Bitey the Shark |
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Not all who wander are lost...
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Thursday, January 30, 2003
SUPER BOWL COMMERCIALS... The game was the usual bore... but as has become par for the course... some commercials really stuck in my craw. Without a doubt... "Terry Tate - Office Linebacker" was stroke of genius by the folks at Reebok. It was already a hilarious commercial before Terry belted out the line about cover sheets and TPS reports from Office Space. Reeboks still never fit my feet right, but I can't wait to see the commercial again! The other commercial that got me, for altogether different reasons, was the MoveOn.org commercial telling George W. Bush to back of the bombs and let the inspections work. This ad struck me for a number of different reasons, perhaps most glaringly because it snuck right in between all the feel good and funny commercials I am so used to seeing during Super Bowls. The girl playing with the flower... the mushroom cloud... people said that had seen the commercial before. I hadn't... and it zinged me. Another thought the MoveOn ad sparked in my mind was one of my "What ifs". (If you know me, you know I always play "what if" about every hot topic.) What of some anti-war (hence... anti-Bush) billionaire decided to drop a bundle and run 20 or 30 of those commercials throughout the Super Bowl broadcast? Innundate the masses with messages of peace just 48 hours before Bush begs them for war? ABC might never have run so many ads for one guy... but the talk around the nation would have been fun! The only other commercial that surprised me was the one that didn't air. I might have missed it... but did Nike sit this one out this year? No Swoosh ads anywhere? SOTU... So W. got loose on his State of the Union speech the other night. I really couldn't stand to listen to it (So I didn't... I turned on some Buffett!). I guess what it comes down to is that I feel insulted by almost every sentence he utters... "I have sent you a healthy forest initiative to help prevent the catastrophic fires that devastate communities, kill wildlife and burn away millions of acres of treasured forests." Yeah... timber companies know more about maintaining a "healthy forest" than Departments of Forestry or environmentalists. Miraculously folks with money to gain can garner a more objective opinion on the matter than those with no money on the line. Sure George! A LOOK IN THE MIRROR... "Year after year, America has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate or attack." Does that passage sound familiar? Sounds like it could be a quote by some activist or politician from any American newspaper. Afterall.... it's accurate. Isn't it? Are America's weapons programs expensive? Yep. Is testing those weapons risky? Surely. Does America use them to "dominate, intimidate or attack"? Certainly. Here's the catch... America wasn't the actual subject of that passage. I simply took the passage from George W. Bush's State of the Union address and inserted the word "America" where "Saddam Hussein" used to be. Hello pot.... ? This is the kettle... THE HEAT IS ON.... Its a sad day when a boy born and raised on the sand of San Diego hears that the current temperature is 30 degrees and thinks... "Yes!!! It's WARM today!!" That's what 18 degree commutes to work will do to your mind... Thursday, January 23, 2003
TENNIS ANYONE??? Does the Australian Open really exist? Is there any less significant "major" in any sport than the Oz Open? Wednesday, January 22, 2003
THE BIG PUSH.... Wanna know why George W. Bush and his team are pushing to get the "War" against Iraq approved by the U.N. Security Council at the end of this month? It's not because they have found a "Smoking Gun", it's not because the weather conditions are optimal this time of year to fight (the U.S. will kick ass any month the conflict starts), and it's not because they have simply had enough of Saddam.... Nope, it's mere politics. Bush knows that if he can get a Security Council vote before January ends, he has a much greater chance of getting the Council to back him. Why??? Because the Chair of the Council will change in February from France to Germany. Bush knows that while the French have been waffling on the idea of hitting Baghdad, the Germans have been dead-set against it! In essence, Bush and Powell can lean on France and likely get the result they want. The same cannot be said of Berlin. The German argument is simple and understated. Fighting terror is the Germans number on international priority, but they feel that attacking Baghdad only distracts international effort from that priority. Check me if I'm wrong here, but isn't that what millions of Americans are thinking too? Why Iraq instead of North Korea? Why now? Even when Saddam falls, will we actually be any safer? These are questions I hear Americans muttering every day. Perhaps its time this muttering silent majority of Americans demanded answers to these questions, rather than just throwing their hands up in the air and allowing the bombs to fall. Thursday, January 16, 2003
HMMMMM.... There's nukes in North Korea, troops knocking on Saddam's door and others taking their knocks in Afghanistan. Anyone else besides me wondering why George W. Bush is paying such personal attention to the University of Michigan affirmative action legal case? Perhaps Ashcroft was too busy fighting American citizens and The Great Delegator felt the issue was too "divisive" to pass on to another minion. Tuesday, January 14, 2003
LAVIN AN ELEVATOR.... So UCLA Men's Hoops coach Steve Lavin is on the hot seat again.... what else is new? I'm not even gonna begin to speculate about whether Lavin will remain at UCLA or not, I really don't care. The question I would like to pose is this... How many Bruins that played under Lavin, left Westwood as better, or more complete, players than when they arrived? Certainly, some talented ballers have worn the baby blue, but did their game get better under Lavin? Baron Davis is awesome, but he was just as explosive and dangerous his freshman year as he was when he left. Jelani McCoy showed up with some great inside game, but spent too much time howling after meaningless dunks and making friends with the happy lettuce to ever develop a reliable jump-shot. Moiso, Rush, Kapono, Knight.... all these guys could have benefitted from someone who might have forced them to work on the weaknesses in their game. One could make the argument that Earl Watson and Matt Barnes improved during their Bruin days, but neither could ever have been mistaken as a force to be reckoned with by opposing teams. In the end, if Lavin is shown the door, he might have no one to blame but himself. Recruiting All-Americans is only half the battle, coaching them and making them better is the half the battle Lavin forgot to fight! Friday, January 10, 2003
CNN... More than anything with the current state of U.S. government, I am a conspiracy theorist. I know that what my government is telling me is full of half-truthsand/or flat out lies, but what bothers me the most is how zealous CNN has become to report it. Let's take a look at "White House Correspondent" John King. When was the last time King told you anything that wasn't read straight from a White House press release? Does he ever question the accuracy of such releases? Does he bother to investigate these releases before he "reports" them? I talked yesterday about the HBO movie "Live From Baghdad". In that movie there is a scene where Michael Keaton and his crew "become the story", by taking an Iraqi-approved sojourn into Kuwait. When they return to the hotel in Baghdad they are greeted by a note on their door that reads..."CNN: The Voice of Iraq". Now at the time, CNN was trying to graduate from the little network that could, to a big player among the networks. Without question, the Gulf War helped them achieve that. But it is sad to see that it took CNN just 12 short years to go from the Voice of Iraq, to the Voice of America. CHECK ME IF I'M WRONG HERE... But is there anything worse than people who have the most minor of fender benders, then choose to stop right in their lane of traffic for a lengthy inspection of the damage? PROXIMA ESTACION??? I got my taste of Manu Chao's newest album "Radio Bemba" late last night and on my way to work this morning... soooo good! The rough cuts between songs make it a bit unusual to listen to at first, but by the end, if you aren't dancing in your car, you've got no boogie. While "Radio Bemba" has been out for a few months now, I have still been listening to Chao's earlier disc "Proxima Estacion... Esperanza!" For those of you who have never heard, or heard of, Manu Chao, I suggest you start out with "Proxima Estacion", then pick up "Radio Bemba" as soon as you can. I first discovered Chao while backpacking in Europe during the summer of 2001. He brings a sound unlike anything you will hear on American radio stations, and unfortunately, you won't be hearing it any time soon. Heck, he sings in three or four langauges on the same track! Add him to your collection. You'll be glad you did. Thursday, January 09, 2003
WHY NO SADDAM? One of my recent guilty pleasures has been the HBO movie "Live From Baghdad". I don't know if it's the acting of Michael Keaton, the beauty of Helena Bonham Carter, or the wish-I-was-a-journalist-in-a-hot-zone in me, but every time HBO replays "Live", I get sucked in and end up watching it. But now I've come to wonder something... Saddam Hussein seems to be playing the P.R. game this time around and I am curious why he hasn't given any interviews? Are there legions of Michael Keatons running around Baghdad right now trying to get him to sit down? Or, have the big networks chosen not to give him time for fear that spiteful folks like Rumsfeld and Cheney might cut back on their access to the Bush Administration side of the story? Shouldn't we as Americans be able to say, for sure, that that is not the case? Access is everything when covering politics... I just hope access hasn't pre-empted another side of the story from being told... FUNNY THING ABOUT NEW YEAR'S EVE... Is it me, or has the overzealous "I'm doing the coolest thing for New Year's Eve" craze seriously wound down. I understood why folks wanted to do big things for Y2K, but before and since Y2K, there have been years where people treated New Year's like an ecuse to spend, spend, spend on a wild night. Seemed a bit inflated to me. Surprisingly, people in DC this year had one common mantra about their New Year's plans... "I want to be with my close friends, and NOT spend a lot of money." I don't know what brought on this new attitude, but I like it. IT'S PLAYOFF TIME!!! Over the past few years, I have slowly become a pro sports "hater" as Stuart "Boo Yaa" Scott might say. The NBA was unwatchable, baseball was a bunch of whiners, and the NFL tried to make storylines out of people, instead of the game. I might have watched one NBA game from start to finish last season... Same with baseball... Autumn Sundays were my day to do stuff after consuming 10 hours of college football on Saturday. Well, now the NBA is even more unwatchable, and baseball has me still trying to recover from the disappointment not imploding with another strike (god, I was rooting for another stoppage to put the final bullet in America's alleged pasttime!). But somehow, someway, the NFL has changed for me. Inexplicably, I seem to care about the playoffs. It seems like this season, the fun about the NFL was once again found on the field, not in some off field trash talk mellodrama. From Week 1, with it's helmet-tossing Browns oddity, to last week and the Niners amazing (and unwatched by me) comeback and crazy finish against the Giants. Strange and amazing plays are happening DURING THE GAMES that are making the NFL fun again. You really don't know who is gonna win from week to week (unless the Bengals are playing,,,). Marvin Harrison, Emmitt Smith, Rich Gannon, LaDainian Tomlinson, Tommy Maddox, Dante Hall... these guys have all made things happen ON THE FIELD that are enthralling. Even T.O. (Terrell Owens), with all his self-centered antics, has elevated his play. Yes, he's talked the talk, but he has also walked the walk. Just ask Michael "The Fraudulent Sack King" Strahan... Whatever it is, I don't care. I don't even have a favorite NFL team, but I will be watching the Playoffs this weekend. And enjoying the NFL again. Finally. BACK IN THE SADDLE So it's been over three months since I last blogged... pathetic! Where have I been? Working hard, hardly working. I guess the highlight would be that I got back over to Europe for two weeks in late November and backpacked around France and Austria. Quite a good time. Nine days in France (Paris, Annecy, Grenoble, Etretat) and five days in Austria (Salzburg, Vienna). Must say that Salzburg is easily my new favorite city in Europe. It's almost like time forgot to corrupt the "Old Town" of Salzburg. It's kept all it's old charm and resisted all the modern blah. Paris is still the bomb, and Europe is still where "it" is at. I'm gonna live over there sooner or later! Spent my first Christmas away from the fam. Went to Oregon with the girlfriend and drank lots of egg nog out in the forest. Funny highlights would include a trip to the strip club with the girl and her sister, the saga of a $5000 quartz dildo as a gift, Jon and his bed-head, and Jasmine being "alive". Now, I'm back in DC prepping for another busy period at work. That usually makes for total down time on the blogging, but I'm gonna try to change that this quarter. |