I had a hankering for some good old Auntie Anne's pretzels yesterday morning so I somehow convinced my body to get out of bed and head over to the Fairgrounds to satiate that craving. Unfortunately, the place was packed, mobbed, overflowing, etc. with people who were there for a "Train Meet" from what the sign said. I don't even know what a Train Meet is exactly but it prevented me from finding even ONE open parking space so I begrudgingly moved on.
Next stop, Walmart in Trexlertown (the only other "local" Auntie Anne's).
I wasn't inside of Walmart for more than ten minutes when I had already counted ten Nascar jackets. Is it any wonder why the place is on the receiving end of so many redneck jokes? Don't get me wrong, I think some Nascar jackets are even pretty hot and can be pulled off by the right people. However, none of the people I saw were the "right" people (yeah, I'm just gonna leave that one right there).
After years of rooting for teams that I had hardly heard of, I can now, finally, root for my local NBA team because Chris Webber has been traded from the Sacramento Kings to the Philadelphia 76ers. For years, I've followed C.Webb around the league and have tried to root for whatever team he was on, regardless of how bad they were or how little I knew about the team or even the city it was in. This finally became enjoyable in Sac-town and I'm, admittedly, a little sad to see that era pass.
The Kings are / were a fun team to watch and I liked most of the guys on the team. However, it WAS a pain in the ass to stay up until damn near 2:00am just to watch them play on national TV (which wasn't terribly often). I look forward to watching C.Webb at more convenient time and, hell, I'll probably even go down to a game or two now. If AI and C.Webb mesh well, it could be really hot ... only time will tell.
C.Webb (and the Fab-Five) were really the reason I started to root for Michigan football which, for those that know me, has become a huge part of my life when it's college football season.
Now, if I could just get my favorite atheletes in the other major sports to join my local / favorite teams, I'd be set. For those interested, that'd be Barry Sanders coming out of retirement and playing for the Eagles and Tom Glavine making his way to Atlanta (or at least to Philly so I could watch him in person and NOT have to root for, ugh, the Mets of all teams).
My days have been passing by in one continuous blur lately. This will have to stop.
Okay, this is one of those situations where two heads are NOT better than one ... there's a small photo and even a video for those who actually want to see it.
The following link is from CNN, not some supermarket tabloid. Sometimes fact IS stranger than fiction.
Surgeons remove baby's second head
Over the last two days, I spent my time rebuilding a PC whose keyboard did not have any lights on it. So what? Well, for starters, there was no way to know whether the caps or num lock keys were on without actually typing something first. How asinine is that? What genius got that produt to market? I'm flabbergasted.
I think this is a good thing although I will withold outright praise until I see some results.
Now, what I'd really like to stop hearing are economic excuses for depleting natural resources and destroying the environment. Would someone, anyone, from the US take a second and look at the BIG picture. I guess I know why elected officials and are so short-sighted but I still can't stand the general myopia of most governments, especially my own.
Ya know, I think the saying "money doesn't buy happiness" might be true in it's purest form but, honestly, I'm damn near positive that, so far anyway, I've been much happier and easy going when I've had money to cover my bills and expenses. When I don't have the money, I tend to spend most of my free time thinking about how I'm gonna get the money rather than enjoying the things that have been provided with that money.
Don't get me wrong, I don't sit and mope about debt or anything but my once-free thoughts of taking a day off to hit the shore, catch up on some reading, run some errands, detail my car, etc. are now met with resistance by my debt-burdened thoughts. Some might call this "growing up", "maturing" or even "accepting responsibility" but I know that's all bullshit.
I will say this for having debt ... it certainly is a motivator. It helps me look at my employment more than two weeks ahead because I know I need steady income for a lot longer than that to pay off my current debt.
Alright, back to work here ... gotta make some money.
First off, thanks to all those that participated in the music appreciation poll from the 2nd of February. Several people told me they needed more time than usual to answer the poll so I obliged them by not posting anything to distract them since. I feel that the wait has been sufficient so I'm moving on.
I just purchased / read Marvel's hardback collection of the 1602 comic book mini-series. I liked it. Decent art and a decent story usually make for a good comic book. With the names involved in the project (Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert), I expected no less.
What I didn't expect were the individual covers that were, thankfully, included in the collected edition. They were done by Scott McKowen who apparently has a career specializing in theatre posters and graphics for the performing arts. (Luckily for us, that's not all he does or I probably never would have seen his work.)
The covers for 1602 were done in scratchboard, "a medium in which white lines are drawn into a black surface with a sharp knifeblade - making visual reference to popular engravings from the 17th-century setting of the story". Long story short, it was refreshing to see a style that I don't regularly see bombarding everyday media. If you're interested in seeing more of his work, I found this webpage with a quick google for the artist's name.
There's something about the scratchboard work that makes me wonder, "what would I look like in scratchboard"? I'm not sure why, but I do.
Over the last three "seasons" of American Idol, I've been exposed to various "singers" and have always wondered, what the hell people are thinking? I don't watch the show, persay, but several people I know follow it like their worlds depended on it.
But seriously, I've seen enough to get the idea and, while catching five minutes of tonight's show before I fled the premises for the comfort of my own, American-Idol-Free home, I was struck by the desire to help lesser known artists (similar to the kids on American Idol but with actual CD's under their collective belts) get some deserved recognition.
SO, here's the deal ... consider it a poll, if you will. If you could introduce the world, or at least the handful of people that regularly visit this blog, to one artist that you feel has not gotten the recognition that he / she deserves, who would it be? This doesn't have to be an unknown performer either. It could be someone that you feel doesn't get the credit or respect he / she deserves regardless of what success has been acheived in the past.
I know my pronouns were singular above but groups are acceptable too.