At The Commercials: T-Mobile Girl and Fake Kim Kardashian

So lately, there have been two commercials with very fetching models in them. The first would be the woman from the T-Mobile commercial above. To me, she looks like a prettier, less angular (smaller nose) Anne Hathaway.

According to Teh Internetz, and the source of the above photo, the T-Mobile girl is a Canadian model and actress named Carly Foulkes. Outside of the T-Mobile spots, she's been in… Well, pretty much nothing. Still, I kind of like her acting ability too. She seems pleasant enough - She should ditch that dweeb guy in the commercials and just go solo.

(Also, every Carly I know is a pretty cool person. My real-life friend Carly? She's cool. Carly Googles? Again, she's awesome, and I haven't even met her. However, we are FB friends, so that counts for something.)

The other attractive woman in commercials lately has been the girl that E! News appropriately calls Kim Fauxdashian. I saw the Old Navy commercial a couple times and thought to myself, "Well, that's not surprising that Kim would take their paycheck…"

The fact that it is apparently NOT Kim is more surprising to me. It is a performer along similar lines though - It is Melissa Molinaro, a frequent Making The Band and Pussycat Dolls reality show competitor. The resemblance is pretty uncanny, although she hopefully hasn't been run through as many times as Kim K. The picture from the E! article is below:

Wherein Steve defends the Perkins trade.

Although there is a lot of hand-wringing going on about the Kendrick Perkins deal in Boston, let me go on record as being for it. The factors in my liking of it:

1) If you're assuming that O'Neal and O'Neal are healthy, then Perkins kind of duplicates what they give you already. And if you're assuming that they won't be healthy, Perkins isn't exactly a paradigm of health either after experiencing a significant injury last year. He also was hurt at the time of the trade.

2) The Celtics got back the best player in the deal, in Jeff Green. After his rookie year, I wasn't the biggest fan, and I don't think he's a future superstar. But he's a good to very good wing player, and he gives the Celtics a clear upgrade over the flotsam they were using to back up Pierce and Allen. I imagine he'll get close to 20 minutes a game backing up both players down the stretch, and help to preserve their stamina for the playoffs.

3) Perkins was leaving anyway after this season. I believe at that point, he was a restricted free agent, and given how insane teams are about 7-foot centers, there was little chance the Celtics could retain him. Look at the deals signed by guys who can barely play, like Darko, Mark Blount, Jerome James… Pretty much all of them became millstones around the necks of their various teams.

4) While Jeff Green is in the same sort of contract limbo after this year (I believe), because he is a wing there is a chance the Celtics can re-sign him somewhat cheaply. It took Rudy Gay a long time to convince a stupid organization he was worth the money, after all, and Glen Davis didn't get a ton of interest this offseason.

5) Nenad Krstic can actually play a little bit, you know. He was starting for the Thunder. He is a completely different kind of player from Perkins, O'Neal and O'Neal, which I think helps. Depending on match-ups, you can throw him out there to get a guy like Howard away from the basket for a couple possessions. Sure, he will get demolished on defense, but he's probably the third or fourth center anyway.

6) The loss of Nate Robinson isn't a huge deal to me. With Green on the second unit now, you presumably don't need a creator who also plays the point. This is especially true if Delonte West can stay healthy (always a big "if", of course).

7) Finally, I think the Celtics are probably going to get the best of whatever they can from the contract buyout guys. There is already talk that Troy Murphy is on his way to the Celtics, and he's the type of player fans will love - Big tall white guy who rebounds. I imagine Ainge also has his eye on a back-up point guard. TJ Ford would be perfect if he gets bought out.
The photo is from Boston.com.

Hey, I actually liked Final Fantasy 13!

First things first: I'm going to call it Final Fantasy 13 throughout this entry, because I don't want to keep typing out Final Fantasy XIII. The latter is more letters, and it's easier for me to leave off or add an I by mistake and inadvertently refer to another game. If you don't like it, well, too damn bad.

Also, it goes without saying that this entry has massive spoilers on the game, potentially. If you've held off on playing this game even longer than I have, well, please don't read this entry.

Anyway – As the title of this entry implies, I was a fan of the game. On the Internetz, it gets quite a bit of flack for being far more linear than previous games in the series, but I looked at this aspect as a positive.

Without 20 side areas and towns to explore between missions, I felt the main storyline had more of an urgent feel than past games in the series. For example, in Final Fantasy 6, you're threatened with the idea that Kefka can strike at any time... Except that you can literally spend 100 hours fighting dinosaurs, exploring castles buried on the ocean floor and fighting ghosts in your characters' dreams, and nothing bad will happen.

(I feel like a developer could make a ballsy statement by offering a “real-time” mode in a game. i.e. If you don't beat Final Fantasy 15 in 100 hours, then the bad guy does win. Just make an optional mode that you get an extra trophy for, or something. The Persona games kind of limit you with a certain number of days to get things done, but this affects you much more when it comes to social links, not battles.)

For the first 20 to 30 hours of Final Fantasy 13, you are on a hard-wired path that I found pretty interesting. You're mostly focused on staying alive, either by running from the people out to kill you or by attacking their headquarters yourself. In this respect, I found it somewhat similar to Final Fantasy 2e / 4j, which forced you to have certain parties and characters with well-defined traits.

Once you get to Gran Pulse, the game does open up a bit like the World of Ruin in Final Fantasy 6, and all the presentation values truly shine. After spending your first 20 hours in confined areas and a steampunk environment, it's incredibly refreshing to see 250-foot tall beasts stomping around the plains. (It's also neat to see that there is a vague sort of ecosystem at work – You'll see beasts that dislike each other attacking one another. I think they should have pursued this angle more, actually. You can watch them fight for 10 minutes, but one side won't ever actually win, and creatures are always in the same spot.)

Of course, once you get there, you run into another common complaint – Half the crap you run into can kill you very, very quickly. Final Fantasy 13 makes it hard to level-grind by not re-spawning enemies easily. For example, if you just beat a group of enemies that drops something you can sell, or that gives you a good amount of experience, you either have to save-and-load or venture well off screen to get them to re-spawn.

If you're someone who loves to over-power enemies, then this is incredibly frustrating. You don't really have the opportunity to get super-powered until 75 percent of the game is over. If you're like me, and mostly playing just to enjoy the plot and not engage in fetishistic item collections, then you're perfectly fine with the challenge most of the game presents.

As far as the story goes, I thought it was one of the better ones. They took some very un-Final Fantasy-like risks with it, which I think I appreciated more than others. Examples: People already in love, as opposed to falling in love while the world is ending. Popular people capital-D dead instead of being revived. A woman is legit the bad-ass of the story, and she's not some weird lady with a short haircut and mannish appearance (sorry Paine). A story told with some interesting flashbacks. Characters who have done legit bad things – like punching a hole into a world – in the past. Not taking the easy way out with the ending.

However, I will say that I wish they'd up the ages on some of the female characters. Now that I'm 27, it feels... creepy. Even Sazh is caught leering at Vanille, who is pictured below:


She's dressed like that for the entire game. Oh, did I mention that she's 16? yikes. It's awesome that Final Fantasy 13 had two awesome female characters who basically kicked ass and took names later, but a bit of that is unraveled when Miss Lolita 2010 is also on display.

When it comes to young, female characters, I sometimes feel like the Final Fantasy developers do nothing but watch Hayden Pantiere, Hilary Duff and Miley Cyrus tapes. To close out the post, here is their idea of an appropriate 15-year-old as featured in Final Fantasy 10:


The picture of Vanille is from this site. The Rikki and Light images are from a bunch of random forums.

Let's talk about Glee – Part 2

Let's talk about where I'd like to see them take some of the plots on Glee.

- For starters, Santana and Finn should be an item. For one, I think it would be interesting. Santana is the evilest person on the show, next to Sue, so it would be nice to see her actually get into a sort of relationship. Her sass would counteract his dumb sort of aloofness.

Secondly, it's one of the few matchings that they haven't really done on the show. They hooked up briefly in the “Like A Virgin” Madonna show, but didn't actually do anything couple-ish.

And third, it gives plenty of fodder to other characters, such as Rachel and Quinn. Also, if Finn is firmly established in a relationship, it means we can all finally move on from the boring relationship storylines they currently tease with him.

- Speaking of Santana, she needs her own episode. Her and Brittney are the best “kids” on the show now, and pretty much everyone else has been explored, with maybe the exception of Mike Chang and Mercedes. Specifically, I'd like a look at her home life, since I think it'd be interesting.

- We need to stop with the Rachel-centric storylines. A little bit of Rachel goes a long way. Yes, Lea Michele has some killer pipes. However, her character doesn't have much depth at all, since she swings from boy-based neurotic fits to talent-based neurotic fits. If you can't find something else for her to do in an episode besides obsessing over a boy or who else is getting a solo, leave her on the sidelines for an episode.

- I'm OK with the “Kurt falling in love” stories for now, but honestly, his dad is a much more interesting character. Mike O'Malley is awesome. Find some way to get him involved with Kurt and his dreamy boyfriend, like having him give awkward advice to Kurt about impressing a boy.

- I'm not sure how I feel about Puck chasing after his new girl. To be honest, the whole thing feels a bit forced and over-the-top, even by Glee standards. I know some guys who like a thicker woman, but most of them were not sleeping with essentially models beforehand (Dianna Argon) and even then, it was more bubbly personality thick girls, not horrible wenches. I'm hoping the payoff with the whole angle is good, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's yet another “will they won't they?” storyline.

- And finally, Sue. Sigh. How far you've fallen! You've gone from being the show's most compelling villain to, as I allude in my previous post, the show's Wile E. Coyote. Hopefully her new role as a consultant for another glee squad lets her flaunt her villainous nature again, properly.

To me, the bigger problem is that the show hasn't properly softened her character. They take baby steps, such as having her vote for the home team glee squad, and having her have sweet relationships with her sister and Becky, and having her confront her over-aggressive mom. However, it's as if the show has amnesia about these moments, and the very next episode, she's trying to rip apart the club from the inside or faking a suicide attempt.

Let’s talk about Glee – Part 1

So, after catching Tuesday night’s episode of Glee this morning, I have some thoughts. And seeing as how my Glee posts are always my most popular, I thought I’d share them. If you don’t like it, well, go spit.

(By the way, pictures for this entry will come later, since I’m away from my desktop laptop computer, and typing this on my work one. For the record, I’m a huge, huge fan of the non-Cheerios look for Quinn, Brittney and Santana.)

- I’m now officially sick of any romance angle involving Finn, Quinn, Sam or Rachel. Seriously, I hope they all end up alone and crying. All of the possible combinations of these characters just bore me to tears. We’ve had so many “will they won’t they?” moments between them that nothing they air now can possibly live up to all the false starts.

Although people knock Jim and Pam from The Office for getting boring once they actually ended up together, I think it needed to happen from a narrative standpoint. Otherwise, you get what Glee is getting – Something lacking in interest because it has been teased to death.

- Brittney remains my favorite character. It’s not even close at this point. I’m not sure how they do it, but she remains fresh and surprising from episode to episode. I especially liked how she turned the arm-warmers into a fashion thing. Way to go, gurl.

I’m also a big fan of Santana. She is so evil that she is interesting. And easy on the eyes! That certainly doesn’t hurt either. Like they did with the Brittney-Brittney Spears episode, I imagine they’ll have to do an entire plot on her background at some point, which would be awesome.

- Sue’s character has gone from one of my favorites to just one of the ensemble cast. I’m not sure why they felt the need to essentially strip the character of its power; getting the Cheerios budget slashed should have been a season finale thing, not something in the middle of a season. It would have setup season three pretty well. (The interview with “Diane Sawyer” was pretty god damn hilarious though.)

Anyway, for this entire season, she has essentially been the Wile E. Coyote of the cast. Every plan she has goes awry, including the one last night, where Mercedes and Rachel embraced after the “diva” contest. While I didn’t want her plan to succeed, I kind of wish Sue wasn’t in the position of being the spoiler.

Instead of that, why not have her do her own storylines each week? She’s one of the few people in the cast with real acting chops, and I wouldn’t mind seeing more of her relationship with her mom or sister or someone else each week instead of her constantly trying to sabotage the glee club.

… Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Coming Friday: Some plots I’d like to see the show pursue.

Hey, stop defiling my birthday!

I agree heartily with the sentiment expressed in this Slate article. Then again, my birthday is on Valentine’s Day, so maybe I’m a bit biased…

I’ve maintained for many years that I like my birthday being on the holiday, because regardless of whether or not I’m dating someone, I get candy and cards and presents. It’s a win-win for me, yay! This year, the high school newspaper staff that I advise has strongly hinted that they will have a cake for me, so that should be awesome.

(Although, I should note that I still find it odd that several of them read this blog. They’re the young looking folk in the “Followers” section. Thankfully, I haven’t written about anything super embarrassing in here, or really gotten into great depth when it comes to my guiding of their young minds… Maybe I should stop talking about this before they REALLY comb through everything I’ve written on here, or I actually do say something that gets me into trouble…)

One of my Patch freelancers has a list of her favorite romantic songs, which you can read here. It comes complete with YouTube links, so it’s definitely worth checking out. It got me thinking about my favorite romantic songs, which I’ve listed below in no particular order.

(Note: Yes, I’ve been watching Glee, but I haven’t had a chance to write about it yet. Sorry! I’ll do a two-part entry on it, folks – Wednesday, I’ll look at the new episodes since I last blogged, and Friday, I’ll talk about what I’d like to see them do.)

Without further adieu, the list of songs I like to listen to when I’m thinking of romantic things, and following Mel’s lead, I’ve provided YouTube links:

- "Call Me" by Yoko Kanno (Note: Cowboy Bebop spoilers)
- "Come Pick Me Up" by Ryan Adams
- "Emaline" by Ben Folds
- "Falling For You" by Weezer
- "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie
- "Maybe I'm Amazed" by Paul McCartney and Wings
- "Such Great Heights" by The Postal Service
- "We Will Become Silhouettes" by The Postal Service
- "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd

The Top 20 Stephen Greenwell Music List: This One Does Not Go To Eleven

10) “(If You Are Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” by Weezer – 24 plays.

Stupid song name, horrible verses, but my goodness, Weezer sure knows how to make a catchy beat and nifty chorus. My friend Pat and I discussed this, and even with all this song's obvious shortcomings, it's still really great in some parts.

9) “Gives You Hell” by The All-American Rejects – 25 plays.

I'm surprised this one isn't a little bit higher, but I've only had it in my iTunes for about a year, so some other songs no doubt have it beat. It's probably got the highest playrate, considering its age. I make no apologies for having it on this list; it's a fun little song. If you don't like it, well, go spit.

8) “Sink Into Me” by Taking Back Sunday – 27 plays.
7) “Savior” by Rise Against – 30 plays.

If I'm not mistaken, Rise Against is a fairly popular band. However, this is the only song I have by them, so I couldn't really comment on this. I think this one because it is loud and angry. Sometimes, you need a loud and angry song to listen to. The same thing applies to Taking Back Sunday – I realize that they have a following of some sort, but this is the only song I've really been exposed to, and that's primarily because it got some mainstream radio play.

6) “Adelaide” by Ben Folds Five – 31 plays.

I'm generally a slut for anything Ben Folds does, and this song combines the best of his traits. Hypnotic piano riff right off the bat? Check. A chorus and other lyrics you can sing along to loudly in the car? Check. A song actually about something? Check! It's good times all-around.

5) “Let's Dance to Joy Division” by The Wombats – 33 plays.

I'm not normally a huge fan of WBRU nowadays, since they've shifted from the angrier, punkish rock of my generation (the 1990s and early 2000s) to, frankly, weird shit. One exception would be the #1 song on this list, and another one would be this song. It has enough of an edge and a catchy chorus, enough to keep me quite interested.

4) “Naive” by The Kooks – 36 plays.

Okay, confession: I've only ever heard this song on my iTunes and on one of those Guitar Hero or Rock Band games. However, once I start hearing it, I can't stop it midway through and move on to something else. It's a good song to sing along to in the car, the bass / guitar line is very, very catchy.

3) “The Underdog” by Spoon – 38 plays.

Just a straight-up awesome song. Great lyrics, and it has everything – Drums, guitar, some horns, a tambourine... When Adam Carolla complains about bands that don't really have chops anymore, he should listen to some Spoon instead. Because they're awesome.

2) “Safe European Home” by The Clash – 40 plays.

I really got into The Clash a little while ago, once I learned that “Train In Vain” was by them. (Actually, I'm a bit surprised that that song doesn't beat this one out.) Like many of my favorite songs though, this one is loud with heavy guitar and features yelling. These are two important qualities for almost any song.

1) “Cousins” by Vampire Weekend – 44 plays.

This tops the list for several reasons. One, because it's only 2:25, it makes it a relatively easy listen. Two, I really like this song. Heck, I wrote a blog about it in the past. And three, it is somewhat-acceptable cool music, whereas most of the crap I listen to doesn't really have any artistic cache.

The Top 20 Stephen Greenwell Music List: This One Goes To Eleven

I have pretty horrible taste in music, and it is well-documented on this blog. Ke$ha, Ace of Base, the Glee soundtrack, every remix and cover song known to man... They all figure prominently into my iTunes library.

In an attempt to provide a more accurate read on what I listen to though, I decided to do this list. It will not include deep tracks on albums – this is a bit of a holdover from paper-time in college, and not really reflective of what I listen to, which is mostly singles. I will also sadly note that the total count was reset about two years ago, when I got a new computer. I'm sure all of these songs will turn out to be completely fantastic.

… Okay, probably not. But on to the list!

20) “Tik Tok” by Ke$ha – 21 plays.

This fine artist is the only one on the list with two songs. I’ve written past entries about how awesome she is, so I won’t dwell so much on it here.

19) “Sick, Sick, Sick” by Queens of the Stone Age – 22 plays.

Like many other songs on this list, this one popped into my playlist after a Guitar Hero or Rock Band session. Also, I think they played it on Saturday Night Live at one point, which is also one of my favorite ways to be exposed to new music.

18) “Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)” by The Offspring – 22 plays.

Honestly… I’m not sure how this song got so high on this list. I don’t really like it that much, and it’s no longer 2001. It makes me wonder if I mistakenly let it rack up 20 plays or something some night.

17) “Yeah Yeah Yeah” by New Politics – 22 plays.

This was a big jam for me in the summer of 2010, I believe. (Maybe a bit before then? I’m old, I can’t remember the exact date.) I remember listening to it all the time on my way to and from The Westerly Sun. It was a magical time in my life, except for the part where I was living with my parents, and barely making enough money to do like, anything.

16) “Your Love is My Drug” by Ke$ha – 22 plays.

The aforementioned second Ke$ha song, and probably my favorite of hers. I love how over-the-top the lyrics are.

15) “Mountain Man” by Crash Kings – 22 plays.

I actually think that I burnt out a bit on this song – Whenever it comes on the radio or my iTunes now, I just skip past it.

14) “I Gotta Feeling” by The Black Eyed Peas – 22 plays.

… okay so my taste is pretty horrible. Sorry.

13) “Takedown” by Yellowcard – 23 plays.

See above. I don’t even know how this is my most-listened to Yellowcard song, since “Ocean Avenue” is my favorite by them.

12) “Shut Up and Let Me Go” by The Ting Tings – 23 plays.

Ah, back to songs I like, and one by one of my future wives. (Katie White, I’m still waiting for a call – Feel free to do it collect, I’ll accept the charges.) It helps that The Ting Tings also produce some pretty decent tunes, with this one being my favorite.

11) “Zero” by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs – 24 plays.

And the final song for this installment.

The Spinal Tap picture is from this blog.

Don't call it a comeback.

Much like LL Cool J, I've been here for years. But where have I been?

Well, unsurprisingly, running a news website is a bit more work than being a general assignment reporter. I mean, especially with the stuff I was doing, which was mostly court beat and Friday night emergency coverage – Unless something was blowing up, I generally had five to 10 free hours a week at “work.” Yay for journalism!

Now that I am the boss again, and more importantly on salary, the dynamic changes a bit. There is more of an incentive for me to do things quickly and correctly, especially since I work for an online news site. (In case you're unawares: Narragansett Patch. It's an AOL venture, and now in 22 states; you can see if one is near you by clicking here. If you want to help me out, feel free to randomly click on a bunch of stories all over the place - Relax, I won't tattle.)

The first couple months have been ones of adjustment – Both from the perspective that I suddenly have more work to do, and from the perspective that the company I work for is still young and trying new things out. It's pretty exciting, and I can honestly say I haven't been this psyched about a job since I ran my college newspaper. (Then again, one of my friends dubbed my Patch site Version 2.0 of our college paper, since half the staff are people I knew from college. Hey, gotta network.)

So, I have been looking to restart this blog for a couple weeks now. At first, my plan was to do so on or about January 1, but life interfered. Likewise, I thought February 1 was a splendid day, but unfortunately, I've alternated between chills, sweats, fever and flu. Also, I did finally get a Playstation 3, so I've been picking away at Final Fantasy XIII for the past month or so. (General impressions: Like the game, especially like story.)

Consider this my “welcome back to blogging” post. Thanks for all of you who have gently and not-so-gently needled me into this – It's nice to see I wasn't completely forgotten. (Somewhat sad note though: My average hits per day increased by 50 percent ever since I left. Go figure.) I will be dropping down in post frequency and length, from seven days a week to just three – Monday, Wednesday and Friday. However, more posts will be time-delayed and queued up, so I should be better with sticking to the 7 p.m. EST schedule. (We'll see!)

The photo comes from this site, and you can buy it on a shirt! Awesome!

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Pickin' Pigskin: Week 9 (and the Moss-Childress Split)

Matt: So, that was a short Randy Moss return. I'm not sure what exactly is going on with the Vikings, but I really hope someone is writing a book about this season. It's shambolic. Childress had lost the dressing room before Moss, but at this point, I wonder why even bother holding on to him to finish out the season. I'd have more confidence in Leslie Frazier.

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Bob: My real question, Matt, would be why Childress was ever around in the first place. It's not like he had done a stellar job (last season wasn't exactly attributed to him--in a season where the Vikings went 12-4 and had an argument as one of the best teams in the league, Childress got one vote for Coach of the Year) and he was already fairly notorious for bad clock management--a key skill for NFL coaches. In a world where Jon Gruden, Brian Billick, and Bill Cowher are on TV, it's inexcusable to keep Childress (or Wade Phillips) as a coach.

In other news, I'm not sure how the reports of Randy Moss lighting into the Vikings' caterers makes me feel. I have always been very sensitive to how people treat service staff, particularly because my mother was once a waitress and I cut my teenage chops at a Blockbuster Video. I think it's a real measure of someone's character when you see how they treat some poor bastard who is earning minimum wage to deliver you food or other services. A lot of people really take the opportunity of having someone serving them to be a bully, and I think that proves what jerkoffs some people really are. Randal Graves was right when he said "this job would be great if it wasn't for the fucking customers."

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Steve: I totally agree with you, Bob. How people treat minimum wage workers is typically a pretty good judge of character. Then again, like you, I might be biased because I worked at Dunkin' Donuts for two years. As a wise man would say, go spit Randy Moss.

Matt, I think they keep Childress out to play the string just so they don't have to deal with even more chaos by getting some new, lame duck coach in for the rest of the season. Anyone good - Parcells, Cowher, Dungy - isn't going to want to take on that quagmire (giggity giggity) in the middle of the season. Anyway, on to the standings:

Bob: 56-56 (6-7)
Steve: 54-58 (5-8)
Matt: 53-59 (6-7)
Kristin: 52-60 (6-7)

	Steve	Bob	Kristin	Matt
NYJ (-4) at DET	NYJ	NYJ	DET	NYJ
SD (-3) at HOU	SD	SD	HOU	SD
TB (+8.5) at ATL	ATL	TB	ATL	TB
NO (-6.5) at CAR	NO	NO	CAR	NO
CHI at BUF (-3)	CHI	BUF	BUF	CHI
ARI at MIN (-8)	MIN	MIN	MIN	ARI
NE at CLE (+4.5)	NE	CLE	NE	NE
MIA (+5.5) at BAL	MIA	MIA	MIA	BAL
NYG (-7) at SEA	NYG	NYG	NYG	NYG
IND (+3) at PHI	PHI	IND	IND	IND
KC at OAK (-1)	KC	OAK	OAK	KC
DAL at GB (-7.5)	GB	GB	GB	GB
PIT (-5) at CIN	PIT	PIT	PIT	PIT

Pickin' Pigskin: Week 8 (and rallying for sanity in D.C. and Tulsa)

Bob: Well, it's that time of the week again. Sorry we're sending the picks in late--we just got back from the Rally to Restore Sanity. Let me just say this: I haven't seen DC this crowded since the inauguration. Since this was a fake rally for no real issues, I don't really know how that makes me feel. Except to say that I'm pissed that I couldn't get on the Metro. We tried to get on at about 12:45 p.m., and we were told by people on the absolutely full train that they had all gotten on at the FIRST STOP on the Metro. So we took a cab.

The rally had lots of good signs and stuff, but we couldn't hear a thing from Stewart/Colbert. They clearly weren't ready for a crowd that size (and neither was the National Park Service, which had fenced off portions of the Mall that the crowd ended up knocking down. The amazing part was when we decided to split, and downtown D.C. was basically shut down because the crowd had overflowed. There were a bunch of people dancing on some kind of dragon float. We ended up having to walk about 15 blocks to find a place to eat (where we proceeded to wait about an hour to eat, because they weren't ready for a crowd at 3 p.m.).

On the way back, I smartly looked into the Metro station before we went through the turnstiles, and saw the platform was packed. So we walked from downtown D.C. back to our condo, which in itself was a trek because we had to go through Georgetown, which is the place to be on Halloween. Even as we walked across the bridge out of D.C. at 6 p.m., traffic was snarled getting out of the city. So today will be known as the day that Jon Stewart broke D.C. (with help from people going out for Halloween).

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Kristin: Hey,

I'm sleepy after our big day on the mall. If you're interested I'm gonna post some pics on Facebook. So this is all you get this week.

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Matt: I'd like just to take this moment to plug Tulsa's win over once-mighty Notre Dame (last mighty in the 1980s). Though our coach inanely and repeatedly called it the biggest win in the program's history, this isn't the case. Not to say that it isn't a big win, and I don't love that we beat the so-called elite.

But I don't think it's a bigger win than, say, beating Oklahoma on the road in 1996. Or of any of our bowl wins when they meant things, like beating Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl in 1945. I mean we were the first school to be in five consecutive New Year's Day bowl games. We've won conference championships. We hold the record for largest margin of victory in a bowl game in history from 2008. It's degrading to the program's history to call a win over an exceedingly mediocre Notre Dame squad the biggest win in the program's history.

-----

Steve: As y'all can probably tell from my posting time on this, I'm exhausted, and this whole "launching a site" thing is pretty time consuming. I promise to not mail it in next week. And, I'm secretly very envious of you, Bob and Kristin, for attending the rally. And I'm sure all three of us are envious of Matt, since we all went to the University of Rhode Island, which hasn't had a good football team in years.

Anyway, everyone went 8-6 last week. This week's picks:

	Steve	Bob	Kristin	Matt
DEN (+2) at SF	SF	DEN	DEN	DEN
JAC at DAL (-6.5)	DAL	DAL	JAX	JAX
MIA (+1.5) at CIN	MIA	MIA	MIA	MIA
BUF at KC (-7)	KC	KC	KC	BUF
WAS at DET (-2.5)	WAS	DET	WAS	WAS
CAR at STL (-3)	CAR	STL	STL	STL
GB at NYJ (-6)	NYJ	NYJ	GB	NYJ
TEN at SD (-3.5)	TEN	SD	TEN	TEN
MIN (+5.5) at NE	NE	MIN	NE	MIN
TB at ARI (-3)	TB	ARI	ARI	TB
SEA at OAK (-2.5)	SEA	OAK	SEA	OAK
PIT (+1) at NO	PIT	PIT	PIT	PIT
HOU at IND (-5.5)	IND	IND	IND	HOU

This comic makes me smile wistfully.

No, it wasn't drawn by Bill, but I think this comic is really well done. I found it while looking online for some photos for the school paper I'm laying out. It brought a smile to my face, since it seems appropriate for the tone of the strip, if you fast-forward 20 years into the future. Calvin was a bit of a troublemaker, but in a gentle, awesome way.

I got the image from this site here, who got it from somewhere else as well. Probably that picture site in the bottom right, but I have no idea who the original artist is.

Sing it girl - blah blah blah.

I don't really have anything to say tonight. My brain is all frazzled and I'm running on an octave slightly more than empty. (I don't think that makes sense, either.) As Ke$ha would say, blah blah blah.

And by the way, why all the hatin' on Ke$ha? Sometimes I wake up in the morning feelin' like P-Diddy as well. It happens to the best of us. It's not her fault she makes hit records with auto-tune and sick beats... Well, I suppose it is kind of her fault. But I feel compelled to defend a fellow dirty blonde, even if she is dirty blonde on two levels as opposed to my single one.

Hell, imma do this, and post two Ke$ha videos:

No, I haven't watched Glee yet.

My love of Glee is now widely-known, which is somewhat concerning because I am a 26-year-old man. It's sad enough that I love the show, but it's worse when everyone knows and one of two things happens:

1) They razz you about liking it. Typically, my defense is that it is so different from everything else on television that it appeals to me. I am also a sucker for harmony and (some) pop songs, and I especially like when they do covers. I love listening to covers, whether they're by Richard Cheese, The Dan Band or Me First and the Gimme Gimmes.

2) They keep asking if I've seen the latest episode, since they're a fan of the show too. This normally isn't TOO much of a problem, but this week, I've been ridiculously busy with work stuff and other stuff. As a result, I've barely had time to sleep, never mind watching Glee. I might try to sneak it in tonight, but I have to lay out a 12-page high school newspaper and then I have a meeting for coffee tomorrow at 9:30 a.m., followed by police coverage and another meeting at 2 p.m.

Soooo... things are pretty tight for me. And I really want to see them do the time warp again - it's just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right, after all.

p.s. Drew Carey totally did it first.

Dear guy on a pole, thanks a lot, jerk.

This great picture of the jerk on the pole comes from this
site, which has a really good sum-up of the whole thing.
Although the title suggests something really lewd, that is not the case - Sorry to all of you fans of men on poles out there. I don't mean some sort of sexual joke with the title, I mean that literally, a guy climbed to the top of an electrical pole in Philadelphia.

Normally, I wouldn't care about this. However, because I was in New York City, waiting for a train, this presented quite the conundrum for me. Our originally scheduled train for 7:30 p.m. was delayed until 9:45 p.m. because they had to cut the electricity while they helped down the dumb asshole who shocked himself trying to steal copper wire. (For the record, I voted that I was "furious" about the story.)

As a result, I'm not scheduled to get back into Kingston until 12:45 a.m. Ugh. I was planning on doing some things Wednesday morning, but that time is most likely going to be sucked up with rest and recuperation time. The lights are on on the train, so I can't really get any shuteye.

I also have a pretty full week scheduled - The high school newspaper deadline for the kids is Wednesday, and Friday for me, followed by my site launching Monday, which means a lot of prep work for me. Exciting times, but really busy times, unfortunately. I'll try to keep y'all updated with the blog, but my next couple days of entries will probably be shorter.

Steve and the City II: The Return

Once again, like a couple months ago, I’m on a train. Or as T-Pain might say, “I’m on a train trick!”

As always, like the South County yokel that I am, the mix of people on the train is fascinating to me. Thankfully, unlike last time, there isn’t someone trying to make a baby right near me. Unfortunately, there aren’t two humorous teenage girls either. You take the good with the bad – I’m listening to Eddie Money instead. (I agree with my friend Michael that “Baby Hold On” is seriously an incredibly good song. Check it out on YouTube here.)

Today, the excitement is more muted. It is the little things amazing me. For example, half this train is asleep, draped across two seats, with their shoes off. This was definitely gross when I first got on the train, because it smelled like feet. I can understand sleeping on the train, but it seems rude to me to drape across two seats like it is your goddamn bed. And that goes doubly for putting your stinky metatarsals all over the seats.

Luckily though, my ticket is for business class, where there were far less people comatose. It doesn’t take much to impress, and Amtrak knows the way to my heart – free (non-alcoholic) drinks. Mmm, Diet Pepsi. I only drank two small cans though, because I’m classy. (Also, I had a can of soda before the train ride. If only I had known it would be free! Sigh.)

The reason for the trip to New York City is a work-related conference. I think it’s mostly to meet some of the other people involved in the company on the East Coast, and to learn about some new developments in the field and what not. I’d reveal more, except that’s probably frowned upon. Suffice to say, it’s really cool. As John Morrison and The Miz would say, be jealous.

Typed from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday morning. Because I will be busy the next two days at conferences, there is a good chance that Tuesday’s entry will be delayed. Then again, I might be able to squeeze one out quickly and get it posted…

The picture of John Morrison and The Miz is from this site.

A ho-hum Saturday Night Live with the gorgeous Emma Stone

I didn't realize that Emma Stone was so tall, and had such great legs, until last night's Saturday Night Live. Also, there was a pretty funny sexual education skit in the final 30 minutes - It was much, much better than the lame ones with Kenan Thompson.

And hey, now that I think about it, there were several good moments in Weekend Update. It's silly, but I like the Stefon character. Furkels was great, and made me spit-take a bit. And Kenan was really good as that wacky "The rent is too damn high!" character. And the weird French dancing skit was something they would have done on an old school Saturday Night Live, and very effective.

As usual, anything Kristen Wiig was in made me recoil. And the opening monologue? I bet while Jay Pharoah was watching in the background, he was thinking, "Why does this Fred mother effer get to Obama?" That was long, drawn-out and not funny. Same thing goes with everything Wiig was featured prominently in. Another funny skit, the "my brother is awesome!" show, made that clear to me. Just start putting the new girls in every skit, Lorne Michaels.


Note: Sorry for the brevity of this entry, but I'm doing this, that and the other thing tonight - Packing for a two-day trip to New York, preparing for the initial high school newspaper edition of the year, planning for my site launch on November 1... Being an adult is tough work.

Pickin' Pigskin - Week 7 (and Bob is blind, like Justice)

Steve: First, as always, the standings.

Bob: 42-43 (7-6)
Steve: 41-44 (8-5)
Matt: 39-46 (5-8)
Kristin: 38-47 (8-5)

Well, well, well, Mr. Hanson. Looks like you have someone nipping on your heels! Which one of us will get to .500 first, punk? Just in case you were wondering, here is my answer - ME. Now go wash my car, you flunkie! I'm going to treat you like George McFly treats Biff in Back To The Future, after Marty makes everything "right" again.

Speaking of that movie, Cracked brings up a great point and a gaping plot hole in that movie - Marty's parents don't realize that their kid looks EXACTLY like his mom's old flame? That stretches believability. I mean, as much as that can stretch the imagination in a movie that is all about time travel. Likewise, nobody noticed that he was dropping names like Clint Eastwood and Calvin Klein.

However, the movie is still effing awesome. Every time it comes on television, I watch, and the same thing goes with the sequel, and the beginning and end of the third installment. The third is definitely the weakest though, as large portions of the Old West are just uninteresting. Basically, you should watch up until the point Marty goes into the past, then watch again when he has the duel (and the awesome callback to a Clint Eastwood movie!), and then the ending. Everything else kind of stinks, especially Doc's wet blanket girlfriend.

But oh yeah, football. Uh... I got nothing. Sorry.

-----
Matt: I need to figure out why I'm doing so badly at this when I'm winning my Yahoo picks league. I apparently really really suck at the spread. Which is probably just how Vegas wants me to be. Regardless, I'm trying to pay more attention to the spread this week and factor that in, so I'll either do much better or much worse. We'll find out next week. This is why I mainly only pick soccer matches on CentSports.

Also, because I want Steve to find a picture... Steve, if you are concerned by Mad Men spoilers, you can just Google to find any old picture of Jessica Paré. MAD MEN SPOILERS UPCOMING!

Can anyone really doubt why he picked Megan? I mean, really. The outrage over this has been sort of absurd, and very Twilight-esque (as evidenced by the Team Faye hashtag on Twitter). Also, Megan is really really hot. END MAD MEN SPOILERS!

-----
Matt: Sorry to send a follow up e-mail, but I have horrible news that needs to be addressed. I am outraged at the potential union of Maria Sharapova to Sasha Vujacic. SASHA VUJACIC. A crappy player and a not particularly attractive man! What gives! Really, Maria Sharapova can do far better. This upsets me more than when Adriana Lima eloped with Marko Jaric, who also sucks at basketball. At least Jaric played for the Timberwolves for a while, so there was the possibility that Adriana Lima could be courtside at the Target Center.

Also, my lord, I wish I were an Eastern European basketball player.

That is all.

-----
So many things to reply to, so little time. In order of appearance:

I think the plot hole you identified in Back to the Future is a bit late gaping than you think. I'm not sure how well I would remember what my two-week fling from high school would look like 20 years later. I hardly remember what you look like, and it has only been a year or two since I have seen you in person. I might have an exceptionally bad visual memory (Kristin will attest to this, and I think I have previously mentioned my inability to distinguish Julia Stiles and Kirsten Dunst), but I'm not sure I would wake up one day, look at my 16-year-old kid, and say "AHA YOU WENT BACK IN TIME AND KISSED ON ME!"

As for the difficulty of picking against the spread, I bet you regret your decision to enter this contest now, Matt. Who the fuck do you think you're fucking with? This is the spread, it runs shit around here. You just visit here. Yeah, that's right, you better walk away. Go on and walk away... because I'm going to burn this motherfucker down. King Kong ain't got shit on me.

RIP millions of young boys' fantasy about Maria Sharapova. Actually, scratch that. It's not cheating if it's in a teenage boy's fantasy. That's like the area code rule, right?

-----
Kristin: I will attest that Bob is exceedingly bad at identifying people and
distinguishing between them. There were two girls in our high school class that had him convinced for a long time that they were one person. In reality, they were two girls that dressed similarly, didn't say much, and both had brown hair. Otherwise, they looked nothing alike.

Speaking of recognizing people, Bob and I are always trying to identify familiar looking actors on the TV shows we watch. Some recent good catches of mine include:

1) Identifying Dana Davis from the brief TV show version of 10 Things I Hate About You as a guest star on Grey's Anatomy. This was particularly creepy to me because she went from playing a sophomore in high school to playing an engaged 27-year-old in only a few months. In reality, she just turned 26, so happy birthday Danna Davis! May you continue to play a high school student into your 30s.

2) Identifying Keiko Agena, who played Lane Kim on Gilmore Girls, as the Neonatal Specialist and potential addition to the team on last week's House. She also recently celebrated a birthday. Happy 37th birthday to Keiko Agena - who started playing 15 year old
Lane Kim at the age of 26. Yikes!

-----
Steve: Bob, Julia Stiles and Dunst look almost nothing alike, especially now! Just remember, if it's something good, it's probably Stiles (10 Things I Hate About You, the Bourne movies). But anyway, the picks chart:

	Steve	Bob	Kristin	Matt
CLE (+13) at NO	NO	CLE	CLE	NO
JAX at KC (-9.5)	KC	KC	JAX	KC
PHI (+3) at TEN	TEN	PHI	PHI	PHI
BUF at BAL (-13)	BAL	BAL	BAL	BUF
CIN at ATL (-3.5)	ATL	ATL	ATL	ATL
WAS (+3) at CHI	WAS	WAS	WAS	CHI
PIT (-3) at MIA	PIT	PIT	MIA	PIT
STL at TB (-3)	TB	TB	STL	STL
SF at CAR (+3)	SF	SF	SF	CAR
ARI at SEA (-6.5)	SEA	SEA	SEA	ARI
OAK (+8.5) at DEN	DEN	DEN	DEN	OAK
NE at SD (-3)	NE	NE	NE	NE
MIN (+2.5) at GB	GB	GB	MIN	MIN
NYG (+3) at DAL	NYG	NYG	NYG	NYG

The picture of Lea Thompson is from this site.

An inexplicable running diary for Rangers vs. Yankees, game six.

Because I’m watching it anyway, I thought I would do a (delayed) liveblog of the Rangers and Yankees’ game tonight. For the record, I would kind of prefer if the Yankees lost horribly, but that’s the Red Sox fan in me talking.

Two things factor into this. First, the Rangers just seem plucky and spry this year. I like the whole Josh Hamilton story, I like Cliff Lee turning into a poor man’s Sandy Koufax, and I like that former Red Sock David Murphy is on the Rangers too.

And secondly, the Yankees are just so, so easy to hate, between the over-sized personalities, the ridiculous payroll and their success over the years. (The last factor is a hard admission to make, but nobody wants to hate the Pirates or the Orioles.)

… I guess I should get on to the blog! Picking things up from the top of the fifth inning, with the Rangers (momentarily) holding a 1-0 lead…

9:35 p.m. I was just going to type about how Colby Lewis throwing a no-hitter would be the most insane way for this game to be decided. Then A-Rod doubled, and moved to third on a sac fly, so nevermind.

Of course, this being the Yankees, there was a shady play. Nick Swisher clearly got hit by a ball, but he pretends he didn’t, and it goes for a wild pitch that scores A-Rod. Swisher then hits a weak tapper in front of the mound for an out.

The next batter is Jorge Posada, and he knocks a double down the right-field line, so maybe A-Rod would have scored anyway. But still, it seems like the Yankees always have these shady plays throughout the year.

9:52 p.m. After an error on a grounder by Mitch Moreland, he’s advanced to third on a hit-and-run and a ground ball. The Yankees are doing this thing where they intentionally walk Josh Hamilton every time he gets up. Statistically, it’s a silly idea – Someone need to have a .500 OBP to make it pay off.

Vlad Guerrero immediately makes them pay for it by lining a double deep to the center field wall. Hamilton zips around the bases and scores without a throw, giving the Rangers a 3-1 lead. Go Texas! The Yankees are not messing with you, because you’re winning.

FOX shows a shot of Ron Washington celebrating in the dugout. I’m trying not to make a joke about his drug history. (He tested positive for cocaine usage in the off-season and barely held on to his job as a result.)

9:58 p.m. The above series of events chases Yankees start Phil Hughes from the game. Both he and Lewis were coasting along, yet now, it looks like both will be out of the game. David Robertson comes in. I was wondering if we’d see a starter come in, but the Yank-

Oh wow, Cruz just hit a two-run bomb! This is shaping up like game seven in 2004, except well, completely different. It just seems like the Yankees are hanging on by a thread at this point, and the stadium in Arlington is rocking.

The bleeding doesn’t stop either, as the next batter, Ian Kinsler, smacks a double to left. The Yankees send the pitching coach out to stall, since Robertson has faced two batters and given up a homer and a double. They get Kerry Wood going in the bullpen.

I was saying earlier, I wonder if the Yankees will use a starter, except they don’t really have anyone to use. Pettite is tomorrow’s pitcher, C.C. Sabathia hasn’t been that effective, and A.J. Burnett isn’t walking through that door anytime soon. Robertson gives up a 350-foot foul ball to Murphy, but then finally induces a grounder to get out of the inning.

10:14 p.m. The Yankees go meekly in the top of the sixth. Womp womp womp. Derek Jeter sure has looked old lately.

10:26 p.m. The stadium goes deathly quiet as Lance Berkman smacks a double past Josh Hamilton in center, and Hamilton trips. But he’s all right, and Nick Swisher flies out to left to end the inning.

10:32 p.m. Kerry Wood is now in the game, and Michael Young hits a grounder past a diving A-Rod into left on the very first pitch for a double. Shockingly, even though there are no outs, the Yankees refuse to pitch to Hamilton.

Vlad bunts them over to second and third, and then amazingly, we have ANOTHER international walk. Seriously, you’re loading up the bases, Joe? This seems foolish. Joba starts to warm up for some reason too. I’d probably just go to Rivera at this point, and ask him to work the rest of the seventh, eighth and ninth. No use saving him for a game that might never happen.

Anyway, Kinsler lifts a ball to left, but Gardner is positioned perfectly. Young tags up and scores, and it’s first and second with two outs. Murphy smashes a ball, but it stays in the park, and they only get that one run. 6-1.

10:44 p.m. Holy shit, Colby Lewis is still pitching in this game, in the top of the eighth. He has been sharp outside of that one inning, and now, he’s reaching back and still hitting 92 on the gun. Meanwhile, Darren O’Day and Darren Oliver are warm in the pen, just ready to pounce if Lewis does have an issue.

Lewis strikes out another Yankee for the second out – his sixth of the night. His stuff still looks sharp, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he went the distance. He walks Gardner, but then strikes out Jeter. Suck it, captain.

10:54 p.m. Rivera comes in. Ron Washington hugs Lewis in the dugout, and Feliz is warming in the pen, so Lewis’ night might be done. (My buddy Tom jokes that Washington probably already has a couple lines setup in the clubhouse. Ba dum ching!) Anyway, it takes Rivera a while, but he eliminates the side in order.

11:02 p.m. Time for the top of the ninth, and Feliz is pitching. He blows away the first batter. He induces a grounder from the second. And the third batter? Alex Rodriguez, scum of the Earth.

The first pitch is a 99 mile per hour ball, but Felix whips the next one by him, and A-Rod fouls the next one off. Finally though, the game ends as Feliz makes A-Rod’s knees bend with a nasty hook, and he goes down looking.

Through the course of writing this, I think I realized another reason why I like the Rangers – They’ve never been to the World Series before, and you can feel it reverberating through their fan base. That matters when your dog isn’t in the fight anymore. Watching the fans freak out and celebrate? That’s sweet.

Pearls Before Swine - Now animated!

I'm a big, big fan of Pearls Before Swine, a sardonic comic strip that runs mostly in West Coast papers. I have all of the treasuries, and I sincerely wish that The Providence Journal or some other paper would start running it. That alone would make me subscribe to the paper again. (hint hint... oh never mind, they're not reading this anyway.)

Anyway, Pearls is now online in an animated form, which you can see linked above. I think they've done a smashing job, and I like the little 25 to 50-second cartoons they've made out of some of the more popular strips. They're very easy to digest. I highly recommend that you check some out!

(Note: Yup, this is a pretty short post. To get a little "inside baseball" for a second here, my site for Patch launches on November 1, so I'm pretty busy in the preparation for that. This isn't even including the two days next week that I have to be in New York City. So, until things calm down, you'll probably see a lot more 1) shorter posts and 2) obviously evergreen or time delayed posts that I did well in advance. Hence why you haven't seen any Baggage this week, since I'll probably save it mostly for next week.)

Dear FOX, stop letting monkeys plan your television schedule.

Generally, I like FOX. Well, not their news product, or their tendency to cancel great shows even if their ratings haven't caught up to where they should be. (I did think that Alyssa Rosenberg brought up a good point on her blog when she noted that FOX gives chances to a ton of weird shows that the networks don't want to touch, so they are going to have a higher cancel rate as well. I'm not sure when she said this, so instead, let me just plug her blog in general here.) But in general, I like several of their programs.

I do not like their scheduling habits though. I'm not sure why, but they consider it a good idea to air a couple episodes, then take three weeks off. I imagine that this practice started because, back in the day, FOX aired a lot more live sports in the middle of the week, when they had less live programming. They still don't run a full programming slate, since they aren't active in the 10 p.m. hour, or late night.

Also, this practice was more defensible in the past because it allowed people to catch up on shows if they missed some episodes. For example, if you did miss the wonderful first four episodes of Glee this year, they are being replayed in repeats now. However, you could have just watched them on Hulu or downloaded them from iTunes or... uh... other sources. In this wonderful digital age, you don't really have to wait for shows to be re-broadcast.

With that in mind, FOX, here is what I suggest - Just run shows in order from start to finish. The only exception should be if there is a holiday, in which case, sure, run a repeat or a holiday special. Let me actually see new episodes of Family Guy, The Cleveland Show and Glee in proper order instead of breaking them up with repeats. Thanks!

Note: I included random pictures from Robot Chicken because I like Robot Chicken. Deal with it!