Friday Fives

There's a movie being made about your life! Which celebrity will play... you? Why? Your enemy? Why? hmmm. As for charm and sense of humor, I'd say John Cusack. However, the person you are casting looks a little more like George Costanza If your life were a movie, what would it be rated and why? It would be rated R, like everybody's life. There is drinking and swearing and sexual situations. If my life weren't R, there wouldn't be much point to it. Why do you think HBO is so successful? It is because they can better represent regular grown ups without the constaints of network censorship. If the world were to suddenly end right now, what do you wish you would have done? parachuting, and seeing the Aurora If you were a crayon color, what color would you be and why? I'd be purple, bro. Or, is that too much for your square corporate mind to wrap itself around? If you could live in any city in the world, where would you live and why? Barcelona, Spain is the coolest city I have ever been to. However, there is no water or forest. I would definately need water or forest. I'll end up in Mexico as some crazed expatriot English teacher who lives in a cabana on the beach. ok - I am off to Arizona, see you there. via Roy

Why Pre-season NFL matters

Dear friends, it is apparent to me that I am the only person in America watching pre-season football right now (specifically, the Broncos). All day long I hear stuff like "preseason is like kissing cousins, it doesn't count" and other suck folks wisdom gems like that. I have to disagree for a couple of reasons. One, these football players are playing every second for an entire career. If dude misses a big play and drops the ball in a pre-season game, he will be cut the following Tuesday morning. He will most likely never play in the NFL again, after one botched play. That is serious shit. Go to a musician and tell them if they don't hit that F# aug 7 right in the bridge they will most likely never get a chance to play that instrument again... ever. The second reason it's great is they are also auditioning announcers during pre-season. During last Friday's Bronco game I heard these phrases come out of the announcer's mouth:

he got shoelaced

he just got ichobod crained!

He just got tree horned!

I guess I don't know a lot about football. Wait, yes I do... and this is total jibber jabber. Maybe they are tying to invent their own catch phrases, I don't know. Anyhow, we have only this weekend left for pre-season football. I urge you to watch your local team. Not just cause everyone who jacks up a play is going home the next day, but because you too might hear some of that hack journalism these failed jocks push on us. It is pretty entertaining.

Just in Time!

Sometime over the weekend here in Denver, radio behemoth Clear Channel dumped an all local sports radio format at 760 am and picked up the full programming of Air America radio. This is a really great development, because our talk market (like every talk market) is dominated by Rush Limbaugh and inbred local sports radio shows. If you aren't familiar with Air America radio, it is the liberal radio network that Al Franken started up. If they aren't in your city, you can go to their site and (finally) listen to it in streaming audio online. Frankly, I am puzzled by the programming decision. Clear Channel are known allies of the Bush regime, and Colorado is a known Republican stronghold. I am also impressed and very pleased. As a direct result, I have lifted my Clear Channel embargo as of about half an hour ago. Viva diversity! I was going to say 'viva tolerance' as well, but let's be frank. I have zero tolerance for the Bush regime and it's damage to society. Admittedly, I am not adding much to the social dialogue... but I swear I am working in your best interest. Send cash.

the VMA's - a review

Just kidding. No review necessary, it was like every other Video Music Awards ever. Anyhow, I was suffering through MTV rather than suffering through the Olympics' closing thingy. So MTV was giving out awards for videos that NO ONE has ever seen. The station does not show videos, and has not for years. So they celebrate these things that don't exist (like the GOP and job growth, couldn't resist). I saw some brief clips for 2 vidoes that really piqued my interest. One was for Eminem's band D12 and the other was for Jay Z (because I am so urban, yo). I thought about what cool videos these look like, how can I see them? The answer is you can't. The only videos shown on basic cable are on VH1 well after midnight. So what is a guy to do who wants to see music videos? It appears my only choice is to steal them. Yup, they aren't on TV and can't find them streaming online. So, I hooked up the Kazaa Lite connection and am downloading them. I do this because I have no choice. So, I just want to give the RIAA a heads up... the only market for visual distribution of music appears to be piracy. Or, you can watch Good Charlotte all night on Insomniac Music Theatre. By the way, because I find the RIAA so odious, here is some info on how not to get sued. They are looking for people with song collections of one thousand songs or bigger. The second aspect is they don't care if you download, what they are after is the people who offer it for upload. Think about it like how they deal with drugs, they don't want the end user... they want the dealer. So if you are hacking music (and everyone knows you are), move the music files to a different folder. Then, limit uploads to 3. That way you can stay under the radar, and also save some of your bandwidth. ok, am off to bed now. I would be remiss though if I didn't tell you that there was a single stand out performance that you would be wise to catch. It was Alicia Keys doing her hit. Then you hear harmonica nicely accessorizing... and the camera pans over to Stevie Wonder. As the song ends, we cut to Stevie doing Higher Ground with Lenny Kravitz on guitar. Check this out if you can, MTV will be re-running the show non stop all week. This performance comes about 2 and a half hours into it.