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.

How Worthless Observations Work

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

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. This was not a pickup truck. In fact, it was a Toyota Camry, a pretty non-redneck vehicle.
4. 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.