Reflections on the 2010 Winter Olympics

 

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

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?

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)

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

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:

1. Erik Estrada was sewn into his pants by a costume technician (or whatever you call such a person)
2. Bruce Jenner was an actor
3. 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

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

Summer is Over

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

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