March 31, 2010

The readings

Before we get to today's two most important and review-worthy tomes, lemme get a few quickies out of the way...

House of Mystery: Space Between - I've enjoyed reading through the first two collections of the newish Vertigo relaunch of the House of Mystery series.  Each provided a nicely balanced pairing of long-tale storytelling and smaller, self-contained tales, some of which tied into the overarching long tale in ways that weren't initially obvious.

I particularly enjoy this kind of storytelling in which the author has a grand direction in mind and plants keys to the eventual destination all along the way.  Within that framework, the author - or, in this case, authors as the series has been a bit of an anthology - takes a number of interesting and smaller-arc detours along the way.  The finest examples of this has been Sandman in which Gaiman seemed to have marked very clearly where he was heading but wasn't afraid to tell a spectacular and only semi-related story without rushing to get to the ending.

The House of Mystery framework has been a great setting for this kind of storytelling as people move into and out of the titular House paying for their ale and eats by passing the time with a well-told story.  Through the first three volumes, we have come to learn more each issue about The House and its current residents, a handful of whom appear unable to leave and equally unable to explain how they came to be in The House.

And it works...until the very last page of this volume, in which The Big Reveal is made - without any leadup to The Big Reveal.  See, we've seen a masked character making various entreaties toward taking the house.  In the final page here, the mask is taken off and the identity of the masked figure's identity is revealed.  It's no one that we've seen yet in the series - though this person does have a history with the older edition of the series.

The Reveal didn't work for me in the least, however, effectively undermining all of the good work that has come before in the series.  Instead of doing something interesting and unique, the series turns very quickly to a cheap, sensational Reveal, the kind seemingly designed to sell comics instead of telling stories.

I might try the next volume of this series, but it'll be on a short leash for me at this point where I had been willing to give it a whole lot of rope before that final page.

March 30, 2010

Still working...

Let's try darker wood...

And I figured out how to hack the html and use my own photo...

Feedback, please

Ok, I gotta ask.

I'm the lone vote for "like it" in the poll.

Everybody is is either in "not feeling it" or "it sucks".

What're your issues with the wooden blog design?

I coulda been a contenda


Okay, I get that a bracket like this is pretty much a bit of fluff to begin with, but there are a few decisions here that I just can't let go past without comment.

First, the positives...
  • I particularly like the simple color schemes that they web guys have worked up.
  • I dig the division by sports, though the Hot Stove Region has a bunch of flicks that could destroy entire other regions.
  • I can only come up with one flick that should be in the brackets that isn't: Breaking Away.
 Now, the negatives...
  • The Hot Stove Region is far too stacked.  This is the ridiculously talented division that beats the crap out of each other before making the finals.
  • Bull Durham got robbed.  The Sandlot is a fine film, but it's not in Durham's league.
  • No way Longest Yard (74) loses to Jerry MaguireMaguire was a sappy, manipulative, chick flick of a sports film that doesn't even deserve its place in the brackets - and certainly not at a seven seed.
  • 8 Men Out also got robbed.  It would've been killed by Bad News Bears, but it deserved better than getting bumped by The Rookie.
  • I'm happy to see Seabiscuit get knocked out by Tin Cup.  I very much enjoy Tin Cup every time I get a chance to catch any of it.
  • Where's Blue Chips?
  • I'm surprised that Talledega Nights didn't come out stronger in the first round.  Tough matchup between the two similarly paced comedies right there.
  • Hoop Dreams got screwed.  In a popularity contest, though, I'm not terribly shocked.  Hoop Dreams is slow paced and not at all cheery.  It's a far better film than He Got Game, though.
  • How the hell did Caddyshack get knocked out by Happy Gilmore?
  • Both Rounders and The Hustler deserved better than the play-in game.  I'd happily have bumped Teen Wolf or Without Limits for both of them.
  •  I'm surprised that Bloodsport took down The Wrestler.  Still haven't seen The Wrestler, though.
My choices by region...admittedly, I haven't seen every flick...

Gridiron Region...

First round...(all chalk here)...
  • Remember the Titans
  • North Dallas Forty
  • Any Given Sunday
  • Rudy (begrudgingly, hate Notre Dame)
  • Brian's Song
  • Friday Night Lights
  • Jerry Maguire
  • The Longest Yard ('74)
Second round...
  • North Dallas Forty (upset, 8-1)
  • Any Given Sunday (mild upset, 5-4)
  • Friday Night Lights (chalk, 3-6)
  • The Longest Yard ('74) (chalk, 2-7)
Third round...
  • Any Given Sunday (upset, 5-8)
  • The Longest Yard ('74 - chalk, 2-3)
Fourth round...
  • The Longest Yard ('74 - chalk, 2-5)...I'm a little surprised here...the football movies aren't terribly strong entries overall.
Hot Stove Region

First round...all chalk again
  • Field of Dreams (overall #1 seed)
  • Cobb (great 8-9 matchup, though, old school versus new version of old school)
  • 8 Men Out
  • Bad News Bears ('74) - slaughter, even though I do enjoy Basketball
  • Major League
  • The Natural
  • The Sandlot
  • Bull Durham 
    Second round...still all chalk
    • Field of Dreams (chalk, 1-8)
    • Bad News Bears ('74 - chalk, 4-5)
    • The Natural (chalk, 3-6)
    • Bull Durham (chalk, 2-7 - but a tougher matchup than the 3-6 was)
    Third round...chalk reigns
    • Field of Dreams (1-4)
    • Bull Durham (2-3)
    Fourth round...regional champs...
    • Field of Dreams (1-2)
    Wild Card Region


    First round...
    • Caddyshack (though Rounders deserves better, and The Hustler deserves far better - I'd give Rounders a 12 seed and The Hustler a 4 seed in this region)
    • Talledega Nights
    • Happy Gilmore (our first first-round upset, 12-5)
    • Chariots of Fire 
    • Tin Cup (11-6, another upset)
    • Hoosiers (deserved a 2 seed)
    • White Men Can't Jump (this feels like an 8-9 game)
    • Hoop Dreams
    Second round...
    • Caddyshack (chalk, 1-8)
    • Happy Gilmore (12-4, biggest upset to the third round yet)
    • Hoosiers (3-11)
    • Hoop Dreams (2-7)
    Third round...
    • Caddyshack (1-12)
    • Hoosiers (3-2, mild upset)
    Fourth round...
    • Hoosiers (3-1, mild upset, though Hoosiers is a strong 3)
    Bloody Region

    First round... 
    • Rocky
    • The Karate Kid (minor upset, 9-8)
    • Million Dollar Baby
    • Enter the Dragon (13-4, Hurricane was drastically too long)
    • The Wrestler (Bloodsport should've been seeded higher)
    • Cinderella Man 
    • Spapshot (really, Rocky IV over Rocky III?)
    • Raging Bull
    Second round...
    • Rocky (1-9)
    • Enter the Dragon (13-5)
    • The Wrestler (6-3)
    • Raging Bull (2-7)
    Third round...
    • Rocky (1-13)
    • Raging Bull (2-6)
    Fourth round...
    • Raging Bull (an amazingly strong matchup, but Raging Bull is among the greatest movies of the decade...Rocky was the greatest movie of its year)
    Final Four...
    • Field of Dreams (easily over The Longest Yard ('74))
    • Hoosiers (tough call, but this one's personal)
    Championship matchup...
    • Field of Dreams (I changed this a half dozen times...I think the uncut Hoosiers might win, but that uncomfortable and unexplained kiss is just enough of a flaw to lose here) 
    Movies in the tourney that I haven't seen all the way through...
    • Remember the Titans
    • Heaven Can Wait
    • Something for Joey (had to look it up)
    • The Replacements
    • Brian's Song
    • The Blindside
    • We Are Marshall
    • Bang the Drum Slowly
    • Pride of the Yankees
    • Sugar (want to see it, just showed up at the library this week)
    • For Love of the Game
    • 61*
    • Chariots of Fire
    • Seabiscuit
    • Without Limits (had to look it up)
    • Miracle
    • He Got Game 
    • The Great White Hope
    • Victory
    • Million Dollar Baby
    • Ali
    • The Wrestler
    • Cinderella Man
    • Kickboxer
    So, where am I wrong?  Which flicks do I need to see?  Which movies got screwed by not being in the brackets?

    March 29, 2010

    Decline of Western Civilization, Part III: The Television Years

    Oh, my sweet lord.


    The worst show on television - and that's a category that sees a surprising amount of competition - has just been dethroned with the premier of Pretty Wild.


    I stumbled upon this trainwreck Saturday morning between holes wrapping up my second round of Tiger Woods '10 and was amazed, shocked, stunned, repulsed and a whole bunch of other words as I tried to understand just what the show was...well...showing.  And this is coming from a man who has come to accept that Keeping Up With the Kardashians seems to have some sort of niche in the cosmos.


    Pretty Wild, on the other hand, isn't anything that I can accept as having a place in any sort of society of which I want to be a part.  The basics of the show go like this:
    • The main characters are 16, 19, and 20 year old girls/young women.
    • Apparently they are attractive young women.
    • Mom is, herself, a former playboy model.
    • The two younger girls are sisters - Mom's daughters.  The other one seems to be...uh...well...she's a playboy model.  (No, I'm not going to link to more proof, shut up)  And she doesn't seem to be, in any way, related to Mom or Step-Dad.
    • The older sister (the middle of the three girls) is also an accused thief, having allegedly stolen clothes and such from Orlando Bloom, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and others.  (The connection of a reality show about a girl who robbed stars of other other reality shows is hilariously ironic.)
    In other words, this is a show about people who are pretty and who are tangentially related to famous, attractive, wealthy people.  That's depressing and merit-less, yes, but it alone isn't enough to deserve the title of my post today.

    The addition of three more aspects earn the post title today, however:
    • The girls all look to be underage.  I get that two of them are supposed to be older than the legal age of consent.  All three of the girls, however have looks drastically young for their ages making the watching of them feel more like watching the actions of a trio of spoiled, immature, pampered fifteen-year olds.
    • The show doesn't shy from nudity.  It's on a basic cable network, so I'm sure the producers won't show anything too for fear of legal repercussions, but I was stunned when they showed two of the girls (I assume them to be the older two, but the three look and act so similarly that it's hard to tell) changing clothes and didn't cut away.  They showed topless imagery of two women who look like ridiculously endowed fifteen-year olds with only an absolute minimum of blurring - and they repeated the shot moments later.
    • An LA Times article also states that the participants are "regularly fed lines by a producer, but you don't need to know that to feel that the series is remarkably stage-managed, and that its subjects -- who clearly sincerely cherish their particular realities -- are being used less with affection than cold contempt."  So, not only are the leads portrayed as vapid, spoiled, and stupid, they are either too vapid to do/say anything interesting on their own or desperate enough to allow themselves to be entirely fictionalized.
    I'll admit that I don't like reality television.  Outside of a couple of cooking shows (Top Chef: Masters, in particular) and Last Comic Standing, I don't watch any reality show for more than a couple of minutes at a time.

    I accept that shows like the Kardashians aren't showing people of any greater social value than these girls, but at least the people being oggled on the Kardashians are of legal age and look like it.  This show seems determined to appeal to pedophiles.

    This is a new low.


    I'll go ahead and link to Hulu and YouTube in case you want to see the clips for yourself, but I'd hope that you won't linger.

      March 28, 2010

      Trivia Question: Basketball Edition

      Today's trivia question, NCAA basketball tournament edition...

      What do John Calipari and I have in common?

      Answer after the jump...

      March 27, 2010

      Wither Northland? Please, not Moeller...




        Trying again

        Okay, another blog design - wooden this time.

        I just threw the thing up, and I already have one "it sucks" vote.

        Give feedback here, folks.

        March 25, 2010

        Hooping it up


        There are two ways to play today's timesuck...

        First, you can click on this link and hoop it up in your private IDTMI group and try to beat my 169.34 high score.

        Two, you can click on this link and take on the whole frickin' world.



        The game couldn't be easier - one button to shoot, just match the parabola up with the basket and hit your mark.

        March 24, 2010

        A revolution in food






        Wait, so you're saying that I can now make ice cream sandwiches using pop tarts instead of cookies?

        That's it, folks, blog's over.

        There is nothing else I could ever show you that would be this awesome.

        March 23, 2010

        Hold Me Close, Tiny Desker

        Thanks to Kyle for pointing out the Tiny Desk Concert Series from NPR (back when I posted that 'Death' playlist).

        I haven't been through all of the concerts (there are, admittedly, a lot of artists that I don't know), but I'm already enjoying these performances a whole bunch.









        The Avett Brothers (not embeddable)

        I really dig the lo-fi, acoustic ethos of just having the musicians roll in and play in the NPR offices.

        And it makes me sad that we didn't get to the NPR tour when we were in DC last summer.

        March 22, 2010

        In the name of equal time

        If I slagged on Leonard Nemoy over the weekend, I should keep everything honest and even...

        Early Christmas Shopping

        Go right ahead and reserve your spot on the ChemGuy upcoming Christmas gift list by saying you'll be the one to buy me the not-yet-released NBA Jam for the Wii.



        I'm anticipating that the big basketball game with the tiny body-giant noggins versions of NBA players will be sliding into heavy rotation on our Wii when it comes out for this coming Christmas season, and I'm digging all the coverage that the Weekend and Daily Dimes (as well as The Mag) are giving the game.

        And the whole thing makes me miss Tim Hardaway and Chris Mullin from the original game.

        March 21, 2010

        Li'l feedback, please

        I'm really down with the concept of the new blog design editor (as I mentioned yesterday), but I'm struggling with finding a blog design I like.

        Gimme some feedback on the current design, please (feel free to use the poll to the left).  I have another couple of designs I was playing with that I'll try over the next few weeks.

        March 20, 2010

        Proof


        • The above video was just to prove that your dream of being a choreographer is not dead - no matter how uncoordinated you are.
        • Superman and Friends Greet Fans In Hilarious Cards from 1978 - I want these.  Ebay them for me now, my minions.
        • Dirpy.com - In case you want an mp3 of "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins"
        • Giant Redwood - great composite photo of a redwood
        • Amazing Trick - not so amazing (battery + magnet + wire) but kind of neat
        • Replacing World Landmarks with Cheap Souvenirs - It's a simple idea, but it's a solid meme.
        • 2m40 - un blog impactant
        • Bit Torrent Proxy - another bit torrent search engine - just in case
        • Wonderful Build Flash Online - the game starts slowly, but it's worth it once things get rolling.
        • Memo puts WGN news staffers at a loss for words - I actually am okay with a private media company telling its employees what to say on air - especially when many of the things are about using proper grammar
        • Top 10 Weirdest Movies - I've seen #9, 8, 6, 5, and 1.  I've enjoyed #6 and 1.  The other three are interesting but not anything that I'd watch again, #5 especially.
        • CoverTrek - in case you need to know everyone who ever covered a singer's songs - or every cover a group ever did
        • And the final video today is to prove to you that your dreams of being a singer aren't dead - no matter how unable you are to carry a tune.

        March 19, 2010

        Blogger Buzz Brings It

        In case you hadn't noticed, new theme on the blog.

        Nice new Template Designer over on blogger, so I spent Friday night playing around.

        This one may or may not stay; it may or may not have some color adjustment.

        A new year begins

        It has been decided.

        Last year's regular culinary theme saw me and The Girl visiting the various fine steakish establishments around the Cincinnati and Dayton areas.

        This year will see the two of us visiting the finest burger joints in the same Daynati (or is it Cinciton?) world, but we need some help before we get started in our search for the perfect burger and fries meal.

        We've done our initial research to put together our initial list of where we should wander.  Utilizing The Girl's awesome librarian skills, we found the following websites rather helpful:
        And here's our list of the burgers joints to be visited:
        The first area where we need help is in picking our places.  Where do we need to go that we don't already have on the list?

        The second area in which we (really, I) need help is in developing this year's rubric.  Some initial thoughts that are guiding where I'm heading with this year's scoring system:
        • There are two significantly different burger types - thin, fried (think Steak 'n' Shake-style) - or thicker, grilled style (chargrilled, big, thick things).  Do I need to have separate scoring for the burger types?
        • How do I rate the fries?  Hot vs cold, sure.  Spice v not spiced?  What about thick vs thin fries?  Battered (a la Rally's) or plain?
        • What kind of 'environment' score needs to be around?  I know the place needs to be clean, but a bunch of the places are older, neighborhood places that aren't supposed to be white and clean and shiny.  Do they get knocked down?
        • How many points should be 'burger' vs 'fries' vs 'environment'? I'm thinking burger and fries should be higher points because that's what we're looking for.
        • Do I have to order the same burger everytime?  If so, what burger - cheese, cheese & bacon, plain?
        • How do toppings count in the whole scoring system?  Do I go for the most complicated burger they offer?
        • Do we have to go a couple of times - once for a plain burger, once for a complicated topped burger?
        • Are points earned if they offer choice of how to cook the burger (medium-well, rare, whatever)?
        • What about drinks?  Do I just hit the diet coke every time, or do we go with a vanilla shake?  Either way it has to be consistent, but I don't know whether to include drinks.
        The last thing that I need some help with is what to call the year.  I liked "The Year of Living Steakishly" a whole lot.  I'm stumped on what to call this year's campaign...
        • Hamburger Lonnie's
        • Nati Patties
        • Queen City Burgers
        • Burgers and ChemGuys
        • Cincyburgers
        • The Year of Living Burgishly
        • ChemGuy and The Girl Looking for the Best Burger and Fries in the Cincinnati and Dayton Area With Maybe Some Stops Along the I-75 Corridor Between the Two Cities
            So, here's what I need from you...
            • Where to go?
            • How to score?
            • What to call it?
            Comments open for suggestions...

              March 18, 2010

              Handsome gents

               

              There aren't all that many gents that I feel comfortable saying are straight up handsome.  There are, however, a few...

              March 17, 2010

              Sports and me

              It's basketball season, so that means I'll hopefully end up dropping fifty or so bucks - five at a time - to see the Princeton Vikes as they head toward what will hopefully be another appearance at the state basketball championship level.

              Next game is tonight up at Xavier tonight as the boys take on their first Catholic school opponent, and I'll enjoy the heck out of it.

              But I won't yell or scream.

              It's not what I do when I'm at a basketball game...or a baseball game...or hockey... football... soccer... whatever.

              I'm all down with rooting for the Vikings and all - especially since I know students on both teams - but I know that my cheering, my screaming, my yelling, my whatevering probably won't have any sort of impact on the game.  And I gave up my screaming at the sports teams a long while ago.

              I remember screaming when I was at Wabash.  We had a blast harassing the visiting players as much as we could, bringing whatever pots and pans we could from our fraternity house, banging the crap out of them with oversized spoons and ladles just to be as obnoxious as we could manage to be.

              I don't know that we ever actually had any impact on the game, but we screamed and yelled and generally made jerks out of ourselves entirely.

              And I haven't done that since.

              I've enjoyed watching tennis matches and basketball games and even bowling - um, bowling whatever-they're-calleds.  And I haven't screamed much at all.

              I don't wear a lucky shirt to watch ballgames at home.

              I don't have idiosyncrasies or routines that I have to follow to make sure that the Vikes win. 

              I'm much more likely to sit down way up high in the bleachers away from the rest of the fans, kick back, and enjoy the game than I am to sit down from and scream my head off.

              I don't know where this attitude came from - admittedly my mom isn't exactly all that sport-oriented, but I remember my dad dropping a number of fricks and fracks whenever the Indiana basketball teams of the 1980s gave up a lead or didn't run the motion offense correctly, but I also remember one conversation in particular.

              It was March of 1992 - seventeen years ago now - and the New Albany Bulldogs were in the regional finals in Seymour taking on the Jeffersonville Red Devils (kinda like this past weekend's game).  New Albany was my team, and the Saturday of regionals had become a fairly regular home.

              Lots of people would get hotel rooms to party away the afternoon between the two morning games - 11:00 and 1:00 - and the night game - sometime around 7:00 - because there wasn't a whole lot of ways to pass the time in Seymour.  Some years I would go with my father and spend half the time eating at The Pines.  Other years I'd hang out with CoachSullivan, visiting with his family there in town.  I remember one year hanging with The Girl and our friends passing time in a cd & tape store (seriously, they had those back then) and Wal-Mart (seriously, Seymour's not exactly a happening place).

              New Albany had drawn the second of the two semifinals that year, playing Scottsburg (I think).  This was always a disadvantage as it left the team with two hours less recovery time in turning around for the evening game.  I sat on the front row with my friends - we'd painted shirts spelling out something or the other - and I yelled like a madman at the referees, especially when one of the New Albany players was fouled and knocked to the floor right in front of the N'Albany student section.

              By the evening, we were fully keyed up and ready for the Bulldogs to beat the crap out of the hated Red Devils - N'Albany's oldest, traditional rival.  I'm going to guess that both teams were ranked in the state - I really wish I knew all the details, but I can't find a website that provides the full tournament breakdown of every IHSAA tournament (something that's a crime in this the tourney's 100th year - Sully, a project for you).

              The Devils beat the Bulldogs in a close-fought game that night, the last time that I would attend a game at Seymour and get to sit courtside with the students of one of the competing teams.  The New Albany team was made up of people I knew - not necessarily friends for the most part, but people I knew from the halls, people that I'd been around when I was the team statistician during my sophomore year - and they lost.

              The good guys lost to the bad guys.

              In my head, there was no other way to describe the situation:  evil won and good lost.

              No, the Red Devils didn't really carry pitchforks or switchblades, didn't shout curses at the opposing players or their N'Alabny fans, didn't cheat or punch, didn't rape or pillage.  But they were the bad guys, and for some reason that bothered me.

              My team was supposed to win.  We'd cheered our hearts out, given everything that a fan section could give (I understand now, of course, that the Jeffersonville cheering section had done the exact same thing), but it hadn't made a difference.  For some reason, that bothered me far more than it should have.  

              When I got home that night - rode the hour or so with friends - my dad was already home and still up.  He probably wanted to make sure I got home safely.  He's like that.

              I don't know how the conversation started, but I stayed up until one or two in the morning (the game had ended sometime around 9.  I'd gotten home around 11, I would guess.  The kernel of the discussion was my absolute certainty that New Albany was supposed to win, that my team was the good team and that 'we' were supposed to come out victorious because of that.

              I just couldn't fathom why we hadn't, why the bad guy had won and why their season was going to continue in Terre Haute the next weekend while my team's season was done.  I remember being near tears at some points in the conversation because I felt so strongly, so absolutely that the Bulldogs were going to prevail.

              No, I'd never seen New Albany win a state title (their only one came in 1973, two years before I came into being) or even go to the state title game (I have since seen that, thankfully), so I don't know where I got the absolute certainty about the outcome, but I knew what was going to happen.  It was my senior year, and things were going to work out for the storybook tale.  Everything was going to be right.

              But it wasn't.

              And something changed in my relationship with sports that night.  I didn't know it at the time, and I didn't feel it consciously, but something was definitely different.

              No longer would I live or die with the outcome of a game. 

              No longer would I be at risk of cursing or swearing at the television or the officials or the opposing players.

              Instead, I would - and do - sit back and enjoy the game for the game itself.

              Yes, I often have rooting interests - I want Indiana, Princeton, New Albany, Wabash, the Celtics, the Reds to win - but those rooting interests don't get in the way of my enjoyment of the being a spectator any more.

              I applaud the opposing team's great plays and players - admittedly at a lower volume - and don't criticize the referees.  Neither the opposing players nor the officials are trying to cheat 'my' team, they are just trying to do right by their roles, and I appreciate them for that.

              I'm not at the game to see Princeton win; I'm at the game to see a great game, and Princeton can't provide that alone.  For the great game, I thank the opponents and the officials, the opposing fans and everyone in attendance.

              So when, last weekend, a colleague of mine leaned over from the seat behind me and asked why I was so calm at the Princeton-Fairmont basketball game, I simply replied "this is how I watch basketball".

              March 16, 2010

              Things You Wouldn't Know if We Didn't Blog Incessantly

              Man there are some people who are far braver than I.

              Take, for example people who ride motorcross bikes on the edges of mountains...



              ...or scramble across cliff sides to reach remote monasteries...



              ...of course, I've pointed out people like this before...



              Big thanks to TYWKIWDBI for the source material.

              March 15, 2010

              A true rivalry



              I miss Agassi-Sampras.  Their rivalry was (apparently is) one of the best that we've seen in any sport in my lifetime, and this weekend it took a slightly nasty turn.

              The video above shows a brief bit of the exchange during a charity match, but the linked ESPN article goes into a bunch more detail about what was said and why.

              Check it out and give your opinion - was Agassi taking a cheap shot?

              'Cause I kind of think so.

              I shouldn't spread this, but...

              I StumbledUpon this video over the weekend...



              ...and was entertained.  I know it's a viral video.  I know it's an ad for Capital One and all, but it's chucklesome to me.

              There are a bunch more of their videos - done by a bunch of basketball players and coaches - on their YouTube channel.

              March 13, 2010

              The Weekly Links



                March 12, 2010

                Música blanca



                Had to provide a little balance from yesterday's list...enjoy today's last in the two-week series...

                March 11, 2010

                Black is black



                There are a lot of songs that could've be added in here...may have to put together another black playlist some day...

                March 10, 2010

                The non-inevitability of immortality...from Rob Neyer

                The man in flannel has an outstanding piece up on his blog today about Nomah Gahciaparra's retirement today, and there might not be a better bit of writing out there to remind us that there's reason to take all the spring training news with a major grain of salt.

                Red is the color I choose



                Wanted to include this one (heck, wanted to embed it), but I couldn't find a copy even on iTunes or Amazon to include it in today's playlist...

                March 9, 2010

                Thank you, Ralph Stanley



                Today's music comes astride a pale horse...bonus points to anybody who correctly identifies the icon that I've associated with the playlist...

                March 8, 2010

                My favorite "Moritat"



                It's a little tough to get an 8tracks list with just one artist since they limit you to two songs by any artist and two off of any one album, but I managed it with some creative spelling.

                March 6, 2010

                A few link's worth about 5000 meters

                Or maybe 16368 feet...
                My favorite Antiques Roadshow clip ever...

                March 4, 2010

                Nothing I can understand



                Not much I can tell you about the songs today.  Only the last one has any English in it at all.  Enjoy 'em, and it they're vulgar in their language, don't tell me about it.

                March 3, 2010

                And now, for the ladies...



                This one's for the ladies...I would've opened with The Beastie Boys "Girls", but there's that line about Mike D, and that just wouldn't have been appropriate.

                Thanks, by the way to...listology...pop culture madness...and wikianswers...

                March 1, 2010

                It doesn't have to be totally new...

                But it's new to me...

                Old medals

                I absolutely love the design of the Olympic medals at the Vancouver games (just finished, actually enjoyed the hell out of watching about 2/3 of the gold medal game, surprisingly).


                The weirdness of the use of the third dimension is just gorgeous, "inspired by the ocean waves, drifting snow and mountainous landscape found in the Games region and throughout Canada."

                My appreciation of this year's medals sent me looking for the designs of the past games' medals, and - thanks to yahoo answers - I found a gallery showing every one

                I wish that the gallery would show the backs of the medals, because I'm thinking they might have some kind of variety - more than that of the summer medal fronts.  Instead, you just have to click on each one to see the back of that year's medals.

                I'm a little disappointed at how boring the summer medal fronts are, but at least some of the backs are a little different.

                The winter medals, on the other hand, provided a lot of visual interest.  I particularly love the medals of Torino, Nagano, and Albertville.  Wonder if there's some sort of rule that the summer medals have to look pretty much the same ever Olympiad, 'cause they suck.