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8/31/09

Summer, we hardly knew ye

What with the packing and the unpacking (which Julie did the vast majority of) and the inpatient attending month, it seems like I missed summer entirely. I only had one 'sweat-so-much-the-tennis-raquet-flies-out-of-your-hand' match, not a single 'so hot in the ballpark you can take off your shirt without getting on the jumbotron' game, only one 'trip to the community splash park where old school R&B is blaring and the dj is selling jello shots for $1 on a Sunday afternoon,' and zero 'hikes where somebody, usually me, forgets the water, forcing others into heat-stroke and ruining it for everyone.'

But phase 2 -- getting Julie here -- and phase 3 -- getting O-ster here -- are complete, meaning it should be a kick-ass Fall.

8/22/09

Brett Favre, cementing his legacy?

If you haven't heard yet, Brett Favre signed with the Minnesota Vikings and played in two series last night in a preseason game. Even casual football fans know that Favre is an all-time great and a lock for the Hall-of-Fame. I still don't think he was a 'Household Name,' which I will define as an athlete who even people who hate sports have heard of and can identify his sport. So the question is, after all the retiring/unretiring drama, is he now a household name? How far has this saga penetrated, as it were? I feel like we may be on the brink of a phrase: 'pulling a Favre' but for the fact that in the non-sports world, unretiring, even in a recession, is probably too rare to get a phrase.

8/14/09

Deconstructing Cyndi

The River 105.9, broadcasting somewhere in Connecticut, does terrible things like truncate Zeppelin guitar solos but it does have a nightly 'Acoustic After Dark' show that is fascinating. They play live performances from the most random assortment of artists: The Beatles, Asia, Cyndi Lauper to name a few. It was listening to Cyndi perform an acoustic 'True Colors' that I got to thinking: how did she make it so big? In the retrospect-o-scope, she seems so average. Was it really that we thought she was so unusual when the world had already known Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, Tina Turner, Patty Smith? Or maybe it's that she was a little bit quirky and unselfconscious thus channeling our collective inner dork? Perhaps she just wrote/performed some unbelievably catchy pop songs that stand on their own. But I'd argue that even then -- and certainly now -- 'True Colors' is the only song that was listenable. Am I singling out Cyndi unfairly here? I dont know, I can even listen to some Phil Collins songs today (Easy Lover is an all-time classic).

8/10/09

Phase one complete

The cats and I made it up safely last night. Here we are taking a nap in Philly before hitting the road:

I didn't quite catch a full nap so I let Jack drive the first leg til we got stuck in traffic and his inability to reach the brake pedal became an issue.

8/2/09

C'mon now

People -- lights on if you need to use your wipers. State law. Yes, it's technically day time but if the sky is gray and the road is gray and there's rain coming down and you're driving a gray '89 Skylark, it should be pretty freakin' obvious that headlights would be helpful to your fellow motorists, and, by extension, you. Make it easy on yourself: turn your headlights on when you start the car and turn them off when you stop it.

Does this make me sound like Andy Rooney? I've gotten that feedback. I was watching him tonight and noticed he's kind of an a#$hole at times. What does that tell me?