Let's Make A Deal

Alright, football; it's time to make peace.
We've had a rough past, you and I. I was a soccer player, and I always resented the attention you got without earning it. You were the fair-haired child, I the ugly duckling, and for that I mocked you, resented you, opposed you.
But in the past few years I've begun to soften. You do have some merit, despite your arrogance. You're entertaining, no doubt, and while I don't exactly understand the reverence with which you are often treated, I do enjoy taking in games. So we're doing well, all things considered. But something has got to change.
Your commentators are out of control. I've heard the phrase, "The World's Largest Outdoor Cockail Party" some four-hundred and twenty-three times today. One announcer today lauded his game's greatness saying, "That's the great thing about football; except at the national championship level, they decide who's number one on the field." Now I could spend hours discussing the BCS, but let me ask just pose this question: What sport doesn't decide who wins by playing?!
I am calling for a ban on all football announcers. Henceforth, all games will be shown without commentary. No color announcing, no play-by-play. I just can't handle the stupidity anymore.
I'm sick of listening to former players sit in a booth and attempt to sound intelligent. Admit it: You're only an announcer because you played in school, and you played in college, not because of your uncanny understanding of the game, but because you were a three-hundred pound freak of nature. You are not smart, you are not funny, and you abuse the english language worse than our President. John Madden's explanation of an imcomplete pass ("oh, there's the problem: he dropped the ball") is, sadly, the rule and not the exception. I don't know why you feel the need to treat us like we're stupid. If I hear one more announcer use the phrase "the football" I'm going to scream. Announcers claim, "They've got to run the football," or "you've got to protect the football." Ok, we get it, that weird lookin brown thing is called a football, you don't have to remind us. Do you really think that, were you to just say, "we've got to be able to throw better," we'd think you were talking about something else. Would we sit at home, scratch our heads and muse, "Man, why do they want to throw their helmets better?"
Let's make a deal. You remove all commentary from your game, and I'll forgive your hubris. We can be friends, you and I. Given time, I think this could be a beautiful relationship.

Bohm, bohm ba bohm

There's a commercial making rounds on tv right now for the movie Jarhead. It's harmless enough, despite Jamie Fox' crazy rendition of "ooh-rah", but the background music is driving me crazy. Bohm, bohm, bohm, bohm ba bohm....it's catchy beyond belief. I find myself making those sounds without meaning to, and I've gotten some strange looks in public-at Wal Mart. When people give you crazy looks at Wal Mart, you know you're weird.
The Jarhead commercial goes hand in hand with a new iPod commercial featuring Eminem's "Lose Yourself". They give you just enough of the song to get the beat going in your head, then they yank the chain. People, this kind of teasing has got to stop. The advertisers know we're going to get these little snippets stuck in our heads, repeat them endlessly, and in doing so pretty much ruin our days. But they just don't care. And, unlike those credit card fraud commercials where the girl lip syncs to the man in the recliner saying, "1,500 for a leather bustier?", these commercials are neither funny nor worth sharing with random people on the street. In fact, they're positively annoying to everyone they come into contact with.
And yet, I can't get enough of them. When I hear the Jarhead commercial on in another room, I rush over to listen. Same with the iPod, except after hearing it I have the disease worse. I don't know why, but ever since I learned the words to "Lose Yourself" I act as if it was my very own rap. I let the words slide off my tongue with unmatchable grace and speed; I even do the retarded hand wave thing he does. It's like I'm back in Detroit, my old stomping grounds.
If commercials like these can have such influence over me I think I should have control over the commericals. I propose we do advertising like we do government: democracy baby! Just picture it: national caucuses debating, deciding, and eventually electing the people's choice. Then Florida can screw up, and a coupla months later we'll put the second choice on tv for 365 days solid. That should give us enough time to caucus and pick a new commercial for the ensuing year. It's gotta be better than having six or seven jingles stuck in our heads, right?

A Salute to a True American Hero

I'm watching game two of the World Series right now, and I thought I'd take this oppurtunity to say a few words about my childhood idol: Joe Buck.
Joe is Fox' showcase announcer. He does NFL games every week, and covers all the big events such as, well, the World Series. Usually being associated with Fox in any capacity is enough to qualify a person for eternal punishment in Hades, but Joe has managed to evade that fate through his excellence.
What makes the man so great is his delivery. Just as the lead singer from Creed sounds exactly how a rock singer should, so Joe's debonair timbre characterizes the quintessential sportscaster. Other announcers soil their deliveries with undue emotion and excitement, but not ole Joe. The man cannot be fazed. ESPN's Bill Simmons says that someone should get Joe a cup of coffee, but he misses the point. I don't need the commentators to let me know when I should get excited, I'll figure that out by watching the game. Joe also refuses to ruin a game by adding small talk with his brothers in the booth. Again, I watch a game because I care what's happening on the field, not so I can hear about how terrible the food was at dinner last night.
I've pretty much given up my dream of being a sportscaster someday (turns out my voice sucks), but I still admire and look up to Mr. Buck. If only he could give some lessons to the commenators who do MA's football games, I could die happy.

Blake's free post

As he has been so kind in hosting me this weekend, and considering that he thinks it should be easy to come up with stuff to put on this site, I thought it might be fun to let Blake have his own post on the blog. So here it is, without further ado, whatever it is that's on Blake's mind:


We have a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarates, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses....... HIT IT!

I NEED MORE COWBELL

I really have no reason to have this picture, but Blake has it on his computer and I knew I'd want it someday. Hopefully I will have a timely post to go along with this picture later, but if not it's ok; this thing is really its own reward.

Bienvenidos a Boone

So I'm hangin out with Blake this weekend, taking in the App Festival of Bands. It's freaking cold up here, butApp's band is sufficiently impressive, and I must dispense dap to Blake. I'm told the brass players have to use plastic mouthpieces lest they find themselves stuck to their instruments on cold nights. Kinda like A Christmas Story, except the kid is 20 years old and is stuck to a trumpet instead of a pole.

It has come to my attention that a certain associate minister, who shall remain nameless, has not only been reading but commenting on this site. Usually I would be taken aback at such unsolicited viewing. But careful research has revealed that the party, who shall remain nameless at this time for security reasons, is a fan of The Daily Show and is therefore a-o-k in my book. Plus I'm pretty sure he's a hockey fan, and my cousin Josh would not approve of wronging a fellow puck head. So I have taken the liberty of returning the proverbial favor, and below is a link to his own random musings.
http://chrisaho.blogspot.com

More tequila, por favor!

Jennie informs me that I've been derelict in my duties. She says I'm not posting enough for her tastes. Perhaps Jennie should get her own site where she can post whenever she dern well wants to. Just a thought.
Still, I hate to disappoint my dear sweet sister, so I shall strive to inform you all about the dinner I just had.
Mother and I went to Chile Verde tonight, which is always a mistake, because she loves mexican just a little too much. As you are surely aware, Chile Verde is THE place to be on Friday night, even cooler than the Good Life Cafe (unless you're a forty-something presbyterian housewife). So we inevitably run into like six of Mom's former students who want to talk to her. This is shocking to me; I have never once wanted to go talk to a former teacher of mine, or even a current teacher. She also double dips, crossing the salsa with the cheese dip much to my dismay. The woman has no sense of courtesy. But I digress.
The main reason it's a bad idea to take mom to Chile Verde is the stealing. My mother, who is usually the most law-abiding of citizens, assumes the guise of a petty thief when in the presence of mexican. I just don't understand it. She orders enough food to require a to-go box, and when her excess meal is in the box she goes into overdrive.
Deftly she shimmies the chips out of their recepticle, sliding the contents of the basket into her to-go box, paper and all. She has this down to a science, I tell you. She reminds me of an old episode of Boy Meets World, where two old people keep stealing food and saying, "they WANT you to take the rolls!" And she gets such a kick out of doing it. She think's it's HILARIOUS. My mother can be a bit hard to handle when she get's tickled in public. Imagine how much harder it is when that tickling comes on a friday night after a quick nap and some hip hop dancing at Tharrington Primary School (I'll explain that in person, if you don't know what I'm talking about). Top it off with the byproducts of cheese dip and refried beans, which culminate in enough gas to send Apollo 11 to Mars, and you get a pretty dangerous social situation.
I love my mother, but I just can't take her anywhere.

Pictures and Such

This is mainly for my GSE people. I've appreciated getting some of your senior pictures in the mail and online, and would like to send you mine. Unfortunately, I only have a limited number and I don't wanna go about mailing them all away. Therefore, I am going to try to figure out how to use this site to host some of my pictures. Should I learn how (which means one of ya'll is gonna have to teach me) to host pictures online, then I'll try to get links so we can get a collection of em up. I'll need your help. If you have any pictures for me to put up, or you know how I can put up the ones I already have, leave a comment on this post.

Comments

It has come to my attention that some of you smart alecks, namely my father, would like to critique my seemingly flawless prose. Alright knuckleheads, I'm changing the default settings so that you can leave me messages on my posts. But know this: should you feel the need to disagree with what I say, I will feel obligated to defend my sacred honor against your baseless assaults and may, in the process, school thee with my master wit. Comments are welcome, but ye be warned.

Words to use

I tried Arby's new French Dip the other day. My version came with swiss cheese. Their sign said "ooh la la", and I must admit it was, by all accounts, exceptional, though the au jus was a bit of a disappointment. What the hell is au jus anyway? What does it mean? If du jour means "of the day", does au jus mean "to the day", and therefore signify day-old cow juice? The point is, it's nasty, but the French Dip sandwich was delicious, even if theoretically I should have called it a freedom dip.
The other thing I should point out is that, in a single essay in English, I managed to employ the words pejorative, dichotomy, and the phrase, "in the parlance of our times." I know this doesn't mean anything to anyone other than me, but I still think it's worthy of remembrance. For those of you unfamiliar with the phrase, "in the parlance of our times," I would suggest an immediate viewing of The Big Lebowski, though not if there are kids around. The movie is, in the parlance of our times, pretty funny, and though Crystal would probably lable it "lame" I still recommend it.

I'm watching the Colbert Report, and while it's still too early to decide whether or not the show's gonna be worthwhile, I am interested in the first segment. Colbert introduced a new word, "truthiness" and this got me to thinking about inventing words. At GSE this year my Area II class invented the word "joby" and began using it in everyday speech. We weren't faithful enough in using it to get it going throughout, so I'm passing the responsibility on to you good folks. We generally used joby as a synonym for good or cool, as in "Killing that homeless person was so not joby, dude." I reccomend this usage, but don't limit yourselves. Go crazy people, this is your word! You could make it an adverb, "We skipped through the meadow jobily, stopping only to pee our names in the fresh dew." Perhaps it would be best used as a verb; feel free to jobify anything at all, just be sure to pronounce it correctly. It's "joe-bee", and if I hear any of you ignorant fools talking about how "job-y" your day was I am going to freaking kill you. It's only proper to honor the memory of joby, as Catherine (whatever her last name was) would've wanted when she invented the word. The ball is in your court, America: let's jobify this whole country.

Crystal tells me she's bored, so I thought I might say something to give her something to read. Trouble is, I have absolutely nothing worth saying. Kinda defeats the whole purpose of having this thing, really. The only thing I knew of to keep her occupied was to send Billie Hamblin the url for this blog, as well as her phone number. That way she'll have to think about other than calculus. I'm just thoughtful like that.

The Correct Picture

Here's the picture I meant to post earlier; it's a much better shot, I think. Sorry I don't have anything interesting to say, I'll get around to that later I suppose.