Big American Party!

it may come as a shock to you, but i hate the 24-hour news cycle

2009-10-07T11:45:00.002-04:00

As a proud liberal/progressive/fascistcommiewhosupportscrazysocialistthingslikepeoplebeinghealthy, it's always easy for me to say that the discourse in this country is full of crap and then point to Fox News as an example. But really, they aren't the only ones. This was actually on TV:

CNN, a news network, was fact-checking Saturday Night Live, a comedy show. I find it odd they they take the time to bring in non-partisan fact-checkers when a comedy show runs with what an emerging perception of the President is, but go ahead and just rebroadcast and debate talking points like "death panels" as if they were somehow valid.

I get that CNN has 24 hours to fill. I get that they're being spanked by more sensationalist and less news-oriented competitors. So they want to jazz it up a little bit. I even understand that what's happening with the political sketches on SNL is usually a pretty good indicator of what's resonating with the American people. I'll even support a little analysis in the 24-hour period about what those sketches may mean in terms of where public opinion is. CNN is still in the business of attracting viewers.

Still, I'd rather you interview a fact checker when an elected official makes a baseless claim about what health care reform is and then let Screamy McOpinion and Yelly McViewpoint go after each other about whether or not the cold opening on SNL is indicative of the actual job President Obama is doing.

When you do it this way around though, you're holding comedy shows to a higher standard of truthfulness than you are Congresspeople or even your own reporters. I stopped wondering why the American people seemed so ill-informed a long time ago.

big american nfl preview '09: NFC North

2009-09-09T07:55:00.003-04:00

Look, I get to this division each year and have to pick with either my brain or my...whatever it is that causes me to love and overestimate the Bears' chances each year. So last year, I went with my brain and that didn't work out so hot. Guess where I'm going this year...

4. Detroit - They're starting a rookie at quarterback. They're still the team that went 0-fer last season, and even with a new front office and pretty capable running back they're not going to have a Dolphin-like turnaround. Sorry Lions. I'll watch you on Thanksgiving.

3. Green Bay - The Rogers kid went ahead and lit some teams up last season, making himself a fantasy darling. Too bad there was no running game. And very little defense to speak of. The Packers did basically nothing to address these problems, so there's not a lot to like except for a guy who will probably have 4,000 more passing yards in an otherwise fruitless season.

2. Minnesota - When the Favre experiment goes wrong, and it will (after looking really good for a few weeks), you'll have Rosenfels and Jackson waiting in the wings after the Vikings went out of their way to say that they'd rather have a ghost behind center than either of them. Adrian Peterson and the defensive line are still going to be beastly, but I don't have faith in a team coached by a guy who spent the entire off-season ignoring his team to flirt with an overrated, past his prime, interception machine.

1. Chicago - Okay. Hear me out. The team's biggest strength has always been its defense. The core group of that defense can probably feel the window shutting for them. I think they have one more great season in them before they fade as a group. They know how much the Bears mortgaged the future to get Jay Cutler now. They will step up one more time. I worry more about the secondary, which will be young and unproven. On the other side of the ball, they improved the offensive line to go with their bona fide quarterback and one of the best rushers in football (who is also a credible threat as a receiver). There isn't a lot to speak of where the wideouts are concerned, but Olson is still a phenomenal tight end and Devin Hester can still run fast enough to make teams sweat (if the Devin Hester experiment fails with Cutler at QB, we have no one to blame but Devin Hester). Call me crazy, but I like the Bears' chances.

big american nfl preview '09: NFC East

2009-09-09T07:34:00.002-04:00

If it doesn't get done this morning, I'll never make my deadline. So let's hit the NFC East. These teams all have plenty going for them, but some pretty solid negatives as well. All I know for sure is that the defenses will be fun to watch.

4. Washington - I hate picking the Redskins to notch last place here. Albert Haynesworth can't carry the defense by himself, though. And if I'm going to let the way the Cardinals finished the season be good news for Arizona, then the 2-6 limp to the finish for the Redskins probably doesn't bode well for Washington.

3. Dallas - Defense will be stifling, but their offensive line is old. That might leave Romo in some trouble (especially with the "2" part of the 1-2 punch running game having skipped town), and I just don't buy him as that good a quarterback. Roy Williams is not T.O., as much as I don't like to admit that any team would ever miss that guy. The offense won't have to go far, or score much to win games. I think the Cowboys will be very good. Possibly a playoff team. All said, though, the rest of this division is better.

2. Philadelphia - The Eagles are going to be better where they need to be. They shored up the O-line, will have some good (if young) receivers, potentially have some schemes that will make defensive coordinators' heads explode with the addition of Vick, and will boast a pretty strong defensive line. There are some questions in the secondary, but nothing to make me start a playoff prediction without including the Eagles.

1. New York - So they didn't replace the threat that Plaxico "Boom Boom" Burress posed to other teams at wideout. They're still the nasty team that had a strong 2008 before a playoff flameout, only with some additions that will make the defense even more intimidating. The team has proven that they're winners, and I'm not going against them here.

big american nfl preview '09: NFC West

2009-09-08T22:10:00.002-04:00

One more before bed. I'll make it an easy(ish) one.

4. St. Louis - The Rams are in bad shape, still waiting on Marc Bulger to get healthy and hoping that will fix everything on a 2-14 team rather than blowing it all up and starting from scratch. And that's going to land them with the number one pick on prime time on a Thursday night.

3. Seattle - Everyone is picking them to win the West, but they're doing it by starting all of their justifications with "if." "If Hasselbeck stays healthy...", "If Julius Jones can emerge as a true star in the league...", or "If the rookies pan out..." are a lot of ifs that I don't believe in.

2. San Francisco - They're going to surprise a lot of people and, if I'm wrong about the Cardinals, could even be playoff-bound this year behind Alex Smith and Frank Gore. By the end of last season, Coach Singletary seemed to be onto something with this crew and it could end up being huge.

1. Arizona - Were the playoffs for real last season? I like the talent and the coaching for The Cardinals too much to say no. I'm even a believer in an 100-year-old Kurt Warner...but that's more based on his targets. I have to think that the playoff run and legitimate shot at actually winning the Super Bowl meant that they found what they needed to get things going. They won't sneak up on anyone, but they'll be a fun team to watch win games as favorites this season.

big american nfl preview '09: NFC South

2009-09-08T21:29:00.002-04:00

Let's keep this train rolling, shall we?

4. Tampa Bay - The Bucs trying really hard to do "fresh start" without doing "rebuild," but they're doing "rebuild." Freeman will start the season behind center, but Leftwich will finish it there; once again the quarterback of a sub par team instead of what he could have been.

3. Carolina - This is where I have no clue. The Panthers have a good but not great defense and a good but not great offense. The Panthers, when I think about their chances this year, could go 14-2 just as easily as they could go 6-10. Ultimately, I'm putting them here because the only people left who still believe in the Legend of Jake Delhomme are Jake himself and the Panthers front office. And if that's what they're building the team around, it isn't going to happen for them.

2. New Orleans - New Orleans has a good offense. Moving along, I really like Darren Sharper, Jabir Green, and Malcolm Jenkins coming onto the defense to take down Drew Breeze's pass count and slow down other teams in a shoot-out. They don't make the Saints an intimidating defense, but they make enough improvement for some flirtation with the playoffs before ultimately falling short.

1. Atlanta - I can't help but think that last year wasn't a fluke. Matt Ryan is far more likely than Flacco to give a repeat performance of his rookie season since he has a better running back and better receivers than ol' Joe will have. The defense here is iffy, but I'm trusting that they'll be good enough in a division where all of the other teams lack "good enough" at every position.

big american nfl preview '09: AFC East

2009-09-08T21:16:00.004-04:00

I stopped doing these for a while because of the way NC State decided to go ahead and lay a huge egg in their opener against South Carolina, therefore making it hard to think about football without sadness, pain, or both. But I'm back, and determined to get everything in before Thursday night. This probably means multiple entries tomorrow. Maybe even two tonight.

4. Buffalo - The Bills might be able to put it together and surprise people. Maybe we'll get enough "good T.O." to figure out what kind of quarterback they really have behind center. Maybe some of the underrated pieces that Buffalo has on defense will become something greater when they gel together. The problem is that there are too many maybes for a team coached by Dick Jauron.

3. Miami - Miami had a remarkable turnaround season last year and made us all talk about the possibilities of the "Wildcat" offense endlessly. I respect the talent they have, but I'm not convinced that a repeat performance is going to be lined up. Seriously, Pennington only gives you one good season at a time.

2. New York - I like the Jets more than I should. I like Thomas Jones, I like their receiving corps, and I like what Rex Ryan brings to their defense as head coach. None of these things are absolute and game-proven things to like as much as I do, but I see the Jets in the playoffs.

1. New England - This isn't a vote of confidence in the Patriots as much as a vote of no-confidence in my confidence in the Jets. Get that? Yes, Brady is back. Yes, they're coming off of an 11-5 season which could have easily been a playoff year with a mere handful of different things that didn't involve the guy taking the snaps. I just don't see the Patriots as the juggernaut people are touting them as. They'll start out strong, but it's an old and aching team; and that won't last into the winter. Especially given that they've lost a whopping 6 starters on the defensive side of the ball. I'm only picking them to win the East because the Jets are determined to start a rookie (thanks a lot Flacco and Ryan) at quarterback.

big american nfl preview '09: AFC North

2009-08-31T23:06:00.004-04:00

I need to go ahead and let you all know that if you're not following Chad Ochocinco's Twitter feed, you're missing some of the most hilarious stuff on the internet. Onto the AFC North preview...

4. Cleveland - In theory, the Browns have a lot of good pieces. But that's only if everyone is playing the part of what they should be rather than what they are. Edwards, Anderson(or even Quinn, failing that), Jackson, Rodgers, and Lewis are all names that should push Cleveland into some serious football discussions. They're not. This team isn't going places. Their one win this season won't even put them into Detroit's 0-16 club.

3. Cincinnati - Hilarity aside, Ochocinco is in a lot of trouble. TJ Houshmanzada isn't on the other side of the field, I don't have any faith in the run game, and Carson Palmer looks like he's going to end up joining Grant Hill in the "how great would have have been if not for the being injured all the time?" hall of fame. Carson might put together a full season, and the Bengals have a young defense that could make a difference and give the Bengals a good finish to the season, but I don't like their chances on the whole.

2. Baltimore - Joe Flacco and Matt Ryan can't both have the kind of season they did last year, and my money is on Ryan repeating before Flacco. That said, this is still Baltimore. The Ravens are another year older on that defense, but that's still a defense that can get things done (and it still has Terrell Suggs...and that man is frightening). I like McGahee even if he can't finish a season, and I hear good things about Rice. They'll be in the playoff discussion, either as the last team in or the first team out.

1. Pittsburgh - Put simply, all the parts of a team that was big and scary and awesome last year have returned. Well, at least, a defense that was big and scary and awesome last year. If the offense can improve itself at all, there's a better than average chance that we'll follow the blueprint this season. We'll jump on a team that gets hot or has a flashy offense or makes a sexy highlight reel until the next thing you know, Pittsburgh is the runaway favorite to win the AFC.

big american nfl preview '09: AFC West

2009-08-30T21:36:00.000-04:00

From what might be the most competitive division in the AFC to the least...

4. Oakland - Even in this from this league of losers, the Raiders stand out. They've got coaches (probably) breaking each others' jaws, players having to tell other players that you might want to go to sleep at a reasonable hour before game day, and the culture of futility that's been brewing ever since Tampa Bay chased them out of the Super Bowl however many years ago. It doesn't look good.

3. Kansas City - The Chiefs weren't going to be good before the next Derek Anderson went down with an injury. Now? Well, at least their coaches aren't punching each other.

2. Denver - I've been told by television commentators that we have yet to see Kyle Orton throw the ball down field, as if it's going to happen at any moment. I saw him play in Chicago and also "have yet" to see it. There are pieces of this team that just aren't there, but I'm mostly happy that I no longer have to sell myself on Kyle Orton.

1. San Diego - Default winners of the AFC West. The interesting thing is going to be that we won't really know what the Chargers are made of for sure until we're well into the season because of the rest of the West will be so lousy. But if Tomlinson is as healthy as he claims (or even close), Rivers has another great year, and the defense does their job (and, honestly, there's not very many reasons to think they won't); the sky's the limit for this team. Still, they'll have to make it happen come playoff time.

big american nfl preview '09: AFC South

2009-08-27T09:37:00.000-04:00

Alright, political discussions are important. But so is the way I distract myself from the need for political discussion. Football is coming back soon, and I'm here to handicap the upcoming NFL season for you division-by-division just so a record of how little I actually know exists. They're talking about the NFC North on ESPN as I type this, and I hate the idea of letting them color my opinion, so I'll go complete opposite today: The AFC South.

I expect a seriously competitive division, possibly even the closest one week-in-and-week-out in football. We've got two teams coming off of playoff appearances and strong seasons, a team that I like a lot as a football team, and another one that's almost universally been touted as a team that will have arrived by the time it's all said and done. But something is going to have to give somewhere.

4. Jacksonville - I wanted to like Jacksonville more than this. On paper, they have a serviceable quarterback who can maneuver himself and Torry Holt, who gives them the kind of receiver I don't remember them having on top of being a smart player that will come back to the ball when Garrard gets to scrambling. Add to that one of the best running backs in the game in Jones-Drew, and I could maybe even talk myself into calling the Jaguars a playoff team. But the window seems to have shut on what was once an intimidating defense, even with Del Rio's mind behind them. And that offense is good, but not the kind of good that puts you in a position to win shootout-style games. Jacksonville could surprise, but I don't see it.

3. Tennessee - They had a helluva season last season. And Jeff Fisher is a great coach. But I still think that last season was a flash-in-the-pan sort of season that's going to only serve to unfairly raise expectations. No Albert Haynesworth means that the defense lacks not only their biggest difference-maker but also their biggest distraction when opposing teams map out the offense. I don't think Collins-to-nobody makes for an especially dangerous passing threat, meaning that other teams can put the world in the box to stop the run.

2. Houston - A lot of people have been declaring this to be the year that The Texans break through and see the playoffs. And they're certainly going to do a lot of things very well. Matt Schaub-to-Andre Johnson should be one of the biggest connections in the game this year, they'll have a reliable if not surprisingly good rushing game, and they have a beast of a defensive line headlined by Mario Williams. They could even win this division. Could. But I don't think they will quite yet.

1. Indianapolis - They don't have the offense they used to. The receivers aren't as sexy (football sexy, not sexy sexy) and running game doesn't appear as dominant. They have a guy whose name might as well be "Not Tony Dungy" as their coach. What they do have is a defense that was very quietly among the best last season. What they do have is Peyton Manning. They won't be the Colts like we're used to seeing the Colts, but they're still contenders until they prove they aren't.

we lost one of the good ones, and there weren't that many of them left

2009-08-26T08:29:00.003-04:00

Ted Kennedy is gone. He did the good fight proud more often than anyone else who's been elected to national office in my lifetime. He didn't get to see a United States where everyone had access to health care. And that's sad.

what would Jesus damand as a co-pay?

2009-08-24T22:36:00.001-04:00

I had wanted my glorious return to semi-regular blogging to be ushered in with football predictions, but I have something else on my mind at the moment and it won't go away until I share it with a wide and largely anonymous audience. There's this little debate going on around these here United States of America where health care is concerned. I'm certainly not going to be the first person in access to the internet to weigh in on this, so there are a few things I'm going to skip over for your sake.

The misdirection, misinformation, and outright lies coming from the right, for example, are documented by my heroes over at Media Matters in a far more thorough fashion than I'd be able to muster all by my lonesome.* I'll also skip my rallying cry to do whatever it takes to get the "blue dogs" out of office via their next primaries if they don't feel like health care should be accessible to everyone. For good measure, I'll even move on past the part where I lay out the reasons that anything less than the single-payer, universal health care we're all supposed to be afraid of is a cop out.

No, what's annoying me the most in this debate is the silence. A deafening silence coming from the Church. Now, to be fair, there is some good stuff being done quietly. There's The 10:10 Challenge, for example, which I think is fantastic. However, there isn't one loud voice coming from the big, honkin', capitol "C" Church.

This wouldn't be such a big deal, but apparently the Christian faith has pockets that can get bent out of shape over the need for legislation to remove the rights of gay folks. Heck, there's even a very vocal group of Christians who scream and contort their faces in front of anyone with a camera because they hate the idea that evolution is being taught in science classes. These two issues are things that the Church is divided on, though, as we disagree over the interpretation and study of the surrounding scripture.

So certainly on this issue, where there is absolutely no reading of any scripture that would translate to Jesus being of the opinion that there are people who don't deserve access to health care, the Church should easily rise up and in one unison voice demand that health care be treated as a human right. On this issue, shouldn't the side the Church takes on this issue - and we're talking the entire Church, lunatic fringe and all - be a slam dunk? Shouldn't this be the modern Church's finest hour, where we put aside the issues that divide our faith and rally behind the teachings that tell us, unequvically, to take care of those who need it?

Apparently, the Church is afraid of what compassion would look like on our pay stubs underneath Social Security. Apparently, the Church is too busy letting Dobson scream bloody murder over fictional "death panels." Apparently the Church, after being told for so long that only one political party has any of our interests in mind and seeing that party work so hard to deny people the right to proper care, is just too confused to get together and push the government to do the right thing in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets (only probably without the pillars of fire...at least, I'd hope so).

The Church in America has its share of failings. This silence, especially relative to some of the noise parts of it have been allowed to make at other times, is probably our biggest.

*For example much of their information gathering comes from folks who, bless their hearts, can watch far more Fox News and listen to far more talk radio than I could stomach.

the stick from which all future sticks shall be judged

2009-08-14T10:00:00.003-04:00

I just want you to know that this is going to change my life for the better. Details soonish. Blog posts also to follow in a relatively soonish fashion.

pardon the dust on your web browser

2009-06-15T07:48:00.001-04:00

So you may have noticed a lack of activity here. You may have also noticed a lack of activity over at How RDU Doin'? In both cases, it's due to the combination of restructuring and my impending move to Carrboro.

Look for How RDU Doin'? to get some seriously great new content in the coming weeks (especially after Scott gets himself married and local again).

As for the stuff I'm changing here, you may have noticed certain posts are missing. How you feel about those posts is basically the reason for the shift. In talking to the people who still read my little rambly thoughts, I discovered two camps:

One, mostly my friends and such, said "I like the site, but what's with all the comic book stuff?"

The other, mostly other comic nerds I've met through various online involvements, said "I like the comic book stuff, but what's up with all that other crap?"

So to satisfy both parties, I've removed the "Funnybook of the Week" posts from here and given them their own space. You can find those at the new and improved Funnybook of the Week, which now gives me more room to geek out to a specific audience. Act today, and you'll even find my especially nerdy thoughts on Captain America #600.

You'll still be able to read me talk about all the other stuff I like to talk about right here. So it's okay. Posting with some frequency shall resume in the coming weeks. It'll be great.

the reasons that brett favre must come back

2009-05-19T20:11:00.001-04:00

Of late, every breath of the hated Brett Favre has been reported upon by all sports media. Nationally and locally. Television, internet, radio, smoke signals...you can't get away from hearing about Favre. We're just shy of a story where people speculate upon the meaning of Favre's breakfast:

"The key isn't so much that he had pancakes, but that he had blueberry pancakes - once again indicating a strong intrest in playing quarterback for the Vikings."

"How's that?"

"Well, blueberries - especially when cooked into a pancake - are actually more purple in color than blue. Naturally, since the Minnesota Vikings wear purple..."

"WHATASCOOP!"

But an end to the inane speculation isn't why I want Favre in a Vikings uniform as soon as possible. After all, if Favre does decide to play football again this season, it mearly means we'll have to play "will he/won't he" in the next NFL offseason as well. Here are the actual reasons for Favre to get back on the field:

1) Consider the record. As you may have heard me point out before once or twice, Brett Favre has thrown more interceptions than any other quarterback in the NFL's history. That said, I wouldn't mind him padding that stat just to make sure that a player I have absolutely no love, admiration, or even basic human respect for always has that distinction. And if he's throwing the ball to the other team a lot in a Vikings uniform? Well, that only helps the Bears, doesn't it?

2) On the field means not in the booth. I hadn't considered this, but I heard on the ol' radio this morning that Brett Favre would consider a broadcast job. His only reluctance to get into the booth is that he doesn't want to wear a tie (they apparently don't go with his Wranglers), which the Monday Night gig he was apparently rumored to be considered for would require. Still, there's no shortage of people bending over backwards for this guy, so allowing him to drop the tie wouldn't be that big a deal. This guy mustn't...HE. MUST. NOT...be allowed anywhere near an NFL broadcast with a live mic. Between the accent, the almost certain constant self-promotion, and the awkard transitions (a man with this many INT's in his career would probably mess up "throwing it down to the field" so a sideline reporter can ask a horrid and obvious question); it could cripple the NFL's broadcasting.

3) I want to record the reaction he gets the first time he steps on to The Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field wearing purple and watch it over and over and over again.

scott walker figuratively punched boston in the eye, and i loved it

2009-05-15T00:01:00.003-04:00

The second-best thing about this series going seven games is that I found a way over the course of it to give the Bruins the same amount of hateful ire that I can throw the way of the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics, and whatever Major League Lacrosse team Boston my have. That is to say that, while I will always hate other teams more and wish more misery upon their players and fans, I have a principal that allows me to give them just enough hate to enjoy their downfall on most occasions.

The best thing is that, after achieving that kind of hatred, it feels extra nice to have Scott Walker rip their hearts out in a game seven overtime.

It also doesn't hurt to know that this sends the 'Canes back to the Easter Conference Finals. Oh, NHL playoffs, I wish you could last forever. Or at least until the start of football season.

i kind of hate that i'm aging

2009-05-07T22:56:00.002-04:00

The upcoming 30th birthday. Not excited about it. There's a desperation about me as I evaluate where I am that I suppose isn't entirely unlike a midlife crisis. Except this isn't that, because it's way too early for this to be a midlife crisis. Also, how could I have a midlife crisis when I can't even come close to affording the sports car?

When I worked at Camp Rockfish, my favorite co-worker (other than Laul Peeland) was a girl who would hang onto my every word and laugh at my every joke. Sometimes, she'd even look at me and say "you're going to be famous."

Not too incredibly long ago, I ran into one of the counselors at my high school. She asked me what I'd been up to. After telling her, she seemed profoundly disappointed and threw in a quick "I thought you'd be famous by now."

My mom is an avid How RDU Doin'? reader, and recently sent me an email telling me how witty I am and how I've clearly missed a golden opportunity if I can't find a way to get someone from the Daily Show to take a look at it.

I tell you all of this, in the sort of "woe is me" style post that I kind of hoped never to feel compelled towards ever again, to say one thing. For my 30th birthday, I'd like to be as talented as people think I am. And I'd like the stones to do something with that talent.

oh, but to be a fly on the wall in the new jersey locker room....

2009-04-29T08:55:00.004-04:00

For all that Buffalo has become the new rival and for all that I still pretty much can't stand any of the other teams in the Southeast Division, New Jersey still sits atop my list of teams I enjoy seeing the Hurricanes beat. If we eliminate them in the playoffs? Even sweeter. If the Hurricanes manage to do everything but stand over them and rip their hearts out just as they were tuning up the celebratory horn? Excuse me, I'll have to collect myself.

While I do that, why don't we let the Devils explain what the 'Canes did to them in this series.

"I really don't know what to say. I am shocked, stunned," Devils coach Brent Sutter said.

Zach Parise sat in front of his locker with his hands in his face. Most players spoke in very low voices, and none could recall a more gut-wrenching loss.

"These guys do a lot of those things against us," Brodeur said. "They beat us with two-tenths of a second to play and now this, it's stunning."

"They scored two goals in the final two minutes of a hockey game to win it," Devils center John Madden said. "I will never forget it."

Yeah. Good, good times.

Now let's go beat Boston, yes?

i agree with this video

2009-04-28T11:44:00.001-04:00

It's long been Andi's opinion that we should give Texas back to Mexico, but this will do just as well.

for the sake of clarification and directed towards someone who probably has never read anything i've posted here

2009-04-24T09:42:00.007-04:00

You think that, based on your reading of the Bible, that God hates gay people. You also think that - and I'm assuming you somehow also have scripture to back this up - God is okay with torture.

Yeah, we can't be friends anymore. Not even on facebook.

a few super-late thoughts on the tea bagging of america

2009-04-19T04:32:00.001-04:00

No, not this tea bagging of America, but the little parties that made the news rounds last week. You know, the gatherings of people who are protesting...something...maybe taxes?...because guys like Limbaugh have been screaming that the sky is falling.

Because I sometimes spend a few minutes listening to right wing talk radio (as I've said many times, it's important to know what they're saying no matter how crazy/asinine/evil it happens to be), I know that Hannity thinks that no one except the people at these little parties understands what they were about. He offered no explanation, just that the mainstream media missed the point. So what was the point?

- People are out protesting "tax hikes." I put "tax hikes" in quotes because, as you no doubt know if you've been keeping up with the pesky little facts out there, most people will end up paying less in taxes. These "tax hikes" they're protesting are largely the rolling back of Bush's massive tax cuts. Even if that weren't true, none of these people are being taxed into the poor house...or even the middle class house...or even out of their summer house on the beach...so I have a hard time seeing the problem.

- Some are upset because their perception of taxes is President Obama taking their money from them and giving it to deadbeats who are too lazy to pay their mortgages. Maybe none of them noticed the economy tanking, but there are people out there losing their homes right not largely because of the whole "suddenly not having a job" thing. There is absolutely nothing that infuriates me than the assertion the poor are only poor because they want to be/are too lazy to get rich. And it's being perpetuated when Limbaugh goes on the air and actually says that people who can are going to look around and stop paying their mortgages and just assume that the government will take it over for them. This is stupid. Of course people want to achieve on their own. Of course it stings when they have to have help, especially when it comes right after having their job and life pulled out from under them. The idea that this is suddenly going to create a "welfare state" (Hannity again) full of lazy people just waiting for President Obama to come and help them out is one that's being put out there to frighten people who don't know to think about things for a second. Guess who showed up at the tea parties...

- Some aren't protesting taxes so much as the notion that Obama is deficit spending. For the record, these are largely the same people who were okay with Bush the W borrowing tons of money for an ill-advised war that was sold to the American people based on the repetition of a lie...but they're mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore when President Obama is spending money to, you know, help people live their lives and take care of that basic "pursuit of happiness" thing.

- But hey, maybe, just maybe there are people out there who opposed both the spending on the Iraq fiasco AND the spending on fighting off a depression. If someone truly believes that people need to be thrown to the wolves to fend for themselves in a sort of economic darwinism where only the people lucky enough to work for companies that aren't having to make massive cuts survive...I have nothing for you. We believe different things and your beliefs actually make me sad.

- What, in the end, I think most of these people were protesting - if they really knew what they were protesting at all - was a Democratic president.

wednesday.

2009-04-13T15:28:00.002-04:00

Playoffs. Wednesday. Who's ready for some fun?

Let's go 'Canes!

now here's a context in which i'll accept "carolina wins" as good news

2009-04-07T23:00:00.003-04:00

A 9-0 Hurricanes win over the Islanders to keep things rolling even after clinching a playoff spot and keep my hopes for that 4th seed alive has me thinking a bit.

I didn't write what went through my head about the hiring of Paul Maurice. I didn't write what went through my head when the 'Canes biggest trade deadline move was bringing Cole back into the fold. But with a 9 game winning streak at a really great time for a hockey team to be peaking and Cole having collected 15 points in 15 games back with the team, I'm glad there's no record of what was going through my head in those moments.

I eagerly await the playoffs.

SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap on a monday

2009-04-06T08:41:00.004-04:00

Season Two is done. Fun was had, Lisa P came in and nailed the part of the former Mrs. Aquarius, and Brian Thacker was crowned the new SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE champion. Once again, the majority of the thanks go out to JMatt. The poor guy spent another six weeks making things run while the rest of us dicked around.

Honestly, if you haven't been coming to the show, you're missing out. Food for thought when I bring back the big pink banner after the summer and start sending you facebook invites to Season Three.

hey, who's not tired of hearing me talk about jay cutler?

2009-04-06T08:18:00.002-04:00

Since the talking heads on ESPN think that somehow it's a good idea for the Broncos to ditch a top-five quarterback in a league where great play behind center has become the exception rather than the rule, I had to go to their website to find someone that made an ounce of sense. And it turned out to be Rick Reilly.

How many Broncos fans -- when they first heard that Josh McDaniels was taking over -- thought to themselves, "Boy, I sure hope we can somehow dump Pro Bowl QB Jay Cutler and start Kyle Orton this season! That would be swell!" And it all stemmed from McDaniels' ham-handed style and his Macy's-balloon ego. Years from now, the Cutler Catastrophe will go down as the dumbest thing in Boy Blunder's very short coaching career. I have a buddy who honestly believes McDaniels thinks this is fantasy football; that he gets a whole team to play with and screw over in his own image and what the hell, if his moves don't work out, his league has a special "mulligan" rule and he can start over. Only there's no "oops" rule in the NFL. This deal -- and McDaniels' Belichick wanna-be act -- will haunt Denver for years.

it's a tad premature, right?

2009-04-04T06:34:00.002-04:00

Economy is bad. I don't make much money. Must. Resist. Urge. To. Spend. Eighty. Dollars.

omigoshomigoshomigoshomigoshomigoshomigosh...

2009-04-03T08:15:00.002-04:00

A defining moment in the history of my sports watching came during a Bears game with Jim Miller behind center. On 3rd-and-10, John Madden announces "I don't think the Bears have a play that goes 10 yards in the playbook." Sure enough, the play that was called and it was a 7 yard pass. This was not a check down. This was the play as drawn up. This is the moment I've gone back to when it comes to Bears quarterbacks ever since.

Then something wonderful happened yesterday.

The Bears went and grabbed themselves a quarterback. Seriously, an honest to goodness quarterback. Not a flash-in-the pan who will settle to awfulness, not a "game manager," and not Cade McNown, but a real live quarterback!

The naysayers will say that two first rounders and Kyle Orton is a pretty high price for Jay Cutler. But look at the excitement this move has created. I do think the Bears will need a bona fide wideout for this to work. Greg Olson is great, but he's a great Tight End. Brandon Lloyd showed flashes of brilliance last season, but just flashes. I will say that, if nothing else, the acquisition of Jay Cutler makes the Devin Hester experiment about one million times more interesting as we go into the 2009 season. If Jay Cutler doesn't make that happen, it just isn't meant to be.

I do think the Bears are going to do what it takes to make this a good deal, now that we've made it. After we lost both offensive tackles, I was afraid the season was alredy a write-off, but Angelo actually addressed some of the upcoming offensive line problems so that this shiny new quarterback will have some protection. Spending money and trading draft picks is not how we typically roll. This is amazing.

Did we need the draft picks to fix the O-Line and find ourselves some secondary help? Absolutely we did. But I think grabbing Orlando Pace shows that the front office is committed to making a run at things next season, and maybe we're not done wheeling and dealing just yet.

how do you avoid getting on a roll?

2009-03-31T23:58:00.002-04:00

I'm making a sincere effort to leave well enough alone. This evening, I got a text message from Scott. He had an idea. An idea so perfect and obvious that I kind of hated myself for not coming up with it. We bounced a few idea back and forth and got ourselves to work. The result is big, dumb fun on the internet that you might want to take a peek at come tomorrow.

So I've officially made my contributions and shut things down for the night, eager to go to bed with Andi. Once I was there, though, I couldn't even begin to sleep. If you know me, then you know I'm in a pretty unsatisfying rut in a lot of aspects of the ol' life. So little things like the exchange between Scott and me and the results thereof end up keeping me awake. It's why I don't sleep after the SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE or a great show at The Worx. When I remember what it's like to actually do something I'm a little proud of, I want to do more.

So I'm trying hard to leave it be. Let what I've done sit so I can settle down and get a good night's rest. But it's awfully hard, because these moments aren't part of the daily routine.

so, um, i need to update this thing...

2009-03-28T13:06:00.001-04:00

...but not today. In the meantime, this is still happening tonight:

on my failings to properly cover basketball on this blog

2009-03-16T23:09:00.001-04:00

So I was going to go down the results of the ACC tourney one game at a time. That didn't work out, but I did manage to liveblog a pair of the games for How RDU Doin'? Then I thought I'd reprise my NCAA burning questions gimmick from last season. Then I filled out my first set of brackets and found that I had all four #1 seeds in the Final Four. So I'm going to grow a pair and then fill them out again. I'll let you know if I have anything worth reporting on before games start on Thursday.

March. Madness.

ACC tourney - virginia tech 65, miami 47

2009-03-12T14:02:00.003-04:00

I am distraught by the inclusion of David Cook to the ACC festivities, specifically, how hard the Raycom gang is trying to pimp his album. This is not what I want from my basketball. Also, I wanted Miami to show up for this game for my entertainment. Instead, they'll be rockin' the NIT after one of the most disappointing seasons I've ever seen from a team that isn't NC State.

That said, Virginia Tech played pretty outstanding "team defense," which they'll need again tomorrow when they have the tall order of trying to catch UNC on an off day. I doubt they'll have it in them, but I wouldn't mind if they made Carolina work harder than they want to.

In the meantime, I have only to survive Georgia Tech vs. Clemson and then a break before sneaking a radio into work tonight so I can hear NC State take on Maryland. If State is going to win this thing, my boys will have to take down Maryland, Wake Forest, (probably) Duke, and then (probably) Carolina in consecutive days. I don't like our chances. And now I have to worry about the possibility of the Wolfpack getting stuck in one of the two tournaments that sit below the NIT. Bad season. Bad, bad season.

March. Madness.

SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap on a tuesday

2009-03-10T18:40:00.003-04:00

We'll just go ahead and cop to week 2 being the part of the show where the contestants begin to figure out what they do that works and what they do that doesn't. I had some quality banter with PT scheduled for the lulls between acts, but JMatt finally managed to put some good old fashioned fear of God into the contestants and their changes happened pretty quickly and smoothly for once.

Not as good a show as week one, but Phil definitely improved from last week to this one, coming home with the night's best performance.

The rest of the videos for the SHOWCASE can be found here. Next week, it's the Broadway...which will present a pretty big challenge to more than half of this cast unless I miss my guess. So show up this Saturday at 10:30 to Comedy Worx and try to figure out if our six intrepid performers can make Broadway SPARKLE!

i'm not looking forward to obsolescence

2009-03-10T09:38:00.002-04:00

Hey, CNN has announced that America is becoming less Christian at a pretty quick rate. I mean, that's how the headline reads and everything. So what gives?

William Donohue, president of the Catholic League said he thinks a radical shift towards individualism over the last quarter-century has a lot to do it.

"The three most dreaded words are thou shalt not," he told Lou Dobbs. "Notice they are not atheists -- they are saying I don't want to be told what to do with my life."

Well, that's a simple answer. It's that pesky individualism that's got people giving faith a miss. We don't care for your rules. We're all rebels. We're all rockers.

But if you actually read the article, there's something else at play. Something that I find a little more disturbing.

The survey also found that "born-again" or "evangelical" Christianity is on the rise, while the percentage who belong to "mainline" congregations such as the Episcopal or Lutheran churches has fallen.

One in three Americans consider themselves evangelical, and the number of people associated with mega-churches has skyrocketed from less than 200,000 in 1990 to more than 8 million in the latest survey.

Right there, folks. I don't at all think it's a coincidence that as "'born-again' or 'evangelical' Christianity is on the rise," a larger number of people are being turned off by the idea of faith altogether. Really, I'm surprised that these fundamentalist, anti-intellectual, harshly judgmental, and (in the case of the mega-churches) impersonal versions of Christianity haven't chased off more people.

Especially as, more and more, this is the version of the Church most people are seeing.

i'm just sayin'...the dark knight was better

2009-03-08T21:56:00.004-04:00

I saw Watchmen yesterday, and I'll be short about it. It was as good and as faithful an adaptation as a fan of the original story could possibly hope for. For those of you out there, who think that Alan Moore should justifiably be shaking his many-ringed fists in the air and screaming drug-addled obscenities to the heavens, I have two examples of how it could have been worse. Hilarious examples:

"Will you sign my copy of Watchmen Babies?"

Or, instead of a pretty faithful feature-length film, it could have been optioned into the kind of toy-pimping cartoon I grew up watching.

In short, it was enjoyable and carried a pretty fair amount of the themes and events from the comic. Oh, and it had blue wangs all over it. Lots of blue wangs.

UPDATE: Slate has a few other ways this thing could have ended up mangled, depending on which directors could have gotten the job. The Judd Apatow one is dead on and hilarious.

SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap on a monday

2009-03-02T14:19:00.003-05:00

So the dancing competition for week one of season two of the SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE was a lot of fun, with the contestants cross-dressing, cross-undressing, going psycho, dry humping stuffed animals, and in some cases actually dancing. There there was plenty of in-between. We're going to need to see some of the contestants separate themselves from each other in the next weeks, but I think it'll happen eventually.

The night came to a pretty horrific finish for Brice Powers, who finally got a measure of comeuppance when he was chosen to dance in the judges challenge. What happened to him was not for the faint of heart, are alluded to on his facebook page, which should be visited to get the total SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE experience.

However, I really thought the show belonged to PT and Chris, whose performances as Jason Aquarius and Ricky Dean Del Fuego really upped themselves from the first season. So, you know, good job guys.

SUPER SPARKLE judges

funnybook of last week: New Avengers #50

2009-03-02T14:12:00.002-05:00

Well, the ending to issue #49 and the cover to this issue seemed to promise a big, fat showdown between the New Avengers and the brand new Dark Avengers. Did it deliver that?

Nope. But what we did get was a great look at how Norman Osborn's Dark Reign in the Marvel Universe is going to work. What we did get was Clint Barton going after Osborn through the media in a pretty rockin' monologue. What we did get was Bendis extending a middle finger to his many critics who claim there isn't a difference between the voices he gives characters. What we did get was a pretty epic throwdown between the New Avengers and a different squad. What we did get, was the funnybook of the week.

just in case you're not tired of the big pink letters yet...

2009-02-26T15:16:00.003-05:00

This Saturday. February 28th. 10:30 PM. Comedy Worx. SUPER. SPARKLE. SHOWCASE.

i feel like i'm being rope-a-doped

2009-02-26T14:49:00.004-05:00

I'm having a hard time believing that the Republican Party is actually imploding this hard. I'm a little late to the party for making fun of Bobby Jindal's hilariously and/or infuriatingly awful response to Obama's not State of the Union (which I'm also too late to the party to really get into).

What I can offer up, though, is that I'm baffled that no one in the Republican Party has come up with something other than what clearly lost them control of the government. Heck, the party that brought us misleading terms in order to frame issues to their favor ("death tax" and "pro life," for example) can't even bother to put a clever new name on their same old ideas.

I always think it's smart to keep track of what's going on with the other side of my political beliefs. That's why I will, from time-to-time, tune into talk radio. So yesterday, I spent a few of my lunch minutes with Rush Limbaugh to hear his response to Obama's speech. This is the man who masterfully and carefully (it doesn't matter that he used misinformation to do it, it just matters that he was good at it) undermined Bill Clinton at every turn. Even he was flailing. Just spewing bile and coming up with nothing more than to call President Obama a lying, power-grabbing, socialist. That's it. And when it came time to defend Bobby Jindal? He had even less. Just a vague promise that Jindal is "the real deal?"

I find that a machine that was once so careful and deliberate can suddenly be spinning out of control this way is too good to be true. Don't get me wrong. They're still out there enough that going to the misinformation playbook managed to neuter a good chunk of the passed economic bill. It just may not seem like it with all of the wild swings they political right seems to have been taking.

Maybe that's it. Maybe they're just playing possum. Undermining things where they can (see: stimulus) to make sure that just enough stays wrong so they can score the big comeback. I'm just a little bit scared right now that a party that used to seem a few steps ahead is suddenly eating it, and wonder what - if anything - they have for the long term.

be careful what you wish for, you just might get larry the cable guy

2009-02-24T15:15:00.002-05:00

Last time Comedy Central did a roast, we got the hilarious roasting of Bob Saget. Previously, they'd taken to showing embarrassing broadcasts where some of the meanest comedians out there took pot shots at easy targets like Flavor Flav and Pam Anderson. They weren't fun, and were only funny in an uncomfortable sort of way. The Bob Saget roast, on the other hand, was clearly a bunch of people who clearly cared about the guy making fun of him in a way that showed it. Don't get me wrong, there was plenty of stuff that was over the line, but the spirit behind it wasn't so - and I hate to sound like an 8-year-old - mean.

So anyone who listened would hear from me that Comedy Central needed to follow the Bob Saget roast pattern again. Find a comedian that had a lot of friends who also happened to be funny and let them go after each other in a good-natured, but still no holds barred, roast.

Unfortunately, I'll bet Larry the Cable Guy fits that mold. They'll bring in Foxworthy and the rest of the Blue Collar crew, and I'm sure they think the world of each other...but c'mon. Next time, I'll be more specific in my requests to Comedy Central.

there were a lot of crotch punches

2009-02-19T09:37:00.005-05:00

I'm going to be honest. Putting together a second run of the SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE is pretty scary. Trying to root through the first season and repeat what worked, cast off what didn't work, and find a few new twists while relying on a new cast of contestants leaves me nervous.*

Last night - in the midst of trying to find what will work for my character to separate him from an American Idol** judge, worrying that all of our contestants this time came from inside the Worx, and hoping that the audience we built will continue to follow the show this time around - we got together to do a photo shoot to get some publicity for the show running.

You know what? I had a blast. It's kind of nice to stop worrying about the how the show will go and remember why we do the things we do in that building. To put together something entertaining while getting to goof off with our friends? That's what it's all about.

* JMatt, the brains and major force behind the SHOWCASE, is likely somewhere so far beyond nervous that he wet himself laughing at how nervous I am for this show.

** Go Anoop! No, seriously, I'm kind of on the bandwagon this time around.

you know what? i like pork. pork is delicious.

2009-02-10T08:29:00.002-05:00

Well, it doesn't have the glitz of people hurling insults at each other in an election season, but the stimulus bill has at least generated some conversation. Whether it's because of an actual attempt towards bipartisanship or because we need a handful of Republican votes in the Senate, what would have been a pretty awesome piece of legislation has watered down because of accusations of too much pork.

For example, family planning. One of the provisions in the House version of the stimulus bill was for the expansion of Medicaid for birth control.

Medicaid is already the single largest source of public funding for family planning nationwide, according to the Guttmacher Institute. The stimulus provision would have made it easier for states to cover family planning for low-income women who currently make slightly too much to qualify for regular Medicaid.

Seems pretty striaght forward to me, but is it stimulus?

The birth control expansion would simply have simply made it easier for states to relax the eligibility criteria to cover more women. Providing more services, to more people, with more money supplied by the federal government is textbook economic stimulus.

Then why haven't we heard about this wonderful textbook economic stimulus that is going to help more people? Oh, we have. My apologies for linking to the admittedly politically biased Daily Kos, but it's the first hit after four pages of sifting through Google News results that didn't refer to this provision as "giving out free condoms." Oh, what's that? You have heard about the cutting of the free condoms from the stimulus bill and that's all you heard about it? Must be that liberal media.

Of course, health care and family planning aren't the only "pet projects" that have been stripped from the House's version of the bill. There are also frivolities like...oh, I don't know...let's say education? Good thing we took care of that:

Gone entirely is funding for higher education construction, which, under the House-passed version, could have meant up to $242 million for the University at Buffalo.

Silly job-creating, education-friendly construction has no place in a serious bill aimed at helping Americans. Especially when it's aimed at an area that was in a bad economic way even before the sky started falling.

Similarly, the Senate eliminated funding for school construction. The House bill would have provided $31.9 million for the district of Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo.

Oh, and who needs schools?

For the love of all things holy, the Democrats need spines now more than ever. "Hey, jerk, you don't get to cut health care and education...especially health care and education that will help the economy." No one?

"Hey jerk, you don't get to frame an entire bill aimed at doing something to get us out of the mess that your side created as 'free condoms for deadbeats.' Oh, and while we're at it, come with something stronger than 'tax cuts' or please just shut up and vote for the nice, helpful stimulus bill." Anyone at all on the Democratic side?

No? Crap.

So this thing might not work like it's supposed to. And it will be the fault of the Republicans who led the charge to make sure it didn't. And in 2010, when people go to vote, will they remember that? Nope. By then this whole thing will have been framed as the first major failure of a President Obama who went unchecked by the Democratic Congress. I think I'm going to be sick now.

all it does is say "buy my book! buy my book!..."

2009-02-04T00:41:00.003-05:00

There's a store. Buy some stuff from there. Wear it to the SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE season 2 premiere on February 28th at 10:30 pm at Comedy Worx. You'll be glad you did.

Coming soon(ish)...Brice Powers t-shirts.

things occasionally get changed forever

2009-02-02T23:04:00.003-05:00

Remember when we used to go around saying that a certain date changed everything? We were chastised by certain politicians for thinking about the world as it was before that event. Well, that's the past now. "Why is that the past?" you ask? Because during last night's Super Bowl, this happened:

To quote one Ben Roberts: "Bruce Springsteen just teabagged America."

February 1st, 2009. Remember that day. Never forget that day. Everything that happens from here on out is a thing that must be viewed in a new light. We've all been teabagged as a nation, and we must band together and move on. And always, always remember.

the parade lasted about a year-and-a-half

2009-01-24T19:53:00.000-05:00

So I've had a while to digest the big Inauguration day hoopla. Leading up to Obama's speech, commentators were preparing for a soundbite on par with "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" or "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." Instead, we got a President Obama who was very matter-of-fact about what we were facing. Instead, we got a speech whose tone wasn't looking to cap off the historic moment but rather focused on the task at hand. And that's what I'm always going to remember about the speech. Not any of the words, not even the subtle jabs at the Bush administration. I'll remember that Obama's Inauguration speech could be summed up simply with "Okay America, let's get to work."

i'm sure there's something in the revelation about this

2009-01-19T09:59:00.004-05:00

Zack, my little brother, is in his second semester of Divinity School. So I'm certain that, by now, he's well trained in identifying the end times. I mean, that's got to be the very first thing they cover there. You know, just in case the signs start showing up in a time and manner that suggest you might not need to take exams seriously. All I'm saying is that if the end is near, Zack knows it.

After yesterday's NFC Championship game, I got the following text:

The Cardinals are in the Super Bowl. This is an unmistakable sign. Get your ass to church.

So, if you guys need me, I'll be getting right with Jesus. Zack thinks it's a good idea.

you know how hard it is to find a graphic that stays still?

2009-01-15T16:36:00.002-05:00

By now, boys and girls, you should be checking How RDU Doin'? on an obsessive basis. But on the off chance you're not, behold my first stab at video editing since I was an undergraduate messing with Media 100 in my field production class. I'm pretty pleased with how it came out.

Special thanks to Chris Mayo, who encouraged me when it was at first difficult getting strangers to speak into a camera about a store that sells "sex helpers."

nothing is more american than jamming a pencil under somone's finger nails

2009-01-13T08:57:00.003-05:00

As far as I'm concerned, the politics of 24 have never really gone down smooth. I always tune in for the over-the-top badassery and things that blow up, but there's always been this creepy little undertone to each season. Last season's lesson was that if you hit enough brown people, eventually one of them will be a terrorist. This year, after having seen roughly 45 minutes of the season, I can already tell that this is going to be a great big love-in for the virtues of torture.

The "do whatever it takes to keep people safe" message, delivered from a heroic Jack Bower to a smug Senate that wants him to know the US doesn't torture, has already been echoed three times either directly or indirectly. It's clear what they're driving at, and it's making my stomach a little queezy. Then again, it's on FOX.

Really and truly, it's the return of Tony Almeida that has me intrigued enough to keep going...but if that payoff isn't huge, I may finally be done with 24.

come join me, why don't you?

2009-01-12T15:30:00.003-05:00

Just a little something to remind you folks that I do more than blog about comics. If you laugh, it's okay. I'll save a seat for you next to me in hell.

Heh heh..."freak accident."

If this turns out to be less than authentic, I don't know if I'll be more disappointed or relieved.

hey, talented folks...you should audition and SPARKLE!!!

2009-01-06T01:32:00.002-05:00

From the Facebook page...

Hello SPARKLE fans!

As previously announced, SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE will be returning this February for its second season. The show will premiere on Saturday, February 28th and run for six weeks.

We'll be making the "official" audition announcement on Facebook in the next day or two. But since several people have expressed interest in auditions, we wanted to go ahead and get some of the details out there.

Auditions are scheduled for Saturday, January 24th from 12 noon to 3 PM at the Worx Comedy Theater.

To audition, you'll need: a completed application form, a non-returnable headshot of yourself, a performance piece of no longer than two minutes.

More details will be posted soon on Facebook including a F.A.Q. and the necessary forms. So if you or someone you know would be interested in auditioning, please pass along this info to them

If you have any questions, please don't hesistate to ask.

Thanks,
SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE

the worst of everything, all in one little bottle

2009-01-05T22:37:00.002-05:00

This is apparently a real thing. I'll be weeping in the corner.

i am going to rock the face off of 2009

2009-01-01T03:10:00.000-05:00

I am going to rock the face off of 2009. I don't know exactly what that means and therefore I don't know how I'm going to achieve it, but it's going to happen. 2008 kind of sucked. 2009 is my time. And I know this because I rocked 2009 in while in the POWER STANCE!!!

funnybooks of the two weeks prior to this one: The Walking Dead #56 & What If? Spider-Man: Back in Black

2008-12-31T16:44:00.004-05:00

So, on the day that new books for this week should be coming out (they won't until Friday, but if you were chomping at the bit for me to get this out you already knew that), I give you my picks for the previous two weeks. Shall we?

I will continue to repeat this until you get tired of it. Zombie movies, zombie comics, zombie pretty much anything are all at their best when they're about the people who have to live through it more than the hows and whys of the zombies or even the danger those zombies present. I said zombies a lot there. Zombies.

With The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman shows that he not only knows this, but thrives on the idea. This is a crazy drama about real people doing real things in a messed up world. The zombies are window dressing, this is a dramatic book that deals with the consequences of living in constant horror.

So a What If? book goes like this: a landmark story from Marvel Comics' history is retold with one detail having been changed, therefore taking the story in a different direction. When this was a regular series, many people would read across the top (for example: "What If the Fantastic Four all had the same powers?" and reply to the comic "everyone dies."

Because that's kind of what happened in most of them. As such, the What If? series is usually a story darker in tone than most mainstream capes & tights comics. This issue, though, which explores what would have happened if the bullet that hit Aunt May (and caused Spider-Man to make a deal with the devil) had instead hit and instantly killed Mary Jane. The result is raw emotion from Peter Parker juxtaposed amazingly against the cold Kingpin and the "by-the-book" Iron Man. And, oh goodness, is it dark.

Peter crosses a few lines, causes some trouble, and goes all Dolemite at one particular moment. Most What If? stories wrap up in one issue, but when next year's batch comes out, I'd like to see where else a Parker that has made these choices and landed in that situation can land. Make it happen, Marvel.

one because it's a tradition of sorts, the other because i'm still not tired of it

2008-12-25T09:55:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas.

scott says i've learned the #1 rule of the internet

2008-12-17T23:32:00.005-05:00

Yesterday, I sat down to do my part to keep How RDU Doin'? rolling into a powerhouse local blog. I went through the reader, and picked up on a story about The Biggest Loser finale and how it contained a Raleigh couple. The last time someone from Raleigh hit it big on a huge prime time reality contest thingamabobber, it was that Clay Aiken kid.

So I wrote a post pleading with Raleigh to support these folks the way they did good ol' Clay. It wasn't my best work, but I thought it was a funny enough bit. Andi and I went to have a nice dinner at one of Durham's fine eateries and watch Slumdog Millionaire (totally worth your time, by the way), and I forgot I'd written that post entirely.

When we came home, I checked my special How RDU Doin'? email because I'm desperately behind schedule on what was going to be a brilliant feature and want to get started as soon as I get certain confirmations (ooh, mysterious!). I saw that there had been a comment on something I posted. "Oh good, we're getting comments." I took a closer look and saw that it had drawn more than the usual amount of comments.

It seems that the Claymate nation takes serious exception to the implication that Clay rose to fame on a karaoke-style game show. Serious exception. The Claymates showed up to tear me a new one in the comments section by pointing out that Clay is not reduced to blogging, but rather has achieved success as a huge Broadway star (did you know he was in Spamalot?).

I've often been told that you're not doing anything right on the internet until you get hate mail. Clearly this is another banner day for our fledgling blog.

Lesson learned.

scrub all you like, it'll stick around for two days

2008-12-09T10:03:00.006-05:00

It's back.

So is Brice.

sean avery: putting the "k" in klassy

2008-12-03T06:35:00.004-05:00

So we all know that Sean Avery is a grade a d-bag. But that doesn't stop him from going out of his way to prove it on a regular basis. This time, though, it's earned him a suspension. Not from the Dallas Stars, but the NHL. Here's what landed him in the trouble:

Reporters were waiting to speak with Avery about disparaging remarks he'd made last month about Flames star Jarome Iginla when Avery walked over to the group and asked if there was a camera present. When told there was, he said, "I'm just going to say one thing."

"I'm really happy to be back in Calgary; I love Canada," the Ontario native said. "I just want to comment on how it's become like a common thing in the NHL for guys to fall in love with my sloppy seconds. I don't know what that's about, but enjoy the game tonight." He then walked out of the locker room.

Defenders of Avery and people who just want to take a few shots at the NHL for overreacting will say that this was just some poor gamesmanship, just an attempt to get into the head of Calgary's Dion Phaneuf. Phaneuf is dating Elisha Cuthbert, known unanimously here at Big American Party as the girl who played the character stupid enough to step into a bear trap in 24's second season.

There is more to it than that. "Sloppy seconds" is an intensely graphic term that boiled the women he was referring to down to, well, an intensely graphic image. I'm wondering if the usually up-in-arms sports media will call this out as an incident of not just an NHL player, but one of the few names and faces casual fans can identify, using a derogatory remark about women or if this will simply be acknowledged as the straw that broke the camel's back, on par with things like yelling back at an abusive fan. My fear is that it will be the latter.

Particularly disturbing is that he didn't just drop it as an offhand remark in the middle of questioning. Rather he had thought through, probably rehearsed, and checked to see that the cameras were rolling for this charming little soundbite (to be repeated on Jim Rome's radio show thrice daily for the next six months).

Maybe a mere suspension is too good for this guy.

they will pardon a tasty swamp bug on thanksgiving

2008-11-24T23:09:00.004-05:00

I have no concept of how long this has been floating around the interwebs, but there are some photos of the contested ballots in the Franken/Coleman senate election in Minnesota.

Of particular interest to me is this bad boy right here:

Is there more to this than meets the eye? Does this voter know something about Al Franken and the other candidates he or she voted for that we don't? Is there a secret cabal of lizard people infiltrating - nay dominating - our highest branches of government?

I, for one, welcome our new lizard overlords.

Wolfpack 41, Tar Holes 10

2008-11-22T16:06:00.001-05:00

I don't want to say that I called it or anything, but I called it.

how is how rdu doin' doing?

2008-11-21T11:02:00.002-05:00

I think this email from our fearless leader says it all:

We are the #1 search result for "tazed at funeral." We have a lot to be proud of today.

That we do, Scott, that we do.

playoff system? yes we can.

2008-11-18T08:09:00.003-05:00

The change we need. And by "we," I mean NCAA Division I (or Bowl Subdivision, if you prefer*) football. Barack Obama, our president elect, has come out on the side of a playoff. So Barack Obama is a Bears fan who wants a playoff for college football. If I see him at a State game buddying up with Rod Brind'Amour, I'm ready to declare him the greatest president ever without him having even been sworn in.

Of course, with the political season having not yet died down, he even took a shot at those who disagree with him; adding "I don't know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this." John Swofford is not a serious fan of college football.

*No one does.

teams played football this weekend

2008-11-17T09:36:00.003-05:00

Wolfpack 21, Demon Deacons 17 - Russell Wilson was amazing and the NC State defense came up big when it needed to the most in this game, which will boost my expectations for next season just enough that the cycle of being a Wolfpack fan can continue when the basketball team(1-0 after avenging our loss to the mighty Privateers of New Orleans) inevitably crushes my soul. I watched this game in the rain with newly-married Mr. Shmecki McShmam (formerly Laul Peeland). State beating a top 25 team after a rough season is more fun than a little rain can stop.

Also? I've figured out State's niche for the season. Does your school play football in North Carolina? Were there high expectations for your season? NC State will ruin it. ECU? Ruined. Duke? Ruined. Wake? Ruined. UNC? On notice.

If we'd had App State on the schedule, we could have gone to a bowl...

Terps 17, Tar Holes 15 - Here's the other reason Carolina is on notice. Their quarterback seems to have left his ability to play or even recognize a football game in his other pants.

UPDATE: Sexton is now fighting for the job he earned through a string of injury and incompetence from the two guys who were ahead of him this season. I can only hope that this causes the kind of chemistry issues that can keep States in-state win streak alive.

Bears 3, Dirty Cheating Packers more than 3 - So. This is bad. Three-way tie for the division lead. It looks bad. The Bears need at least four of the next six to win the division, as I see it. If their defense continues to get ripped up, it isn't happening. Not that the offense had a great game or anything(they didn't, they had the opposite of a great game), but remember when they were the liability rather than the defense? What happened?

Eagles 13, Bengals 13 - The NFL's first tie in six years. I hate ties, but not for the reason everyone else does. I hate ties because I'll hear about how the concept of the tie is the worst thing in sports. Normally, I'd agree. But I'm cool with the way the NFL works it. If neither team can score in any way in 15 minutes with the game on the line, neither team deserves a win.

just a small bit of what my problem with prop 8 is

2008-11-12T00:28:00.002-05:00

I might add more later about how dangerous legislating faith...or even your (incorrect) perception of it is...later. This is pretty good for now, though.

SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap

2008-11-09T11:25:00.004-05:00

The finale was a grand success. Lots of fun, bits on top of bits, and each contestant bringing it hard so that we can say the best show was definitely the last one. Congrats to Jon, who won by setting the bar incredibly high in the first two weeks and playing strong enough to stay ahead by the time everyone else caught up.

I've praised the contestants to no end and I don't think I need to tell you how awesome I was, but there is something I've left out of all these recaps. Jason Matthews worked long and strange hours to pull this thing together so that the rest of us could just focus on having fun with his show.

Thanks, JMatt. Get some rest. There's going to be high demand for a season 2.

north carolina went blue - anything can happen

2008-11-07T19:56:00.002-05:00

So. The Chicago Bears will take the field against the 8-0 Tennessee Titans. At quarterback, Kyle Orton - formerly the "rookie sensation" - formerly the "game manager" - formerly the "pro bowl slam dunk" - won't be playing quarterback. Rex - formerly "means king" - formerly - injury prone - formerly good/bad Rex - Grossman will. Brian Urlacher is a shadow of his former self. The secondary is decimated. Can the Bears get a win on Sunday?

Yes we can.

what i would do, not that anyone asked

2008-11-07T16:32:00.003-05:00

I'm still not sure I believe it, really. North Carolina is a blue state, and the Democrats have all but a stranglehold on the Senate. You'll have to forgive me, but all I can think right now is "don't screw this up." The Democrats, with Obama as their leader, now have a serious chance at making good on the change that has been promised. Both in the tone in DC and in the policy in this country.

I believe Obama will reach across the aisle. But if he's going to do it well, some of us will have to wait on some of the grand designs we might have for a government operating from left-of-center.

At this point, taking some measures to stabilize the economy is job one. There's a lame duck session of Congress to go, and maybe something will get done there, but we'll need something real and something strong to bounce our economy back all the way. No-brainer. Everyone wants that.

So Mr. President-elect, work with some Democrats and Republicans on getting that taken care of. Let them have some input. Let them propose things. Compromise. In the midst of all of this, though, remember that you're in charge and they'll have to concede more than you will. You have, with the Democratic party, a pretty strong mandate.

Up next, it will be time to start dotting the final Is and crossing the final Ts in Iraq. Also, it will be time to focus on the hills between Pakistan and Afghanistan. This is also something that both sides can be even quicker to come to an agreement on, as we all know it needs to be done.

Suddenly, you've reached across the aisle, just as you promised on two pretty large issues. Then you have your political capital. Then it's time to look at health care and the other issues that have divided the political leaders for so long. That will be when we see just how far we've come.

SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap on a thursday

2008-11-06T13:32:00.000-05:00

The word of the week was junk. Stuffed tights, not-so-stuffed tights, and a pair boxers without a button fly all made appearances while a fourth contestant's backup dancer rubbed his junk all up on me(clearly not the way to get a high score). The crowd loved it, and the SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE had a helluva night.

What could have been a disaster, when one contestant took somewhere between 4 minutes and eternity to set up his interpretive dance, turned out to be a beautifully fun moment where PT and I got to really have a go at each other(all in good fun and totally in character, of course). The show is supposed to be about the contestants, but that was just a ton of fun.

This week's video? Enjoy Chris Moore's crotch-tastic performance.

Next week is the final week, and the contestants have been ordered only to SPARKLE. I can't wait to see what they'll do with it.

there's plenty to talk about, but...

2008-11-04T23:56:00.002-05:00

For now Media Matters has the best point: will the media-at-large remember that they actually called Bush's 2004 victory "a mandate?"

how has this been around for nearly two months without my having seen it!?!?!?!!?

2008-10-28T19:16:00.002-04:00

BarackRoll'd!!!

Brilliant...

i get that it's all a part of the game, but still...

2008-10-28T13:18:00.003-04:00

You know what would be fun? If, between the Chicago Bears, NC State Wolfpack, and Carolina Hurricanes, I could enjoy one of my favorites without massive injuries to key players.

SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap on a monday

2008-10-27T08:55:00.003-04:00

Saturday night was probably the best show, overall, the SHOWCASE has put on. Most of the contestants have figured out where their strengths are and played them up big. Even as resident jerk Brice Powers, I had to give out three scores of ten.

I originally wanted to post a link to Travis' performance, but I don't know if the video really conveys the sheer, um, Travis-ness of it. Similarly, performances from Jenny and Paul (the other two tens that Brice gave out) don't work on video as well as they did live. So for this week's link I'm going to go with Jon's performance, which I'm retroactively thinking we all underrated.

Due to some of the language used, I don't recommend watching this video in front of people who can fire you, children, or impressionable house plants.

i voted today, but the political ads didn't stop

2008-10-26T22:31:00.001-04:00

Andi says "go vote, it's fun and easy!"

two-timing is awesome, but only with blogging

2008-10-23T20:52:00.005-04:00

There's a good chance that production on this bad boy is going to take a nosedive. Before you tear your garments, sit in ashes, and weep uncontrollably you should go check out howRDUdoin' and you'll get more of Ben than you can possibly handle. As a bonus, you'll also get the wicked awesome wit and wisdom of the brilliant Chris Conklin and playful barbs at the Charlotte Bobcats from Scott Jennings.

howRDUdoin.com is locally focused but, since I'm way bigger than the greater Triangle area, there's still plenty to go here. In the meantime, though, visit howRDUdoin.com early and often.

SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap on a tuesday night

2008-10-21T23:05:00.002-04:00

I can tell you how great the show was. I can plead with you to understand how hysterical the whole show turned out through a weak recap. Or, I can just post a link to the video of runaway winner Jenny Spencer teaching us about the virtues of professional pirating. I'm lazy, so guess which one I'm going to go with.

bookmobiles are for pansies

2008-10-20T20:44:00.003-04:00

Every now and again, it's good to stop with all the political nonsense, comic book worship, and blathering about my life and use this blog for what blogs are meant for:

Showing my loyal readers awesome stuff on the interwebs. This, ladies and gents, is the biblioburro.

A whimsical riff on the bookmobile, Mr. Soriano’s Biblioburro is a small institution: one man and two donkeys. He created it out of the simple belief that the act of taking books to people who do not have them can somehow improve this impoverished region, and perhaps Colombia.

Behold it, tremble before it, and rock out to how awesome it is.

and now, i begin teasing the SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE

2008-10-16T23:29:00.002-04:00

In order to provide you, my loyal fanbase, with enticement to watch this week's SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE I shall provide links to two of the better performances from the first two weeks.

Travis Pomeroy performing N'Sync's "It's Gonna Be Me" in week one.

Jon Karnofsky and the lovely and talented Del Flack performing a scene from The Graduate.

Good times. Watch this show.

winning the hearts of millions of joe six packs and one joe the plumber

2008-10-16T09:28:00.005-04:00

Because general televised punditry will cover the rest, only two thoughts on last night's debate:

1. Senator Obama started droppin' the letter g from the end of his "-ing" words. We noticed this for the first time while he was declining talking about Sarah Palin, and thought it might be a subtle jab at her folksyness. He kept doing it throughout the rest of the debate, though, and now I'm wondering if he was actually coached into it because of the way the folksy talk has supposedly resonated with people.

It's also possible, I suppose, that Obama could have been doing this all along and I never noticed. It's something I'm going to be actively looking out for now, at any rate.

2. In the latest battle in the Republican war on all things intellectual, Senator McCain actually managed to talk about Senator Obama being eloquent in a way that suggested that eloquence was a bad thing. I should make it clear that I know that McCain was trying to say that Obama was obfuscating his intentions behind some well-placed words.

That's not what McCain said, though. He could have simply pointed attention to the phraseology Obama was employing and picked at it as he saw fit. Instead he specifically and repeatedly derided Obama for being eloquent. The message was clearly that since Barack Obama doesn't talk like you, he can't be trusted.

Because what we really need is four more years of someone stumbling over his made-up words to inspire confidence...

even i know that this is the most important endorsement you can get in this state

2008-10-13T13:19:00.003-04:00

Dean Smith. As a State grad who was raised on Duke basketball, I will always acknowledge Dean Smith's place in basketball history. Also? I'm perfectly happy that his politics are very often in line with my own.

even when you see it coming, it's gratifying

2008-10-12T11:55:00.005-04:00

Philly hates Sarah Palin.

What you should treat this as, though, is another indication that the McCain/Palin ticket is dangerously incompetent. They get a half-good idea, the idea to play up the "hockey mom" angle on opening night for an NHL team. Okay. Maybe put her in an important swing state to get their ever-tumbling numbers up. Still good politicking. Then, as they try to figure out where this stunt will work, someone in the McCain war room says "Philadelphia! It's perfect!"

Philadelphia, a section of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that is likely overwhelmingly pro-Obama. Philadelphia, where everyone gets booed anyway (even Santa Claus). What did they think was going to happen?

As a hockey fan myself, I'd like to think that Sarah Palin would get booed out of any NHL arena she showed up in. However, if she'd tried the same stunt in Columbus or with one of the Florida teams, someone might have been able to point to her appearance as a success. Then again, maybe she's such a hockey mom that she couldn't bring herself to show up in a non-traditional hockey market. Or maybe, just maybe, the McCain campaign is completely and utterly clueless.

SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE sunday morning recap

2008-10-12T10:45:00.000-04:00

Last night's SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE featured the contestants trying to reenact scenes from the AFI top 100. While some of the contestants were left without ways to properly SPARKLE up their performances, Jon Karnofsky (with help from Del Flack) managed to recreate an iconic scene from The Graduate that was completely worth the price of admission.

Let me go ahead and give PT Scarborough his due for being great as Jason Aquarius, washed up actor and host of the show. He's been great, and worth the price of admission himself. Forgot to mention that last week. My bad.

Next week? The contestants have to teach the audience something. The challenge leaves more room for zaniness and gimmickry, so I expect a heckuva show. Be there, why don't you?

what the world needs now is axl rose

2008-10-10T08:33:00.002-04:00

Hell hasn't frozen over yet, but the forecast is pointing towards it. It looks like what's left of Guns N' Roses has set a real live release date for "Chinese Democracy." There were those of us who thought that Axl's paranoia, perfectionism, fights with fashion designers, and rotating band members would never actually reach the point where Axl was comfortable releasing an album. Honestly, I won't really believe it until the Best Buys of America are full of people climbing over each other to get to the display and bask in the Slashless goodness.

at least i can be sure that Obama isn't going into the prevent defense

2008-10-09T18:19:00.004-04:00

Barack Obama, according to nearly every available poll, is leading the presidential race by a pretty wide(and ever-widening despite some filthy tactics from 2008 McCain that would make 2004 McCain wonder if he actually did father a black baby) margin. So what's Obama's next move?

It looks like he's about to try and score the knockout punch in the form of 30 minutes of network prime time.

I don't trust polls very much in spite of my near obsessive checking of FiveThirtyEight on a daily basis. I do little dances as it looks more and more like North Carolina just might go to Obama(something I began to realize as a possibility back in July), but it's all still with a doubt in the back of my head about a country that saw fit to give George the W the presidency* because hey felt like Gore came off as too much of a know-it-all. The doubt gets deeper when I remember that the same country, after looking at the consequences of that action, decided to give him a second chance.

I do believe there's a fundamental difference this time around, though. This time, the Democratic candidate isn't an uninspiring John Kerry. This time it's a guy who's bringing new voters to the table and genuinely exciting people. Despite this, I still won't believe it fully until I see Obama named as the winner on election night.

If this TV time can be the knockout punch, though...if people tune into this and Obama opens up a lead in the polls so big that it passes even my doubting-because-I've-been-burned-so-many-times-before brain's margin of error...well, I won't mind doing the tiniest of premature celebrations.

*[normal claims about elections being stolen]

i'm not even going to think about what would happen when a kitchen knife, a torch, and a chainsaw are thrown in

2008-10-08T23:19:00.005-04:00

So, two things about John McCain have stuck with me lately.

1) The country is in financial crisis. McCain suspends his campaign so he can only focus on the economy. Let's just pretend that this move wasn't at all politically motivated. For the sake of argument.

2) McCain thinks government spending is out of control. His proposed solution from last night's debate? Freeze all spending(except, of course, defense and veterans affairs).

So my problem here is that McCain seems to want to deal with problems by stopping the world. If this guy somehow manages to win the presidency, what's going to happen when he faces his first crisis? Is he going to shut the country down? He can't. When the $#!% hits the fan, a president can't just pretend there's nothing else going on. A president is going to have to juggle. McCain has conceded that he can't even manage running a campaign and delaying the passing of the bailout legislation.

Just spitballing...

i didn't laugh last night, but that's more due to my commitment to the bit than anything else

2008-10-05T12:12:00.003-04:00

Last night was hilarious. The SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE is a six-week long talent competition that I should have been plugging here before the first show rather than the day after it. Still, I can't think of a better way for you to spend $10 on the next five Saturday nights.

This past week was the singing competition. I'm one of the judges for this thing, and all I was told was that the contestants were given a week to put together a performance of a former Billboard #1 single. Travis Pomeroy went first, doing an N'Sync song wearing an apparatus which connected him to two "backup dancers." Hilarious. My first thought was that everyone who followed him was just going to come out and sing...leaving them screwed. Fortunately, the other five contestants came through with gimmicky goodness as well and provided one helluva show.

As the "mean" judge for this marvelous talent competition, I had to pretend not to be having a good time. I also had to work as hard as I ever have to keep myself from laughing at a show with plenty of laugh out loud moments.

So what's on deck for this Saturday? The six contestants will have to act out a scene from one of the AFI's top 100 movies with a partner of their choosing. If the show follows form, I expect them to do more than just recreate great scenes. I expect them to SPARKLE!

joe biden won by answering questions and using facts

2008-10-03T08:28:00.002-04:00

You can look all over the interweb and find all kinds of thoughtful reaction to last night's VP debate. I'd join in, but I have a raging headache from when I beat my head against the wall each time Palin either dodged a question or butchered the pronunciation of the word "nuclear."

we'll always have memories of people sporting faux black eyes

2008-10-02T08:21:00.006-04:00

It doesn't come as a surprise, but I'm still sad that things didn't work out for Jeff O'Neill's comeback. I had hoped that, after a season away from the ice, something would click for him upon returning to Raleigh and he'd find enough of his former self to be a threat on the third line. It wasn't meant to be, though, so I'll let the old News and Observer Hurricanes beat writer Luke DeCock take it from here:

His appearance at the RBC Center on Sunday may have been his last in an NHL uniform. If so, it was fitting he went out on the rink where he had his greatest success, in the uniform he wore for almost his entire career.

History may record Jeff O'Neill as an underachiever, never reaching the promise that made him the fifth overall pick in 1997. But for a few seasons with the Hurricanes, he was every bit that good -- just not this fall.

don't distract me from my distraction with things that matter

2008-09-30T09:36:00.000-04:00

Sunday night. I'm enjoying the Bears defeat of the Eagles. Or I'm dreading what looks like another second half collapse. Or both. Still, I'm watching football. Then something strange happens. Al Michaels mentions the current financial crisis on Wall St. and makes several references to the bailout.

Tuesday morning. Today. I'm trying to enjoy the SportsCenter highlights of last night's Ravens/Steelers game that I didn't watch in favor of Heroes and actually spending some time with Andi. The SportsCenter crew make what feels like a dozen more bailout references.

This has to stop. I watch sports - and I don't think I'm alone in this - to not think about what's going on in the real world. I watch sports so that, for a few wonderful moments, there's nothing more important than my team's defense coming up huge on 4th and goal or nothing more important than the offensive failures that kept that defense on the field. If my team isn't playing, there's nothing more important than the other games shaking out in a way that favors my team in the standings. If the game has no affect on my team's possible playoff future, then there's nothing more important than the stats of a receiver who's on my fantasy team. In short, sports are a distraction that allow me to get way too heavily invested in something that I can remind myself is actually pretty trivial should it go poorly.

I do not want your references to the real world in my sports. Not during the game. Not when you're broadcasting the highlights. There are at least 5 channels I could have turned to if I wanted to hear what people thought of a bailout plan and its affect on the financial future of this country. When I watch the game, I just want to think about the game.

Everything else will still be there when the clock hits 0:00.

Because I've already sullied a post about watching football with political nonsense, I may as well toss you a link to a video where Barney Frank becomes my hero for pointing out the absurdity of Republicans politicizing the failure of the bailout plan by talking about how Nancy Pelosi tried to politicize the bailout plan(via Catie Braly by way of Facebook, for full disclosure). Enjoy this more than I was able to enjoy SportsCenter this morning.

bootlegging obama merchandise is probably more fun than it should be

2008-09-29T11:05:00.006-04:00

I was one of 18,000 people who went to see Obama speak in Greensboro this past weekend. The speech itself was another typical Obama home run and Obama got a little more aggressive than he allowed himself during Friday's debate.

"Through 90 minutes of debate, John McCain had a lot to say about me, but he didn't have anything to say about you," Obama said. "He didn't even say the words 'middle class.' He didn't even say the words 'working people.'"

The McCain spin control has countered with the already tired Palin line about Obama talking about foreign policy without saying "victory," a word that McCain and Bush love to use without ever giving so much as a hint of what victory in the broad "war on terror" or even specifically in Iraq actually means.

I'm not here to talk about whose talking point is better (Obama's is). I'm here to talk about how awesome the bootleg Obama merchandise that surrounded the rally was. Buttons, t-shirts, and rally towels were among the available options. With some Obama stuff already on the way, I was only tempted to purchase two items.

One was a button, featuring a shirtless Obama punching forward with "HOPE" tattooed on his knuckles. In retrospect, denying myself this bit of awesome was a complete misstep. Mostly because I can't find an internet image of this thing, and I'm concerned that no one will believe it existed.

The other item I found a little odd was a t-shirt featuring Obama shaking hands with Martin Luther King, Jr. It read "Dreams Do Come True." While I think that might be a little funny and over-the-top, this rally showed that Obama means much more to many of the attendees than just a presidential candidate ever could.

Hope is awesome.

would you really trust me to write a book about a teenage girl?

2008-09-26T13:45:00.005-04:00

While anyone who particularly cares already knows about this*, I still wanted to give my industry outsider opinion on the cancellation of DC's Minx line of comic books. Minx was an imprint that produced comics aimed directly at teenage girls, supposedly inspired by the success of manga and a few other books like Persepolis among a demographic that remains unreachable when it comes to big-time, American-based funnybook publishers.

Given the clueless approach taken towards the creation of this line, I'm not surprised to see that it's been scrapped. The story at Comic Book Resources gives this line:

Multiple sources close to the situation agree...that this development should be seen as a depressing indication that a market for alternative young adult comics does not exist in the capacity to support an initiative of this kind, if at all.

I disagree. I think the audience is out there, clearly. Someone is buying the books that gave DC the confidence to go ahead with the Minx line. Let me toss out an idea that you may do what you will with.

My diligent internet research reveals that the best-selling manga title is a series called Chobits. The creative force behind it is a group of four creators that go by "Clamp." All four are women. Persepolis was created by Marjane Satrapi. In case you were unaware, she's also a woman.

So who are the creative forces behind the Minx books? Mostly men. There were some women involved, but by-and-large the Minx line was guys trying to write comics for teenage girls. In the case of Mike Carey, who does fantastic work with the X-titles over at Marvel, they're 50-year-old guys trying to write books for teenage girls.

So DC(and Marvel, if you're interested), if you want to attract this audience, start hiring the best female creators you can find. Let them do whatever they want to do. Put that product on the shelves of the local bookstores and promote it as its own thing. Not as a big company most known for supplying movie studios with material trying to imitate something...but as something that exists on its own. Let the dollars roll in. Thank me later.

*I wanted to talk about this earlier, but decided that it would be good to let this post hang out up top for a little bit longer.

if pressed, this is what i'd say hope looks like

2008-09-22T13:50:00.003-04:00

I registered voters yesterday. I stood for two hours in front of a gas station and registered voters. Two of them. One per hour. I couldn't be more pleased with how I spent that time.

I stood next to Andi with my clipboard, held so that a sign taped to the back of it proclaiming "Register to Vote" could be seen by anyone who bothered to look, and asked passers by if they were registered. My fear that people would be annoyed seemed to be unfounded, at least in this location.* When asked if they were registered, people would respond that they were and then would tell us that they were happy to see us out there trying to make sure more people could answer the same way. Another person informed us that he had just registered and he "can't wait" to vote.

While the support was encouraging, we spent quite some time without anyone filling out the forms attached to our clipboards. Eventually, Andi and I began to wonder if our time would be better spent in a different area. We debated the pros and cons of moving our efforts and tried to figure out what alternative locale would prove to be more fruitful.

As we did this, a sixty-something black man passed by. "Are you registered to vote, sir?" I asked. He stopped dead in he tracks, looked at me, and smiled one of the friendliest smiles I've seen from behind his slightly unkempt, graying beard. "No. Let me run inside and I'll be right back out." His son was with him. The son, a registered voter, was plainly excited that his father was showing interest and assured us that he was in no rush. He would make sure his father registered.

It turned out the old man didn't need any prodding from his son. He came out of the convenience store and made a beeline straight towards me. Since he was without his glasses, he asked me to fill in his information for him.

We all joked around as the old man dictated his responses. When I asked him what party affiliation he preferred, he emphatically stated that he wanted to be a Democrat. They asked Andi and I about our affiliation. I gave a quick look around to make sure our impartiality wouldn't be jeopardized by answering and mumbled that I a Democrat as well, adding that I was "kinda afraid" of what a John McCain presidency would be like.

"Kinda afraid? We're more than just kinda afraid!" came the response.

By the time I handed over the clip board and form for him to look over and sign, the old man's smile widened even more (I have no idea how that could have even been physically possible). I can't imagine what it must have been like for him, knowing what he's seen in his lifetime, to finally be registering to vote(and knowing who he was registering to vote for, assuming that being more than kind of scared of McCain doesn't translate to a Libertarian vote).

The old man and his son thanked us, we thanked them, and they went back towards their truck. Before he got in, the old man looked up and repeated what we'd heard earlier from another new voter: "I can't wait."

Andi and I didn't say another word about going somewhere else.

*See previous post.

falconbridge shopping center's politics are more important than your rights

2008-09-22T12:43:00.006-04:00

I didn't want to ruin a very positive post with this story, but I think it should be mentioned that the organizer for yesterday's voter registration drive was forced to stop registering people to vote in front of The Mardi Gras Bowling Center by the people that run that little strip mall(The Falconbridge Shopping Center, for those wishing to stay clear). She had nothing that identified her party affiliation or support for any candidate, she was just told that they knew she was with the Obama campaign and was forced to stop registering people to vote.

My take on all of this was that this was pretty low. No one there was trying to sell anything. No one there was pan-handling. People were being asked a simple question: "Are you registered to vote?" If the answer was yes, they were told to have a nice day. If the answer was no, they were asked a simple follow-up question: "Would you like to register now." If the answer was yes, then five minutes later they had filled out the form and were on their merry way. If the answer was no, they were told to have a nice day.

Apparently, someone found this to be entirely objectionable and complained. At least, that's the official story. My guess, since the recounting of the banishment from the greater Mardi Gras area(The Falconbridge Shopping Center, for those wishing to stay clear) included that the owner of the property was very insistent that she knew for a fact that it was Obama volunteers registering people, it had more to do with the name Obama than any customer annoyed at having to answer a question or two without even breaking stride.

So you don't like Obama. Why stop people from registering to vote? If you think that people registering to vote hurts your candidate's chances...doesn't that say something about the candidate you're supporting?

Andi had a second, and probably more poignant take on the situation. On the way home, she lamented the fact that there is no such thing as public space. From one end of Durham to the other, if you want to register people to vote in actual high traffic areas, you're doing so at the mercy of whatever developer owns the land.

With that in mind, I'd like to point out that the people at The Woodcroft Shopping Center of Durham have been more than accommodating to volunteers helping people register to vote. I shop at their Food Lion and occasionally dine at their Subway or Pulcinella's Italian Restaurant. You should do the same

big american NFL review: AFC weeks 1&2

2008-09-20T19:10:00.002-04:00

Just ahead of week 3's snaps and just after NC State ended ECU's BCS dreams!

Did I overrate the Chargers?

I'm not ready to say that I have yet. They let one slip away in the final seconds against a very good Panthers team and lost to a Broncos team that I might have underrated in Denver. That's right, I said they lost. They didn't have it stolen from them from a referee, they lost. Was that a fumble? Yes. Absolutely, it was. I'm not saying the call wasn't blown. What I am saying is that no one on the San Diego defense caused that fumble, so in my estimation that means they deserved the loss.

That said, you'll have to remember the Chargers got off to a slow start last year and came close to knocking off the Patriots and getting to the Super Bowl. 0-2 is a rough hole, but the Chargers have too much talent to be done just yet.

Are the Patriots finished?

No. But they are in danger of losing the AFC East. Don't you dare for a second think that I'm jumping on the "Favre is the answer to all of the Jets' problems" bandwagon, though. I'm talking about Buffalo. The Bills have been impressive for two weeks. I'm not ready to call them the favorites to knock New England off of the top of the division yet, but I'm not ready to say that Matt Cassel is going to be just fine leading the team either.

The Patriots, with their squeezably soft schedule, are still very much a playoff team.

Did I overrate the Jaguars?

Unless they fix the problems hey have on the offensive line, I absolutely did. The good news for them is that Indianapolis doesn't seem to be the team they have been over the last few years and Houston hasn't stepped up their game the way I expected them to. The bad news is that the Titans seem to have powered through the quarterback drama to a 2-0 record and don't look that bad. Suddenly, "not that bad" puts them in a pretty good place unless the rest of the division wakes up.

Do I still like the Browns chances of making the playoffs?

Kinda. But after two weeks of football, not nearly as much as I did before the season started.

button button who's got the button

2008-09-18T23:40:00.003-04:00

Andi just ordered two of these official Obama buttons for us:

They're great and all, but I almost purchased one of these awesome bootleg Obama t-shirts:

big american NFL review: NFC weeks 1&2

2008-09-18T11:53:00.003-04:00

Two weeks down in this NFL season, and these are the questions I have for myself:

Is Carolina that good?

The Panthers have emerged as an NFC favorite behind strong 4th quarter play from Jake Delhomme and Jonathan Stewart running over and through defenders when he's not carrying them for 5 yards at a time.

Week 1 was what seemed like an impressive comeback win over my preseason Super Bowl pick in San Diego. The Chargers might not be the team I thought they'd be, though(more on that in the AFC version later). The second win was another comeback win where they dismantled my beloved Chicago Bears who had, for the two quarters before that, dominated the line of scrimmage in a whole and total fashion. Then again, the Bears weren't expected to make much noise this year.

Still, the Panthers ended up destroying the Bears in the field position game(even when Hester wasn't injured yet) and shut down Chicago's run game in the second half. This was also where they found out who needed to be the star of their running game. Oh, and they have Steve Smith coming back next week.

I'd guess that, yes, the Panthers are that good. Apologies to Delhomme for that whole "overrated" tag in the preseason. Anyone that takes that hit from Lance Briggs and then becomes a better quarterback has earned my respect. The only thing I see stopping Carolina is if, even after proving the other kids on the team can catch the ball, Delhomme becomes too locked in on trying to get Smith the ball. They just look really good right now.

So what about the Bears?

Hester is out, but that hardly seems to matter if 1) other teams can duplicate Carolina's kick coverage or 2) The Bears take a bad "block in the back" penalty on every kick return. That's going to make it tough for the offense. Kyle Orton isn't going to give you any bad turnovers, but he also made zero good deep passes against the Panthers (including missing an easy touchdown pass to a wide open Booker). The one deep pass that was caught was under-thrown and Brandon Lloyd made a tremendous adjustment to get to it.

If the Panthers are as good as I think they are, then there's no shame in the loss. It was a bad half for a majority of the team and one bad game for Orton and the special teams(minus, of course, that touchdown they generated). Orton and the receivers can work on the timing for deep throws, so the Bears may well be able to win this division. It's a two-team race between them and the Packers at this point. Why?

Did I overrate the Vikings?

Yes. I did. You're not going to get 160 yards out of Adrian Peterson every game. And, while they're as good as ever at stopping the run, they haven't been able to take the pass away from anyone. They're 0-2 and about to play Carolina.

A lot of the blame here has been placed squarely upon Tarvaris Jackson's quarterback performance. So he's out and Gus Frerotte is in. When you bench your guy for a 37-year-old best known for injuring himself by head-butting a wall (if there's a video of this on the web...someone tell me) and your secondary has been nothing but torched with Steve Smith coming to town...that's 0-3, and that's hard to come back from no matter how amazing your running back is.

Have I changed my mind about the Giants missing the playoffs?

No. The Giants have looked better than I thought they would, but they still only look like the third-best team in a division with Philly and Dallas. The Monday Night game was epic. While I no longer feel like St. Louis is going to sneak into the playoffs(I went out on a limb, so sue me) to keep a third NFC East team out of the playoffs, the emergence of the Panthers as a serious threat combined with my stubborn insistence that the Saints will also make the playoffs still leave the Giants out of the playoffs while being a better team than what the NFC North and West will end up sending in as their winners. Tough break, but I don't want to hear a word about expanding the playoffs.

"i would be so much less nervous if i could just kill something -- not a baby, not a baby."

2008-09-11T09:02:00.003-04:00

Honestly, yesterday afternoon I was ready to write an irate entry about how we should stop paying so much attention to Sarah Palin and start talking about important issues in the upcoming election(even with a full understanding that real issues and facts do nothing to sway swing voters...bunch o' jerks). Then my mom sent me this:

Then trusted friend and finder of funny interwebs Maya Roseman pointed me in this direction:

There are more of these here, and they're all pretty much hilarious.

So instead of outrage, I've fallen further into the trap of paying more attention to Senator Oldie Whats-his-face's pick of Palin(they call her Caribou Barbie on The Stephanie Miller Show for a running mate than anything of substance.

for the love of all things holy, please give me someone to vote for

2008-09-09T19:42:00.004-04:00

The gubernatorial debate is a train wreck. Neither Pat McCrory nor Bev Perdue* are doing anything to get my vote. Seriously, if I ran for Governor on a platform of occupying the mansion while doing my best not to let North Carolina implode in the time it takes to get some serious candidates for the position next time around, would you vote for me?

My campaign slogan, while admittedly clunky, is also a winner: "Four years of me doing nothing is better than four years of either of these jerks doing something."

*Michael Munger is a third-party candidate but, since he's a Libertarian and there's not a chance in hell that you'll ever see me voting for one of those kids, I'm not even going to put his name in large print.

if i end up having to say "i told you so," i'll be very upset

2008-09-06T11:43:00.003-04:00

The video below is from the CFL. It's awkward and anti-climactic. It's also exactly what we'll be looking at before long in the NFL if they don't implement my recommendations regarding end zone celebrations. Don't say I didn't warn you.

By the way, I'm so happy that football season is here I could cry.

officially speaking, Chad Ocho Cinco is faster than a horse

2008-09-04T22:36:00.002-04:00

I just received the following update on one of the wideouts on my fantasy football team:

Thu, Sep 4 The Cincinnati Bengals said Thursday that they will refer to the receiver formerly known as Chad Johnson by his new legal name, Chad Ocho Cinco, in all club business. That includes the back of his jersey for Sunday's season opener at Baltimore.

No, I will not ever tire of this.

fact-checking the republicans. because they won't do it themselves.

2008-09-04T10:26:00.002-04:00

Here's a short list of lies from the Republican National Convention. I'll bet the "liberal media" won't call them out on any of this.

I'll be in the corner balling my fists in rage if you need me.

another hilarious palin picture. and just a few words.

2008-09-03T17:02:00.002-04:00

Alright fine. Since she gives her speech tonight, here are a few reasons to think that Sarah Palin is a lousy choice for John McCain as a running mate. You're welcome.

1. She Abuses Power

Let's start with the fact that she's under investigation for firing public safety commissioner Walt Monegan since he wouldn't dismiss her ex brother-in-law. We've all heard about this one by now, I'm sure. While the facts may come out from this investigation that Palin has done no wrong, you have to wonder why the McCain campaign is now working to stall the final report from this investigation. It doesn't end there, though.

According to this article in the NY Times, there are reports of Palin, during her mayoral days, firing a librarian for failing to help Palin ban books. Think about this, not only did she want to ban books from the local library, but she fired the librarian for sticking up for free speech.

Too bad the first amendment doesn't carry the weight with her that a misinterpretation of the second amendment does (and thank goodness for her a "flag desecration" amendment was never passed). Then again, she's probably a better shot than Dick Cheney (oh, no I didn't!).

From there, there are also allegations that she drove out any number of city employees, including an outright firing of the police chief, for supporting her opponent in that race. If McCain really wants a "reform" image, maybe he shouldn't have picked a running mate who has fired people for their politics the way a certain presidential administration that has ruined the last eight years but shall remain nameless has been known to do.

Or if you want to link her practices further to those of the Bush administration, how about the secrecy and distaste for the media?

Ms. Palin also upended the town’s traditional ways with a surprise edict: No employee was to talk to the news media without her permission.

2. She Hates America*

Palin has supported a party who wishes Alaska to secede from the United States. As the linked article points out:

The revelation that Palin appeared to support the secessionist Alaskan Independence party (AIP) - whose motto is "Alaska First" - sits awkwardly with McCain's campaign slogan, "Country First", and will be controversial in a country whose oath of allegiance includes the phrase "one nation, indivisible".

3. Her Policy is Hypocritical

By now, we've all also heard about her knocked up daughter. It's a given that Bristol has become a walking, talking example of the need for comprehensive sex education(which Palin is against); but it doesn't end there. Palin also slashed funding a program designed to provide "young mothers a place to live with their babies for up to eighteen months while they gain the necessary skills and resources to change their lives" and help teen moms "become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families."

So if Palin wants to stick to her guns(no, I'm not putting that picture up again...but thanks for asking), she should probably toss Bristol and the Bastard out on the front lawn since teenage mothers deserve so little.

Of course, Palin and the McCain camp have been outraged over the attention that Bristol and her Oops Baby have been given, and have emphasized that having this baby is a choice that Bristol has made with the full support of the Palin family and deserves to be made in private. Palin's views on abortion, though, show that words and ideas like "private" and "choice" only matter when it's her daughter's choice that's to be made in private.

4. She Doesn't Have the Experience

I kind of hate that I'm helping to beat this tired talking point to death, but I do think it's relevant. After all, if McCain wins she's going to be the president if a seventy-something who's had several bouts with cancer does what most seventy-somethings who have had several bouts with cancer tend to do: dies.

So I think it's important to point out that I'm tired of hearing the following:

-Governing a state with 30 people and a million miles of tundra means you've got experience governing the "largest state in America." I don't care how technically true it is, it's a lousy talking point that makes zero sense to anyone who thinks about it.

-The ability to deploy the Alaska National Guard means you have commander-in-chief experience. This is also a horrible talking point that falls apart with any critical thought...unless she led Alaska's National Guard into an invasion of Canada and no one noticed.

-Governing the state closest to Russia automatically gives you credibility as a diplomat. Maybe Alaska and Russia have all kinds of closed-door meetings of international importance that no one has ever heard of or ever will, but I doubt it very seriously.

Here are the facts:

-She was mayor of a town with less people in it than attended college with me before becoming the governor of 47th largest state, in terms of population, while Barack Obama was working to secure loose nuclear weapons and materials(and worked with Republicans when making that happen). You tell me which of those sounds more like relevant leadership.

-She managed to mire herself in scandal during her short time in those positions.

-Sarah Palin did not even get a passport until 2007. Doesn't sound like international diplomacy experience to me.

5. She Doesn't Do Her Homework

In her own words, about a month before being named as McCain's running mate:

She, like a certain idiot in office now, cannot pronounce "nuclear." Yep, just like George, she like to say "nu-cu-ler."

She has the nerve to be surprised that, on a national stage, her knocked up daughter is getting so much attention.

6. She's A Reflection of John McCain's Judgement

The knocked up kid(in spite of trying to run as the party of moral high ground), the pending investigation(when trying to run as a "maverick reformer"), and the lack of experience(when simultaneously blasting Obama for his lack of experience) are all things that the McCain camp knew about when they picked her. This just isn't a good choice.

Is the guy who made this decision after one meeting and with that information at his disposal really who you want running this country for the next four years?** Me neither.

*If Barack Obama can be a secret Muslim, then this affiliation obviously means Palin hates America very, very deeply.

**Or until he dies, whichever comes first.

big american NFL preview: Playoff Predictions

2008-08-30T14:39:00.003-04:00

Okay, so I watched one half of the NC State - South Carolina game. For one half, our defense looked solid and our running game looked serviceable, and our passing game was as awful as expected.

Then I watched Obama's speech.

Then the game was over and he Wolfpack had been blown out of the water in the second half. I'm not sure what happened, as I've been a little too disappointed to check out any highlight reels or read any full articles. I have, though, been told that we only completed four passes in the entire game.

It's going to be a long, painful college season. What will the NFL season offer me?

Wild Card Weekend

Seattle Seahawks def. St. Louis Rams
Philadelphia Eagles def. New Orleans Saints
Jacksonville Jaguars def. New England Patriots
Cleveland Browns def. Indianapolis Colts

That's right, there's going to be a changing of the guard in the AFC, and it's going to happen in the Wild Card round, as both the Colts and the Pats will enter the post season too beat up to play on. Over in the NFC, I expect the Seahawks to make quick work of the Rams and the Eagles to edge out the Saints.

Conference Semis

Minnesota Vikings def. Seattle Seahawks
Philadelphia Eagles def. Dallas Cowboys
Jacksonville Jaguars def. Pittsburgh Steelers
San Diego Chargers def. Cleveland Browns

Yeah, I've got the Cowboys losing. I have them on "prove it" mode. Of course, when I put the Colts on "prove it" mode, all the did was win the Super Bowl. I think the Vikings will beat Seattle by making them throw the ball more than they'd ever want to, and the Seahawks just don't have the receivers to make that happen. In the AFC, the Wild Card upset will have to do for Cleveland, but I see Jacksonville being a little too much for Pittsburgh by the end of what should be a deliciously brutal game.

Conference Championships

Philadelphia Eagles def. Minnesota Vikings
San Diego Chargers def. Jacksonville Jaguars

Holy crap. This is how I always end up losing my NCAA basketball pools. I overthink the match ups game-by-game instead of picking a final four and reverse-engineering how they get there. So now I'm stuck with a prediction of the Eagles in the SUPER BOWL? Jeez. Of course, there's also the fact that I have them in there with the Chargers. I know what people will tell me, that the heart of San Diego's defense is playing on all kinds of hurt and I should be wary of putting them this far but...

Super Bowl

San Diego Chargers def. Philadelphia Eagles

...if Shawne Merriman is willing to shorten his career by playing this season without the surgery, he must know what I know: This is the Chargers year. All he wants is to be a part of it. The Eagles, on the other hand, will have to trudge back home to a fan base that will hate them for losing the Super Bowl and call for the head of Donovan F. McNabb on a pike in spite of his MVP season being what brought them to the big game. 'Cause that's how Philly rolls.

Mmmm...philly rolls...

chad johnson is not, in fact, faster than a horse...

2008-08-30T13:20:00.002-04:00

...but Chad Javon Ocho Cinco is!