The U.S. Women's Soccer Team is playing Sweden right now, pitting #1 vs #3. No, I don't mean their FIFA rankings (Sweden is #4, I believe). As you ought to know, Abby Wambach is #1 on the Scotty Williams Big Board. Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden is #3 (or Kronprinsessan, for you Swedes out there). The higher ranking and American citizenship give Abby a huge advantage.
She's used that advantage to score two goals so far. The first was on a penalty kick, the second on a nice play where she settled a beautiful pass from Kristine Lilly off her chest and nailed it into the left side of the net. That's 80 goals in 98 international games for her.
I haven't talked about LSU football in a while, so let's see how they're doing...
...oh my.
They appear to be doing quite well. Opponents have been outscored 93-7. They rolled up almost 600 yards of offense against Virginia Tech and forced seven turnovers against Mississippi State. Let's go over the players drafted in the first round that they had to replace:
JaMarcus Russell, QB: Matt Flynn has done very well. He hasn't turned the ball over at all, been fairly accurate on his passes, and run well when asked. Ryan Perrilloux has looked pretty good when given the chance to play. Gary Crowton's offense suits his talents well.
LaRon Landry, FS: I believe that Curtis Taylor is officially his replacement, and he's played well, though I can't say he's been challenged or picked on to any real extent. He looks like a good athlete, and he's got a sack and an interception through two games. Craig Steltz has assumed the leadership role in the secondary, and done very well. Four INTs so far for Steltz.
Dwayne Bowe and Craig Davis, WR: Early Doucet has done a good job being the #1 guy and drawing attention from the defense. The question was who would play opposite of him, and Branden LaFell came out with a huge game against Virginia Tech. Terrance Toliver had a good catch to extend a drive in the first game and a nice TD catch in the second. He looks like he's got a bright future in front of him.
The defense has played very well, as expected. Eight starters are back from last year's defense, which was third in yards allowed. Every starter is either a junior or senior. They're strong, fast, disciplined, smart, deep, and a bunch of other things. Dominance was predicted and they have delivered.
The biggest surprise of the first two games has been the offensive performance against VT. The offensive line looked outmatched against Mississippi State, and the offense as a whole didn't click early on until late. There was no struggle against Virginia Tech. The backs had holes to run through and Flynn had time to find his receivers. Jacob Hester is playing better than he ever has. Keiland Williams is on the verge of becoming known across the country as a playmaker. His "leap over a blocker, break a tackle, cut across the field and outrace the secondary" for a 67-yard touchdown was a thing of beauty. Charles Scott has shown a bit of shiftiness and versatility that surprises me a little. He caught a pass for a touchdown against MSU and a third-down pass for a first down against VT. He's more than just a bruiser. Those are the top three, but Trindon Holliday and Richard Murphy have done well when given the chance.
So far the Tigers look like a complete team that is going to be tough to beat and is a favorite in the SEC West and SEC overall. I'll hold off on anything BCS-wise until after Florida.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Football
I thought about this yesterday: both my football teams opened the season on a Thursday night: LSU against Mississippi State on 8/30, Saints against Colts on 9/6. Their results were a little different.
LSU forced seven turnovers and pitched a shutout, 45-0. The Saints got outscored 31-0 in the second half and lost 41-10. It's a good thing they don't play the Colts every weekend, or I'd be worried. More on LSU:
The game against Virginia Tech was probably the most highly anticipated game of the first two weeks. Non-conference game, with #2 vs. #9. Tech had a good defense and great special teams. LSU fans were concerned about the simplified offense shown against MSU and the "punt ugly" formation that drives people up the wall. It seemed almost guaranteed that VT would block one or two punts. The offensive line didn't seem good enough to allow the rest of the offense to shine. Most of Matt Flynn's completions went to a single receiver, Early Doucet. So there were questions.
Questions answered.
Some scouts had given VT the advantage at several positions, but none of them would pick them to win, and I think there are two main reasons. One is Tiger Stadium. Two is that LSU's linebackers don't play against VT's linebackers, so position A vs. position A matchups don't mean anything. The biggest mismatch in the game was up front between the LSU defensive line and the VT offensive line. No room for Branden Ore to run, no time for Sean Glennon to throw. Unless VT's defense was dominant and kept the game close and low-scoring, they couldn't expect to win.
They couldn't.
LSU's defense played just as well as expected. 149 total yards, 7 points, 2-14 on third down. It was the offense that really surprised people. Looking sluggish against MSU, a lot of people thought it was being held back in order to keep VT from being able to scout it. Les Miles downplayed that, saying they weren't going to unveil a new "wantango" offense against VT. If Saturday's performance is what we can expect, then I say "Unleash the Wantango!"
Nearly 600 yards of offense, almost 50-50 rushing and passing. Everybody on the field played very well. The offensive line played its best regular-season game in years. Matt Flynn hit Brandon LaFell with some big passes. LaFell took advantage of the attention paid to Early Doucet and had his best game as a Tiger.
Keiland Williams looked like he's becoming a breakout player with national recognition. He took a pitch from Flynn, leaped over a blocker, broke a tackle, and cut across the entire length of the field for a 67-yard touchdown. Later on he took a simple handoff around right end, cut upfield, accelerated, came back left a little and scored a 32-yard touchdown. Great plays.
Jacob Hester has steadily become a better player each year, and he looks great through two games. He doesn't seem to be as much of a receiver in the Wantango, but he's running tough and breaking tackles.
I had figured Charles Scott to be a bruiser, but he's shown some good moves and shiftiness that I didn't expect.
Early Doucet had a good game against MSU and good catches for first downs against VT. They have him returning punts as well. Check that. They have him catching punts. I don't think he tried to return any, which is fine with me.
Ryan Perrilloux has seen time as a backup in both games and looked pretty good. This offense looks like a really good fit for him. He had two touchdown passes: a good fake on a run that left Early wide open, and a really nice pass to Terrance Toliver in the end zone in the 4th quarter.
You could have argued that VT's defense matched up well against LSU's offense in two areas: linebackers versus running backs and secondary versus receivers. Neither of those things were true.
Virginia Tech had allowed the fewest yards on defense the last two years, giving them the #1 statistical defense in the country. I don't usually go for the "conference vs. conference" nonsense that goes around because I think usually ends up sounding silly. But looking at Virginia Tech's schedule last year, they played against ONE good quarterback, BC's Matt Ryan. ACC QBs stunk last year, and I have to believe that that's one reason for their lofty ranking. Not the only reason, but a real reason.
LSU's picked up some ground in the writers' and coaches' polls, though not enough to overtake USC. A few sites and individuals are arguing for LSU #1 based on performance on the field so far. There's a long way to go.
LSU forced seven turnovers and pitched a shutout, 45-0. The Saints got outscored 31-0 in the second half and lost 41-10. It's a good thing they don't play the Colts every weekend, or I'd be worried. More on LSU:
The game against Virginia Tech was probably the most highly anticipated game of the first two weeks. Non-conference game, with #2 vs. #9. Tech had a good defense and great special teams. LSU fans were concerned about the simplified offense shown against MSU and the "punt ugly" formation that drives people up the wall. It seemed almost guaranteed that VT would block one or two punts. The offensive line didn't seem good enough to allow the rest of the offense to shine. Most of Matt Flynn's completions went to a single receiver, Early Doucet. So there were questions.
Questions answered.
Some scouts had given VT the advantage at several positions, but none of them would pick them to win, and I think there are two main reasons. One is Tiger Stadium. Two is that LSU's linebackers don't play against VT's linebackers, so position A vs. position A matchups don't mean anything. The biggest mismatch in the game was up front between the LSU defensive line and the VT offensive line. No room for Branden Ore to run, no time for Sean Glennon to throw. Unless VT's defense was dominant and kept the game close and low-scoring, they couldn't expect to win.
They couldn't.
LSU's defense played just as well as expected. 149 total yards, 7 points, 2-14 on third down. It was the offense that really surprised people. Looking sluggish against MSU, a lot of people thought it was being held back in order to keep VT from being able to scout it. Les Miles downplayed that, saying they weren't going to unveil a new "wantango" offense against VT. If Saturday's performance is what we can expect, then I say "Unleash the Wantango!"
Nearly 600 yards of offense, almost 50-50 rushing and passing. Everybody on the field played very well. The offensive line played its best regular-season game in years. Matt Flynn hit Brandon LaFell with some big passes. LaFell took advantage of the attention paid to Early Doucet and had his best game as a Tiger.
Keiland Williams looked like he's becoming a breakout player with national recognition. He took a pitch from Flynn, leaped over a blocker, broke a tackle, and cut across the entire length of the field for a 67-yard touchdown. Later on he took a simple handoff around right end, cut upfield, accelerated, came back left a little and scored a 32-yard touchdown. Great plays.
Jacob Hester has steadily become a better player each year, and he looks great through two games. He doesn't seem to be as much of a receiver in the Wantango, but he's running tough and breaking tackles.
I had figured Charles Scott to be a bruiser, but he's shown some good moves and shiftiness that I didn't expect.
Early Doucet had a good game against MSU and good catches for first downs against VT. They have him returning punts as well. Check that. They have him catching punts. I don't think he tried to return any, which is fine with me.
Ryan Perrilloux has seen time as a backup in both games and looked pretty good. This offense looks like a really good fit for him. He had two touchdown passes: a good fake on a run that left Early wide open, and a really nice pass to Terrance Toliver in the end zone in the 4th quarter.
You could have argued that VT's defense matched up well against LSU's offense in two areas: linebackers versus running backs and secondary versus receivers. Neither of those things were true.
Virginia Tech had allowed the fewest yards on defense the last two years, giving them the #1 statistical defense in the country. I don't usually go for the "conference vs. conference" nonsense that goes around because I think usually ends up sounding silly. But looking at Virginia Tech's schedule last year, they played against ONE good quarterback, BC's Matt Ryan. ACC QBs stunk last year, and I have to believe that that's one reason for their lofty ranking. Not the only reason, but a real reason.
LSU's picked up some ground in the writers' and coaches' polls, though not enough to overtake USC. A few sites and individuals are arguing for LSU #1 based on performance on the field so far. There's a long way to go.
Ahh, Wambach
I can't tell you how good it feels to get up at 5am to watch the U.S. women play their first game of the 2007 Women's World Cup in China. A couple of notable stats they've mentioned so far:
-- Wambach scores about 45% of her goals with her head
-- The U.S. is 51-0-7 when Wambach starts a game. They have never lost.
The U.S. are the favorites and the top-ranked team in the world. The Group they drew includes Sweden (3rd) and North Korea (4th). Throw in a really rough Nigeria, and it's no picnic.
So far the team looks a little slow and disorganized, but that may be the rain. The Koreans are also playing well, so give them credit.
-- Wambach scores about 45% of her goals with her head
-- The U.S. is 51-0-7 when Wambach starts a game. They have never lost.
The U.S. are the favorites and the top-ranked team in the world. The Group they drew includes Sweden (3rd) and North Korea (4th). Throw in a really rough Nigeria, and it's no picnic.
So far the team looks a little slow and disorganized, but that may be the rain. The Koreans are also playing well, so give them credit.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Thirty!
And no, I'm not talking about my age.
The Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles today by a score of 30-3. The "game notes" section says that this is the most runs scored by one team at least since 1900. Let's consider a few of the more interesting things I see in the box scores. I'm sure Jayson Stark will have loads more in his next Useless Info column.
Two Rangers had eight plate appearances. Four is about average, with some guys at the top of the order getting to five.
All 30 runs were earned runs.
Baltimore got out to a 3-0 lead, which means the Rangers scored 30 unanswered runs.
The Orioles only used four pitchers. You'll see 2-1 games where both teams will use more than that. They gave up 6, 8, 7 and 9 runs each.
Orioles pitchers threw 252 pitches, 120 more than Rangers pitchers. The Orioles actually threw more strikes than the Rangers threw pitches (157-132).
If the Orioles had driven in all the men they left on base, they would have lost 30-20.
The Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles today by a score of 30-3. The "game notes" section says that this is the most runs scored by one team at least since 1900. Let's consider a few of the more interesting things I see in the box scores. I'm sure Jayson Stark will have loads more in his next Useless Info column.
Two Rangers had eight plate appearances. Four is about average, with some guys at the top of the order getting to five.
All 30 runs were earned runs.
Baltimore got out to a 3-0 lead, which means the Rangers scored 30 unanswered runs.
The Orioles only used four pitchers. You'll see 2-1 games where both teams will use more than that. They gave up 6, 8, 7 and 9 runs each.
Orioles pitchers threw 252 pitches, 120 more than Rangers pitchers. The Orioles actually threw more strikes than the Rangers threw pitches (157-132).
If the Orioles had driven in all the men they left on base, they would have lost 30-20.
The weak link in the Rangers lineup was Michael Young, who was "only" 2 for 5 with a run scored, no RBI, and five left on base.
The Rangers scored all their runs in four innings: five in the fourth, nine in the sixth, ten in the eighth, and six in the ninth.
The Rangers set a record for the most runs scored by one team in a doubleheader, and that was before the second game even started.
Wes Littleton earned a save in a game decided by a 27-run margin.
The Rangers scored on sixteen different plays.
If Texas received an additional win for each run scored, they would go from fifteen games under .500 to fifteen games over.
The Rangers hit two grand slams and three three-run homers. That's 17 runs on five swings of the bat.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
June Allyson Sounds Like Rocky the Flying Squirrel
That's my initial impression of The Glenn Miller Story, anyway. That, and the music is great.
Looking at the date of my last post, I have been terribly lax. Let's get down to business:
I was in Louisiana, then drove to the beach in Alabama. My parents ordered a 50-piece box of Popeyes to bring on the trip. A friend had heard that there was a place called the Flora-Bama, and asked for a t-shirt. But please, please don't go out of my way. So where do we end up staying? In a condo right next door to the Flora-Bama. I got a few good pictures, went into the water a few times, picked up some shells. The water in the hot tub was REALLY hot.
We drove back to Natchitoches and went to my cousin's wedding on the 28th. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it. May as well give it a shot: I enjoyed it very, very much. The reception was at the plantation my aunt used to have. The band's lead singer was a girl I went to high school with (good to see she's still singing). I danced. A cousin asked why I didn't dance like that in DC. I said, "I needed the heat and humidity to get me going." It was a hot, sticky, nasty Louisiana Saturday night. It was great. I was encouraged to go to a bar afterwards, but I had a relatively early flight the next day, so I had to decline. Broke my heart, I tell ya.
Browsing my recent Netflix activity, here's a quick rundown:
Man of the Year. Couldn't even finish it. Just didn't care.
Howl's Moving Castle. Good movie. Well put together. Fun. Wonderfully animated.
Extras: I watched about three and a half episodes. It's really good, really funny, but I just can't watch it for any long period of time. It's uncomfortable, cringe comedy. I can understand why people love it, but I just can't handle it.
Ordinary People. Darn good movie. Solid story, maybe a template for similar movies that followed. Superb acting. I can see why it was nominated for so many things.
12 Angry Men. I love this movie. It's got Henry Fonda, the Man Himself. Wonderful cast up and down the line. Jack Klugman, Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsam, Ed Begley, John Fiedler to name a few. The story is comelling, and the acting is intense. Something I really liked about it that may go unnoticed: it's 96 minutes long, so there's really no wasted scenes. the whole thing comes off tight as a drum.
Bourne Identity/Bourne Supremacy. Big blockbusters. They're good. Very well made. Acting's good, cast is good, most everything is believable to a certain degree. I just can't get excited about it. The story doesn't mean anything to me. Other people love it, and that's okay.
A Patch of Blue. Sidney Poitier is good. Elizabeth Hartman is quite good. Shelley Winters won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. It must've been very controversial when it came out.
Witness for the Prosecution. Ah, what a good movie. One of my favorites, and probably my favorite courtroom movie ever. Charles Laughton, Tyrone Power (they said my grandfather looked like Tyrone Power back in the day), and Marlene Dietrich. Suspense. Tension. Drama. Twists and turns. Humor. Loved every minute of it.
Digression: Many moons ago, back when the world was young, I came up to DC on a school trip. We went to the Lazy Susan Dinner Theater one night and watched a live performance of the play. Fantastic. I sat with a good friend of mine during the evening, so WFTP has a special place in my heart.
Lifeboat. I'd never heard of it until I saw it on Netflix. It has two people I'd heard of: Tallulah Bankhead and Hume Cronyn. It has one person who I'm glad I learned about: Canada Lee. What a great name, but not as good as what his real name was: Lionel Cornelius Canegata. Holy cow, that's a good one.
Auntie Mame. Rosalind Russell. Worth watching a movie just to say "Rosalind Russell". Fun and funny at times. I can't honestly say the movie added anything meaningful to my life, but that's not the worst thing in the world. However, Pippa Scott was a good-looking woman.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. In the annals of film, it's got to be tough to find a leading duo that can compare with John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart. Throw in Lee Marvin playing a dastardly villain, and you've got yourself a winner. A good movie, and probably a good study for learning about what movies used to be like and how they spoke to us in days gone by. There's a strong patriotic tint to it that reminds the viewer what America is supposed to stand for.
I'll end this post here and talk about some other stuff a little later.
Looking at the date of my last post, I have been terribly lax. Let's get down to business:
I was in Louisiana, then drove to the beach in Alabama. My parents ordered a 50-piece box of Popeyes to bring on the trip. A friend had heard that there was a place called the Flora-Bama, and asked for a t-shirt. But please, please don't go out of my way. So where do we end up staying? In a condo right next door to the Flora-Bama. I got a few good pictures, went into the water a few times, picked up some shells. The water in the hot tub was REALLY hot.
We drove back to Natchitoches and went to my cousin's wedding on the 28th. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it. May as well give it a shot: I enjoyed it very, very much. The reception was at the plantation my aunt used to have. The band's lead singer was a girl I went to high school with (good to see she's still singing). I danced. A cousin asked why I didn't dance like that in DC. I said, "I needed the heat and humidity to get me going." It was a hot, sticky, nasty Louisiana Saturday night. It was great. I was encouraged to go to a bar afterwards, but I had a relatively early flight the next day, so I had to decline. Broke my heart, I tell ya.
Browsing my recent Netflix activity, here's a quick rundown:
Man of the Year. Couldn't even finish it. Just didn't care.
Howl's Moving Castle. Good movie. Well put together. Fun. Wonderfully animated.
Extras: I watched about three and a half episodes. It's really good, really funny, but I just can't watch it for any long period of time. It's uncomfortable, cringe comedy. I can understand why people love it, but I just can't handle it.
Ordinary People. Darn good movie. Solid story, maybe a template for similar movies that followed. Superb acting. I can see why it was nominated for so many things.
12 Angry Men. I love this movie. It's got Henry Fonda, the Man Himself. Wonderful cast up and down the line. Jack Klugman, Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsam, Ed Begley, John Fiedler to name a few. The story is comelling, and the acting is intense. Something I really liked about it that may go unnoticed: it's 96 minutes long, so there's really no wasted scenes. the whole thing comes off tight as a drum.
Bourne Identity/Bourne Supremacy. Big blockbusters. They're good. Very well made. Acting's good, cast is good, most everything is believable to a certain degree. I just can't get excited about it. The story doesn't mean anything to me. Other people love it, and that's okay.
A Patch of Blue. Sidney Poitier is good. Elizabeth Hartman is quite good. Shelley Winters won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. It must've been very controversial when it came out.
Witness for the Prosecution. Ah, what a good movie. One of my favorites, and probably my favorite courtroom movie ever. Charles Laughton, Tyrone Power (they said my grandfather looked like Tyrone Power back in the day), and Marlene Dietrich. Suspense. Tension. Drama. Twists and turns. Humor. Loved every minute of it.
Digression: Many moons ago, back when the world was young, I came up to DC on a school trip. We went to the Lazy Susan Dinner Theater one night and watched a live performance of the play. Fantastic. I sat with a good friend of mine during the evening, so WFTP has a special place in my heart.
Lifeboat. I'd never heard of it until I saw it on Netflix. It has two people I'd heard of: Tallulah Bankhead and Hume Cronyn. It has one person who I'm glad I learned about: Canada Lee. What a great name, but not as good as what his real name was: Lionel Cornelius Canegata. Holy cow, that's a good one.
Auntie Mame. Rosalind Russell. Worth watching a movie just to say "Rosalind Russell". Fun and funny at times. I can't honestly say the movie added anything meaningful to my life, but that's not the worst thing in the world. However, Pippa Scott was a good-looking woman.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. In the annals of film, it's got to be tough to find a leading duo that can compare with John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart. Throw in Lee Marvin playing a dastardly villain, and you've got yourself a winner. A good movie, and probably a good study for learning about what movies used to be like and how they spoke to us in days gone by. There's a strong patriotic tint to it that reminds the viewer what America is supposed to stand for.
I'll end this post here and talk about some other stuff a little later.
Friday, July 06, 2007
In Other News
I know I had some stuff to link to, but I can't remember what it was. The FJM blog had a couple of good posts the other day, so you can check that out at http://www.firejoemorgan.com/.
There's this Slate article on carding and telling people's ages.
There's this article talking about how Neifi Perez was suspended 25 games for violating Major League Baseball's drug program.
There's this Slate article on carding and telling people's ages.
There's this article talking about how Neifi Perez was suspended 25 games for violating Major League Baseball's drug program.
July 4th
Wednesday I went to the baseball game at RFK and watched the Nats beat the Cubs 6-0. It didn't happen for my team, but Dmitri Young hitting a grand slam on July 4th for the team that plays in Washington, DC has got to feel pretty special. I thought the Cubs looked tired and just didn't have any energy. I couldn't figure out why. It's not like they're not used to playing day games.
I wandered over to the Folklife Festival afterwards and sat in the Northern Ireland music tent. After an hour or so a police officer told us to leave the Mall and head to the nearest large building until the incoming severe weather was gone. Instead, I walked up to Sign of the Whale for dinner. I started doing a crossword that turned out to be pretty hard, and when I looked to see what paper it was in, it turned out to be The Onion. I got about 75-80 percent done. A Crown & Diet and a shot of Wild Turkey American Honey, and I was on the way home.
So I thought. The fireworks started right when I walked out the door, and I had a very good view of them walking down 18th Street. So I took some pictures and video and went home. Happy Birthday, America.
I wandered over to the Folklife Festival afterwards and sat in the Northern Ireland music tent. After an hour or so a police officer told us to leave the Mall and head to the nearest large building until the incoming severe weather was gone. Instead, I walked up to Sign of the Whale for dinner. I started doing a crossword that turned out to be pretty hard, and when I looked to see what paper it was in, it turned out to be The Onion. I got about 75-80 percent done. A Crown & Diet and a shot of Wild Turkey American Honey, and I was on the way home.
So I thought. The fireworks started right when I walked out the door, and I had a very good view of them walking down 18th Street. So I took some pictures and video and went home. Happy Birthday, America.
Stranger Than Fiction
I really liked it. It's a very clever concept, and easy to lose control of if you're not careful. For those of you not familiar with the story, here's an overview in 25 words or less:
Harold hears writer Karen's voice narrating his life. She says he's going to die. He tries finding her to convince her not to kill him.
25 words, and it was tough.
Will Ferrell is quite good, and not because he's funny, but because he acts the part very well. A little subdued (very subdued, by his standards), very under control. Not really any physical comedy, which can be a crutch for a comic actor who tries to play it straight without cracking jokes verbally. I know I said this about Montgomery Clift, and I certainly don't want to seem like I'm putting Ferrell at Clift's level, but his success comes from how well he uses his face. Saying an actor uses his face well is like saying a soccer player has good feet. It should be obvious, but it often goes unmentioned.
Emma Thompson plays the writer who is knowingly/unknowingly writing Harold Crick towards his death. She's great. The moment when she sees Harold in person for the first time is wonderful.
I'm not sure why Queen Latifah was playing her assistant. It's a bit of an underwhelming role for an actress who was nominated for an Oscar in Chicago a few years ago. Maybe her best stuff ended up on the cutting room floor (if they have that anymore).
Maggie Gyllenhaal is the love interest, and I thought she did a good job with a good character. She was better than attractive, she was appealing.
Digression: I think the desire that comes from appeal is stronger than what comes from attractiveness. It's a lot rarer, for one thing. And I think it's more individualistic, whereas the other is more general. A girl who can appeal to a man (and vice versa of course, ladies) is so much more special to him, though she may not appear so to others.
So Ana Pascal appeals to Harold in a very special way. She bakes cookies. She helps people. She's smart. And she's not bad lookin', either. She's a special thing in Harold's world, which is mostly lacking in anything that's not dull. Very nice.
I'm sort of wondering why Dustin Hoffman played the role of the lit professor who Harold goes to for help, but he was good. He takes sort of a twisted interest in Harold's "plight", though I can't tell if he believes him at the beginning or not.
"It's a very clever concept, and easy to lose control of if you're not careful." Quoting oneself? Ach, the last refuge of the scoundrel.
I thought that was patriotism?
Shut up.
Okay, so you've got this idea that a character can actually hear the narrator's voice in his head. And not just the narrator, but the writer herself. It would be very easy to overuse the device and ruin it by hammering the viewer with it at every opportunity, trying to get as many laughs as possible. A great quality of the film is that this does not happen. It happens here and there, but we're hardly beaten over the head with it. I think the writers' management of the "voice in the head" factor was excellent.
A really good movie all around. Not too many characters, not a quirky and complicated plot that tries to be too clever, and solid acting from all players. Good stuff.
Bah, the Cubs are losing and the Brewers winning. Could be back to a 5.5 game deficit at the end of the night for the Cubs.
Harold hears writer Karen's voice narrating his life. She says he's going to die. He tries finding her to convince her not to kill him.
25 words, and it was tough.
Will Ferrell is quite good, and not because he's funny, but because he acts the part very well. A little subdued (very subdued, by his standards), very under control. Not really any physical comedy, which can be a crutch for a comic actor who tries to play it straight without cracking jokes verbally. I know I said this about Montgomery Clift, and I certainly don't want to seem like I'm putting Ferrell at Clift's level, but his success comes from how well he uses his face. Saying an actor uses his face well is like saying a soccer player has good feet. It should be obvious, but it often goes unmentioned.
Emma Thompson plays the writer who is knowingly/unknowingly writing Harold Crick towards his death. She's great. The moment when she sees Harold in person for the first time is wonderful.
I'm not sure why Queen Latifah was playing her assistant. It's a bit of an underwhelming role for an actress who was nominated for an Oscar in Chicago a few years ago. Maybe her best stuff ended up on the cutting room floor (if they have that anymore).
Maggie Gyllenhaal is the love interest, and I thought she did a good job with a good character. She was better than attractive, she was appealing.
Digression: I think the desire that comes from appeal is stronger than what comes from attractiveness. It's a lot rarer, for one thing. And I think it's more individualistic, whereas the other is more general. A girl who can appeal to a man (and vice versa of course, ladies) is so much more special to him, though she may not appear so to others.
So Ana Pascal appeals to Harold in a very special way. She bakes cookies. She helps people. She's smart. And she's not bad lookin', either. She's a special thing in Harold's world, which is mostly lacking in anything that's not dull. Very nice.
I'm sort of wondering why Dustin Hoffman played the role of the lit professor who Harold goes to for help, but he was good. He takes sort of a twisted interest in Harold's "plight", though I can't tell if he believes him at the beginning or not.
"It's a very clever concept, and easy to lose control of if you're not careful." Quoting oneself? Ach, the last refuge of the scoundrel.
I thought that was patriotism?
Shut up.
Okay, so you've got this idea that a character can actually hear the narrator's voice in his head. And not just the narrator, but the writer herself. It would be very easy to overuse the device and ruin it by hammering the viewer with it at every opportunity, trying to get as many laughs as possible. A great quality of the film is that this does not happen. It happens here and there, but we're hardly beaten over the head with it. I think the writers' management of the "voice in the head" factor was excellent.
A really good movie all around. Not too many characters, not a quirky and complicated plot that tries to be too clever, and solid acting from all players. Good stuff.
Bah, the Cubs are losing and the Brewers winning. Could be back to a 5.5 game deficit at the end of the night for the Cubs.
"...it's root, root, root...
...for the CUBBIES!..."
was heard loud and clear the last four days at RFK. The Cubs were in town for a series against the Nationals, taking three out of four. I went to the first three, including having seats six rows behind the Nats dugout on July 4th. "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" wasn't written about or for the Cubs, but Cubs fans feel that it's still our song because Harry Caray sang it at Wrigley Field for so many years. So when the line comes around, we drown out whoever the home team is. It helps that the Cubs have fans pretty much everywhere.
Devil Wears Prada was good, but I can't say I liked it too much. Meryl Streep was very good, Stanley Tucci good, but Anne Hathaway's acting didn't match the quality of the part. I thought the part of the assistant was well thought out and well written, but I just couldn't get attached to her. Whatshisface from "Entourage" plays the boyfriend. I've seen a couple of episodes, and everybody on it annoys me, so I don't watch.
My Neighbor Totoro is an animated movie from Japan about a big furry thing that makes friends with two young girls. It's nice. It's pleasant. It's very well put together. And of course, it's got a great Japanese title, "Tonari no Totoro". I liked it.
Over the weekend I watched The Last King of Scotland, which got Forest Whitaker an Oscar. He was very, very good. Jovial, cunning, wild, intelligent, all over the place. He did a great job of being a presence on screen whenever he was on. Somewhat jokingly, I sometimes tell people that one of my life's goals is to avoid going to Africa. So I really liked this quote:
Is there anything that you have done that is good, Nicholas? You came to Africa to play the white man. But we aren't a game. We're real. This room is real. Your death will be the first real thing that has happened to you.
If I went to Africa, that's all I'd be doing, playing the white man. I wouldn't do any real good. They're much better off without me sticking my nose in.
I didn't remember seeing James McAvoy before, but IMDB says he was Mr. Tumnus, and now it rings a bell. He was good.
Smokin' Aces. "Oh, that's such a good movie!" someone said to me the other day. "No it isn't." I don't think it's actually bad, though. I thought it would be good for three or four minutes, then bad for five, and it just went on like that the whole way through.
Jeremy Piven, I hear, is very good in "Entourage". I believe it. I didn't like him much here, though. I can see him being good in a role where he engages other people energetically on a consistent basis, but that doesn't happen here. He may have been miscast or just misused.
Andy Garcia's a good actor, but his character (and his phoney-baloney accent, wherever it was supposed to be from) was terrible.
Apparently there's a rapper named Common who I've never heard of. He was okay as the target's bodyguard. Alicia Keys (who I have heard of) was better.
I was very happy to see the guy who played Buliwyf in The Thirteenth Warrior cast as the Swede. I like that guy. Which brings us to my favorite and least favorite performances in the movie:
Jason Bateman (favorite) and Ryan Reynolds (not favorite). Bateman's character is sort of a pathetic loser, and he just oozed losing patheticness the entire time he was on screen. I loved him. On the other hand, Reynolds is supposed to be the tough guy hero. I don't think he can play tough. Yeah, he's got muscles. Maybe he's tough in real life. But on screen, I just can't buy it. And if you don't let him drop an f-bomb, then he may as well not say anything at all. I think he'd have been better as one of the killers, rather than an FBI agent. It's like they got his role mixed up with Ben Affleck's. They'd have been better off reversed, though Affleck wasn't bad as the bondsman.
I really liked Stranger Than Fiction, so I'll give it its own post.
was heard loud and clear the last four days at RFK. The Cubs were in town for a series against the Nationals, taking three out of four. I went to the first three, including having seats six rows behind the Nats dugout on July 4th. "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" wasn't written about or for the Cubs, but Cubs fans feel that it's still our song because Harry Caray sang it at Wrigley Field for so many years. So when the line comes around, we drown out whoever the home team is. It helps that the Cubs have fans pretty much everywhere.
Devil Wears Prada was good, but I can't say I liked it too much. Meryl Streep was very good, Stanley Tucci good, but Anne Hathaway's acting didn't match the quality of the part. I thought the part of the assistant was well thought out and well written, but I just couldn't get attached to her. Whatshisface from "Entourage" plays the boyfriend. I've seen a couple of episodes, and everybody on it annoys me, so I don't watch.
My Neighbor Totoro is an animated movie from Japan about a big furry thing that makes friends with two young girls. It's nice. It's pleasant. It's very well put together. And of course, it's got a great Japanese title, "Tonari no Totoro". I liked it.
Over the weekend I watched The Last King of Scotland, which got Forest Whitaker an Oscar. He was very, very good. Jovial, cunning, wild, intelligent, all over the place. He did a great job of being a presence on screen whenever he was on. Somewhat jokingly, I sometimes tell people that one of my life's goals is to avoid going to Africa. So I really liked this quote:
Is there anything that you have done that is good, Nicholas? You came to Africa to play the white man. But we aren't a game. We're real. This room is real. Your death will be the first real thing that has happened to you.
If I went to Africa, that's all I'd be doing, playing the white man. I wouldn't do any real good. They're much better off without me sticking my nose in.
I didn't remember seeing James McAvoy before, but IMDB says he was Mr. Tumnus, and now it rings a bell. He was good.
Smokin' Aces. "Oh, that's such a good movie!" someone said to me the other day. "No it isn't." I don't think it's actually bad, though. I thought it would be good for three or four minutes, then bad for five, and it just went on like that the whole way through.
Jeremy Piven, I hear, is very good in "Entourage". I believe it. I didn't like him much here, though. I can see him being good in a role where he engages other people energetically on a consistent basis, but that doesn't happen here. He may have been miscast or just misused.
Andy Garcia's a good actor, but his character (and his phoney-baloney accent, wherever it was supposed to be from) was terrible.
Apparently there's a rapper named Common who I've never heard of. He was okay as the target's bodyguard. Alicia Keys (who I have heard of) was better.
I was very happy to see the guy who played Buliwyf in The Thirteenth Warrior cast as the Swede. I like that guy. Which brings us to my favorite and least favorite performances in the movie:
Jason Bateman (favorite) and Ryan Reynolds (not favorite). Bateman's character is sort of a pathetic loser, and he just oozed losing patheticness the entire time he was on screen. I loved him. On the other hand, Reynolds is supposed to be the tough guy hero. I don't think he can play tough. Yeah, he's got muscles. Maybe he's tough in real life. But on screen, I just can't buy it. And if you don't let him drop an f-bomb, then he may as well not say anything at all. I think he'd have been better as one of the killers, rather than an FBI agent. It's like they got his role mixed up with Ben Affleck's. They'd have been better off reversed, though Affleck wasn't bad as the bondsman.
I really liked Stranger Than Fiction, so I'll give it its own post.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
I Do Not Wear Prada
But apparently the devil does. So I'm watching The Devil Wears Prada now. I'll cut it off in a little bit to watch the PBS special for Paul Simon that Mr. Tony went to. Stanley Tucci's character is one I like.
The mighty Cubs have won six games in a row and are a game under .500 right now. They've really heated up coming into the stretch before the All Star Game. A couple of LSU players have been playing rather well, Ryan Theriot and Mike Fontenot. Fontenot went 5-for-5 the other day.
A couple of weekends ago I saw a two movies in the theater: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Day Watch. The first wasn't very good, but it had its moments. I liked the Surfer. This may be the picky geek side of me coming out, but am I really supposed to believe that an elastic man, invisible force-field woman, flying fire-man, and strong rock-guy can beat THE Silver Surfer? Come on. He's the Herald of Galactus. He wields the power cosmic. He's way too powerful for them to take down. Ach.
Day Watch was much better. I thought the events that took place were more interesting than what happened in the Night Watch, though that was pretty good too. I'd never heard of Zhanna Friske before, but then I don't pay much attention to Russian pop music.
On the Netflix end of things, I watched Run, Lola, Run (Lola Rennt, auf Deutsch). I thought the boyfriend was annoying. The flash parts where they showed the different futures for various characters was a neat idea. A friend from C&A really liked it. I'm a bit on the fence.
Flags of Our Fathers, I was a little disappointed in . Didn't see all that much to get excited about. I think the story is a good one, but I just wasn't feeling it (I sound like Randy Jackson). I prefer Letters From Iwo Jima.
And Ghost Rider, which was awful. Bad story, terrible acting, horrible ending, bleh. I thought it looked good the first time I saw a preview for it in the theater, but it was all downhill after that.
I was in a meeting today where we were given the option of telling our favorite movie quote. I said "the entire opening speech from Patton, which isn't really a quote, and "Among women I pass for one, Your Grace", from A Man For All Seasons. It's really the context and how it's delivered that make it so great.
Thomas More made sure that his daughter Margaret received an education the equal of any man, better than most. When Henry VIII pays a visit to More's estate, he is introduced to Margaret. They have the following exchange:
"Why Margaret, they told me you were a scholar."
"Among women I pass for one, Your Grace."
That's great. Social context, wit, humility, pride, all wrapped up in just a few words. Love it.
One more note before I go: Transformers comes out on July fourth. I don't expect it to be a very good movie. But I have to go see it. This was it when I came home from school. Bought the toys. Saw the animated movie in the theater. Pretended to be Optimus Prime. So I'll pack myself into a seat and watch with glee. However, a world where Megatron doesn't have a giant fusion cannon attached to his arm isn't a world in which I want to live.
The mighty Cubs have won six games in a row and are a game under .500 right now. They've really heated up coming into the stretch before the All Star Game. A couple of LSU players have been playing rather well, Ryan Theriot and Mike Fontenot. Fontenot went 5-for-5 the other day.
A couple of weekends ago I saw a two movies in the theater: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Day Watch. The first wasn't very good, but it had its moments. I liked the Surfer. This may be the picky geek side of me coming out, but am I really supposed to believe that an elastic man, invisible force-field woman, flying fire-man, and strong rock-guy can beat THE Silver Surfer? Come on. He's the Herald of Galactus. He wields the power cosmic. He's way too powerful for them to take down. Ach.
Day Watch was much better. I thought the events that took place were more interesting than what happened in the Night Watch, though that was pretty good too. I'd never heard of Zhanna Friske before, but then I don't pay much attention to Russian pop music.
On the Netflix end of things, I watched Run, Lola, Run (Lola Rennt, auf Deutsch). I thought the boyfriend was annoying. The flash parts where they showed the different futures for various characters was a neat idea. A friend from C&A really liked it. I'm a bit on the fence.
Flags of Our Fathers, I was a little disappointed in . Didn't see all that much to get excited about. I think the story is a good one, but I just wasn't feeling it (I sound like Randy Jackson). I prefer Letters From Iwo Jima.
And Ghost Rider, which was awful. Bad story, terrible acting, horrible ending, bleh. I thought it looked good the first time I saw a preview for it in the theater, but it was all downhill after that.
I was in a meeting today where we were given the option of telling our favorite movie quote. I said "the entire opening speech from Patton, which isn't really a quote, and "Among women I pass for one, Your Grace", from A Man For All Seasons. It's really the context and how it's delivered that make it so great.
Thomas More made sure that his daughter Margaret received an education the equal of any man, better than most. When Henry VIII pays a visit to More's estate, he is introduced to Margaret. They have the following exchange:
"Why Margaret, they told me you were a scholar."
"Among women I pass for one, Your Grace."
That's great. Social context, wit, humility, pride, all wrapped up in just a few words. Love it.
One more note before I go: Transformers comes out on July fourth. I don't expect it to be a very good movie. But I have to go see it. This was it when I came home from school. Bought the toys. Saw the animated movie in the theater. Pretended to be Optimus Prime. So I'll pack myself into a seat and watch with glee. However, a world where Megatron doesn't have a giant fusion cannon attached to his arm isn't a world in which I want to live.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Restarting Netflix
I watched Curse of the Golden Flower, which was pretty good. Not as much action and fighting as I'd thought, but a really good story, good acting, and what action there was was very well done. Lots of great visual scenes. And the ending after the great climactic battle--ah, it was good.
I finished watching Little Miss Sunshine last night, which everybody and his brother seemed to gush about. It's good and funny. I wanted to bash Greg Kinnear's face in the first half of the movie, but came around on him the second half. Liked the kid who didn't talk, thought the country's preeminent Proust scholar was good, thought the grandfather was a little annoying (but Alan Arkin won an Oscar for playing him), and thought Toni Colette's character was a pretty good one. I know everybody loved the little girl, but other than being cute, I was a little indifferent to her. Sure, she drove the story, but I'm not as smitten with her as lots of other people seem to be. The little girl playing her was good, though. Don't know if I'd fawn over her the way others did, but that's okay.
I finished watching Little Miss Sunshine last night, which everybody and his brother seemed to gush about. It's good and funny. I wanted to bash Greg Kinnear's face in the first half of the movie, but came around on him the second half. Liked the kid who didn't talk, thought the country's preeminent Proust scholar was good, thought the grandfather was a little annoying (but Alan Arkin won an Oscar for playing him), and thought Toni Colette's character was a pretty good one. I know everybody loved the little girl, but other than being cute, I was a little indifferent to her. Sure, she drove the story, but I'm not as smitten with her as lots of other people seem to be. The little girl playing her was good, though. Don't know if I'd fawn over her the way others did, but that's okay.
The Queen
Before I get to The Queen, I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End over the weekend. I thought it was pretty good, better than the second and probably as good as the first. I'd heard people talking about how long it was and I knew it was supposed to be around 2:40 or so, but it moved pretty quickly. Lots of fun all around, I thought.
I'm about in the middle of The Queen, and I'm really enjoying it a lot. Too bad there's something wrong with the DVD. Here's my notes so far:
They call hunting "stalking".
Prince Philip comes off as a sort of bartardish character. Sometimes I like him, sometimes I don't.
Tony Blair appears nervous and unsure of himself when around the queen, but comes off pretty good. He seems like he really wants to help Her Majesty.
Cherie Blair: I'm sure she's a nice lady in real life, but she comes off as a bit bitchy in the movie. Doesn't like the Queen, takes every opportunity to pick and prod and jibe at her, and mocks her husband whenever he expresses any sympathy for her.
The Queen Mum is funny, fun, and likable.
The Queen's secretary, Robin Janvrin, is a great character. He has to balance between serving the queen and advising her in her dealings with the public. His speech, his mannerisms, the way he carries himself--I think it's all great.
Prince Charles: I think he comes off better than everyone else in the movie, with the exception maybe of Herself. I wrote down "sensitive, emotional, vulnerable, sympathetic." He realizes that the public's reaction over Diana's death isn't going to subside and knows that the royal family has to treat her memory with respect. Post-divorce, he seems to hold a higher opinion of Diana than his parents do.
The Queen is the Queen. I don't know how to describe her. Helen Mirren is great and won the Oscar for Best Actress.
This is a really good movie. No really tough, unwatchable parts that make me pause it in the middle. I like it.
I'm about in the middle of The Queen, and I'm really enjoying it a lot. Too bad there's something wrong with the DVD. Here's my notes so far:
They call hunting "stalking".
Prince Philip comes off as a sort of bartardish character. Sometimes I like him, sometimes I don't.
Tony Blair appears nervous and unsure of himself when around the queen, but comes off pretty good. He seems like he really wants to help Her Majesty.
Cherie Blair: I'm sure she's a nice lady in real life, but she comes off as a bit bitchy in the movie. Doesn't like the Queen, takes every opportunity to pick and prod and jibe at her, and mocks her husband whenever he expresses any sympathy for her.
The Queen Mum is funny, fun, and likable.
The Queen's secretary, Robin Janvrin, is a great character. He has to balance between serving the queen and advising her in her dealings with the public. His speech, his mannerisms, the way he carries himself--I think it's all great.
Prince Charles: I think he comes off better than everyone else in the movie, with the exception maybe of Herself. I wrote down "sensitive, emotional, vulnerable, sympathetic." He realizes that the public's reaction over Diana's death isn't going to subside and knows that the royal family has to treat her memory with respect. Post-divorce, he seems to hold a higher opinion of Diana than his parents do.
The Queen is the Queen. I don't know how to describe her. Helen Mirren is great and won the Oscar for Best Actress.
This is a really good movie. No really tough, unwatchable parts that make me pause it in the middle. I like it.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, April 30, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
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!
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.
----------------------------------------------------
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.”)
----------------------------------------------------
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.”
----------------------------------------------------
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.
----------------------------------------------------
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.
----------------------------------------------------
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.”)
----------------------------------------------------
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.”
----------------------------------------------------
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.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
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:
------------------------------------
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.”
------------------------------------
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:
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:
------------------------------------
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.”
------------------------------------
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.
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.
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