(LIVING WITH) NOTES FROM A FRIDAY AFTERNOON
mixing the tracks of my
mind.
For your consideration: another curious collection
of thoughts, reactions, and observations that didn't make it into a full-length
post this week. So they're sort of like all those Easter treats I bought last
week. I wanted to make sure I had enough to give out, but I lost count along
the way, and before I knew it...
• Has anyone heard anything about gas prices going up again this week? I've been watching the news every night, and I can't remember seeing a single story about it. Oh, wait. That's probably because almost every story has been about it. It's been all gas, all sun -- and now all thunderstorms -- all the time: Coming up next, the KDKA 10 O'Clock Gas and Weather Report on UPN 19! We'll have John Shumway reporting from every single pump in the North Hills! Ken Rice will stand next to the widescreen monitor, furrow his prodigious brow, and look really glum! Then Jeff Verszyla, the only meteorologist in Pittsburgh who knows his ass from a cold front, will give us thirteen minutes of uninterrupted Vipir Radar verga readings! Stay tuned!
• It's clear now why Katrina and Rita and their aftermaths were such a boon, such a boost, such a great and glorious gift from the Media Gods for news outlets both local and national. Forget the tragedy and the poverty and the politics; they were golden opportunities to talk for a whole month about nothing more than bad weather and gas prices. That's programming gold -- black gold, Texas tea, Louisiana purchase -- right there.
• Still unclear is why people who pay $5 a gallon for bottled water and $10 a gallon for imported beer and $15 a gallon for frappuccino are in such a tizzy over paying $3 a gallon for gas. Would I like to still be paying $1.25 a gallon? Sure. But driving my car is a hell of a lot more essential to my existence than sitting around a Starbucks, pecking away at my laptop and listening to bad Sheryl Crow CDs.
• This week’s Keen Grasp of the Obvious Award goes to the fine and hard-working if a bit slow-on-the-uptake people at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, who this week released the results of a year-long, 2-million-mile study that discovered that inattentive driving -- say, while eating or talking on a cell phone or maybe even brushing your teeth -- actually causes accidents. I can hardly wait for their next project, a two-year, 4-million mile study to determine if car accidents really do kill people.
• It seems the Carolyn Murphy Era is going out with a bang in more ways than one. TWM readership has, over the past few months, averaged about 250 hits per day. On Wednesday, when the sex-tape story and video hit the web and men all over the world Googled as madly and quickly as they could, TWM got more than 1,200 hits. The numbers dropped a bit yesterday, topping out just shy of 1,100. Apparently supermodels and sex tapes are to the internet what weather and gas are to newscasts.
• TWM takes this opportunity to welcome so many new and lascivious readers. Though you won't find what you're looking for -- you're not missing anything, I assure you -- we hope you'll at least find something you like.
• Now that the Carolyn Murphy Era has sadly and officially ended, TWM needs a new muse, a new post-model, a new (public) source and symbol of divine, Dionysian inspiration. Early and obvious front-runners include Naomi Watts, Rachel Weisz, and Keira Knightley, all of whom have already contributed considerable brains and beauty to previous TWM posts. There are, of course, quite a few dark-horse candidates out there -- Kate Winslet, anyone? Evangeline Lilly? how about Jenna Fischer? -- so I pledge to conduct a thorough, exhaustive selection process. I promise that I will not lightly take, nor recklessly make, this momentous decision.
• As I delight and debate and deliberate, I'd love to hear your thoughts, dear readers. Have any suggestions or nominations for the next TWM Muse? The inbox is open. (UPDATE, 3:46pm: several votes have already come in for Rachel Weisz, and this afternoon's post over at Love & Haterade reminded me that Aishwarya Rai deserves serious consideration.)
• After a bit of a rough start to the season, Real Time with Bill Maher has found its rhythm and gone on one hell of a roll the last few weeks. It's taken great gobs of self-control to refrain from posting whole passages from the show's debates and comedy bits, but that restraint finally buckles here under the weight of what is so far my favorite New Rule of the year: NEW RULE: You can't go out and play until you finish your war. President Bush kicked off another baseball season with a high, inside ceremonial first pitch. Come to think of it, the president's pitching style is a lot like what he's exhibited in Iraq: a lot of balls, with no real plan to get anybody out.
• And, with a close finish in a crowded field, here's my so-far second favorite: New Rule: You can't be as tired as we are of you. The latest excuse for Bush Administration foul-ups is that top members of the White House staff are physically and emotionally exhausted. Hmm. If there was just some sort of stress-relieving activity that could be performed right there in the Oval Office... Well, I'd suggest a nice vacation out in the country, but the last time that happened, somebody got shot.
• That great gobs bit two notes above reminds me of something my high school chemistry (and organic chemistry) teacher -- the guy who gave me my only true and lasting nickname -- used to exclaim whenever someone would say something particularly silly or surprising: great gobs of grief and galloping goldfishes! That this phrase not only stays with me but continues to charm me some twenty-two years later speaks volumes about its clever construction. Or my occasional cheesiness. Or both.
• There are a lot of big questions surrounding next week's NFL Draft -- will the Texans really Reggie Bush with the #1 pick? will the Saints trade down? where will Vince Young end up? -- but there's really only one thing I want to know: what the hell kind of a name is D’Brickashaw?
• Quick DialIdol update: the site correctly predicted Ace Young's inevitable departure, even as it continues to hedge its bets (contestants are now ranked in ranges like 1-3 or 4-6, a practice that manages to be both honest and disingenuous) and fudge its numbers (now 9-for-18, it claims to be 83% accurate).
• Using DialIdol math, the Detroit Tigers' Chris Shelton is currently batting .707. Which means that neither Ted Williams nor Taylor Hicks is safe.
• This week's episode of The Sopranos, written by a committee of the show's four most consistently smart and subtle writers, produced an often distressingly unsubtle, heavy-handed episode. The always percolating, underlying themes -- especially the idea, fast become this season's refrain, that the code and honor and allegiance of the family are all bullshit, superficial constructs put in place merely to keep the money flowing smoothly -- were handled with their usual depth and deftness, but a lot of the dialogue, usually so light and crackling, dropped like dead, leaden, liberal weight: the ham-fisted catalogue of gay jokes, the all-too-easy shots at devout Catholic hypocrites, the awkward railing about poverty and social injustice, the over-the-top, out-of-nowhere rant about the Bush Administration. It did not help matters that the two most open, blatant bits of sermonizing were placed in the mouth of Jamie-Lynn Sigler, arguably the show's least talented, and surely its least nuanced, major player. The script unleashed such an unrelenting stream of left-wing pot-shots that it felt more like an episode of The Kennedys than The Sopranos. I agreed with every one of the points, but I still thought the execution was intrusive, distracting, and annoying.
• Speaking of intrusive, distracting, and annoying execution... The ever-present, ever-pointless news crawl on the Fox News Channel proved once again this week that the network is rarely fair, never balanced, and only intermittently accurate. Announcing the news that Neil Young has just finished a new album of metal folk protest music that harshly criticizes President Bush and the Iraq War but also speaks eloquently about wanting to re-unite and strengthen the country, the unfair and imbalanced bozos at Fox News unleashed this little beauty of a headline: Neil Young Records Album That Attacks America. So which is it, boys and girls: are you a bunch of partisan hacks who happily misrepresent the facts for your cause? Or a bunch of professional hacks who don't bother to check the facts for your news?
• Oh, that's right. You're both.
• Has anyone heard anything about gas prices going up again this week? I've been watching the news every night, and I can't remember seeing a single story about it. Oh, wait. That's probably because almost every story has been about it. It's been all gas, all sun -- and now all thunderstorms -- all the time: Coming up next, the KDKA 10 O'Clock Gas and Weather Report on UPN 19! We'll have John Shumway reporting from every single pump in the North Hills! Ken Rice will stand next to the widescreen monitor, furrow his prodigious brow, and look really glum! Then Jeff Verszyla, the only meteorologist in Pittsburgh who knows his ass from a cold front, will give us thirteen minutes of uninterrupted Vipir Radar verga readings! Stay tuned!
• It's clear now why Katrina and Rita and their aftermaths were such a boon, such a boost, such a great and glorious gift from the Media Gods for news outlets both local and national. Forget the tragedy and the poverty and the politics; they were golden opportunities to talk for a whole month about nothing more than bad weather and gas prices. That's programming gold -- black gold, Texas tea, Louisiana purchase -- right there.
• Still unclear is why people who pay $5 a gallon for bottled water and $10 a gallon for imported beer and $15 a gallon for frappuccino are in such a tizzy over paying $3 a gallon for gas. Would I like to still be paying $1.25 a gallon? Sure. But driving my car is a hell of a lot more essential to my existence than sitting around a Starbucks, pecking away at my laptop and listening to bad Sheryl Crow CDs.
• This week’s Keen Grasp of the Obvious Award goes to the fine and hard-working if a bit slow-on-the-uptake people at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, who this week released the results of a year-long, 2-million-mile study that discovered that inattentive driving -- say, while eating or talking on a cell phone or maybe even brushing your teeth -- actually causes accidents. I can hardly wait for their next project, a two-year, 4-million mile study to determine if car accidents really do kill people.
• It seems the Carolyn Murphy Era is going out with a bang in more ways than one. TWM readership has, over the past few months, averaged about 250 hits per day. On Wednesday, when the sex-tape story and video hit the web and men all over the world Googled as madly and quickly as they could, TWM got more than 1,200 hits. The numbers dropped a bit yesterday, topping out just shy of 1,100. Apparently supermodels and sex tapes are to the internet what weather and gas are to newscasts.
• TWM takes this opportunity to welcome so many new and lascivious readers. Though you won't find what you're looking for -- you're not missing anything, I assure you -- we hope you'll at least find something you like.
• Now that the Carolyn Murphy Era has sadly and officially ended, TWM needs a new muse, a new post-model, a new (public) source and symbol of divine, Dionysian inspiration. Early and obvious front-runners include Naomi Watts, Rachel Weisz, and Keira Knightley, all of whom have already contributed considerable brains and beauty to previous TWM posts. There are, of course, quite a few dark-horse candidates out there -- Kate Winslet, anyone? Evangeline Lilly? how about Jenna Fischer? -- so I pledge to conduct a thorough, exhaustive selection process. I promise that I will not lightly take, nor recklessly make, this momentous decision.
• As I delight and debate and deliberate, I'd love to hear your thoughts, dear readers. Have any suggestions or nominations for the next TWM Muse? The inbox is open. (UPDATE, 3:46pm: several votes have already come in for Rachel Weisz, and this afternoon's post over at Love & Haterade reminded me that Aishwarya Rai deserves serious consideration.)
• After a bit of a rough start to the season, Real Time with Bill Maher has found its rhythm and gone on one hell of a roll the last few weeks. It's taken great gobs of self-control to refrain from posting whole passages from the show's debates and comedy bits, but that restraint finally buckles here under the weight of what is so far my favorite New Rule of the year: NEW RULE: You can't go out and play until you finish your war. President Bush kicked off another baseball season with a high, inside ceremonial first pitch. Come to think of it, the president's pitching style is a lot like what he's exhibited in Iraq: a lot of balls, with no real plan to get anybody out.
• And, with a close finish in a crowded field, here's my so-far second favorite: New Rule: You can't be as tired as we are of you. The latest excuse for Bush Administration foul-ups is that top members of the White House staff are physically and emotionally exhausted. Hmm. If there was just some sort of stress-relieving activity that could be performed right there in the Oval Office... Well, I'd suggest a nice vacation out in the country, but the last time that happened, somebody got shot.
• That great gobs bit two notes above reminds me of something my high school chemistry (and organic chemistry) teacher -- the guy who gave me my only true and lasting nickname -- used to exclaim whenever someone would say something particularly silly or surprising: great gobs of grief and galloping goldfishes! That this phrase not only stays with me but continues to charm me some twenty-two years later speaks volumes about its clever construction. Or my occasional cheesiness. Or both.
• There are a lot of big questions surrounding next week's NFL Draft -- will the Texans really Reggie Bush with the #1 pick? will the Saints trade down? where will Vince Young end up? -- but there's really only one thing I want to know: what the hell kind of a name is D’Brickashaw?
• Quick DialIdol update: the site correctly predicted Ace Young's inevitable departure, even as it continues to hedge its bets (contestants are now ranked in ranges like 1-3 or 4-6, a practice that manages to be both honest and disingenuous) and fudge its numbers (now 9-for-18, it claims to be 83% accurate).
• Using DialIdol math, the Detroit Tigers' Chris Shelton is currently batting .707. Which means that neither Ted Williams nor Taylor Hicks is safe.
• This week's episode of The Sopranos, written by a committee of the show's four most consistently smart and subtle writers, produced an often distressingly unsubtle, heavy-handed episode. The always percolating, underlying themes -- especially the idea, fast become this season's refrain, that the code and honor and allegiance of the family are all bullshit, superficial constructs put in place merely to keep the money flowing smoothly -- were handled with their usual depth and deftness, but a lot of the dialogue, usually so light and crackling, dropped like dead, leaden, liberal weight: the ham-fisted catalogue of gay jokes, the all-too-easy shots at devout Catholic hypocrites, the awkward railing about poverty and social injustice, the over-the-top, out-of-nowhere rant about the Bush Administration. It did not help matters that the two most open, blatant bits of sermonizing were placed in the mouth of Jamie-Lynn Sigler, arguably the show's least talented, and surely its least nuanced, major player. The script unleashed such an unrelenting stream of left-wing pot-shots that it felt more like an episode of The Kennedys than The Sopranos. I agreed with every one of the points, but I still thought the execution was intrusive, distracting, and annoying.
• Speaking of intrusive, distracting, and annoying execution... The ever-present, ever-pointless news crawl on the Fox News Channel proved once again this week that the network is rarely fair, never balanced, and only intermittently accurate. Announcing the news that Neil Young has just finished a new album of metal folk protest music that harshly criticizes President Bush and the Iraq War but also speaks eloquently about wanting to re-unite and strengthen the country, the unfair and imbalanced bozos at Fox News unleashed this little beauty of a headline: Neil Young Records Album That Attacks America. So which is it, boys and girls: are you a bunch of partisan hacks who happily misrepresent the facts for your cause? Or a bunch of professional hacks who don't bother to check the facts for your news?
• Oh, that's right. You're both.
Posted: Fri - April 21, 2006 at 12:26 PM
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Published On: Nov 30, 2007 03:57 PM
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Published On: Nov 30, 2007 03:57 PM