Day: November 9, 2004

Tuesday Randoms

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. Couldn’t they have used Babyface, a Letterman look-alike, or another of the nearly dozen national celebrities who are from here?
Great game, by the way. Is it just me or isn’t there a something kind of cool about the sport turning into the game many of us played growing up? You play for two hours, have no idea what the score is, and after trying to count up TDs someone finally says, “OK, next score wins.” That’s really what the NFL has become. To sum up, I hate parity, but I like games that go to the last possession. Go figure.
I’ve scheduled my GRE. December 8 is the big day.
I’m no fan of Wal-Mart, as I’ve subtly mentioned from time-to-time. I’ve not read any of the thick tomes on why the company is evil, but have read some shorter works on the subject. Is it just me, or are more and more Wal-Mart commercials focused on what a great company they are, how they give to the less fortunate, etc. rather than price-slashing ads? Perhaps all the negative publicity is gaining momentum, not to mention competition from Target and Costco.
Long-time readers of the blog will recall my visit to Pauley Pavilion on the campus of UCLA just about a year ago. In the last week, I’ve received two pieces of mail detailing ticket packages available for UCLA games this year. OK, I know being a college team in LA ain’t easy, between 1,000,000 things you can do other than go to a game and the notoriously front-running LA fans jumping off the bandwagon of a program that’s down a little. But do they really need to try to get people in Indiana who attended one exhibition game to buy tickets?
The Mighty University of Kansas Jayhawks are ranked #1 in the AP’s preseason college hoops poll. KU has not been ranked #1 to start the season since Wilt Chamberlain was strolling to classes in Strong Hall. How many women do you think Wilt had slept with by 1957, and how many do you think he slept with that year? Keep in mind, his rough estimate was 20,000 women by 1991.
Last three songs iTunes has spat out at me:
“Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” Elton John and Kiki Dee
“It’s Funky Enough” The D.O.C.
“She’s a Jar” Wilco

 

Important Anniversary

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! I dropped that class the next day.
I would imagine the majority of Americans our age think the most important thing to happen in our lifetimes is 9/11. I understand and respect that view, but the fall of the Berlin Wall was a far bigger event, changing the way roughly 1/4 of the world was governed and altering the way the US looked at the world for threats. With the exception of the odd Romanian dictator and his wife, the revolution was largely bloodless.

 

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