Music Monday: Winter plods on

Alas, with football out of the way, now there is nothing.  Winter plods on.  And will for six more weeks, that is if you're inclined to believe a rodent from the Quaker state, or the creator of the Gregorian calendar.

Most of the things that have been on my mind to write are rather heavy.  I feel I'm in danger of entering the blog equivalent of Picasso's Blue Period, except with less fame.  Some fame, just less.

Wanting to ward that off for your benefit, I offer instead some lighthearted fare.

For once the Super Bowl was, well, super.  I actually had a nice little Super Bowl party, for one.  But it was catered.  By Domino's.

Everyone's talking about "the call."  Might I suggest Seattle change its name from the Seahawks to Mitt Romney?  That way, the next time they decide not to run, no one will be all that upset.

And can we stop making the Super Bowl commercials "a thing?"  They're annoyingly lacking in creativity and let's be honest, they've been going downhill for the past five years or more.  Which, strangely, is not unlike this blog.

Making it worse, I felt like the ads were super depressing this year -- childhood deaths, Cats in the Cradle, Jeff Bridges trying to salvage a once-passable career by begging people to visit his new website.  Thank God for Doritos and Lindsay Lohan!  Which, strangely, is not the first time I've uttered that sentence -- or as I usually refer to it -- sincere prayer of thanksgiving.

Speaking of Lindsay Lohan, why must the Super Bowl always make you think of your ex-girlfriend, amirite?

At least January has abated.  February isn't worlds better, but it's short and close to March.  I mean, it's not related to March or anything, but they know each other.  January and March have never even met.

I was involved in a 20-some-odd email thread about General Hospital today, so things are looking up.  I mean, what if Fluke really is the old Luke and he was hallucinating and fighting with himself in the basement?!?!  What if Helena has brainwashed him like she has Jake/Jason?  I know, but then why would Eckert's grave be empty?  Unless real Luke wanted to throw everybody off.  But then why did he seem so upset when the grave was dug up?  I can't take it!

Oh, and Harper Lee is releasing a new book!  I can think of no better news than that for a cold winter's day.

This week's Music Monday offering is one I've had on repeat quite a bit the past few weeks.  It's by Adam Cohen, who is the son of Leonard Cohen.  The lyrics just kill me.  Every time.



"I know the kind of thing that makes you laugh / The way you tilt your head for a photograph / What other guy knows you like that?"

Have you Scene It?

It was your typical weekday afternoon. I was fighting to stay awake for another hour or so of work, trying to get over the shock of seeing Sonny Corinthos stabbed and dropped in the river with cement blocks chained to his feet. (Fortunately, Carly happened by the waterfront, dove to the bottom of the river, somehow picked the locks on Sonny's chains, unchained him, and swam him back to the surface, all while holding her breath.) A commercial break came on, and that's when I heard it.

"General Hospital, brought to you in part by Scene It Seinfeld."

Wait. Did I hear that right? It couldn't be, could it? Two of the very cornerstones of my life coming together? Apparently, the answer to those questions is yes. Yes I did. Yes it could. And yes they have.

My initial reaction was probably not unlike many of yours--after all this time, my Nuvaring post was finally paying off! At last, they've begun marketing to the 25-39 year old straight male soap viewing crowd. And why not? There must be dozens of us out here.

Next, a Vagisil commercial came on and my thoughts turned to this new product: Scene It? Seinfeld. They've done it! It's been done.

The problem here is the same problem I always face with Seinfeld-related releases, especially around the holidays. Either everyone will get me one and I'll wind up with like four, or no one will get me one because they think everyone else will be getting me one. It can be quite the conundrum.

It didn't take long for people to start contacting me. I must say, there is something quite comforting about friends--even those I've not heard from in awhile--knowing me so well that I'm the first person they think of when there's news regarding Seinfeld, Matchbox Twenty, or Lindsay Lohan.

The female half of Kywana IM'd me one morning to see if I'd heard about it. We discussed what a great addition this will be to this year's Festivus celebration. Then Friday, a girl I've spoken to maybe once in the past year called to tell me about it. She also raised an issue I had yet to think about, saying, "No one will want to play with you because you'll know every single answer."

Drat! She had a point. I would dominate. It'd be like Kramer fighting children in karate. After careful consideration, meditation, and asking myself what would Jason & Jerry do (WWJJD), I came to a decision.

I've decided that I'm perfectly fine with always winning.

"Master of the house, doling out the charm. Ready with a handshake and an open palm..."

I wiki, therefore I am

I love wikipedia. To those who know me well, this comes as no surprise. Sometime during the past year, Wikipedia surpassed SportsCenter, Seinfeld, and John Tesh to become my number one source for information.

Terms spawned by Wikipedia have already become part of our daily vernacular. To wiki means to research or look up a topic on Wikipedia. Past tense, wiki'd. Present participle, wikiing. Plural form, wikies or wiki's.

Then, of course, there are other less known terms still waiting to make their way into common dialect. Terms like wikilicious, which is used to describe a fascinating, surprising, or otherwise extraordinary fact unearthed within the pages of Wikipedia.

Example:
"Did you know that Tom Wopat appeared in the Broadway revival of David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Glengarry Glen Ross?"
"Wow! That's wikilicious!."

I wiki most everything. Some days I spend indiscriminate amounts of time wikiing just for fun. Like last week, I wiki'd Jordache, you know, hoping for some sign that they may be coming back in style.

Here is what I learned about Jordache: "The brand is known for its designer jeans that were popular in the late 1970s."

Late seventies? I was wearing Jordache jeans in 1986 like they were going out of style! Which apparently, they were.

I'm not sure from whence my Wikipedia fascination comes. Perhaps it stems from the fact that we never had a complete and current set of encyclopedias when I was growing up. Dad's World Books were the 1959 edition.

Then I remember sometime in the 80's, Winn Dixie began selling encyclopedias. Ah yes, could there be a better plan? There's no place like your local supermarket to get your reference materials from.

You could buy a different volume every week or two. So Mom would buy them when she went grocery shopping. Then one week, she forgot, so we missed a volume. Then another. Long story short, in the end I could do a report on any topic as long as it didn't begin with a D, G, J-K, M, S, or W,X,Y,Z.

On top of that, they weren't World Books. Or even Encyclopedia Brittanicas. They were Funk & Wagnalls. Sounds more like a bad 70's band than an encyclopedia.

Or perhaps my fascination with Wikipedia and seemingly useless information is inherited. After all, I remember Dad spending countless hours every day in the bathroom reading his World Books. So in a way, when I'm wikiing, I'm only carrying on a family tradition.

Here's to Dad, the sanctity of a man's bathroom, and those who spend twenty hours a day editing Wikipedia. Oh, and also to John Tesh. You had a good run, but it's over, man.

Happy wikiing!

"My ergonomic keyboard never leaves me bored. Shopping online for deals on some writable media. I edit Wikipedia..."

What's my age again?

Happy birthday, LiLo!

Recently, a blogger friend of mine inherited something worth far more than rubies or pearls. She received an Xbox. So as she relayed to me the joys of playing Tiger Woods Golf and beating the likes of Stuart Appleby and Stewart Cink, I began to get the fever.

I considered renting Tiger Woods Golf, but then the thought of a 34-year-old man renting a video game crossed my mind, and I decided that's just not the public image I want to present.

So instead, I hooked up my old Nintendo. That's the original NES, with the familiar, classic two-button pad controller. And I began playing Tecmo Super Bowl.

So far I'm 13-0 in the 1991 NFL Season playing with the Dallas Cowboys. Emmitt Smith was kicking tail, leading the league in rushing until he got injured two weeks ago. Hopefully, he'll make it back soon. If not, that could really put a damper on our run to Super Bowl XXVI. Alonzo Highsmith is just not getting it done as his backup.

Anyway, these past couple of days (yes, you can play 13 games in two days, relatively easily) has brought back some great memories. Sore thumbs, 8-bit graphics, and having to blow on the game cartridge repeatedly when it blue screens. I never really understood how that worked, but it always does.

I feel like I'm 13 again. And in a sense, I probably am.

"No one should take themselves so seriously. With many years ahead to fall in love, why would you wish that on me? I never want to act my age. Whats my age again..."