Anti-social

I'm back to this blog, partially because I am making a conscious effort to change the way I consume and participate in social media, specifically Facebook and Twitter. The problem, especially on FB, is that more often than not, the content annoys me, bums me out, or in some way makes me less happy than before I read it, and that certainly isn't the point. I have several issues with it, ranging from minor annoyances to major things that bother me, and many of them are things that I have done myself. But the biggest problem is that, all too often, social media serves simply as a platform for someone to cyber-scream "THIS IS WHAT I THINK OR AGREE WITH AND IT IS ABSOLUTELY CORRECT."

 That pisses me off.

I fully realized this during two recent "events" (I use that term loosely) that were beaten to death over social media: the Duck Dynasty guy situation, and the knee-jerk reactions to Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman and his vitriolic post game "interview" with Erin Andrews after the NFC Championship game. What struck me as interesting in both cases, and ultimately problematic, is that there is no right or wrong view of either side of either issue, and yet everyone who strongly voiced an opinion ended up sounding like an ass. Let's cover the Duck Dynasty guy first. Were his comments ignorant, hateful, and stupid? Yup. Is he allowed to make those kind of comments? Of course he is. His supporters immediately and incorrectly invoked The First Amendment, which has absolutely nothing to do with his situation, since the government was not involved to any degree. Did the network have the right to suspend him? Of course they did. He made them look bad, and made them associated with a hateful bigot. Now, what can be debated is whether the brief sanctions were given only to generate publicity in hopes of juicing the ratings when he ultimately and inevitably returned to the airwaves, although thankfully that didn't happen.

My issue is that there was no wiggle room in anyone's stance. Everyone yelling and screaming on both sides felt they were ABSOLUTELY RIGHT and that there was no gray area, no possible other position. And there's tons of that kind of thing on Facebook and Twitter now. Much of it is entirely pointless. Nobody is going to change their religious, political, or sports team affiliations based on somebody else's posts. After the 2012 election I pledged to myself to just not post anything political anymore, because it is pointless. Most social media political posts are the internet equivalent of waving something around and shouting about it because you agree with it. Which doesn't do any good for anybody, other than generating completely hollow social media "likes" or "favorites." 

Richard Sherman's behavior was the most recent example of this kind of thing. Personally, I thought he was practically foaming at the mouth and came off like a dangerous person. I was legitimately fearful for Erin Andrews' safety as she tried to talk to him. His defenders immediately and vociferously jumped to his side, discussing how he was "in the heat of the moment" and how he must be smarter than most people because he was a communications major at Stanford. But doesn't this mean that he should have been smart enough to realize exactly how poorly he would be viewed by millions of people? Predictably, people far on the other side immediately resorted to racially-charged name calling and insults. I didn't like his act. I thought he came off like a pompous jerk. I'm also fairly certain that that was absolutely his intention. He is a pompous jerk, and he is building that brand for himself. His team is heading to the Super Bowl, and literally the only player on his squad that anyone seems to be talking about now is him. And that is exactly what he wanted. But nobody is discussing that, they are just fighting over whether what he did was acceptable or not.

So that's where I stand. I'm not talking or posting about politics or religion, and I'm even going to cut back on posting about sports, because all I'm doing is flag-waving for my teams. Sometimes I won't be able to help it, or I just won't care (WORLD CHAMPIONS!). But I'm going to try to get back to using social media for what it does best: sharing pictures and updates about people's kids, funny photos and videos of animals, and pretty Instagram shots of food.

Food advertising pet peeve

I have always hated food items described with weird or needless adjectives, but that is just an attempt to make something more appealing, albeit in an odd and slightly annoying way. But there is a new trend that I just cannot get over: calling food items something that they're not. I'm not talking about "deconstructed" menu items, which seem to be all the rage on any televised cooking competition. That may be a little precious, but it at least makes some sort of sense, just presenting the ingredients in a new way. I'm talking about taking a defined food title that actually means something, and applying it to something else. Here are two examples.

#1. The Arby's "Roastburger." It is not a burger. It is a roast beef sandwich. Now, Arby's selling roast beef sandwiches makes all sorts of sense. Arby's selling a burger would also be fine. But Arby's selling a roast beef sandwich and calling it a burger is asinine. It is a sandwich comprised of slices of roast beef topped with things that often go on a burger. This is akin to selling a roast beef sandwich, splashing some salsa on it, and calling it a Roast Taco. No. Just stop.

#2. The Burger King Brunch "Mimosa." A mimosa is a delicious beverage mixing some sort of sparkling white wine, usually champagne, with orange juice. BK mixes OJ and Sprite. So, this is not unlike me mixing Hershey's syrup with seltzer and calling it a scotch and soda. Of course, if I did that, people would think that I was psychotic. Which this is.

The older I get, the more shit like this annoys me.

Fair share?!?

I just shouldn't go to CNN anymore.  I don't know why I bother.  I never really blog about politics, so this is just more of a vent, which I had to do for my own sanity after reading that Hilary Clinton says the rich aren't paying their fair share.  Seriously?  Okay, let's just take the most cursory of glances, done by simply Googling "tax bracket by income."

Taxable income from 34,000 to 82,400: 25%.  82,400 to 171,850: 28%.  171,850 to 373,650: 33%.  373,650 and up: 35%.  I'm not sure where her fictional "rich" cutoff is, but it's clear that the rich are paying substantially more than their fair share.  Even with a flat tax, the rich would pay far more than lower earners.  But with the current graduated rate of taxes, they pay exorbitantly more: a higher percentage of their income, and much, much more in total dollars.  Where is the fairness here?

And they don't get anything extra for these dollars.  It's not like there are high income bracket roads, or 35% tax rate public schools.  At least when you pay more for a good airline seat you get a faster check in line.  Her assertion is asinine.  Many wealthy people willingly choose to help those less fortunate than them.  It's called charity.  Clinton's blathering goes on to cite Brazil as an example to strive for.  Really?  Here are a few facts about this nation she wants the US to emulate:

* Brazil is not in the top half dozen nations in the world in GDP.

* Their biggest industry, by far, is oil and gas operations, to the tune of nearly five times the revenue of their next biggest industry, which happens to be mining.  How does this jibe with Clinton's environmental beliefs, I wonder?

* The 2010 Brazilian minimum wage is $510 reals per month, with an additional half month's salary in June and December.  This is the equivalent of around $300 US.  Per month.  Are we going to knock the US minimum wage down to $2 an hour in our pursuit of a Brazilian economy?

* Brazilian tax rates: 27.5% for everyone who earns over 43K reals (about 25,000 US).  Corporations get hit to the tune of 34%.

I'm looking for any part of this that looks appealing and I'm not seeing it.  How about we stop giving out mortgages to people that can't afford them, pass a flat tax, abolish the IRS, continue with a little free market system called "capitalism" that actually rewards success, and see how that works out for a while?

Random annoyances of the week

Three things that are bugging me more than they deserve

1. The wanton references to any chosen fan base as "(blank) Nation." Sure, I'm a little possessive about this one, because obviously Red Sox Nation is the most well known, and it also happens to be appropriate. Travel anywhere and you'll find Red Sox fans. I was at a castle in the French countryside in '86 and ran into a kid my age wearing a Sox hat, and I ended up talking to him for ten minutes, getting a full report on Roger Clemens' brilliant performance in the All-Star game just days before, which I had missed because I was in Europe. That is a "nation" of fans. Throwing "Steeler Nation" around just because they won the most recent Super Bowl is stupid and annoying, and it really needs to stop.

2. Cell phone one-ear headsets. I know that people like these, and if I talked on my phone a lot I probably would too. But these people just remind me of Lobot from The Empire Strikes Back.

3. Americans that call soccer "football." Just stop it. Or move to a country that cares about soccer. Or better yet, just stop watching soccer.

Predictable Shaughnessy Bullshit

I feel bad even acknowledging the absolutely predictable, "the sky is falling" column from Dan Shaughnessy in today's Boston Globe. But I'm really pissed about how the Red Sox are playing right now, so instead of ripping them, let's delve into this piece of shit columnist and his latest paint-by-numbers negative horseshit.

In Reverse Gear And Skidding Fast

CHB: "...Kevin Youkilis in left." He drops this bon mot in the first sentence, as if it is some sort of mortal baseball sin to throw Youk out there in LF. In his career, Youk has ventured into the outfield on 21 occasions...and handled 43 total chances without an error. Is he Willie Mays in the outfield? Of course not. But so far it has not presented even the slightest hint of a problem having Youk out there. CHB brings up the simple statement "Youkilis in left," again, hammering away at a point that just doesn't exist.

CHB: "And the Red Sox are sinking like a stone in the American League East." The Red Sox are 3.5 games back. If the season ended today, they would be in the playoffs. They have a 2.5 game edge over the next closest team behind them in the division. They have the 4th best record in all of baseball. In other words, this statement is vintage, baseless Shaughnessy Chicken Littling.

CHB: "Casey Kotchman had just made everyone forget Adam LaRoche (who?) with a two-run homer that gave the Sox a 3-1 lead in the top of the inning." This is just shitty writing. His snide insertion of "who?" takes any steam out of his shaky attempt at making a point to begin with. This sentence is complete nonsense, and yet it still manages to make Shaughnessy come off negatively, even while mentioning a positive occurrence for the Sox. Typical of his work. What an asshat.

CHB: "Then it was over, faster than you could say, “Fireball Fred Wenz.’’" This is a reference to a pitcher that played in all of nine total games for the Red Sox over 40 years ago. Worthless.

CHB: "Everybody loves Smoltz the way Everybody loves Raymond." Lazy reference to a sitcom that has been off the air for over four years.

CHB: "Suddenly the thought crosses the mind that the Red Sox might not even make the playoffs. It happened to the Patriots. It can happen to Boston’s baseball team, too." Entirely contrived point, and completely, 100% irrelevant. One thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other. It warrants mentioning that the Patriots lost their starting quarterback in the first quarter of the season and still tied for the best record in their division. However, Shaughnessy would never let facts get in the way of him taking an unwarranted dig at a local player or team. What a dick. Seriously.

CHB: "Lastly, there is the matter of one Big Papi (.222), who went 0 for 5; he is 0 for his last 16 and 1 for 19 since those first two games after the disclosure that he is on The List." Statistical cherry picking at its finest. Why the odd phrasing "since those first two games after the disclosure?" Because Big Papi homered in those first two games. Is CHB actually saying that the reveal of the list didn't start wearing on Ortiz until after those first two games? No, he just wants to spoon feed the readers more negative bullshit, which he can't do as strongly as he would like by using the actual statistics. This is beyond being a negative douche. It is basically literary fraud.

I hate Shaughnessy so much because his entire career is based on wallowing in negativity, and yet he can't even do it creatively. It's like a retarded monkey doing Mad Libs at this point. But instead of "noun, verb, and adjective," we get "statistical manipulation, spineless irrelevant dig, and worthless conjecture and hyperbole." He needs to go away. The world, and especially the world of a Boston sports fan, would be much better off without his stinking presence.

Poor little A-Rod is tired

Slumping A-Rod to be sidelined two days with fatigue

Honestly.

That headline is pretty much the story. The guy's season in the majors started on May 8. So in less than six weeks of playing baseball, A-Rod has become so tired that the Yankees need to sit him down for not just one, but two ballgames.

Well, he did have surgery, so you may ask yourself, Is he sore? "No, he's not sore," said Yankee manager Joe Girardi from his spot on the hot seat.

Is he injured? Nope. He has played every game since his return.

Does he just suck now? A ha! We might be on to something. He is hitting .145 in June. He's 0 for his last 15. And for the season, he is batting a robust .212. This is probably as good a time as any to mention that his salary this year is $32 million, which doesn't include the $1 million portion of his signing bonus he received this year. I would calculate what that is going to cost on a per game basis, but that's tough to do since I don't know how often he will be too tired to go out and play nine innings of baseball.

The moral of all this? If you're a major leaguer that does 'roids, you deserve every single bad thing that happens to you.

A moron, and also a liar, apparently

No, I'm not talking about A-Rod again, although that headline certainly applies to him as well. I'm talking about one of my most loathed broadcasters of all time, the inimitable Joe Morgan. Anyone who knows me understands all too well my hatred for Simple Joe. Why do I despise him so? I could list many reasons, but two qualities stand out at the top: his endless and utterly predictable self-aggrandizing chestnuts, and his reliance on providing "analysis" so mundane that anyone with any remaining gray matter was already aware of what he was talking about, or so blatantly wrong that it is incomprehensible how he ever got handed a microphone in the first place.

On the first point, feel free to play my version of the Joe Morgan Drinking game next time you catch him in the booth. Take one swig for "I" or "me," two for any mention of a former teammate or opponent, and chug it all for a reference to Cincinnati or the Big Red Machine. Have an alcohol poison control center on speed dial if you actually attempt this. As for his riveting "color commentary," I don't even know where to begin. He is such a notoriously insipid announcer that there was even a website devoted to him which, alas, has closed. They dutifully tracked his endless Joe-isms. Here is a choice example of Morgan being Morgan. Bear in mind, this was actually said by a man being paid to analyze baseball at the highest level:

* On the Red Sox (vs. the Rays) in the 2008 ALCS: "They cannot beat them by outscoring them." Actually, that's the only way any team can beat any other team, Joe.

Anyway, I could cherry pick bad Morgan quotes all day. But today we have reached a new low, even for him. It's the perfect storm of Joe Morgan. Self-important reference? Check. Story about his glory days? Check. Blatantly false to absurd degrees? Check!

It Wasn't So, Joe!

I despise Randy Johnson

Rat-faced, mullet wearing jerk Randy Johnson recently won his 300th game, which means now is as good a time as any to explain why, to paraphrase Newman, I despise Randy Johnson.

It was spring of 1992 in Arizona and some friends and I had just seen him pitch in a spring training game. He was no star then. He hadn't even won 50 games in the bigs, and his only claim to fame was that he was the tallest pitcher ever to take the hill. The game was unremarkable--I have no recollection of how he did or whether the Mariners even won or lost the game. But I had a scorecard or program from the game with me when we went to grab a post-game burger at Flakey Jake's in Tempe. I spotted Randy at a nearby table and, as a big baseball fan, I thought it would be cool to get him to autograph something from the game on the same day I saw him pitch. I didn't want to bother him, so I waited patiently by the door until he was done eating. At the door, I politely said that I had watched him play and I wondered if he would sign my program. "God, you guys never leave us alone," he spat.

What a dick.

A-Rod: Still lying and cheating

It turns out the liar and cheater is an even bigger liar and cheater, including lying about cheating. Am I surprised? Not even a little bit.

A-Roid Book Bombshell

The significant details are that he's been juicing from high school until he was a Yankee, putting to bed the ridiculous notion that he "only" cheated for a few years with the Rangers. Now, I don't usually wish ill on other athletes, even ones I hate. But A-Roid deserves every bad thing that happens to him forever. He was an incredible athlete who had no need to cheat, and yet he did it anyway*. He blatantly lied about the cheating, even after he was caught dead to rights. I also love the Yankee fans who couldn't forgive him fast enough. "It's okay, because he admitted it!" was an actual Facebook post I read from a Yankee fan. Is it still okay, pinstripers? What more does he have to do to prove that he is a vile, despicable human being? Where's the line? Everyone should be done with this chump. Everyone.

* Or maybe he wasn't actually any good to begin with. This was always my biggest gripe with Barry Bonds roiding up--Bonds was a phenomenal baseball player before he ever touched drugs. If he stayed clean and played out his career, there is no doubt that he would have been regarded as one of the top five players of all time. Sure, maybe he would have ended up with "only" 600 homers if he didn't hit the juice. But he could run, he could field, he could do it all...he was the epitome of a five tool player. And he threw that all away just so he could turn the McGwire-Sosa "chicks dig the long ball" spotlight squarely on himself. I can understand why a guy struggling to make a roster would consider trying to get an edge. That at least makes sense on some level. But Bonds? Why? I don't get it. Which brings us back to A-Roid, whom I thought was in the same situation, which would have made his cheating just as stupid, if not moreso, depending on the time table. But now comes word that he has been doing this since high school, in which case he might never have been good enough to begin with. Maybe Chem-Free Alex is a fringe major leaguer, just a utility infielder. Obviously his massive, bordering-on-mentally-ill mind and ego never could have handled that. But now one thing is clear: we will never know the whole truth about A-Roid. And that's fine, because he is 100% dead to me. He's a mincing, prancing, self-obsessed, cheating phony, and not trading for him is the best transaction the Red Sox have ever been near. Getting him would have been worse than trading away Bagwell.

(P.S. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that his own Yankee teammates apparently nicknamed him "Bitch Tits" because the chemicals caused such an absurd change in his pecs. This is unfortunate, because it is a really horrible moniker and it is one that is absolutely going to be hurled at him from many places and people, including drunken fans at Fenway Park.)

(P.P.S. I think my favorite part of his comments today is the genuine enthusiasm he musters at the current Yankee two game "winning streak." Do I need to mention that their payroll is once again north of $200 million? Ladies and gentlemen, the third place finishers in the AL East in 2008, and on pace to be entrenched there once again...your New York Yankees!)

A baseball headline that makes me giddy

Joba's Fastball Still Losing Heat

Obviously I hate Joba Chamberlain. That pretty much goes without saying. But I think he may have set the record for shortest amount of time it took me to outright despise an athlete. Granted, the pinstripes alone got him halfway there, but he was instantly in my "top five hated Yankees" group almost as soon as I knew his name, thanks to his bush league continuous head hunting tactics. It's unreal. This is not like Pedro dusting people off the plate. Joba enjoys throwing the ball as hard as he can at the heads of Red Sox players. If Vegas offered a prop bet on "2009 is the year Kevin Youkilis finally charges the mound and beats Joba Chamberlain within an inch of his life," I would be all over that action. And Josh Beckett would probably be the first one off the bench to help. Aside from seeing A-Rod get destroyed--which I waited for a long time--this is probably the only remaining potential Sox-Yanks brawl that I am actually actively looking forward to. And it's going to happen...assuming Joba can still throw hard enough to make someone angry.

28 awesome things from 2008

There are always tons of "best of" lists right around New Year's Day. Here is one more. Instead of a Top 10, or a Top 100, or anything so rigid and structured, here are just 28 things from 2008 that were awesome. They are not comprehensive, and they are not in any order. But they are awesome.

• Season four of Lost, especially on Blu-Ray.
• The 2008 World Champion Boston Celtics.
• The Dark Knight, especially Heath Ledger's brilliant performance.
• Season three of Dexter.
• Metallica: Death Magnetic and LIVE at Alltel Arena.
• Dustin Pedroia: Sun Devil, Red Sock, and AL MVP.
• Iron Man.
• Tropic Thunder.
• The Robert Downey Jr. resurgence in general.
• Rock Band 2.
• My second straight Chatham Bluefish Diamond Mind baseball championship.
• Scream Queens on VH1.
• Terra Naomi's acoustic hair band covers.
• The fact that a new GNR album actually came out, and it's good.
• Friday Night Lights, and the fact that it is still on TV at all.
  
• Survivor and The Amazing Race still being fairly entertaining.
• Pretty much everything AJ McC does, including his hilarious exploding vocabulary.
• Sierra Mist Free Cranberry Splash. Try some with vodka and thank me later.
• ZaZa pizza in Little Rock. The huge high heat woodburning oven is the key.
• The fact that a new movie theatre (with an Imax screen) opened right down the street, even if I don't get to go there as often as I'd like.
• That a guy who kind of rocks won American Idol.
• The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly.
• Tina Fey, both on 30 Rock and SNL.
• Van Halen LIVE at Alltel Arena.
• Catching my first Red Sox game in way too long, with a rooftop table under the Budwesier sign.
• Two Vegas trips, an AZ fire up, and a Cape Cod vacation (with the Boston trip in the middle of it).
• Lots of cool shows on the Food Network. Seriously.
• WiiFit.

And eight things that were not so awesome:

• 18-1. Still pisses me off.
• The ASU football season. An entirely different kind of letdown.
• The Sox losing game 7 of the ALCS when they clearly could have been champs again if just a couple of guys stayed healthy.
• Watching shitty teams flounder in the 2008 NFL playoffs while the superior Patriots sit at home. Sickening.
• The economy, including our old house still being on the market.
• The disgusting New York Yankees offseason spending spree.
  
• Heroes. Season one started great, and since then it's been pretty bad. And yet, I continue to watch.
• The complete tabloidization of the American media. Didn't CNN used to be a respected news outlet? Now they are People magazine with some news thrown in. Go ahead, check the website right now. What's on there? A video of Harrison Ford getting his chest waxed, apparently. And network news shows are just as bad. I cannot do it. I basically hate the news, now. I really do. Thankfully technology exists that lets me consume only what I want, for the most part. Okay. Rant over. I hope everyone has a great 2009.
  

Faces you want to punch

Do you occasionally see someone's face and it just makes you want to punch them? Yeah, me too. Here are some.

PETE WENTZ. Highly punchable face, and I even like some of his band's songs.


SPENCER PRATT. It just annoys me to no end that I even know who this douchebag is. Clearly one of the most punchable people on this planet or any other.


CHRISTIAN SOMEBODYOROTHER. I have never watched whatever fashion reality show this punk was on, but just seeing him get parodied on Saturday Night Live was so annoying I wished I could reach through the screen of my TV to punch him in the face.


MIKE BIBBY. It was amazing how badly I wanted to cold-cock this guy during the Celts-Hawks series. And it has nothing to do with his game, which is insubstantial. He just has one of those mugs that screams "Please hit me right in the nose."


JUNIOR STEINBRENNER. Too obvious, sure. But is there any ownership figure in sports more deserving of a busted lip than this blowhard? You know what else blows hard? The 4th place New York Yankees!


FIREMAN ED THE JET FAN. J! E! R! K! JERK!JERK!JERK!


ALL THREE JONAS BROTHERS...with one big, continuous haymaker. PUNCH-PUNCH-PUNCH. Like something you'd see in a cartoon or a Three Stooges episode.


BILL MAHER. What a smarmy little prick this guy is. KABOOM, right in his self-important mouth.


THAT FRENCH SWIMMER FROM THE OLYMPICS. Zut alors!

The Diablo Cody Backlash

Latest 'It' Talent Feeling Backlash

Boo hoo.

It's an odd situation. Screenwriters almost never get any recognition, so I should be fundamentally happy for her to begin with. And yet I'm not, for a couple of reasons.

#1. I haven't even seen "Juno" yet and I'm already kind of sick of it. It's wonderful that this little movie has made $125 million, but I'm already tired of the dialogue just from the snippets, clips, commercials, and promos that I've seen, and that's absurd. If I have to hear poor Rainn Wilson say "this is one diddle that can't be undid, home skillet," one more time I think I'm going to snap.

#2. It might be a fantastic screenplay. At least on some level, I'm pretty sure it is. And that's great, for the movie, for her, and for independent film in general. Did she deserve the Oscar? Maybe. Probably, even? Who knows. But the sheer amount of attention she's getting is absurd, and I just want to know if she'd be getting it all, or anything close to it, if A) she didn't look like she does B) she didn't have "former stripper" on her resume, and C) she hadn't changed her name to the ridiculous moniker Diablo Cody.

Maybe I should change my name. Lucifer Laramie, perhaps?

Anyway, I've already got Juno in the Netflix queue. But I'll be perfectly happy if I don't see her name again until the movie's credits roll.

You've got to be kidding me

NBC is already on my shit list for canceling the brilliant "Studio 60." However, they did show some foresight by giving a tepid renewal order for the ratings-challenged yet wonderful "Friday Night Lights."

Then I hear this rumor.

Honestly, if you challenged me to come up with the ten worst, most inappropriate, downright horrible people to have guest star on this show, she would probably make the top five. What boggles the mind is how many execs have to sign off on this, thinking that it's a good idea.

Clearly I need to run my own network...

Pats-Colts

I can handle losing, but getting beat like the Patriots did on Sunday night is just painful. First, three of Brady's "interceptions" were on balls that hit receivers in the hands and should have or could have been catches. Secondly, the officiating was downright atrocious. The "taunting" call on Troy Brown was one of the most ridiculous penalties I have ever seen called in any football game, ever, and there were at least 2-3 other huge calls against New England that were just as bad, each of which came at a crucial time to give the Colts a first down. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but if I were I would have a field day with that game.

That being said, Indy really did not impress me at all. They got five turnovers and another five or so gift calls and still only squeaked out a seven point "victory." Let them run the regular season table and get all the accolades the media will undoubtedly shower upon them after this "huge" win, this "statement" game, or whatever they shall call it. Guess what, Indy? For the Patriots, there are no "big wins" in November. Ours come in January and February...something this Colts team has been unable to do. I cannot wait to see the Pats smack the Colts under their own dome in the playoffs.

/end rant

Rock Star: Supernova

This is a one-shot column that I wrote for the RTVC website after the finale last night. I've had several e-mails from readers; some feel exactly like I do, while others feel that I need "a hearing-ear dog." I'm not sure if Pedro and Chewie would qualify in the eyes of that obvious music snob. Anyway, here it is.

SUPERNOVA DROPS THE BALL

This summer, CBS brought us the second season of Rock Star, in which a group of established musicians use a reality show to select a new singer. I didn’t catch season one, simply because I’m not a big INXS fan and the concept alone wasn’t enough to draw me in. But when I heard the lineup for the season two supergroup, it sounded too good to be true...and I loved it. For people that don’t watch the show, I had a simple way to describe it: “It’s like American Idol, except with good music.” And the quick summer season was perfect for this show. To compare it to sports, it was like a perfectly executed two minute drill in football, with talented performers making outstanding plays as they steadily marched down the field. It was fast, riveting, and thoroughly entertaining.

And then they fumbled at the goal line.

I know that musical taste is subjective, and that point is reinforced by the often odd voting outcomes from this season. But the point is simple: I am, or at least I thought I was, the demographic for this band. I’ve seen the band members live on many occasions and the CDs that they played on are staples of my collection. In short, I grew up listening to these guys rock. But by choosing Lukas, it seems like they are attempting to completely deny their past – it’s as if we’re now supposed to act as if they weren’t members of Motley Crue, Guns ‘N’ Roses, and Metallica.

And for me, that’s a huge problem. Because that’s why I love these guys, and that’s why I watched the show. Sure, they made a point of announcing early on that they weren’t forming a “metal band,” and that’s fine. But to completely deny their musical legacy is disrespectful both to their original bands as well as the diehard fans of said bands…people who, I think it’s safe to assume, made up a large portion of the viewing audience of this season. Am I the only one shocked by the fact that we didn’t hear a single song all season from the bands these guys were in? We got Nirvana nearly every single week but they couldn’t throw us “Enter Sandman” or “Kickstart My Heart” a single time? Considering who these guys are, that’s practically blasphemous. It’s way beyond disappointing.

In week one, I was pleasantly surprised by Lukas’s performance. I didn’t know what to expect when this punk rock leprechaun took to the stage, and then he brought the house down with Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell.” It was the best performance of the night, and it wasn’t even close. The problem is that Lukas was never that good again. His vocal quality become grating and his stage presence borders on epileptic. He also seems to have no desire to sing the kind of music that the Supernova guys used to play, and sadly that’s probably why they picked him. I was intrigued when he elected to sing a Bon Jovi song just a few episodes ago, but then he chose an arrangement that made an 80s classic completely unrecognizable. In essence, that’s exactly what the band is trying to do as well by choosing him to front them.

Toby Rand was the clear-cut right choice. His original song was by far the best that any performer had to offer – it is catchy as hell and I’d love to hear it live with Gilby, Jason, and Tommy rocking along with it. But now I never will. Earlier today, I was looking at tour dates and considering making the trek to Dallas to catch the show in February, as that’s the closest the tour is coming to me. But now that Supernova has decided that they just want to be another 21st century vanilla modern rock outfit, I doubt I’ll even buy the CD. And I surely won’t shell out big bucks to watch Lukas’s manic stage contortions and listen to his choked-off squeals. The decision for a trio of metal gods to go that route is simply mind-boggling. So long, Supernova. To paraphrase a song that Tommy should know well, I’m not going to go away mad, I’m just going to go away.

Ten Random Things That Annoy Me

Ten Random Things That Annoy Me

People away from home who insist on telling you what time it is “their time.” This is especially obnoxious somewhere such as Las Vegas, where time—in any time zone—has almost no meaning. “I need to go to bed. It’s 4 AM my time.” No, it’s 1 AM and you’re in Vegas for god’s sake. Live a little!

ESPN’s coverage of whatever negative sports story du jour they decide to harp on.

Zayra from “Rock Star: Supernova.” Man, is she awful.

People that quantify their effort with some number exceeding 100%. I know that “giving 110%” has become the new cliché that represents actually giving something your all. But now we get people saying they gave “150%.” Really? You tried as hard as you absolutely could at something, plus half as hard as that?

Anderson Cooper.

The chip leader at the WSOP, who says he is considering dumping his chips because he’d rather come in 2nd place because he “doesn’t want to be famous.” How someone with this attitude ever actually amassed such a chip lead is beyond me.

“Treasure Hunters” on NBC. I tried to give this show a chance but I just couldn’t do it. It was awful.

“Don’t Pass” craps players.

Drivers that hang out in the passing lane when you are right behind them and it is clear that if they would just get over, you would quickly pass them, and everyone could just get on with their lives.

Sarah Jessica Parker.

What are they thinking?

I've noticed that as I get older, more things seem to really annoy me or flat-out piss me off. I've even started keeping a list, so some day in the not-too-distant future I'll probably have an entry simply titled "Random Things That Annoy Me." But today I'm debuting what will probably be a recurring feature...What are they thinking?

Today's target: TV networks. I actually think I could run a TV network and do a better job than the average executive does now. I know that I could program shows. And I also would avoid indefensible moves like the ones I will explore today. First, we have FOX. They have a huge hit show in 24, one that is popluar partially because of its riveting stories told in real time. I was a latecomer to 24 only because I never got hooked during the initial season and I didn't want to come in late. Well, that all changed earlier this year as we powered through the first four seasons on DVD (thanks, Netflix). Alas, season five won't be released on DVD until later this year. But then, FOX made the wonderful decision to replay the season during the summer. Yes!

Or...no. It appeared that they were going to replay the entire season, and that's the really nefarious part. They started with episodes one and two, as they should. But only later did I learn that they weren't going to show all 24. They were going to show some, in order, but skip many of them. Are you kidding me?!? Who thinks this is possibly a good idea?!? The only conceivable motivation would be one with completely evil intentions: to get people hooked on the show, then have them go running to iTunes to download the missing episodes. That's what we did. Sure, we got the benefit of watching the show the way that we like, with bunches of episodes at a time. But if we wanted to watch the entire season we didn't really have a choice, did we? Terrible decision by FOX.

Next up I am forced to take aim at a target that I have ranted about before: baseball coverage on DirecTV. I have done everything I can to guarantee that I get to watch the Boston Red Sox on my dish. We have whatever uber-sports top-tier package there is, and it includes NESN. We also shell out a pretty considerable (for TV) amount of cash for the Extra Innings baseball package. Now, I have come to grips with the fact that FOX (here they are again!) has a national deal for their Saturday afternoon games, and because of that, sometimes I simply am not going to get to watch the Sox. I won't argue this ridiculous logic again aside from saying that they are idiots if they think that Red Sox fans are going to tune into FOX to watch, say, the Cardinals and the Cubs instead. Won't happen. I'll sit at a computer monitor watching the dots move. Somehow, someway, they are losing ratings and money with the current system.

But the newest transgression suffered upon my poor satellite dish is unfathomable. They have started to black out the pre-game and post-game shows on NESN. WHY ON EARTH WOULD THEY POSSIBLY DO THIS? I pay to have NESN. I pay to watch baseball games. WHAT IS THE LOGIC BEHIND THIS? I've already written an angry letter to NESN despite the fact that I think they have nothing to do with it. But I will never understand why the TV networks insist on going out of their way to alienate their customers. I just don't see what good can possibly come from any of these moves.

In other words...what are they thinking?

VH1's World Series of Pop Culture

Last night, VH1 premiered a new trivia show called The World Series of Pop Culture, featuring sixteen teams of three members each competing in a tournament with some guaranteed big cash prizes. As you probably know, this kind of thing is right up my alley and in this case, I should have been on the show.

But allow me to clarify. I don't mean it in the "wow, it would be cool to be on this," normal kind of way. Instead, I mean "I got hosed and I actually should be on this show."

So here's the story: I had never heard of the thing when they actually did the tryouts for casting. But I ultimately learned about it and found out that they would be filling the final available slot with a team of wild card players chosen through an on-line qualifier. The qualifier in question was an incredibly difficult on-line timed trivia test. I signed up, took it...and hit it out of the park.

After taking the test, I didn't give it another thought, aside from "I think I did pretty well on that." Shortly thereafter we bought the new house and my parents were in town helping out with some small repairs when I received a call on my cell phone while we were out running errands. It was a casting person from the show. Apparently my score was good enough that I had been placed in a pool of 50 people competing for the three wild card spots--still some long odds, but a lot better than before. The casting agent asked if I would be available for a phone interview.

I set the interview up for the following day and didn't do much to prepare, aside from getting a solid block of time free from runs to the tile store, or Home Depot, or anywhere else like that. I called the nice lady and we just chatted for a while--what were my pop culture trivia strengths, my interests, etc. It went very well, and then at the end she sprung a ten question pop quiz on me. Fantastic. I'm pretty sure I got all ten questions right--at most, I might have missed one. Anyway, I can't think of anything more that they would want from a contestant, and she even told me that she was impressed. Clearly, I was a lock. I was in. I was packing my bags and heading to New York for the tournament.

And then I never heard from them again.

There's one possible concern that might have DQed me: the show is sponsored by Alltel, a company that just so happens to employ my wife. But this never came up in my interview and I was never asked about it, so I doubt that was a factor. But now, while I love the show and will be watching, I am dreading the episodes with the wild card team...because unless they are just across-the-board brilliant, watching them is really going to piss me off.

So there you go. I was almost on this show. Yippee.

A Red Sticker?!?

Beth and I quickly boarded our plane for the flight from Dallas to Phoenix, situated in adjoining middle and window seats. Despite not having the exit row, I thought that sitting by the window with my bum knee on the window side would afford me enough room to be somewhat comfortable.

I was wrong.

Things started badly and got progressively worse. The seats were tiny--the smallest that I've been on in a big plane in a long, long time. And wasn't American the airline that recently made a big deal about adding room to all of their coach seats? If so, then all I can say is, umm..."liars." But since we boarded so close to take-off time, I figured that at least we'd be in the air and on our way soon.

Once again, me, all kinds of wrong. First we're informed that one of the air conditioners is broken. This, while we're sitting in the full plane, on the runway, in Dallas, on a 90 degree day. Awesome. So they get to work doing whatever it is that they do...which doesn't exactly involve fixing said air conditioner. They mess around for a while...and a while longer...and a while longer. Some other minor problem comes up, and they mess around with that. We've gone from ready to go, to half an hour on the ground, to an hour, to an hour and a half and counting, and then we get held up by the red sticker. Or, more accurately, the absence of one.

Apparently, when mechanics work on anything on an airplane, they have to mark the area in question with a red sticker. "It's just like something you'd get at Office Max," the pilot explains, trying to placate us after what has now been two hours in our broken-AC sweaty death box. "Well, the sticker is gone. Either it blew off or...we lost it. So...if we find it right away...maybe it just fell off on the ground...then we can take off any minute now. If not, then it will take a little while longer."

I assume he managed to get all of this out with a straight face. A red sticker?!? Nice to know that airlines are using such high tech repair indicators in this post 9/11 climate.

Anyway, eventually, thankfully, we got off the tarmac and into the air. The flight itself was fairly uneventful, aside from the shooting pains in my knee. Upon landing, we see that our bags immediately arrived at the baggage claim at the same time we did. Good karma after the bad flight, maybe. So we grabbed them, hopped onto a shuttle, and quickly picked up our rental car and made our way down to our hotel in Chandler right across the street from the mall. Dinner with the Bladers at The Cheesecake Factory was exactly what we needed--specifically, a couple of Malibu Coladas each.

On Thursday, Beth went in to do her teaching for work and I happily hung out at the hotel. Read the paper, caught a little sun at the pool, and perused the mall for a little bit, including checking out the newest made-up breed of dog at the pet store. Has anyone ever heard of a "Valley Bulldog?" I certainly hadn't until I saw this British Bulldog-Boxer mix. Very cool mutt. The relaxing day was just what I needed after the travel nightmare that came before it. It seemed like things would continue that way, with a nice, mellow Thursday evening, until I spoke to Shaw B.

"We're going to Kyoto tonight," he said...