It’s a traditional nearly as old as the blog itself:* my annual NFL predictions post. Always entertaining, at least for me, since I hate the NFL preseason and don’t follow it, have only the barest of memory of off-season roster moves, and make most of my picks based on mental coin flips. So let’s see how my mind is working this year, shall we?
The first version of TBB launched in June 2003; my initial NFL predictions followed a couple months later.
I’m not what you would call a gamer. Sure, I owned an Atari 2600 and spent countless hours playing Pole Position, Q*Bert, Pitfall, etc. I wasted most of my freshman year of college playing Nintendo until all hours. Madden and NHL 93-95 were staples on the Sega my roommates and I shared in the mid-90s. And I did own a Playstation for a few years, although when I put it in my sister-in-law’s yard sale last year, I didn’t remember playing about half the games I had purchased.
In advance of Pearl Jam’s new album, due next month, I offer a review of their recent remastered and remixed release of their debut album,
Sometimes I wish that we could access all the information in our brains as computers would, so we could track the metadata of our lives. Am I the only one who wants to know what song I’ve heard the most (I’m betting “Happy Birthday” or some Christmas standard), what movie I’ve seen the most (Something starring Chevy), etc.
I mentioned, in my State of the Blog post, that I was working on a draft about a controversial subject. It’s not a draft anymore. It’s a post bitches!
I have to admit: I’m part of the problem. Despite being a voter and someone who tries to keep up on what’s going on in the world, I don’t understand the current healthcare reform proposal at all. It’s not a lack of intelligence (I hope) or interest in the subject.
Some kid updates.
Have I mentioned lately that L. is the most delightful child in the history of children? She’s reached the stage where just about everything makes her happy and/or laugh. The other night I said that if she could disjoint her jaw, like a snake, so she could laugh harder, she would. If she’s awake, fed, and not tired, chances are she’s clapping her hands about something, smiling at someone, or trying to get someone’s attention so they play with her.
Seems like a good time for one of my occasional State Of The Blog posts. Don’t worry, you aren’t going to have to learn a new address or anything like that.
Overall, I think the move to Wordpress and server space I own has been a good one. There haven’t been any downtimes, at least that I’ve noticed. While you haven’t seen major changes, I do like having the freedom to do whatever I want to the blog, free from the limits imposed by hosted services.
Imagine if Memphis had managed to foul Sherron Collins before he shoveled the ball to Mario. Talk about a mess.
It makes me even more glad that the NCAA was responsible for approving Darrell Arthur’s eligibility, thus their lack of interest in taking a second look at his high school transcript. If Mario misses, is KU vacating wins now and the NCAA ignoring what went down in Memphis?
Memphis: Vacate-ion’s All I Ever Wanted…
No Royals posts for a few weeks. I can’t imagine why that would be the case.
July was the month when my interest finally waned. I listened to bits and pieces of a few games, but rarely tuned in for more than an inning or two. I never fired up MLB.TV.* I even quit paying attention to when Greinke was pitching because chances are I would just get pissed that he could go out and throw 7+ innings of two-run ball and still either lose or pick up an ND at best.
The girls again took part in our local library’s summer reading program. From June until the first week of August, we tracked the books that we read each day and got a series of prizes for their work. One prize was getting to pick out a book to take home and keep. We picked a baby book for L., C. selected a <em>Fancy Nancy</em> book, and M. picked a book about losing teeth.
After a two-week wait, we finally had our friend party for M.’s birthday on Saturday. I think it’s accurate to describe her as being a little wound up Saturday morning.
We went to a place called Monkey Joe’s, which is another in the apparent endless stream of bounce places that are opening all over. We had a special party room reserved, a little helper who took care of everything once we got there, and then a plethora of inflatable slides and climbing walls and bounce apparatuses.
I haven’t written much about controversial issues since the election. There are many reasons for that, many of which are related to our pathetic media, which is focused on partisan screamfests and the TV version of shockjocks rather than interesting and intelligent debate of actual issues that matter. I’m not sure if the fact that the best place to get thoughtful discussion of current events where both sides can speak without yelling is a comedy show (The Daily Show) is a good thing or bad thing.
My 20 year high school reunion is this weekend.
Those are some of the scariest words in any language.
When I turned 30, I was excited. I felt like I was finally old enough where people would take me seriously. Turning 30 gave me a new sense of confidence, as if I had finally arrived at true adulthood after years of trying to figure out if I was a grown up or still a kid.
I started reading Bill Simmons again recently (and listening to his podcast). For various reasons, I’ve rarely read him over the past 2-3 years. It’s fun to find an old friend again.
I just finished his summer NBA two-parter, set to quotes from his pick for top movie of the decade, Almost Famous. It reminded me of the day back in the spring of 2000 when I was bored at work, scanning espn.
M. turned five on Saturday. In some ways time has flown, and in others that night five years ago when S. called down to me and said that her water had broken* seems like ages ago. I’m pretty sure being a parent for five years ages you something closer to ten. Especially when your first-born (and second, and potentially third) is as head-strong as M. is.
(My classic response, “Are you sure?
You might wonder why I’ve not written a word about the Tour de France this month. After all, the Tour was a staple of my July posts during my first three years as a blogger. With Lance back on his bike again, why haven’t I been writing about it?
To be honest, I still don’t know what to think about Lance riding, nor what to expect from him. Is this a triumphant return or simply a ride driven by ego and hubris?
If I’m not mistaken, I never shared how our final sessions with our trainer went. I believe the last time I offered an update was in May. So we have some ground to cover.
Our final three or four sessions were focused on strength and then power. The strength weeks were pretty straight forward: heavy weights for low reps, generally 4-5 sets of only five reps. I have to admit the testosterone kicked in during these weeks as I started throwing some heavy weights around (or more correctly struggling to gently move them from a resting position) and I was feeling pretty good about myself.
I’m kind of fascinated by the coming copyright wars. That may be a bit dramatic, but there’s no doubt that the digital age and the explosion of the Internet are ripping apart all the current copyright laws. The old media companies take their heads out of the sand only long enough to entrench themselves deeper in the old system and maybe punish both their customers and the agents attempting to help ease their path into the new age along the way.
I’ve been searching for reasons to continue to pay attention to the Royals between now and the beginning of football season. It would be easier to spend my evenings listening to the Cardinals or Red Sox or Dodgers or some other contending team so the nights were full of entertainment rather than misery. I must admit, though, it is kind of like an auto race at this point. I’m just watching for the accidents.
Part Two of the B. girls update.
L.’s full of tricks, too.
She’s crawling like a mad-girl, all over the place and getting fast enough to be dangerous. A week or two ago you could put her down on the floor, run to the other side of the room and get something done. Now, she’s on your heels the entire time. I had to pick her up and move her back to the living room three times tonight when I was doing dishes.
A long-overdue update on my crazy daughters, part one covering M. and C.
The last month has been dominated by swimming lessons and a new gymnastics class for the two big sisters. Each class reinforced much of what we already know about M. and C.’s personalities: M. is cautious to a fault while C. has no fear of anything physical.
For example, it took M. over three weeks of the four week swim lesson class to finally put her face in the water consistently.
There’s not much to talk about that hasn’t already been covered on the real Royals blogs. The team sucks - this weekend they managed to not score when Bannister went 7+ giving up only one run and lost, scored nine runs the next night and still lost by six, then were shut-out again on Sunday - and at times it looks like some of the team is giving up. I was listening to games over the weekend and you can almost predict when someone is going to boot a room-service ground ball or toss a potential inning-ending double-play ball into right field.
Note: I had to hang on to this for a couple days after the Royals ripped off three straight wins. Fortunately, between losing in Detroit last night, trading for Ryan Freel, and keeping Tony Pena, Jr. on the roster, things are quickly getting back to normal.
Not much to say about the floundering Royals. Their cold streak turned into a cold month, into two cold months, and now they’re officially right back where they’ve been for most of the decade.
Even a long-time Casey Kasem fan like me was surprised by this news. Not the fact that he was retiring his countdown show(s), but that he was still even doing a countdown.
Casey Kasem ending his run on radio this weekend -
“Hosting various versions of my countdown program has kept me extremely busy, and I loved every minute of it,” Kasem, 77, said in a statement. “However, this decision will free up time I need to focus on myriad other projects.
Books completed: Road Work - Mark Bowden Redemption Song: The Ballad Of Joe Strummer - Chris Salewicz Eleanor Rigby - Douglas Coupland
Books in progress: Best Music Writing 2008
09-9 - Road Work - Mark Bowden. Mark Bowden is one of the best long-form journalists we have right now. He is most famous for Black Hawk Down, his book upon which the movie of the same name was based, and for his recent The Best Game Ever, about the 1958 NFL title game.
So much for last year’s Wimbledon men’s final being unmatched. Sunday’s Federer - Roddick final was pretty damn epic as well. The 16-14 fifth set was one for the ages and the perfect ending to a fantastic match.
Yet, I kept thinking it didn’t quite match the drama of a year ago. Last year had the rain and the race to beat darkness. This year had perfect weather and an open roof.
Give a 13-year-old a Walkman for a week and see what happens.
I remember my first Walkman well. It was actually a knock-off, since those early Walkmans were quite expensive. And it was the obvious knock-off: had some crazy decals on it and, worse, a pull-out antenna for the AM/FM tuner. But I loved that thing.
Giving up my iPod for a Walkman
When I wore it walking down the street or going into shops, I got strange looks, a mixture of surprise and curiosity, that made me a little embarrassed.
As I’m sure you can imagine, I’ve been thinking about Michael Jackson the last few days.* I’ll have some thoughts on the self-proclaimed King of Pop eventually, I promise. That third kid really is affecting my blogging, no?
(Yeah, yeah, Farrah died too. And Billy Mays and Ed McMahon for that matter. I was about two years too young to really get the Farrah thing back in her prime. I remember a neighbor who was a couple years older being very proud of his Farrah poster and me thinking, “She’s pretty and all, but what’s the big deal?
Normally this time of year I’m busting out my NBA Draft review, Bill Simmons style. In fact, that was how version 1.0 of site began.
I’ll mix things up a bit this year. I’ll admit I’m not nearly as interested in this year’s draft as in the ‘08 selections. Some of that has to do with the fact there are no Jayhawks in this year’s draft where there were at least 50 in last year’s.
Yeah, so the trip was pretty spectacular.
Good friends in Michigan put this trip together, and of the nine or so couples they invited, six ended up heading to Cabo together. We knew two of the couples. One of the couples we didn’t know lives here in Indy; the other in San Francisco (half of that couple is a KU alum). What about couple #6? Well, they are newlyweds and we’ve known the bride for years, but the groom was new to us.
We have returned from Cabo, tanned, somewhat rested, and very happy. We had a great time and agree this was probably our best vacation ever. We arrived home at midnight last night. S. had to be at work first thing this morning; the girls and I had to leave for swim lessons shortly after. So no time to ease back into the normal routines at all.
Combine all that with a fussy baby who demanded to be held all day today, and I'm quite tired.