Best Sports Weekend. Ever.

It's kind of a low point for Bay Area sports right now (for the last several years, actually), but last weekend had to be the most perfect football weekend I could ever ask for:

• Cal beat Miami in the Emerald Bowl, 24-17.
  
• The 49ers beat the Washington Redskins, 27-24
• The Raiders crushed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 31-24. Tampa is out of the playoffs! This makes up for Super Bowl XXXVII in 2003. Almost.
• Dallas gets crushed by the Eagles, 44-6. Tony Romo also gets defeated by soap, and collapses in the shower after the game.
• New England wins their final game in Buffalo, 13-0, but the Patriots still don't make the playoffs. Ha ha! Suck it, Belichick!
• The Broncos choke and get spanked by the Chargers, 21-52... and Jay Cutler is still a punk!
• In a shocking move, Mike Shanahan gets fired as the Broncos coach after 14 years.
  

We're hoping for a Manning vs. Manning Super Bowl, but who knows?

Go Bears!

Favorite Music of 2008

The year's almost over, so let's make a list!

In no particular order, here are my favorite albums and EP's from 2008:

Bloc Party - Intimacy: Sounds a lot like the previous two albums from this group, and that's a good thing.


Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight: Great folksy-indie rock from a Scottish band with the least intimidating name ever.


Girl Talk - Feed The Animals: An album full of mash-ups of raps over melodies from other songs. It's kind of fun to hear someone rapping over a tune you recognize, but before you know it, the song has moved on to something else.


The Kills - Midnight Boom: I love this record; it totally rocks. More cool than the White Stripes.


Los Campesinos! - We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed - This group is like a more whimsical Arcade Fire.


Sharleen Spiteri - Melody - I love the Scottish group Texas, and I love this solo album by the lead singer. The most pop thing I have on my list.


She Wants Revenge - Save Your Soul: I enjoy a good male falsetto, but I also love music with deep, monotone vocals.


Tonight - Modern Romance: Kind of new wave-ish, kind of spacey. I listened to this EP continously when I first downloaded it.



Most of this music can be found for cheap at eMusic, which is where I find most of my new music nowadays. Give it a try if you get tired of listening to Fall Out Boy or Nickelback.

Better Him Than Me

My parents taught me never to laugh at someone else's misfortune. Sorry Mom and Dad, but whenever I need a pick-me-up during the day, this picture never, ever fails to amuse me:


Great. Now some bird is probably going to poop on me. Better keep some wet wipes and an extra shirt nearby.

Sleepy Friday

For many years, we've gone out and braved the Black Friday crowds, the day commonly known as the start of the holiday shopping season. We've traditionally got up super early, endured freezing cold weather and waited in long lines for stores to open. We executed shopping plans like a well-oiled machine. This year, however, I wasn't into it.

How can that be? Was I not feeling well? (No) Was I tired from a long work week? (No way, man) Am I getting old? (No... well, maybe)

I think I reached a point in my life where my personal comfort is more important than getting a good deal. I love a sale as much as the next guy, but if pushing, shoving, and the risk of bodily injury is involved, then forget about it.

Anyway, we ended pretty much buying everything we wanted online for the same prices that were available in the stores. All from the comfort of our own home. Thank God for the internet. On future Black Fridays, we may venture out again, but really... what looks better:

This?

Or this?

Kids Have It So Easy

One of my favorite pastimes nowadays is to muse over how good the kids have it today, compared to what my generation had to go through when we were young. Computers? Radio Shack TRS-80! Energy drinks? Moutain Dew! Cell phones? Payphones!

In junior high we had to read George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, as I imagine almost every student has read at one point or another. Back in my day, we were each assigned a used, beat-up copy of these books with covers just like this:


Dig that crazy 1984 font! Groovy! Actually, the Animal Farm cover is pretty cool, now that I think about it. I just didn't know it back then. I don't know who designed this cover, but its actually very well done.

Incidentally, here are a couple of other covers of different editions of 1984:

Why didn't schools give out these versions of 1984? I'm sure we would have all paid attention more closely. Oh-la-la!

The reason for my old age jealously is that Penguin is coming out with new editions for both of these books with all new covers by Shepard Fairey:


I'm sure some school is going to get brand-spanking-new copies of these Penguin editions for their students. I'm also sure that those students are going to deface the covers by writing awful things about the other kids they don't like. Little punks.

Shepard Fairey, by the way, is the same artist who designed the Barack Obama poster that you may have seen once or twice during the presidential campaign:


Go Obama!

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Warfield

After not seeing any concerts for what feels like a couple of years, we went to go see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at The Warfield the other week. I've seen Nick Cave eight or nine times now, and for a guy who's over 51, he can still rock. I would think that all of the Bad Seeds are in their forties or pushing 50, and they can still whoop ass over bands half their age. What an inspiration.

The concert was to promote their latest CD, Dig!! Lazarus, Dig!!! The concert easily made a good album a whole lot better. It's not their best collection of songs, but Nick Cave is really showing no signs of slowing down or mellowing out.

My favorite Bad Seed used to be guitarist Blixa Bargeld, who was part of the band since the beginning. All through his tenure, he split his time between the Bad Seeds and his own band, Einstürzende Neubauten. He sang backup. He played guitar. He had funny haircuts, and he looked kind of weird. He was really cool, but then he left the band in 2003.

Who would become my new favorite Bad Seed? After this concert, it's got to be multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis. First of all, he's got the most excellent beard in the world:

Secondly, he has really come into his own with the band. When he first joined in 1997, he was simply the violin player in an eight-man band. He would always have his back to the audience when he played. In between his violin parts, he would squat down and slowly rock on his heels, always facing away. I don't believe it ever was any kind of stage fright, since he already fronted his own band (The Dirty Three, which plays some of the most excellent instrument-only music ever); this just seemed to be his way to interact with the band and the music.

Now with Blixa's departure, Warren his moved to the front of the stage next to Nick Cave. In addition to the violin, he also plays guitar, keyboards, mandolin, flute, and some other instruments I can't even name. He even gets down on his hands and knees to play screeching electronic noises. All through the concert, he whips himself around the stage like a bearded crazy man. It's hard to describe, but it's really entertaining.

In a nutshell, it was a great concert with some excellent music and a fantastic beard. Thumbs up!

Gas Shoe

I'm not sure what I was thinking of, but as I was refueling my rental car outside of Bradley International Airport, the gas suddenly poured out of the car, onto the ground, and onto my shoe. I never believe that the first "click" of the gas pump means that the tank is truly full, so I always go a couple of clicks beyond the first one. On this day, I went one click too far.

I return my rental car, and catch the bus back to the terminal. All through the bus ride, I keep smelling the odor of gas. I take off my shoe and take a big whiff - yep, that's gas all right.

Now I'm faced with a dilemma: how am I going to get through airport security with a shoe soaked in gasoline? Didn't some terrorist try to blow up a plane by lighting his shoes on fire? (Yes, this guy tried it in 2001)

Before I go through security, I stop by the men's room to try to clean off my shoe. Not surprisingly, cheap airport paper towels get shredded as I scrub them on my shoe. I consider setting my shoe on fire to burn away the gas. Unfortunately, I have no matches.

You know how there seem to be cops everywhere when you know you've done something wrong? It's all true... I've never seen so many police officers patrolling a airport. Who would ever want to do harm to Hartford, Connecticut, the insurance capital of the world??!

I decide to take my chances and go through security. I show my boarding pass and ID, and make it pass the first hurdle. The security area has one of those special detectors that see if you have any explosive materials on your body. Luckily, I am not diverted to that line. By now, I'm starting to break out into a cold sweat. At the other side of the security checkpoint, a cop and a police dog are waiting. I suspect that the dog has been specially trained to sniff out and attack anything that explodes or is remotely flammable.

I get to the conveyor belt, and take off my shoes and belt, and put it into a gray plastic bin. I remove my laptop from my bag, and put it into another bin. I push everything along the conveyor towards the x-ray machine...

A TSA officer comes by and takes my shoes out of my bin. Oh shit!!!

********

It turns out that the TSA person just wanted to put my shoes directly on the conveyor belt. She didn't even flinch at the gas smell that was coming from my shoe. Maybe it wasn't that bad at all. The attack dog didn't even look my way; I think it was someone's family dog that they bring to the airport so the kids can pet it.

Thank goodness for the TSA. I feel so safe.

Olympic Withdrawal

Now that the Beijing Olympics are finally over, I find myself missing the around-the-clock coverage that NBC provided this year. NBC, MSNBC, USA and CNBC - there didn't seem to be a moment when you couldn't get some Olympic action.

Here are some random observations on this year's Olympics:

- Basketball, football, water polo, handball, field hockey... all variations of the same "put the ball in your opponent's goal" game.


- That being said, handball rocks. We watched a women's match between Norway and Romania, and it was absolutely gripping. We rooted for Norway, simply because we were more likely to visit Norway than Romania someday. Norway ended up beating Russia for the gold medal. Go Norway!


- What was up with the Australian women basketball team uniforms? It was strange seeing bodysuits on the basketball court versus the usual baggy shorts. They looked like they should have been wrestling.


- There's an event in the Equestrian competition where the rider and the horse just clip clop around the field and spin around. It's not very compelling, and the most exciting thing we saw was when a horse take a poo during its routine.


- I found it surprising how little we saw of the Olympic mascots - Beibei, Yingying, ....and um, Totem Pole, Hothead, and Panda. It's not too late to get your commemorative wallpapers and screensavers here!


- Now that all the athletes and press have gone home, China can let all the air pollution back in again.


Ah, well. Only two more years until the winter games in Vancouver!

Foamheads

Now that the NFL pre-season is winding down and meaningful football games are going to be played soon, I think its time for everyone to start gearing up for watching the games. Behold: Foamheads! Conveniently available from the NFL Shop. Here are some of my favorites:





Oh, if only I could have them all. (Except the Patriots, of course. Boo! Hiss!)

Being a Raider fan, I especially love the Oakland Raiders foamhead. When you think of the typical Raiders fan, you think of this:


But look at the lovable smiling pirate. He looks like a big, happy foam Smurf.



Go Raiders!

It's All Ruined!

The other day at work I was surfing doing research on Amazon, and I came across the DVD for Idle Hands, a movie probably best known for having a young Jessica Alba. I don't remember much about the movie, except that it was kind of a black comedy about dead guys coming back to life. What caught my attention was how crappy the DVD cover was to the original poster. I remember back when the movie came out in 1999 they advertised it on the back of comic books, and the distinctive poster design really caught my eye and stuck with me all these years.

I imagine there are legal issues of usage involved, but they sure went from good to crappy real fast:

DVD Cover

Movie Poster

Speaking of other downhill slides, the movie poster for the 2008 Day of the Dead remake (which I never saw, and did it even come out in theaters, or was it straight to video?) is kind of cool. But for some reason they traded cool for a big pile of turd with the DVD cover:

DVD Cover

Movie Poster

Sure, the DVD cover was a lenticular image of a vomiting zombie (which may be a real bonus for some people), but it really didn't improve on the original poster. Look at that drooling zombie. That's quality.

One last one - Dead Man's Shoes was a movie that came out in the UK in 2004, but from what I gather was only released on DVD in the US. It was a surprisingly good revenge movie, but I think they made a mistake with the DVD cover:

DVD Cover

Movie Poster

The DVD cover isn't that bad, but I really wish they could have reused the movie poster design since its got a lot more of a graphic punch. Incidentally, I like the horizontal format that they use for movie posters in the UK and Europe. Why can't we do that more over here?

Poor Lily Allen

I don't know really know anything about Lily Allen...I know she's a British singer, but I don't know any of her songs. However, I find this picture hilarious:


She was outside of a nightclub one evening, and the following allegedly ensued:

Allen was filmed walking along the street when a female passer-by called her a "f**king a**ehole."

Lily then retaliated, and shouted: "Yeah, come and say that to my face you f**king c**t. "Where is that b**ch man? I'll f***ing batter her."

Allen then approached the woman, punching her several times in the back of the head, before adding: "Violence is bad."

Yes, Lily. Violence is bad. What makes this picture so funny is the "ha ha, Lily Allen is trying to punch me" look on the lady's face, as she and her friend try to leave the scene. Poor Lily didn't even connect...she just hit hair. Ow! Lily, stop it!

The Dark Knight

It's been out over a month already, but we finally saw The Dark Knight the other day (the IMAX version, of course), and it blew my mind.

Excuse me while I pick up the pieces of my blown mind. It was so good, it absolutely rocked. It just jumped to the top of my list as the best comic-based movie ever. It was gripping from start to finish, and there really wasn't a slow moment in between. Even in the quieter moments, there was still a dire urgency to it all.

Christian Bale was his usual menacing, gravelly-voiced Batman. Aaron Eckhart was good (wouldn't his left eye dry out if he didn't blink?); Maggie Gyllenhaal was good (way better than Katie Holmes). Heath Ledger was great - they should give the guy the posthumous Oscar. I'm glad Gary Oldman got a more substantial role this time out; its always nice to see him as the good guy rather than the nutcase bad guy. My only question is, why did they need Cillian Murphy?

I'm not sure if they should make another one after this - how can they possibly top it? One thing for sure: they should never do another version of the Joker. Let's call the Heath Ledger version the definitive onscreen one, and leave it at that.