Garcon! Oh Garcon!

Uh, I mean Waitress! It was pretty good. Funny. Sometimes sad. Sometimes angry. Andy Griffith is fun. Keri Russell is good as the centerpiece. Her supporting cast does their jobs well. I'd go see it again.

I've discovered a treasure trove of youtube clips of Broadway musicals. Well, I say "Broadway"... The twist is that they're not in English.

Click here to see "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables in Japanese.

Click here to see "On My Own".

and here to see an absolutely fantastic rendition of "All I Ask of You" from Phantom of the Opera in Korean. The song works well in Korean and the signers are excellent. (Edit: I see it has been removed for the ever-popular "terms of use violation". Sigh)

Lou Piniella got suspended for four games for kicking dirt on (and making contact with) an umpire. We went 3-1 with him out. I was wondering if management was going to ask him to stay suspended a while longer, like maybe till we got back to .500. But he came back today, and the Cubs beat the Braves 2-1, so maybe that's okay. Four out of five since losing about six in a row. They're getting Felix Pie in the lineup some more, Soriano moved back to left where he belongs (as far as the outfield is concerned, anyway), and punching Michael Barrett seems to have settled Carlos Zambrano down a little bit. Hang in there, boys.

S-P-E-L-L-B-O-U-N-D

I'm sure that title's been used somewhere before. It's not very original.

I don't believe I've talked about this before in any length, but I love the National Spelling Bee. I was a good speller in school and like to watch other kids go at it. I was nowhere near as good as these guys and girls are, though. The competition has become popular enough to be televised in prime time on ABC. One contestant just missed girolle, but the next one just got rascacio.

Here's a Slate article about how bees work in some other countries. Here's one about whether religious girls have more or less sex.

I highly recommend the movie Spellbound, if you haven't seen it. It follows about nine kids through their regional competitions and into the nationals. I think it's fantastic.

There's the girl from Texas whose parents are Mexican immigrants who have been here 25 years but don't speak any English ("That's just lazy!" a friend of mine said). Her brother's got a thick, thick Texas accent. And here she is, competing in the National Spelling Bee.

A little kid from New York (if I remember correctly) who Tony Kornheiser would call a "twitching little freak". He makes all sorts of strange faces and sounds while spelling.

An Indian kid whose sister actually won the competition a few years before, so he has the added pressure of living up to her standard. His dad hired coaches in Spanish, German and French so he could figure out what words are supposed to look like in different languages.

There's a girl from DC that they follow as well. She just studies after school with one of her teachers, nothing fancy.

Other words missed so far: zacate and bouleuterion.

Stuart Scott is interviewing kids backstage after they get eliminated. I think that's a little bit much.

They just gave this kid the word punaise, leading to the following exchange:

Kid: "Aw, geez."
Reader: "It's another word for bedbug."
Kid: "I like bedbug better."

He got it right. Great look on his face when he found out he got it right.

Urgrund is up next. A little tricky, because sometimes in German the d takes a sound more like t in English. Toughie. She missed it when she added a t to the end.

Cilice. A word which gained a certain amount of publicity when it was talked about in The Da Vinci Code. The albino assassin guy wore won as a sort of permanent penance. She missed it.

This girl just asked for the word origin of pelorus, and the reader said it was "unknown". That doesn't seem--I don't want to say "fair"--but come on. That's a real kick in the balls.

The last two movies I've seen have been Spiderman 3 and Once. S3 is okay. Good action, so-so acting, meh story, some funny parts. There's a scene I think is really funny with Bruce Campbell in a French restaurant, and anything in any Spiderman scene with J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson is great.

Geez, another word with unknown origin. But the kid got rigaree.

Ooh, I bet there are people out there loving Isabel Jacobson, who says one of her favorite words is kakistocracy, which means "rule by the worst people possible". She got helodes correct.

"I don't really like it. I just have to be in it." Yowza. Evan O'Dorney just laid down the hammer. He likes math and music better, he says. And he just nailed schuhplattler.

I think there has to be more than just family present at the competition. There's a pretty big crowd there. I'd love to go.

"You really have to know your German elements to get this word." Well, I do know my German elements, but I would've been killed by abseil.


Fauchard. I got that one, but the kid left off the d. The kid before missed cachalot by one letter, putting an e in place of the second a.

Aw, they're closing Ford's Theatre for 18 months. They do some good stuff there.

Isabel just got epaulement, as did I. The word epaule (with an accent aigu over the first e) means "shoulder" in English. "Epaulettes" are those things worn on the shoulder of uniforms.

You know you're good when you spell laquear. A kid from Canada just blazed through rognon.

cyanophycean. A blue-green alga. I would have gotten the cyan- part from the definition. Greek means it's -phy-. The rest would've killed me. The -cean ending is tough. She missed it. Got the ending wrong. Really hard.

The Canadian kid in the final two says he "metaphorically picks the wings off the butterflies in his stomach", according to Robin Roberts. Yowza. The word vituline seems to be giving him trouble. If he misses, the other kid still has to spell another word correctly to win it. The competition can't end on a missed word, they say. Like "proving it" in a game of H-O-R-S-E. He got it.

ABC has Robin Roberts, Stuart Scott, Mike Golic, and Mike Greenberg working this event. You've come a long way, baby.

If ever you wanted to see "I Dreamed a Dream" sung in Japanese, here's your chance.

Oh come on. It looks like they're going to commercial after every round. There's two kids left! Each round takes maybe three minutes now. Let them go for a while. Jerks.

The Canadian kid missed coryza, but the polymath Evan still has to get serrefine. I bet he knows it. He does.

Coming up next: Grey's Anatomy. Bleh. I'm not saying it's a bad show, I just don't care about it at all. My cousin watched it over last summer. It's great, intense, personal drama which I try to avoid at all costs

Evan doesn't seem too excited. Either he expected to win all along or it's taking a long time to set in. Stuart Scott asked if he wanted to reassess his opinion of the Spelling Bee now that he won. "Am I supposed to say I like it now?" Ha! Congratulations, Evan.

The Short Long Weekend

Long because I took a day off to go to New Orleans for the Jazz Fest, short because I spent chunks of two days traveling.

I flew through Houston, which has the greatest airport in the world. It has both a Popeyes and a Shipley Donuts, which gives it the best chicken and the best donuts in the world. People around here talk about Krispy Kreme and Dunkin' Donuts, and they're good. But they can't hold a candle to Shipley's.

We stayed in the convent with some Marianite nuns. You know when you stay with nuns, it's going to be nice and clean. Friday night we at a place called Ye Olde College Inn, where I had trout meuniere. Next time I may try some else, but I love anything that has "meuniere" attached to it.

You can see the schedule for the day I was at the Jazz Fest here. We started at the gospel tent with the Zulu Gospel Ensemble. Then I wandered over to see the last song by Bonsoir Catin at the Fais Do Do stage. Four talented girls doing it well. They sang a song that seemed to have the words "mon pickup truck" at the end of each line. Love that.

Then over to see Groove Academy at Congo Square. Sounded a little bluesy-funk to me, but I could be wrong. After a few songs I went over to the Jazz Heritage Stage to see the Mahogany Brass Band. I love brass bands. They seem to be made up of the kind of guys who will play all night till the joint shuts down. And the music seemingly never stops. They play a song, and when the song is done, the music keeps going and then another song starts.

Economy Hall tent was packed for the New Leviathan Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra, which is a great name. They dressed like Navy guys and played what sounded to me like the kind of old, old-timey jazz that people would sit around and listen to on the radio in the 1940s. Speaking of great names, I was sorry to miss out on seeing Rockin' Dopsie and the Zydeco Twisters.

I went back over to the Jazz Heritage stage to see the NewBirth Brass Band, which might be the biggest I've seen. I think they had about fifteen guys on stage with trumpets, guitars, trombones, tambourines, saxophones, drums, and maybe four or five other things. Really good.

We closed out the day with Norah Jones at Gentilly stage. Huge crowd. She's got about four songs that I really like (Turn Me On and Lonestar are probably my favorites), and Wikipedia says she's sold about 30 million albums, so she's good. But man was she BORING. She's nice and calm and easygoing, which would be okay if she was playing in front of fifty people in a dining room. With thousands and thousands spread over a big expanse, it just doesn't work. We left about thirty minutes in because she was so dull.

I think it speaks well for the Jazz Fest that they can have Norah Jones, Ludacris, and Rod Stewart all closing out the day on separate stages. The next day it was Brad Paisley, Jill Scott and Bonnie Raitt.

Weekend After Busy Weekend

It's been busy on weekends. Jeezum crickets, what have I been doing?

Last weekend I had one of the great alone days since I've been in this area. Took me down to Chinatown for Chipotle, then to see Hot Fuzz, which was really funny. I think it was funnier than Shaun of the Dead. It makes fun of big action cop movies, but changes the setting to a small town in England. It's actually got a lot of people you've seen around in this and that. And for whatever reason, I never would've recognized Timothy Dalton if I hadn't seen his name in the credits. I totally missed that one. I knew he looked familiar, I just couldn't pin him down.

Haagen Dazs on the way out to make the walk a little more pleasant. Saw a girl in there who I should have offered to buy ice cream. Anyway, it was a gorgeous day, the first great weather weekend of the year. I walked around the National Mall for about three hours, just watching people and enjoying everything. Finally, it was off to Pentagon City and the first Popeyes I'd had since Lent ended. Magical.

Back into DC for a few hours at SOTW. The bartender ate four saltines in under a minute, which is a great accomplishment. I freaked out the waitress by showing her the "short arm trick". The rest of the evening was very pleasant.

Sunday my cousin and I went to the Kennedy Center to see Coriolanus, which was very good. It ought to be, since it was put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company. It's always nice when you look at the playbill and see a listing that says, "Patron: Her Majesty The Queen". When I see things like plays or musicals, I tend to go in just thinking about the acting and storyline. I forget about the production itself and how they change the scenes and set the backdrop for different times and places. It was very well done and did a great job of enhancing the action, drama, or emotion of each scene.

After the play we went over to Eastern Market. The food was good. It's an active neighborhood. Our waitress was cute. She was nice. She was from the Midwest. And she was terrible. I won't name her or the place, since I don't want her to somehow get in trouble. But man she was awful. Did I mention she was nice? She needs to quit that job and come live with me.

I'm going to run to bed so I'll talk about New Orleans and the Jazz Fest later.

April 14

I spent most of the day in downtown DC. The Freer Gallery was running a free anime marathon, so I went to the first film. As a result I got to see the grand epic of Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie. Reagan Building for lunch, then wandered around the street festival for the Cherry Blossom Festival. A group of drummers and dancers was performing on the big stage. They were pretty good.

I moseyed on over to J-Pop Land and watched Mitsu Massyu. I think they pulled off something pretty tough: it was really, really, really loud but still managed to be pleasant. I could actually see myself listening to this stuff at home. I wouldn't understand a single thing, but it was nice. Speaking of not understanding a thing:

It seemed like only one member of the band spoke English, the male guitar player, but he didn't really do any talking. The lead girl did most of that. The thing I really liked is that for the most part she didn't even try to speak English. She just went on and did her thing in Japanese. There seemed to be plenty of people there who understood her, and not just native Japanese folks. (I did understand whenever she said "Genki deska", which is like "How are you?". Standard reply: "WOOOOOO!!") Now and then she'd say a couple of things in English and the crowd would go wild. Reminded me of what they say about Americans traveling in foreign countries like Italy or Germany. If you even try to speak the native language, they love you.

After that it was off to Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters. The song at the beginning was worth a big chunk of the price of admission. There's no point in me talking about the rest. You can see Stephen Hunter's review here. Or the Slate review here.

Then it was back over to the street festival for more Mitsu Massyu, this time on the big stage.

I started a sort of one-man, metro-based mini bar crawl. A burger and a couple of drinks at Sign of the Whale started the evening. A traveling salesman bought a round of shots, so I asked for Wild Turkey (puts a fire in your belly, it does). The bartender suggested Wild Turkey Honey. Very nice. Instead of setting your eyes on fire, it sort of makes the area under them warm and tingly. I'll have to try that stuff again. Went to Whitlow's for a drink, which was a complete waste of time. Whitlow's is loud and crowded, and there is absolutely nothing going on unless you're there with a group of people. Then over to Bailey's for a couple more drinks and watched a few games on TV. That sort of crawl is a nice idea, but I've got some refining to do before it's as good as it can be.

Sunday I sat on my butt all day and didn't do anything except a little laundry. WHEEEEEE!

Ptooey! Beijing 2008

The New York Times today has a pretty interesting article about the efforts of the Chinese government to get residents of Beijing to clean up their acts before the Olympics come calling in 2008. Highlights:

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Last week, the city commemorated “Queuing Day,” an event held on the 11th of every month because the date symbolizes an orderly line. Volunteers wearing satin Queuing Day sashes shooed rush-hour commuters into lines at busy subway stations, while hospital administrators and a few city officials handed out long-stemmed roses to patients who stood in line to pay their bills or pick up medicines.

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Public spitting is a frequent practice in Beijing and even more common elsewhere in China. (The sinus-clearing, phlegmy pre-spit hawking sound is so common that one foreigner wryly dubbed it “the national anthem of China.”)

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English translations on signs are considered fashionable and good advertising, as well as a gracious gesture to foreigners baffled by Chinese characters. But until recently, the attention paid to the accuracy of the translation was, at best, uneven. Consider that a local theme park about China’s ethnic minorities was initially promoted in English as “Racist Park.”

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Tony Kornheiser pointed out this morning that the Pulitzer Prize in criticism went to a man named Jonathan Gold, who is the restaurant critic for LA Weekly. Tony said that the DC equivalent of this was someone winning from City Paper. You can see samples of Gold's writing here. One day I'll move back to Natchitoches and win one writing for the Natchitoches Times.

I'm reading the Aeneid right now. If you decide to read both the Aeneid and the Iliad, read the former first. If you start with the Iliad, you'll only be disappointed in the Aeneid. It's like it was written by a 5th grader compared to the Iliad. From what I've heard, it's like visiting both Australia and New Zealand. "They" say to do Australia first.

I bought my first item off of itunes over the weekend: The 2007 Sugar Bowl: LSU 41, Notre Dame 14.

Chris Richardson told Simon tonight on Idol that "nasal is a singing style" after Simon described his performance as "nasally" for the umpteenth time in a row. I suppose this could technically be correct. But surely Chris realizes that you sing through your nose when you don't have a good voice.

Ach, Bones is a rerun tomorrow. A good one, though. One more thing before I get on to talking about my weekend:

The song "Turn Me On" by Norah Jones is wonderful.

The Elephant in the Room

On March 24, the Rutgers women's basketball team beat Duke by one point to advance to the Elite Eight in the women's tournament. On December 4, they had lost to Duke by forty points. That's a pretty big turnaround within the same season, and done against the #1 team in the country. Well done.

The Scarlet Knights next ran over Arizona State to make the Final Four, then the Lady Tigers of LSU in the national semifinal game (sigh) to make the title game on April 3rd. So you've got to figure that from the night of April 1st all the way through the Tennessee game, and even after they lost, the players from Rutgers must've been feeling pretty good. Cloud nine, maybe. Probably the greatest season in the history of their team, though I admit my knowledge of Rutgers women's basketball lore is thin at best. With so many of their players only freshmen, there were good feelings all around about the present and future of the team. Life is good, right?

On the morning of April 4, a 66-year-old white man with a nationally syndicated radio/TV show called them "nappy-headed hos", and all hell broke loose.



Before I get to what I think, let's browse a little and see what some other people are saying. Here is Jemele Hill's article on espn.com. The only part I'd comment on is this:



"In case you're wondering, I would have been equally outraged if Imus were black, Asian, Latino, Portuguese or Italian. The ethnicity or skin color of the perpetrator matters none." (my italics)

I disagree. The ethnicity or skin color shouldn't matter, but it does. Should has nothing to do with it. An old white guy called black college girls "nappy-headed hos". One of his lackeys (also white) used the term "jigaboos vs. wannabees". Another lackey (also white)--who had already been fired from the show for outlandishly vile comments (Yes, they apparently thought it was okay to bring him back. Genius)--said the girls looked like the Toronto Raptors. He's the same guy who said that Serena Williams would fit better in National Geographic than Playboy.

Even though Jemele Hill is a black woman saying that the ethnicity doesn't matter, I have to think that there are a lot of black people around the country watching and reading about this, seeing a two week suspension, and thinking that these white guys are skating away from repercussions again.


Here's the New York Times story:

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Today he said that the phrases he used “originated in the black community. ... I may be a white man, but I know that these young women and young black women all through that society are demeaned and degraded by their own black men and that they are called that name.”
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That's gutlessly passing the buck, and undoes a lot of the supposed fence-mending he did with his rambling apologies. Origins are irrelevant in this case. Hip hop is irrelevant in this case. What black men do is irrelevant. What is relevant is what YOU, DON IMUS said trying to be funny. As David Aldridge said on Mr. Tony's show this morning, "What was the joke? What exactly did he think was funny?"


Here is the Lisa de Moraes column in the Washington Post.



"Yesterday's activities included issuing his longest "apology" to date on his radio show while (you saw this one coming) chatting up the number of minority kids who come to his camp for cancer patients in New Mexico."



There has been, and probably will be, a very long line of friends and allies of Imus coming to his defense and pointing out all the good things he has done for the less fortunate and all the money he has raised for various charitable causes. I'm sure it's all 100% true. It's also 100% irrelevant.



I picked a random blog to look at by googling [Don Imus offensive history]. I came up with this.



"The problem for Imus is that he is white and insulted blacks. The reverse is acceptable. His transgression is not. Black hip hop music, videos and humor has degraded all standards to the bottom. Language or epithets commonly used by black entertainers are far worse than used by Imus."



Aside from also passing the buck to black entertainers for saying worse things, he's wrong in saying, "The reverse is acceptable." It's not acceptable for black people to say insulting things about white people. It doesn't cause as much outrage for a variety of historical reasons, but that doesn't make it acceptable.



Now on to what I think:



The best part of this whole story from a very, very selfish point of view is that it introduced me to Heather Zurich:

I think she's cute.

I've heard some people say that Imus and crew have said a lot of stuff way worse than this and got away with it. This tells me that his show has been cruel, vulgar, and pretty low for a long time. And got away with it for a long time.

Here's a difference: these are all young college girls probably age 18-21. They're not politicians. Not pro athletes. Not journalists or reporters. Not infamous criminals. Not anything at that level. This isn't a level playing field. They can't fight back the way other targets can. They can't hold a press conference every day and blast Don Imus. They don't have radio shows or nationally prominent blogs or columns. And they certainly didn't do anything to deserve being attacked, apparently other than playing against Tennesse in the national title game. Imus and his lackeys going after them is like a crocodile going after kittens.

My favorite quote so far:

"I would like to speak to him personally and ... ask him, after you've met me personally, do you still feel in this category that I'm still a 'ho' as a woman and as a black, African-American woman at that?" said Kia Vaughn, a sophomore center. "I achieve a lot, and unless they have given this name of 'ho' a new definition, then that is not what I am."

To me, Bernard McGuirk saying "jigaboos vs. wannabees" is even worse than what Imus said, and I don't care if he was quoting a Spike Lee movie or not. "Jigaboo" is a terrible word and is certainly not fit to be used on radio, TV or anything remotely resembling polite company. Of course, nobody ever said that the Imus show was anywhere near "polite company", did they?

The "this is free speech, deal with it" argument has surfaced some in reasoning why Imus should not be fired. Yes, this is free speech. No, nothing illegal has taken place. But as often occurs, the First Amendment is being incorrectly applied. I haven't heard anyone say that he should go to jail. But I'm willing to bet that the radio station could fire him right now and not face any legal liability. What he did may not have been "wrong" in the legal sense of the word. But in the moral sense, it was absolutely wrong. People are screaming about it, and they should scream. He's being roasted over the fire, and he should be. He does have the legal right to say what he wants. But no one has the legal right to say the kinds of things he said and reasonably expect to keep his job. Some people out there need to stop adhering to the notion that just because no actual crime has been committed, that nothing wrong has really taken place.

That's about all for now. I'm heading to bed. Next time, maybe I'll talk about Colin Cowherd deciding to randomly shut down people's blogs.

Five Days Till Tax Day

I got my taxes done, so I guess I should mail the checks in pretty soon.

They're doing Latin music night on American Idol (alas, no Gregorian chants) and everybody stinks so far, in my humble opinion. Of course, Haley hasn't come out and jiggled her jigglies yet.

What's been going on? Let's see:

Florida won the NCAA tournament for the second straight year. At the moment, they are the two-time champs in basketball and the current champ in college football. As the Crocodile Gang boss said in Kung Fu Hustle, "Is there no justice? Is there no law?"

Ah, here comes Haley. Very short shorts. Can't sing worth a darn, poor thing. Can't understand a word of what she's saying.

Nancy Pelosi went to Syria and supposedly did so in "defiance" of the White House. Like there's anything the President can do to stop her. Or that there are any repercussions for going to Syria besides looking like you're kowtowing to Assad. What can Bush do? Nuthin'. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Some people were upset that she brought along a scarf in order to use as a head cover in certain situations. "You're giving in to the Muslims!" I look at it this way: the US Ambassador to the Vatican used to be Lindy Boggs. It is customary for women to wear a veil or some sort of head covering when meeting the Pope. When Boggs did so, I didn't hear anyone screaming that the United States was capitulating to the Holy See. Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention.

It sort of reminds me of when Stephen Colbert ripped Bush apart at the correspondents' dinner and people said what a courageous thing he did with the President right there. Again, what could happen to him? This isn't Russia, where the "President" will have you killed if you piss him off.

For whatever reason, the final eight on Idol this season seem really weak. The trend of the contestants getting better and better each year seems to have hit a bump. I hope they ditch Latin week in future seasons. I can't think of a single Latin song that would sound good on this show.

I went to Mass at St. Matthew's Cathedral in DC on Sunday. It was packed, so I was in a little side chapel where I couldn't really see anything. It's okay, I know what happens. I've seen it before.

Anyway, I was sitting in a temporary chair setup they'd put in for extra people. An older lady sat down on the steps next to the mini-altar thingy (technical term) in front a great sculpture in the chapel. A little bit later a girl sat down on the steps as well. When we all sat down, I asked the lady if she would like to sit down in a seat, so she switched with me. I had an extra song/liturgy pamphlet, so I gave it to the girl.

Sanjaya doesn't sound as terrible as usual, maybe because he's singing in Spanish. Maybe that's the secret. Oh, he just switched to English. Bad.

At the end of Mass, I was standing on the steps waiting for people to clear out. The girl stopped by me on her way out and thanked me for the pamphlet. "No problem." Then she sort of caught me off guard when she also thanked me for giving my seat to the older lady. "Well, it just didn't seem right" for me to be sitting when she wasn't. I was actually a little embarrassed, though I can't say why (though the fact that she was gorgeous might have something to do with it). She said it was a very nice thing to do and that not everyone would have done it. She thanked me again and wished me a Happy Easter. It made me feel about ten feet tall and made me think that maybe I'm not such a bad guy after all.

After Mass I met up with my cousin and we went to see Reign Over Me, which was funnier than I expected. I wouldn't have seen it without somebody to go with, but it's pretty good. Don Cheadle is good. Adam Sandler wasn't bad. It's got the incredibly attractive Saffron Burrows, who was Andromache in Troy. We wandered over to the Hirshhorn, around the Tidal Basin, and up to M Street for dinner at Daily Grill.

I'll save the elephant in the room for my next post.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls...

...Children of All Ages! Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey proudly bring to you The Greatest Show on Earth!

I had the great pleasure of going to the Verizon Center yesterday and see the circus that had come to town. My recurring impression of it every time I think about it is that is was just so...pleasant. I mean, I really, really enjoyed myself. I know that a lot of it was corny and a sort of scripted sentimentality, but I have to admit I fell for it. It may have had something to do with the fact that I hadn't been to a circus in a long, long time. A quick rundown of what they had to offer:

Chinese Acrobats

I learned a long time ago that there's no point in clapping for Chinese Acrobats. They came to perform at NSU several years ago and put on a show. Here's how I remember it:

They do something incredible, so you clap. Then they do something even more incredible, so you clap harder. Then they do something that beats that by a mile and a half so you clap as hard as you can. They they do something better than that and you stand up and clap and cheer. Next time you go absolutely nuts. Then they do ten more things, each one more amazing than the next. So where do you from there as an audience member? It's a dilemma, I tell you. They got on each other's backs and flung hats around. They jumped from swings onto ropes and through cages and went all over the place. They flipped each other and tumbled and built human ladders. All the stuff you'd expect. "Don't they fall?" No. Of course not. They never, ever fall.

Herkules

The Strongest Man in the World! Sure. He stretches springs that two normal men can't budge. He pulls an elephant about 15 feet. And he lets a jeep drive over his stomach very quickly. Kind of boring, but it's nice to see they still use one of the old standards.

Horses

And not just horses, but horses being ridden by "Cossack Warriors". One or two of the "warriors" looked like they were from South America, but that's okay. They ran in formation and one of the really pretty white horses did some high-stepping and "waving" to the crowd. Later on some of the riders did acrobatics on the horses' backs. When the last one came out, I though for a moment that it was a riderless horse. It was actually a case of the rider being underneath the horse and crawling his way back on top. Pretty impressive.

Elephants

Stand up. Sit down. Roll over. Lean on each other's backs. Spin around on the turning stools. Carry the clown in your mouth. They're big, they're fun to watch, and the bit where they grab each other's tails gets me every time. Not terribly exciting, but I think it's probably against the law to have a circus without elephants.

Food Fight

One big pie-in-the-face gag. I'm a fan. Not actually that exciting, but I'll never say no to cream pies being thrown in people's faces. And if somebody ducks at one thrown at them and it hits someone else, even better.

Dogs

Dogs jumping through hoops. Dogs jumping over hurdles. Dogs knocking over hurdles. Dogs poking clowns on the butt. And dogs jumping through a rolling barrel being pushed by another dog. Short and sweet.

Super Silva

The only high-wire type act I saw that didn't use any sort of safety wire or net. There was a mat below him, but it was still a long way down. It wouldn't have helped that much if he'd fallen head-first. He did some trapeze work and then "walked upside down", putting his feet through straps and going back and forth across the scaffolding. Pretty neat.

Smashcar

Clowns in little go karts racing around the place. Breakdowns, zany equipment, clown mechanics getting into the act. Pretty fun.

QUICK NOTE: My sister asked if they had a bunch of clowns exiting a tiny car. And you know what? They didn't. I wasn't disappointed in anything about the show until I realized that. No clown car. Hmph.

Motorcycles in Cages

Craziest thing of the show to me. There may be some trick to it that I don't know about that makes it less dangerous than it looks, but I doubt it. It's great timing and execution. Around and around they go, following each other, intersecting each other, coming this close to annihilating each other, but it never happens. They start with four and make their way up to seven. Great stuff, easily the most exciting thing in the show.

I'll say again how pleasant I thought the whole thing was and how good it made me feel. A good time was had by all.

If you'd like to read a much less favorable review, click here.

Chalk

Interesting episode of Bones tonight. Boneless bodies and boats headed to the Caribbean. Plus, they brought out the wonderful, the marvelous, the fantastic James Hong to play the owner of a Chinese mortuary. In 1986 he was in two really fun movies, The Golden Child and Big Trouble in Little China.

Last year around this time I wrote this about the NCAA tournament and said that the Gods of College Basketball hated my living guts. While this may still be true, their wrath seems to have abated somewhat, at least for now. I decided to do a straight chalk bracket this time around, which means picking the higher seed to win every single time. I hate picking upsets, so this actually felt pretty good. I know upsets are going to happen, but it's impossible to predict with any amount of certainty which ones will occur. If somebody says, "Yeah, I saw that one a mile away," you can bet your bottom dollar they're not mentioning the ones they didn't see or the one they "saw" that turned out to be a mirage.

I've heard some griping that there is a lack of upsets or Cinderellas in this year's tournament. There are no double-digit seeds in the Sweet 16 for the first time since about 1995. Supposedly it makes the tournament more boring and lacking in story lines. I think this ignores the possibility--possibility, mind you, not certainty--that higher seeds lasting longer means better teams matching up against each other in later rounds, and that could mean better basketball games.

Having said that, I'd say that there are only three games on the schedule for the next round that seem intriguing at first glance. First would be Pitt/UCLA, the Ben Howland Bowl. Howland used to coach at Pitt, now he coaches at UCLA. The Bruins made the NCAA title game last year.

Florida/Butler was a very exciting first round game a few years ago, when Mike Miller had to drop a last-second floater in order to avoid a big upset. Florida went on to play in the title game that year, losing to Michigan State. Different players this time around, but if Butler shoots as well as they did against Maryland, they could give Florida real problems. Florida has been getting off to really slow starts the first two rounds.

I actually think that UNC/USC is an interesting game, mostly because nobody east of California knows anything about USC. Everybody and his brother knows about the Tar Heels. USC pretty much dominated Texas and has been a solid team all year long. UNC has talent to burn, a great coach, and a bit more tournament experience than USC. But with a week to prepare and a pretty good coach of their own, USC sure has a shot.

I saw 300 a couple of weeks ago and liked it. There's no point in reviewing it. It's violent. It's dramatic. It's kind of funny. Just don't go see it if you're Persian. Or if you're a stickler for historical accuracy.

I flipped on the Dallas/Cleveland game just now, and they said that Wilt Chamberlain holds the record for fewest games to 8,000 points in a career. 197 games, 40.6 points a game. It made me think of a couple of other Wilt stats I've heard recently. When Kobe Bryant scored 65 a few days ago, they mentioned that Wilt did it 32 times. A couple of weeks ago Dwight Howard put together a great stretch of three games where he hit something like 80 percent of his shots from the field. ESPN showed a list of players other than Wilt Chamberlain who had done the same thing. You know you were dominant when somebody is trying to explain how incredibly rare some feat is, and they have to leave out all the times that you did it.

One more thing: The Atlanta Falcons traded Matt Schaub to the Texans today. When Bobby Petrino was hired, they said that he would have the authority to bench Michael Vick if he wanted. There had been grumblings among some that Schaub was the better QB (better passer, anyway) and should be the starter. If you really wanted to put pressure on Vick to play better, why would you trade the only guy on the roster you might have confidence in to step up? You could argue that this move is telling Vick that he's definitely the guy and has nothing to worry about. I think it looks like Petrino is being paid five million a year to shut up and do what Vick tells him to.

February

My, it's been a while. Where has the time gone? Ah, but what am I saying? It's not the time that's important, but the events and people washed over by time's relentless tide. What's been going on?

February 7, National Signing Day.

Christmas in February for college football fans. The day high school football players declare what college they'll be attending. I call it the "Feast of a Thousand Refresh Buttons".

From top to bottom, LSU brought in one of the best classes in the country and one of their best ever. Consider what was supposedly on board two days before NSD (I say "supposedly" because verbal commitments aren't official, and nothing's really decided till the kid signs on the dotted line):

--Four solid offensive line prospects who could have the potential to develop into really good players. Including T-Bob Hebert, son of former Saints QB Bobby Hebert (an NSU alum, I might add)

--Six athletic players with playmaking ability at wide receiver and in the secondary, some of whom could play multiple positions or help out as kick returners.

--Three solid tight ends, not glamourous but filling a need

--Two of the top ten or so placekickers, ditto. (seriously, it's a mark of how good the class was across the board that there are three tight ends and two kickers, yet still managed to be thought of so highly)

--And maybe the strength of the class, five defensive linemen who can provide immediate and talented depth, each with a good shot of being part the nasty continuum of front fours LSU has put out over the last few years.

These players alone would have been enough to land one of the ten or so best recruiting classes in the country.

The day before NSD, two more highly recruited players on a national level hopped on board. Stefoin Francois at safety and Terrance Toliver, who may have been the top WR recruit on just about everybody's board. As strong as the defensive line group is, the secondary and wide receiver positions are loaded with talent as well.

On NSD, LSU got a commitment from Chad Jones, another top safety, if not THE top safety. He's got linebacker size in a DB body. He's also a baseball player, so he may not even set foot on a football field if he gets drafted high enough.

The big letdown was Joe McKnight picking another school. Mostly a running back but able to score from anywhere on the field, he was the most sought-after player of them all. If you're and LSU fan looking for consolation, you point out that running back wasn't a real need, since LSU pulled in three good ones last year. But still, you'd love to have him on your side.

Let's talk about my favorite guy in this class for a second: Joseph Barksdale. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-6, 325 at DT. Graduated early so he could enroll for the spring semester at LSU. Wants to major in engineering. He strikes me as someone who could be a leader in the future as well as a talent. Plus, he's from Detroit, boys and girls. When's the last time LSU went up north to get a player? We may not see him on the field too soon, because cracking the defensive tackle rotation at LSU right now is one of the more difficult tasks in college football.

Valentine's Day

If memory serves me correctly, I wrote "There's a problem with Bringing Up Baby, and it's not a problem with Bringing Up Baby." The problem was due to so many movies that came after and copied it, that seeing it after those others makes it seem cliche and unoriginal. Valentine's Day finds itself facing a similar problem. I was amazed at the amount of negativity thrown at the holiday. I can understand why a single person without a Valentine might feel down on a day celebrating couples, but some people really go overboard. Yes, there's a lot of marketing that accompanies the event, but do they really believe that evil corporations created it so people would spend money? Take a look at some of these definitions on urbandictionary. I tend to think the spending came first, then the companies saw there was money to be made and jumped in with both feet. That doesn't diminish any of the romance of it for me. Valentine's Day is a good thing, I think. As long as you're able to keep it in perspective and don't fall into the "money equals love" trap, I see no reason not to look forward to it every year.

February 17

Sometimes it's nice just to have a day. Saturday was that day. I wandered over to Ballston and got a haircut. Then went downtown and had lunch at McDonald's while listening to teenagers talk about death and how they want to die. One of them looked like he was dressed like Ed from "Full Metal Alchemist", if Ed were wearing cat's ears. I cut through Natural History on my way to the African Art museum and took some pictures of the orchids exhibit. I like orchids.

Then it was over to the African Art museum to see some masks and doors and all sorts of really good stuff. After that, the new light works exhibit at the Hirshhorn. This featured two pretty cool displays: a light focused on a slowly spinning metal ring suspended from the ceiling. The refractions off the ring were neat; and a dark room with only a hazy red projection against one wall for lighting. It was very strange and eerie until my eyes got used to it. I may go back to see it again.

I left there and walked over to E Street Cinema and saw Pan's Labyrinth. It's good. A little dark, a little gruesome and brutal, and not funny at all. But good. I'm not sure I cared about the story itself or the characters, but it was very well done through and through.

Then I had a burger and some drinks at Whitlow's on Wilson. It's nice to go to a place that doesn't skimp on the Crown. However, something someone said a few days earlier came back to me. For all the people that were in the place, it really didn't seem like there was a lot going on. It actually felt kind of dull. But the day as a whole was very nice. I did whatever I felt like, whenever I felt like it. I wouldn't have said no to some company, but that bit of freedom is nice too.

Wonderful Wednesday

We've got a great TV viewing experience tonight, boys and girls. At 8 EST we've got Bones, back after a hiatus of a few weeks. Very intense so far. They brought back a very irritating villain, Howard Epps. Great character, but really irritating. I hope he gets hit by a bus.

Then the great beast of them all, American Idol at 9 from Los Angeles.

According to the "Idol Chatter" on USA Today, some people thought it was boring last night. I am not one of those people. We had the "Big Bird Lady", the girl whose father shot her stepmother and himself (wearing a shirt that said "Blue Eyed Bombshell" and living up to the label--okay, I wasn't really looking at her eyes), and the funny chubby guy. I don't know what most people thought of him, but I thought he was hilarious. I hope he hangs around for a while for the comedic value alone.

All in all, I laughed my butt off most of the way through.

"The reason I'm auditioning for American Idol is that I'm the most exciting entertainer on planet earth." And that's how we start the show. As opposed to the something else earth? Ooh, Manoukian is his name. Armenian. I went to school with an Iskendarian and worked with a Garabedian. One of the great segments of Taxicab Confessions involved two Armenian guys who were awesome. Must be something in the water in Yerevan. No better way to close out than some geographical name-dropping.

Many Moons Ago...

I turned 30 on Friday. It was nice.

For the last year or so, I've been telling people that the most annoying thing about getting older is that the stories I tell always seem to have another year or two on them since the last time I told them. I tell a story that happened five years ago, I swear. Then I start thinking about it and it was in 1995. What the hell happened?

In other news, there's a movie coming out called The Messengers. the tagline from IMDB, one of the five best websites on the net:

"There is evidence to suggest that children are highly susceptible to paranormal phenomena. They see what adults cannot. They believe what adults deny. And they are trying to warn us."

I may just be getting the wrong impression, but haven't there been a lot of movies where kids see the baddies and adults don't? I'd really like to see a movie where they reversed the roles. Let the adults see the horrible monsters while the kids wander about in ignorant bliss. Now that would be entertainment.

National Signing Day for high school football recruits is next Wednesday, and I don't get the day off from work. Is there no justice? Is there no law?

Don't do that. Oh please, don't do that.

I have a standing rule about not voting for anyone who cries on American Idol. I think it started with Jennifer Hudson, who has since gone on to some pretty good things. (or at least one good thing so far). I don't have a particular reason, other than I don't like seeing people cry on TV ("real" TV, anyway). However, I did think it was kind of neat when the 16 year old guy whose parents didn't support him made it to Hollywood and started crying when his mom finally told him she was proud of him.

Have I mentioned that I'm glad the show is back on? I am. Very, very glad. Last night the State of the Union resulted in them cutting off what could have been another hour. I'd rather listen to awful people perform on American Idol than listen to the SOTU speech. They release the thing hours in advance anyway so the media can start talking it up, and they'll talk about it for days afterward, so I don't see the point in tuning in.

As you know by now, the Mighty Saints (NO, NO, NO, this girl is terrible. Ouch) lost to the Bears in the NFC title game. Good news is we doubled our all time playoff wins total (really bad, she is). We now have 2. Some people are saying that Reggie Bush's taunting made the Bears play harder and turned the tide of the game. (Darlin', nobody cares how hard you worked for this. Get out. Oh wait, they're going with a soap opera angle. Good job.) It didn't turn it so much that the Saints defense couldn't (yowza, this has to be fake) stop the Bears offense and get the ball right back after making it 16-14. Or so much that the Saints were able to drive down and try a field goal. (We don't care if you think they're making a mistake. You're pathetic. Or at least acting pathetic.) I don't know if being fired up was the reason, but the Bears really rolled from then on.

I'm hoping we can have as good a draft and offseason this year as we did last year. Bush, Colston, Evans, Weatherford, and Roman Harper before he got hurt. Five rookie starters who performed well. Rob Ninkovich got hurt even earlier than Harper, but they really liked what they saw from him as well in the d-line rotation. It's unlikely that things will fall our way so well two years in a row, but I'm eager to see what the second offseason of Loomis/Payton holds.

BCS, Big Trucks, and Curious Math

BCS

On Monday night Florida smacked Ohio State around to the tune of 41-14 in the BCS title game. Just about everyone was surprised, except a guy named Jim Walden, who used to coach at Washington State. He voted Florida #1 in the last regular-season poll, the only voter in the Harris poll to do so, and called this year's OSU team "one of the weakest No. 1 teams in 25 years." Every other #1 vote went to Ohio State. After the game, people were showering him with praise for picking the big underdog over the heavy favorite. Maybe he was prescient, maybe things just worked out for him. But he comes off looking like either a genius or a very lucky man right now.

Did I think Florida could win? Sure. They've got great athletes across the board, a tough defense, and a really, really good coach. Ohio State has the same, of course, but everybody gave them the edge because of Jim Tressel and Troy Smith. Earlier this season Lee Corso listed Jim Tressel's record in "big" games at 30-7. He regularly beats Michigan, and he pulled off a big upset against Miami a few years ago to win the BCS title. Troy Smith's bandwagon started to get full during last season's Fiesta Bowl, when he led OSU to a win over Notre Dame. It gained serious steam this undefeated season and a Heisman trophy.

So the two biggest surprises to me were:

1) Ohio State looked confused all game long, especially on defense. You would figure that with so much time to prepare, Tressel could come up with a defensive game plan to control Florida's offense. Didn't happen. It looked like guys were open over the middle all day long, and it looked like Florida was ready for whatever defensive looks OSU threw at them. Chris Leak played his best game of the season.

2) The pressure Florida's defense put on Troy Smith and the overall effect it had on the OSU offense. Heavy pressure from the ends and some creative blitzing early put Troy Smith on his back and got the Gators an interception. With the way Florida came out rolling on offense, they quickly built a big lead. Troy Smith was 4-14 for 35 yards for the whole game. Yowza.

If you're a Michigan fan, here's something that'll warm your heart:

Ohio State scored a touchdown on the opening kickoff of the game. Ted Ginn went 93 yards, 7-0 Buckeyes. What happens when he reaches the end zone? He gets tackled by two of his own teammates and hurts his ankle. I think he was back in for one play after that, then it was the sidelines for the rest of the game. The fastest player, the big-play threat, the dangerous returner, gone. And at the hands of his own teammates. My dad and I used to watch games and see stuff like a guy make great moves and go untouched to the end zone, then get hit--no, hammered--by his own guys, and we'd say, "I'd be really ticked off if I managed to run all that way without getting hit, and then get blasted by my own guys."

Big Trucks

Last night I went to the Monster Jam at the Verizon Center. You can see the pictures I took here. Most of them aren't that good. The video I got was much better. Observations:

LOUD!!

When those guys gun it and really go, it blows you back. There was a guy in the hallway giving away earplugs beforehand, and like a dope I think to myself, "Bah, it can't be that bad." After about 40 minutes my ears were actually sore. They do a pretty smart thing by breaking up the show into different segments so you're not constantly bombarded with the noise.

Just driving over the cars easily isn't what people want to see. You need to get high up into the air and come down hard. You know how gymnasts want to stick the landing? Here sticking it is boring. If you can almost flip over backwards or somehow lean forward on your front wheels and then rock back, that'll be pretty popular.

They have "Quad Wars", which seems like four-wheeler racing mixed with pro wrestling mic rhetoric. It's not as loud, but the fumes are stronger. Team DC beat Team Philly in the rubber match of three races when a nice-looking blonde girl crossed the finish line first.

They also add in motocross stunt jumping. Each time I was pretty sure that somebody was going to crash and endure a horrible trip to the emergency room. But those guys can do some pretty crazy stuff in midair, like headstands and letting go of things you'd think they would want to hold on to. It was pretty good.

Many moons ago, back when the world was young, I'd see some monster truck stuff on TV. I seem to recall that King Kong or Bigfoot was the big dog on the block. These days it's Gravedigger. It gets the biggest cheers and things seem to be set up for it to succeed. The announcer even calls it "everybody's favorite monster truck" or something like that.

All in all, it's a pretty good show. I'm glad I sat down close my first time, but I think I can settle for farther seats from now on.

Curious Math

I see before me coupons from Pizza Hut. One of them offers a medium pizza for $6.99. It also says "2 for $13.99". Doesn't that mean for two pizzas, they're charging you twice the amount plus one penny? If they charged the same amount per pizza for two as they did for one, the price would come out to $13.98. I may be wrong, but doesn't getting an additional product often come with a discount for the additional product? Something like "Shirts: $4 each or 3 for $10". I don't ever recall seeing a higher per-item price the more you buy. Curious.

In Other News

Congratulations to my good friend Sandy for finishing the Disney Half-Marathon. Good work, my friend. I'm proud of you, and I know I'm not the only one.

Sugar Bowl

You can see what I thought would be the deciding factor in the Sugar Bowl here. A quick quote:

Last year, I thought LSU's offensive line underperformed the same way ND's did this year. But they really pulled it together for the Peach Bowl stomping of Miami. There's certainly the possibility that ND could do the same thing and get it together. As good as LSU's back four are, there's not a secondary in the country that can't be had if you give the QB time to throw.

I think I was a bit off. Notre Dame's offensive line played much better than most people would have expected, they still only put up 14 points, and got outgained by 300 yards in the second half. I had figured that if Brady Quinn had time to throw, he could exploit mismatches against the LSU secondary. In the second half, however, LSU covered the receivers really, really well. The defensive line helped out with a little more pressure and shut down the Irish running game, but I was very impressed with the play of the back four. Jessie Daniels entering the game after being suspended for the first half probably helped.

Additional thoughts:

A lot of people are saying that LSU's receivers had a great game because of their speed advantage over the ND secondary. That could be part of the reason, though I imagine if you lined up the ND players and told them to sprint, they'd be pretty fast. A bigger reason is probably because the ND secondary just doesn't have very good players, fast or not.

The LSU offensive game plan was put entirely on the shoulders of JaMarcus Russell. It's a good thing he's got really big shoulders. He played very well and may have played himself in to a top ten selection in this year's draft. Lots of people said that this could be the last game for him and LSU offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher. It looked like they wanted to go out with a bang, slinging it all over the place. It was a very aggressive attack to build up a 20 point lead, then they mashed away with the running game for most of the 4th quarter.

Keiland Williams ran hard, strong, and showed good moves. I like how he manages to break tackles while being elusive at the same time. Justin Vincent played a very good and complete game to close out his career. He ran it for about six yards a pop, breaking a lot of tackles. He caught a couple of balls. He blocked well in pass protection. In short, everything he could do to help the team win.

Early Doucet is the best athlete among the big three receivers, and he showed it with a couple of big pass plays. But Dwayne Bowe is the most skilled receiver in terms of running routes and catching the ball. The slants and deep outs he has in his arsenal could serve him well in the NFL. Craig Davis is a little between the two.

Brandon LaFell has two TD catches this season. One in the first game, one in the last, both for 58 yards.

Les Miles is 22-4 as the LSU coach. That ain't too shabby.

Some people are taking this opportunity to bash Charlie Weis, saying he's not as good a coach as he thinks he is or people have been saying he is. I've already mentioned that I've completely drunk the Kool Aid on Charlie Weis. I think that next year may be a setback record-wise for Notre Dame, but by 2008 I think they'll be back in a big way. He's proven to be a very capable recruiter so far. In the next few years I'd expect to see a lot more talent on the o-line, at the skill positions, and in the secondary. Let's see what he can do with equal talent as the other coaches before we label him a bust.

Now we get to turn our attention to the stretch run of recruiting, starting with today's US Army All-American game. Let the fun begin.

Clear Cut, Yes? Clear Cut, No!

I would recommend a John Feinstein article to you. You can find it on the Post's website here. The best thing about the article to me is this line:

"People want heroes to be heroes and villains to be villains. It is rarely that simple and it isn't even close to being true with Knight."

Personally, I think it isn't true for just about everybody. I mentioned this to someone during the last season of The Sopranos. Tony Soprano can be a very frustrating protagonist to root for sometimes. One moment he's cutting short a tryst with another woman because she's unbuttoning the shirt his wife buttoned for him on the way out. The next moment, he's driving along with a Bada Bing girl's face in his lap (to put it mildly). Sometimes people do things they aren't proud of and say, "That wasn't me." Which is nonsense, if you ask me. It's always "me" or "us". We're the same person doing the good thing as we are doing the bad. It's just not that easy to reconcile something like that within ourselves.

My favorite novel is Atlas Shrugged. I think it's wonderfully written and put together. But I disagree with Francisco d'Anconia that there are no contradictions. I think that every human being is a contradiction. We do want two different things at the same time, things that are not only different but contradictory. Things that reject each other. And we still manage to get through every day, pretty much every day. I think that's rather nice.

Bowl Season and other things

A few thoughts on what's taken place in bowl season so far:

BYU beating Oregon 38-8 was a surprise to me. I think Oregon has a talent advantage over BYU, but it's obviously not as big a gap as I thought. You come out and smack somebody around by 30, and that can't be explained by gameplanning and lack of effort alone. Aside from the margin of victory, I think the fact that Oregon scored only 8 points is the biggest shocker for me. They've got some good players on offense, and they had a month to pick apart the Cougar defense on film. It looks really bad to score only 8 points.

Hawaii beat Arizona State in the Hawaii Bowl. It seems that the instant Hawaii becomes bowl eligible, they get an invite from the Hawaii Bowl. I wonder if they'd ever take another bid if somebody else offered. Hawaii is fun to watch, and they hit really hard on defense if nothing else. The crowd is fun to look at. I love those people.

Florida State beat UCLA 44-27 in the Emerald Bowl. That means that even without the blocked punt and interception returns for touchdowns, Florida State still scored 30 points against UCLA's defense, the same unit that held USC's offense to a touchdown. If you ever want to know why people pull their hair out trying to find a bit of predicability in football, that's why.

Oklahoma State beat Alabama in the Independence Bowl. Consider this: with no head coach and a roster that's been depleted by NCAA sanctions, Bama still only lost on a last-second field goal. I'm not saying they deserved to win or are so much better than OSU, but that was still a tad impressive to me.

Cal 45, Texas A&M 10 in the Holiday Bowl. For a long time the Holiday Bowl was the shootout game of the bowl season. Before last year's game, the previous nine winners had averaged 33.7 points a game, and four losers had scored 27 or more. That took a hit last year when Oklahoma beat Oregon 17-14 and this year when A&M got shut out in the second half. The Aggies were 5-2 in their previous seven games and each loss had been by a point, so just looking at the score it's surprising they got hammered the way they did. But watching the game, you could see that Cal clearly had better athletes, better football players, and were the more complete football team. They controlled the line on either side, and smacked the A&M offense around. You're doing pretty well when you have five incompletions the whole game.

The Liberty Bowl may be trying to take the shootout title away from the Holiday:

2005: Tulsa 31, Fresno St. 24

2004: Louisville 44, Boise State 40

This year, South Carolina beat Houston 44-36. You have to feel a little sorry for a defense that Steve Spurrier has a month to prepare for. But Houston used their prep time pretty well, and actually outgained South Carolina. Over 1,000 yards combined between the two. Fun to watch.

I saw the score for the Insight Bowl flash on the bottom of the screen. Minnesota 28, Texas Tech 0. "Don't sleep on Texas Tech," I thought. "That's well within reach of their offense." Final score: Texas Tech 44, Minnesota 41. Hell of a game to watch. Or so I assume, since I wasn't able to watch it. For whatever reason, the NFL Network decided this year to get into the college bowl business. They also televised Thursday night NFL game once the college season, hoping that this would prompt fans to call their cable companies and demand they add NFLN to their listings. I'm glad the Thursday games were stinkers, and I hope the Insight Bowl backfires on them. Thursday night games for the NFL is a dumb idea. Only three days to prepare to face another NFL team is way too little time. I think the games were stinkers because players were tired and coaches didn't have enough time to put in full game plans. For example:

November 26: Cincinnati and Baltimore are both dominant in victory, each shutting out their opponents. 30-0 and 27-0, respectively. November 30: a 13-7 clunker won by Cincinnati. Are you really going to tell me the short week didn't affect the quality of the game?

People should call the bowls and ask that they avoid being broadcast on NFLN until they get a wider audience. You're negotiating from strength, bowl people! Make them become more widespread to accommodate you. Don't let yourself be used as a carrot to attract more viewers to a fledgling operation.

I saw The Good Shepherd over the break. Good movie. I thought the acting was very good. The story is good, and we talked about it a lot afterwards, but I think it could have been put together a little better.

Favorite Christmas present I got: Cubs pullover cap thingy (technical term).

Favorite Christmas present I gave: Light spheres from Pottery Barn.

My mom and I drove down to New Orleans last Friday. This was the first time I'd ridden around since Katrina. I wasn't surprised at the devastation in Gentilly and the Ninth Ward, but I was struck at how it just went on and on, block after block after block. Sixteen months later, there are still intersections without working street lights. One we saw still had a fridge on the roof. A more pleasant surprise was the number of homes in Lakeview that have been rebuilt, or ones that have been razed and the property been rebuilt on.

For the first time in a long time, I sat down with my whole family to watch a Saints game. Each team tried to hand it to the other, but the Saints cut it out in the second half and the Giants kept on going. 30-7 Saints.

Interesting college football recruiting note: Of the top 30 QB's as rated by espn.com, 29 have already given verbal commitments to a school. It's not uncommon for many players to wait till the last minute to declare, so this seems noteworthy to me. I don't know what it means, though.

"Jesus is not a zombie"

Another great line from Bones. Love that show.

But let's talk about Casino Royale. SPOILERS. MAJOR SPOILERS.

Now and then I take notes in a movie for things I want to think about later. Here's some of the stuff I took down.

CHASE: There's a really great chase scene at the beginning of the movie. One of the best I've seen recently. Daniel Craig pursues Sebastien Foucan all over the place, with Foucan apparently doing free running to try and get away. It's really good stuff.

More ads for American Idol. 1/16/07 boys and girls.

EG: Eva Green is a good actress. Maybe very good. But I'm not sure she's right for a Bond girl. I just didn't get the energy from her that I felt I should. There's not enough pizzazz for her to hold up her half of the conversation when she and Bond are doing their witty repartee. She fixes up pretty good, though.

DEALER: At the beginning of the big poker game, the dealer flips out cards to each of the players, often tossing them several feet across the table. Looks really smooth, really cool. If it's real, then that's a helluva dealer. I like watching stuff like that, hard stuff that looks easy when done by somebody who really knows what they're doing.

WARLORD: There's something in this movie that I really appreciate. Our first glimpse of the villain Le Chiffre shows him in Africa, getting money from an African warlord-type character. Later on, the warlord wants his money. What's a warlord to do?

I think there's a tendency to make assumptions about people who live in non-technological areas. Assumptions about lower intelligence or cleverness, for example. That they can't be as smart or as the slick numbers guy from France. That if you swindle them, they won't be able to make you pay. Which is why I'd like to pay my respects to Steven Obanno, played by Isaach De Bankolé. Mr. Warlord tracks Le Chiffre to the poker game in Montenegro, breaks into his room, and threatens to kill him and/or chop off his hand if he doesn't get the money. I was pretty impressed.

STRAIGHT DRINK: After a harrowing adventure, Bond goes to his room and has a drink. About 2/3 of a glass full of whiskey or scotch or something. Just chugs it right down. It probably wasn't really alcohol, but stop and think about it for a second. How tough a drinker do you have to be to drink that much liquor that fast? I might be able to do it with Crown Royal, but I wouldn't go play poker afterwards.

That's it for now. Donald O'Connor is doing the "make 'em laugh" routine in Singin' in the Rain.

TZ Reunion

Many moons ago, back when the world was young, the Twilight Zone had an episode named "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet". It's one of the more notable episodes, with William Shatner playing a man who sees a creature on the wing damaging the plane (the only passenger to see it). Nervous breakdown, monster, airplane, good stuff. Twenty years later, the episode was redone in Twilight Zone: The Movie. John Lithgow played the main role.

Why do I mention this? As you know, I've been going through all the Third Rock From the Sun episodes, and I'd never noticed the quick exchange between Dick and the Big Giant Head (Lithgow and Shatner). BGH mentions that during his flight he looked out the window and saw something on the wing. Dick says, "The same thing happened to me!" Nice add-in with two men who have played the same character.

What else is going on? LSU is in the Sugar Bowl against Notre Dame. I never thought I'd see the day when there were LSU fans out there who were disappointed to be in the Sugar Bowl. Tons of anticipation had been building about going to the Rose Bowl against Michigan, but then USC lost to UCLA and that was the end of that. Here's a brief analysis of the matchup between the two teams:

ND Offense: Good
LSU Defense: Very Good
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LSU Offense: Good
ND Defense: Bad (sometimes very)

General consensus from what I've read is that LSU is faster on both sides of the ball, but especially on offense versus the Irish defense. I think Notre Dame certainly has a shot because of Brady Quinn and Charlie Weis, but I'm in agreement with the people who list LSU as the clear favorite. I could list important factors like pressuring the QB, running the ball, turnovers, etc., but you can get that anywhere. So I'll just say this:

LSU's defensive line is one of the elite units in the entire country. Fast, mean, deep, smart. Notre Dame's offensive line has not been as good as many people expected it to be, and that's held them back on offense, in my opinion. If these two things hold true in the Sugar Bowl, LSU should really like their chances.

Note: Last year, I thought LSU's offensive line underperformed the same way ND's did this year. But they really pulled it together for the Peach Bowl stomping of Miami. There's certainly the possibility that ND could do the same thing and get it together. As good as LSU's back four are, there's not a secondary in the country that can't be had if you give the QB time to throw. And that's all I have to say about that.

The Sky Is Falling!

Or at least that's what you'd have to believe from the reaction by some people that Congressman-elect Keith Ellison would take the oath of office by taking the oath of office with the Koran instead of the Bible. Ellison is the first Muslim to be elected to Congress. Let's see what some concerned citizens are saying to Congress:

A "...in effect he would be swearing to represent Islam, not United States citizens."

I don't see how he would be swearing to Islam any more than people swearing on the Bible pledge allegiance to Christianity or Rome or Martin Luther.

"When all elected officials take their oaths of office with their hands on the same book, they all affirm that some unifying value system underlies American civilization"

Congressmen don't put their hands on the Bible or any book. They raise their hands and recite the oath mandated by the Constitution. The "underlying value system" is that very Constitution, not Protestantism or Catholicism or [INSERT BRANCH OF CHRISTIANITY HERE]

"We have done quite well without Allah up to now, and I believe we can continue to struggle along without him in the future."

We have done well with Allah till now? No we haven't. Allah is the same God by a different name. Jews, Christians and Muslims are all "people of the book". They just believe different things about the same God.

B "I am considered a senior citizen and in all my 65 years I have never seen the Bible or the Christian religion put down so bad."

If you've never seen the Bible put down so bad, then you really need to get out more. There's a lot worse stuff going on every single day.

"When we let the immigrants that our service men are protecting tell us how and what they are going to do or not do."

We are not letting immigrants make the rules for at least two reasons: There is no rule that says the Bible must be used in the swearing in process, and Keith Ellison was born in Detroit.

"In particular, Keith Ellison a Democrate from Minnesota, newly elected to the U. S. Congress is not going to take the oath of office on the Biblle. He will only take the oath on the Koran. If this is so, then he needs to go to where the people believe in the Koran and use it as their Bible."

You mean someplace like, say, America? There's millions of Muslims living here. Hello?

C "The King James Bible is the Word of God."

Don't get me started. This is a version that worries more about sounding good than putting forth the most accurate translation. It's laughable to think that it reflects the true meaning of the writers responsible for the original.

D "If we stop honouring the One Who has helped us win so may battles and wars in the past, He will lift His Hand of protection and blessing off of our country and allow our enemies to come in upon us."

You'd better be from England or one of the former Commonwealth countries. Even so, you can't go blathering about Americans fighting wars and then spell "honoring" with a "u".

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Several people are writing messages to Congress that include an essay by Dennis Prager about this. You can read the essay here. You can read a very good refutation of it here.

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Some of my comments:

He uses the word "America" like we're some homogenous, single-minded organism instead of a collection of (at least) a thousand different ways of thinking and acting.

He uses "political correctness" as a scare term to describe what is really a man asking to use the book that his religion holds dear.

Here's a good one: "Would they allow him to choose Hitler's "Mein Kampf," the Nazis' bible, for his oath? And if not, why not? On what grounds will those defending Ellison's right to choose his favorite book deny that same right to a racist who is elected to public office?"

Maybe on the grounds that MK isn't held dear by the world's second largest freaking religion. Or that Nazism is a political ideology and not a religion at all. Or what would be my favorite: BECAUSE IT WAS WRITTEN BY A NAZI.

"But for all of American history, Jews elected to public office have taken their oath on the Bible, even though they do not believe in the New Testament, and the many secular elected officials have not believed in the Old Testament either. Yet those secular officials did not demand to take their oaths of office on, say, the collected works of Voltaire or on a volume of New York Times editorials, writings far more significant to some liberal members of Congress than the Bible. Nor has one Mormon official demanded to put his hand on the Book of Mormon."

If Jews haven't asked to be excused from using the Bible, that's on them. It's got nothing to do with Keith Ellison. Just because others opted for the Bible doesn't mean the US House should force it on Ellison.

He's also a bit off on the Mormons, who say they use the Bible in addition to the Book of Mormon.

I'm inclined to say that people are making a big deal out of something that really isn't. But maybe it's a big deal to them, which is fine. It's a free country. However, I think a lot of people take the "America is a Christian nation" ideal for granted, and have a hard time dealing with the "America is a secular country" reality.

Why? Why do you mock me, O Lord?

Over the last few years, there have been billions of words written criticizing the BCS and how it sets up teams to play in the major bowl games. But there is no greater indictment than this: Many people seem to be in agreement that LSU needs Florida to win in order to get an invite to a BCS bowl game (probably Orange or Rose). The Effing Gators have to win. Why? Why do you mock me, O Lord?

In other news, the Mighty LSU Tigers beat Arkansas on Friday 31-26. A great back and forth game, big plays on either side. Arkansas gashed the LSU run defense all day long. Darren McFadden is a phenomenal running back. It didn't help that LSU's linebackers were dinged up, but he's really that good. But LSU played well on offense and got a big kickoff return from Trindon Holliday to put them over the top. A lot of LSU fans were wiping their foreheads in relief.

Should Florida win, LSU could face Michigan in the Rose Bowl, or the winner of the ACC in the Orange Bowl. I'd feel pretty good about either. It could be a good start to the offseason, recruiting, and next season.

One final note: some people are saying that Notre Dame doesn't deserve a BCS bowl. Or Florida doesn't if they lose. Or LSU doesn't anyway. Or whoever doesn't. Let me make this clear: The word DESERVE has no place in a discussion of the bowl bid process. It's about TV, money and maybe matchups. There's no use griping about it. Just be glad if you get in.

The Reaper looks different than I thought

Gallaudet University recently went through a very dramatic time when students shut down the campus to protest the recent choice of university president. The board of trustees eventually caves to the students and removed the nominee. Below is a photo taken from the celebration.


That's a brave man carrying Death on his shoulders.

Gallaudet has had a tough time of it lately. The whole episode came off as a black eye for the school. It looked like the university allowed a student mob to start making the rules, like they can now throw a big tantrum anytime they don't like what's going on and get their way. Sort of an "inmates running the asylum" kind of thing. John McCain resigned his position on the board of trustees. The Washington Post ran a story about lapses in academic standards, incluiding grade fixing. The government funds about two-thirds of Gallaudet's budget, but gives the school a lot of leeway because of it's place in deaf society. If things continue to go badly, people are going to stop caring about the deaf part and start caring about the institutional integrity part.

@$$-gate

At halftime of the LSU/Tennessee game, CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson asked LSU coach Les Miles how LSU could go out and show that they are a good football team. "Play our asses off!" he said. I thought it was great. Pretty surprising, but great. You get the feeling that Miles was really sick of hearing people talk about his supposed inability to coach the Tigers to road wins against ranked teams. I wonder how people forget the game at Alabama last year, when LSU was down and came back to win in overtime. This win might make him feel a bit better.

By the way, I don't recommend googling "assgate" unless you're in the mood for a lot of X's.

How did we win that game?

LSU turned the ball over four times, while taking it away from the Vols only once. One of the INTs was returned for a touchdown. The game was on the road, and Tennessee got a relatively inspired performance from backup quarterback Jonathan Crompton, including two long touchdown passes that got the crowd into the game. LSU committed eight more penalties than Tennessee as well. LSU's leading Russell was the 260-pound quarterback, who had an amazing 34 yard run. The referees missed what looked like an obvious touching on a Vols punt return that would have given LSU the ball on the UT 4 yard line.

So how did LSU win?

1) The defense. Tennessee managed only 247 yards, and only 62 on the ground. The defensive line shut down any holes, and the linebackers didn't allow anybody to get outside. They had two sacks, several other pressures, and an INT. Whenever the offense didn't turn it over, they made life tough on the Vols offense. They knocked Tennessee starting QB Erik Ainge out of the game in the first quarter (Ainge is the nephew of Danny Ainge).

2) A diverse and surprising ground game. I already mentioned Russell's rushing, which always came in big situations. Keiland Williams carried the ball on the second play of the game, and I'm not sure if he even saw the field before the 4th quarter in any other game. He ran with good speed and power, and I'm not sure Tennessee was expecting him. LSU also used Jacob Hester, Alley Broussard, Justin Vincent, and Trindon Holliday at running back. Holliday looks like he can go the distance on every play. He's incredibly quick and fast.

3) Russell connected on several screen passes to Dwayne Bowe and Early Doucet (inside screen to Bowe, bubble screens to Doucet) and it looked like Tennessee had no real answer for them. Bowe's TD came on one of these near the goal line, and his fumble came on one at midfield. Craig Davis also had a TD catch, but Bowe and Doucet were the two most popular targets on the day. Doucet snagged a hard pass out of the air that may have been meant for Bowe in the back of the end zone, but it turned out to be the game-winning catch.

4) LSU didn't go in the tank and quit after making so many mistakes. As hard as it is to believe, the Tigers always looked like a team that believed that victory would be gained. It's great to watch.

In Praise of Random

I wrote here about the appeal of sameness and routine. It's still as nice now as it was then. It's nice not to have to say, "You mean I have to do what today?" Having said that, over the last few weeks I have gained a greater appreciation for what I think of as "The Joy of Random" (technically, it should be "randomness" since it's a noun and "random" is an adjective, but I think it works better my way). The two main ways I've seen randomness add a certain flavor to life are humor and storytelling.

1) Humor: a random word in an unexpected place can make for a really good joke. The people you're talking to have no idea where it came from, and maybe neither do you. A word that seemingly has no connection to the conversation, but you find that it really works. Sometimes I think of these words as "appropriately random", although I think you could make a case for that being an oxymoron.

2) Storytelling: I think storytelling gets a huge boost from randomness of experience. Something that happens to you totally out of the blue that you can't wait to tell people about. Sometimes I'll be in the middle of something and already be thinking about how I'm going to tell the story to other people. The "getting kicked in the butt by a girl while at the urinal" episode is just the latest. Sign of the Whale is a great place for randomness to happen to me.

Third Dick From the Sun

I won't say that I forgot and needed to be reminded, so I will say that it's very, very nice to experience the wackiness of 3rd Rock From the Sun again on DVD. I liked it a lot when it was on TV, and I like it even more now. Wonderful writing and an on-screen chemistry among everybody in the cast made for a fun time all the time. Chemistry between the two love interests is important and rare enough, so for it to exist from top to bottom is outstanding.


One thing I really enjoy is that it was willing to do a lot of different things. Some shows do one thing and do it very well. Some do things that nobody has ever done before (though doing something that's never been done before...has been done before). 3rd Rock never fell into the trap of sameness. It helped that they could approach the most ordinary things with a fresh perspective. Two scenes that stand out are Dick experiencing kleenex for the first time and being freaked out by a pop-up book. Speaking of Dick...

One of the more enjoyable minor points of the show was that they often found inventive ways to work "Dick" into the title. Some examples:

Lonely Dick
Angry Dick
Selfish Dick
Much Ado About Dick
Dick Jokes
Dick Behaving Badly
Will Work for Dick
Stuck With Dick
Near Dick Experience
Shall We Dick?
My Mother, My Dick

It waned a bit the last two seasons, but it was a nice touch.