(Note: I originally posted this entry on my Yahoo! blog on June 1, 2009.)
June 1 is not just the beginning of a new month. It also marks a new beginning for GM (which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this morning) and a new place for this blog (which is still on Yahoo!, but it's now on profiles.yahoo.com--which lets me edit blog entries without said entries disappearing when I click "Post Entry" the way Yahoo! 360 had been doing).
Let's see, maybe I should review what's been going on:
News: Detroit's got a new mayor in Dave Bing (never mind that he's only serving out the remainder of Kwame Kilpatrick's term, because Detroit's City Charter forced the city to spend $3 million to hold a desperately unneeded election; it would have been better to just let Ken Cockrell Jr. serve out the remainder of the term).
Sports: The Detroit Lions shelled out $41.7 million in guaranteed money to Matt Stafford to kick off the NFL Draft, but then when they have the chance to protect that investment with offensive tackle Michael Oher (who was available when the 20th pick came up), they pass him up?! Don't get me wrong, Brandon Pettigrew is a very good value, but this year's draft was far deeper at tight end than at tackle (for example, the Lions could have taken Shawn Nelson from Southern Miss in Round 3). They also passed up LBs Rey Maualuga and James Laurinatis in Round 2. On a happier note, the Red Wings are back in the Stanley Cup Finals (and in fact, are up 2 games to none in their rematch against the Pittsburgh Penguins).
Fantasy sports: In baseball, my Smackdown Unlimited is having a terrible season due to bad pitching. In football, my Detroit Vipers--defending TUFF Bowl Champions--had their draft last month. Keep in mind, this league only uses offensive players--quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends and kickers. I took TE Brandon Pettigrew, RB Mike Goodson, WR Ramses Barden, RB Frank "The Tank" Summers and QB Rhett Bomar. You can read about them and the other 59 players taken in the draft here.
Entertainment: I'm looking forward to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (which opens July 15, the day after my birthday; never mind that I still would have preferred it to have come out last November). Also next month, the sixth season of Hell's Kitchen begins.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Volume 4, Number 6: Detroit's Blight Problems... and a Pay-Per-View Solution
(Note: I posted this entry to my Yahoo! GeoCities blog on May 20, 2009.)
In a previous blog entry (Kwame Is Out!), I touched upon the urban blight that is abundant in Detroit--the abandoned warehouses, factories, houses and other buildings that need to be torn down. You already know about this, it's old news. You've heard about the train depot in recent news, and may have read about such relics as the old Studebaker-Packard plant. I drove down 7 Mile Road in '94 (my father's drugstore used to be by 7 and Livernois) and saw nothing but long stretches of abandoned buildings that once housed specialty stores and other small businesses.
The city has enough buildings for the population it once had (around 2 million in 1950), but now only has around 930,000 people; there's no excuse not to destroy buildings no longer usable or fit for human habitation. If the city's so-called leadership would tear them down, that would be fantastic.
Instead, we have buildings decaying for years before ultimately being torn down (like the Hudson's Department Store building, which did nothing but gather moss for 15 years before finally being imploded in 1998)--if they get torn down at all. The train depot has gotten to the point that restoring it would cost much more than the building is worth--and why restore it if there's no purpose for the building to serve afterwards? Same way with Tiger Stadium. Every other stadium--Ebbetts Field, Forbes Field, all those multipurpose round stadiums that got built in the '70s, they all got demolished regardless of the sentimental value attached to them. With Tiger Stadium, part of it is still standing while people waste time and money trying to preserve it. I am reminded of old Olympia Stadium (where the Red Wings used to play before they moved to Joe Louis Arena in the late '70s); that arena, too, sat for about eight years before finally being demolished.
Solution? Create a pay-per-view event where a whole bunch of Detroit buildings are demolished in quick succession over the course of three hours--the train depot, Tiger Stadium, the Studebaker-Packard plant, and as for that Harper/Piquette/Mansur/Hastings grayfield I talked about in the aforementioned "Kwame Is Out!" blog entry, you could have an aerial bombing... if you think I'm joking, just remember that in 1985, Vince McMahon used pay-per-view to turn what once was a low-rent form of television (pro wrestling) into a multi-million dollar industry. I'm sure a lot of suburbanites have been willing to pay good money to see Detroit make some progress, and a pay-per-view like this is a more realistic way for the city to raise sorely-needed funds than, say, trying to get people to come back to Detroit as it stands right now.
In a previous blog entry (Kwame Is Out!), I touched upon the urban blight that is abundant in Detroit--the abandoned warehouses, factories, houses and other buildings that need to be torn down. You already know about this, it's old news. You've heard about the train depot in recent news, and may have read about such relics as the old Studebaker-Packard plant. I drove down 7 Mile Road in '94 (my father's drugstore used to be by 7 and Livernois) and saw nothing but long stretches of abandoned buildings that once housed specialty stores and other small businesses.
The city has enough buildings for the population it once had (around 2 million in 1950), but now only has around 930,000 people; there's no excuse not to destroy buildings no longer usable or fit for human habitation. If the city's so-called leadership would tear them down, that would be fantastic.
Instead, we have buildings decaying for years before ultimately being torn down (like the Hudson's Department Store building, which did nothing but gather moss for 15 years before finally being imploded in 1998)--if they get torn down at all. The train depot has gotten to the point that restoring it would cost much more than the building is worth--and why restore it if there's no purpose for the building to serve afterwards? Same way with Tiger Stadium. Every other stadium--Ebbetts Field, Forbes Field, all those multipurpose round stadiums that got built in the '70s, they all got demolished regardless of the sentimental value attached to them. With Tiger Stadium, part of it is still standing while people waste time and money trying to preserve it. I am reminded of old Olympia Stadium (where the Red Wings used to play before they moved to Joe Louis Arena in the late '70s); that arena, too, sat for about eight years before finally being demolished.
Solution? Create a pay-per-view event where a whole bunch of Detroit buildings are demolished in quick succession over the course of three hours--the train depot, Tiger Stadium, the Studebaker-Packard plant, and as for that Harper/Piquette/Mansur/Hastings grayfield I talked about in the aforementioned "Kwame Is Out!" blog entry, you could have an aerial bombing... if you think I'm joking, just remember that in 1985, Vince McMahon used pay-per-view to turn what once was a low-rent form of television (pro wrestling) into a multi-million dollar industry. I'm sure a lot of suburbanites have been willing to pay good money to see Detroit make some progress, and a pay-per-view like this is a more realistic way for the city to raise sorely-needed funds than, say, trying to get people to come back to Detroit as it stands right now.
Volume 4, Number 5: Life On Mars Cut Short
(Note: I originally posted this entry to my Yahoo! GeoCities blog on March 17, 2009.)
I got word the other day that ABC has cancelled Life On Mars. The only good news arising out of all this is that ABC told its producers now so that they can plan a series finale (as opposed to cancelling the series with so many loose ends untied, which is what happens with most TV shows). ABC also canned Dirty Sexy Money and Eli Stone, but did not give their producers the opportunity to tie up their "loose ends."
Another fan of LOM reminded me how it stunk that ABC pulled the series off its schedule for two months, which undoubtedly hurt LOM's ratings upon its return in late January; when it did return, they aired episodes out of sequence (which was particularly galling because the previous episode was the first part of a 2-part episode).
Then again, I should know better than to trust ABC. Back in 1991, Robert Iger had just become head of ABC Entertainment when he decided to trash a bunch of shows his predecessor (Brandon Stoddard) put on the schedule (Gabriel's Fire, China Beach); he also never gave Life Goes On a chance, first by keeping it on Sunday nights at 7pm (opposite CBS' 60 Minutes) instead of moving it to a better timeslot, then by shortening its final season to 17 episodes (during which LGO was pre-empted at least twice in favor of political infomercials). Curiously, although ABC slipped to third place among the broadcast networks on Iger's watch (it had risen to second under Stoddard), Iger has since become the head honcho at ABC's parent company, The Walt Disney Company. Over the years, it's become obvious that Iger prefers low-cost, high-profit programming (like America's Funniest Videos, and then look at the Disney Channel, which features kiddie sitcoms as Hannah Montana, That's So Raven and Wizards of Waverly Place; and then there are those High School Musical movies) over very good but relatively expensive storytelling.
That's not to say the other networks haven't been perfect themselves. CBS screwed Christy out of what could have been a long run, first by pulling it off the schedule, then putting it on different nights of this week, then cancelling it in favor of such garbage as Central Park West (an utterly forgettable rip-off of Fox soap Melrose Place); NBC canned a great political sitcom called The Powers That Be in the early '90s; Fox drew the ire of millions by cancelling Firefly and Arrested Development before their time; and (this is a personal wish of mine) UPN should have given the Leonard Nimoy-produced action/fantasy series Deadly Games more than just 12 episodes. But the execs behind those decisions are gone. (I think so, anyway.) Iger isn't.
I got word the other day that ABC has cancelled Life On Mars. The only good news arising out of all this is that ABC told its producers now so that they can plan a series finale (as opposed to cancelling the series with so many loose ends untied, which is what happens with most TV shows). ABC also canned Dirty Sexy Money and Eli Stone, but did not give their producers the opportunity to tie up their "loose ends."Another fan of LOM reminded me how it stunk that ABC pulled the series off its schedule for two months, which undoubtedly hurt LOM's ratings upon its return in late January; when it did return, they aired episodes out of sequence (which was particularly galling because the previous episode was the first part of a 2-part episode).
Then again, I should know better than to trust ABC. Back in 1991, Robert Iger had just become head of ABC Entertainment when he decided to trash a bunch of shows his predecessor (Brandon Stoddard) put on the schedule (Gabriel's Fire, China Beach); he also never gave Life Goes On a chance, first by keeping it on Sunday nights at 7pm (opposite CBS' 60 Minutes) instead of moving it to a better timeslot, then by shortening its final season to 17 episodes (during which LGO was pre-empted at least twice in favor of political infomercials). Curiously, although ABC slipped to third place among the broadcast networks on Iger's watch (it had risen to second under Stoddard), Iger has since become the head honcho at ABC's parent company, The Walt Disney Company. Over the years, it's become obvious that Iger prefers low-cost, high-profit programming (like America's Funniest Videos, and then look at the Disney Channel, which features kiddie sitcoms as Hannah Montana, That's So Raven and Wizards of Waverly Place; and then there are those High School Musical movies) over very good but relatively expensive storytelling.
That's not to say the other networks haven't been perfect themselves. CBS screwed Christy out of what could have been a long run, first by pulling it off the schedule, then putting it on different nights of this week, then cancelling it in favor of such garbage as Central Park West (an utterly forgettable rip-off of Fox soap Melrose Place); NBC canned a great political sitcom called The Powers That Be in the early '90s; Fox drew the ire of millions by cancelling Firefly and Arrested Development before their time; and (this is a personal wish of mine) UPN should have given the Leonard Nimoy-produced action/fantasy series Deadly Games more than just 12 episodes. But the execs behind those decisions are gone. (I think so, anyway.) Iger isn't.
Volume 4, Number 4: More Assorted Odd Thoughts & Ideas
(Note: I originally posted this entry on my Yahoo! GeoCities blog in on February 24, 2009.)
First, a quick update on my previous blog entry: 11 days ago, Peanut Corporation of America filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and shut down its last remaining plant (in Suffolk, Virginia). Jean Halloran, the director of Consumers Union, stated in response, "It is unacceptable for corporations to put consumers' health at risk and then simply declare bankruptcy and go out of business when they get caught. PCA's declaration of bankruptcy will, among other things, shield it from liability suits filed by consumers who became sick or whose loved ones died as a result of eating PCA's peanut products."
Now, for more odd thoughts and ideas:
First, a quick update on my previous blog entry: 11 days ago, Peanut Corporation of America filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and shut down its last remaining plant (in Suffolk, Virginia). Jean Halloran, the director of Consumers Union, stated in response, "It is unacceptable for corporations to put consumers' health at risk and then simply declare bankruptcy and go out of business when they get caught. PCA's declaration of bankruptcy will, among other things, shield it from liability suits filed by consumers who became sick or whose loved ones died as a result of eating PCA's peanut products."
Now, for more odd thoughts and ideas:
- I'm pissed off that Ryan Seacrest has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but Gene Wilder doesn't. What the f&#* has Seacrest done?
- I don't believe that nice guys finish last... but it sure seems like they hardly ever finish first and pricks never finish last.
- I've seen potato and onion pierogies, and potato and cheese pierogies. What I'd like to see is one with onion, cheese, bacon and chives (so it would be more like a baked potato--just have some sour cream to dip 'em in, that would be an excellent side dish).
- I've been watching Life On Mars for a few months now, and I can imagine Harvey Keitel uttering the lines made famous three decades ago by Karl Malden: "It could happen to you. So don't carry cash, carry American Express Travelers Cheques. Don't leave home without them." I mean, Malden did a '70s TV cop show (The Streets of San Francisco); Life On Mars (another cop show) is set in 1973. Malden was famous for his nose; Keitel's character in Life On Mars has said "The nose knows" in at least a couple of episodes. Malden was around 60 when "The Streets of San Francisco" began airing in 1972; Keitel will turn 70 later this year. Finally, both men are alumni of the famous Actors Studio Drama School.
- Anyone ever try mixing orange soda and Vernors together? I've done that, although it's been years. (I think it's 1 part orange to 1 part Vernors, but maybe it was 3 parts orange to 2 parts Vernors.) Think of the result as a "spiced orange" soda.
- You know how the two oldest NFL teams to never appear in a Super Bowl are the Lions and the Browns? They have more in common than that. In the post-merger era, both accomplished next to nothing (the Lions have one playoff victory; the Browns have four). Both took on new owners in the early 1960s who have drawn the ire of their fans (William Clay Ford with the Lions, Art Modell because he moved his team in 1995). Both cities have suffered economic and population declines in recent years. Also, in 1980, wide receiver Ahmad Rashad of the Minnesota Vikings caught a game-winning TD pass in Week 15. If it wasn't for that catch, the Lions would have won the NFC Central and the Vikings would have been out of the NFC playoffs. Who'd Rashad make that catch against? Yep, the Cleveland Browns, who incidentally blew a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter of that game. For all those reasons, when anyone asks me what team I'd root for if the Lions left Detroit, I'd answer "the Cleveland Browns" without hesitation. They're basically Detroit's AFC team.
- Ever heard of jumping the shark? Well, Subway has created a commercial that has jumped the shark. I like the return of the $5 footlong special, but a musical dance number of the "Five... five dollar... five dollar footlong" jingle at the front counter? That's just nuts.
About a year ago I e-mailed Hostess with the suggestion that they come out with Ding Dongs that have mint creme (as opposed to the usual vanilla creme) in them. They were kind enough to send me a coupon for any Hostess product free. Recently, another idea came up: What about Ding Dongs with a dark chocolate coating on the outside and coconut creme on the inside? The idea was inspired by those dark chocolate-coated coconut patties my dad used to get as part of this shipment of Indian River grapefruits and oranges. Gosh, those were good times. - Some time ago, I admitted that the first time I heard of Hell's Kitchen, I thought it was an American adaptation of the British sitcom "Chef!" (which starred Jamaican-British comedian Lenny Henry as Gareth Blackstock, who predates Gordon Ramsay by at least seven years; like Ramsay, Chef Blackstock is at the top of his profession and hurls all kinds of insults and invective at everybody under him in an effort to get them to do their best). And it just hit me--a "Chef!" movie where Chef Blackstock has sold Le Chateau Anglais due to economic problems and is looking to become head chef at another restaurant, and the only restaurant offering him a job is one straight out of Kitchen Nightmares.
- Finally, I'm glad someone did an ad advising people how stupid it is to use the word "gay" where they should be using words like "wrong," "crazy" or, yes, "stupid" instead. I'd like to see a similar set of ads telling people to please stop using the word "retarded" in a similar fashion as that just serves to offend mentally-challenged people.
- TV show drinking games. They're generally set up to favor the big, fat guys who have so much body mass that they need more alcohol to be drunk than a relatively small, skinny woman. But I have an idea: I would set it up so that for a certain event, only one person takes a drink. You write down each event on an index card (e.g. in Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Captain Picard says 'Thank you, Mr. Data,' +1 drink" on one card, "Anyone says 'Shut up, Wesley,' +1 drink" on another, "Commander Riker repeats part what someone else says immediately after hearing it, +2 drinks" on another, and so on). Then you shuffle the cards and distribute them so that each person gets a different set of events.
Volume 4, Number 3: Parnell's (Evident Lack of) Pride
(Note: I originally published this entry to my Yahoo! GeoCities blog on February 11, 2009.)
Anyone who reads my blog--OK, maybe there are three of you--knows that I hate food poisoning, having had two bouts with bad restaurant food that made me severely nauseous. Past blog entries have touched upon the Chinese tainting milk and gluten with melamine in order to pass tests for protein content, a massive 143 million-pound recall of ground beef, and the bagged spinach crisis of 2006.
I had not blogged about the no-longer-so-recent matter involving the Peanut Corporation of America for a few reasons. One is that I've been busy at work; the other is that new developments keep coming up in that case. First it was that PCA was re-testing products that tested positive for salmonella, then shipping them once they tested negative at another lab. Then there was the report of a shipment of PCA product that was rejected in Canada and then could not be allowed back into the US because it contained a filthy, putrid or decomposed substance.” Then there was the matter of a plant in Texas operating for four years without a license or any inspections whatsoever.
But earlier today came the worst story yet. The head of the PCA, Stewart Parnell, whom I thought must be shaken to the core because his surname appears on a brand of peanut butter made by PCA (Parnell's Pride), is the one who urged the shipment of contaminated products. According to internal correspondence released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which can be found on this web page, Parnell complained about shipment delays and losing money.
(In the picture above, Rep. Greg Walden, a Republican from Oregon, holds up a jar of recalled peanut products while questioning Stewart Parnell.)
Parnell refused to testify today before a House subcommittee. In particular, Rep. Walden asked Parnell if he would be willing to unseal a jar of recalled peanut products and eat any of them, and Parnell did not answer, instead invoking the Fifth Amendment. If the over 600 hospitalizations and the eight deaths were nails in PCA's coffin, then consider Parnell's actions leading to and during the crisis to be a nuclear bomb in that coffin.
A federal criminal investigation is underway, needless to say. Bill Marler, an attorney who has specialized in tainted food cases for over 15 years, keeps a blog that covers this developing crisis as well as other food poisoning cases.
FYI I bought some peanut butter cracker sandwiches last fall. Fortunately for me, they were Lance, a brand that is on the safe products list. Yes, the recall is so widespread that the FDA actually had to make a list of products that are not subject to it, and that is unheard of to me.
Anyone who reads my blog--OK, maybe there are three of you--knows that I hate food poisoning, having had two bouts with bad restaurant food that made me severely nauseous. Past blog entries have touched upon the Chinese tainting milk and gluten with melamine in order to pass tests for protein content, a massive 143 million-pound recall of ground beef, and the bagged spinach crisis of 2006.
I had not blogged about the no-longer-so-recent matter involving the Peanut Corporation of America for a few reasons. One is that I've been busy at work; the other is that new developments keep coming up in that case. First it was that PCA was re-testing products that tested positive for salmonella, then shipping them once they tested negative at another lab. Then there was the report of a shipment of PCA product that was rejected in Canada and then could not be allowed back into the US because it contained a filthy, putrid or decomposed substance.” Then there was the matter of a plant in Texas operating for four years without a license or any inspections whatsoever.
But earlier today came the worst story yet. The head of the PCA, Stewart Parnell, whom I thought must be shaken to the core because his surname appears on a brand of peanut butter made by PCA (Parnell's Pride), is the one who urged the shipment of contaminated products. According to internal correspondence released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which can be found on this web page, Parnell complained about shipment delays and losing money.
(In the picture above, Rep. Greg Walden, a Republican from Oregon, holds up a jar of recalled peanut products while questioning Stewart Parnell.)Parnell refused to testify today before a House subcommittee. In particular, Rep. Walden asked Parnell if he would be willing to unseal a jar of recalled peanut products and eat any of them, and Parnell did not answer, instead invoking the Fifth Amendment. If the over 600 hospitalizations and the eight deaths were nails in PCA's coffin, then consider Parnell's actions leading to and during the crisis to be a nuclear bomb in that coffin.
A federal criminal investigation is underway, needless to say. Bill Marler, an attorney who has specialized in tainted food cases for over 15 years, keeps a blog that covers this developing crisis as well as other food poisoning cases.
FYI I bought some peanut butter cracker sandwiches last fall. Fortunately for me, they were Lance, a brand that is on the safe products list. Yes, the recall is so widespread that the FDA actually had to make a list of products that are not subject to it, and that is unheard of to me.
Volume 4, Number 2: Even More Miscellaneous Mumbo-Jumbo
(Note: I posted this to my Yahoo! GeoCities blog on January 28, 2009.)
I have a bunch of ideas, musing and other stuff swimming around in my head. They include (but are not limited to):
I have a bunch of ideas, musing and other stuff swimming around in my head. They include (but are not limited to):
- The first time I heard of rock artist Eagle Eye Cherry (he did this song 10 years ago, Save Tonight), I thought, what a crazy name for an artist--pick a name of a bird, then a name of a body part, then a name of a fruit, and presto! Instant rock band name, Mad Libs-style. Like Vulture Spleen Kumquat. It wasn't until later that I found out Eagle Eye Cherry was actually the brother of Neneh Cherry (she had a song in the Top 40 back in '89, Buffalo Stance).
- I hate it anytime a sports journalist refers to the NFL's Miami Dolphins as "the Fish." Dolphins aren't fish, they're mammals. Look it up!
- Did you know the difference between a sunroof and a moonroof? Neither did I, before I read this. (Evidently, I've never had a car with a sunroof. Never mind that the word "sunroof" makes a lot more sense than "moonroof.")
- I always spelled it M-U-A-M-M-A-R K-H-A-D-A-F-Y.
- Here's a channel I'd love to see on cable--The Traffic Channel: Constant updates on local traffic conditions, coverage of major traffic jams and police chases, and shows about classic police chases and all-time great traffic jams, and to balance things out, also shows about how motorists can drive smarter and more safely.
- You know how the band, Gorillaz, does animated music videos? It got me thinking--Milli Vanilli would have been a lot more successful if their music videos had been cartoons (instead of using those lip-synching model/dancers, Rob and Fab).
- Rene Auberjonois would make a great spokesman for SmithBarney. Watching him on Boston Legal one night, I couldn't help but imagine him delivering the line, "At SmithBarney, they make money the old-fashioned way... They earn it."
- Benecol... It's this substitute for butter and margarine, but anyway, I would never buy a food item whose name sounds more like a medication. "Yeah, I'm just going to put some Cepacol on my toast."
Volume 4, Number 1: Microsoft Songsmith, and More Miscellaneous Mumbo-Jumbo
(Note: I posted this entry to my Yahoo! GeoCities blog on January 17, 2009.)
Earlier today, on YouTube, I came across a possible excuse Microsoft could have for why Windows Vista was such a crappy, buggy "upgrade" over XP: Apparently, they spent too much time working on this other software project called Microsoft Songsmith, where you sing a song and Songsmith comes up with music to back up your lyrics.
Some genius on YouTube decided to put Songsmith to the test, using some vocals-only tracks from songs like "Roxanne" by the Police. On Roxanne, Songsmith apparently decided that Sting's lyrics deserved a Caribbean beat with steel drums and horns. In other words, absolutely hilarious. (Update 1-7-2010: You may also want to check out the Songsmith polka version of Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train.)
Other potential hilarious applications could include extracting the audio from certain failed American Idol Auditions (like that guy in Philadelphia last year who sang "Go Down Moses" in that crazy voice, or Fookling Lee's audition in 2005, or William Hung's "She Bangs, She Bangs"). And I wonder if I could get Songsmith to put Vegas swingin' lounge music to the lyrics from Godsmack's "Keep Away." (Update 1-7-2010: Actually, I did do two Songsmithed versions of failed AI auditions: the aforementioned Go Down Moses, and also Milo Turk's No Sex Allowed.)
In other news...
The holidays: Shopping was a pain; 1/3 of my shopping wound up being a Walmart gift card for my older brother and his family and another 1/3 was a Amazon.com gift certificate for my younger brother. I also finally accomplished a long-overdue goal: I gave more than I got.
Fantasy football: My Detroit Renaissance finally won the Hughes All-Internet League title for the first time in 13 tries. I started out 2-2 in that league (with two very close losses), then went 11-0 the rest of the way to win the title after three losses in the big game. But the real surprise was my Detroit Vipers--whom I expected would go no better than 7-7 going into the season--winning the championship in Todd's Ultimate Fantasy Football (TUFF). They got hot when it mattered, going from 4-5 to 9-5 to finish the regular season and then knocking off three division winners in the final three weeks. One noteworthy bit was that Brandon Jacobs helped the Denver Devils get to TUFF Bowl IX, but then his NFL team benched him for Week 17 to keep him healthy so he couldn't help Denver beat my Vipers.
Real sports: The Lions finished 0-16. All the more reason why I play fantasy football to begin with--when I was young, I was frustrated with waiting for the hometown teams to win titles--no Detroit team won a major sports title in the 1970s, if you remember. Anyway, the Lions just hired Titans defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz to be their new head coach, and I have hope for him. After all, Jim Mora Sr. (my personal first choice, never mind that he's almost 74 years old) was an NFL defensive coordinator before becoming an NFL head coach and he expunged the losing cultures from New Orleans and Indianapolis during his time with each of those teams.
Business--excuse me, it's not business news anymore, it's Capitalism Gone Wrong: Gosh, why the heck haven't I mentioned it before: Bernie Madoff. A month ago, we all heard the shocking news that Madoff has done what I thought no human would be so devoid of conscience as to do it: Rob from rich (billionaires) and poor (charities) alike. He claims to have stolen $50 billion by means of a Ponzi scheme, but according to Alexandra Penney (a former editor of Self magazine and one-time best-selling author), $17 billion is more accurate. No matter what the number, the damage is everywhere--suicides, the impact on Wall Street, and people who once thought they were set for life suddenly finding themselves having to go back to work (like Penney). What's alarming is that the agency that was formed under Franklin Roosevelt to stop precisely this kind of fraud from happening--the Securities and Exchange Commission--has been failing to do so for years now. First Enron, then the subprime mortgage mess, then the bank failures (Bear Stearns et al.) and now this. 28 years ago, in his Inaugural Address, President Reagan said, "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." What a frigging lie.
Earlier today, on YouTube, I came across a possible excuse Microsoft could have for why Windows Vista was such a crappy, buggy "upgrade" over XP: Apparently, they spent too much time working on this other software project called Microsoft Songsmith, where you sing a song and Songsmith comes up with music to back up your lyrics.
Some genius on YouTube decided to put Songsmith to the test, using some vocals-only tracks from songs like "Roxanne" by the Police. On Roxanne, Songsmith apparently decided that Sting's lyrics deserved a Caribbean beat with steel drums and horns. In other words, absolutely hilarious. (Update 1-7-2010: You may also want to check out the Songsmith polka version of Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train.)
Other potential hilarious applications could include extracting the audio from certain failed American Idol Auditions (like that guy in Philadelphia last year who sang "Go Down Moses" in that crazy voice, or Fookling Lee's audition in 2005, or William Hung's "She Bangs, She Bangs"). And I wonder if I could get Songsmith to put Vegas swingin' lounge music to the lyrics from Godsmack's "Keep Away." (Update 1-7-2010: Actually, I did do two Songsmithed versions of failed AI auditions: the aforementioned Go Down Moses, and also Milo Turk's No Sex Allowed.)
In other news...
The holidays: Shopping was a pain; 1/3 of my shopping wound up being a Walmart gift card for my older brother and his family and another 1/3 was a Amazon.com gift certificate for my younger brother. I also finally accomplished a long-overdue goal: I gave more than I got.
Fantasy football: My Detroit Renaissance finally won the Hughes All-Internet League title for the first time in 13 tries. I started out 2-2 in that league (with two very close losses), then went 11-0 the rest of the way to win the title after three losses in the big game. But the real surprise was my Detroit Vipers--whom I expected would go no better than 7-7 going into the season--winning the championship in Todd's Ultimate Fantasy Football (TUFF). They got hot when it mattered, going from 4-5 to 9-5 to finish the regular season and then knocking off three division winners in the final three weeks. One noteworthy bit was that Brandon Jacobs helped the Denver Devils get to TUFF Bowl IX, but then his NFL team benched him for Week 17 to keep him healthy so he couldn't help Denver beat my Vipers.
Real sports: The Lions finished 0-16. All the more reason why I play fantasy football to begin with--when I was young, I was frustrated with waiting for the hometown teams to win titles--no Detroit team won a major sports title in the 1970s, if you remember. Anyway, the Lions just hired Titans defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz to be their new head coach, and I have hope for him. After all, Jim Mora Sr. (my personal first choice, never mind that he's almost 74 years old) was an NFL defensive coordinator before becoming an NFL head coach and he expunged the losing cultures from New Orleans and Indianapolis during his time with each of those teams.
Business--excuse me, it's not business news anymore, it's Capitalism Gone Wrong: Gosh, why the heck haven't I mentioned it before: Bernie Madoff. A month ago, we all heard the shocking news that Madoff has done what I thought no human would be so devoid of conscience as to do it: Rob from rich (billionaires) and poor (charities) alike. He claims to have stolen $50 billion by means of a Ponzi scheme, but according to Alexandra Penney (a former editor of Self magazine and one-time best-selling author), $17 billion is more accurate. No matter what the number, the damage is everywhere--suicides, the impact on Wall Street, and people who once thought they were set for life suddenly finding themselves having to go back to work (like Penney). What's alarming is that the agency that was formed under Franklin Roosevelt to stop precisely this kind of fraud from happening--the Securities and Exchange Commission--has been failing to do so for years now. First Enron, then the subprime mortgage mess, then the bank failures (Bear Stearns et al.) and now this. 28 years ago, in his Inaugural Address, President Reagan said, "Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem." What a frigging lie.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)