Archive for January, 2008

Pittsburgh Penguins: Worst Actors Ever

Thanks to Jerry for cluing me in to this awesome commercial. The first nine seconds are blank, but keep watching:

Why didn’t Malkin get an equally terrible/hilarious line?

The GOP in Florida

Quick reaction:

• I am relieved for America’s role in the world that Rudy Giuliani is out of the race. He was notoriously advised on “World War IV” by none other than Norman Podhoretz, the Iraq war advocate who also wrote last year that he “hopes and prays” for the bombing of Iran. Giuliani’s reputation for racial divide would not play well either at home or on the world stage. Bob Herbert said on TV today that it seemed that the more voters got to know Giuliani, the less they liked him, and that does seem to have played out with his Florida dropoff.
• While McCain is the favorite nominee of so many independents and those straddling the party divide, I do think he’ll have to nominate a very Bush-like running mate to help strengthen party support for his ticket. Look for someone like Sam Brownback to turn up again.
• I’m still surprised Romney has gotten this far.

I wonder how McCain vs. Clinton could play out?

Awesome Maps Site

I just happened across strangemaps.wordpress.com, which is a site dedicated to — believe it or not — strange and interesting maps. If you like geography, history or pretty much anything statistical, you should check it out. Here’s a thought-provoking map of religion in the United States, with the light blue being counties that have more Catholic churches than other faiths, and the red counties being those that have more Baptist churches that other faiths.

Good jorb, strangemaps!

Pro Massage: Overrated

Hey all.

I’m going to base the following opinion on a statistically suspect sample of N=1, but hey, why not.

When G and I were on our honeymoon in Mexico, they had a complementary massage session at the hotel where we stayed. I looked forward to this with some trepidation, being that I had never partaken of a masseuse / masseur before, and I figured having some stranger rubbing oil all over me would be more than a little awkward. But, I was game.

When the appointment arrived, I walked into the darkened room and laid down on the table, at which point a nice masseuse walked in and commenced her work. Getting oiled up felt a little weird, but then the shoulder part was pretty soothing, so I chilled out and settled in.

Then, ow. A lot.

Thanks, I feel so refreshed

I don’t know if I’m extra stiff or what — I used to always do well at the sit ‘n reach back in the elementary gym-class day, and my college jujitsu course instructors noted how weirdly far my joints could bend before I had to tap out — but that massage hurt. At one point I think my arm got put into a police submission hold, then my knees were bent back a lot farther than they’re supposed to go — that was especially rough after the 2006 knee surgery tightened things up down there. Being a dude unfamiliar with this whole thing, I of course opted to grit it out silently and act like it felt great to have my ligaments popping and locking without the benefit of Carlton’s breakdancing lessons, but it didn’t.

Anyway, don’t pay for a massage, because they aren’t that cool. And as a guy who has gotten exactly one in my lifetime, I know.

Thanks for reading, and may your day be filled with General Tso’s chicken. I ate some today and it was amazing.

Free!

The Atlantic Monthly just opened up its paid site to be free to web users. I was just saying the other day how I had heard this 2005 article about talk radio was an excellent portrait of the industry, and that I wished the site were open to non-subscribers so I could read it.

Obviously I’m now off to read it. Nice work, Atlantic Monthly.

Primary Picks Update

For anyone keeping score — aside from the dudes at work, who already are — I’m currently tied for 10th out of 14 Slate people in our work primary pool. We get different point values per state for each correct 1st, 2nd or 3rd-place pick up through Feb. 5, and right now I have 14. Here’s my correct picks so far:

DEMS - 10
Iowa (1 point each): Obama - 1st
N.H. (2): Clinton - 1st, Obama - 2nd, Edwards - 3rd
Nev. (1): Clinton - 1st, Obama - 2nd, Edwards - 3rd

G.O.P. - 4
Iowa (1): nope
N.H. (2): McCain - 1st
Mich. (1): Romney - 1st, McCain - 2nd
Nev.: don’t think so
S.C.: not happening

My picks so far include such spectacular misses as Giuliani placing in the top 3 for N.H. and Michigan without any campaigning, Ron Paul finishing 3rd in Nevada — I probably got distracted by the ever-present Paultard hacking threat — and Joe Biden staying in the race to finish 3rd in New York. (Where the hell did I come up with that one?)

So I’d like to thank the Republicans for not only playing havoc with our great nation, but costing me bragging rights among my coworkers. (Minus a certain high-placed editor, who at the moment is tied for last.) Much obliged, dudes.

Eschatological

The History Channel tonight aired their Life After People show, which I did not catch thanks to the Penguins-Capitals game. (It was good, then came the part where the Pens lost.) H to the C hyped it big time, including buying advertising on Slate, and I was intrigued despite this prime example of my shifting-focus theory of the History Channel. I’ll have to Tivo that mug when it rolls around again.

I don’t think this show would have the same audience if it weren’t for I Am Legend coming out last month, what with both being all deer-in-Times-Square and whatnot. Those two are in turn a hell of a lot like Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us. Add in the upcoming movie adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road — now shooting near Pittsburgh, though that isn’t quite so flattering when they’re evoking a post-apocalyptic landscape — and we have an end-of-it-all trend. Sounds like a certain nation is rocking some sort of end-of-empire vibe.

I can’t predict the possibility that any of this stuff will come true, but then if I could, waiting around for it wouldn’t be fun either. I certainly hope we don’t end up with The Road, because that book single-handedly messed up my Road Warrior-based distant concept of civilizational collapse — featuring crazy football-padded dudes fighting in the desert — and turned it into existential nightmare No. 1. (It was really not a fun book. Tremendously well-written, but relentlessly disturbing.)

So I’d like to make two points about this whole cultural trend:

1. Everybody dying, while probably good for the Earth, would not be cool at all.

2. If we’re watching decline-and-fall shows here in the “declining” U.S. — as much as a nation of 300 million entrepreneurially oriented people can decline without suffering some society-immolating event — do you suppose rising powers India and China are rocking Hindi / Mandarin shows about Romulus and Remus getting Rome off the ground?

AT&T

Agreed on this one:

Has AT&T Lost Its Mind?

I’ll decline the surveillance service, thanks, and I too don’t envy their customer service workers.

Quick Hits

Yo.

• Romney winning Michigan is a little surprising, but then I say that as someone who picked him to win the state a few weeks back, only to later doubt my own pick. The reports said a lot of his votes came from the affluent Michigan suburbs, which would make sense because I really don’t see him ever connecting with middle-middle-, lower-middle- and impoverished-class voters. The dude is just way too inauthentic and screams “privileged guy” too loudly. I think the rest of the Michigan GOP must have been split evenly between McCain and Huckabee and allowed Romney to hook it up.
• Opinion: Chuck Brown and Fugazi are the best musical acts to come from D.C. Your thoughts? Not that it matters, being that I’m right. I’ll make a possible exception for Minor Threat, but that was Ian MacKaye too, so in that case you’re just debating MacKaye-led bands.
• The water heater died yesterday in our apartment building, so I had to heat up a pot of water and bathe with that, a washcloth and a bar of soap. I felt and smelled just as clean as I would have been following a regular shower, and the whole thing was strangely invigorating, which is probably because I was freezing my ass off as the water cooled between rinses. Still, if we someday have to go back to nineteenth-century life, I think I could handle it in the bathing department. Although if I did have to go back to the 1800s, I’d miss cryingwhileeating.com.
• Jeremiah pointed to this a while back, but talking about D.C. made me remember that it won for coolest city flag. I happen to think Phoenix and Wichita should be ranked higher and Denver lower, and would like to ask what exactly Provo was thinking.

Out.

Posted January 15, 2008 at 11:37 pm | Link | Tags: 2008 Elections, Music, Washington, D.C. | 2 Comments »

Pat’s Going to Michigan

I got the good news on Friday: I’ll be heading this fall to the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan to be part of the class of 2010.

I mentioned this fall that application essays were sapping my blogging resolve, so now yinz know what that was about. I’m definitely relieved to hear I was accepted, and more than that, I’m psyched to start grad school. I’m also hoping I don’t revert too much back to undergrad, but I don’t think business school students tend to beard-out quite as much as your average 20-year-old junior. (Note: that photo is of Microsoft’s staff in 1978, but it’s so awesome that I had to link it.)

“But Stack,” you may be saying, “where’d this MBA idea come from? I thought you were a web media guy.” You’re right: I am a web-media guy, and on first glance, it might be confusing. But the longer I’ve been doing what I do, the more I’ve realized an MBA is a solid idea.

I’m all about the success of online media: the format is still new, and media companies are finding their way through the changed climate, so it can be a scary thing for those steering the media to where it needs to be. Good websites are built on three legs — content, technology and business — and having worked a lot on the first two, I knew that strengthening the third one would help me out in the field. There’s a lot of harsh rhetoric on both sides about who’s going to “win” in the new / old media divide, but non-suckas know that it’s a mutually beneficial relationship up in this. Both old and new media need knowledgeable people to help guide the industry along and use the web’s opportunities. That’s where I’m coming from.

Journalists have long believed very strongly in the separation of business and editorial, and I share that opinion. But I think there’s a definite role for website managers who can navigate both sides of the field: an appreciation for the vital democratic role of the media with the ability to keep the site economically thriving is what’s needed here, and in a nutshell, I’m going to b-school to play that role.

And for the record, I’m agnostic on the football question right now. Sure, Michigan will help with future success, but I lived in Columbus from ages zero to one-month, my mom’s family is all over Central Ohio, and I can hardly turn my back on the greatest NU football moment of all time:

Conflicted.

White Folks’ Subway

I’m proud to have lived in three locations not on this map.

Image!

Washington Metro

I thought I would share this Yelp.com review that I wrote for the WMATA. I was particularly inspired after calling four times today to fix a Smartcard problem and never being able to reach a human being:

“You know, when I first moved here, I looked at the concrete archway stations and green/red lights that make up the Metro platforms and thought, “Wow, this transit system looks mad cool, like an early ’80s dystopian sci-fi flick in the vein of ‘Blade Runner’ or ‘Aliens’.”

But two years of Metrorail has brought the analogy full-circle: today I see the Washington Metro Transit Authority as a restrictive facehugger, wrapping its spiny appendages around the area’s commuter throat to spawn a series of acid-blooded delays, chest-burstingly high fares, and unresponsive customer service that makes you want to jump into a furnace only to be implausibly cloned 200 years later.

One extra star though for air-conditioned platforms. Those are nice.”

Biden

We’re now up to three Democrats who’ve dropped out — Bill Richardson having dropped yesterday, who was preceded by Chris Dodd and Joe Biden. So, I thought I’d state my preference now for Biden as Secretary of State should the next administration be Democratic.

Biden is pretty high on himself — note how often he appears on TV — and he did vote for that 2005 bankruptcy bill that helped out the always-needy credit-card companies. (Looking at the voting list, I note that Clinton didn’t vote one way or the other on that highly controversial bill. Interesting!)

But the thing is, every time I see Biden on TV, I find myself agreeing with nearly everything he says. The guy clearly knows his foreign-policy stuff, and assuming he actually means it, I like that he’s made noise about sparking a constitutional war-powers crisis should the President attack Iran. He also is down for a federalized pseudo-partition of Iraq, which I still think is the best hope for a settlement.

Biden would make an excellent Secretary of State. I think he probably ran for President for that exact reason: he’s got to be self-aware enough to know that he wouldn’t match up with the heavy hitters, but he got his name out there in the public eye as someone who’s serious about the executive branch. So let’s get all up on it.

Cowher

The big story around DC, in the wake of Joe Gibbs’ retirement, has been the search for a new Redskins coach. People are mentioning Russ Grimm and Jason Garrett, but the name that’s getting the biggest play is Bill Cowher. There were three subway workers sitting behind me on a bench today, and they were discussing just how much they want Cowher as the new Skins coach.

Though Bill’s denying that he’ll come back in 2008, I don’t doubt that Dan Snyder is crazy enough to throw around the type of money that will make Cowher say, “You know, I’ll look like I’m completely going back on my word, but for $15 million per season, I’ll be happy to flash my new choppers around Jack Kent Cooke Stadium. Not to mention I get to coach Antwaan Randle El again, and enjoy the hilarity that is Clinton Portis.”

Should the Redskins ever play in Pittsburgh with Cowher as the Skins coach, there’s no question that Cowher will be booed unmercifully and at maximum volume. “But the guy gave them a Super Bowl victory and 21 playoff games in 15 years,” you say. Yes, but remember you’re talking about the “What have you done for me lately?” sports capital of the greater Rust Belt region. Once-popular-Steeler (and airplane homie of mine) Joey Porter was roundly booed this year, and he didn’t even leave the team of his own accord.

My question is for the non-Pittsburgh fans out there: is this unique to Pittsburgh, or would your fans boo a returning coach in a new uniform as well, even if the coach had won you a Super Bowl? Let’s say Brian Billick becomes the Bengals’ new coach: do the Baltimore fans boo and/or stab him?

On second thought, they’d clearly stab him, since they were glad to see him go and stabbing is what Ravens do. But you get the point.

New Hampshire

• Clinton’s win today is supposedly a shocking victory, but I had called that one in my work primary pool. (I also called Obama winning Iowa. What.) I think the “crying” episode put her over the top: humanization was clearly exactly what she needed.
• Speaking of that video, am I the only one who doesn’t think she actually cried? The commentary I read made it sound like she pulled a “Leave Britney alone!”, yet after watching the video three times I still can barely discern the parts where her voice supposedly breaks:

  I did find it to be strikingly emotional and personal for her, and that’s true whether you believe it was staged or not. (My vote: not staged.)

• And how stage-managed do people really have to believe you to be when there’s a big debate as to whether you genuinely show emotion or not? If I got up on stage and punched a dude in the face, I’m pretty sure you all wouldn’t be like, “Well, did he actually not like the guy, or did he just do this as a ploy to show his fist-forming abilities to the masses? It’s hard to say!”
• And did you know the “Leave Britney alone” commentator is a dude? I think I was the last person in the country to learn this.
• McCain won. Good for him. And where is Giuliani? He seems to have assumed the Fred Thompson role of just hanging out and figuring he’s cool enough to get votes anyway. I know he’s gunning for later states, but completely ignoring the first two primaries is pretty weird.

I predicted in my pool that the two winners today will be the ultimate nominees. But, we’ll see.

Posted January 9, 2008 at 12:20 am | Link | Tags: 2008 Elections | 10 Comments »