Way too busy.
Here, just in time for... well, actually, about as not-in-time-for as possible, here's Cookie O'Puss:
I want one. Now.
July 2010 Archives
Well, yes, I did get the column done. And I did scrap the entire thing and rewrite it all from scratch at 5 am this morning, changing the topic and hammering several hundred words (I never count) at the very last minute. It's how I roll.
We had a good day, nothing I'll discuss here but welcome news nonetheless. And then I managed to (mostly) successfully swap out my old PC for Fran's wheezing elderly computer; my five or six year old box, slightly rehabbed and Windows 7-ized, is still miles faster and better than the old one. Her computer had an epic amount of dust inside, but it still, barely, worked. The "new" one, however, will be a vast improvement, as soon as I find a functional sound card for it. My old Audigy card got left behind by Windows 7, and her old Sound Blaster is SO old it's just not a possibility. But for the cost of a sound card and maybe a fresh set of speakers, she'll have a better, faster PC for now, and we'll decide on a laptop later.
Enough, though. It's the weekend. The less said about Oswalt and the silent Phillies bats, the better. Time to relax. Plus, after all that PC shifting and dust-unsettling, I really need a shower.
Writing a weekly column about a single, narrow topic in a single, narrow industry is hard enough in general without... well, here's what just happened.
- I had an idea for a column.
- I formulated ideas for it.
- I procrastinated.
- I happened to get someone else's talk radio column in the e-mail.
- The other column was about a related idea, not exactly on point but in the same category.
- I decided to move mine in a different direction.
- It didn't work as well.
- I tried to go back to the original idea.
- That didn't work well, either.
- I wrote about 2/3 of a column anyway.
- I decided it needed an overhaul.
- I looked at the clock. Bedtime.
At least my deadline's flexible. Such is the nature of writing for the Internet. But that column will have to be written sometime before midday Friday, and...
Maybe I'll come up with it in my sleep. You never know.
Here's the opening theme and credits for a sitcom from 1961-62, "Margie":
I don't remember this show from when it was on, since it ran for only one season and I was a little too young to remember it. But it's interesting to me, because it was a nostalgic look back at the 1920's. The 1920's, even then, seemed like ancient history, but do the math: In 1961, 1921 was 40 years earlier. In 2010, the equivalent would be... 1970. Does 1970 seem to us as 1921 seemed to 1961? Sure, 1970 was all hippies and "mod" and bell bottoms and what now seems hilariously dated pop culture, but it was in color. The youth culture, as goofy as it seems now, was at least in the rock era. The 1920's were black-and-white, silent movies, cars with running boards, fashions that never came back even in an ironic or satiric manner... again, ancient history. 1970's old, but it wasn't THAT radically different.
And, of course, it doesn't seem as ancient to me because I remember it. It was pretty much "The Wonder Years." And it was in color, on TV and in my memory. But gaps between generations are interesting to me: in 1961, I was a toddler, but the 1940s were just 20 years or fewer earlier. 1941 was to 1961 as 1990 is to today. But 1940 was (for most people) pre-TV, pre-rock 'n' roll, pre-suburbs and shopping malls and civil rights. 1990 isn't all that different from now. Popular culture isn't moving as fast anymore; what was popular in 1990 wouldn't look out of place today, but what was popular in 1940 was comical and old by 1960. Time's moving at the same breakneck speed, but culture isn't. There hasn't been a groundbreaking, truly different cultural movement since, say, hip-hop, and that was almost 30 years ago. Grunge came and went, disco never really left, but Lady Gaga's just Madonna and nothing new's happening. The real revolution today is technical, but the content isn't anything radical.
We're overdue.
It's late, I'm still working, I'm aggravated.
That's my excuse.
Today's exciting episode: Perry Goes To Get An Eye Exam!
Yeah, that's what I did. It had been about three years since the last one, and I was wondering if my eyesight was a little worse for age, so I figured I'd go down to Costco and get an exam and maybe a new pair of glasses to replace the readers I presently wear. So I did the whole thing, including getting pictures taken of my retinas.
The result: Nothing has much changed. Distance sight is still pretty close to perfect, close up still sucks, so readers it is. I ordered new ones for use at the computer, with progressive lenses so I don't have to keep taking them off, but that's it. I admit that I expected worse, but I can't argue with the exam, and the retinal photos showed a couple of healthy eyes, so... I'll take it.
And that was the excitement for the day. I was out of the office when Matt Garza threw his no-hitter; I discovered the news when checking Twitter on my cell phone. This is getting ridiculous, all these no-hitters and near-no-hitters. Ridiculous, too, is the nightly Brad Lidge Scares the Hell Out Of Me "save" situation, today's starting with a three run lead and ending with a one-run lead and the bases loaded. It wouldn't be a Brad Lidge save if it was easy. The consolation is that the last time he actually DID get saves this way, the Phillies won the World Series. Not that the season has that feel to it, but you never know.
Today was all about work and "Mad Men." Okay, also about the Phillies, who were trailing when I left the house to run some errands, and were in the same position when I returned, thanks to an extended rain delay. That they won on a wild pitch and a scary-as-usual Brad Lidge save (bases loaded with a one run lead, strikeout on an inside slider) made the afternoon a little more pleasant, and then it was time for the TV show.
The new season opened with an episode about very little other than Don Draper's creepy, unpleasant life, including tension with the ex, a resistance to being set up on dates, Thanksgiving with a prostitute, and how he (and the new firm) pay for his unwillingness to open up to the press. It appears to be late 1964 -- the civil rights murders in Mississippi are referenced, styles are a hair more modern -- and the episode mostly focused on establishing Don's bad attitude and its effect on Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, plus showing off how far the firm has developed in a year. There's an office in the Time-Life Building, but there's no conference room table -- there's barely a conference room. Joan's in charge of practically everything, just like old times, and Peggy's more assertive, to her peril (in a subplot involving throwing a publicity stunt that nearly backfires and draws the ire of an annoyed Draper). There was plenty about Betty Draper's new life, which just added further misery to the proceedings. Nobody's happy there, not the kids, not the ad agency people, not the clients.
But it's nice to have the show back. As always, even when an episode doesn't move things along too far, it's still interesting, and it seems like part of a larger story. It's still an open question when Don's fall from grace will accelerate, but the divorce and his work difficulties seem to be pointing to the time bomb getting closer to exploding. At the moment, "Mad" doesn't seem an apt adjective for the primary character. You wouldn't be watching it if it was "Miserable Man," though.
It is the mark of how lazy I am on this Saturday night that I cannot even motivate myself to bring the computer into this room to write a proper post. I'm instead sitting here with "Public Enemies" on the TV and pecking this out on the iPod Touch.
Good thing I have nothing to say tonight. Not that this has ever been a barrier to getting a column done. But I'm just lazy at the moment, so I'll just go back to the movie. I know, I ought to get my ass in gear and all that. But I suppose I just need more motivation. Wanna send me a check?
Man, I've let this site go. And I should be posting more on Twitter, too.
I oughta do something about it.
Tomorrow.
Writing a column this week was a little easier than usual, once I got started, because it was really an extrapolation from my blathering at the convention last week. But actually starting the column was a bear.
Sometimes, procrastination takes over. The Internet doesn't help that. There are so many options for not writing. Thursday has Drew Magary's column at Deadspin, so that takes time. The Phillies played a day game, so there was that. I found out when paying my cell phone bill that I'm eligible for a big upgrade phone discount on August 1st, so there was reading to do and research to perform. The Talk Topics column always has additional stories to add, and there were news stories to write, messages to read, so much to do. Food, too, courtesy of a recent Trader Joe's run.
So getting started is difficult. Writing is agonizing, because no paragraph is ever just right. But deadlines are deadlines, and, ultimately, I have to say, well, it's good enough, and send it in. If I wait to get it just right, I'll never finish.
So it's not just right. But if Good Enough will get me away from this computer and into bed faster, Good Enough is good enough.
Verizon thinks my regular ol' e-mail is spam sometimes, in both directions. Other servers are convinced anything using Verizon's e-mail servers is spam. That's not acceptable.
My hosting ISP can't explain why Movable Type crashes when trying to post articles. Its error message claims that there are too many (20 or more) processes going, but there aren't; it's a server-side problem, and they can't explain it. That's not acceptable.
My cell phone drops calls. It drops data. It heats up to the point that the coating on the battery cover has melted off. That's not acceptable.
But... I accept all of it.
Why? Because there's no winning. Verizon may be unresponsive, but the alternatives are Cox or satellite, and I've been through both with similar results. The hosting service may not have any answers, but other ISPs are no better, and more expensive. Sprint sucks, but AT&T sucks worse, T-Mobile's coverage is not good here, and Verizon Wireless coverage isn't the best here PLUS it's way expensive. I've already changed cable/phone/ISP service within the past 12 months, and I'm not eager to do that again.
Believe me, if changing providers would make a difference, I'd change providers. And I might still do that. But I'm frustrated that choice hasn't resulted in better service, or even lower prices. And that's how I end up accepting the unacceptable. There's no acceptable alternative,
Hit the gym today for the first time in a while. I still run every day, but I like to mix in some weight training and extra cardio, and I'd not been down to the Y for ages, because the rest of life got in the way. I know I'll feel it in the morning, and I did take it easy, but I was worried that it would all seem too alien and I'd be way back at square one. It was all good, though, and it felt like I hadn't been away, Nice.
I've always taken time to go to the gym, even at my least in-shape a few years back. I was raised going to the gym my father ran in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, shooting basketballs, running laps, and spending quality time with my dad. Later, after he retired from that, we'd go to the Y in Wayne, shoot hoops (my dad was deadly from long range well into his 60's), run on the indoor track, take a schvitz.
It's 30 years later and I still love that, but instead of being the kid, I'm the older guy, not quite a senior but definitely not up for the pickup games. A couple of guys with grey hair, regulars in the weight room, were talking about coming out to the gym and crediting it with still being around when so many of their contemporaries aren't. Their lips to God's ears; I'm still hitting the weights, trotting around the track, lumbering on the elliptical, and plodding around the Peninsula in the morning. Maybe it doesn't matter, maybe it won't be the key to health, but I'll keep at it.
It couldn't hurt.
Okay, it hurts a little. But it's a good hurt.
Well, I just wrote a whole entry on my trip back, but the incompatibility between Movable Type and my hosting service meant that it got eaten in the system. So... screw it. I'm back. I'm not writing that whole thing over again.
Grr.
Another souvenir of the trip:
That's radio programming and management legend John Gehron on the left, former KSTP-AM Twin Cities host and current KS-95 weekender Chris Murphy in the middle, and some guy on the right. Okay, it's me, and, yes, I was wearing a Twins t-shirt because a) it was a gift from Chris and b) it helped me blend in with the locals, 90% of whom were wearing Twins gear. It's also a nice t-shirt. I'm still a Phillies fan, period. I trust I'll be forgiven (and, personal to Joe: If I hear one word about this, I'll point out your ownership of a wide range of caps and gear from teams not indigenous to Philadelphia. Glass houses and all that).
The convention wound up with Mr. Gehron putting me on a panel as a last-minute addition, and I guess I did okay, because all you have to do when you're on a panel is to be a loudmouth blowhard contrarian curmudgeon and you'll do fine. That's my forte.
And then there was a tornado watch, and that's where I am now, waiting for the rain to hit again and watching the TV news go all freaky over the storms. Not that I blame anyone for freaking out when a tornado hits. I'm not a fan of tornadoes. I like this area a lot, but I'm ready to go home.
Convention? Yeah, whatever. The highlight was a business trip to here:
Welcome to Target Field, new home of the Minnesota Twins. They played the White Sox tonight and won 7-4, despite a shaky ninth. I was there courtesy of Chris Murphy, talk show host, accompanied by John Gehron, radio programming legend. Hard to beat that.
You know how Deadspin has those photo montages of guys with embarrassing names on the back of their jerseys? Meet Not-The-Late-Kirby-Puckett:
Nope, don't get it. Don't want to, actually.
The view from the upper deck:
Not bad, but the ticket says "Skyline View," and skyline view it is:
IDS Center off to the right with the antennae on top, Target Center, home of the Minnesota Timberwolves, to the lower right. Hey, look closer at center field:
It's Minnie and Paul! Created by a guy named Ray Barton for the patch on the shoulder of the Twins' original uniforms in 1961, and still around today. After dark, they glow:
Oh, and they shake hands, too. Love 'em.
Wait, where did everybody go?
Game over. What, you want game action? Yeah, I'm gonna get game pictures with a pocket camera from the top of the stadium. Sure.
Great time, though. They did a great job on the park, too. Almost forgot about the convention there, and that's always a good thing.
Sorry, but I finally finished the column and it's late. Sleep beckons.
Target Field tomorrow. I'll try to remember the cameras.
I'm here:
By "I'm here," I mean literally here, a few miles down the road from downtown Minneapolis. So close, yet so far. I'm in a commercial area along the freeway, and while there are conveniences within a short walk -- everything from a supermarket and nice restaurants and bars to Costco and Dairy Queen -- but there's nothing like downtown. I was downtown for a few minutes along the way here, taking the light rail to the Warehouse District to grab the shuttle to the hotel, and downtown had life, people milling around, bars and clubs everywhere, that real-city feeling. Out here, it's suburbia. No matter; I'll be in meeting rooms all day for the next few days anyway. And I WILL go to Target Field downtown to see the Twins and White Sox at least once and maybe more, so I can deal with it.
But before then, I have to get used to the weather. I was greeted by a violent rainstorm, there were tornado warnings on the radio, and the heat and humidity are both high, practically Miami in August. I am no longer built to take this kind of constant sweating. Two showers this afternoon and it's still sticky.
And, oh, yeah, Delta Airlines: Thanks for the offer of in-flight Wi-Fi, but, geez, can you maybe put in some power ports, too? Unless you have iPad battery life, using Wi-Fi on board won't last all the way from LAX to MSP. Take care of that, please. Thank you.
Obviously, not tonight, either. Will post from the road tomorrow,
Maybe.
Oh, geez, I have a week's worth or work to cram into two days before I hit the road again. You expect me to come up with anything here?
Maybe tomorrow. Probably not, but maybe. We'll see.
Hey, can I take another pass for tonight? I've been working all day after that week off, and I'm just fried. And, no, I really don't have any World Cup knowledge to share with you.
Thanks.
Work started up again today. I'm already tired.
Since this was my birthday week, here's a photo from my actual birthday:
Don't I look young for my age?
Actually, this one was from my fifth birthday, July 5, 1965. That's my grandfather on the left. He passed away the next year. My Aunt Tola is to the right and my Uncle Ben is in the foreground, the back of his head visible; They took my mother in when she arrived in the States after the war. I'm not sure whether that's my Aunt Anita or cousin Diana to the left. That is, however, our old backyard, and that's our house behind me.
Those were good times. I didn't know how good I had it. Nice buzz cut, too; I was unfashionable then but would have fit in well right now.
Last day of inactivity. I promise. Work starts up again tomorrow, and so will this thing.
Pictures, commentary, maybe even cake. All here. Thank you for your patience.
Tonight's Free Agent Circus was ridiculous, of course, but you watched. And because you watched, it made sense. Why NOT turn a simple contract signing into a prime-time TV special? You cared, you watched... ergo, it had a reason for its existence.
And it said volumes about the NBA as it is in 2010. Winning is less important than the show. Going to Chicago would have made the Bulls, with a strong supporting cast, a prohibitive favorite for the title for years to come. Going back to Cleveland would have sent the message that home and family are more important than the glitz and warm weather of a Miami or the money of New York, and it would have paid him well, anyway.
He went for the glitz. The Heat will win a lot, but when the team is composed of three superstars and Mario Chalmers, that's a recipe for never closing the deal. It's a 3-on-5 situation every night. The opposing defense can leave Chalmers and whoever they get to play center -- assuming Michael Beasley is traded to loosen up a few bucks to sign someone -- open all night. The Heat will be highly entertaining, and it will be fun to see LBJ. D-Wade, and Bosh together, but they're a three man roster. The rest is going to be pretty awful.
But the most entertaining part is watching the Knicks and Nets suffer. They blew up their rosters expressly to clear cap room to get LeBron or at least Bosh, and they're getting nothing. The Knicks are now Stoudemire -- who couldn't close the deal in Phoenix with Steve Nash et al. -- and, preactically, a D-League roster. The Nets gambled on getting both James and the top pick and ended up with Favors at number three and nothing else. Imagine buying a ticket to see either one of those nightmares next season. Schadenfreude is fun.
Of course, I'm a Sixers fan, so none of this mattered much; they weren't in the LBJ or Bosh sweepstakes, they're still saddled with Iguodala's contract, and it's a matter of hoping they improve a little with Evan Turner while waiting for Elton Brand's contract to expire. But whatever they are this season, they ain't the Knicks or Nets. That's good enough for now.
Still off from work, so I'm trying not to be on the computer right now. More iPad observations coming. I was in the Formosa Cafe when the quake hit today and didn't feel it, although my sister and everyone else in the joint did. That's it for now. Time to go do something else.
Okay, I wrote a while entry on this and lost it, and it's late. So I'm going to shorthand it and write more on another day, but I set up an iPad for my sister and, yeah, now I want one.
I'll tell you why when I have more time.
And this is what was going on 50 years ago today:
The Soviets fired a rocket. LBJ challenged Kennedy for the Democratic nomination.
And, oh, yeah. I showed up.
It's remarkable that we can easily see what life was like, at least in part, at least from the perspective of the papers, when we were born. In my case, America was entering the TV age, the space age, the Sixties. It seems like an eternity ago, and maybe fifty years is an eternity of sorts, in relation, that is, to our individual lives. Looking at how things have changed makes me feel a little old, especially with ads like this:
It's an ad for a Milwaukee radio station that compares rock 'n' roll to monkey music (as opposed to the "good" music "for people." Did they intend the racism inherent in that comparison? Maybe not -- after all, in 1960, "rock 'n' roll" meant Ricky Nelson and Elvis Presley more than the "race music" from which it was derived. But you couldn't run an ad like this in 2010. 1960 was in some ways a different planet.
Yet I was there. And I'm here now. It's been an interesting fifty years. I'd like to see where the next fifty years take us.
Continuing with the theme of The World As It Was, 50 Years Ago, here's the headline on the Milwaukee Sentinel that day:
By that time in 1960, the Cuban situation was bad enough that Congress was passing things like a curb on sugar imports from the island to try to put pressure on Castro. That clearly didn't work. The story was actually not that big a deal, but it was a slow news day, what with the holiday and all.
But if you were around that day, you'd probably have wanted some refreshment, so you'd maybe cracked open a cold one:
Gettelman was a big brand in Milwaukee in 1960, and the guy in the Tyrolean getup was the brewery's familiar mascot Fritzie, but the competition was fierce and the family sold out to Miller -- literally the brewery next door -- the following year. Miller brewed Gettelman beer for another 10 years; one of the brands of Gettelman was "Gettelman $1,000 Beer," which offered the titular sum to anyone who could prove that it wasn't made with pure malt and hops.
Oh, and there was one other brand brewed by Gettelman. It's still around, although some might wish it wasn't. This stuff. "Best" is a trade name, not an adjective.
You'd be better off with this:
Royal Crown Cola -- RC -- was always the distant third place cola in the Coke-Pepsi wars. For a brief time in the late 1960's, it got a huge marketing push, but it didn't last. You'll recall a few things about it, like "RC Cola and a Moon Pie," and maybe that its diet version, Diet Rite, was the first diet cola. It was also first soda in a can, first with a caffeine version, and first with a premium "draft" version which only lasted a short time in the U.S. and was really good (at least, I liked it). It's still around, now part of the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group.
And to remind ourselves of the holiday, here's another article about the then-new flag:
Interesting that it became official last in the state that necessitated the change, Hawaii.
Yeah, I know. Missed yesterday. Wasn't around.
For this weekend, for reasons that shall become apparent shortly, I wanted to look 50 years back each day. just out of curiosity. Here's the headline in the Reading Eagle from July 5, 1960:
I hadn't been aware that Harry S Truman was a bitter opponent of JFK's. He was widely quoted in the papers as thinking that the 1960 Democratic National Convention at the L.A. Sports Arena was "rigged" in Kennedy's favor. He thought Kennedy wasn't ready to be President. We know how that turned out.
An example of how things were different back then, from the Miami News, also July 3, 1960:
Among the page one stories was the shocking announcement that because the original Miss Ohio in the Miss Universe pageant had been disqualified for being underage, another contestant had ascended to the post of Miss Ohio. An African-American woman. But they didn't call her African-American; That term was years away. "Black" wasn't quite in the lead by then, either, especially in the South.
Also, you'll note the article that discusses how 1960's Independence Day would be the first with a 50-star flag. It was a huge adjustment in two stages, because there was a 49 star flag for one year. I don't think I've ever seen one of those.
Oh, wait, here's one.
A final indication of how things were different? Try this:
Hi of "Hi and Lois" smoking! Would they even allow that now? At least he managed to refrain from burning the kids. We wouldn't want to call Child Protective Services on him.
Absolutely no time today.
I mean it.
