May, 2008
May 25th, 2008
Mike, What’s Happened to You
I am a Michael Jackson fan and I’m proud of it. I wasn’t a big fan growing up. I was 8 when Thriller came out, but I liked Prince more. I think I actually liked Culture Club more than both of them, but that was a confused time of my life. Anyhow, I became a big Michael Jackson fan in high school, just as the first charges of inappropriate behavior began to surface. And by inappropriate, I mean showing his penis to little boys. While the dude obviously has some things wrong with his head, he was still making some fantastic music. In one year, he put on an an incredible show at the Super Bowl, had a heartfelt appearance on Oprah, and put an incredible song in one of the best movies of all time:
So I was hooked and became an ardent defender of the man as a performer, and blamed his disturbing behavior (alleged, never proven) on his father who was, by all accounts, a bastard. In the meantime, I’ve been waiting for the man to drop another fantastic album. In 2001, Invincible was released. It wasn’t very good. I wrote that off as the pressure from the lawsuit and the public scrutiny.
Well, for the past five years, the King of Pop has been working on a new album while his tens of millions of fans around the world and 11 fans in the U.S. have been waiting eagerly. The first song of the album is now out, and I am sadly disappointed. My first thought was that I’ve finally outgrown Michael Jackson. But then I remembered that this is a guy who was on top during the pop band era of the early seventies, was on top with Off the Wall when disco reigned, dominated the pop 80s with Thriller and Bad, and did it again with Dangerous at a time when pop was becoming a little more rock oriented. Michael Jackson has changed with the time and has always produced some of the best music out there. Perhaps the new album is just another top album that reflects his ability to master yet another style of music. Perhaps, Michael Jackson has outgrown me.
May 24th, 2008
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Growing up, I never got into video games. When other families were getting Atari, my parents refused to indulge. When Nintendo came along, my parents did not budge. I’m not quite sure what their logic was – my sisters and I watched a whole lot of television so it’s not like playing video games would have cut into time that we were spending on more productive endeavors. It’s actually too bad as I think I could have gotten pretty good at them. I stopped doing homework regularly by the time I was 11, so I would have had plenty of time to practice.
There was a brief period when we had Intellivision, thanks to a cousin who outgrew it. I was particularly fond of Snafu, but my fun proved to be very short-lived when the console broke not long after we inherited it.
Anyhow, even as video games have boomed, I still haven’t gotten into them. Were I a couple of years younger, I think I would have had more exposure to them in college, but the recent boom hadn’t begun when I was in school.
Last night, I had dinner with my brother-in-law’s sister’s family. Digression: is there a name for that relationship? Seems like there should be, but I have no idea what it is. After dinner, they introduced my to the Wii. To play Wii, at least the games that involve standing on the Wii platform, you have to create a character which involves the Wii taking some measurements of you.
The Wii told me I’m a fat piece of crap – just a couple of shades below obese. Now I realize I’m not in the best shape of my life. Until last week, I had pretty much stopped running for about 6 months. But come on, Wii, why so harsh?
Despite the personal attack, I liked the Wii. I stuck with the simpler games and discovered I’m pretty good at video bowling and ski jumping. I sucked at hitting soccer balls with my head. I got mixed results on the balance games, but I enjoyed them and got a little bit of a workout. Or maybe it just seemed like exercise because I’m a fat piece of crap.
May 23rd, 2008
Chinese Hot Dog Buns Are Awesome
I went up to Evanston this morning to meet with a guy who was going to teach me a thing or two about real estate as I explore entering that world. On the way back, I got off the train at Argyle, underneath which lies Chiu Quon Bakery. As is typically the case when I go there, I walked in planning on getting a couple of 90 cent hot dog buns (sweetened bread with a hot dog inside of it) and ended up with a lot more. In this case, a variety of additional meat buns, some sticky rice with chicken and pork, and a couple of egg custard tarts. I haven’t eaten close to all of it yet, but so far, everything is as good as always. Should you be in the area or near their other location in Chinatown, I highly recommend a visit.
By the way, Fred really likes the egg custard tarts too.
May 22nd, 2008
Swimming Dogs Are Fun
My dog is spectacular, but he’s not much of a swimmer. I’ve taken him to the dog beach a number of times and he loves running in the water, but he’s not a big fan of going in too deep. I once took him with me to a friend of my cousin’s house that had a pool. The kids were in the hot tub next to the pool and Fred, not knowing how deep it was, stepped in and proceeded to panic, terrifying one little girl in the process.
Perhaps it’s unrealistic, but someday I’d like to see Phred follow in the footsteps of this dog, who came to my attention via loyal reader Reuben Teague:
May 20th, 2008
1.7% is All the Bulls Needed – Now Get Rid of the Cracker
There will be very little basketball discussion in this blog largely because I don’t particularly care about any specific teams. The NBA made a decision in the early 80s to focus attention much more on individual players than teams, and their marketing machine got to me. I go to games when there is a particular player I want to see. Because the Bulls don’t have anyone who falls in that category, my basketball attendance is limited to those games where the visiting team has a particular star.
All that said, I cannot deny I have some love for the Bulls.
The Bulls fooled a lot people last season, including me. John Paxson’s insistence that his guards were as good as they seemed to be last year caught on and many experts predicted the Bulls would win the Eastern Conference. Well, the Bulls sucked this year. They sucked at the beginning of the season, proceeded to not improve at all before Christmas when their coach was fired. A new coach took over and the Bulls continued to suck for the rest of the year.
They missed the playoffs, but were not expected to land a top 10 pick in the NBA draft. Well, the lottery was tonight and despite only having a 1.7% chance, the Chicago Bulls will draft first in the draft later this month. And that means the Bulls will, if they have any sense at all, draft Derrick Rose and make him the starting point guard next season.
See, while I like the Bulls, I have no tolerance at all for for the way they have fallen victim to race inflation. You may not have heard of race inflation. That’s because I just made up the term. Race inflation is the phenomenon that exists in the NBA when fans and general managers inflate the value of white players. This is what has happened with Kirk Hinrich, the Bulls current point guard. Hinrich has some talent, but he cannot lead an NBA team. He spends way too much time dribbling around in circles, apparently with no clear idea what he intends to do. Despite that fact, the Bulls gave him an obscene contract extension that’s going to make it a little bit of a challenge to trade him. But fortunately, the Bulls are not the only team suffering from race inflation and getting rid of Hinrich shouldn’t be too hard.
If the Bulls decide to draft Michael Beasley instead of Derrick Rose, you will know that John Paxson is irreparably blinded by race inflation.