The DC Derby

Yesterday the latest Newsweek and Sports Weekly issues came in my mailbox. The former had Kerry and the Iowa caucus on the cover and the latter had the two starting quarterbacks for this weekend's Super Bowl.

Newsweek had the following on its cover:
'BRING IT ON'
Kerry's Hard Charge
Could He Beat Bush?

and
Dean's New 'Decaf' Strategy

Sports Weekly offered the following:
Dynasty (the New England Patriots) vs. Destiny (the Carolina Panthers)
Analysis, K's and O's, Matchup

and
'WE'RE GOING TO THUMP IT'
Re-energized Giambi says Yankees will storm the fences again

Fair enough, but look how easily we could swap the headlines for the two magazines!!!!

Sports Weekly could have easily been the following...

'BRING IT ON'
Carolina's Hard Charge
Could They Beat New England?

and
The Patriots New 'Decaf' Strategy

Meanwhile, it's reasonable to imagine the following on the Newsweek cover:

Dynasty (George Bush) vs. Destiny (John Kerry)
Analysis, K's and O's, Matchup

and
'WE'RE GOING TO THUMP IT'
Re-energized Rove says Bush will storm the fences again

Are you with me on this? Am I the only one who is sick and tired of the way politics (and elections in particular) are treated like horse races, Super Bowls, and reality TV?

Until He Came Around I Just Pulled the Plug Out of the Wall

David Bradley retired from IBM today. You may not know who he is, but you surely have taken advantage of his handywork (pun intended). He is the inventor of the "CTRL+ALT+DEL" command. We've all used it to escape a frozen computer. No word yet if Mr. Bradley will invent a "CTRL+ALT+DEL" command to let native Texans escape a frozen Minnesota. As an aside, I propose Minnesota change its motto to "What's cooler than being cool?" Say that reminds me, what is the Minnesota motto? But I digress.

Click here for an editorial on Mr. Bradley's legacy.

Seen from A Different Light

Mi amigo Matt the Hatt already blogged a little about Matt Savage, jazz pianist for the Matt Savage Trio. His fame has spread to a lot of the news and morning shows, and he has also performed at the New Orleans Jazz Festival and with several famous musicians like Shawn Colvin. The catch being that he is 11 years-old and diagnosed with autism. Click here for his homepage.

There are also a couple art sites worth checking out. Jessica Park is 45 years-old and has no formal art training. Click here to see some of her prints.

And finally, there is Justin Canha, age 14. Click here to see his site.

High Fives All Around

For anyone who cares, I am going to try and get my top five list blog up and running again. I just updated for the first time since early November. Click here to see the latest entry, Top Five Strangest Sports.

Exercising the Occipital Lobe

It's so very cold in Minnesota right now and today is the first day I have felt strep-free enough to actually go running. So being unable to do any aerobic exercise this weekend, I opted to work out my visual cortex by seeing Lost In Translation (yeah, I know it came out like 4 months ago) and The Triplets of Belleville. Both were a visual joy ride.

I really liked Lost In Translation. Bill Murry kicks ass. It's interesting how I won't sense the effect a movie is having on me while I'm watching it. I sensed my baseline, low-level depression while watching the Lost In Translation characters search for ways out of their boxes. But when the credits were rolling I was already thinking of the errands Emily had to do. Little did I know that I'd still be thinking about this movie over 24 hours later.

Any chronic, low-grade depression I felt watching Lost In Translation was remedied by The Triplets of Belleville. Go see it, even if you are not into animation. It was visually intoxicating. I loved the angular boats, cities, and skylines and there is a dog in the movie that is second to maybe Gromit in terms of loyalty and, well, animated devotion. It's a movie, for eye candy alone, that I would go see again. In an era of Pixar and other CGI, I felt a sense of nostalgia seeing a movie animated solely using line drawings.

Click here to visit the movie's homepage.

I Need Some Help

from the three of you people that read this blog. Today we were driving home from breakfast and a car didn't come to a complete stop in from of Emily and me. This irked Emily a bit and all I could say was "Hollywood stop." Which got me to thinking, what is the origin of Hollywood stop? I did a google serach and found one page that defined the term for me (something I already knew), but gave no etimology. Click here for the link (it's a random and quasi-adequate collection of vernacular).

All other pages I found were for websites criticizing Hollywood, as:

"Hollywood, stop bashing Arabs!"
"Hollywood, stop reading fictitious scripts!"
"Hollywood, stop making fun of Indians!"

You get the idea. So now I know what a lot of people want Hollywood to stop doing, but I still don't know where the driving term "Hollywood stop" came from.

Can anyone help me?

Streptual Healing

We're having one of those cold snaps where every member of the service industry reminds you to stay warm. Yesterday the clerks at Subway, the gas station, Walgreen's, and Starbucks all told me to "stay warm," all over my lunch hour.

This morning I started the car up and it gave an "Are you fucking crazy?" noise for about five seconds before finally turning over. Then I turned on the lights and the car gave gasp, like it was doing one last push-up after doing 49 of them. But then it settled down.

And through it all, I found out Wednesday morning that I've been walking around with strep throat for the last 13 days. Whoops. To my knowledge, I've never had strep before (or at least been diagnosed with it). So I lost my strep virginity. My reaction? It's overrated. I waited 32 years and that was it? Why do people make such a big deal out of it? Strep strep strep. It's in the magazines and movies like it's the greatest thing ever. It's just a little sore throat. Hell I had it for 13 days and didn't even know. So I've lost my strep virginity. Big deal. I don't feel any different than before (well, noy anymore, thanks to amoxicillin).

Next time someone offers me some strep I'll just tell them, "No thanks. I aready have a headache." I'd much rather curl up in bed with a good book than lie in bed having strep!

My Take On Dean

Everyone else has already written something about Howard Dean's free-fall in Iowa and his crash landing for a concession speech (YEEEAAAAAAA!). I'm not sure what the hell he was thinking but I can't imagine that he has any wind left in his sails. We'll see. Click here for more on his concession speech.

I supported Dean early on not because I thought he was the best man for the job, but because he was the one candidate with the gumption to openly criticize Bush. I thought that was cool and figured if he got enough momentum going, other Dems would realize they could do the same, instead of pussy footing around the Republican agenda like Lieberman has been doing for six months.

So basically, I was using him until a more mainstream candidate caught on to Dean's strategy and realized it's okay to be un-Bush. I'm not sold on any of these guys the way I liked Gore in 2000, but I like Edwards and Kerry a lot more now that they are going after Bush with both fists blazing.

And I also think with Dean's demise, the right wing pundits have shot themselves in the foot. Bloggers, journalists, and radio talk show hosts have ridiculed Dean for being angry and too far left, and they have mocked all Democrats for being irrational Bush haters. But if Dean doesn't make it past Super Tuesday (I doubt he will) all these Democrats that Rush, Drudge, and Co. have ridiculed will have spoken and said we don't want Howard Dean. That's not us. And if that happens, the right will have hung itself on its own words. If the Democrats pick and Edwards/Kerry "I Believe In America" over Dean's "YEEAAAAAAA!! Take back the White House!!" fire and brimstone, what is there to mock? What happened to the irrational, negative Bush haters?

Bush differentiated himself from Gore in 2000 by saying "My opponent believes in government, and I believe in the American people." Though probably not his own idea, that's good salesmanship (better than "You ain't seen nothin' yet."). Well the unDean Democrat that runs against Bush this time around can say, "I believe in America, and my opponent believes in scaring and scarring America." I think that would work.

By the way, Dean now reminds me of Gollum. In The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf tells Frodo, "I don't know what role Gollum will play if its for good or evil," but he is certain Gollum will be a key player in the ring's fate. True also for Dean. He has already done a lot of good, by pushing the mainstream candidates to criticize Bush and (by losing his lead in Iowa) showing that most Democrats are not the irrational angry bunch the right wing media loved to portray them as. But there will be new bearer of the ring, and we'll have to see how Dean will factor in the end.

Don't Cry For Me Texas

If you grew up in Texas in the 80s, your family had a tube of Jimmy Dean sausage in the fridge. Now I admit, Jimmy Dean Sausage hasn't crossed my mind in years. However, when I heard that bitch Sara Lee was dropping Jimmy Dean from its sausage line, I got a little sad and waxed nostalgic for the silver tube of 2 month old sausage in my family fridge (1983 vintage).




Breaking up is hard to do, but it looks like the country singer played a role himself in the demise of his relationship with Sara Lee. Granted, being 75 and a name from the past doesn't help, but neither does his attitude. For example,

Dean acknowledged he has resisted some advertising initiatives since Sara Lee bought his business.

"They wanted me to say some things, like 'Breakfast never sounded so good,'" he said. "Breakfast don't sound. If you want it to sound, you'd better put your hand in the skillet."

Click here for the whole story.

But I don't know why I feel so sad about all this. Jimmy's still a freaking bizillionaire. Maybe what's bothering me is that this is just one more example that you really never can go home again.

Bush In 41.2 Seconds

Emily already blogged about the link to MoveOn.org's Bush in 30 seconds ads, which most of the three of you that read this probably have seen already. But have you seen Bush in 41.2 seconds? Funny stuff, just not exactly work-safe (profanity). Click here for the link.

It appears that some conservatives slept through the satire section in 9th grade English. Just like some people back then really thought Jonathan Swift wanted us to eat babies when they read A Modest Proposal, there are many out there today who believe fans of the Bush in 41.2 Seconds ad think that "Bush is a flatulent pus bag" is a great argument in political discourse. Click here for the story.

You Can't Make It Up

So those of you with Wisconsin ties may tire of all the cheap shots that Minnesotans take at America's Dairyland. However, stories like 7-year-old gets stuck in stuffed animal game machine don't really help your cause.

Sure the Packers are in the playoffs this weekend while the Vikings stay at home, but at least the state of Minnesota made it through the week without having to call 9-1-1 to pull a kid out of a stuffed animal machine.


Image from The Chippewa Herald


It took the fire department and a locksmith to get the tyke out. The story doesn't mention whether or not the rescue workers first tried to grab the kid using the crane inside the game (or many quarters they wasted in the process).

Click here for the whole story.