Jim Croce

Jim Croce has been one of my favorite artists for as long as I can remember. I used to listen to an 8 track tape of the guy, and his greatest hits album, Photographs and Memories was the first CD I ever bought. (from a Virgin Records store in London no less) Sadly, he was killed in a plane crash on this day, in 1973. It turns out that his third album was released the very next day. His most famous song is probably Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown, but I have yet to hear a Jim Croce song I didn't enjoy. If you aren't familiar with his work, I particularly recommend Operator, and Time in a Bottle.

Here's Operator:

Kitchen Nightmares

I'm watching the new show starring Chef Gordon Ramsey (formerly of Hell's Kitchen) The first episode he's back east in a town called Babylon and a restaurant called Peter's Italian Restaurant. The restaurant is owned by a woman, but dominated by her complete asshole of a brother, Peter. (first of all, why is the restaurant named after him anyway?) The brother comps meals, steals from the till, and browbeats the staff. He spends money on himself that should be spent on the restaurant. He acts like a bad B actor in a bad Hollywood movie about the mob. If it was anybody but Ramsey I'd suspect that it was all fake.

The kitchen was a shambles, and Peter apparently owes money to everyone in the state, and when they come to collect from him, he turns into a cliche goon. Instead of serving the food, he eats it.....and then yells at the staff because the food didn't get out on time.

The best way to fix that restaurant would be to shoot the stupid bastard. I mean seriously, he was such a stereotype it was ridiculous. I can't imagine what is going through his head, and frankly his parents head as they watch this. He's a complete spoiled leech.

It ends with a supposed turn around from Peter that lasted about 5 minutes. I'd be interested in seeing what things are like there tonight........

A Damn Good Week Of Football

UCLA gets crushed, Notre Dame gets embarassed, USC dominates to stay #1. Then I win all six of my fantasy football match ups.

It doesn't get any better than this.

Update 5:30 AM 9/18/07: Dagnabit. ESPN re-calculated the points overnight, and I ended up in a tie in one match, that I lost by bench points. 5 - 1 in fantasy match ups. (It was the league I most want to win also)

Monday Night Football 9/17/07

OK...I'm officially proclaiming this to be the worst announcing team ever for Monday Night Football.

Mike Tirico is simply average. Whoever decided to trade Al Michaels to NBC, (yep that's right, they traded Michaels to NBC for a cartoon character and the right to broadcast the Ryder Cup.) should be fired. With a decent crew Tirico might have been OK, but he can't drag Jaworski and Kornheiser up to mediocrity by himself.

Ron Jaworski was a pretty good QB, and a run of the mill studio analyst, but he doesn't have enough personality for the MNF booth. Again a top flight announcer like Michaels would be able to cover this up. Tirico is not up to the task.

Tony Kornheiser. I have friends who swear this guy is great on Pardon The Interruption. I'll have to take their word for it. I'm not impressed. I'll take Dennis Miller over this guy any day. Is he trying be funny? He spent the 2006 season trying to make Theisman look stupid. He's not worthy to carry Joe's jock. Jaworski will apparently be this year's victim. God, I'd rather listen to Maguire than this guy.

This crew almost makes the three Mikes look like Emmy winners. I almost long for the days of Cosell, Gifford and Meredith.

Come back Michaels...and bring Madden with you.

Update 8:10 PM: Ok...Barkley was more entertaining than Jaws and Kornheiser combined. But if he had whined about Reid and McNabb being underappreciated and disrespected one more time I would have thrown something at the screen.

Feist

OK...I am far from being an Apple geek. In fact I love to make fun of them. I actually wrote a joke last week:

Q. How do you know Steve Jobs has been in your refrigeratior?

A. Suddenly the refrigerator costs $200 more, it shows movies, and it only accepts food from one supermarket.

It kills right?

That said, I have been obsessed with the song in Apple's new commercial. A little work, and I found it on Youtube. I give you Feist, and 1-2-3-4:

Hmmmm.....

Today is both Molly Shannon's (1964) and Amy Poehler's (1971) birthday. Last night NBC showed an episode of SNL with Amy in the cast and Molly as the guest host. Coincidence? You decide.

Take That With Ya!

I was just watching the FSU - Colorado game, and Colorado missed a field goal. On the way to a commercial, the director focused an an attractive lass in the stands (as the directors are often wont to do) and just before the fade out, she turns to the FSU fans and clearly flips them the bird! (she clearly was unaware she was on national TV) Way to go ESPN!

College Football 9/15/07

Well the Michigan - Notre Dame game is certainly ugly. Michigan 31-0 at halftime. At this point Demetrius Jones has to be second guessing himself. If he'd stayed on the team, he would probably be playing at this point. It really is possible that Notre Dame will go 0-12. And then to rub salt into the wound, Ty Willingham's Washington team is beating Ohio State University 7-3 at halftime.

I'm going to be at a poker game for most of the USC game, but I'm predicting that USC will win big, by at least 2 TDs.

Update 3:39 PM: Well, Michigan wins the game 38-0. I'm glad I didn't watch the second half. OSU is now dominating Washington 27-7 with about 2 minutes to go in the 4th quarter. In other news UCF is in the game against #6 Texas at the start of the 4th quarter...2nd and goal, and only down by 6.

Update 3:47 PM: UCF goes for it on 4th and goal and scores. UCF is up 24-23 over Texas.

Update 4:34 PM: Texas wins, 35-32. UCF was in this game the whole way. Go SC..beat the Huskers!

Update 5:25 PM: USC stops Nebraska on their first drive, and then goes 96 yards on their first drive for the score. The fullback rumbles for 50 yds on the first play from the 4 yard line.

Update 8:50 PM: I lost in the second round of the poker tournament. (it was a head to head tournament) I went card dead. I turn on the tube, and USC is up 49-17. This should shut everyone up. By the way, two Trojan teams did end up beating Big-12 teams today.

Update 9:10 PM: Nebraska scores a couple of garbage time TDs, and brings the final score to 49-31. Hopefully the voters actually watched the game, and don't let the final score fool them.

Happy Birthday Coach!

Today is Coach Pete Carroll's 56th birthday...Go Trojans! Beat the Cornhuskers!

College Football 9/14/07 - Upset Special

It's been a hell of a season so far. Michigan is 0-2, Notre Dame is 0-2. Appalachin State has a huge victory over Michigan, South Florida beat Auburn, Air Force beat media darling TCU and is 3-0. As I write this Troy State is beating Oklahoma State 41-10 (and it could be much worse than that...Troy state had a couple of turnovers with 1st and goal, let time run out at the end of the 1st half inside the ten yard line, and missed an extra point...this was an old fashioned ass kicking) with about 3 minutes left in the 3rd quarter.

Update 9/14/07 9:00 PM: Troy State just got screwed by one of the worst calls I've seen so far this year. The Oklahoma State player caught a pass inside the ten, and clearly fumbled the ball....and the only other possible call was incomplete. But for some inexplicable reason, the refs called him down by contact. The replays clearly showed this was a blown call. In a bit of cosmic justice, the extra point was blocked after Oklahoma State scored two plays later. 41-16 Troy State 10:40 to go in the fourth.

Update 9/14/07 9:36 PM: Final score - Troy State 41-23

Leftist Irresponsibility

First they meddled with the military by trying to convince General Pace to led a coup d'etat against President Bush.

Now they are taking out full page ads in the NY Times (reportedly at a discount) calling General Petreaus a traitor and a liar.

Just how low will the Left go? And when will the Democratic Party call them to account?

Never Forget

Today is the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States by Islamic terrorists. We must not, we cannot forget these attacks. Radical Islam declared war on us, and attacked us on our homeland.



It appears that we are soon going to try to cut and run from the war. What people seem to forget is that our choice is not whether or not to fight radical Islam, our enemies have made that choice for us. Our choice is where to fight them. I for one, would much rather fight them in Iraq than the United States.

Too Good To Be True?

Read the following posts and comment threads:

here

and then

here.

Now tell me, can this David K character be real? Surely he is performance art.

And my jokes, they killed right?

Get Fuzzy

And Now For Something Completely Different.......

On this day, in 1969, the Monty Python saga began, with the taping of the first episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Here's how it all began: (unfortunately the clip is very slow in loading...)

Keith Freakin' Olbermann?

What the hell was NBC thinking when they decided to have Keith "raving lefty madman" Olbermann be a regular feature on NFL football? Well, their half time advertisers just got screwed...Olbermann's current fans aren't exactly the football type.........Maybe they should have him do the chess championships instead........

Happy Birthday El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora La Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula

Or as we know her today, Los Angeles. On this day in 1781, forty-four Spanish (NOT Mexicans or Aztecs), founded the city. The city was part of Mexico for only 27 years, from 1821 to 1848.



LA is now the second biggest city in the country. Sometimes it hard to like her, but I still love her............

Holy Crap!

The National Weather Service has just issued a tornado warning for Los Angeles! The announcement just came over the emergency broadcast system.

I thought part of our deal was we had to put up with earthquakes and fires but were spared tornados and hurricanes!

I blame President Bush and global warming!

College Football

The 2007 college football season begins today. (Well technically it began last Thursday) USC is the overwhelming favorite. I predict undefeated and national champion. John Booty has a chance at the Heisman. But USC has a swarm at tailback and wide receiver....it'll be interesting to see who pulls out of the pack. The defense should be dominate again.

This week USC plays the Idaho Vandals. This won't even be close. USC is #1, Idaho is something like #110. The question will be how long do the starters play? Into the third?

Go Trojans! All the way to the Sugar Bowl!

Update: 11:25 AM: East Carolina University is giving Virginia Tech a tough game today. Va Tech is up only 10-7 with 1:18 to go in the third quarter. Appalachin State is up 31-20 on Michigan halfway through the third quarter. Appalachin State won what used to be the Division II (and has been renamed Division I ...the old Division I is now the BCS Division) championship last year.

Update II 1:00 PM: Appalachin State wins! 34-32 They beat #5 Michigan by kicking a 24 yard FG with 26 seconds left and then blocking a Michigan field goal from the 20 with 6 seconds left.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today is my Mom's birthday. She was born on September 1, 1946. She is the youngest of five children. She was Los Angeles born, but has lived all over the world. She lived in the Middle East while she was a girl, and then followed my dad around (usually to England) during his career in the military, only to settle down back in So Cal when my Dad retired.

My Mom didn't have it easy by any means. She had two babies by the time she was 21, and was living in a foriegn country, poor and married to the Air Force as well as my Dad. My life was infinitely easier than hers. I treasure the fact that both of my parents are relatively young (61 and 62 to my 42) because I consider them my friends as well as my parents. We are probably closer than most because we spent so much time as a nuclear family far away from the rst of our relatives.

She shares her exact birthday with Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees. I don't how she feels about that, or even if she is aware of it. But I'll dedicate this one to her anyway.