A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to Beijing

Actually, a couple funny things.

1) As noted in a previous post, 12 year-old girls on a world stage don't constitute something that I can really laugh at anymore. It just feels (too) mean. Particularly in light of that fact, though, there's something pretty amusing about the alleged age scandal. What kind of "sport" is it an advantage to be younger? Can you imagine if NFL teams were trying to sneak as 15 year-olds onto their rosters? Or how about a 12 year old kid standing in to face a Brad Lidge slider? Really (and I actually mean this), it's a shame for the people involved (assuming innocence, of course), but you have to admit it's good entertainment, right?

2) It's not funny at all to me, but the actions of certain Americans is embarrassing to me. Within a day or two, we had our baseball team's manager (seriously-- isn't the manager the one who's supposed to bring maturity and all that?) accusing an opponent of throwing at his guy's head (which, under the circumstances, would have been ludicrous) and a(nother) boxer complaining about the scoring (in fairness [pun intended], Olympic boxing has been as plauged by shady scoring as, well, pro boxing). I understand disappointment, but especially in the Olympics, whatever happened to representing your country first and foremost?

3) Lucky for us, there's Cuban tae-kwon-do. Apparently I can't link to the video due to copywright laws, but after being disqualified a dude kicked the ref (who, apparently, is Sweedish, no less) in the face. And it really does take the gold for poor sportsmanship . . . but. But isn't kicking people in the face pretty much the whole point of the event? So while we all (and myself too, I guess) rush to vilify this as the worst Olympic action of all time, it was a mere misapplication of the very skill that he was intending to be rewarded for. Now obviously it's important to kick the right dude, no question, but do you see what I'm getting at? It's just kind of ironic, right?

Almost as rich is the reaction of the guy who won. He said that obviously the Cuban dude couldn't go on and his foot (toe? whatever) was broken. In light of the fact that his obviously incapacitated opponent got up and popped a dude in the melon, I'm not sure his argument is watertight.

4) Speaking of sportmanship, it's sad how often doping comes up, and how often we (or "I" at least) wonder about it. Dude looked yoked? I wonder. Girl built like a dude? I wonder again. With medals being stripped retroactively (much like universities "vacating" wins and championships and what not [*cough* USC *cough*]) and all that's going on, do you feel like you're always going to be waiting for another ball to drop?

5) Swimming medals are, to a degree, bogus. Phelps is obviously the greatest swimmer alive today, but imagine if, for instance, basketball gave out medals for 5-on-5, 3-on-3, 1-on-1, free-throw shooting, three-point shooting, ball handling skills, and slam dunk competitions? The point is that, no matter how dominant one might be on the hardwood, there's only one medal available, and so there's something artificial about even having the opportunity to win 8 medals in a sinlge sport. That said, I think it's hilarious that one dude has more gold medals than, say, Italy, Canada, or Spain. He has more total medals than, for instance, the Czech Republic or North Korea. I just think it's funny.

World-Class Thoughts

Like so many of you, when I was younger I LOVED the Olympics. I have great memories of, while my older sister was away at camp, sitting in our basement watching the '84 games and drinking Shasta pop (a MAJOR treat) with my mom. Really, really great memories.

Somewhere along the way, though, the Olympics lost some luster. Honestly, I think it has a lot to do with the US not being as dominant as we'd like, and so when these Beijing games came upon us, I barely noticed. The Phillies are in first, after all! But then everyone was talking about the opening ceremony and how great it was and all these other things, so I flipped it on for a few hours the other night, and now I'm legitimately interested. It was pretty compelling, really. And when push comes to shove I'm afraid that I'm a Phillies fan first and a American fan second (that's kind of wrong of me, isn't it? I'd be WAY more excited for So Taguchi to rock a game-winning double off of Billy Wagner than for any American to triumph over the world -- at least I feel a little bad about it), but I've been sucked half-way in nonetheless. And here, as you may expect, are my thougts.

1) I don't care about swimming. I hate it personally (it's cold and wet, two things I'm not a fan of) and generally find it completely un-comelling. But that men's 4x100 freestyle relay? THAT was just great human drama. Especially since the French conveniently propped themselves up as the "bad guys" with their pre-race drivel, that was definitely as excited about a man moving through water in an awkward looking onesie as I've ever been. That was worth the whole evening, right there.

2) Speaking of "bad guys", I have another reason to not like watching gymnastics. Have you SEEN these girls? They're like twelve. The beauty of competition is that you want to win and that means that somebody else has to lose, and that' s great, again, especially where boastful French dudes or the Mets are involved. And I remember, in my younger years, cheering against gymnansts from opposing nations. Hoping that they'd err, or even better, fall over completely. Nothing against them personally, of course, just hoping that my country can win. At my current station in life, though, I'm completely unable to hope that something terrible befalls a twelve year old girl in the biggest moment of her life under pretty much any circumstance. It takes away from the pureness of the competition for me, the "us vs them" that helps to provide clear boundaries and indetifies us with one person or team and not another. And of course I don't watch for the pure enjoyment of the event -- I don't care how pretty people look flying through the air, I just want my country to be drowning in gold medals -- so gymnastics is ruined for me. Which is really too bad, because I didn't like it much to begin with, and they show it for 8,000 hours on end.

3) Speaking of wanting my country to be drowning in gold medals, the Olympics really does bring into sharp relief the insatiable greed of the Americans (or, at least, me). How many is enough? No number exists. If we won every single medal in the entire games except one, would we be more satisfied or less? Knowing myself, I think I'd be upset about the one that got away more than excited about the insidious domination. And knowing you, I think you might feel the same way.

4) It's nice to be able to cheer for players like LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Kobe Bryant. Especially James, who seems like a genuinely likeable guy, but as much as I admire his skill and particularly his amazing performance in game 7 of the Eastern Conferance Semi-Finals this year, I was forced to cheer -- FORCEFULLY -- against every spectacular basket he made. It's simple -- if you oppose the Green, I oppose you. So it's great to be able to get behind some of these guys rather than playing against them. They're scary to play against. And yes, by "play against" I mean "be played against by people who I've never met but wear a jersey that I associate with while I jump up and down screaming in my living room". There, now you see how scary it really is for me, right?

5) The strange differences between events are interesting to me. You can flip from swimming or gymnastics or something where the uniforms are, well, uniform to something like "beach" volleyball, where one guy has a hat on backwards and his partner has sunglasses (inside, of course). I mean, that's pretty weird, right?

Nothing to See Here. . .

It's actually true, but I need to post, so here we go.

1) I was initially going to change to Phillies colors after the All-Star break, but after winning the Championship and all I felt compelled to give the green some extra time. But now it's August and the Phils are in first, so we it's time to make a change. Enjoy!

2) The post a couple weeks ago about going off caffeine? I've been completely off for nearly 2 weeks now, and I do feel better, generally. I went from about 250 mg a day down to 200, 150, 100, 75, 54, 42, 34, and finally 20 (some of those rough approximations, but should be close), taking a three or four days at each plateau. I had a few headache issues and a few irritable days, but for the most part it wasn't as hard as I'd thought it would be. Wohoo!

3) OU had to kick a kid off the football team this week after he had an inappropriate rap on youtube (I'd link it but, of course, it's inappropriate -- it's not hard to find if you're really curious). Tough call, and it wasn't THAT bad in and of itself, but it's also not a first offense. It's sad for the kid, but ultimately I'm happy to be cheering for an organization that's really trying to do things the right way, even when it costs a high-potential player.

4) Had an interesting experience the other day. Walked out of a Chili's after a staff meeting and a random woman whom I'd never met in my life comes up and says, "Do you want to hear an almost dirty joke?" I replied "Almost." (Which I thought was decent for being in the moment, but after further reflection realize that it could be taken to mean that if the joke isn't FULL-ON dirty then I don't want to waste my time, but whatever.) And then she proceeds to tell me a moderately dirty joke (not terrible terrible, but I sure wouldn't tell it to my mom. And it's a lot of fun for me to get a reaction out of my mom). I didn't laugh, mostly because I was just completely overwhelmed at the surrealness of the situation. I think I just sort of stood there looking confused. Who does that? So I turn to go back to my car, and as I'm about to put the key into the lock, the bizarreness of the situation hits me and I haven't stopped laughing since. I really should have tried to do SOMEthing with the situation, but . . . HUH?

5) That's pretty much all for now, kids!

Basketball + Football + MMA =

That's right, it's the WNBA!!! I never thought I'd write this post.

Here's the deal -- click here. You have to. It's a WNBA brawl the like of which is, apparently, unprecedented. It involves a couple good tackles, a would-be peacemaker getting taken off in a wheelchair, and a player smacking an assistant coach in the back. Really, I am truly incapable of making this stuff up. Seriously, click the link. And, of course, I have thoughts.

1) Detroit, I love you. You KNOW I do! Have you seen my office? That's real, kids. And that's real love! But let's face it -- something has to be done about Detroit and basketball. Do you remember the Pistons/Pacers brawl from a few years ago when players went into the stands and fans came onto the court to get into the action? Of course you do! Guess what? Exact same arena. Only difference, really, is that there weren't enough fans at the WNBA game to get frisky (and probably no one wanted to get beaten up by a girl -- that's tough to live down). And, of course, a few years before that, Detroit was home to the teams that called themselves the "bad boys" (see below for more on that, in fact). So I think the only reasonable conclusion is to say "Detroit -- it's over. You've lost your basketball privileges."

2) Hey fellas, do you see how that worked? While watching Lions games the last several years, I've often lamented that our poor tackling has had much to do with excessive falling down. I guess not! These girls didn't let their position on the deck hold them back. I hope Marinelli and the crew were taking notes -- a winning season once a decade or so doesn't usually seem like too much to ask.

3) At about 2:57 you can see a player smack Rick Mahorn (Detroit assistant coach, I'm told) square in the back. I don't think I really need to make jokes here, right?

4) Speaking of Mahorn, he's coaching with old friend Bill Laimbeer, who were both at the center of the old Pistons "bad boys" teams that were so bad that Dennis Rodman was completely overshadowed by these two cats. So how are we supposed to be surprised when their teams go "bad girls"? Who's out there saying "Wow, I can't believe this happened. This is Bill's and Rick's team that was involved in this? The guy from Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball? Really? The guys who made Rodman look like a boy scout? Quick -- get your calculator -- I've GOT to check out this two-and-two thing I've been hearing about!"

5) Let me hear your own thoughts in the comments, y'all!

The Scream Certain Selected Portions of the Prayer Tour

With all due respect to the Stronger Than Hell tour, the summer's premiere extreme tour dropped into town on Tuesday night, and it was cool. Here's the skinny:

Pre-show

Because there were so many bands, the show was slated to start at 3:30 in the afternoon. Of course that's rough for a lot of people with jobs (which, interestingly enough, did NOT apply to me that particular day), so I stood in line overhearing comments like "Yeah, so-and-so's coming to town, but it's an 18 and over show!" "I was in Hot Topic yesterday and I saw. . . ." "They're really old school, I think they started back in, like, '06 or something." (Ok, I made that last one up.) I'm used to feeling out of place at shows, but yikes. Finally Jason showed up, and I wasn't sure if I was happier to see somebody I knew or somebody over 16 years old. Either way, it was better that way.

Better, that is, until we chatted with a merch guy (or band member? there were like 12,000, who can keep track) who listed off the bands that were going to be playing, with the notable exception of With Blood Comes Cleansing. They're absence caught me, because I thought it was weird that they were supposed to be playing near the start when they were on Victory. Turns out they had to drop off a few days before. Too bad. After walking away we realized that he hadn't mentioned Soul Embraced, either. Sure enough, both bands were missing without a word of explanation or apology. Bad deal, but the good news is that losing two bands of that magnitude would have been enough to cripple a lesser tour, but not this one. Nice.

Sing the Prayer with a Sappy Melodic and Slightly Off-Key Portion of the Show

The first three bands screamed. . . um. . . with clean melodious "screams"? There was, of course, some metal, but too much singy Underoath-style stuff going on. Not my bag. Andy, TJ, and Matt did show up, so that was a plus for these sets. And -- oh yeah -- an out of control dancer kicked a dude standing beside me in the chest hard enough that he left the building. The dancer didn't seem to notice.

Blessed By a Broken Heart

How do you follow three mediocre sappy bands? I suppose Blessed By a Broken Heart is one way. These guys are weird, even for being Canadian. Fog machines, an amped up light show, and hair right out of Stone Cold (no, THIS Stone Cold). Otherwise, the guitarist surely shredded, and I wouldn't pop them in and "bop out!" per se, but they put on a fun show. Real beef though, with the frontman -- you HAVE to either keep that shirt on or pull those pants up. Seriously, look how things are ending up for Britney. Regardless, it was an experience.

War of Ages

Awesome as always, but why did BBABH get to try to play themselves back into being cool and War of Ages only gets five songs? Having seen them several times in smaller venues it was cool to hear them with a good pa and all that, though.

MyChildren MyBride

Here's the truth -- MyChildren MyBride sound better on their album than they do live. Of course, they really sound pretty great on the record and it was still good to see them, but a little disappointing anyway. Also, the same out of control dancer hit a kid who was standing on the outside of the pit in the face during this set (I believe). He didn't notice until someone pointed him to the kid bending down holding his face. A minute later the poor dude left the building, still holding his face (couldn't tell if it was a nose or an eye or what, excactly).

Impending Doom

The polar opposite of MCMB is Impending Doom. Honestly, despite it's insane brutality level, their album doesn't do a lot for me. Live? Amazing. Also, the frontman did a great -- not good, great -- job of speaking about Jesus Christ. Sometimes I go to shows and bands will try to talk about stuff, but they're just not good at it. It's ok -- if you play music and it slays, play music. But this dude is the RIGHT guy to speak up and say something. Really well done. And although I knew his name, Andy's joke afterward was pretty great: "I guess if your name's Brook you have to learn to scream that low." Ha ha ha, nice! Oh yeah, and the SAME out of control dancer hurt a third person during their set. I didn't see this one happen, but I think it was a fellow dancer this time. That guy left the building, too. Hmmm, maybe if you're hurting multiple people on the same night, something's wrong and it's NOT everybody else? Seriously, I understand dancing and all that, but when you have 300-ish square feet to do your thing do you think you could not injure the people who just want to enjoy the show? Please?

Sleeping Giant

Much like Impending Doom, I'm not the biggest fan of the Sleeping Giant record -- but after the show, I'm a big fan of Sleeping Giant. This is a legit minsitry band like I haven't seen since Jesus Freaks, except these dudes were even better at presenting their beliefs in an appropriate and meaningful way. I can't fully go along with everything he said, but along with Impending Doom these cats are absolute dynamite at proclaiming Jesus to a subculture that's almost completley rejected him. Really, really nicely done, and a completely unique show experience. I was toiling in the obscurity of South Dakota/rural Minnesota during the original "spirit-filled hardcore" scene, but I wonder if it was a lot like that. I hope it was. And -- oh yeah -- nobody was hurt that I could tell, but out of control dancer after hurting three people? Oh yeah, he was back.


Final thoughts? Even without WBCC and Soul Embraced, the best tour that I've seen come through Louisville. Nothing can measure up to Crimson Moonlight, Becoming the Archetype, and Aletheian that I drove 6 hours for, but this was a sight and a sound and an experience all in one. Now next time let's just keep those spin kicks compact and those drawers pulled up, fellas. . . .

Where Have I Been?

I've been here. . . mostly. I know it's been a while since I've posted, but there's a perfectly good reason. After the eighteen-month long NBA post-season that culminated in Banner Seventeen I was on an adrenaline high for like a month. And I know it hasn't quite been a month, but still, it was pretty cool. Until I finally came down and realized that it was time to re-order my life in a couple of areas.

I'm always tired, you see, and tired is no way to live your life! So I'd started trying to run, but it was inordinately more difficult then a few years ago. Now I'm not THAT much older yet, so I wondered if it was something different. I sleep well and soundly, so I can't blame apnea, and so now I've taken on taking out caffeine. That's right, I've been working on quitting my one adored addiction.

Now I'm not one to sensationalize (the "adrenaline for a month" bit notwithstanding, of course) -- I'm not a HUGE caffeine junky like some people are. I would typically have about 12 oz. of coffee in the morning and a Dew or a Coke around lunch or mid-afternoon. That was basically every day, and comes out to about 250 mg. Then on days that started early or went long or whatever, though, it could spike considerably above that level, and my daily routine was in need of a boost to maintain mood and energy level already. I didn't want to add MORE, though, I hate the idea of being controlled by a substance, and I've heard people say that they feel and think and work better when they're off the juice, so I decided to take that route.

I'm not there yet, but after about 2 weeks, I'm down to around 60-70 mg a day (that's an 8 oz. cup of "half caff" in the morning, and then no mas!). And it hasn't been too bad! I figure I'm no more than a week or two at the most from being completely de-toxed, at which time I'll find some other excuse for sporadic posting.

Credit Where It's Due

I'm pretty hard on the entertainment industry sometimes, and let's face it -- they deserve it -- their products are generally uninspired, uninteresting, and unwatchable (no text message required, Jim). But in the interest of fair play and honest recognition, I've been pleasantly surprised at a couple different films this summer already, and so I offer my open praise and admiration where it's deserved:

1) Iron Man. I know it's old news now, but this is the best movie I've seen in a LONG time, and the first I've seen twice in a theater since. . . the first Lord of the Rings maybe? Fun, funny, and dare I say "cool"? Seriously, it finished and my WIFE said, "Well that was super cool!" THAT doesn't happen often.

2) Get Smart. It's no Dumb and Dumber, but it was pretty funny. Of course, seeing movies with Jamey isn't always a good litmus test to tell if a movie's actually funny on it's own merits or not, but regardless, I went, I laughed, I left. And that's pretty much exactly what I was looking for.

3) Hancock. Not on Iron Man level, but another that wins with both the wife and myself, and that's no easy task. Plus, I was just starting to get bored at about an hour and a half, so I glanced at the time -- oh no! There's TOTALLY another 40 minutes left to wade through -- why do they always do that? But nope -- then it ended, right when it should have! It's sad when a movie gets bonus points for ending, but that's what the industry has come to, and so there it is.

4) Sort of unrelated as Bombworks Records isn't exactly "the industry", but I finally picked up Common Yet Forbidden's album, and my good golly-gosh that thing blasts and thrashes and flat-picks and just slays generally and to an exponential degree. Best record I've heard in a long time, and just wholly satisfying on every level possible.

Finally -- and completely unrelated, but it's a landmark day in my life and bears mentioning -- on Saturday my Championship t-shirt arrived. DVD ships later this month. Has life EVER been this good?