Thursday, December 9, 2004
I think it’s safe to say last night’s broadcast of the Lawrence North - Poplar Bluff game was a bit of a dud. It was certainly an entertaining game, but that’s not why ESPN decided to show a high school game. They wanted to see Greg Oden go off. If Tyler Hansbrough also happened to put up huge numbers, all that much better. While both players had good halves, neither played like LeBron James did two years ago.
Wednesday, December 8, 2004
Yesterday was some day for Indianapolis sports fans. The Colts made a major statement about the future of the franchise. There was continued fallout from the Pacers-Pistons brawl. The Indy 500 suddenly got a lot more interesting. And Mike Davis was up to his old tricks. Thoughts: The big thing that jumps out at me from the resigning of Marvin Harrison is that the Colts now have close to $60 million guaranteed to two players, have another major free agent to worry about, and several B+ level free agents they need to resign this off-season.
Tuesday, December 7, 2004
I survived the GRE, at least for now. I’m not exceptionally pleased with my performance, so I won’t get into it all that deeply. I did better than expected, significantly better in fact, on the math part. But I was guessing on many of the questions so that’s a fluke. I didn’t do nearly as well as I wanted on the verbal, which is really disappointing. I’m still above the 90th percentile, but my goal was the 97th so I’m a bit frustrated by that.
Sunday, December 5, 2004
Some assorted thoughts as I prepare to start the final study push for the GRE. I picked the right time to take the GRE. The last ten days have very much felt like finals week back in college. I did actually have a couple decent semesters as an undergrad, believe it or not. The semesters when I had gone to class consistently, began the month of December with an A or B in each class, and had a plan for studying were always kind of fun.
Friday, December 3, 2004
I believe I chose wisely when I decided to scale back the basketball blogging this year. Evidence is my experience watching Saturday’s Kansas-Pacific game. I had a babysitter so I could study, and fortunately she didn’t need to leave until about 3:30. So my “study break” began at the tip-off in Lawrence. At about the 8:00 mark of the first half, I reclaimed my daughter. For the first few minutes, she sat on my lap staring at the TV, waiting for “her player” CJ Giles to get into the game.
Monday, November 29, 2004
First, we don’t have Ken Jennings to kick around anymore. He clearly threw it on Jeopardy. He acted like a thief or a philanderer who has been getting away with his crimes for too long. He seemed uninterested. Downright reckless on the Daily Doubles. I think he was just ready to sign his book/movie deal and get back to a normal life. Come on, how do you miss that Final Jeopardy question?
Sunday, November 28, 2004
Just returned from M’s four month check-up. She continues to allay any fears that the occasional bottle she ignores is somehow affecting her growth. She checked in at 15 lbs, 12 oz. She was 12.2 at the two month visit. She has grown up a little, 24" as opposed to 22" eight weeks ago. She’s now up in the 90th percentile for weight and just under the 50th for height. I’m still hoping she follows my path of being short and stout for the first year, then growing up like a weed and being skinny the rest of her life.
Sunday, November 28, 2004
I hate it when Blogger decides to jack with a couple characters in an HTML line and thus screws up a post. I just noticed yesterday morning that the link I attempted to share last Wednesday was corrupted while posting and thus none of you could use it. My apologies. At times when I use the desktop posting tools I have, strange things happen. This was one of them. I’ve fixed it if you still want to read about Thanksgivings past.
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
A basketball lover’s Thanksgiving tonight: 6:00 PM - Snack: Indiana vs. Indiana State. IU has a lot of young talent. The question is will Mike Davis screw them up or will the Hoosiers be better than they were a year ago? (Please note, I just think Davis is a bad coach. I’m not one of the people who hate him just because he’s not Bobby Knight. In fact, I liked Davis at first simply because he wasn’t Bobby.
Monday, November 22, 2004
ABC didn’t exactly take my advice last night, but there was a subtle shot at the haters in the MNF lead-in. When I’m watching CBS, I see ads for The Amazing Race with the show hyped as “The Emmy Award winner for Best Reality Series”. I’ve watched the show a few times, and like the concept better than pretty much every other reality show. Still, isn’t being called the best reality series kind of like, in Anthony Michael Hall’s words, being called king of the dorks?
Sunday, November 21, 2004
16 days to the GRE. I feel like the more I study my math review books, the less I understand. For the last hour I’ve been looking at a series of word problems and have had no idea how to set them up, let alone solve them. These next two weeks of studying will not be fun. Since David Stern clearly payed attention to my suggestions in handing down suspensions yesterday, I’ll offer some more unsolicited advise, this time to ABC.
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Saturday was Brawl Day in Indy. Almost every local newscast was devoted entirely to recapping and replaying Friday night’s brawl between the Pacers and Pistons. A day later, I still don’t know what to say about the event as a whole. So I’ll just move on and offer these suggestions/predictions to the NBA before they hand out suspensions tonight or tomorrow. Ben Wallace: 5-10 games. Every summer you hear about people who innocently throw a cigarette into some dead brush, forget to properly put out their camp fire, or are just screwing around with open flame and end up starting massive, destructive forest fires.
Friday, November 19, 2004
I sweat my way through the KU-Vermont game, which was entirely too close, then switch over to watch the end of the Pacers-Pistons game. The Pacers had the game well in hand, so I was playing with M. who was in an excellent mood after watching her first ever Jayhawk basketball game. Then I hear all hell break loose on the TV. When Stephon Jackson and Ron Artest were taking swings at people in the crowd, and idiots were taking cheap shots at them, I knew I had seen the worst thing I’ve ever seen in a US sporting event.
Thursday, November 18, 2004
I gotta share some thoughts on Ron Artest. A quick recap for those who missed last week’s antics: Ron sat out the Minnesota and Clipper games because of a “situation that challenged the integrity of the team” according to Coach Rick Carlisle. Said situation was later identified as Ron asking for up to a month off due to fatigue from production and promotion activities for two CD releases he’s involved with.
Thursday, November 18, 2004
Stealing from the NBA, Happy Basketball New Year! The pro season is three weeks old, college hoops started playing for real earlier this week, and my Kansas Jayhawks take the court for the first time tonight. ESPN Full Court has been purchased. Popcorn is only 11 hours from being popped. I’m contemplating what shirt to start the season with. And thankfully the Sports Illustrated college hoops group decided to hang the cover jinx on North Carolina.
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
I’m not a big fan of music remakes. If the original version of a song was relatively obscure, I can get down with a remake. But if the OG cracked the top 20, the remake generally sounds exactly like the song you enjoyed ten years ago, except with a new guitar solo or something tacked on. I think remakes of popular songs should be relegated to encore sets at concerts or B-sides of singles.
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
When you become a parent, you quickly learn how many things can be harmful to your child. You plug up all your electrical outlets. You hide any decorative pieces that have sharp edges. You gather up all your assorted poisons and store them in one secure location. What none of the parenthood guides tell you, though, is that the most dangerous thing to your child is much more difficult to manage.
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
It’s Kansas-Missouri football week, so I’m sure you can imagine how fired up everyone in my neighborhood is! At least M. and I are. We’re hosting a watch party for the local rivalry, Indiana and Purdue, so the girl and I will have to steal away to my office to check the score on the real game periodically. I planned on writing something about the game Friday, including some props to the schools/Big 12 for getting the game back to it’s proper date: the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
Monday, November 15, 2004
Last night we gave M. her first meal that was in a non-liquid form. A week shy of her four month birthday, she got a bowl of rice cereal! We knew it was about time to increase her nutritional intake, and after she woke every three hours Sunday night despite getting no nap in the evening and a huge bottle before bed, we bought a box of rice cereal, some baby spoons, and matching bowls.
Monday, November 15, 2004
Saturday night, I attended my first Pacers game at Conseco Fieldhouse in downtown Indy. I’ve long heard the buzz that Conseco was the best place to watch a game in the NBA, combining both the amenities of modern sports arenas with the feel of a classic fieldhouse setting. Although my experience was not typical, I did greatly enjoy my first visit to our local basketball palace. A bank my father-in-law deals with offered him four tickets to Saturday’s game with the Knicks.
Sunday, November 14, 2004
I received confirmation this morning that I can start classes at IUPUI this January. Now I’ve not formally been admitted to the graduate program; I’ll be taking classes under the umbrella called “Graduate Non-Degree Program” which is a way for people to test out a course of study (and for the program to evaluate prospective students) before they go through the admissions process. I got the feeling it was a no brainer to get in at this point, since there’s no risk to the university so long as I pay my tuition, but it’s still fun to know I’m going to be taking a couple classes this spring.
Tuesday, November 9, 2004
For the past couple weeks, more and more people have said to me, “You know, M. is really starting to look a lot like you.” S. has a theory that roughly 90% of all first-borns end up looking like their father, so it appears we’re just living according to the odds. Also, I greatly resemble my mother, who was an attractive woman, so I know it’s not necessarily a bad thing that M.
Monday, November 8, 2004
One thing I’ve learned in the year plus that I’ve lived in Indianapolis is the local hang-up seems to be outsiders confusing our fair burg with a similarly named ville in the northern Midwest. People here can get quite testy when Indy and Minneapolis are confused. So I imagine hackles were up around the city when ABC used Jesse Ventura to do the opening for last night’s Colts-Vikings game. Sure, Minnesota was involved, but the game was here.
Monday, November 8, 2004
I remember exactly where I was. Sitting on my dorm room bed, reading Newsweek or Time, avoiding studying. The TV was on, but the volume turned down. I looked up and saw Tom Brokaw talking and wondered what was going on at 2:00 in the afternoon that required him jumping on air. I turned the TV and heard that the world as we knew it had changed. Most importantly, I realized my freshman folly of taking Russian could come to an end: the Cold War was over!
Sunday, November 7, 2004
I’m done with the politics for the time being. I’ve got 1200 words down for my final piece, but over the weekend I decided to think about/do other things. It didn’t help that M. kept me up until 6:00 AM this morning, meaning even though I slept until noon, I’m only working on about four hours of sleep. I’m still bitter about things, but it’s time for me to move on and concentrate on the important stuff in life, like getting my daughter to stay awake during the day and sleep at night, college hoops, and stinging pop culture commentary.
Thursday, November 4, 2004
This is my random notes section from Tuesday night’s events. Not quite a running log, but the highlights of my notebook entries for the night. I watched the election from our basement, with a 40 oz. bottle of Miller High Life that I worked my way through slowly throughout the night. I primarily watched NBC and MSNBC, although I stopped on CNN frequently, and even CBS and ABC from time-to-time. A little C-SPAN coverage too.
Wednesday, November 3, 2004
I’m going to split this up, perhaps into as many as four entries over the next two days, both for ease of writing/editing and to try to make it easier on those of you who are interested in reading through all my accumulated thoughts. As I said earlier in the week, if this bores you, you hate everything I stand for, etc, please be patient for a couple days before I return to less divisive subject matter.
Tuesday, November 2, 2004
The much anticipated and hyped youth vote didn’t show up. It’s that simple. 1:17 AM EST and Mr. Bush appears to be a lock to gain a second term. I’ve got three pages of notes to work my way through tomorrow but I’m calling it a night for now. Congratulations to my friends who voted red today. We’re all on the same team again tomorrow and even an out-of-touch, godless, immoral, gay-loving liberal like me has to hope the President has more success in the next four years than he’s had in the last four.
Tuesday, November 2, 2004
It’s too cloudy here, I can’t tell. I’m working on something like three hours of sleep, and shitty sleep at that. I had to get up at 7:30 to take S’s car in for an oil change. So hang in there, I’ll work through my notebook at some point today. I just want to make sure I give an honest effort, rather than use it as my coping mechanism. And in the future, if I make any political predictions, assume exactly the opposite will happen.
Tuesday, November 2, 2004
A few quick notes left over from my trip to the voting booth yesterday. First, despite several signs stating that all voters must show their IDs when checking in, none of the four volunteers I encountered asked me for my ID. The lady handling the sign in book never even glanced at my signature to see if it matched the one scanned in from my initial registration. A clear sign of rampant voter fraud!