The picture doesn't really do justice to the pretty pale pink of the stones, but I love this for its shape. It sits just right and looks great either on a high necked top or a low cut one, so it doesn't limit what you can wear with it. The color is a little challenging to pair properly, but it's a good challenge to have because I sometimes shy away from pairing light pink with strong colors like the dark iron color you see in the metal here, and the payoff is so great when you can get it to work. It's a great addition to my jewelry box and I can't wait to wear the hell out of it!
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Josie's Closet: Pink Sparkly Bib Necklace
One of the things I'm great at is being a total goober at work just as someone comes around the corner to witness it. For example, the CEO tends to come down to get his paper whenever I am doing something completely awkward, like climbing over a cart to load up some boxes or crawling under the desk to plug something in. This Christmas, I was opening a present from my boss when the Director of Communications was coming around the corner, and I'd just seen enough to exclaim "ooh, sparkly!" out loud as she arrived. (NB: yes, I am a giant toolbox.) It was sparkly!
The picture doesn't really do justice to the pretty pale pink of the stones, but I love this for its shape. It sits just right and looks great either on a high necked top or a low cut one, so it doesn't limit what you can wear with it. The color is a little challenging to pair properly, but it's a good challenge to have because I sometimes shy away from pairing light pink with strong colors like the dark iron color you see in the metal here, and the payoff is so great when you can get it to work. It's a great addition to my jewelry box and I can't wait to wear the hell out of it!
The picture doesn't really do justice to the pretty pale pink of the stones, but I love this for its shape. It sits just right and looks great either on a high necked top or a low cut one, so it doesn't limit what you can wear with it. The color is a little challenging to pair properly, but it's a good challenge to have because I sometimes shy away from pairing light pink with strong colors like the dark iron color you see in the metal here, and the payoff is so great when you can get it to work. It's a great addition to my jewelry box and I can't wait to wear the hell out of it!
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
My Husband's Safe Word is "Okay"
I have to imagine that being married to me is kind of challenging sometimes, not only because I have occasional intense attacks of airheadedness and sometimes forget to use my indoor voice, but also because I get attached to weird shit on a pretty frequent basis, and when I bring said weird shit home, Rich needs to live with it too. One of the ways he deals with this is by doing this thing that I assume is some form of dissociative behavior, where I come in all "look look I found this notebook made out of elephant poop" and he gets this kind of blank look and goes "okay." He also uses this when I get on a tear about something weird and/or esoteric and/or imaginary. Today's example:
I had popped in to TJ Maxx to pick up some river rocks (long story) and I was wandering around the home section when I saw this little piece of psychedelia. There were also teapots in the same kind of style, and a cow, but neither had the flair of this little guy. I am totally putting him in my Lair of Knowledge. How do you find something this cracked out and not buy it? This picture is totally not doing it justice either - the colors are much brighter, but unfortunately I have a Blackberry, which comes equipped with the worst camera in the history of camera phones so until I relocate my stupid camera charger you're going to have to deal with this kind of picture. On the upside, this bird is so magnificent it may be better this way, kind of like looking at the sun out of the corner of your eye instead of staring right at it. I never learned that lesson about the sun, that's why I can look directly at my new best friend here without going blind.
Anyway, I showed the bird to Rich and he went "okay," and for whatever reason, his tone made me realize that he's totally using "okay" as some kind of safe word in hopes that it will make me stop. Unfortunately, I don't really have control over my behavior, so it has little effect. I mean seriously, I am always going to look at something like that bird and immediately want to have it, much like my Disco Lions. Rich is probably lucky I'm his wife and not his dominatrix, because clearly I would be terrible at it. It's a valiant effort though, and the good thing is that now that I have the Lair of Knowledge I can stash my dumb crap down there and he doesn't have to spend his day looking at it. I'm kind of imagining him walking around when I'm not home or something, catching sight of things and going "okay" and then getting all sad because it just. will. not. stop. Poor Rich. He really is a ridiculously tolerant human being.
I had popped in to TJ Maxx to pick up some river rocks (long story) and I was wandering around the home section when I saw this little piece of psychedelia. There were also teapots in the same kind of style, and a cow, but neither had the flair of this little guy. I am totally putting him in my Lair of Knowledge. How do you find something this cracked out and not buy it? This picture is totally not doing it justice either - the colors are much brighter, but unfortunately I have a Blackberry, which comes equipped with the worst camera in the history of camera phones so until I relocate my stupid camera charger you're going to have to deal with this kind of picture. On the upside, this bird is so magnificent it may be better this way, kind of like looking at the sun out of the corner of your eye instead of staring right at it. I never learned that lesson about the sun, that's why I can look directly at my new best friend here without going blind. Anyway, I showed the bird to Rich and he went "okay," and for whatever reason, his tone made me realize that he's totally using "okay" as some kind of safe word in hopes that it will make me stop. Unfortunately, I don't really have control over my behavior, so it has little effect. I mean seriously, I am always going to look at something like that bird and immediately want to have it, much like my Disco Lions. Rich is probably lucky I'm his wife and not his dominatrix, because clearly I would be terrible at it. It's a valiant effort though, and the good thing is that now that I have the Lair of Knowledge I can stash my dumb crap down there and he doesn't have to spend his day looking at it. I'm kind of imagining him walking around when I'm not home or something, catching sight of things and going "okay" and then getting all sad because it just. will. not. stop. Poor Rich. He really is a ridiculously tolerant human being.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Can a Sister Get Some Moneyball up in this Joint?
This has been a really frustrating Worcester Sharks season. It's even worse because it comes with a sense of deja vu. A couple seasons ago, the Sharks iced a team that was lackluster, rudderless and suffered from a serious dearth of veteran players. It was boring hockey, and it did very real damage to the fan base. The first season the Sharks were in Worcester was a cardio workout - they'd lose and scrap and get way behind and then somehow come back and outshoot everyone and then lose some more and then win a bunch and it was just mayhem all the time, but it was really fun hockey to watch. Even when they were losing, it felt like they were pounding the other team. Not so this year.
San Jose has an interesting relationship to its minor league team. On the one hand, they do actively use Worcester as a development location. Coach Roy Sommer has been kept on staff specifically because he's good at teaching San Jose's prospects the San Jose system, so they don't miss a beat when they get the call. (Frankly, the idea that Sommer is supposed to be giving the players the system is the only thing that explains the godawful line changes, the timing of which is only viable at NHL speed and is terrible in AHL play.) I like Sommer, but his role here makes me hate him a little during games. It's a sprint-hate. We've seen plenty of guys come through Worcester and make it up to the Show successfully; just looking at San Jose's current roster, you have Logan Couture, Benn Ferriero, Brandon Mashinter, John McCarthy, Jamie McGinn, Torrey Mitchell, Joe Pavelski, Devon Setoguchi, Jason Demers, and Derek Joslin, all of whom have been through Worcester in the previous four seasons. Several of these guys - Couture, McGinn, Pavelski, Setoguchi - would have made it to the NHL if Finz was left in charge of coaching them, but the others have had pretty dramatic improvements that I am inclined to think are the result of good coaching from Sommer, Assistant Coach Cunniff and the rest of their staff. If you had told me when they were in Worcester that Derek Joslin and Jason Demers would have consistent and quality NHL careers, I would have attempted to slap the crazy out of you. Those kids were train wrecks.
Despite this focus on development, I'm still not sure San Jose knows how to run a consistently successful AHL team. As far as I can tell, they set the roster before the season starts, and then leave it unsupervised, trusting in Sommer & Co. to make the lemonade. That is dumb hockey. I really enjoyed Michael Lewis' Moneyball, a book chronicling the approach taken by the Oakland A's and other teams who made low-cost player investments based on statistical analysis on what I guess you'd call "less popular" statistics. In hockey, it would probably be like looking at someone's plus/minus rating instead of their point totals. I think San Jose has something like the moneyball approach in mind when they stock up Worcester; my best guess is that they're stocking a supporting cast for their top prospects, and trying to reserve their funds for those future stars. The problem is that a moneyball approach relies on constant monitoring and tweaking, and I don't think that San Jose hockey ops carries through on that end. It doesn't help that Wayne Thomas has openly admitted that they occasionally decide to run lean, exacerbating all of these problems and guaranteeing stagnation.
It's pretty easy to just say that San Jose is interested in developing its prospects, and not in the supporting cast, but that doesn't let them off the hook. Teamwork is an essential part of player development, and the current arrangement presents several challenges on that count. First of all, since there's very little in the way of AHL depth built in, or of ECHL support, when people start getting tired, then hurt later in the season, there are dramatic shifts in chemistry and team cohesion. That changes your ability to develop your players. Secondly, your prospects' teammates should challenge them as much as the opposing players. If you're not paying attention to your second, third, fourth liners and beyond, you're not working your prospects to their full potential. Third, when you leave your own ass out in the wind, you're going to need to scramble for bodies when you get call ups or injuries, so your prospects and the guys who are supposed to be developing then know that they're going to be getting people who can be signed to PTOs mid-season, which of course means people who have already been passed over and who have gotten through waivers with the NHL giving a collective shrug. Not exactly inspiring stuff, not is it going to provide you with the kind of veterans that can help develop your prospects.
Though there are clear flaws in San Jose's approach, you can rationalize it to a point, but it falls apart when you consider that both San Jose and Worcester are owned by a company called Silicon Valley Sports Entertainment. All players and franchises are investments on SVSE's part, and if you look at it all in that context, Worcester starts looking a lot more like a badly handled investment. Not an inherently bad investment, mind you, but one that is being chronically mismanaged. Worcester should be another moneymaking opportunity for SVSE, and leaving it unsupported is not going to produce exciting hockey that gets people in the building to spend money. It's not going to sell merchandise, nor concessions, and it's not going to convince people to buy season tickets or corporate sponsorship. Thanks to Worcester exemplary front office staff, I understand that corporate revenues have remained high, but that is in spite of this season's hockey product, not because of it. The Worcester front office is singularly dedicated to making an impact on the community and making things happen - they brought the All Star Classic to the city in 2009, which the Icecats never seemed to have the backbone to even bid for, for instance. The staff in Worcester could bring a Calder Cup here given freer rein, but with SVSE's laser focus on San Jose and their desire to view all their investments through that lens, the Worcester front office has a significant challenge before them.
I personally would just like some exciting hockey. It's getting increasingly difficult to muster enthusiasm for games, and if my enthusiasm is waning, the Sharks organization is going to have to fight hard to keep butts in the seats next year.
San Jose has an interesting relationship to its minor league team. On the one hand, they do actively use Worcester as a development location. Coach Roy Sommer has been kept on staff specifically because he's good at teaching San Jose's prospects the San Jose system, so they don't miss a beat when they get the call. (Frankly, the idea that Sommer is supposed to be giving the players the system is the only thing that explains the godawful line changes, the timing of which is only viable at NHL speed and is terrible in AHL play.) I like Sommer, but his role here makes me hate him a little during games. It's a sprint-hate. We've seen plenty of guys come through Worcester and make it up to the Show successfully; just looking at San Jose's current roster, you have Logan Couture, Benn Ferriero, Brandon Mashinter, John McCarthy, Jamie McGinn, Torrey Mitchell, Joe Pavelski, Devon Setoguchi, Jason Demers, and Derek Joslin, all of whom have been through Worcester in the previous four seasons. Several of these guys - Couture, McGinn, Pavelski, Setoguchi - would have made it to the NHL if Finz was left in charge of coaching them, but the others have had pretty dramatic improvements that I am inclined to think are the result of good coaching from Sommer, Assistant Coach Cunniff and the rest of their staff. If you had told me when they were in Worcester that Derek Joslin and Jason Demers would have consistent and quality NHL careers, I would have attempted to slap the crazy out of you. Those kids were train wrecks.
Despite this focus on development, I'm still not sure San Jose knows how to run a consistently successful AHL team. As far as I can tell, they set the roster before the season starts, and then leave it unsupervised, trusting in Sommer & Co. to make the lemonade. That is dumb hockey. I really enjoyed Michael Lewis' Moneyball, a book chronicling the approach taken by the Oakland A's and other teams who made low-cost player investments based on statistical analysis on what I guess you'd call "less popular" statistics. In hockey, it would probably be like looking at someone's plus/minus rating instead of their point totals. I think San Jose has something like the moneyball approach in mind when they stock up Worcester; my best guess is that they're stocking a supporting cast for their top prospects, and trying to reserve their funds for those future stars. The problem is that a moneyball approach relies on constant monitoring and tweaking, and I don't think that San Jose hockey ops carries through on that end. It doesn't help that Wayne Thomas has openly admitted that they occasionally decide to run lean, exacerbating all of these problems and guaranteeing stagnation.
It's pretty easy to just say that San Jose is interested in developing its prospects, and not in the supporting cast, but that doesn't let them off the hook. Teamwork is an essential part of player development, and the current arrangement presents several challenges on that count. First of all, since there's very little in the way of AHL depth built in, or of ECHL support, when people start getting tired, then hurt later in the season, there are dramatic shifts in chemistry and team cohesion. That changes your ability to develop your players. Secondly, your prospects' teammates should challenge them as much as the opposing players. If you're not paying attention to your second, third, fourth liners and beyond, you're not working your prospects to their full potential. Third, when you leave your own ass out in the wind, you're going to need to scramble for bodies when you get call ups or injuries, so your prospects and the guys who are supposed to be developing then know that they're going to be getting people who can be signed to PTOs mid-season, which of course means people who have already been passed over and who have gotten through waivers with the NHL giving a collective shrug. Not exactly inspiring stuff, not is it going to provide you with the kind of veterans that can help develop your prospects.
Though there are clear flaws in San Jose's approach, you can rationalize it to a point, but it falls apart when you consider that both San Jose and Worcester are owned by a company called Silicon Valley Sports Entertainment. All players and franchises are investments on SVSE's part, and if you look at it all in that context, Worcester starts looking a lot more like a badly handled investment. Not an inherently bad investment, mind you, but one that is being chronically mismanaged. Worcester should be another moneymaking opportunity for SVSE, and leaving it unsupported is not going to produce exciting hockey that gets people in the building to spend money. It's not going to sell merchandise, nor concessions, and it's not going to convince people to buy season tickets or corporate sponsorship. Thanks to Worcester exemplary front office staff, I understand that corporate revenues have remained high, but that is in spite of this season's hockey product, not because of it. The Worcester front office is singularly dedicated to making an impact on the community and making things happen - they brought the All Star Classic to the city in 2009, which the Icecats never seemed to have the backbone to even bid for, for instance. The staff in Worcester could bring a Calder Cup here given freer rein, but with SVSE's laser focus on San Jose and their desire to view all their investments through that lens, the Worcester front office has a significant challenge before them.
I personally would just like some exciting hockey. It's getting increasingly difficult to muster enthusiasm for games, and if my enthusiasm is waning, the Sharks organization is going to have to fight hard to keep butts in the seats next year.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Home Improvement Lookbook: Golden Lion Edition
So, this exists.
Those would be second floor golden lions. I wish I had more time to take pictures of this, because this house has about four inches of lawn in front of it and is generally skanky looking, but I think we can all agree that the lions more than make up for any real estate shortcomings. I saw this temple of fabulousity in Westborough on the way to visit a friend, and I thought it was the best damn thing ever.
This got me thinking about the house that I occasionally make up in my head. This future house is closely tied to my plans to be a super crazy dresser as I age. When your sartorial plans for the future involve rhinestones by the ton and turbans, you really need a house that lives up to your magnificence, no? Obviously, I will need these lions, but I think they could probably be bigger and more glittery. They have also kinds of fun glitter spray paints these days, so I'd probably go for that. OR! I could also just do the manes in glitter and cover their bodies with a mirror mosaic. The future house would have a long driveway, so I could have the giant disco lions at the gate and glitter-only lions lining the drive. I think I'd probably want some disco lions at the front door, but I worry about monotony, so a switch to mirror plated tigers might be the way to go.
I just love when people embrace their wackitude this way. Loud and proud, golden lion people!
Those would be second floor golden lions. I wish I had more time to take pictures of this, because this house has about four inches of lawn in front of it and is generally skanky looking, but I think we can all agree that the lions more than make up for any real estate shortcomings. I saw this temple of fabulousity in Westborough on the way to visit a friend, and I thought it was the best damn thing ever. This got me thinking about the house that I occasionally make up in my head. This future house is closely tied to my plans to be a super crazy dresser as I age. When your sartorial plans for the future involve rhinestones by the ton and turbans, you really need a house that lives up to your magnificence, no? Obviously, I will need these lions, but I think they could probably be bigger and more glittery. They have also kinds of fun glitter spray paints these days, so I'd probably go for that. OR! I could also just do the manes in glitter and cover their bodies with a mirror mosaic. The future house would have a long driveway, so I could have the giant disco lions at the gate and glitter-only lions lining the drive. I think I'd probably want some disco lions at the front door, but I worry about monotony, so a switch to mirror plated tigers might be the way to go.
I just love when people embrace their wackitude this way. Loud and proud, golden lion people!
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Cannonballing Up: CBR-III
Some of you may remember a while back when I attempted a Cannonball Read, wherein one reads and reviews 100 books in a year. I came up a little short, primarily because I could not get my act together to review the books I read. For this round, though, the Powers That Be have set the goal at 52 books a year. That seems much more manageable, so I'll be giving that a whirl. I'll be blogging those reviews here, at a Wordpress blog, and occasionally at the CBR-III community blog. I'd recommend checking in to the community blog when you have time, because numerous Cannonballers will be reviewing their faces off over there and you'll get a huge variety of books and review styles.
I'd also love any recommendations that you can offer. I'm always looking for new reading material, and I'm open to pretty much anything. You can leave recommendations in the comments or email me at josie.brown at gmail dot com, and they will be greatly appreciated!
I'd also love any recommendations that you can offer. I'm always looking for new reading material, and I'm open to pretty much anything. You can leave recommendations in the comments or email me at josie.brown at gmail dot com, and they will be greatly appreciated!
Monday, December 27, 2010
Career Change! I Am Going to Be an NFL Announcer.
I am not really a football person, which I blame on my father for not really being a Sports Dad*, but I am reasonably entertained by it despite never really being 100% sure about what's going on. It's a little bit like going to a really weird art "happening" where there are a lot of armless baby dolls hanging from the ceiling and one bicycle in the corner and then some guy runs into the room naked and starts shrieking, and you're there like "WTF" but everyone else seems to be in a really good mood and that kind of puts you in a good mood because it's nice to see people so happy In Times Like These and you walk out and your friends are like "so how was it" and you can't help but say it was really fun. Football is mostly like that for me, but it helps that I do enjoy sports where huge men in barely adequate padding collide violently in the name of shoving an object around. The problem with this corollary however is that I try to apply hockey logic to what I'm looking at in football, and let me tell you that this is an exercise in futility.
I'm also reasonably convinced that Rich is some kind of wizard, because he's always saying things like "they're going to send that guy over there and then this other guy is going to throw it to this other guy and then they will hand it off and then run it around that dude on the other team and then they will get a down" and it happens which is really exciting for me in the way children are excited by the Quarter In Your Ear trick. He also got me the Football for Dummies book which was probably pretty informative but was unfortunately written by Howie Long, who seemed to be operating on a "this is a girl book, and girls are mildly retarded and don't understand sports" theory, so I kind of made some disparaging comments about that stupid-ass haircut he has and mailed the book via BookMooch to some chick in Germany who wanted to learn about American football for some reason**. That gesture was very sweet but ultimately a failure, so I was kind of freaking out because I was like "I have to learn to enjoy football or I will spend every Sunday-Monday wanting to kill myself out of sheer boredom." The New England Surge swooped in to my rescue. Arena football is basically all red-zone play, so I got an up close crash course (literally; we had front row season tickets and caught a couple players) in football, after which the Surge promptly failed to pay their bills in somewhat spectacular fashion and folded. Oops. But I had the knowledge. Ever since then I've been filling in the blanks, and now I know what's going on a good 80% of the time and have even moved on to random trivia like how Hines Ward has a smile like fucking Pacman and Brett Favre is kind of an enormous doucheface***.
So anyway, I've been watching more football than usual this season, and I've decided that I should totally be an NFL announcer. This whole academia thing is kind of a Thank You Sir May I Have Another situation (I actually mispelled that as "Thank You Sire" which adds a whole other level of grovelling to the scene and I think makes it more accurate) and I'm basically going to make like four dollars every year until I die because I am too bossy to write irritating tripe like Fareed "Here Are a Bunch of Well-Researched Facts and No Conclusions" Zakaria pumps out and thus will have book royalties of about fourteen cents to back up that extravagant professorial salary. If I go into announcing, I won't have to go broke getting myself a Ph.D**** and I will be able to make a seriously awesome living by eating a massive plate of beans before gametime and pointing my ass at a microphone.
See, I've observed that these people do not actually do a lot of talking about what is going on and that when they do, it's the most ridiculous irrelevant drivel ever sent out on the airwaves. Said drivel seems to fall into one of two categories - babbling about the play that just happened, or openly jacking it over the player of the moment. A particular favorite of mine was the other day during the Packers/Giants game when a fumble resulted in some pretty great hot potato recovery action. There was a ref literally right on the sideline with such a great view that he directly blocked the camera angle from one direction. The call was made - ball stayed in - and the announcers immediately started talking about how they would accept the ref's decision.
Okay.
Guys, no shit you're going to accept his goddamn decision. He's the ref. You are retired players who managed to avoid concussing yourself into illiteracy. You are not in this. How about talking about the Packers' and Giants' fumble recovery rates? How about talking about receiver stats? How about QB picks? No? Seriously, what is even the point of you?
So I'm going to be an NFL announcer, not only because I am charming and attractive but also because my scant handful of what I will now be calling "color commentary factoids" about Troy Polamalu's hair and Manning's Manningface. I believe this will also help the lucky network that gets me corner the market on "female sports fans" who they tend to regard in much the same way they do unicorns. I plan to capture this market by being a female talking about sports without asking people about their fucking feelings on the damn field and also by reminding the programming people that women do in fact like sports and don't just fantasize about spraying the goddamn Febreze around after their husbands' filthy, filthy football parties*****, so maybe we should get some ads that don't treat women like vapid cleaning devices to be hauled out after the game. I would also start a campaign against the scourge that is pink team gear, because pink team gear is stupid, that's why. Want to support your team? Wear their goddamn colors. You don't see me supporting my country by wearing a pink tee shirt with the Presidential seal in darker pink and white on it, do you? No, I wear a fucking obnoxious extravaganza of red, white and blue with a taxidermied bald eagle hat like a true patriot.
Then, if I ran out of factoids, I could just start talking about whatever came to mind. I'd probably go with talking smack about the fans, because who doesn't like mocking fans? Weirdos, that's who. Have you seen the shit people show up to these games in? It's a judger's dream. And all of this would STILL be more interesting than the dreck currently airing.
The big question, of course, is whether I'd be able to make the transition to the pre- and postgame shows, and I think the answer is OBVIOUSLY yes. My secret weapon would be wardrobe critique. My theory is that all of these guys are being dressed by someone else, and thus cannot possibly be 100% confident that they are wearing the Right Outfit. There are two reasons I believe this. First of all, anyone who spends as much time as these ex-players and coaches spend in team-wear, be it a jersey or other gear, finds their wardrobe gradually consumed by teamlogonalia, all socially acceptable clothing being slowly devoured by tee shirts. Secondly, I refuse to believe that a man who once had the sheer balls to wear a sweater that said "BEARS" across it in public, repeatedly, would ever be able to assemble the relatively natty outfits Ditka sports on air. Once you go to a sweater that self-righteously tacky, you never go back. In any case, I plan to leap with bared fangs on this weakness the second someone disagrees with me. "I disagree, Jimmy the Shark is not now nor has he ever been a member of the Minnesota Vikings." "Yeah, well you look like you cut your hair with a Flowbee and your pocket square is a fucking mess." There is no counter argument for that shit. They would simply have to admit that I was right and let me win forever.
And then I will punch Frank Caliendo in the face.
* Though he made up for it in many ways, including teaching me how to change the oil in my car, being willing to light expired road flares with me for no reason during family holiday gatherings and reading a frankly absurd number of Nancy Drew books with me when I was a kid.
** I don't think Germans will ever not confuse me.
*** Not sure I actually needed football knowledge for that. If Brette Favre's vocal cords exploded in a gory, Sawesque extravaganza of chaos, I'm not sure I could even muster human sympathy at this point. See also: Lebron James, Curt Schilling.
**** Downside: no crazy robes and ridiculous hat. This is significant.
***** I pride myself on being filthier than my husband.
I'm also reasonably convinced that Rich is some kind of wizard, because he's always saying things like "they're going to send that guy over there and then this other guy is going to throw it to this other guy and then they will hand it off and then run it around that dude on the other team and then they will get a down" and it happens which is really exciting for me in the way children are excited by the Quarter In Your Ear trick. He also got me the Football for Dummies book which was probably pretty informative but was unfortunately written by Howie Long, who seemed to be operating on a "this is a girl book, and girls are mildly retarded and don't understand sports" theory, so I kind of made some disparaging comments about that stupid-ass haircut he has and mailed the book via BookMooch to some chick in Germany who wanted to learn about American football for some reason**. That gesture was very sweet but ultimately a failure, so I was kind of freaking out because I was like "I have to learn to enjoy football or I will spend every Sunday-Monday wanting to kill myself out of sheer boredom." The New England Surge swooped in to my rescue. Arena football is basically all red-zone play, so I got an up close crash course (literally; we had front row season tickets and caught a couple players) in football, after which the Surge promptly failed to pay their bills in somewhat spectacular fashion and folded. Oops. But I had the knowledge. Ever since then I've been filling in the blanks, and now I know what's going on a good 80% of the time and have even moved on to random trivia like how Hines Ward has a smile like fucking Pacman and Brett Favre is kind of an enormous doucheface***.
So anyway, I've been watching more football than usual this season, and I've decided that I should totally be an NFL announcer. This whole academia thing is kind of a Thank You Sir May I Have Another situation (I actually mispelled that as "Thank You Sire" which adds a whole other level of grovelling to the scene and I think makes it more accurate) and I'm basically going to make like four dollars every year until I die because I am too bossy to write irritating tripe like Fareed "Here Are a Bunch of Well-Researched Facts and No Conclusions" Zakaria pumps out and thus will have book royalties of about fourteen cents to back up that extravagant professorial salary. If I go into announcing, I won't have to go broke getting myself a Ph.D**** and I will be able to make a seriously awesome living by eating a massive plate of beans before gametime and pointing my ass at a microphone.
See, I've observed that these people do not actually do a lot of talking about what is going on and that when they do, it's the most ridiculous irrelevant drivel ever sent out on the airwaves. Said drivel seems to fall into one of two categories - babbling about the play that just happened, or openly jacking it over the player of the moment. A particular favorite of mine was the other day during the Packers/Giants game when a fumble resulted in some pretty great hot potato recovery action. There was a ref literally right on the sideline with such a great view that he directly blocked the camera angle from one direction. The call was made - ball stayed in - and the announcers immediately started talking about how they would accept the ref's decision.
Okay.
Guys, no shit you're going to accept his goddamn decision. He's the ref. You are retired players who managed to avoid concussing yourself into illiteracy. You are not in this. How about talking about the Packers' and Giants' fumble recovery rates? How about talking about receiver stats? How about QB picks? No? Seriously, what is even the point of you?
So I'm going to be an NFL announcer, not only because I am charming and attractive but also because my scant handful of what I will now be calling "color commentary factoids" about Troy Polamalu's hair and Manning's Manningface. I believe this will also help the lucky network that gets me corner the market on "female sports fans" who they tend to regard in much the same way they do unicorns. I plan to capture this market by being a female talking about sports without asking people about their fucking feelings on the damn field and also by reminding the programming people that women do in fact like sports and don't just fantasize about spraying the goddamn Febreze around after their husbands' filthy, filthy football parties*****, so maybe we should get some ads that don't treat women like vapid cleaning devices to be hauled out after the game. I would also start a campaign against the scourge that is pink team gear, because pink team gear is stupid, that's why. Want to support your team? Wear their goddamn colors. You don't see me supporting my country by wearing a pink tee shirt with the Presidential seal in darker pink and white on it, do you? No, I wear a fucking obnoxious extravaganza of red, white and blue with a taxidermied bald eagle hat like a true patriot.
Then, if I ran out of factoids, I could just start talking about whatever came to mind. I'd probably go with talking smack about the fans, because who doesn't like mocking fans? Weirdos, that's who. Have you seen the shit people show up to these games in? It's a judger's dream. And all of this would STILL be more interesting than the dreck currently airing.
The big question, of course, is whether I'd be able to make the transition to the pre- and postgame shows, and I think the answer is OBVIOUSLY yes. My secret weapon would be wardrobe critique. My theory is that all of these guys are being dressed by someone else, and thus cannot possibly be 100% confident that they are wearing the Right Outfit. There are two reasons I believe this. First of all, anyone who spends as much time as these ex-players and coaches spend in team-wear, be it a jersey or other gear, finds their wardrobe gradually consumed by teamlogonalia, all socially acceptable clothing being slowly devoured by tee shirts. Secondly, I refuse to believe that a man who once had the sheer balls to wear a sweater that said "BEARS" across it in public, repeatedly, would ever be able to assemble the relatively natty outfits Ditka sports on air. Once you go to a sweater that self-righteously tacky, you never go back. In any case, I plan to leap with bared fangs on this weakness the second someone disagrees with me. "I disagree, Jimmy the Shark is not now nor has he ever been a member of the Minnesota Vikings." "Yeah, well you look like you cut your hair with a Flowbee and your pocket square is a fucking mess." There is no counter argument for that shit. They would simply have to admit that I was right and let me win forever.
And then I will punch Frank Caliendo in the face.
* Though he made up for it in many ways, including teaching me how to change the oil in my car, being willing to light expired road flares with me for no reason during family holiday gatherings and reading a frankly absurd number of Nancy Drew books with me when I was a kid.
** I don't think Germans will ever not confuse me.
*** Not sure I actually needed football knowledge for that. If Brette Favre's vocal cords exploded in a gory, Sawesque extravaganza of chaos, I'm not sure I could even muster human sympathy at this point. See also: Lebron James, Curt Schilling.
**** Downside: no crazy robes and ridiculous hat. This is significant.
***** I pride myself on being filthier than my husband.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Don't Waste Enough Time on the Internet? Read These Blogs!
It's the weekend after Christmas, so I'm kind of catching up and relearning skills like Making It To Frank* On A Routine Basis and Not Having Panic Attacks About Phantom Due Dates. One of the things I have on my catch up list is posting something about various friends' and wish-they-were-my-friends' blogs. This way, you can read my FRIENDS' blogs and hopefully transfer ideas about content to ME so you'll be reading one of these and thinking "boy, look at all this awesome hilarity that Josie posted for my benefit!" And then I'll feel better about the blogger Tourettes that I suffer from.
Here Comes the Boogey-Mom
My friend Erin started this blog after her long-dormant writing bug came back with a vengeance. She's just starting out, but there have already been stories about Boston Terriers (and other dogs), her adorable children and the challenges of parenting, Johnny Cash, monsters, and witches. That seems like a pretty good deal for a fledgling effort, PLUS Erin is a great writer and knows the difference between they're, there and their, so already I'm gonna say you're ahead of about 95% of the Internet. Based on my knowledge of Erin, I am going to guess that other topics will eventually include fashion, bats, literature, and art, along with more about the kids and Gosh the Boston Terrier.
On Cardamom and Cast Iron
This is Celia's blog, and look, I can't really offer you a lot of blogs written by wizards, but I think that Celia is a pretty good substitute. Celia posts about her family and their travels (as a Navy family, they have lots of those), and about her cooking. This is where the wizarding comes in. Celia is always talking to me about how she's whipping some kind of of magical concoction, oh and by the way it's vegan or vegetarian or gluten free and oh PS, she started with some kind of insane French recipe that was like 97% animal products and gluten, but she makes it healthy and delicious. Look, I don't know how she does it, so I assumed magic about seven years ago, and that's been working out really well for me so far. The pictures alone are worth a click, and the recipes are always great.
Scrittore Creativo
The Lucy has a blog! She started it in the middle of her MFA and then discovered that blogging consistently during a grad program while also trying to avoid neglecting home and hearth is actually really hard, but now that she is DONE WITH HER MFA HOORAY, she has rebooted the blog. She does really excellent movie reviews, amongst other things, which is great for me since apparently I really like reading movie reviews but never ever going to movies. Yes, it is weird, and no, I cannot explain it. In any case, Lucy also posts about entertainment in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area as well. I can vouch for Lucy's great taste, so this is a great guide.
The Bloggess
I discovered The Bloggess when I read a story about a Christmas miracle that happened on her blog. ...No, really. She was offering 20 $30 gift certificates to people who didn't have money for the holidays, and when they quickly got snapped up, people suddenly started offering to donate as well. $42,000 later, she had coordinated Christmas for hundreds of donors and giftees. How cool is that? I liked her style and kept reading older posts, and man, she is funny. You will laugh your ass off. It's just as valid a workout program as those idiotic balance ball shoes1
*I always think that everyone knows this, yet I always have someone pop up all "ARE YOU CHEATING ON RICH WHAT IS GOING ON" and I have to explain that my marriage is not in fact falling apart. Frank is my trainer, and he is awesome and everyone should go to him because he has some kind of voodoo magic that makes you love him even though he is kind of maybe evil. Also he has a tire you get to hit with a sledgehammer. It is like adult recess except with Frank and Diane supervising and no map tag.
Here Comes the Boogey-Mom
My friend Erin started this blog after her long-dormant writing bug came back with a vengeance. She's just starting out, but there have already been stories about Boston Terriers (and other dogs), her adorable children and the challenges of parenting, Johnny Cash, monsters, and witches. That seems like a pretty good deal for a fledgling effort, PLUS Erin is a great writer and knows the difference between they're, there and their, so already I'm gonna say you're ahead of about 95% of the Internet. Based on my knowledge of Erin, I am going to guess that other topics will eventually include fashion, bats, literature, and art, along with more about the kids and Gosh the Boston Terrier.
On Cardamom and Cast Iron
This is Celia's blog, and look, I can't really offer you a lot of blogs written by wizards, but I think that Celia is a pretty good substitute. Celia posts about her family and their travels (as a Navy family, they have lots of those), and about her cooking. This is where the wizarding comes in. Celia is always talking to me about how she's whipping some kind of of magical concoction, oh and by the way it's vegan or vegetarian or gluten free and oh PS, she started with some kind of insane French recipe that was like 97% animal products and gluten, but she makes it healthy and delicious. Look, I don't know how she does it, so I assumed magic about seven years ago, and that's been working out really well for me so far. The pictures alone are worth a click, and the recipes are always great.
Scrittore Creativo
The Lucy has a blog! She started it in the middle of her MFA and then discovered that blogging consistently during a grad program while also trying to avoid neglecting home and hearth is actually really hard, but now that she is DONE WITH HER MFA HOORAY, she has rebooted the blog. She does really excellent movie reviews, amongst other things, which is great for me since apparently I really like reading movie reviews but never ever going to movies. Yes, it is weird, and no, I cannot explain it. In any case, Lucy also posts about entertainment in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area as well. I can vouch for Lucy's great taste, so this is a great guide.
The Bloggess
I discovered The Bloggess when I read a story about a Christmas miracle that happened on her blog. ...No, really. She was offering 20 $30 gift certificates to people who didn't have money for the holidays, and when they quickly got snapped up, people suddenly started offering to donate as well. $42,000 later, she had coordinated Christmas for hundreds of donors and giftees. How cool is that? I liked her style and kept reading older posts, and man, she is funny. You will laugh your ass off. It's just as valid a workout program as those idiotic balance ball shoes1
*I always think that everyone knows this, yet I always have someone pop up all "ARE YOU CHEATING ON RICH WHAT IS GOING ON" and I have to explain that my marriage is not in fact falling apart. Frank is my trainer, and he is awesome and everyone should go to him because he has some kind of voodoo magic that makes you love him even though he is kind of maybe evil. Also he has a tire you get to hit with a sledgehammer. It is like adult recess except with Frank and Diane supervising and no map tag.
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