With All This Rain, Everywhere Is Mudville

Silly Joe Walsh, there were only two men on base when Casey went up to bat

So Mr. Walsh got this wrong, how, exactly?

Well, it comes from the lyrics to the popular Joe Walsh song "Rocky Mountain Way."  He clearly states "Bases are loaded and Casey's at bat, playin' it play by play."  This, of course, is a reference to the poem "Casey At The Bat" written in 1888.  

What Mr. Walsh didn't apparently have time to do is actually look at the poem and figure out just how many people were actually on base for the Mudville baseball team at the time Casey came up to bat.  A simple reading will tell you that there were runners on second and third, after Flynn singled and Blake followed up with a double.  

Of course, we can sit here all day and question why, with a 2-run lead and first base open with the most feared hitter in the Mudville roster coming up to bat, the pitcher didn't simply walk Casey to load the bases and take on the #5 hitter.  There were, after all, two outs already.  It's not even a question, really....any manager in baseball would have done the same thing.  Maybe things were different in the 1880s, who knows?  

I suppose I can also concede that "Runners on second and third and Casey's at bat" wouldn't fit in as well with the rhythm of the song, so he took a bit of literary license.  There should just be an asterisk or something. 

Get It?! It's Funny

yapHp alaNtoin zlezPu yDa, bEoyevrdy!

Today's Sametime Status is left as an exercise for the reader.  Enjoy!  

The Best Mom Her Kids Have, Maybe?

Beware of Beast Mom 3!

Fire up the popcorn and put on your 3D glasses, Jeremy's been to...wait...there's no movie named "Beast Mom 3."  This isn't one of your movie reviews? 

It is not.  Today's Sametime Status is in regards to a fairly awful license plate I saw not that long ago.  The thing said "BSTMOM3," ostensibly referring to the fact that the driver felt that she was the best mom.  Now, this leaves out a lot of information, such as family, date range, even species.  She may have simply been referring to herself being the best mom currently driving that car, or arrogantly feeling that she's the best mom currently in the state, country, or world, or even worse the best mom in the history of the world.  Of course, that title is already taken by one of my loyal readers.  (Hi, Mom!)  

What s truly ironic about the whole situation is that the license plate was not simply "BSTMOM", or even "BESTMOM," but "BSTMOM3," meaning ostensibly that BESTMOM, BSTMOM, BSTMOM1, and BSTMOM2 were already taken by other moms who believe themselves to be the best.  I don't believe the DMV is an official authority figure when it comes to motherly quality and is therefore able to award standings like this that hold any meaning.  There was never any proper adjudication to name any of these people the best mom, leave alone properly ranking them from 1-3.  Also, if you were properly judged to be the Best Mom (or third, in this case), I don't think it would be wise to advertise that sort of thing on your car, since Best Mom 4 is probably looking to take you down. 

Because of all this, I took it upon myself to come up with an alternate meaning for the license plate which would make a whole lot more sense.  That definition, of course, is that this person is the leading character in the Beast Mom series of films which have yet to be written or produced.  The good news for me is that should I decide to write them, at least one of my casting decisions will already be made for me.  Thanks, Beast Mom 3! 

Beating Science With Science!

Pro Tip:  A laptop makes a great shield from a car’s proximity key

Yes...for all of those times you want your key to not work.  Useful tip there, Jeremy.

I feel obligated to keep people informed when I make wonderful new discoveries! 

Wonderful?

When I make new discoveries!    

So anyway, my car has one of those cool proximity keys so that you can control all of the operations without having to take the key out of your pocket.

Or, in Jeremy's case, purse.

Ignoring now.  The way it works is that you press a button on the door handle, the car sends out a signal to basically ask if the key is nearby, and if the key responds, the door unlocks.  Science!  The same thing happens when you push the button inside the start the car, so in theory, I could be sitting in the passenger seat with the key while somebody else is driving.  If I let them.  I won't let them.  People don't drive my car.  Don't even bother asking.  Your answer is no.  

Anyway, though various recent bouts of trial and miserable failure, I've discovered that a great way to prevent the RFID signal of the key from reaching the car door is to hold my laptop between the two.  This makes a near perfect barrier, preventing the car from recognizing the key and unlocking the door.  This is unfortunately not as useful as you might think.  It's even less useful when it's -2 degrees in the parking lot. 

I Actually Really Do Need To Do This

My Next Great Idea:  A Hair Salon with a built-in Bar.  It will be called “Coiffe And Quaff”  

It's a little disturbing how you don't seem to think that a bunch of drunk people running around with scissors is a bad idea. 

Well, I'll admit there are holes in my master plan here, but I see them more as opportunities than as crises.  For example, you could simply make a rule that the hair cutters aren't allowed to drink while on the job.  Or you could bypass that rule and cater exclusively to celebrity clientele, many of whom have Haircuts that make you Think That their barber was Drunk at the time.  Incidentally, every last one of those examples cost more than every haircut I've ever gotten in my lifetime combined.  

They Cancelled "Apartment 23" For This?

I recently learned that “Celebrity Diving” is going to be a TV show soon.  I may weep openly

You know it's going to be better than any "Real Housewives" show, or any of the shows with anyone named Snooki or Kardashian.  

Unfortunately, that's merely ONE of the sad parts about this upcoming travesty of entertainment.  

See, networks come up with all of their best ideas for new shows in the fall.  As with everything network execs think is a good idea, a good number of them suck ferociously and end up being cancelled before the first season is even allowed to finish.  Based on a source, here is an anything-but-comprehensive list of shows that were new in the fall and have already bitten the dust: 666 Park Avenue, Last Resort, Made In Jersey, Partners, The Mob Doctor, Emily Owens, M.D., and for the love of all things good and plenty, I can't figure out why Whitney is still on the air.  We're only in January, kids.  

This type of turnover leads to multiple disatserpieces known as "Mid-Season Replacements" in which shows that weren't good enough to crack the lineup, despite how blatantly atrocious the original shows were, are put into the starting rotation to bridge the gap until summer reruns.  Occasionally this works out well for the networks, as these new shows become hits.  The Office, Grey's Anatomy, 3rd Rock From The Sun, Married With Children, All In The Family, Dallas, Seinfeld, and Happy Days all started their runs as mid-season replacements.  As well as a little show that you may have heard of that is only the longest-running series on television called The Simpsons.  Of course, these are the exceptions, and what we usually get around this time of year is crap.  

Among this year's lineup of replacement crap is yet another new celebrity reality show based on some sort of physical activity.  We already have Dancing With The Stars, and Skating with the Stars, Celebrity Apprentice, Celebrity Fit Club, Celebrity Rehab, , I Get That A Lot, Celebrity Death Match (Wait, what?), and Celebrity Ghost Stories, so why not take this concept into the world of Olympic high-diving?  That's right...a lineup of middling celebrities who need more TV exposure to satisfy their egos and stoke their fading careers are going to team up with Greg Louganis and make a show about diving.  Diving.  

I'll say it one more time so that this really sinks in......DIVING!!!!

I really wish I could tell you that I'm making this up, but I'm Unfortunately Not.  Yes...Celebrity Diving will feature such A-List celebrities as Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Katherine Webb (who has done nothing to be famous short of being ogled by Brent Musburger), and Rudy Huxtable herself, Keshia Knight Pulliam.  Here's your "Feel Old" moment for the day...The Cosby Show went off the air 21 years ago.  That's how long it's been since Keshia Knight Pulliam has been even remotely relevant.  

I guess the saving grace of this show is the higher than normal probability for humiliating failure and injury to befall the contestants.  I'd be more than happy to watch Louie Anderson (Yes, he's a contestant) attempt a front 1 1/2 only to under-rotate into a spectacular tsunami-inducing belly-flop.  There's just no way in creation I'm going to sit around and watch this garbage for half an hour waiting for it.  It will show up on Youtube soon enough. 

I'm Not Exactly Content, Either

Now is the Winter of my Whininess  

For the rest of us, too.  Now is when you start posting Sametime Status messages about weather.  It's winter.  Deal with it. 

I know that.  One of the supposed benefits of living in the Greater Jeremy Area is the fact that we get 4 true seasons.  There is a spring with new stuff growing and going green, a warm and humid summer for being outside and in a swimming pool, a fall where the leaves change color, and then crap.  

Winter is lousy.  There are no leaves on the trees, so everything is just a collection of brown sticks, until it snows.  Then it's white with brown sticks.  Driving in snow is awful, shoveling snow is awful, and cold is awful.  I don't like it.  Never will.  The low temperature all week around here is 6.  I wish that were in Celsius.  

So to another winter, I give a hearty "No Thanks!"  Wake me up when summer comes. 

The Next Fad In Elective Surgery

“Too bad you never got that tracheotomy” – Actual Conversation

Uhm...you know, you often have some bizarre conversation with people, but this one might be about the craziest one yet.  Anything that causes somebody to get a tracheotomy is usually a bad thing. 

I would tend to agree, but it made perfect sense at the time.

So many of you are probably familiar with the great George Carlin's sketch about Thing You Never See And Hear (Warning...link contains strong language, which should have been patently evident at the mere mention of the name "Carlin").  Well, I had one of those types of events at a hockey game recently.  During a hockey game, there are two intermissions, during which time is passed by the playing of pee-wee hockey and driving of the Zamboni.  (Technically, "Ice Resurfacer"...Zamboni is a brand name much like saying Kleenex instead of "Tissue")    While this is entertaining for about a minute and a half, there remains about 10 minutes of extra time to kill, during which people come up with various things to do.  There are concession stands, rest rooms, other people to talk to, and little games to play in the stands.  

One of the little games played recently involves the throwing of popcorn into somebody's waiting mouth.  This is more difficult than you may think due to the simply atrocious aerodynamic properties of popcorn.  So, we're playing our little game here, and nobody's "scored" yet, even through the time-honored method of tossing an entire handful of popcorn at the target, causing a bit of a mess.  Anyway...at one point during our game, a piece of popcorn hit the target directly in the throat, causing one of the gamers to announce "Too bad you never got that tracheotomy." 

The Prince of Nigeria Wants To Talk To You

See, NHL?  When you don’t play, ESPN spends its whole time talking about some football player’s pretend internet girlfriend

Though, to be fair, this is the latest into January that anyone has actually cared about college football.

A perfectly valid point.   

So, everyone must be pretty aware of the sorry state of journalism these days, and how the mainstream media favors sensationalism over actual content and usefulness of news items.  That's all well and good.  However, one of the things that I ask for, and it doesn't seem like that much to me, is for stories shown on the news to be actually relevant to the type of program that I'm watching.  For example, if I'm watching CNN for news (BTW...I totally don't watch CNN for news), and a story about Paris Hilton's dating life comes on, I get angry.  Not exclusively, but mostly because celebrity gossip is not news.  There are celebrity gossip shows, and if one of them starts showing pictures of a civil war in Africa, I would be equally confused and angered,  

Imagine my surprise when this morning, ESPN is showing SportsCenter....ostensibly a sports show...and they start showing middling celebrity gossip instead of sports.  This, by itself, is ridiculous, but the very nature of the story is even worse.  For those of you who haven't Kept Up With The Story, a star college football player fell in love with a random person he met on the internets.  He was sad when this person died of cancer, only to "find out" recently that the person was entirely fictional.  Holy Frijoles!  You mean somebody made crap up on the internets!?  This is shocking and horrifying news!  You can't just make stuff up on the internets....it's a sacred set of tubes for all perfectly valid information and videos of cats.

Okay, so let's all have a little chuckle at the poor football player's expense and move on with life, shall we?  NOPE!  The entire first 15 minutes of SportsCenter was devoted to this story. 

Then I asked myself why this was allowed to happen.  The answer is obvious...NO NHL!  If Gary Bettman had been properly fired long ago, and there was no lockout, we'd at least have hockey to talk about during sports shows, and they wouldn't be resorting to filling entire hours of programming with garbage like this.  There would be some actual...you know...sports to go over during a sports show.  One more thing Battman screwed up.  Is he fired yet? 

I Wanted To Hear The People Sing

I’m all for artistic license, but you can’t just cut an entire verse from “Castle On A Cloud”

Fire up a batch of popcorn, kids.  Jeremy's been to the movies again!

Every now and again, Hollywood decides to take in a play, realize that show is a better idea than anything they've come up with in quite some time, and adapt the play to the silver screen.  This has happened with stage musicals on more than a few occasions, and some even recently.  They've met with widely mixed results.  

Dreamgirls was a smash hit, Rent was a fiasco.  Chicago won some awards, Jesus Christ Superstar didn't translate very well into movie form.  The Producers won four Golden Globes, while every casting decision in Phantom of the Opera, with the certain exception of Emmy "Awesome" Rossum was questionable at best.  I was curious what would happen when Hollywood took its shot at Les Miserables.  They started off with Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway, so they were off to a good start.  

At the end, we're left with a very mixed bag.  The film certainly did justice to the story and all of the music, but for some reason, the emotions fell a little flat.  I don't know if there was just a lack of power or passion in the music by not being forced to broadcast to a giant theatre full of people, but I didn't get as excited about some of the songs as I think I should have.  That said, they were all performed very well, with the exception of any time Russell Crowe was on screen...seriously bad casting there.  Worst.  Javert.  Ever.  

Other than that, Hugh Jackman did an admirable job with Valjean, Anne Hathaway was brilliant for the short time she's alive (By the way...if that's a spoiler, tough crap.  The play's been around since the 1980's, there's no excuse for not having seen it yet), and Samantha Barks was a fine Eponine.  The other actors were all serviceable to good.  In a special role, Colm Wilkinson portrayed the Bishop of Digne, a slight diversion from his usual role as Jean Valjean from the original London cast, and every "Best Of..." recording ever.  

As for the music itself, many of the songs were abbreviated, and at least one was removed altogether, ostensibly to save time.  The film was pushing 3 hours as it was, so I don't begrudge the director for leaving out "Dog Eat Dog" or shaving a couple lines from the secondary songs.  But, when Young Cossette skipped the entire second verse of "Castle On A Cloud," I became personally offended.  This song is adorable and one of the light moments of the show, it's one of the show's most widely known songs, and is the kid's only chance to be on screen.  You can't just hack an entire verse out of it willy-nilly.  Moreso than being offensive, the music form of that song is known as "AABA" in which the music of the first verse is repeated, followed by a bridge, and the final go-through of the melody.  The form simply doesn't work as ABA....it's called AABA for a reason, and it has nothing to do with Bjorn Ulvaeus

Seriously?  An ABBA joke in the middle of a movie review?  

It's relevant...kinda.  He's from two other musicals.
 

Anyway, if my biggest issue with a movie is that one line of a song is missing, and Russell Crowe can't sing, I guess I'm doing okay.  Overall, if you're a fan of the stage production of Les Miserables, you definitely won't be disappointed by the movie.  If you're not a fan of musical theatre, this film won't make you run to the box office to get orchestra-level seats for the next curtain, but this wasn't going to be your type of movie anyway. 

This has been another edition of Jeremy Is In The Theatre

This Happens All The Time

When asked to attribute a 19th century quote, “Mark Twain” is never a dumb answer

What's that saying?  "There are no dumb questions, only dumb answers?"

I thought it was "There are no dumb questions, only inquisitive morons."

"There are no stupid questions, only stupid people?"

Ehh...something like that.

Anyway, it wasn't that long ago that I was watching Jeopardy, as I am wont to do.  I'm usually fairly decent at it, as long as one of the categories is either Bird Flu or Kings Named Moshushu.  If you don't get that reference, don't feel so bad, but I would be happier if you did.  Regardless, when we got to Final Jeopardy, I don't even remember what the category was, but the point was that you were supposed to name the person who had coined the phrase listed in the clue.  There was some reference to like the 1870s or something along those lines...the exact date is irrelevant. 

The reason the date is irrelevant is because it was somewhere in the 1800s, which means there's a very good chance that the quote was coined by Mark Twain...I'm assuming you'd get full credit if you answered Samuel Clemens.  Ultimately, that was the correct answer, and there was much rejoicing. 

As it turns out, 83% of all famous quotations from the 1800s are courtesy of Mark Twain, so if you ever happen to be on Jeopardy or playing some other trivia game and the topic comes up, you could give a much worse answer.  For example..."Who Are Three People Who Have Never Been In My Kitchen." 

It's Already Ground Coffee, Unfortunately

I admit that I have used coffee as a Performance Enhancing Substance

Funny you mention that...your coffee just finished brewing right behind you.

Indeed it has.  One moment please...

Believe it or don't, but it was in fact at this point in typing that Jeremy did go across his office to the coffee maker.

Ahhh...that's better.  Now, where was I?  Oh yes.  I've called you all here today to finally confess that for quite some time at work, I have used coffee as a performance enhancing substance.  Sometimes, getting up at 6AM takes a toll on you, and you just need a little boost to finish out the afternoon.  Today is one of those days, and this little jolt of caffeine here is going to be quite sufficient.  

I don't need to drink coffee.  I can quit anytime I want.   

I can make it through the day without coffee, sure.  But it's a tasty warm beverage (or tasty really-frickin-hot beverage, as my coffee maker produces it) that adds a little flavor to the post-lunch period.  So, I drink coffee, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. 

On a completely unrelated note, Lance Armstrong is going to be on Oprah today to admit to cheating to win cycling races.  His performance enhancing substances were a little more elaborate than a cup of coffee. 

I Actually Would Vote for B.B. Rodriguez

Vote Robot!


Didn't we just have an election between two robots?  I, for one, do NOT welcome our new robot overlords.  


As you may or may not know, I'm a fan of Wil Wheaton's celebrity board gaming show Table Top, and have even subsequently bought 3 of the games featured.  Yes, Pandemic is one of them.  Anyway, one of the games that hasn't been featured on the show is the timeless classic "Monopoly." 

Monopoly hasn't changed in quite some time, aside from the various novelty versions that have appeared from time to time.  The properties are all the same, the colors have been constant, the railroads are all still the same, good old Uncle Pennybags hasn't aged a day, and you can still go to jail for stepping in the wrong spot...pretty standard for a game based in New Jersey.  As with all timeless classics, fiscal responsibility eventually takes precedent over history and heritage, and Hasbro (Parent company of Parker Brothers) has now felt the urge to crap all over everything. 

Well, maybe not everything...but at least one thing. 

The company has set up an online vote, since nothing on the internet can possibly have its integrity challenged, to replace one of the iconic player tokens with one more stupid.  Currently, there are the Race Car, Top Hat, Battleship, Thimble, Boot, Wheelbarrow, Iron, and Dog.  Everyone wants to be the Race Car, and whoever picks last ends up as the Iron, and complains that he had to be the iron last time.  There are five new tokens set to replace one of the standards, which are a Guitar, Cat, Helicopter, Diamond Ring, and Robot. 

Obviously the diamond ring is stupid, so forget that one.  The cat is simply to shut up cat people who think that since there's a dog, there should be a cat.  The helicopter would be okay, if its design weren't so lame.  The guitar is a popular choice because music is currently not represented in any way in the game.  But, the only possible choice here is the robot.  Not only is it Adorable, but it represents the next stage in human evolution which has always accompanied the player tokens.  Monopoly is very much like a time capsule, showing society's place at the time the game was published.  Property values are adjusted for inflation, man's technical evolution is shown in the tokens (from clothes and sewing, to ironing, to scientific advances like cars and boats), and the overall goal is to gain as much money as you can at the total and humiliating expense of other people.  It's human heritage in box form, and it deserves to honor robotics.  Go vote, everybody!!

What Did The Five Fingers Say To The Face?

“It’s sad to think that kids today will grow up thinking that a Pop Tart is a better fake phone than a banana.”  - Actual Work Conversation

Your job must be incredibly dull if you just sit around and talk about this crap all day.

Well, this was just a lunch conversation, but it does happen more often than would probably be considered "normal."   

So, we all know the time-honored tradition of holding a fist up to the side of your head with your thumb and pinky fingers extended toward your ear and mouth, respectively.  This is meant to symbolize a telephone receiver, with the thumb representing the speaker, and the pinky mimicking the microphone.  Everyone knows what this means.  

The Banana Phone is a similar concept which is also highly recognizable, and Even Has Its Own Obnoxious Song.  One end of the banana is inserted into the ear, while the other end is positioned near the mouth to provide the appearance of talking on the phone.  This is all well and good.

Here's the problem:  Phones don't look like that anymore. 

83% of all phones now resemble a Black Rectangle, perhaps with a colorful skin on the back.  The iconic image of the receiver with two ends has really lost its place in the world and needs to be replaced.  A Pop Tart does, in fact, make a much better phone analog now than a banana.  I would also recommend replacing the thumb-pinky gesture with that of the open palm of the hand, with all fingers extended and pressed together.  Sure, at first, it might look to the uneducated as if you're slapping yourself in the face extremely slowly, but it will catch on eventually.  You just need to make sure you're ahead of the curve.  You are welcome. 

There Must Be A PC Emulator Somewhere

Does anyone else dream about playing 30-year-old video games that they never even liked?

And we go diving, once again, into the swirling miasma of randomness that is Jeremy's mind.  We really should leave a trail of bread crumbs or something.  

So anyway...not long ago, I had an unusually vivid dream involving video gaming.  I'm not entirely sure why...I don't play video games all that much these days.  Regardless, in my peaceful slumber, I was playing a rousing game of the 1979 Atari classic "Star Raiders," or "Star Raider" as the first run of cartridges mistakenly said.  If you're not familiar, it's a space adventure game where you're piloting an interstellar Star Cruiser (Number 7 to be precise) in an all-out battle with the Zylon race.  The evil Zylons are rushing to destroy the human Star Bases positioned randomly around the galaxy, and it's your job to destroy them all of their ships before they get a chance.  This involves Hyperwarp travel, photons, outer-space dogfighting, timing, strategy, and situational awareness not common to 1970s video games.  

Here's A Gameplay Video by somebody who's not completely atrocious at the game.  There are other videos of people who totally suck, and those may be more entertaining, but don't really help my cause here.  Those are left as an exercise for the reader.  

Anyway...I never particularly cared for the game.  I wasn't especially awful at it, and certainly knew my way around the controls seamlessly, but I never wanted to put in the time to get better.  I'm okay with that.  I'm also not 100% sure where my old Atari 400 is at the moment, but I'm reasonably certain it hasn't been powered on in a number of years, and I doubt all the necessary keyboard keys still work.  Stupid membrane keyboard...

So why it was that the Galactic Chart from this game popped into my head not long ago is a complete and total mystery to me.  What I can tell you is that I successfully saved the Star Base from Zylonic destruction thanks to my quick thinking and impressive piloting.  You are welcome, Star Base. 

The Hockey Color Commentator Used That One All The Time

I never understood the phrase “Head over Heels.”  My head is usually over my heels

A darn good arrangement.  I would think that in most cases, if you heels were over your head, you'd have a problem, not the other way around.

Exactly!  I don't see what the big deal is about being head over heels about something.  There's also a similar expression involving either a tea kettle or a tin cup which makes even less sense.  

I certainly understand that if I were carrying my tea kettle around and I fell so that I was, in fact, sitting on it, there would be some damage done to my person.  But generally speaking, I'm not carrying a tea kettle.  I'm reasonably certain I don't own a tin cup.   

Breaking Bad Has A Good Example As Well

In TV and movies, whenever people start chanting something, they never show how awkward it must be when the chanting stops

 Uhm...yeah.  Okay then.  Don't you think it would just die out naturally?

I'm sure the chanting stops, because life in movies always tends to go on, but we never get to see how it stops.  It's pretty much the exact opposite of a Slow Clap that grows into a standard round of applause.  But, just like a round of applause, you don't really know who the last person was to clap, and you don't really want to be that guy, either.  So who is the last person chanting, or how did they all know to stop at the right time?  

It's a problem.  

See, one of the great examples of this comes from a movie I'm not allowed to talk about base on the first two rules of Fight Club.  Anyway, there was a scene where Meatloaf gets shot (Pretty sure that's the first time I've written that sentence ever), and dies.  The assembled begin chanting his name.  His Name Is Robert Paulson.  The scene ends with everyone still chanting over and over.  We don't really know why they thought chanting was important right about then, but it happened, so we just go with it.  At some point after Edward Norton leaves, the chant would have had to die out, lest Project Mayhem get derailed because everyone just stands around chanting all day.  After who knows how long of a session of chanting, people have to have come to the realization that they were accomplishing nothing and decide to stop chanting, but other people would keep going.  Depending on how the percentage of chanters and non-chanters changes over time, you could have people standing there amidst chanting for quite some time...maybe even start up again not realizing that they weren't done yet.  Eventually, there are angry stares from non-chanters pointed at the people who just won't shut up and get out of the kitchen, guilty looks from the people who took too long to realize the gig was over, and just an awful lot of awkwardness.  They never show that in the movie. 

Yon Is A Good One, Too

New Year’s Resolution:  Start using the word “Thither” more often


And you decided to talk about it hither rather than somewhere else?  


Art is important.  All types of it...images, music, literature, moderately nonsensical blathering on a website.  It's all amazing.  The reason, of course, is that it provides future generations of a cultural snapshot of a specific time in history.


Two issues.  One...if future generations are actually reading this, they've got issues.  Two, is the word "Snapshot" even appropriate anymore?  Discuss.  


Anyway...I love to read....


You hate to read.


I don't hate to read...I just tend to fall asleep if I'm doing fewer than two things at a time.  Also, as I've mentioned before, I listen to audio books, and that's the same thing.  I've recently taken to reading the classic "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas (Warning:  Link Contains Adult Language, and yes, it's what you think it is).  Anyway, it's an old book, written in 1844, so it contains a lot of really old-fashioned phrases.  Some of which are much more amusing than others.   One of the words used fairly often in the book is the word "Thither" meaning, basically, "Over there."  Personally, I love this expression, and I feel that it needs to make a comeback.  I also feel that I'm just the person to start it. 

They Moved Off The Imperial System Years Ago

I’m a little sad to see the day that Congress is more competent than the NHL

Happy New Year everybody!  Nearly the entirety of 2013 is ahead of us, which means lots more of whatever this stuff is that Jeremy dumps on the world.  Lucky us!  It appears he's going to start the year with a rare and special political rant.  

A new year always holds new promise.  Things will get better, people will be better, and end to pestilence, and famine...and pestilence.  

This mildly obscure cartoon quote comes to you courtesy of "The Hub" which will begin airing Animaniacs cartoons again starting next week.  Faboo!  

The last gasp of 2012 was chock full of excitement that nobody really wanted.  The Fiscal Cliff, the end of the world as we know it (For the record, we still feel fine), and the NHL lockout were prime examples.  I'd like to focus my rageface on the NHL, if I may...but not just yet.  

See, the "fiscal cliff" was important.  We, as a country, spend a large amount of money, technically referred to as a "Metric Crapload."  We use it to buy stuff people need...like an army, and retirement because not everybody can work forever, and a helping hand for people who lose their jobs because the "Job Creators" find it more financially beneficial to move the jobs to foreign countries that don't provide these services.  Lately, to the horror of many, the government decided to use some of this money on the most unholy thing of all...hospitals.  I'll wait for you to finish gasping.  Long ago, we stopped collecting enough money to pay for all of this stuff, and an active decision was made to collect even less.  Sure, it was beneficial to us as individuals, and may have even been what we collectively needed at the time, but it took into account growth in economic sectors that was unsustainable and no longer existent, as well as many of those jobs that are now gone.  Net result...it's not what we need now.  So we fight over deficit spending versus revenues, what services need to be provided and who's going to pay for it.  And the way we reach decisions now is not to agree to disagree and work out a mutually beneficial solution, but to bitterly and divisively argue in whatever public forum we can find, yammering on and on about how we're right, and the other side is destroying the process, and to use tactics instead of negotiations until we're at the very edge of actual ruination to actually do anything.  Then, we finally come to the agreement everyone knew we'd make all along, we blame the other side for causing it to happen the way that it did, and finally publicly ridicule the results because it's not what we wanted.  

At some point in that last paragraph, I mentally switched from Congress to the NHL, and you didn't even notice. 

See, the two entities are frighteningly similar, and not in just the levels of arrogance and stupidity about facing the issues before them.  They both have major economic problems brought on by their own policies, they both involve tense and heated negotiations between two parties with heads that the other side despises, and they're both using the exact same brinksmanship tactics to extract a minimal gain from the other side that is far more than made up by the damage caused by dragging out the process as long as they have.  

I guess I just had lower expectations for Congress.  

They've actually come up with enough of a solution for the Fiscal Cliff to kick the problem a couple months down the road (Yay!  More whole months of this crap!), while hockey sits in a self-generated limbo not-so-slowly descending into oblivion.  

Don't get me wrong...I'm not blaming Gary Bettman for all of it.  Though, I truly think that the best PR move the NHL can make after this fiasco is over is to give him his walking papers the next day.  After the last CBA negotiation the NHL went through, which cost the league the 04-05 season and most of the casual fans' respect it had as a professional sport, there was supposed to be a new era of co-ownership and cooperation between the league and its players.  It was supposed to be the Golden Era, and in many ways it was, but the figurehead of the lost season (Bettman) remained.  The league started crying foul not long before the CBA expired last year (right after popping the champagne and toasting another year of record revenues), and the players union caught wind of something funky in the air, so they did the worst thing they could have possibly done and hired Don Fehr to lead them.  Yes, the same Don Fehr that cost baseball the 1994 World Series.

Now, seeing Don Fehr on the other side, and knowing that they had a tough negotiation ahead of them, the league responded by doing the worst thing THEY could have possibly done.  They offered the most egregiously foul CBA proposal they could cobble together, with a 25% pay cut, restriction after restriction on the players, and all to the benefit of the league owners.  Instantly, any thoughts of cooperation were shot, the co-ownership became a fairy tale, and instead of two groups working together to solve issues for the greater good, it was once again Us vs Them, and the lockout began.  

Let's play "What If?"  What if the league had started working with the players on solving the financial issues last year instead of waiting until the CBA expired and blaming the issues on them?  What if the players union didn't hire Don Fehr?  What if Gary Bettman had stepped down after the last time he destroyed the sport?  What if Congress actually worked together instead of spending their time trying to convince me that they have it oh so rough, and the other side is pure evil?  What if Congress is bored now and wants to help sort out the NHL's issues? 

I don't even want to think about that.