ghet in mah bhellly" is not only unfunny, but they could face corporal punishment. Quoting Monty Python and the Holy Grail is still funny. I don't know why, but as a software guy I would be terrified to ever imply that it wasn't funny.

I think Mike Myers is funny. I think most of his movies are funny on one level or another. I actually thought Austin Powers was funny. But I don't think I can stand to hear those characters imitated one more time.

I know what you're thinking... "Bill, I have a pillow case, but where can I obtain pomegranates?" Well Its a joke, I would never imply that anybody should hit anybody else with anything it turns out that the pomegranate was first grown in California in 1769 (and even then people bitched about the traffic in L.A.), so I would imagine you can buy them somewhere. I'd try a supermarket or other place where ridiculous Mediterranean fruits are grown.

So now your thinking, "Bill what if I'm in a fashionable New York restaurant and see somebody doing 'Its a maaannn, baabby' and it is actually Mike Myers?" Well, I would say Its a joke, I would never imply that anybody should hit anybody else with anything that while Mr. Myers did actually play the characters in the movies, he is not to be excluded.

Thoughts on the Wong-Baker Facial Grimmace Scale

2006-07-18T00:15:00.000-04:00

I don't like going to the doctor. Most of the times my wife takes me to the doctor she would probably rather take an angry rotweiler to the vet. But everytime I go, the one thing that stands out to me is the "Wong-Baker Facial Grimmace Scale". It is a series of smily faces that progress from happy to sad. This is supposed to help somebody explain how much pain they are in. It must be a hoot when they use this in the delivery room.

I don't have a lot of funny things to say about this. When it is needed for children, or people who don't speak the doctor's language, it is probably really important. But the thing that always gets me is this:two doctors have their names attached to a scale that is a series of smily faces. I'm sure I'm simplifying things, but it seems to me like Wong or Baker could have handled it on their own.

If you read this, please drop me a line with an honest comment, that way I know if anybody is paying attention. Although I guess I probably look like a guy who would ramble on when nobody is paying attention anyway.

The All-Star Game, the Chicago Cubs, and Procrastination

2006-07-14T23:59:00.000-04:00

The classic 1976 movie "Rocky" is a great American story about somebody who is too stupid to stop getting up when he's been beat. This may in fact be what America is all about. I'm not sure because people regularly claim America is "all about this" or "all about that", and there is usually no way to tell that they are right. In this movie the heavyweight champion Apollo Creed decides to fight an unknown boxer and give him a shot at the title, it is basically a publicity stunt. Buy the unknown boxer, Rocky Balboa, gives the champ a harder time than he expected. As the rounds tick past, Apollo's trainer Duke eventually tells him "He doesn't know it's a damn show! He thinks it's a damn fight!" (a lot of people thought that Duke stole the show, but to my knowledge Tony Burton has never been nominated for an Oscar).

All-star games are perhaps the most worthless thing in sports. The NFL's is held after the season, and just barely in the country. The NHL's is pretty much a normal game, provided you have ever seen an NHL game with a 14-12 score and no hitting. They are almost playing a different sport. I hear that basketball has an all-star game, but I really don't care. That brings me to baseball, whose all-star game is equally worthless as the others. A few years ago, the all-star game had to be ended in a tie because it ran too long. People were angry because there are not supposed to be ties in baseball. My thoughts:"They don't know it's a damn show! They think it's a damn baseball game" (try to picture Tony Burton's voice w/a different one overdubbed on the appropriate words).

So now to make the all-star game actually matter, the winner ("winner" is Latin for American League Team) gets home field advantage for the World Series. To quote Max Klinger, "I think it's the most stupidest thing in the world. You call it a police action back home, right ? Over here it's a war. A police action sounds like we're over here arresting people, handing out parking tickets. A war's just killing that's all." Ok, really only the first sentence applies, I just thought it might be funny to include all of it.

On to the Chicago Cubs... They're bad. Really bad. I would like to thank the Pittsburgh Pirates for somehow managing to be worse. The Cubs have been plagued by injuries to key players, and the fact that, apparently, they just aren't very good at baseball. However, leading up to the all-star break they had won three games in a row. I understand this is called a "streak", and it was tied with their other best streak of the season. I thought about writing about this, but I didn't. If you see how terrific my last couple of posts are you will probably understand why I waited.

Today the Cubs played their first game after the all-star break and lost to the New York Mets. I should have written about that streak while I had the chance.

Almost Cut My Hair

2006-07-12T23:59:00.000-04:00

Almost cut my hair

Happened just the other day

It's gettin' kind of long

I could've said it was in my way

Warning: I'm not funny tonight (could be I never am, but tonight I'm not even trying much)

The above hippie dribble was written by David Crosby around 1969. Believe it or not, when I refer to this as "hippie dribble", I don't really mean for that to be insulting, just honest. Also I guess for this to make sense to anybody other than my friends/family that read this I have to mention that I'm one of the oddball thirty-something guys in the world with hair well past my shoulders.

Nothing really funny happened today. Work is a little frustrating right now, and a family emergency led me to skip tonight's concert activities - rather than rock I had to visit a sick relative. I don't mind - its the right thing to do. Besides, I didn't feel like going alone and I'm pretty sure my friend who I'll call "Gil" to protect his identity was going to bail out anyway (ok, everybody who reads this knows who it is, I called him "Gil" because it was funny).

Every weekday, my wife and I drop our kids off at daycare. This makes me feel a little old because it is one of the only places people have ever referred to me as "Mr. (my real name)" and I felt comfortable with it. Usually I'm a first-name kind of guy, but when you're dropping your child off at "school" (sometimes we call it "daycare", sometimes "school", and sometimes "the baby kennel"), it feels appropriate to be addressed as "Mr".

This morning, for the second time, a boy of about five years I would guess asked me why I have long hair. The first time the answer was "Its just cheaper that way", and today I believe it was "It just worked out that way buddy". It sure did make me feel old. When I was that young man's age it was 1975 and a man my age with long hair did not stand out.

I don't remember too much about 1975, but I was there. From what I've seen in movies I gather that the Rolling Stones "Gimme Shelter" played pretty much non-stop, except in Vietnam where Doors songs could be heard playing even in the jungle.

Thirty-odd years from now when they're making movies about today's political climate, and today's war, I wonder what music will play in the background. The odds are pretty good that:

My hair is longer than the members of those bands
Those bands enjoyed most of their success after 11:59pm December 31, 1989, and therefore I never quite felt like I understood them.

If you got this far and you're wondering what the point was... I guess I didn't have one.

At 35, "Rock" is Just a Noun

2006-07-10T23:11:00.000-04:00

I like the Opie and Anthony show. I try to keep my blog pretty clean, their radio show is not. But it is funny if you enjoy a "no-hold-barred" type of humor where you never say "you can't joke about that". If you are, to pick a random example, my parents, you might be convinced that the un-censored half is one of the signs that the decline of Western civilization is complete.

A while back, Gregg "Opie" Hughes mentioned the Night Ranger song "(You Can Still) Rock In America," questioning exactly what the hell that means. Were we ever in danger of not being able to Rock? Were there other countries where Rock had been outlawed, but it was still legal in America? Were they just pointing out that after 30-odd years (at the time) that Rock was still available? Nobody knows. Perhaps if you knew more of the lyrics than:

You can still rock in America!

Ah yeah, s'alright"

it would shed some light on it, but probably not. That was the 1980's for you though, the lyrics just weren't that deep. Ten years later the grunge movement would be in full swing and more intellectual lyrics like

A mulatto,

An albino,

A mosquito,

My libido,

Yea!

would cause the music in the 1990s to seem more thoughtful and well-read.

In 1984 Twisted Sister released the "Stay Hungry" album, which scared a lot of parents, probably mine included, but the truth is that they were far from the scariest thing out there. I have a hunch I might have been a pain in the ass if I never heard a Twisted Sister album. Anyway, the album contained the song "I Wanna Rock". Not a song about one's longing for granite countertops, "Rock" is a verb once again:

I wanna rock! (Rock)

I want to rock (Rock)

I wanna rock! (Rock)

The subtle use of the word "to" in the third line disambiguates the whole thing and proves Rock is in fact used as a verb. In 1984, this made sense to me. In 2006, it pretty much goes on the same shelf with a hippie talking about the oil companies keeping a genius from releasing an engine that gets 200mpg. I still like the song, but I'm not sure whether or not I have time to rock right now. And if I do have time, I'm not sure what the hell it means. I'm pretty sure people who prefer jazz enjoy their music just as much. I'm not sure if they're rocking, or jazzing, or they just don't address it.

Later on in the week, I'm going to a concert. A rock concert. Perhaps I'll rock, I'm not really sure. Could be I'll rock and won't even know it. But one thing is for sure - I'll bitch about paying for parking.

Thoughts on World Cup Soccer

2006-07-07T00:00:00.000-04:00

Its been almost a week since I wrote something here. I'm afraid that not too much seemed funny. My goal here is to be funny. Not 'knee-slapping laugh-out-loud" funny. But kind of "crack-a-smile-while-sitting-at-the-computer" funny. I'm trying to be tell your friends funny. And I do have kind of a funny story about I set out to buy a computer last weekend and wound up with a new bed, nightstand, some sort of end-of-the-bed bench, media cabinet, and picture of horses.

But for one reason or another, that story doesn't seem quite funny enough. So I figure this is the time to tear down World Cup Soccer. Radio's Lazlow, whose short updates on XM radio I enjoy, pointed out that if you want to attract people to your blog you should say something controversial. I currently have a "no-way" policy about discussing politics or religion in this forum, but I figure attacking a sport that is popular in pretty much every country in the world might be enough to upset people. Thankfully everything I know about soccer will fit into a couple of paragraphs.

Soccer - from the Latin soc which is Latin for "the most popular sport ever", and the Latin cer, which means "except in the United States". Soccer is what occurred when somebody asked "what would happen if we took ice-hockey, changed the puck to a ball, got rid of the sticks, made the goals a little bigger, and instead of ice - played on a grassy field the size of Rhode Island?". What happened is Soccer. If only that person - who I am going to call Fred (for no particular reason) - if only Fred had asked "what would happen if we took ice hockey and allowed one player to wear a rocket like Wile E. Coyote?", I would be writing another entry about how terrific hockey is. Instead I'm saying this - If you make the above changes (the ones to make it into soccer, not the Wile E. Coyote ones), hockey becomes boring.

Every four years we have the Olympics, where all the countries of the world come together and play every sport known, and pick a gold, silver, and bronze medal winner for each one in about 15 days. Also every four years (but not the same year), we have World Cup Soccer. The only sport played is soccer. No Acme products are used to make it more interesting, its just soccer. Yet even though it is just one sport, as far as I can tell the World Cup runs for about a year, or at least the entire summer. The United States is out before the competition actually begins. There is one good thing about this, the United States players are allowed to quietly return to their jobs washing dishes in peace. In other countries where people care about soccer these people are occasionally killed - and there really isn't anything funny about that.

So why is soccer popular everywhere but here? I'm not sure. I think a lot of it is because the TV coverage usually involves one camera mounted on top of a skyscraper about a half mile away. It doesn't make for exciting television - and I'm a baseball fan.

I'm sure the "powers that be" will keep pushing soccer here. And we still won't care. We have the MLB, the NBA, the NFL, the NHL, NASCAR, the NCAA, and probably a few other acronyms that I'm forgetting. We just have too much going on.

Now that's out of my system. I wanted to do a World Cup article before it was over. Next time maybe I'll get around to complaining about the Cubs. I have a hunch they won't bounce back between now and then.

If you read this, please drop me a line with an honest comment, that way I know if anybody is paying attention. Although I guess I probably look like a guy who would ramble on when nobody is paying attention anyway.

Note: I found a picture of a Wile E. Coyote toy somehwere on the interent. I hope putting it here was legal.

I'm a Software Guy

2006-06-30T23:18:00.000-04:00

(Alternate title:Making a Short Story Long)

I'm a software guy. My official title is "Software Engineer", but "programmer" is almost perfectly descriptive. There are differences, but I digress (digress - Latin for "will stop talking now"). Normally it might come up like this:

Non-technical co-worker:Something is wrong with my computer.

Me:What does it do.?

Non-technical co-worker:Its been smoking and making sizzling noises... since I spilled a cup of coffee from Starbuck's on it.

Me:Did you bring me any coffee?

Non-technical co-worker:No

Me:Sorry, smoking and sizzling sounds like a hardware problem. I'm a software guy.

The real lesson here is not to spill coffee on your computer. Because even had "Non-technical co-worker" brought me coffee, I could do little about it except point at the smoke and say "well there's your problem"... I'm a software guy. And the truth is as software guys go, I'm not that geeky. I've never read a Lord of the Rings book, only made it through about 40 pages of The Hitchikers' Guide to the Galaxy, and I've never seen a Monty Python movie all the way through (I am well versed in dropping in quotes from them though, if I weren't I could lose my job). My main hobbies are guitars and this blog... ok, maybe the blog isn't a great argument for me not being a geek, but I grew up in the 1980s, and I am sure of one thing - guitars are cool. As for me being stuck in 1987, that's another issue not related to my job, but at least I got rid of the mullet which:

I did not know there was a name for at the time
Did not stand out at the time
Was probably the worst one in the history of the Northern Hemisphere

Most computer guys, even software guys, have really cool "bleeding edge", very fast computers. And I do too, if you live in the year 2000. Now I pretty much own an 1.1GHz boat anchor (and the new boat anchors are up to 3GHz). It is time for a new computer. Unfortunately my wife decided, I mean we decided, that we should have a so called "second child", and it turns out they're expensive to operate.

So I came upstairs tonight all ready to write a really original piece about how the Chicago Cubs seem to be in a slump for the last couple of generations, and as soon as I get into the room I can see that all of the lights on the front panel are on. I have been through this once before. The machine won't respond, I reboot it, and 5 second into the reboot, it freezes up with all the lights on. Fortunately I learned how to fix this last time:

Take side panels off
Start unhooking peripherals and rebooting after each one is removed. No change.
Go to box of random electronic junk, get the multi-meter I was given for free at a trade show by a hardware guy. Use the leads to check the power supply (WARNING - DON'T EVER PLUG ANYTHING INTO ANYTHING ELECTRICAL UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING - YOU COULD BE KILLED - in fact, just forget it, let's say I really didn't do that part, yeah, I didn't do it, I just thought about it, its really immaterial to the story (immaterial - word I hope means "unrelated", but sounds more "writer-guyish").
Turn the computer on. It works.
Unplug multi-meter... no, wait, I never actually plugged it into anything, its dangerous. Skip this step.
Put computer back together.
Put meter back - I did actually get it out, I just didn't really use it as far as any readers who might hurt themselves and sue me later are concerned.

The act of plugging in, I mean merely getting out, the multi-meter convinces the computer that I mean business, and it will operate without flaw (and by "without flaw" I mean "with occasional spontaneous reboots") for a month or two.

So tomorrow, in my most serious tough guy voice, I'm going to my wife and ask "may I please buy a new computer?" And by "new", I mean refurbished. sitemeter.com now says that my blog attracts as many as four readers per day, so obviously it is important that I have one. Otherwise my current computer may realize that while I can write software, I don't even know what the hell a multi-meter is used for. I'm a software guy.

Wow, now I can wait and write about the Cubs another time.... it'll be a hoot.

Little Too Busy

2006-06-26T22:50:00.000-04:00

It seems my so called "job" is keeping me busy at night so I don't have time to write anyting good. But I'm stockpiling ideas and sometime in the next week or so I'll be back with lots of worthless ramblings about the plight of being a Cubs fan, reality television, and why is it that the electric company advertises.

Its a shame I don't have time to write when I'm having such original ideas.

A Great Quote From George Will

2006-06-24T23:39:00.000-04:00

"All I remember about my wedding day in 1967 is that the Cubs lost a double-header." - George Will - source

I don't really have anything else of my own to say tonight, but I saw the above quote earlier tonight, and thought it was worth sharing.

Thoughts on Lawn Darts

2006-06-24T01:43:00.000-04:00

As best I can tell, the lawn dart was invented in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Some engineer was forced to go to a Saturday afternoon picnic and realized around 11am "an oversized, cartoon-like, horseshoe is actually not designed for flight, its no wonder it is hard to get around that post". By 4:30pm, the lawn dart was born. And by 11:17pm the local news was reporting that "a heavy, finned, metal object - sort of like a missile - should really not be thrown into the air, especially in a populated area, by somebody who had been drinking beer".

Here is the part that gets me: lawn darts were banned by Consumer Product Safety Commission on December 19th, 1988. I realize some people were hurt, even killed, but let's examine some of the things that were never banned:

Horseshoes - I don't have any proof to back this up, but I would be shocked if somebody wasn't, at the very least, knocked out cold by a horseshoe thrown in a game. Horseshoes remain legal in the eyes of the Consumer Product Safety Commision.
Horseshoes - I am absolutely certain that horseshoes have caused serious injury when attached to a horse's foot and kicked into a person's head. I suppose the actual problem is:
Horses - the horse is pretty much a recreational item in our society. Horses are beautiful, sturdy animals (with incredibly soft noses, I don't know why, but that sticks with me). They are also just a little smarter gerbils, and getting kicked by one is a little bit like getting kicked by a Buick. Yet horses remain legal in the eyes of the Consumer Product Safety Commision.
Vending machines - people are killed every year while rocking vending machines back and forth, eventually tipping them over. Late one Saturday night when I was in a college dormitory I gave somebody I had never met before a bag of microwave popcorn because I could hear he was trying to tip a vending machine that took his money while he was trying to buy popcorn. I may have saved his life that night, but one thing is for sure - I fell asleep sooner because I gave him the popcorn and he went away. Yet vending machines remain legal in the eyes of the Consumer Product Safety Commision.
Archery Equipment - If you take a lawn dart, make it longer, sharper, and make it a projectile that is launched from a mechanized device horizontal to ground, you get a bow and arrow, which Ted Nugent uses to exercise birth control on the deer population. Yet archery equipment.... may actually be regulated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. I'm really not sure. And yes, I have been to a family picnic where archery was involved

So what am I trying to say? Am I trying to get lawn darts un-banned? No. There are a couple of reasons - first, I simply don't care. I've never found myself at a backyard barbecue really upset that there were no lawn darts - it is a vaguely athletic endeavor and I am almost certainly bad at it. Secondly, there was a booming market for pre-ban lawn darts on eBay, but it looks like they too may have banned them now (but there is actually a lot of funny t-shirts and bumper stickers about them being banned, which just points out that nothing I do is actually original). I have a policy that when people can actually make money selling really stupid things on the internet, I don't fool around with that.

Am I trying to ban Horseshoes, Horseshoes, Horses, Vending Machines, and Archery Equipment? No. Life is dangerous, and you just have to use your best judgment, weigh risks carefully, blah, blah, blah....

Am I trying to gently point out that almost any household item used in a careless fashion could be harmful? Yes (Note: for more benign objects you may have to replace "careless fashion" with "stupid fashion" or even "stupid, idiotic fashion"- for example you can hurt yourself with a knife just being careless - but to hurt yourself with a CD case you would have to be stupid, perhaps idiotic).

Mostly, I'm just trying to be funny. If you read this please click here to and drop me an honest comment so I at least know somebody was paying attention.

"...and hey, be careful out there."

No, I Wouldn't Jump of a Bridge Because Everybody Else Did

2006-06-21T23:43:00.000-04:00

When I was a teenager, if you had to do something you didn't want to in order to prove you were a man (which you obviously weren't), you would probably try out for the football team. I didn't do that. Come to think of it, nobody I know did. Nonetheless, I maintain that this scenario makes sense, and probably right now a teenager is trying out for a high school football team that he doesn't wish to be a member of. And if he is lucky he will gain the respect of his friends, or father, or whomever it was that he wanted to impress. If he is really lucky, he will impress girls. If he is smart, that is who he was trying to impress in the first place.

In my mid 30s I found that I felt very left out of a sporting trend, and took up a game that I really don't care that much about just because everybody else did. Golf? No - the pressure to play golf in my 30s could not possibly overcome the hatred I had for it in my teenage years. Pickup hockey? I wish, but I can only skate in a counter-clockwise circle, and I think that would probably be a disadvantage (insert NASCAR joke here). No, the feeling of being left out caused me to take up poker, which at some point became a spectator sport. Sometimes I actually find myself watching poker on television. You have to consider the following issues:

Poker is on television nearly 24 hours a day. World Poker Tour, Poker World Series, Celebrity Poker, Speed Poker, Homeless Poker, Inmate Poker, the list goes on and on.
I like to watch sports, because it makes me feel like I'm not just wrecking my mind watching television. I don't like basketball, football hasn't started, hockey is over for the season... and I am a Cubs fan - and the Cubs seem to be losing quite a few baseball games this season - almost 61% of them as I write this.
But Bill, you ask, what about Soccer? What about the World Cup? Well, I'm American, so I don't really "get it". As long as I can remember, it seems like the sports media has tried to get soccer to catch on in this country, and it just doesn't happen. I have an idea, shrink the field to about 1/3 of its current size, shrink the nets too. Instead of grass, play on ice, make the players wear ice skates, change the ball from a sphere to a disc, and shrink to about 1/3 of its normal size too. There, throw in a cool trophy and you would probably have a sport I'll watch.

I don't even go to an actual poker game. You sort of picture a sitcom scene with people sitting around a kitchen table joking and playing cards, maybe somebody who takes the game a little too seriously is wearing one of those visor hats and has a cigar (I'm picturing Jack Klugman, but he rarely drops by... ok, he's never dropped by, but he is alive so its possible... I guess in the interest of honesty I have to admit that I was pretty certain he was dead until I looked him up, it really worked out better this way because the joke was really turning too morbid if he was dead. Jack - come by for dinner anytime - I'm sorry I thought you were dead). Anyway, it isn't like the sitcom scene. I just play online at a poker website. They're easy to find. Just bring up your favorite web browser, type in "www.", then randomly bash your hand against the keyboard until some letters are typed, and then follow that up by typing "poker.net". More likely than not, you will find a poker site. This is is the method I used.

Tonight I lost $400 imaginary dollars. The word imaginary is key here, because I can lose $400 imaginary dollars, and tomorrow at work when poker conversation comes up (sometimes it can take until 9:14am before the subject is broached) I can explain how I lost $400 and be part of the conversation (although the truth about tonight is just that I lost every hand I played). Had I lost $400 real dollars I would be trying to decide if it made more sense to find a part-time job or a divorce lawyer. Now I had better wrap this up before I cause myself trouble staying up to late being an imaginary writer.

If you read this, please drop me a line with an honest comment, that way I know if anybody is paying attention. Although I guess I probably look like a guy who would ramble on when nobody is paying attention anyway.

Still Joy in Mudville

2006-06-21T00:15:00.000-04:00

OK, here is one of the pictures my camera, sans me, took at the hockey game last night. Today the web is full of pictures of the cup, blocked shots, good shots, people drinking gatorade like sports beverages out of the cup, referees skating into each other and breaking their orange tipped canes, etc. (I thought about going with a George W Bush/Sunglasses joke here, but that sentence was already too long - and why am I making fun of the refs after a win anyway? It was the hooking call actually). So here is one I haven't seen anywhere else that a co-worker I will just call "Matt" took ("Matt" is his actual name, I've yet to come up with a believable sounding rhyming fake name - and why bother? I'm pretty sure his wife knows he was at the game).

Eventually I will have to drop hockey as my main topic and go back to trying to be funny. There is very little pressure since nobody is actually reading. But for now, I'm still on the hockey kick.

When you fire a gun, it is very important to know what is behind your target. You can't just set a paper target on a box, set it in a field, and start shooting. You could accidentally eliminate some poor soul miles away - who would be operating some sort of large piece of farm equipment, and then drive it through several houses and across a highway. Which isn't normally humorous because of the tragedy of the accidental shooting. In this case however, the person operating the farm equipment lives and makes a full recovery... in fact the conversation he has with the insurance adjuster is a hoot. See - its funny now, right? I don't know what happens after that because I picture it as an 80's style sitcom where the credits roll right after a funny line between the farm equipment driver and the insurance adjuster.

Why do I bring this up? During game one of the Stanley Cup Finals, defenseman Marc-Andre Bergeron of the Edmonton Oilers hit Arron Ladd of the Carolina Hurricanes. Had he hit Ladd against the boards, it would have been a really hard hit that would have left Ladd rattled for a few minutes and a little sore the next day. Unfortunately what was behind him was Edmonton's number-one goalie Dwayne Roloson. Roloson was injured and unable to play the rest of the finals. Jussi Markkanen did a terrific job, eventually gaining a shutout. But the Oilers lost in seven games, and right now they're examining everything that went wrong.

Today Bergeron received several boxes - they contained all of the "Edmonton Oilers 2006 Stanley Cup Champion" hats, t-shirts, commemorative pucks, placemats, urinal screens, etc. that had been printed already. Also, there was a note "Please sell these items on eBay and buy everybody enough golf balls for the summer".

If you read this please leave an honest comment so I know somebody is paying attention - I might try harder next time.

There is Joy in Mudville...

2006-06-20T00:02:00.000-04:00

...and I'm watching from home. At this point the game is over, I'm just watching the joy. I'm not sure why the kind of "joy" that ensues after somebody wins a sports championship usually involves a car that will never move under its own power again.

I could have gone. I had my jersey, I had the camera. All I had to do was be the first one to tell the person with the left over ticket "I'd like to go", but for some reason I just couldn't do it. I wasn't sure why - I thought it might be too "tense". So a co-worker I'll just call "Matt" (because that's his name and I'm not protecting the innocent) took the ticket. "Matt" is such a good guy he re-offered me the ticket if I wanted to go, but I wouldn't have done that. He's a good guy to ask though. I gave him my camera, so maybe tomorrow I'll have pictures of actual hockey players instead of my nine-month-old. But this picture was necessary, I'll get to that in a minute.

So I watched the game at home, with my wife and three-year-old (who I will call my wife and three-year-old because I'm not sure I want to publish their real names and I'm too tired to come up with good rhymes), who absolutely would not go to sleep. Thankfully, the adorable guy pictured above did. Anyway, with about four minutes left in the game, it dawned on us that this was something the three-year-old should see. So he came out on the couch with us, watched the end of the game, and they won. As a Cubs fan, I wasn't sure I'd ever pull for a champion, so this was a big deal for me. My first thought, "I'm glad I didn't go, it might have been tense". But I didn't really feel bad for watching it on TV. I remembered my folks letting me stay up when the Cubs won the National League East Division in 1984 (by the next time the Cubs won a division, I was old enough to be drafted and could pretty much stay up if I wanted).

We had explained to three-year-old that if the "red guys" won, they got a big cup. They brought it out, skated it around, just like every other year (except last year), but this year my team won. Very exciting. Lots of high fives sitting on my couch. I threw in a video tape to get the post game hoopla - I didn't dare get one ready ahead of time.

I got three-year-old to bed, and couldn't wait to write this. I was excited to use my line about "Joy in Mudville" (read the description on the left, it says right there I'm a hack).

Somewhere around there it dawned on me, I watched the game exactly where I wanted to watch it, with exactly who I wanted to watch it with, I was just too stupid to realize it until half an hour after it was over. And there's a lesson in there, I'll try not to forget it.

So, the fat lady sang. And she sang "Carolina In My Mind". Or maybe it was "Tobacco Road". Or maybe that "C'mon C'mon C'mon, Let's Go Canes!" song.

Now - on to the funny stuff - theories why the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup in seven games:

See the picture above. This adorable, innocent, little guy wore this outfit all day without having to have it changed due to some sort of biological incident. What could be better?
My friend who I will call "Barry" (because that rhymes with his real name) did not find himself face-to-face with a scary looking black cat while he urinated in the woods (well, I don't think he did, I honestly haven't talked to him)
The Hurricanes "Played their game"
The Hurricanes "Put the puck in the net"
It had to go seven games so I could watch it at home with my family
That empty net goal at the end pretty much sealed it
I didn't put a tape in the VCR until the game was over
Cam Ward stopped pretty much everything that came his way
Erik Cole came back from a fractured vertebrae (this is a nice way of saying broken neck)
My friend who I'll call "Dennis", because that is his name and I can't come up with anything that rhymes with it, grilled the good hot Italian sausage while tailgating. The hot Italian sausage is now 2-0 when it is game 7
Peter Laviolette is some sort of hockey genius
The home team has won game 7 the last 19 times there has been a game 7
Glen Wesley - A guy who is so willing to lay down in front of a [fast] moving puck deserves to win eventually.
We sang "O Canada" at the arena in Raleigh - this one probably isn't why the 'Canes won, they sang The Star Spangled Banner in Edmonton. But it is nice to see.

The Carolina Hurricanes are the 2006 Stanley Cup Champions!!!

As always, for actual intelligent hockey coverage, I recommend Ron Francis' Blog.

I Have Nothing Nice to Say

2006-06-18T00:23:00.000-04:00

I have nothing nice to say about tonight's hockey game. And when I have nothing nice to say I figure it makes sense to turn to two time Stanley Cup champion Ron Francis. He usually has something nice to say.

And to those of you who said hockey would never catch on in North Carolina, look at this picture I took Wedsnesday night at game 5. There is the proof you are wrong... Or maybe its the proof you are right. I'm not sure anymore.

But I am sure about this - the fat lady will be singing in Raleigh Monday night. Whether she's singing O Canada or Carolina In My Mind is all that remains to be seen.

Music trivia - what Beatle played on James Taylor's self-titled debut album? Click here and see the answer near the bottom of the page.

Game 6 Tonight

2006-06-17T14:28:00.000-04:00

I have been a baseball fan since I was twelve. That's a little late I suppose, but nobody in my family was a baseball fan. But ever since then, I've been a Chicago Cubs fan. I'm no stranger to disappointment. The great thing about the Cubs is that more often than not they disappoint you by missing the playoffs altogether (but not always). So as a Carolina Hurricanes fan today is a lot more tense for me.

However, I can say this: As a Cubs fan, I am willing to sacrifice the Boston Red Sox entire season for a win tonight.

Also - I have learned that the fat lady with the good voice did travel to Edmonton and will be in the stadium tonight. Nobody knows if she'll be singing or not.

Game starts at 8:00pm EST.

The Quest for Lord Stanley's Cup

2006-06-17T00:05:00.000-04:00

The coolest trophy in all of sports is The Stanley Cup. Care to argue? I don't. I am right.

Most sports give trophies every year. The Stanley Cup remains one single trophy, yet it changes a little bit every year. Each season all of the winning players have their names engraved on the cup (some of the longer player's names are actually continued on the next cup). Finally, as it fills up the rings are retired and put in the hockey hall of fame. So a player's name stays on the cup about 52 years.

Personally, I am a fan of the Carolina Hurricanes. The 'Canes had a chance to lift Lord Stanley's Cup this past Wednesday, but couldn't seal the deal. Why? There are several theories:

While tailgating a friend went to relieve himself in the nearby woods (because the lines were slightly shorter there than at the port-o-potty), and right in the middle of things found a black cat staring at him. (No animals were harmed while writing this post)
During the singing of O Canada, an over-zealous fan shouted out "THE CUP IS OURS!!!". I just felt this was rude, and thought at the time I would blame him were the Canes to lose the game.
My wife watched part of the game at her cousin's house. I watched one baseball game in that house, and it is the only sporting event more disappointing to me than Wednesday night's contest. (NOTE: I don't blame Steve Bartman for the fairly natural act of catching a ball - there was a very Bill Buckner-esque play after that, and there was a game 7 too)
Fernando Pisani intercepted a soft pass from Bret Hedcan and beat Cam Ward for the first ever shorthanded overtime goal in an NHL final game.
I turned on the camera. When the 'Canes won, I wanted that celebration picture. You know, the one where the players all gather together and pat each other on the head? I thought it would be a great picture to show people right before the one of Rod Brind'Amour raising the cup. But I shouldn't have turned the camera on. Here's the picture that I didn't take (I linked to it from somewhere else, I hope that's legal. Also I hope that the picture is still there).

So, somewhere there's a fat lady with a good voice just waiting to see what happens. I'm not sure if she's actually at the game or not, they might not make her go unless it goes to game seven.

For actual intelligent commentary about the Stanley Cup playoffs, please see Ron Francis' Blog. He not only used to play hockey, his name is on that trophy a couple of times.

Thoughts on The Muppet Movie

2006-06-11T17:33:00.000-04:00

Since I have a three year old son, from time to time I re-watch The Muppet Movie . Ok, I would still watch this movie once a year on my own. It is a good movie, with a lot of adult humor in that you didn't get when you were a kid.

I still think one of the funniest lines ever is Rowlf the Dog explaining to Kermit "I finish work, go home, read a book, have a couple of beers, take myself for a walk and go to bed". You could never say that in a movie these days a get a "G" rating. Things are just different now, and I think people would be more sensitive about mentioning beer in a children's movie.

However, I don't think that it matters. I doubt this ever encouraged any other puppet dogs dogs to drink beer. Probably not any real dogs either.

I Didn't Want a Blog

2006-06-06T23:27:00.000-04:00

I didn't want a blog (blog, short for weblog, which is Latin for "my Saturday nights are usually free"). I wanted to be a humor columnist. This is nothing against blogging, but working the software industry I generally associate them with the sort of "online journals" (journal - male for "diary") that some companies actually encourage their employees to keep. I actually think this is cool, but it isn't what I was trying to do. I was trying to be some sort of composite of the humor columnists that I grew up reading - who incidentally are all retired or dead. I guess I figured there was an opening.

One big difference between a blogger and a humor columnists is that humor columnists get paid, which I thought was a pretty good goal for the future, because I like money. Well, it isn't really that I like money, so much as that I like guitars and digital gadgets, and money is the preferred method of acquiring these. So for a while I wrote a column somewhere that nobody I didn't give a link would ever find it, and referred to myself as an Internet humor columnist - which is loosely defined as a somebody who is too chicken to go tell jokes at an open mic night, but hopes that somebody might pay him to write someday. A friend pointed out that what I was doing was a blog, and it would be easier to do it at a proper blogging site because the software is better suited to the what I am actually doing.

So here goes... hopefully they will get better as time goes on. If you actually think anything is funny, please tell me. If you don't think so, I want to hear that too (I'm expecting more in this category). If you want to sell me any sort of pill that will affect the size of my toe, this isn't even my email address (Note: when I use bold, italics, and underline together, that sometimes means that isn't the "real" word, that is a "television edit" - picture it in a different voice, like on TBS)

So, here is tonight's worthless observation:

I believe Van Halen is the greatest American rock band ever. Want to argue about it? I don't, that's why I prefaced it with I believe. It is art, you can believe anything you like about it, but this is what I believe.

Tonight, David Lee Roth was on The Tonight Show singing a bluegrass version of Jump. Normally right here I would put a funny definition of "bluegrass" in parenthesis, but I sorta used up tonight's good stuff on the introduction. Its late, I'm tired, and that "Oh the humanity!!" thing from when the Hindenberg crashed keeps playing in my head.

There is a song by the band Drive By Truckers (who are cool by the way, try them out), where the lyric mentions the fact that "the secret to a good ending is knowing when to roll the credits". I am not certain where "the right spot to roll the credits" was, but Diamond Dave missed it. I'm really sure of one thing, "the right spot to roll the credits" occurred several years before I ever saw a bluegrass cover of a Van Halen song.