A Long Time Coming

BRUUUUUUUUUCE!

Things are starting to look up in the sports world. Notre Dame is 1-3, the Bengals have the worst offense in football, and for the first time in 15 years the Reds are in the playoffs. Finally, I can enjoy October baseball. And by "enjoy" I mean agonize over every pitch in every game the Reds play until my frustration builds to rage and I turn off the TV in a fog of anger and kick the dog. I love sports! Go Reds!

(By the way - Baseball Tonight spent 9 minutes talking about the Rays making the playoffs and 2 minutes talking about the Reds, even though nobody cares about Tampa (including their own city) and the team will be blown up in 3 months because the owners are too cheap. Oh, and with multiple teams clinching playoff spots last night the flagship EsPN channel was showing a poker tournament. Poker. Just two more reasons I hate EsPN.)

An Entertaining Gallery

Today I stumbled across what must be the most awesome unintentionally hilarious photo gallery of all time. The gallery is courtesy of si.com, and is titled "NASCAR Fans at Dover". Enjoy some of the choicest cuts, with my commentary, after the fold...

A Question

And a very simple one at that - does anyone read this fucking blog anymore?

You know what differentiates a good blog from espn.com? Interaction. (Well, interaction and no Sports Guy. Durr! Boston! Durr!) There's a give and take here, people. Somebody writes something. You read that something. You comment on that something. The author of that something receives encouragement from your comments. Something else gets written.

It's the circle of life. Simba dies if you don't leave comments.

I've tried to write quite a few things the past few weeks soliciting comments. I've even explicitly solicited comments by writing, "...post [...] comments". Where's the love?

When someone posts something, write a comment. Even if that comment just says, "Kevin smells". It's a small validation for those of us trying to keep this thing moving, and will hopefully ensure its survival until my Telepathic Blogging Brain Cap™ patent gets approved and makes these things obsolete.

UPDATE: Now commenting is even easier because I've turned off that lame-ass word verification. Who loves you?

Pubic School

If you didn't read the article, here's a link to it. The article talks about a sign put up in South Bend, IN in regards to their spectacular "pubic" school systems. Coincidentally, teen pregnancy rates are also up.

A Hypothetical Situation Requiring Your Input

I'm going into the biodome for 12 months and, to conserve space, can only take three (3) CDs with me (Also, imagine it's 1998 and they haven't yet invented portable music players that would allow you to take 1000 full albums on a device the size of a business card). After much reflection, these are those 3 CDs...

1. The Downward Spiral by Nine Inch Nails
2. The Joshua Tree by U2
3. Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age

I'm not saying these are the three best albums of all time, just that these are good enough and diverse enough that I could listen to them, and only them, for one year without getting tired of them. 

As an aside, what does it say for the current state of music that the most recent album on that list was released in 2002? And that only narrowly beat out Appetite for Destruction, which would've put the most recent album at 1994! I'll tell you what it says - new music, for the most part, sucks.

Post your three in the comments!

A Guilty Pleasure

Do you ever play the game where you imagine you've won the lottery and now you can spend all those imaginary millions to realize all your wildest dreams? (If you answered, "No", to this question then stop lying, you lying liar. Lies make baby Jesus cry. Go think about what you've done, in shame, for 15 minutes then you can come back to finish reading.) Of course, everyone has the basics - new cars, new houses, maybe something for the members of your family, maybe a domesticated tiger that could replace your car so you could be "greener", maybe a giant yacht that you can sail into international waters to wager on unsanctioned monkey knife fights. Basic fantasies all. A dime a dozen.

I think bigger. You know what I'd do? A new razor blade EVERYDAY!

A List

If you don't like these songs, we can no longer be friends. In no particular order...

• Life is a Highway - Tom Cochrane
• I Ran (So Far Away) - A Flock of Seagulls
• You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) - Dead or Alive
• Ordinary World - Duran Duran
• I Want You To Want Me - Cheap Trick
• Any song with a robot voice, e.g. Where It's At (Beck), Intergalactic (Beastie Boys)

That is all.

I Guess That's Almost As Good

So the Reds lost (again) last night. That makes 4 in a row. But at least Joey Votto broke the leg of Rockies' pitcher Aaron Cook with a line drive. Votto may have lost out on a chance for a Triple Crown, but he will almost certainly lead the league in one stat - Legs Broken.

That crack you heard wasn't the ball on the bat!

New TV!!!

I have, off and on, been researching TVs for over a year, just waiting for the glorious moment when I would get the go-ahead to pull the trigger. I was deadset on a Panasonic plasma until I heard they had a "feature" that deteriorated black levels over time. So then I moved to Samsung plasmas because they got good reviews on picture quality and feature set and I had seen Colin's firsthand and was quite impressed. Then I saw LG release their new Infinia line of plasmas and thought, "That's my next TV!" Then this weekend, out of the blue, I got the long-awaited go-ahead... and I responded with panic.