I Hear the Music, But Not the Words

I was all hyped because last night I had, what I thought to be, a great post with some solid content. Of course, tonight, as I sit down to blog, I waste about 30 minutes scouring the internet looking for some ideas. No luck. Such is life.

- The Jessica made a good comment about how a lot of the music I listen to is depressing. It's true. That song I posted yesterday ("The Funeral" by Band of Horses) is about a guy who is ready for his own funeral. That's about as depressing as it comes. But the funny thing is this... I'm not a lyrics person. I could care less what the lyrics are telling me in the music. Many people would attempt to convince me that this is a travesty. The argument would go something like how music is just poetry with added instruments and melodies. In many cases, I don't doubt that people could be moved by the underlying meaning in a song. I just frankly don't care. I'm not influenced one way or another by harsh lyrics, depressing lyrics, sweet lyrics, or lyrics that make no sense whatsoever. I'm all about the music. The instrumentation: the guitar riffs, the basslines, and drumbeats. That's the part of music that I love.

The theory that I came up with very quickly on why I like depressing music goes like this: many times the depressing songs have such a passion in the vocals, which often goes along with intense and often catchy instrumentation. If you have passionate vocals (note that I'm saying 'vocals', not 'lyrics'), then it doesn't often mesh with bland instrumentation. If it does, odds are that our parents and grandparents are listening to it.

I'm so big on Band of Horses after the first few listens to their record because I immediately felt the intensity and passion in the music. It struck me in the same fashion as The Arcade Fire's Funeral did as well. (Coincidence on the titles, but maybe it's the morbid factor that fuels the passion. Believe me, I'm in no way a morbid person, just trying to make a point) Look at other music: Rage Against the Machine and Bright Eyes. Very different music styles, but each are very driven by politics. Zach de la Rocha, the lead singer of Rage while they were still together, is one angry motherf'er. Connor Oberst of Bright Eyes is the same way. He's angry at the world, especially at our wonderful President. Regardless, I'm not swayed one way or another by Rage telling me about the Mexican Zapatista supression or Bright Eyes revolting against the Iraq situation. I just like the music.

In many cases, I can even remember lyrics to a song, such as the tunes on the radio, but when asked what the song is about, I probably cannot tell you. I make a comparison to being able to read another language, but not having any idea what it means. Anyone can recite some Spanish or French words from a piece of paper, but does that mean they understand the translation? Not at all. Same way with me and lyrics. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything, because music is as much of an art form as drawings, paintings, or photography: everyone has their own interpretation behind it. For me, the music sticks with me, not the lyrics. If I like the lyrics, or the meaning happens to dawn upon me, I consider that an extra-added bonus. Even if someone says to me, "I can't believe you don't know what that song is about," I really don't take any offense to it. I'm not concerned with the lyrics, but if the instrumentals don't peak my interest, then it just isn't for me.

I don't feel like any of this is any earth shattering philosophy, but I had gotten to thinking about the fact that much of the music I listen to contains dark and depressing lyrics, which have no effect on me one way or the other. Just some food for thought. I'm sure some of you out there have a similar personal feeling about the music that you listen to.

Like Wesley Snipes said to Woody Harrelson in White Men Can't Jump: "Man, you can't just listen to Jimi [Hendrix], you need to hear Jimi." In my case, I'd hear Jimi's music, but not the words coming out of his mouth.

A King Rules the Kingdom. A Ran Rules the Random. Call Me "The Ran".

Take a look at that post title. Don't mean to toot my own horn, but I thought it was pretty creative. For the record, I came up with that around 10pm, while eating a delicious California navel orange. Glad that's on the record.

- I was quoting Teen Wolf earlier today, and I'm still not sure why. Let's be serious, it involved Michael J. Fox as a werewolf. It doesn't get any better than that. Regardless, a great character in the movie is Coach Finstock. A few of the great Coach Finstock quotes:

"There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese."

"What is it, gambling? Drugs? You know I'd really like to help you but I'm kind of tapped out this month. The IRS is coming down on me like it's some personal vendetta against Bobby Finstock."

Coach: Look Scotty, I know what you're going through. Couple years back, a kid came to me much the same way you're coming to me now, saying the same thing that you're saying. He wanted to drop off the team. His mother was a widow, all crippled up. She was scrubbing floors. She had this pin in her hip. So he wanted to drop basketball and get a job. Now these were poor people with real problems. Understand what I'm saying?
Scott Howard: What happened to the kid?
Coach: "I don't know. He quit. He was a third stringer, I didn't need him.

Great movie.

- My feeling is this: If you are going to be homeless, you have to make an effort to get a job, unless you are either disabled or elderly. If you can't get a job, then at least do something to earn the spare change of the city dwellers: play an instrument, do a dance routine, sing, whatever. If you can't do that, and must resort to making a sign asking for money, at least make it humorous. This guy chose option 3 and succeeded.



(picture courtesy of Gawker)

- Alright, so I don't watch "American Idol". Never have, never will. Many of you have heard my "Why I Hate American Idol Rant" and so I won't revisit that issue. I forgot to mention last night that I was flipping through channels, and stumbled upon one of these Idol clowns singing "What If" by Creed. I mean, come on. I'll admit that Creed was good in the mid-to-late 1990's when we all liked them and bought their records. And then we realized not too long after that the music was garbage and that listening to Scott Stapp's singing was almost as torturous as sitting through a root canal. The funny part is that I watched just long enough to hear Simon Cowell make fun of this guy for picking a Creed song, which simply solidified this contestant's status as The Worst of The Worst in "American Idol" history. I then promptly changed the channel to something that wouldn't cause me to rip my eyeballs out.

- Individual people only have 2 eyes. Therefore, the maximum number of black eyes they can have at any one time is two. However, professional sports teams, and the cities which they are based in can have multiple black eyes at once. Here's another one for my beloved Philadelphia: A fan ordered a Phillies DVD, and instead of receiving a promotional DVD, he received footage of illegal cockfighting. Needless to say, this fan hasn't yet renewed his season tickets. Way to go, Phils!

- Lastly, a music update: One of my favorite records of 2006 thus far is Everything All the Time by Band of Horses. Interesting story about these guys. I had come across a few mp3's of their music earlier this week, and as I'm listening to it, I noticed that one of the songs sounded very familiar. Then it dawned on me that I had downloaded a handful of demo tracks for a band called 'Horses' about a year ago. Sure enough, I fished through my iTunes library and found that I had downloaded the songs under the name 'Horses' in March 2005, but these guys changed the name to 'Band of Horses' when their record came out in 2006. Everything All the Time, although it only runs 36 minutes in length, has an absolutely compelling sound which emulates a mix between My Morning Jacket and The Shins, with a little bit of Arcade Fire and Neil Young mixed in.


Check out a few of their demo tracks, and also read the record review on Pitchfork. Then, also check out one of the best tracks on the record, in my opinion:

The Funeral - mp3 (Right Click - "Save Target As")
[Free track courtesy of SubPop Records]




That's all for tonight. Back tomorrow night for some more.

Guess Who I Saw Tonight?

First, a comment by the Jessica from the weekend, which warranted me giving her the "Are You For Real?" look.

The Jessica: "I think they should call McDonald's in Israel, 'McDonaldstein's'."
The Ross: (Just shaking my head)

Anyway, so this evening I went to get a haircut. So you know what that means? Yes, an encounter with Yolanda. Before you get all excited, I didn't actually end up having Yolanda cut my hair. I know, I know. I was disappointed as well. So I come rolling into the shop around 7pm. There was no sign of the disgruntled Australian receptionist. The stand-in receptionist said that she could take me right away.

"Sir.... Yolanda ....er, Juana, can take you right over there."

Ah, so I was that close to having the encounter with Yolanda. I was placed with Juana, the Mexican lady who's no taller than 4'10". Yolanda couldn't get mad at me because I had no say in the matter. Of course, I could have requested her, but I couldn't get those words in when I walked in the door. All I could say was, "I'm here for a haircut."

So I sit down with Juana, and she's running through the routine: put the smock on and ask how I like my hair cut. I'm facing forward; looking at myself in the mirror. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see someone walk behind me from my left. A long, slow, meandering walk. It was like things were moving in slow motion. Yolanda walks right behind me, and as she passes by the chair, she slowly turns her head and gives me one of the most evil smiles I've ever seen, followed by a brief stare down. I kid you not. I felt like Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman's character) when she finally had the showdown with Bill at the end of Kill Bill 2. The evil smile and stare down looked like it should have been in black & white and taken place in the Old West. The bizarre thing is that this took all of 3 seconds and yet it seemed like it lastest 10 minutes.

I knew she was on to me. She had that look in her eye like, "I know you. And you are betraying me right now by getting your haircut by one of my colleagues. I take this very personally. I told you, straight up, last time you were in here how much I take care of my customers. Now, you are cut off, my friend... placed on Yo's Blacklist." I had her voice in my head. I was totally being psyched out by her. And yet she didn't actually say a word to me.

Juana didn't say a word to me either, although her level of English proficiency is ultimately in question. I kept an eye behind me for each time Yolanda passed by. One time with the broom. The next time with the dustpan and brush. Just doing the nightly chores around the shop while she had a few minutes in between customers. Great, now she'd be even more pissed because she had to do cleanup work instead of cutting someone's hair. It was all my fault.

I was paying too much attention to Yolanda that I wasn't paying enough attention to Juana. She cut my sideburns a little too thin, and I said, "Hold on, chica, go easy-o on the sideburnos." OK, so I didn't really say that, but I told her to not cut them too short. So then I paid a little closer attention to the task at hand, making sure I didn't come out of this place looking like a complete clown.

After it was all said and done, I hadn't had any interaction with Yolanda, and I'm banking on the fact that she cuts so many people's hair during a 7 week time span that, although I think she remembers my face, in reality she doesn't know me from any other white guy with dark hair. Maybe next time, I'll get her, and we'll have the same initial conversation as last time, when she'll interrogate me with a question like, "I've cut your hair before. Why didn't come request me last time you were in here you sonofabitch?" and then clock me over the head with a blowdryer. That'd be bad news.

As soon as I was done, I paid, told Juana, "Gracias", grabbed my coat and hightailed it out of there. Thus another interesting visit to the "hair stylist" as they call it. Glad I made it out alive. Maybe next time, I'll challenge Yolanda to a duel. If she doesn't go for that, maybe a samurai sword fight will peak her interest. It's always a battle, that's for sure.

A Few Links for your Clicking Pleasure

So we've had a few short postings this evening, so allow me to provide some links to some articles, and then I'm calling it a night...

- Do you sometimes forget what it was like to be in college? On the other hand, even if you don't forget, but wonder what college is like in the urban setting, check out this craziness, and bring back memories of the good times...

- Why is it that the Eagles are always the ones to have bring the negative publicity upon themselves? First, a certain player corrupts the entire team chemistry, and now a certain linebacker gets arrested for dancing in the street in Miami Beach. Nothing surprises me anymore. It truly doesn't.

- Why spend a Spring Break somewhere like Florida or Mexico when you can
spend it at Wal*Mart? (I seriously wonder about some of the people in this country.)

- You'd think they would hire more qualified limo drivers for a former President, but instead they got some illegal immigrant and left Bill Clinton stranded at the Newark Airport. Now that I think about it, what's worse: having an illegal immigrant driving such an important person or actually being stranded in Newark?

Andy's Nuggets of Wisdom - The Chicken Dance?

It's Monday, so it's time for Andy's Nuggets of Wisdom. And I'm sure many of you thought we were going to forget...

Okay here is my tidbit. Yesterday at the Big Brothers/Big Sisters "Bowl for Kids Sake" fundraiser at the local bowling alley, the DJ was playing the Chicken Dance song. I made the observation that I would rather be punched in the nuts 10 times than to ever do the Chicken Dance ever again.

Leprechaun in Alabama?

Alright, so I'm postponing Part 3 of "We Live in a World Depicted by Office Space". Part 3 is due to be a running diary about a day in my life. The fact of the matter is that my day isn't that exciting, and I need more time to figure out how to make such an article remotely entertaining. I'm not kidding. So give me a little more time and we'll revisit that topic later on.

In the meantime, we haven't had much in the way of the normal blogging this week. That's ok because there hasn't been a whole heck of a lot going on.

- And then I came across a video clip from an NBC affiliate in Mobile, Alabama, which ran a story about a leprechaun living up in a tree, and the crowds of people that have come to catch a glimpse of this miniature Irish man. You can't make this stuff up. Check out the video...



"Who else see da leprechaun say 'Yeahhh!'?
"Could be a crackhead who got ahold of da wrong stuff, and told 'em to get up in da tree and play a leprechaun!"

- This is something you don't see every day either. The Ringling Brothers Circus came into New York, and apparently it's an annual ritual to walk the elephant from Queens to Manhattan. So how do they get there? Through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel of course.

- Here's a thread I'd like to start.... if you could try out a job for a short period of time (let's say for 3 months) and you weren't concerned at all with the lack of pay and/or crappy hours, what job would you do? Personally, if I had this option, I think it'd be fun to be a waiter at a cool restaurant for a short time, just BS'ing with people and running around during the craziness of the dinner rush. I wouldn't mind the late hours and would probably love not having to work early in the morning. Otherwise, I'd also like to be a cab driver, again, just for a short period of time. Hear the riders' stories, observe the madness that goes in in the urban scene, and just ride around. Sure, the traffic would suck, the pay would suck, and you'd be dealing with plenty of a**holes, but it'd create so many stories that I wouldn't know what to do with myself. Again, these aren't life long dreams, but if given the opportunity to do one of these things for a short period of time, I think it'd be a fun temporary gig.

- Three comments on some of tonight's NCAA Tourney action...
1) As if my bracket wasn't already busted, I'm officially done because I had the Dukies winning the championship. It's alright, I can't stand Duke anyway.
2) Unbelievable Ending Part 1: West Virginia/Texas game with the "Hook 'Em Horns" winning on a buzzer beater after WVU had tied the game on a 3 pointer with 5 seconds left. Unreal.
3) Unbelievable Ending Part 2: Gonzaga/UCLA game with UCLA coming back after being down by 15 points in the 2nd half. UCLA stole the ball after pressuring on defense and layed the ball in with just a few seconds left. Unreal. This is why I love the Big Dance.

Hey... have a nice weekend.

(No Subject)

Don't you love the "(No Subject)" title? Sounds very mysterious, doesn't it? There's no mystery here, just me going to sleep early. I'll be back tomorrow.

By the way, are all of the readers still out there? I haven't heard much of anything in the way of feedback on the articles this week so either everyone thinks they suck or they are just indifferent. I know many of you work in offices and thought you'd appreciate my rants about the corporate world.

One other note: I'm extremely and pleasantly surprised with the recent record release by The Strokes titled First Impressions of Earth. I was never a huge fan of these guys, but definitely enjoy the sound that they have going on. Highly recommend it.

We Live in a World Depicted by Office Space - Part 2

This is Part 2 of 3 in this week's feature series, "We Live in a World Depicted by Office Space", whereby all of the office dwellers get together to rant and rave about the craziness that goes on in between those walls every day from 9am-5pm, or in my case, from sometime after 9am to sometime around 7pm.

Tonight we'll discuss Corporate Jargon. It's a fun topic to discuss because each company has its own collection of words and phrases that it uses constantly, which wouldn't mean a thing to anyone in the outside world. I guess this is what happens when you have a bunch of people who see each other for more time than they see their families and friends outside of work. People try to get creative and so they come up with little "catch phrases" that stick. I'll set this up like a dictionary of sorts... and please feel free to add some more of your favorites...

- "Apples and Oranges" - this is the classic. We all know that apples and oranges are fruit, yet they aren't the same fruit, and thus you can't compare them. As a result, when someone in the office compares one number to another, or one idea to another, and it's incongruent, then someone will jump in and let them know that they are "comparing apples to oranges". Similarly, others like to use the "round peg in a square hole" phrase to communicate two items that don't match, but I think people stay away from this one due to the indirect sexual connotation.

- "Reinvent the wheel" - gotta love this cliche. Relates to anyone who enters a situation without knowing much of the background, and attempts to completely overhaul the project. The problem is that this person often doesn't understand the extent to which this "reinvention" is extremely painful or potentially impossible. But they want to do it anyway. Because they can.

- "Touch base" - No one 'contacts' or 'gets ahold of' anyone else these days. Instead, they "touch base" either later today, tomorrow, or next week. In other words, 'I'm going to politely hound you to see where you are on this project and make sure I don't get my ass fried'. A synonym to this one is "circle back". Someone from my team will circle back with you later. At that time they'll touch base as well. It's like a lunar landing.

- "Think outside the box" - a little too cliche for me. We all try to "think outside the box" but at my company they instead encourage all employees to be "innovative". In other words... If you expect to rise above your peers, you better do something to show us that you're better than them. Be innovative. And don't be a regular Joe like those other schmucks.

- "Value add" - A nice way of saying that something is worthwhile. "So does this exercise provide any value add or should I tell them not to waste their time?" If we're asking this question, there probably isn't any value being added.

- "On Board" - When a person is in agreement or supports a plan of action. Sentence: "Make sure your boss is on board with this idea before you proceed." We wouldn't want anyone to be left at the dock. That'd be bad for business.

Now for some that I believe to be more rooted in the company I work for. Most of these terms are related to finance and the work that I do as a planner.

- "Assessment" - We don't forecast anything, we "assess" it. Reason being... the forecast number is a very political number and is often dictated by the folks in the Corporate Headquarters. Therefore, the best we can do to provide some predictions is to give an "assessment", but even then, it's not an official measure -- just for our own, internal use.

- "Target" - No, we're not talking about Wal-Mart's main competitor, but rather a measure that is similar to the budget, but adds a little more to it. Officially, all the bosses will want you to make your budget, but they really want you to achieve that target number, so that everyone can get a big pat on the back!

- "Stretch" - Ok, so you have your budget number, forecast number, and your assessment number. If all of your deals play through this quarter, what's the most revenue you can bring in? That's your stretch number. In other words, don't count on it.

- "Closest to the Pin" - Someone back in the day must have loved golf, because they toss this term around all the time. Besides your budget, forecast, assessment, and stretch, where do you really think you'll land for gross profit? That's your closest to the pin. Antonym: Furthest from the pin.

- "Roadmap" - We heart roadmaps. All of the folks in the sales teams drive (no pun intended) a roadmap, which is a document that lays out all of the potential deals in the "pipeline" (there's another one) that could play out this quarter. The roadmap shows everyone involved how they will achieve their targets. Basically, how do you get from Point A to Point B? The roadmap will guide you. It's much better than Mapquest or Google Maps.

- "Bridge" - I guess someone out there enjoys driving too with all of these transporation terms. After the numbers come in, the important folks start asking questions about what caused the variance between your actual measure and what you had forecasted/assessed. So we put together these "bridges" which show what went wrong. The crazy part is that even when the numbers come in better than expected, you still have to bridge. We can't win.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Go ahead and brainstorm and circle back with me later in the Comments section if you have any corporate jargon of your own to add. Thanks.

We Live in a World Depicted by Office Space - Part 1

It's true, my life is very much like the cult classic, Office Space. In fact, the movie was on TV on Sunday and I ended up watching a short portion of it. And then it reaffirmed the fact that I'm not much different from Peter Gibbons. OK, let's take a step back: I'm not going to flake out like he did, but I feel the same way sometimes. I say this in a humorous way, because let's be serious... no one in the working world in their mid-20's really likes what they are doing. If you do, please stand up and name yourself, because no one I know fits in this category.

As a result, we have a 3 part series beginning tonight on work-related stuff. I'm not going to go into too much detail because I like to think that I have more common sense than that. Additionally, I'd rather not be collecting unemployment so soon because I wrote something in my blog that ended up getting me canned. I won't do that -- I promise. Let's just keep it light and humorous.

Tonight's topic: Email signatures. (Thanks again to Owen for the idea. He claims that he "hates them" and that I "should too and write about why I hate them".) I thought about it and had to first convince myself if I truly dislike email signatures. They seem so innocent and are intended for good use. Before I go any farther, let's make sure we're all in line. I forget that not all of my readers are office dwellers like myself and Owen.

So what is an email signature? Its that set of lines that show up every time you write or respond to an email. Typically, it has pertinent contact information like your name (as if people would forget who sent them an email between the time they opened it up and the time they reached the end of your message), and your address. Addresses are worthless in my case because in my 20 months of working, I've never sent anything in the way of snail mail. Besides that, many of the people that I correspond with are actually in my building. If I want to look up where they sit, I can check our online directory. Bottom line: I don't care if you're in Atlanta, Baltimore, San Francisco, or the cube by the Pepsi machine... I'm not sending anything to you in the mail. Oh and by the way, I don't deal with any outside customers, so they wouldn't need my address either. Waste of time.

How about phone numbers? This bugs me too because people never refer back to emails to see what your phone number is. They'll check the directory (again) or just ask you. Many times, it's jut easier to ask someone what their extension via conversation on our internal Instant Messaging program than opening up an old email to check. Furthermore, people in my company often put 2 forms of the phone number: For external use (with the normal area code + 7 digits) or for internal use (with what we call "tie lines" where you can reach anyone in the company, worldwide, using a 7 digit code). Yeah, this works real well. I tried to call someone in England once and the "tie line" number didn't work. So I tried calling with the international area codes and it didn't work either. I got fed up and just emailed the person anyway. This kind of gets off of my topic, but while we were talking about phone numbers, this came to mind.

Fax numbers. That's another one. I've never made the effort to send snail mail to anyone at work, why would I fax anything to them? It's much easier just to send a softcopy file in an email as an attachment, or if they absolutely need an actual print-out, I can drop it off at their desk. Am I faxing anything to anyone? No. In fact, fax machines don't like me. I have a tough enough time with the copier. I once got a "PC Load Letter" error message and I though the Xerox machine was punking me. I'm not kidding. I like technology, but office technology is more trouble than it's worth. Regardless, I don't need your fax number so please don't bother having it in your email sig.

Most will contain the job title. In my case, all it says is "Financial Analyst". Whether or not that persuades or dissuades anyone from replaying and following through on my requests is beyond me. As a staff person, it doesn't really matter to me what your job title is because I'll still have to respond to your request. Maybe someday when I'm the CFO, I can look at a request for information, see that this person is just some staff person, and ignore it. Granted I'm too nice to do that, but the option is always there.

At the bottom, some even put their email address. Why? You just sent me a friggin email, and if I need to reply to your message, the smart guys who programmed the email functions put in this nifty little button called "Reply". Our internal system allows you to just type someone's name and their email address pops up along with it. And even if you have a common name like John Smith, I can look you up in the online directory and find your email address there. No need to put it in your signature.

Wow, look at all of this stuff you probably don't need, but include anyway. Granted, sometimes it is nice to have this detail at hand. For example, you receive an email from someone and you need to contact them right away. It necessitates that you pick up the phone before you even close out the email. In this case, just look at the screen and there's the phone number staring right at you. Wonderful, we've found one instance.

Quotes. You don't find too many people with quotes in their email signature, probably because people are lazy and don't bother. The ones I've seen are the typical, "Shoot for the moon, and even if you miss, you'll still land among the stars." Beautiful. But after a while, I don't need to read that quote over and over again each time you send me something electronically. Someone needs to invent an add-in that changes your quote every time you send an email. That would be exciting. It's like a fortune cookie. "Oh, Bob sent me an email, I wonder what his email signature quote says this time!" It'd add a little bit of mystery to your day.

This reminds me of two of my co-workers who wanted to use a Wedding Crashers quote: "Rule #76: No Excuses. Play Like a Champion!" in the email signature. I thought it'd be a good idea and sounds harmless enough that no one would think badly of it. Speaking of oddball quotes, I found a site that has plenty of them, so you might want to choose one of these the next time you rearrange your email sig.

My favorite are:

- A morning without coffee is like something without something else.
- Accomplishing the impossible means only the boss will add it to your regular duties.
- After all is said and done, more is said than done.
- I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted paychecks.
- Quitters never win, and winners never quit, but those who never quit AND never win are idiots.
- Sorry - yesterday was the deadline for all complaints.
- The best part about procrastination is that you are never bored, because you have all kinds of things that you should be doing.

So there you have it. Email signatures. Everyone at work has one and they all look the same. They provide information that we either don't need or could get from another source. Really, it just takes up space in your email that otherwise wouldn't be used. With those words being in there, your message may be 1 or 2 KB larger and thus clogging up my inbox. Now I have some reason to be annoyed!

I'm not sure what's more amazing about this rant: the fact that I convinced myself to dislike email signatures just so I could follow up on Owen's blog idea, or the fact that I was able to write up some much analysis on 5 lines of text in an everyday email. Unbelievable.

As the famous line from Billy Madison goes, "Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to [this]." As long as I provide some entertainment to my fellow office dwellers, then I think my work here is complete.

New RPR Feature: Andy's Nuggets of Wisdom

New RPR Feature that I just thought of.... Andy (one of the senior year roommates), is always good for a wise thought. In fact, I believe that he's wise beyond his years. I enjoy his introspective thoughts and often agree with his point of view on random ideas. I like some of the material that he puts in his AIM away messages and pitched the idea to him to do an ongoing feature titled "Andy's Nuggets of Wisdom". He liked it and so here we are.

We're planning on making this a weekly item to be updated on Mondays, and if there's something good to be said mid-week, we'll get that on here as well. Without further ado, here's what we have...

"I'm pretty sure that Oprah is an alien sent here to brain wash women, and just when we least expect it, she will give the sign and all the men on earth will be killed. "

Irish-ness, Weekend-ness, and Basketball-ness

First, we have a few housekeeping items to clean up...

- I have to give a shout-out to Alexis for 2 things: One for actually coming to visit the Stamford with the Jessica, the weekend before last. I neglected to mention this after that weekend, and she promptly reminded me when I saw her on Friday night. Speaking of, I also thank her for inviting us out to her media shindig which provided us an open bar for a few hours on Friday night. You can't beat that: open bar at an Irish pub on St. Patrick's Day.

- I spoke with Sarah B. on Saturday night and she mentioned that I had too much basketball coverage. I respect that and won't comment too much on the tournament. What I would like to get out of my system is this: Some of these upsets are ridiculous. Seriously, George Mason? Bradley? Wichita State? Who picked these? Also, thank you to Syracuse, Illinois, Indiana, and Pittsburgh for not making it out of the first weekend. Made me look like a genious from my article last week.

- Hey, even Belman said he's been catching up on the RPR lately. Good to hear that. Jonny, don't be afraid to get in on the commenting action, ya hear?

Now, for some other weekend comments...

- When I arrived in the city on Friday night, I immediately observed hordes of people wandering around aimlessly with their green "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" t-shirts, and their green beads. People stumbling around, almost getting hit by cars, stumbling to the nearest pub. It was quite a scene. I expect this from State College, but usually, the fine folks of New York aren't fully-loaded in such quantities. Usually you have the Happy Hour crowd that goes overboard, but the scene was beyond that. Quite interesting.

- Other comments on St. Patrick's Day. It's amazing what kind of celebrations go on in the US. From what I hear, and someone who knows more about Ireland, please jump in, but I understand that St. Patrick's Day is more of a religious holiday in the homeland, and a solemn one in that. I heard on the radio that for many years Ireland mandated that all pubs be closed on March 17th, until they had the law changed in the mid-90's. Think about this: The US celebrates a holiday based in Irish culture with crazier festivities than the Irish people do. Do the Chinese-Americans celebrate Chinese New Year more than they do in Beijing or Shanghai? Do the Canadian-Americans celebrate Boxing Day more so than they do in Toronto or Vancouver? Do the Jewish-Americans celebrate any holiday more so than they do in Jerusalem? Granted I'm mixing nationalities with religion -- that is a fair point -- but you get my idea. Let's be serious: Drinking holidays are like handkerchiefs. Americans realize that they don't need them [holidays that offer excuses to drink] because they are going to drink whenever they want anyway, but love to have them in their back pocket just in case.

- So, TO signed with the Cowboys. If you put your ear up to your computer speakers while this page is up on your internet browser, you might be able to hear me yelling. Why? Because I hate the Cowboys. Here's to Bill Parcells kicking TO out of camp before the season starts and then telling Jerry Jones what he can do with the head coaching position for "America's Team".

- Sopranos tonight... a little slow, but moving the story along, and by the previews, I think next week will be a little crazier. To those naysayers who thought tonight was a step back for the show, have no fear. My money's on the fact that this season won't disappoint.

This week: I will be cashing in on Owen's blog article ideas, so look forward to that. The series will begin tomorrow night. We'll call it "We Live in a World Depicted by Office Space".

Sorry to all of my Irish Friends out there

I apologize for missing out on the St. Patrick's Day post. I was going to write it last night, but Blogger was having technical difficulties and I physically couldn't post anything.

I was going to mention how everyone can be Irish for the day, to be in the spirit of things, as we treat this day as one big drinking bonanza (or at least we did in college). I was going to mention the craziness about St. Patrick's Day senior year when my friends sat at Cafe 210 all day and the ridiculousness that ensued.

Regardless, hope everyone has a good time today. I hope to make an appearance at an Irish pub somewhere in the city this evening, assuming I get in. I understand that many of the establishments that are normally empty, except for a few drunk homeless guys, will most likely be filled to capacity. It'll be good times all around.

Enjoy the day, enjoy Day 2 of the tourney, and have a good weekend. I'll be back on Sunday.

Blog Suggestions & March Madness On Demand

Two quick items before I forget...

#1. I want to thank Owen for sending me a few blog suggestions, and in fact, I like all of them. It's probably enough material for 2 or 3 postings next week. Owen, I'm on it. Here's the message that he left for me earlier today...

owen here. i had some blog suggestions for you:
1) i have no idea what your normal day is like. i would love a
sports guy-esque play-by-play of what your day is like. i suppose you
can't do it in real time while you're at work, but i'll settle for the
alternative.
2) the corporate jargon rant
3) email signatures. i hate them. you should too.
and you should write about why you hate them.
thats all i've got. keep it up.

#2. I mentioned earlier this week or last week, can't remember exactly when, about how the NCAA, along with CBS, is webcasting all of the NCAA Tournament Games live for the first 3 rounds. And let me just say... it is awesome. In fact, right now, as I'm typing, I am watching one game on the TV and another game on the computer. I'm in sports heaven! The system is even smart enough to blackout the game that's on in your local area right now, but that doesn't matter because there's 3 other games to choose from at 4 different times during the day. I love it. It's probably not too late to sign up, so check out March Madness On Demand.

Back later tonight.

I'll Save My St. Patrick's Day Post for Tomorrow

I was going to write my St. Patrick's Day post tonight, but decided that I'd be better off writing it tomorrow. Of course, you know what that means... That means I'll forget all the ideas that I want to blog about, and then I'll have to swag the whole article tomorrow, with the resulting product being much different than I had originally anticipated. Such is life. Regardless, I'm sure you'll look forward to what the Jewish guy has to say about this Irish Catholic holiday...

- Speaking of, I wanted to get one comment in about Shamrock Shakes. You remember... the "limited time only" shakes that they used to have at McDonald's during March every year. They were minty, smooth, and tasted pretty damn good. Apparently, McDonald's discontinued them and thus are nowhere to be found this St. Patrick's Day, and haven't been available for several St. Patrick's Days now. Believe it or not, there is a website out there devoted to bringing back the Shamrock Shake. I don't know why I'm amazed at some of the websites out there anymore. You'd think that after all of these advances with the "world wide web", we'd get used to the fact that someone out there somewhere will devote a website to almost anything.

- So who's excited for the NCAA Tournament to begin on Thursday? I debated revising my bracket before the final submission, but thought better of it since it'd only be a turn for the worse. Hey, basketball predictions are no different than multiple choice tests: you must go with your initial instinct. I just love that there's 10 hours of basketball going on for each of the next four days... it's just a shame that I'll be at work for many of them. (Don't worry... I will be frequently checking scores...) The plan is to watch the games almost all day Saturday, as long as the Jessica doesn't disown me, because that would be bad news. It's a great time of year!

- I always thought I had a good memory. Rather, I remember things that many people would view as being "unimportant" like sports facts, historical events, the dates of when certain things happened, etc. At least once per week, I'll remember something and then ask myself, "How did I remember that? Or better, why did I remember that?" On the other hand, I sometimes forget important things like when I have to call someone the following day, or when someone asks me to remind them to do a certain task the next day. Before I leave work at night, I literally have to write down everything that I need to accomplish the next day, otherwise I will be in jeopardy of forgetting by the time I arrive in the morning. Not sure how the psychology of this works, but I found an article on the US Memory Championships (written by 2006 winner, Joshua Foer), and it make me realize that my memory isn't all that good.

The Memory Championships is on a whole other level from the items that I remember... like how the only word I mis-spelled during all of the spelling tests in 5th grade was "particle". Or how I remember can watch highlights of any major sporting event from the last 15 years and vividly remember watching them live at that time. I thought it was a great feat that I memorized the US Presidents in order, but none of these things match up with memorizing an entire shuffled deck of cards in less than one minute or memorizing a string 1,000 digits in one hour. Absolutely unbelievable. I hope these people are putting these good memories to good use...

And with that, I'm signing off for tonight. Back tomorrow with some more and at that time we'll do a little St. Patrick's Day preview...

(mmm... Guinness.....)

Getting Ready for March Madness...

So I spent over an hour filling in my NCAA Tournament bracket. I'm not kidding. And the sad part is that, as I write, I'm still not actually done with my submission. The window is still sitting open on the screen and I'm sure I'll go back and second guess myself about 10 more times. Then I'll get pissed off because I second guessed and missed out on much-needed points.

I only do one tournament pool each year. I used to do more than one, but then the logistics of strategically filling out two or more brackets just drove me nuts. You're not really hedging any bets by choosing one team to win on one bracket and picking the other team on the second bracket. All of the variances net out to zero in the end anyway, and you're left with two equally crappy brackets.

Any case, the one pool I do is Dad's office pool. Been in it for years, and the guy who runs it (Bill) sends me the details each year without asking Dad to pass on the details to me. This guys knows that I'm game. Especially since Bill and I are rivals in the pool. For many years, we were both fighting each other for the top spot and many times, I ended up losing to him or one of his buddies. In fact, a number of years ago, I was convinced that this guy was fixing the pool. There was just no way that one guy does so well year in and year out, especially the guy who's the commissioner of the pool. Seemed very sketchy. Then Bill started doing pretty crappy for a few years, and later we entered the age of the online brackets. By doing everything online, there couldn't be any discrepancies, so my conspiracy theory went by the wayside. (What is "the wayside"? Always wondered that...)

So at this point, it really doesn't matter what I do in the pool since one of the secretaries, or some lady's 10 year old daughter will end up being in the running for the prize money. Of course, none of these people end up winning, but it's amazing that they end up in contention for much of the tournament.

With all of this being said, here's some of Ross' Rules for Completing Your NCAA Tournament Bracket:

- Teams that lost to Penn State during the regular season can't be going very far (Indiana & Illinois)

- As much as you hate Duke and UConn, you know they'll be there toward the end, so just pick them and get it over with. There, I officially jinxed them.

- At least one double-digit seed makes it to the Sweet 16 every year. It ends up being a #10 for sure, usually a #11, and sometimes a #12. I like Southern Illinois and Seton Hall to make it to the Sweet 16. Mark that one down.

- Don't get caught up in the hype of the teams that make big runs in their conference tournaments, since they are due for a letdown. (Syracuse, Iowa, Florida)

- I don't care if Pitt is playing against a team of 50 year old Jewish midgets from Brooklyn, I will still pick against Pitt.

- Don't pick all four #1 seeds to get the Final Four. Never happens. Don't bother.

- Always consider taking Penn in an upset. Except when they are a #15 seed playing against a hot Texas team. Then forget it.

- As much as I'd love to see Villanova win the championship, they won't win it. This isn't 1985 and Rollie Massimino isn't coaching the team. They are a solid squad, I just can't see them winning the whole thing. I think Allan Ray is lucky he can see at all after that incident last weekend. So that's how it looks when a person's eyeball is almost out of the socket...

- If you've never heard of the school, odds are that they won't win their first round game.

- Those #13 seed upsets over #4 seeds look tempting, but it's a risky pick. They happen once every couple of years, so make your selections wisely.

And if you have any other concerns as to how to go about making your picks, please reference this article. Bill Simmons observes while his mom and his wife make their selections. Very funny indeed.

Who's excited for the Big Dance???

The NYT would call my blog "parasitic"

New week, same old junk. Let's see what's on tap...

- Brian checks in from the Dirty South late last week: "Found out I'll be here a few more weeks. The plan is to go shooting tomorrow again with Buff, apparently they're bringing out the whole arsenal. They say many folks down here have the same last words... 'hold my beer and watch this.' " Am I the only one who just can't fathom what life in Mississippi is like? I'm sure this is an eye-opening experience for Brian...

- Shocking news article of the day: There are more news media outlets out there today than ever before, but they are covering less actual news. The New York Times blames cable news media and the blogging world, citing that many blogs are "purely parasitic". It should also be noted that "only 1 percent of the posts that day involved a blogger interviewing someone else and only 5 percent involved some other original work, such as examining documents". I guess I fall into the majority on that one. I add no value to the news world, but rather the internet is my open forum for the communication of nonsense. And I love it.

- I don't want to give anything way regarding the premiere episode of the final season of "The Sopranos", but I definitely missed that show, and couldn't be happier for its return. Returning for the first time in just short of 2 years, the first episode did not disappoint. The feud between the NJ mob and the NYC mob is still intense, we have some new subplots, and let's just say that the end of the episode leaves me on the edge of my seat until next Sunday. There, I didn't give anything away.

- Tonight, I caught the re-run of HBO's new show "Big Love" about a polygamist in Utah. The pilot episode moved a little slowly, but I like the show and I'm interested to see what direction they go. So many shows in the past have showcased a couple's marital problems, but how about one guy's marital problems with his 3 wives? Now that's a unique twist. I'll watch it again next week and see what the HBO has in store...

- How about Temple basketball coach John Chaney announcing his retirement today? Believe it or not, for many years when I was younger, I was a bigger fan of basketball than football. Amazing huh? Since college football isn't too big in the Philadelphia area (besides some PSU coverage), college basketball is always a big draw. The Big 5 (Temple, St. Joe's, Villanova, Penn, and LaSalle) has a lot of history in Philadelphia and John Chaney is a big piece of that lore. I always enjoyed his fiery style and have to admire what he's done for so many kids coming from nothing to his Temple program and making them into well-rounded men. He truly was a teacher of the game, with a focus on earning an education, and being self-disciplined. I mean, the guy ran 5:30am practices like it was his job. Put the 1994 incident with John Calipari aside and put the more recent "Goon Gate" incident aside as well, and the man was a class act. (Don't laugh).

My favorite story about Chaney was told by former Philadelphia 76er and Temple star, Aaron McKie. He was doing an interview on Comcast SportsNet and made the comment about how he went to John Chaney after he had been drafted into the NBA. McKie mentioned that he was so overwhelmed by all of the excitement of making it to the pros that he was beginning to get caught up in everything. So he put a phone call in to Chaney and asked for his advice.

"So I said to him, 'Coach, I keep getting pulled in so many directions, by the team and the agent, and there's so much temptation with the lifestyle and all of this money from the contract I signed. I don't know what to do.' And he said to me, 'You know what you're gonna do? The first person you're gonna help is your momma. Because she raised you and she made you the man you are. And if it wasn't for her, you wouldn't be here right now. So you're gonna take some of this money from your new professional contract, you're gonna go get your momma outta the ghetto in North Philly, and you're gonna buy her a nice home. That's what you're gonna do first, cause that's the least you can do for her after all she's done for you'." Class act right there. I don't care what anyone else says.

Be back tomorrow.

And now, the HBO Original Series...

Alright, so here's the scoop...

I don't have TiVo and I was never able to figure out how to get my VCR to properly work with my cable box, so I am left watching the new episode of "The Sopranos" at midnight on HBO West. Yeah, I know, it's lame, but I can't wait until Monday to catch a re-run because I know people will be talking about it and the commentary will be all over the internet tomorrow. Come on, the show has been on hiatus for 21 months now. That's almost 2 years!

Any case, I'm usually up late anyway, so I will be watching "The Sopranos" tonight and catching the new show "Big Love" on Monday night. Any new show on HBO deserves at least one shot from the very beginning, especially one about polygamists. Could be interesting... (For those of you who may have watched it on Sunday night, don't give anything away.)

With all of this being said, I'll come back tomorrow with some of my own comments on the return of "The Sopranos" and the new "Big Love". I only wish that some of the major networks created programming only half as good as HBO. There, I said it.

Thursday Night is a Good Night for Rambling

I ramble on Thursday night and you enjoy the ramble on Friday. The Allman Brothers would be proud of all of this rambling. (Come on, I know you'll get this reference.)

- First off, there's no doubt that many of us who have been in the workforce for only a couple of years know that at the beginning, it was tough getting to work on time. In my case, I still have issues adapting to waking up semi-early 5 days per week. But at least I don't do crack! This is a ridiculous article about a guy in NYC who holds down an entry level job, but has issues making it to work on time because he's strung out from the night before. Something tells me that this guy won't have a job for long... Remember, there's no hope with dope.

- Napoleon Dynamite was on HBO again this evening. I've seen this movie several times now, and as much as I enjoy bizarre movies, this movie just doesn't do it for me. Sure, it has its moments, but I'd like to watch the movie with someone who really cracks up from the jokes. I'm not talking about a chuckle; I'm talking a deep belly laugh. I just don't get it. I know this movie was big with the college kids when it came out, but am I really that far removed that I can't appreciate the humor? Some please shed some light...

- Shocker of the Day: I ran over to the Post Office during lunch today to mail a few things and the lady working at the desk was surprisingly pleasant. To add more of a shocker to this, she was the only clerk working at the time and there was quite a line waiting. But she was nice to everyone, said hello and asked how each person was doing. I was beside myself. I've mentioned before that postal workers are among the Top 3 Most Disgruntled Employees, along with DMV workers and Metropolitan Transit Authority workers in New York City (some of them). Maybe this postal worker is trying to set a new precedent.

Nah, I wouldn't count on it.

- What an awesome time of year for college basketball. We have the Conference Tournaments this week and going into the weekend, which means a lot of basketball in a very short period of time. Of course, most of it won't determine who makes or doesn't make the NCAA Tournament, but for those select teams on the "bubble", then it matters. On Sunday at 6pm, we have the NCAA Tournament Selection Show, and then March Madness tips off with the "Opening Round" game on Tuesday night followed by all other games beginning on Thursday the 16th. Good times all around. Oh, and by the way, in case you forgot: CBSsportsline.com is offering free video feeds for all games during the first three rounds (with the exception of some games that will be locally blacked out in your area.) Go sign up for March Madness On Demand before the games start next week and you can become a "VIP", which means that you can connect to the live feeds before the others in "General Admission". This could be dangerous...

- How about some songs that have been in heavy rotation on the iTunes lately....

• The Fray - "Over My Head" - yeah this song is way too catchy...
• Iron & Wine / Calexico - "He Lays in the Reins" - beautiful song with excellent instrumentals
• Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins - "You Are What You Love" - I found a version from when they were on a radio show in England and it's fantastic as well.
• Destroyer - "Painter in Your Pocket" - great song from the side project of a New Pornographers member Dan Bejar.
• Arctic Monkeys - "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" - yeah I know, these guys are about as hyped up as possible and the record isn't doing that well in the US, but this song is still a catchy alternative-punk tune.

Ladies and Gentleman, please have a nice weekend. And please check back next week for some more RPR'ing. You know you love it.

I Secretly Wish I Lived the Life of Bill Simmons

Some of my favorite excerpts from the Bill Simmons Sports Guy Chat. Click here to read the whole article. And yes, this is a cop-out because I don't have anything else tonight. So instead, you can read Bill Simmons. Ultimately, he's more entertaining than I am, and he gets paid to write. There you go -- you can't lose. (I'll be back with something new tomorrow)

First, the official "When It's Okay to Drink Before 10 a.m. list"

SG: "While attending football tailgates, college reunions or the Boston Marathon … during your final two weeks of college … during any Vegas trip or bachelor party or guys-only golf outing … if you pulled an all-nighter and haven't left a strip club yet … before any wedding that starts at 1 p.m. or earlier … any time your in-laws are visiting … during any morning when it's below 10 degrees … if you're dating an actress and just attended a movie premiere during which she had a graphic sex scene with someone else on a 50-foot screen … while living in any town in Canada that's farther than 75 miles from Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa or Vancouver … if you've been writing for a late-night talk show for more than two years … if your name is "Jack Nicholson" … before your fantasy football draft if you're trying to get the ball rolling so some of your other buddies get plastered … and if you're Vin Baker and you're getting checks from four different NBA teams at the exact same time."

Q: What do you feel the over/under should be for Jerome Bettis' inevitable ascent to 300 pounds? Also, at what weight do you think he'll peak? I envision Bettis wedged into a Lazy Boy recliner surrounded by a semicircle of KFC buckets. I predict he'll top 300 pounds just after Halloween -- no surprise there -- and will max out at 337 before his former teammates enact an intervention in an IHOP booth.-- Tim Donovan, Los Angeles

SG: Wait a second … you think he'll top 300 pounds just after Halloween? I hope that either (A) you sent this e-mail to me last summer and it was trapped in cyberspace for nine months, or (B) you meant "Halloween, 2005." But to answer your question, I think Bettis and Barkley are going to become the Russell/Chamberlain of overweight studio analysts over the next 3-4 years. Four hundred pounds wouldn't surprise me. One of them growing to Shirley Hemphill/Marsha Warfield proportions wouldn't surprise me. Hell, one of them fitting into one of David Byrne's old jackets from the "Stop Making Sense" tour wouldn't surprise me. And if this leads to Bettis and Barkley getting their own ESPN talk show called "Pardon the Digestion," I think it's a good thing.

Q: College people have told me I look a lot like Adam Carolla. It's getting more frequent as I move into my late-20s, and it's really starting to bug me since I am hands down better-looking than him. Can you think of a way for me to spin this into a positive?-- Andrew, Phoenix

SG: Sure. Adam Carolla is a millionaire. He's extremely rich. He has a beautiful wife. He lives in a mansion in Hollywood Hills. He works 20 hours a week and spends the entire time talking (which is funny because he would have spent the entire time talking, anyway). And he leads the kind of life where this was his most traumatic moment of 2006: He bought a used Ferrari on eBay, thought it was arriving on a Friday, and it didn't show up until Sunday … ruining his weekend in the process. (That's a true story). So you might be in better hands than you think.

Untitled

You ever notice how when an artist titles a piece of work, "Untitled", there's a certain aura about it. There's a sense of mystery in finding out why the artist couldn't find a better title, or anything for that matter, to pair with this piece of work. Sometimes, the artist is just too cool for titles and let the piece speak for itself. Or maybe they don't want to a few small words at the beginning sway your judgment about the many words that are to follow.

So now that I've titled this blog posting "Untitled", you really have no idea what I'm going to talk about. As you can see, I really don't have much to say, but I'm instead rambling. But if I titled it, "Ramblings" or "The Usual Randomness" then you'd know what to expect and I'd lack the element of surprise. I have to keep you guys on your toes. I don't want to be labeled as the predictable blogger, because that would be a death sentence, like when a TV show gets the 10pm time slot on a Friday night, or worse, 10pm on Saturday (gasp!). You get the idea.

I've mentioned it before and I'll say it again, it's tough to title postings. It really is. I thought about just writing and then going back to create a title. Novelists do this all the time. "Let's see what I can down on paper first and see what this whole piece of work turns into before I can title it." The title is important, more so for books and albums, less so for blog postings. I could title this blog posting just about anything and there are good odds that you'll give it a read regardless. Reason being: Time. It takes you a matter of minutes to zip through the daily update of the RPR. It takes a much larger time investment to listen to a music album, and even more time to read through a whole book. And unless you're already familiar with the author/musician, then the title might plant the initial seed of thought in your mind. In other words, a lame title could immediately turn people away. You've heard the saying, "Don't judge a book by its cover." Has anyone ever said, "Don't judge a book by its title"? Even though the idea is almost the same, I don't believe it's as popular of a cliche as the former.

So what is the point of all this? My free-form ramblings and nonsensical blogging call for more creative titles that I cannot always come up with. You might not think of it as a big deal, but when I sit down each evening to blog, I have the blank screen staring at me, and I feel like I can't begin until I have a suitable title. I can begin typing, but the template feels naked without a title. I've been debating using titles that are completely irrelevant to the actual posting, because I think it'd be something fun to do. Then again, even coming up with the irrelevant titles will cause me to rack my brains. Just like everything else in life... we'll see what happens.

Other Items to Mention Today:

- I'm absolutely shocked that Barry Bonds abused steroids. I mean come on, all baseball players bulk up like this over the years....



- I think I'd enjoy the music of The Decemberists and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah if the lead singers' voices weren't so awful. I know that rock bands don't have to have excellent singers. Perfect example is Bob Dylan, who's voice is horrific, but he's an excellent musician and lyricist. It's just that the voices of Colin Meloy of the Decemberists and Alec Ounsworth of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah leave a lot to be desired. If you're familiar with the music, you know what I'm talking about.

- I watched that new sitcom on ABC "Sons & Daughters", since I felt like it deserved a chance with Lorne Michaels being the Executive Producer and all. Plus, I had read here and there that it was similiar to "Arrested Development". Turns out that there were two episodes back-to-back for the series premiere and other than some spotty humor, I wasn't all that impressed. After the hour had gone by, I think I was more annoyed that I had missed a new episode of "House". I might give it another chance next week before I write it off. Then, it's back to "House" for the Tuesday 9pm time slot. Who were these people kidding when they commented that it was like AD? Unless "Sons & Daughters" turns out to be ridiculously funny, I'll stick with the guy who played Richie Cunningham to produce a sitcom over the guy who created and produced "Saturday Night Live". Go figure that one out.

And thus ends the untitled post. I hope you feel satisfied.

Who's Oscar?

Some belated comments on The 78th Annual Academy Awards on Sunday evening...

- Isn't there any way that they can cut the length of this show down from 3 hours to about 2 hours? I mean seriously, they draw you in with one of the first awards being "Best Supporting Actress", and then the next thing you know you're in a string of awards with cinematographers, makeup artists and foreign short film makers with funny looking bowties. Let's cut the junk out. Next thing you know, the Academy will be honoring the Best Supporting Part by an Animal in a Children's Film.

- I'll say it: I think Jon Stewart did a great job. He had the typical lowball wisecracks about Steven Spielberg, Russell Crowe, Felicity Huffman, and one about Dick Cheney thrown in for good measure. And after that crazy rap group (can't remember the name) performed the song from the critically-acclaimed "Hustle and Flow", it was pure comedy that Stewart couldn't even keep a straight face.

- I didn't find that Ben Stiller bit to be all that funny and they could have done much more with him as a presenter. They went a little overboard. On the other hand, the folks running the show did a nice job with the "less is more" when they had Will Ferrell and Steve Carell present and they looked like a bunch of crazies in the oddball makeup. It wasn't much, but got more of a chuckle out of me than the Ben Stiller piece.

- The Jessica and I did go to see "Transamerica" on Saturday, and it wasn't a bad movie, just wasn't that great either. First off, Felicity Huffman was excellent. I think it was a really different role for her (vastly different than anything on Desperate Housewives) and I feel she pulled it off superbly. However, the storyline wasn't all that great. I didn't feel overly entertained when I walked out of the theater, and I even heard the comment that it was supposed to be a bit of a comedy. Except for a few witty remarks by Huffman's character, it wasn't very funny at all. Again, decent acting, but overall not the best movie I've ever seen.

- I do have some interest in seeing "Crash" now that it won Best Picture. I was bored with the show by the end, but I heard that Jack Nicholson was surprised that "Crash" won over "Brokeback Mountain". As a result, I'll probably on-demand it this weekend and the whole time think... "Let's see, if Matt Dillon is Kevin Dillon's brother, and Kevin Dillon is Johnny Drama, and Johnny Drama is the brother of Vincent Chase, then the guy in Crash could technically be the brother of Vincent Chase too..."

- Other Burning Questions: How many times do we have to see the movie montages celebrating Hollywood's past? How ridiculously unbelievable did Jennifer Aniston look? How great was Jamie Foxx's reaction when Jon Stewart made the "Walk the Line is the Ray for white people" joke? How did Jack Nicholson ended up getting seated next to Keira Knightley? Does anyone else look at Philip Seymour Hoffman and think, "That's the guy who got killed by Hannibal Lecter in Red Dragon"? Did anyone else think that Rachel McAdams with blonde hair is a downgrade? Wouldn't the Oscars be better if movies like "Wedding Crashers" and "40 Year Old Virgin" were nominated? I mean come on, these are the movies we really enjoyed. Did anyone else want to offer Paul Giamatti a shave and a new pair of glasses? Who else loved the multiple Jewish jokes that Jon Stewart had? Who's Oscar and how do I get a trophy named after me?

- I guess I should mention after the fact that I'm not a huge fan of awards shows. My personal feeling is that I shouldn't deem a movie to be 'exceptional' just because the "Academy" says so. I'd rather judge for myself, and whether or not a movie wins an award doesn't sway my interest one way or another to see it. Except for "Crash", which looks like it'd rates high enough on the Off-the-Wall Scale for my enjoyment. But I really have no interest in seeing "Brokeback", "Capote", "Pride and Prejudice", or "Good Night and Good Luck" regardless of all of their nominations. Furthermore, the same stands true for the Grammys, which I boycott altogether. That's another story for another day.

- Lastly for this evening, if you have some time to read a long article, you must check out Bill Simmon's last version of Curious Guy with author Malcolm Gladwell (Part 1 and Part 2). Simmons writes e-mails back and forth with Gladwell, and although I'm not familiar with Gladwell's work, I am extremely impressed with his style of writing. Within these two pieces of the online interview, he presents himself very well, as he should being a writer for the New Yorker, and some of his analogies are fantastic -- and we all know how much I love analogies. It's quite lengthy, but check it out at your convenience. If I can ever get through books that I've already begun reading, I might check out "Blink" and "Tipping Point".

That's all for this evening. Back tomorrow...

Natalie Portman Clip from SNL

I rarely watch SNL anymore and this past Saturday night was no exception. However, thanks to YouTube.com, we're able to view clips that are worth viewing after the fact. So last night, Natalie Portman was the host and she did a little rap sketch, similar to the Chris Parnel & Andy Samberg "Lazy Sunday" sketch that you may have seen from a little while back (you remember, the "Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia!". Any case, this is pretty damn funny and worth your time for a couple of minutes to check this out...



Update (3/6): Looks like YouTube took down the clip, so if you didn't get a chance to view it, not sure what to tell you. It was pretty damn funny though.

Downtown Harvest - This Saturday in NYC!

Downtown Harvest (my buddy Frank's band) is playing in New York City (West Village) this Saturday, March 4. If you are in the area, definitely worth checking out. These guys were out in Los Angeles for about a year, refining their chops and recording an album, and now they are back on the East coast for some time.

downtown harvest
Sat. March 4th
10:30pm @ Lion's Den ~ $10
214 Sullivan Street (Between Bleecker and W. 3rd St)

Also, stay tuned for their full-length record, being released in early April!

Friday Quick Posting

Some people comment that a week "goes by quickly". I don't think so. By the time Friday rolls around, the prior weekend is a very distant memory. Let me tell you something: the only weeks that go by quickly are the ones that you are on vacation. 5 work days sometimes feel like a whole month. Yes, I'm being dramatic, but drama is good for emphasis. In other words, you get the idea.

- Very cool song I've been listening to a lot lately by an artist named Jose Gonzalez. He's from Sweden. (I know, doesn't sound like a Swedish name, but he grew up there and is of Argentinian descent). Anyway, check out his song "Heartbeats", which you can download from by clicking on this link, and then scrolling to the bottom of the page. You'll see the mp3 there. Also, while you're at it, a band called The Knife covered "Heartbeats" and that version is posted as well. I personally like the original by Gonzalez, but The Knife version is an interesting interpretation.

- How about The Office tonight? I was pretty happy that it was back on the air after it was pre-empted by the disappointing Winter Olympics for 2 weeks. Come on, JMo, I know you have comments. That speech by Dwight was priceless... you would've thought he was Mussolini up there.

- Let's hear it for Penn State men's basketball! They scored a whopping 38 points in their loss the other night to Iowa. The team didn't actually have as bad of a season as the last few have been. They finished 14-13 (winning record overall?!?!) although they were 6-10 in Big Ten conference play. Hey, like I said, the last few years they were lucky if they got 3 Big Ten wins. Maybe if Ed DeChellis can keep some of these young players around, the team has a chance to mature and be in contention for a conference championship in the next 2 seasons. Ok, maybe I shouldn't get that far ahead of myself, but you get the idea. Let's shoot for an NCAA tourney berth in a couple years instead....

- This article is a must-read. Andrei Kirilenko of the Utah Jazz is married to a former Russian pop star. His wife decided to give him a "women allowance", whereby he can spend one night per year with another woman. She sites that things which are forbidden make them more desirable. Thus, if she allows her husband to spend 1 night per year being unfaithful, that will discourage him from the temptations that face NBA players. Very different culture, those Russians.

That's it for me this week. I'll be in the city this weekend, hanging out. We'll do the recap on the other side. Enjoy the weekend kids.

Aimless Ramblings

I've determined that I use the word "random" too much in the post titles. You know, things like "Tuesday Night Randomness" or "Random Comments for your Thursday". Get this... I checked the thesaurus online and came up with some synonyms. There's some memories of 7th grade English class right there. Anyway, on to tonight's commentary.

- I've decided that, given the opportunity, I might be able to maintain a diet made up of only dessert items. Seriously, I think dessert is my downfall. I love all things chocolate, ice cream, cake, cookies... you name it. And the unfortunate part of all of this is that I often (er, always) have way too many of these items in my apartment. At the supermarket last weekend, they had Entenmann's on sale. So of course I had to buy an apple strudel. I have ice cream in the freezer. I have a stock of Pepperidge Farm cookies. It's Girl Scout cookie season, and I have a couple boxes of them too. This is bad for business. If I end up weighing 300 lbs some day, you'll know why. I guess this is good motivation to keep up solid attendance at the gym... just don't send me to a spinning class and I'll be alright.

- Allow me to comment on these cell phones with MP3 capabilities. In theory, it's a pretty good idea. I just wonder how practical it is. The cell phone makers are marketing the product toward the 18-34 year old range, let's say. This is also the predominant age range which I believe would already own some form of an MP3 player. Even though people are usually in the market for a new cell phone every 2 years or so, I'd be curious how often people are in the market for a new MP3 player. I have an iPod that I purchased about 15 months ago and I'll use it until the thing either breaks, the battery craps out, or it's completely obselete. If I already have a 20 GB iPod, do I really need a cell phone with an MP3 player that holds 100 songs? Probably not.

The next point I'll make is that this trend could be similar to when the cell phones with the camera came out. At first, they were extremely overpriced and the only people who purchased them were the techies who need to get every new electronic toy right when they are released, and the people who felt the need to have a cell phone with a camera. Fast forward a few years and every phone has camera capabilities. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find many cell phones that don't take pictures. If we wait a year or so, it could be that many cell phone makers are selling phones that also play music. In this case, you don't have much of a choice when your 2 year deal is up, and all the kids will end up cruising around college campuses while listening to Fall Out Boy in between conversations with their frat brothers and sorority sisters.

Now I have to ask the imminent question.... does anyone have one of these MP3 cell phones?

- Looks like Howard Stern has himself in more trouble. CBS wants to sue Howard for advertising Sirius while he was still working for their radio station. The best part is that CBS Chief Executive, Les Moonves, claims that he kept Howard on the air with the intention of suing him shortly after he left the company. Sounds pretty low to me. On the brighter side, I have an "in" with Baba Booey, so maybe I can make some phone calls to get the insider scoop. Or not.

- If I remember correctly, we are now around the 1 year mark since "The Gates" were on display in New York City's Central Park. I've deemed "The Gates" as the Most Worthless Art Exhibit ever made and also The Most Overhyped Worthless Art Exhibit ever made. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, this French husband & wife combo created a ton of neon orange metal structures in the shapes of gates and spread them all over the walking paths in Central Park in early 2005. Each gate had a piece of equally bright neon orange cloth hanging on it like a set of drapes. That's it. I'm not kidding. But please, let's not get started on what people consider art and what isn't. That argument is about as worthwhile as arguing about politics -- it'll be like trying to move your car out of a muddy parking: spinning your wheels and going nowhere.

Back tomorrow with some more of whatever it is that I provide to all of you. Entertainment? A laugh here and there? A good way to spend a few minutes of your day to see what's going on in my life? Your choice and I'll oblige with more of that in about 24 hours.