Month: February 2008

Commercials that crush my soul

Some news show was doing a segment on commercials you “love to hate” tonight. For starters, is there a more terribly overused phrase than that one? Secondly, isn’t there some real news that should be shown? Whatever. Anyway, they couldn’t help but show a clip of the most offensive commercial on TV. If you haven’t been subjected to it, I’m going to force it on you now:


I can only imagine that the guy in the dragon suit excuses himself to the bathroom and weeps uncontrollably whenever it comes on. Which is almost every freakin’ commercial break…

There aren’t that many other ads that so completely offend me on just about every level. There’s the many horrid campaigns of Burger King. From the creepy homo eroticism of the king to the frightening overreactions of the dregs that apparently eat there on a regular basis, each one of them makes me want to rush out and burn down one of their crappy restaurants. Now they are actually comparing Wendy’s to Russia because they sell baked potatoes… WTF?

Hmm… this topic sucks. Maybe tomorrow I should talk about commercials I actually like next time…

Enter year six

As has become my annual tradition, I begin with my own quote:

Crap. I was sure I would get my “blogiversary” right this year. It’s at the end of February – the 26th, to be exact. Not that difficult to remember. Of course, I kept forgetting what date I am currently living in, which is why I just noticed that today is the 27th. Yeehaw.

Actually, this year I remembered late last night. But I had already posted and was getting tired. So tradition won out over accuracy. And today I celebrate my blogiversary 918th post. I’m surprised to see that during a year in which I posted very haltingly at times, I still managed to get in about 140 entries. This year will be the ultimate challenge. As I try to get my other sites going, will it negatively impact my writing over here? And when the little rugrat comes along, will that stop everything altogether? And would anyone notice?

Such exciting conundrums, I’m sure they’ll keep you on the edge of your seats…

Life of late

Hmm, so, what’s been going on with me lately? I watched a lot of movies… We bought some appliances… I tried to rewire the lights and outlets in our bedroom… I’ve been busy at work getting our new facility ready… Oh, and we found out that the little bump in The Woman’s belly is a little girl. She’s currently about the size of a banana. I’m now picturing a fetus in a banana suit – it’s kind of cute, if not a little creepy. I was ready to share ultrasound to show the proof, but I’m not about to flash my baby girl’s privates all over the Internet.

I also found out that this is the year of the rat. That means I get to call our little bundle of joy a rugrat for real. There will certainly be a bunch of rodent jokes in the coming months.

P.S. We’re starting to think of names. Sloane and Shauna are in the running, but we’re not completely sold on a Ferris Bueller reference…

In the nick of time…

The writers’ strike ended the other day, and thank god for that one. I was beginning to get worried that I’d be stuck with a shortened season of One Tree Hill. It’s tough enough following plots that… wait… what did I say? I meant Lost. I was worried about Lost. Of course. I mean, who watches that teenie bopper crap anyway? Does anyone really care if Brooke can succeed without her mom’s help or if she’s really competing with Peyton for Lucas’s affection? Or if Mouth will realize that Alice is no good for him, but Millie could be the real thing?

Duh… as if…

With a little bit of trepidation…

I always have grand plans – and they never quite pan out. A couple years ago, when I first picked up my current domain name, I had a few other ideas for things I wanted to do online. If you saw my host’s control panel you’d see about 5 or 6 domains just waiting for me to do something. But eventually I break down and move forward because I realize I’m never going to have a “perfect launch”.

And so, with little fanfare, I’ve quickly thrown together the start of my music blog: Used to be cool… It seemed a lot more clever when I first came up with the idea like 2 years ago. Regardless, I’ve got an about page and my first post up – as well as some swell widgets courtesy of last.fm. We’ll see how it goes.

Take a gander, and give me some feedback over here as to what you think of the idea.

I swear I’m not getting all political…

You’ve all seen the “Yes We Can” song by now, right? If not, take a gander:

Regardless of politics, it’s pretty inspiring – the type of speech (and presentation) that could get me all choked up if I truly believed it could make a difference. But the only thing better than inspirational is parody. That’s why I sure am glad this next video came along:

Come on – that’s hysterical!

(both are thanks to jonsonblog)

Like a plastic bag when you ask for paper…

Jessica Hagy always does great work over at indexed, but every so often one is so sublime it paints a big grin on my face:

Target v Walmart

And don’t bother reading the comments. It’s a joke people, get over it. Now for those of you who can chuckle at that, check out the series of political cards she did over at McClatchy’s alt.campaign.

18-1*

Do you understand how painful this is for me? Do you realize that I had to cheer for a hated rival just to restore my faith in football? I was moments from giving up on the NFL for letting a band of cheaters win a fourth Super Bowl this decade when David Tyree made the most ridiculous catch since my beloved Eagles’ very own 4th and 26. And when Manning hit Burress for the go-ahead touchdown, I actually celebrated. The cheating Patriots had gone from debates about whether they were the greatest ever to whether it was the greatest choke ever. For a little while I could even smile…

And now I’m right back to where I was before: 11 Super Bowls in the NFC East – none for the Eagles. Sigh…

New Yorkers will never understand. They have no concept at all of what it’s like to have a true drought in sports. Sure, some teams go through dry spells, but someone else always picks up the slack. Since I’ve been following sports (the mid-80s) this city has seen the Mets win a World Series, the Yankees win 4, the Giants win 3 Super Bowls, and the Rangers win a Stanley Cup. For the folks out here in Jersey they’ve even got the Devils and their 3 Stanley Cups. That’s 13 championships in the 25 years since the last one in Philly.

Back in the late 80s when I really started to get into sports I never even believed it was possible for a Philly team to win it all. Somewhere along the lines, I started to believe it – even came to expect it. As of Sunday night, I no longer believe.

The day we’ve been a-waiting

Yes, it’s finally returned. That ultimate achievement in television culture that ties us together as we try to figure out what could come next. What mystery or secret will be revealed next. What trials will the characters face that will determine their survival. And, of course, how many points will they score. That’s right, Jess has returned to present us with another season of Lost-vivor!

Oh yeah, and the new season of Lost premiered last night – that was pretty cool, too.