Hello,
After watching several episodes of "Men Of A Certain Age", I've noticed a similarity between Freud's id, ego and superego theory. Thanks to wikipedia.org for this dumbed down take on both a great show and Freud's theory. I claim no expertise on Freud or his psychosexual theory. I'm just writing this blog as I noticed the similarities.
So which "Men of A Certain Age" character are you? Here's your choices:
Are you Terry Elliot (Scott Bakula)? He very well represents the id of Freud's theory. The Id operates on what Freud calls "the pleasure principle" (not to be confused with the Janet Jackson song). The Id seeks to avoid pain or things that are unpleasurable. It also wants instant self-gratification. Obviously this is how we are start out as babies and usually what happens the first time we leave the home. This is a stage that we should grow out of fairly quickly. Terry represents the Id with his fear of commitment, his lack of maintaining a job, his constant sexual hook-ups. That may also be one of the reasons that Terry enjoys with women much younger than him. Terry is all about Terry. He chases after those things with seemingly little thought almost laughing at any potential consequences. Obviously Terry has lived a charmed life and he hasn't needed to grow up. I don't care how fun that life choice may seem, it's a dead end.
Terry and the Id are pretty close to being the same. The other two comparisons are a little more problematic. But I'm doing this just for fun, no one should base any life decisions on this.
Are you Joe Tranelli (Ray Romano)? He loosely resembles the ego in Freud's theory. The Ego seeks to please the Id's drive in realistic ways that will benefit itself in the long-term rather than bringing grief. This is where the concept of defense mechanisms also comes in. From wikipedia.org concerning defense mechanisms. (I've cleaned up the writing a bit on the following): "The defense mechanisms aren't done directly or consciously. They lessen the tension by covering up our impulses that are threatening. Ego defense mechanisms are often used by the ego when id behavior conflicts with reality and either society's morals, norms, and taboos or the individuals expectations as a result of the internalisation of these morals, norms, and their taboos." The ego also rationalizes.
Joe is so full of defense mechanisms. He's always checking with his two compatriots on post divorce dating etiquette, what to do when running over a possum etc. Obviously the show plays to this for its humorous aspects. Both he and Owen try to pull Terry out of his id phase. Metaphorically they are the struggling parents to a willful child.
Are you Owen Thoreau Jr. (Andre Braugher)? He loosely resembles the superego in Freud's theory. The Superego aims for perfection and it works in contradiction to the id. It also houses the spiritual goals and conscience (which Freud called psychic agency). "The super ego strives to act in a socially appropriate manner." (Thanks to wikipedia.org) This is also where we learn right or wrong and how to act properly socially. Also the superego contains the idea of the Oedipus complex, one of Freud's most well known ideas.
Owen embodies the Oedipus complex very much as he slowly tries to take over for his father at Thoreau Chevrolet. Metaphorically he's trying to kill his father and prove he's the man that can take over for his Dad. It's only when he truly stepped up did his father begin to turn the dealership over to him.
Obviously the above is flawed, but I thought it was a fun exercise.
I'm so tired of hearing about collective bargaining in relationship to sports. NFL owners have locked out their own players for 106 days now. For a second think about that sentence, the NFL owners have locked out their own players. To me that's so mind boggling. Some people are optimistic that the owners and the NFLPA will reach agreement in two or three weeks. The last I heard the dollar amount separating the two sides is $200 million. Will the lockout hurt the NFL? Maybe a stubbed toe at the most, but no more than that. The NFL stands as the top sport amongst all sports. It reigns supreme and I don't see any sport, or this lockout, seriously threatening it in the next several years.
As soon as tonight the NBA owners may lockout their own players, it's almost certain. If so that will be 2 of the 4 major leagues in lockout. The NBA is considered fairly strong, but certainly not as strong as the NFL. With some people projecting that the entire NBA season may be wiped out, that could really hurt the NBA. It has been in my life-time, in fact the early 80's, the NBA playoffs were shown on tape delay as there was so little interest in it. Then thankfully for the NBA Magic Johnson and Larry Bird entered their prime. That propelled the NBA to the monster it is now. I hope both sides of the NBA don't take their fans for granted. They wouldn't do that would they? Of course.
Although it's still a few months away, there's a possibility that Major League Baseball may have it's own lockout or strike. The MLB collective bargaining expires on December 11th. We may have three pro sports in a work stoppage at the same time. Granted its such an extreme long shot that it's highly likely that will happen. Of course, baseball in 1994 lost its entire postseason due to labor issues. It was the first cancelled postseason since 1904. Not even the Black Sox scandal caused the cancelation of the postseason.
Following 1994's lack of postseason, it was several years for MLB to bounce back to what it has become. That rebound in part was spurred by the epic home run battles of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. Later we found out their prodigious numbers were aided by steroids, but that's for another time. Any sort of work stoppage could be extremely damaging to MLB. I'm hopeful they are smarter than the other two leagues.
Maybe in MLB's next collective bargaining the Red Sox should push for themselves to be excluded from inter league play. The Boston Red Sox continue to struggle with National League teams as they lost to Philadelphia yesterday 2-1. It's probably little consolation Boston lost to the team with MLB's best record. Don't the Phillies have enough phantastic pitchers already? Yesterday Vance Worley (Vance Worley?), pitched 7 strong innings. Worley, filling in for Joe Blanton and Roy Oswalt, goes to 3-1 for the Phillies. Philadelphia has now won the first two games in the three game series with Boston. The Red Sox were so desperate for offense they had David Ortiz, who usually plays designated hitter, play first base. They did that so he could get 4 at bats and not just a lone pinch hit. Unfortunately for the Red Sox that didn't work, Ortiz was 0 for 4 in last night's game.
Thankfully Atlanta won last night to stay within 4.5 games of the Phillies in the NL East. Over their last 10 games Atlanta is 8-2 and Philly is 7-3. Philly and Atlanta have the two best records in the National League. You might be wondering like me, when is the next time that Atlanta and Philadelphia play. Atlanta goes to Philadelphia for a 3 game series from July 8th to 10th. That will end the first half of the season for both teams.
In MLB overall, the teams with the 5 best records overall are 1) Philadelphia 51-30 2) the hated Yankees 47-32 3) Atlanta 47-35 4) Boston 45-34 and 5) San Francisco 46-35. The four best teams in all of MLB are in the AL East and NL East. The defending World Series Champs, the San Francisco Giants, represent the NL West.
A couple of more quick things: has anyone else been having iTunes oddities? Over the last few days in the store section of iTunes occasionally there's been a fourth folder titled Downloads. Both times I clicked on that folder, it said I had songs that were available to download. Both songs were songs that I bought previously and then they disappeared from my iTunes. That was probably due to my changing computers and hard drives. That's part of life with digital music. Has anyone else noticed anything similar?
I love the convenience of digital music, but I don't have a way of backing it up. Even when I did there were complications that came from that. Usually when I lose digital music, it's gone. That's why I usually buy CD's (remember those?). If I lose a song from a CD as I transfer music between hard drives or computers I can always download the songs from the CD again. (Although from a little reading I've done Apple claims when their iTunes in the cloud is fully operational that one can download "past music purchases again at no additional cost. Currently iTunes in the Cloud is in the Beta stage. Hmm.)
An example of me losing digital music, back in April I bought several songs. I had gone to a dance club the night before and was reminded of several great songs that I didn't have. I bought 4 or 5 of those songs. One of the songs that I bought was Lou Bega's "Mambo # 5". I looked for that song last night but for some reason it's no longer on my iTunes. However the other songs I bought at the same time are still on my iTunes. "Mambo #5" is just gone. iTunes is helpfully giving me the chance to buy "Mambo #5" for only 30c if I upgrade to a better quality MP3.
Also the next bookclub selection for themusicaddict's bookclub is Brady Udall's "The Lonely Polygamist". It features a very Don Draperish cover. I will post some questions to get your mental juices flowing either later today or tomorrow.
themusicaddict
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
(Started June 29th, 2011, Revised and Revamped March 10th, 2023) Phantastic Phillies Pitching!, "Transformers 3" reviews
Hello,
I'm not a Phillies phan at all, but I've got to give them a tip of the hat. They have those 4 amazing pitchers, one of whom was simply amazing last night. Cliff Lee pitched a two hit shutout. He has now pitched 3 consecutive shutouts and 32 consecutive scoreless innings. The streak of scoreless innings puts him in some elite company. While Cliff Lee is certainly a fantastic pitcher, thankfully he's also human. He has a very solid 9-5 record, thankfully he does lose occasionally. Philadelphia is now 50-30 on the season. They are playing so well that they lead the 3rd best team in the National League, the Braves, by 4.5 games.
Many people predict that Philadelphia-Boston might be a World Series preview. That's assuming that Philadelphia gets past San Francisco and their very tough pitching staff. Philadelphia beat Boston 5-0 as the Red Sox continue to have difficulty in interleague play. Tonight's game on ESPN will be game two in the Red Sox-Philadelphia series.
Other baseball news before we get to the latest Frank McCourt debacle. Pittsburgh beat the Blue Jays in Toronto last night, that's Pittsburgh's first interleague road win in two years. The Pirates continue to build themselves into a team of the future. At the rate the Pirates are playing, this will be their first above .500 season in 18 years. I don't want to jinx them but is there a chance they can make the playoffs this year.
Seemingly as only the Cubs can do, they were swept in a day night double header. They were outscored by San Francisco 19-10 in the two games. Both of these games were played at Wrigley Field! For this season, the Cubs are now 17-23 at home. I know Mike Quade had some success last season after he took over for Lou Pinella. However the first full year of Mike Quade as the Cubs manager has been a disaster. With some of the malcontents on the team, the Cubs likely will continue to go downhill. The pathetic Cubs are 32-48 and 5th place in the NL Central. They trail first place Milwaukee by 12 games, as well as they trail the 3rd place Pirates by 9 games. The Cubs have only won 3 of their last 10 games. Why do the Cubs suck so much? Other than the culture of losing that's ingrained in that team of course.
Now on to Fiasco Frank's latest failure.
A bankruptcy judge has approved McCourt getting a $150 million "bankruptcy financing arrangement" (loan). The terms of the loan are terrible for the Dodgers. If the money isn't paid back it will only be more bad news for the Dodgers in the long run. McCourt continues to desperately fight to remain owner of the Dodgers. He virtually has no support left in LA. and probably even less in Major League Baseball. LA's attendance is down 375,000 people from last season. They are also $800 million in debt. Those numbers are so completely unfathomable to me. The team is playing poorly, don't be fooled by their 15-0 win over the Twins. That was an anomaly. Listening to Mike and Mike driving to work this morning, a LA radio show host has had an amazing idea. He's urging the great Vin Scully to request on the air that McCourt put the Dodgers up for sale. (Thanks as always to ESPN.com and ESPN radio.)
As a Dodgers fan ownership by MLB, Dennis Gilbert, Mark Cuban or the Steve Garvey-Orel Hershiser group would be a good start to restore some luster to the Dodgers.
Why the holdout Frank? Haven't you done enough damage already? You are only putting off the inevitable and damaging the Dodgers. Tom Hicks as Texas Rangers owner was in a similar situation last year. However he recognized the writing on the wall and turned over the team to MLB. (Frank so there's no doubt: Besides yourself no one wants you to own the Dodgers!) Tom Hicks has now been mostly forgotten by history. He will now probably be most remembered for the disastrous signing of Alex Rodriguez. You know how you'll be remembered Frank if you keep up this slash and burn strategy? As one of the worst owners of a MLB team ever.
ESPN.com named you as the second worst owner EVER yesterday. Is that what you are wanting? Well at least you will be #1 in something.
Once MLB took over the Rangers, they were auctioned off to a team of investors led by the great Nolan Ryan. The Rangers went on to play in the World Series last year. That won't happen for the Dodgers, their team just has too little talent. However now is the time to prepare to go back to the World Series. It doesn't matter who the owner of the Dodgers is now, the only way LA goes the World Series is if they buy tickets.
Today is Day 105 of the NFL Lockout, it sounds like negotiations are promising. However I wouldn't hold my breath. As long as both sides remain greedy, any agreement will be slow in coming. Although there are still 3 more days of negotiations in Minneapolis.
I watched the movie "Catfish" the other day. It's about a relationship that developed between two groups of people via facebook.com. One group of people lived in New York and the other group of people lived in Michigan. The movie is the journey of these people meeting in reality after getting to know each other online. One group of people weren't what they said they were. As we slowly discover the truth, it's a peek into why people lie. It's a very sad story. I would say you should check it out, it's an okay movie. The thing I take away is how people use the internet to escape who they are. That's obviously not a good thing and is very unhealthy. I love modern technology, but it seems to divide people more than bring people together.
I also watched the pilot of "Fringe". I'm sort of a sci fi geek and I had planned watching this show when it debuted. For some reason I didn't though. After spending a couple of hours with this show, it's not terrible. The episodes seem to have a sameness to them and the episodes tend to run on too long. They run out of story before the show ends. I like the three main characters, however I'm not sure what to think about Walter.
I'll probably eventually watch all the episodes. I still need to watch the rest of "Battlestar Galactica" as well.
Thanks to the fine folks at TNT and Comcast On Demand, most if not all of the first season of "Men Of A Certain Age" is now available. This show is truly charming and delightful. Although the characters tend to be a few years older than me, I relate with many of the things they are going through. I relate with Joe's holding on to a marriage that everyone else can see is clearly over. I relate with Owen's desire to get into better shape and fully realize his potential as a man. I understand Terry's frustrations with jobs and struggling to find his place in the world.
I know you are wondering how can that show be delightful? It's due to great storytelling and a great sense-of-humor. The characters are very likable and I started pulling for them.
We see Joe struggle with what to do after he hit a possum with his truck. We feel his anxiety in trying to determine what's the right thing to do. With "Men of A Certain Age's" great sense-of-humor I laughed at his enlisting his bookie to help find out what happened to the possum. I've watched a lot of season two, it's good to see how these characters change from the pilot. The changes feel very truthful.
Early reviews are in for the "Transformers 3" movie. EW gives it a B grade, while Salt Lake Tribune movie reviewer Sean Means gave it 1 star. Means' review is ruthless in documenting all the ways and why this movie is so bad. Having not seen the movie, my prediction is my grade would fall closer to Means' grade than the grade of EW. The other thing that scares me about the movie is the 2.5 hour running time, highlighted by what Means calls a "bruising" 45 minute finale. The only thing worse than a bad movie is a long bad movie. I wish people would boycott this kind of crap movie. When story becomes secondary, quality goes downhill. (Full disclosure, I'm sure I'll have to take my kids to see this movie.)
Also Megan Fox is 100 times better looking than the Megan wanna be in this sequel.
Let's go back to the 80's for a brief moment. One of the best movies of the 80's was "Top Gun". (I'm not sure how well it would hold up now.) Now this is a show that has a lot of action in it. However there's a foundation of story that has a nice mix of humor, heart and action. There's a realness about the characters. I was amazed by all the great fighter pilot scenes. Those same scenes from the bland "Green Lantern" owe a debt to "Top Gun". Also those scenes were the best part of "Green Lantern". Movies like "Transformers 3" have a lot of action, but it seems it's meant to hide the complete lack of story. Not all modern action movies are as bad as the brain dead "Transformers" trilogy. For instance, surprisingly I quite enjoyed "Fast Five". There was a very good story and the action fit in with the story.
Great songs of the day:
From "Top Gun" the amazing Kenny Loggins song "Danger Zone:
Another great song from "Top Gun", Berlin's "Take My Breath Away":
I hadn't seen this video until today. In a decade full of crazy videos this has to be one of the craziest. This video is absolutely bizarre. Oingo Boingo "Nothing Bad Ever Happens To Me":
If you've read this blog more than once, you know that I'm a nerd. I have to admit that back in the day I loved Lionel Richie. Here's one of my favorite songs of his. "Say You, Say Me":
Phil Collins "Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)":
Yes, I know I'm old and probably overly sentimental, but this song is such a powerful song. One of the best 80s songs. Irene Cara "Flashdance (What A Feeling)":
Possibly the most under appreciated band of the late 70s/early 80's, The Knack "My Sharona":
"Heartbeat":
"Your Number or Your Name":
Along with the song above Oingo Boingo is another vastly underrated band of the 80's. "Only A Lad":
"Not My Slave":
"No Spill Blood":
"Weird Science":
themusicaddict
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
USA! USA!, NFL You Can Continue Lockout (We'll find something else to do.)
Hello,
The Women's World Cup kicked off today for the United States, the USA won 2-0 over a tough North Korea PRK team. The USA gets a big victory on it's way towards hopefully getting to the final 16. At that point it's elimination games. The group round games can end in ties, but obviously the elimination games can't. The USA has two more matches in the group round, if they win one of their final two they'll probably advance to the Round of 16.
Thanks to wikipedia.org this is the format of the FIFA Women's World Cup: "The competition takes place over the course of three weeks. In the group stage, 16 teams seeded into four groups (A,B,C,D) compete against each other in a round-robin tournament. In the knockout phase, the top two teams from each group advance to the quarterfinals, a single-elimination tournament in which teams play each other in one-off matches, with extra time and penalty shootouts used to decide the winner if necessary. The winner of Group A plays the runner-up of Group B, The winner of Group B plays the runner-up of Group A, etc.
The winners of the four quarterfinal games move on to the semifinal matches, which determine the contestants for the championship game. The losing semifinalists compete to determine third place."
The United States, Sweden, Colombia and North Korea are the 4 teams in Group C. On July 2nd, this Saturday, the USA plays Colombia at 12:00pm ET. Colombia lost to Sweden 1-0 earlier today. The USA then plays against Sweden on July 6th. In all likelihood by that point, the USA and Sweden and will probably have wrapped up their places in the knockout round. That game may be nothing more than a spirited practice. However if for no other reason, this game will feature two countries that have some of the most beautiful women in the world.
The name of the this blog is themusicaddict blog. Originally my goal was to write mostly about music and other entertainment. However I absolutely love sports. I love the passion, the competition and the dramatic stories that come from that. However my coverage of sports has probably overwhelmed my coverage of music. While I'll continue to cover sports, I'm going to try and tip the balance back to more of a music blog.
Having said that, um Frank McCourt is back in the news again. A judge is going to rule today whether the Dodgers will be able to go into bankruptcy. In something that will shock no one, MLB thinks that the Dodgers going into bankruptcy is a bad idea.
Somehow the players have been able to concentrate on their games. Although the club is not very healthy financially, the players don't have to worry about whether they are going to get paid or not. If McCourt can't cover their June 30th payroll, in all likelihood MLB will step in and cover the payroll. Still with so much uncertainty surrounding the team, it's hard to see how the Dodgers players can completely focus on the games. Somehow they've been able to.
With this teams lineup, they probably weren't going to make the playoffs. So their less than mediocre play should surprise no one. However they've now won two games in a row, including yesterday's game 15-0. Obviously that's fools good, but it's good to see the Dodgers have a break out game like that. The Dodgers finished with 25 hits and they were led by Matt Kemp (who else?). He had 4 more hits, 2 more RBIs and one more home run. He now has 62 RBIs and 22 home runs on the season. If he was actually playing for a good team, he would be an early favorite for MVP. But then again I'd hate to see how bad the Dodgers would be if they didn't have Matt Kemp.
There are all these other sports related things going on, but I'll spare you for the most part. The NFL and the NFL Players Association are meeting in the Minneapolis area for 4 straight days of negotiations. According to espn.com: "NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith met for labor talks in Minnesota on Tuesday without players or owners present". It seems the sides are getting closer together on a deal, but nothing is certain at this point. Some people are projecting about July 15th will be the cut off point for when there will be games lost. Even if both sides reach a deal, there are still a lot of things to do before they can start playing games. There are still court cases to work through, signing rookies and free agents etc.
Again I maintain my lockout thoughts. I hope there are games missed, both sides of this lockout need to be humbled. They need to see that people can live without them very easily. With no NFL, it won't change my life a whole lot. I'll find something else to do on Sunday afternoons and write about different things in my blog. I will focus on things that are much more important. Actually my life might be better without the NFL. Also there will be the superior product of college football around.
Meanwhile on July 1st, the NBA owners will probably officially lockout the players. It seems the NBA's lockout actually might be longer than the NFL lockout. In the NBA the two sides are seemingly even further apart than in the NFL. It would be too bad to waste one of the best NBA playoffs in a long time. But again when greed is your #1 deciding factor, maybe a lockout wouldn't be so bad.
After those amazing playoffs I'm excited about NBA basketball again. I was even looking forward to watching some Jazz games! I'm still a huge Jazz fan, but I've lost a lot of enthusiasm for them over the last few years. From players who have constant injury problems to not putting a very competitive team on the floor, to the sameness of the way the team played for so many years. Who knows what a lockout will do to my enthusiasm? Obviously I'm not going to gain excitement for a league who cares so little they aren't even playing.
I watched "Catfish" and the first two episodes of "Fringe" last night. I'll probably write about both of those things, but I'm going to let my thoughts marinate. Tonight is the finale of "The Voice". I haven't watched any of the episodes and probably won't watch the finale tonight. However I hear one of the 4 finalists is a fellow Utahan. That's Dia Frampton from St. George, Utah.
Here's her singing the Kanye West song, "Heartless". Of course Kris Allen used this same song to propel his way to an "American Idol" victory. I'm not a big Kris Allen fan, but his version of that song was simply amazing. Frampton's version isn't quite as good.
I'm not a big fan of this song, but here Frampton is singing Christina Perri's "Jar of Hearts":
The following comment was sent to me via e-mail. The commenter had trouble sending a comment as they didn't want to sign up for a blogger account. Can't blame them for that. I used to have my e-mail address on my blog, but I started getting advertisements. So I deleted my e-mail address from my blog. If you want to e-mail me a comment, here's my e-mail address:
ichoosetobecougarblue@yahoo.com. You can also continue to comment the usual way. Typically one blogger.com user comments on other blogger.com accounts.
Before I add other videos, I'd like to respond to a comment about my blog that was e-mailed to me. This is the comment verbatim: "We actually thought "No Strings Attached" was pretty good. Should it win some awards? Absolutely not. But it gave us exactly what we expected and wanted from it. One of the many things i love about Natalie Portman is that she doesn't take her self too seriously and is willing to do different types of roles.
From what i have seen about Johnny Depp, he seems like a pretty good guy and unlike many others in the entertainment industry doesn't seem to be motivated purely by money."
I understand "No Strings Attached" is a movie that gives you what you expect. That's how "Bad Teacher" was for me. With "No Strings Attached" though it's just a mediocre movie at best. As to the comments about Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp, my complaint had nothing to do with them. Natalie Portman is one of my all-time favorite actresses. I loved her in "V for Vendetta" and many other movies. I also think Johnny Depp is one of our best actors working. However he's been in some terrible movies, I didn't even mention "The Tourist". My comment is more towards the crap that Hollywood rolls out each year, the actors can only act in movies that are made. The blame goes to Hollywood, not the actors.
Here's some songs:
I'm going to go to "Electric Avenue", won't you join me?
The following song is so good and catchy, explaining why it's on my iPod over 20 years after it was released. Robert Palmer is "Simply Irresistible":
I don't think anyone will have an "Objection" to a tango with Shakira:
Now it's time for some religion, here's INXS preaching about "Original Sin":
Kiss' "Detroit Rock City":
This is one of those songs I listen to and think I'll probably like it. The song gets to its amazing second half. At that point I completely give in to the charms of this song. This is Arcade Fire's "No Cars Go":
themusicaddict
The Women's World Cup kicked off today for the United States, the USA won 2-0 over a tough North Korea PRK team. The USA gets a big victory on it's way towards hopefully getting to the final 16. At that point it's elimination games. The group round games can end in ties, but obviously the elimination games can't. The USA has two more matches in the group round, if they win one of their final two they'll probably advance to the Round of 16.
Thanks to wikipedia.org this is the format of the FIFA Women's World Cup: "The competition takes place over the course of three weeks. In the group stage, 16 teams seeded into four groups (A,B,C,D) compete against each other in a round-robin tournament. In the knockout phase, the top two teams from each group advance to the quarterfinals, a single-elimination tournament in which teams play each other in one-off matches, with extra time and penalty shootouts used to decide the winner if necessary. The winner of Group A plays the runner-up of Group B, The winner of Group B plays the runner-up of Group A, etc.
The winners of the four quarterfinal games move on to the semifinal matches, which determine the contestants for the championship game. The losing semifinalists compete to determine third place."
The United States, Sweden, Colombia and North Korea are the 4 teams in Group C. On July 2nd, this Saturday, the USA plays Colombia at 12:00pm ET. Colombia lost to Sweden 1-0 earlier today. The USA then plays against Sweden on July 6th. In all likelihood by that point, the USA and Sweden and will probably have wrapped up their places in the knockout round. That game may be nothing more than a spirited practice. However if for no other reason, this game will feature two countries that have some of the most beautiful women in the world.
The name of the this blog is themusicaddict blog. Originally my goal was to write mostly about music and other entertainment. However I absolutely love sports. I love the passion, the competition and the dramatic stories that come from that. However my coverage of sports has probably overwhelmed my coverage of music. While I'll continue to cover sports, I'm going to try and tip the balance back to more of a music blog.
Having said that, um Frank McCourt is back in the news again. A judge is going to rule today whether the Dodgers will be able to go into bankruptcy. In something that will shock no one, MLB thinks that the Dodgers going into bankruptcy is a bad idea.
Somehow the players have been able to concentrate on their games. Although the club is not very healthy financially, the players don't have to worry about whether they are going to get paid or not. If McCourt can't cover their June 30th payroll, in all likelihood MLB will step in and cover the payroll. Still with so much uncertainty surrounding the team, it's hard to see how the Dodgers players can completely focus on the games. Somehow they've been able to.
With this teams lineup, they probably weren't going to make the playoffs. So their less than mediocre play should surprise no one. However they've now won two games in a row, including yesterday's game 15-0. Obviously that's fools good, but it's good to see the Dodgers have a break out game like that. The Dodgers finished with 25 hits and they were led by Matt Kemp (who else?). He had 4 more hits, 2 more RBIs and one more home run. He now has 62 RBIs and 22 home runs on the season. If he was actually playing for a good team, he would be an early favorite for MVP. But then again I'd hate to see how bad the Dodgers would be if they didn't have Matt Kemp.
There are all these other sports related things going on, but I'll spare you for the most part. The NFL and the NFL Players Association are meeting in the Minneapolis area for 4 straight days of negotiations. According to espn.com: "NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith met for labor talks in Minnesota on Tuesday without players or owners present". It seems the sides are getting closer together on a deal, but nothing is certain at this point. Some people are projecting about July 15th will be the cut off point for when there will be games lost. Even if both sides reach a deal, there are still a lot of things to do before they can start playing games. There are still court cases to work through, signing rookies and free agents etc.
Again I maintain my lockout thoughts. I hope there are games missed, both sides of this lockout need to be humbled. They need to see that people can live without them very easily. With no NFL, it won't change my life a whole lot. I'll find something else to do on Sunday afternoons and write about different things in my blog. I will focus on things that are much more important. Actually my life might be better without the NFL. Also there will be the superior product of college football around.
Meanwhile on July 1st, the NBA owners will probably officially lockout the players. It seems the NBA's lockout actually might be longer than the NFL lockout. In the NBA the two sides are seemingly even further apart than in the NFL. It would be too bad to waste one of the best NBA playoffs in a long time. But again when greed is your #1 deciding factor, maybe a lockout wouldn't be so bad.
After those amazing playoffs I'm excited about NBA basketball again. I was even looking forward to watching some Jazz games! I'm still a huge Jazz fan, but I've lost a lot of enthusiasm for them over the last few years. From players who have constant injury problems to not putting a very competitive team on the floor, to the sameness of the way the team played for so many years. Who knows what a lockout will do to my enthusiasm? Obviously I'm not going to gain excitement for a league who cares so little they aren't even playing.
I watched "Catfish" and the first two episodes of "Fringe" last night. I'll probably write about both of those things, but I'm going to let my thoughts marinate. Tonight is the finale of "The Voice". I haven't watched any of the episodes and probably won't watch the finale tonight. However I hear one of the 4 finalists is a fellow Utahan. That's Dia Frampton from St. George, Utah.
Here's her singing the Kanye West song, "Heartless". Of course Kris Allen used this same song to propel his way to an "American Idol" victory. I'm not a big Kris Allen fan, but his version of that song was simply amazing. Frampton's version isn't quite as good.
I'm not a big fan of this song, but here Frampton is singing Christina Perri's "Jar of Hearts":
The following comment was sent to me via e-mail. The commenter had trouble sending a comment as they didn't want to sign up for a blogger account. Can't blame them for that. I used to have my e-mail address on my blog, but I started getting advertisements. So I deleted my e-mail address from my blog. If you want to e-mail me a comment, here's my e-mail address:
ichoosetobecougarblue@yahoo.com. You can also continue to comment the usual way. Typically one blogger.com user comments on other blogger.com accounts.
Before I add other videos, I'd like to respond to a comment about my blog that was e-mailed to me. This is the comment verbatim: "We actually thought "No Strings Attached" was pretty good. Should it win some awards? Absolutely not. But it gave us exactly what we expected and wanted from it. One of the many things i love about Natalie Portman is that she doesn't take her self too seriously and is willing to do different types of roles.
From what i have seen about Johnny Depp, he seems like a pretty good guy and unlike many others in the entertainment industry doesn't seem to be motivated purely by money."
I understand "No Strings Attached" is a movie that gives you what you expect. That's how "Bad Teacher" was for me. With "No Strings Attached" though it's just a mediocre movie at best. As to the comments about Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp, my complaint had nothing to do with them. Natalie Portman is one of my all-time favorite actresses. I loved her in "V for Vendetta" and many other movies. I also think Johnny Depp is one of our best actors working. However he's been in some terrible movies, I didn't even mention "The Tourist". My comment is more towards the crap that Hollywood rolls out each year, the actors can only act in movies that are made. The blame goes to Hollywood, not the actors.
Here's some songs:
I'm going to go to "Electric Avenue", won't you join me?
The following song is so good and catchy, explaining why it's on my iPod over 20 years after it was released. Robert Palmer is "Simply Irresistible":
I don't think anyone will have an "Objection" to a tango with Shakira:
Now it's time for some religion, here's INXS preaching about "Original Sin":
Kiss' "Detroit Rock City":
This is one of those songs I listen to and think I'll probably like it. The song gets to its amazing second half. At that point I completely give in to the charms of this song. This is Arcade Fire's "No Cars Go":
themusicaddict
Monday, June 27, 2011
McCourt strikes again, "Falling Skies", 2011: Year of the Crappy Movies, Great Songs
Hello,
Let's start off with something good. Remember to cheer for your USA Women's Soccer team tomorrow. They are playing South Korea at 12:15 p.m. ET. I'm at work so please cheer for me. I should be able to watch Saturday's match at 12:00 ET. You can bet I'll have plenty of opinions about how the USA women perform.
Just when I thought the Dodgers situation couldn't get any stranger or more bizarre, what happens? The McCourt strikes again. I think Frank McCourt should just change his last name to Court, with how much he's there. The Dodgers have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a Delaware court. Sarcasm alert: And in his normally classy manner he's blaming Bud Selig for his problems. Bud Selig made you borrow $100 million from the Dodgers to finance your lavish lifestyle? Bud was the cause of your divorce? Selig wouldn't let you leverage the Dodgers future for your corrupt and greedy personal gain? Seriously Frank you've got to go away.
I 100% agree with Bud Selig in denying the Dodgers the ability to sign the $3 billion TV contract with Fox. That's obviously an attempt by McCourt to continue to run the Dodgers into the ground, um I meant keep the Dodgers. It's also his way to finalize his divorce. He tried to finalize his divorce and get needed cash flow in the proposed Fox contract. In that contract with Fox $385 million dollars was going directly to McCourt. Of the $385 million do you realize $173 million, nearly 45%, of that money was suppose to go to Jamie McCourt? I can't even fathom $173 million. That $173 million could go to sign some players so that Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw don't have to go it seemingly alone.
I can't fathom all these large amounts of money that are being thrown around, to me $10,000 is a big lump of money. One thing I can fathom is how much damage is being done to the Dodgers while McCourt drags this worthless legal process out.
Many legal experts think this is a ploy by McCourt so that MLB won't be able to seize the Dodgers this week. McCourt next owes payroll on June 30th. Once McCourt can't cover salary on Thursday, then many think that MLB will take over the Dodgers. By filing for bankruptcy, he's hoping to impede MLB's plans. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy also frees up $150 million for "daily operation and buys time". That would be consistent with McCourt's behavior up to this point. He has no love for the Dodgers other than a way to enhance his image. Which of course he's failing spectacularly at. (Thanks as always to espn.com.)
Last night was another new episode of "Falling Skies". It was a good episode, but not up to the first two hours of the series. The first two hours of this show did set a rather high bar. "Falling Skies" is falling a bit into "The Killing" territory with lazy storytelling. For instance, Mason leading a group of the resistance to be able to get his son back. While they were surveying the situation, one of his team accidentally knocks a brick to the ground. Of course that brick just happens to be loose. That draws the attention and shooting of a mech. However the resistance fighters run away and the mechs don't chase? These aliens who've been mercilessly wiping out humans now give up so easily? It just doesn't ring true.
Although "Falling Skies" is still more intelligent than "The Killing". At this point any comparison is premature. Two or three days after an episode when I'm thinking about "Falling Skies" I'm trying to figure out all the intriguing mysteries. I love a work of entertainment that makes me think. I have some questions. It seems neither the mechs or the skitters have the flexibility to put the harness on the kids, so who's doing that? It looks like that kind of work would require human or equally flexible hands. Or do the harnesses embed themselves someway into the kids?
Other questions: Why are the mechs having the harness kids round up scrap metal? It seems it might be more efficient to have other mechs do it. Does that go back to the flexibility of the human hand? When are Mason and Anne going to get together, she's already is taking over as a surrogate mother for his kids. Between the mechs and the skitters, who's really in charge? After thinking originally the mechs were in charge, now I think the skitters are in charge. The skitters directed a mech to kill that group of kids. I predict the harness turns the kids into more skitters. Finally, is there anyway the humans can divide and conquer the mechs from the skitters?
Although last night's show wasn't up to the quality of it's first two hours, it was still enjoyable. The characters are likable from Noah Wyle as Mason to the characters of Anne, Pope and the other resistance fighters. (It makes me realize was there one likable character in all of "The Killing"? I could relate to both Linden and Holder, but they aren't the most likable characters.) I like how this show has set up several mysteries to solve. See above. I just don't want it to be like "The Killing" in that we have all these stray story lines that go nowhere. For instance, Linden is really haunted by a past case and is reliving some of her obsessive behaviors from that first case. Then we hardly hear about the case anymore. To the creative people behind "Falling Skies" please stay away from that lazy storytelling. Please!
Many people's biggest criticism of "Falling Skies" is the crazy amount of commercials in it. Well duh that's why you have a DVR. I barely notice the commercials as I skip through them. Not that even if I see the commercials, I remember what they are for. Also some greedy companies are disabling fast forwarding through Comcast On Demand shows, to no one's surprise Fox is one of the companies doing that.
Coming to movie theatres this Friday is another piece of crap. Michael Bay's sure to be awful "Tranformers 3: The Continuing Crap". (I'm not sure if that's the correct subtitle.) It will be foisted on a hormonally driven teenage public. I suggest it's time to start boycotting these type of action trumps everything movies. For instance, the action trumps common sense, story, good taste etc. I'm all for a fun popcorn flick, but is it too much to ask for a story and some intelligience. Or at least don't insult my intelligience.
This has been an awful year for movies. Some of the horrendous movies I've seen this year that have made me regret spending my time and money. "Unknown", "Hoodwinked 2", "The Green Hornet" (which was particularly awful), "Green Lantern", "Judy and the Non-Bummer Summer". There's also "Pirates of the Caribbean 38: Making Johnny Depp Richer" or whatever number of sequel it is now. We also have "No Strings Attached", "Rango: Johnny D Don't You Have Enough Money Yet?", "Kung Fu Panda 2", "Gnomeo and Juliet"- another horrendously bad movie.
Upcoming craptastic looking movies include: "Cowboys and Aliens" (that could go either way), "The Smurfs" (really?), "Breaking Dawn, Part 1" (it looks like it might be this years most unintentionally funny movie), and "Apollo 18" Then there's "Conan The Barbarian". Shouldn't it's tagline be "Lots of sex and violence, no story to complicate things"? A couple of other movies that could go either way are "Captain America" and "Rise of the Planet Of The Apes". Although if I was a betting many I'd bet on those last two movies sucking.
I've been smart enough to skip some of these other crappy movies. An obvious rule of thumb: if the trailer is terrible, how can the movie be good? Terrible movies I've missed and possible subtitles: "Drive Angry: Think Stupid", "Arthur: Another 80's Remake?", "Hanna: Why Did We Even Make This?", "The Rite: The Wrong?", "The Roommate: Vacancy Please", "Your Highness: Natalie Do You Really Need Money That Bad?" and least but not last "Season Of The Witch: Dumb Squared".
It's sad when one of the more entertaining movies of the year is a Justin Bieber concert film "Never Say Never". Also looking back on this year, "Furious Five" was a lot better than it had any right to be, it might be on my year end Top Ten. Excluding "Saving Private Ryan", did you ever think you'd see Vin Deisel and top ten film in the same sentence? This year has been so bad, I've set a personal record for falling asleep in movies.
I'd like to dedicate this song to Scotty McDreary. This is someone who has much more talent, Nelly Furtado, her song "One Trick Pony":
Counting Crows: "Sullivan Street":
Martika's incredibly danceable "I Feel The Earth Move":
Ellie Goulding's "Guns and Horses":
Eurythmics "Would I Lie To You":
Jessie J's "Price Tag":
Last but not least, Soundgarden's "Spoon Man":
themusicaddict
Let's start off with something good. Remember to cheer for your USA Women's Soccer team tomorrow. They are playing South Korea at 12:15 p.m. ET. I'm at work so please cheer for me. I should be able to watch Saturday's match at 12:00 ET. You can bet I'll have plenty of opinions about how the USA women perform.
Just when I thought the Dodgers situation couldn't get any stranger or more bizarre, what happens? The McCourt strikes again. I think Frank McCourt should just change his last name to Court, with how much he's there. The Dodgers have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a Delaware court. Sarcasm alert: And in his normally classy manner he's blaming Bud Selig for his problems. Bud Selig made you borrow $100 million from the Dodgers to finance your lavish lifestyle? Bud was the cause of your divorce? Selig wouldn't let you leverage the Dodgers future for your corrupt and greedy personal gain? Seriously Frank you've got to go away.
I 100% agree with Bud Selig in denying the Dodgers the ability to sign the $3 billion TV contract with Fox. That's obviously an attempt by McCourt to continue to run the Dodgers into the ground, um I meant keep the Dodgers. It's also his way to finalize his divorce. He tried to finalize his divorce and get needed cash flow in the proposed Fox contract. In that contract with Fox $385 million dollars was going directly to McCourt. Of the $385 million do you realize $173 million, nearly 45%, of that money was suppose to go to Jamie McCourt? I can't even fathom $173 million. That $173 million could go to sign some players so that Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw don't have to go it seemingly alone.
I can't fathom all these large amounts of money that are being thrown around, to me $10,000 is a big lump of money. One thing I can fathom is how much damage is being done to the Dodgers while McCourt drags this worthless legal process out.
Many legal experts think this is a ploy by McCourt so that MLB won't be able to seize the Dodgers this week. McCourt next owes payroll on June 30th. Once McCourt can't cover salary on Thursday, then many think that MLB will take over the Dodgers. By filing for bankruptcy, he's hoping to impede MLB's plans. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy also frees up $150 million for "daily operation and buys time". That would be consistent with McCourt's behavior up to this point. He has no love for the Dodgers other than a way to enhance his image. Which of course he's failing spectacularly at. (Thanks as always to espn.com.)
Last night was another new episode of "Falling Skies". It was a good episode, but not up to the first two hours of the series. The first two hours of this show did set a rather high bar. "Falling Skies" is falling a bit into "The Killing" territory with lazy storytelling. For instance, Mason leading a group of the resistance to be able to get his son back. While they were surveying the situation, one of his team accidentally knocks a brick to the ground. Of course that brick just happens to be loose. That draws the attention and shooting of a mech. However the resistance fighters run away and the mechs don't chase? These aliens who've been mercilessly wiping out humans now give up so easily? It just doesn't ring true.
Although "Falling Skies" is still more intelligent than "The Killing". At this point any comparison is premature. Two or three days after an episode when I'm thinking about "Falling Skies" I'm trying to figure out all the intriguing mysteries. I love a work of entertainment that makes me think. I have some questions. It seems neither the mechs or the skitters have the flexibility to put the harness on the kids, so who's doing that? It looks like that kind of work would require human or equally flexible hands. Or do the harnesses embed themselves someway into the kids?
Other questions: Why are the mechs having the harness kids round up scrap metal? It seems it might be more efficient to have other mechs do it. Does that go back to the flexibility of the human hand? When are Mason and Anne going to get together, she's already is taking over as a surrogate mother for his kids. Between the mechs and the skitters, who's really in charge? After thinking originally the mechs were in charge, now I think the skitters are in charge. The skitters directed a mech to kill that group of kids. I predict the harness turns the kids into more skitters. Finally, is there anyway the humans can divide and conquer the mechs from the skitters?
Although last night's show wasn't up to the quality of it's first two hours, it was still enjoyable. The characters are likable from Noah Wyle as Mason to the characters of Anne, Pope and the other resistance fighters. (It makes me realize was there one likable character in all of "The Killing"? I could relate to both Linden and Holder, but they aren't the most likable characters.) I like how this show has set up several mysteries to solve. See above. I just don't want it to be like "The Killing" in that we have all these stray story lines that go nowhere. For instance, Linden is really haunted by a past case and is reliving some of her obsessive behaviors from that first case. Then we hardly hear about the case anymore. To the creative people behind "Falling Skies" please stay away from that lazy storytelling. Please!
Many people's biggest criticism of "Falling Skies" is the crazy amount of commercials in it. Well duh that's why you have a DVR. I barely notice the commercials as I skip through them. Not that even if I see the commercials, I remember what they are for. Also some greedy companies are disabling fast forwarding through Comcast On Demand shows, to no one's surprise Fox is one of the companies doing that.
Coming to movie theatres this Friday is another piece of crap. Michael Bay's sure to be awful "Tranformers 3: The Continuing Crap". (I'm not sure if that's the correct subtitle.) It will be foisted on a hormonally driven teenage public. I suggest it's time to start boycotting these type of action trumps everything movies. For instance, the action trumps common sense, story, good taste etc. I'm all for a fun popcorn flick, but is it too much to ask for a story and some intelligience. Or at least don't insult my intelligience.
This has been an awful year for movies. Some of the horrendous movies I've seen this year that have made me regret spending my time and money. "Unknown", "Hoodwinked 2", "The Green Hornet" (which was particularly awful), "Green Lantern", "Judy and the Non-Bummer Summer". There's also "Pirates of the Caribbean 38: Making Johnny Depp Richer" or whatever number of sequel it is now. We also have "No Strings Attached", "Rango: Johnny D Don't You Have Enough Money Yet?", "Kung Fu Panda 2", "Gnomeo and Juliet"- another horrendously bad movie.
Upcoming craptastic looking movies include: "Cowboys and Aliens" (that could go either way), "The Smurfs" (really?), "Breaking Dawn, Part 1" (it looks like it might be this years most unintentionally funny movie), and "Apollo 18" Then there's "Conan The Barbarian". Shouldn't it's tagline be "Lots of sex and violence, no story to complicate things"? A couple of other movies that could go either way are "Captain America" and "Rise of the Planet Of The Apes". Although if I was a betting many I'd bet on those last two movies sucking.
I've been smart enough to skip some of these other crappy movies. An obvious rule of thumb: if the trailer is terrible, how can the movie be good? Terrible movies I've missed and possible subtitles: "Drive Angry: Think Stupid", "Arthur: Another 80's Remake?", "Hanna: Why Did We Even Make This?", "The Rite: The Wrong?", "The Roommate: Vacancy Please", "Your Highness: Natalie Do You Really Need Money That Bad?" and least but not last "Season Of The Witch: Dumb Squared".
It's sad when one of the more entertaining movies of the year is a Justin Bieber concert film "Never Say Never". Also looking back on this year, "Furious Five" was a lot better than it had any right to be, it might be on my year end Top Ten. Excluding "Saving Private Ryan", did you ever think you'd see Vin Deisel and top ten film in the same sentence? This year has been so bad, I've set a personal record for falling asleep in movies.
I'd like to dedicate this song to Scotty McDreary. This is someone who has much more talent, Nelly Furtado, her song "One Trick Pony":
Counting Crows: "Sullivan Street":
Martika's incredibly danceable "I Feel The Earth Move":
Ellie Goulding's "Guns and Horses":
Eurythmics "Would I Lie To You":
Jessie J's "Price Tag":
Last but not least, Soundgarden's "Spoon Man":
themusicaddict
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Absolute Disgust! Dodgers and USA Men's Soccer
Hello,
It seems Charlie Brown will never kick the football, that I'll never marry Jennifer Aniston or that the US Men's Soccer team will ever break through mediocrity. Yes, I'm writing about yesterday's disastrous Gold Cup Final. I admit I know very little about soccer. But I've watched probably hundreds of soccer matches in my life. So I know enough to see who was the better team yesterday, but that was blatantly obvious. There's absolutely no doubt that Mexico is better by a long ways. I was hopeful that this might be a breakthrough win for the USA when they went up 2-0. As a USA Men's Soccer fan I thought I'd seen a breakthrough win many times. Unfortunately and again yesterday wasn't the day of that breakthrough. Although that was a great assist by Clint Dempsey which led to that beautiful goal by Landon Donovan.
I thought that the USA might pack it in on the defensive end to get the victory. Instead the USA just stopped playing defense. As with most soccer matches, possession is the name of the game. Mexico dominated possession throughout including missing many early chances. Once the match was tied at 2, I was very nervous about the USA's chances to win. Once Mexico scored the third goal, I was all but sure the match was over. At that point I disgustingly stopped watching as the USA choked again. Embarrassing!
Hopefully the USA women can redeem USA Soccer in the Women's World Cup. It will be difficult for them or anyone else to get past host nation Germany. Germany is the two time defending champ and won their first match today 2-1.
I'm also absolutely disgusted with the state of the LA Dodgers organization. The longer Frank McCourt owns the team, the longer it's going to take to clean up his mess. Hopefully he won't be able to cover June 30th's payroll and that will be the beginning of the end.
One of McCourt's chief weasels, Steve Soboroff, apologist and yes man quit yesterday. He was hired this past spring to be in charge of the fan experience at Dodger Stadium. In fact, he was hired "one day before MLB took over the team and eventually sent in Tom Schieffer to oversee the club's finances". (Thanks to espn.com) The rats continue to flee the Titanic with Captain McCourt driving the Dodgers to the bottom.
On the field the Dodgers were equally dismal, at Dodger Stadium they lost to the cross town Angels 6-1. The key point was when Matt Kemp was ejected in the bottom of the fifth inning for arguing balls and strikes with the home plate umpire. With him ejected, approximately 30% of their offense left the game. Ironically the Dodgers scored their only run right after Kemp was ejected. Ultimately that was their only run in their latest pasting.
How bad is it for the Dodgers? They've lost 3 straight and 8 of 11 games. LA is 10 games below .500. They are probably out of any kind of playoff contention unless MLB decides to let all teams into the playoffs. In their last 13 games at Dodger Stadium the Angels have won 10 of those. These are games played at Dodger Stadium! Other than Matt Kemp, they don't have a reliable bat. Their offense is inept and so is most of their starting pitching. I'm thankful Clayton Kershaw pitches for the Dodgers today, he's been their only consistently good pitcher. Maybe he can drive in a couple of runs today and get the win. After 8 innings in today's game the Dodgers have exploded for one run. Kershaw is pitching a two-hitter at this point. He was the one that had a hit and got him on base and Tony Gwynn tripled to drive him in to tie the game at 1. The Dodgers went on to earn a meaningless win, they now have a one game winning streak. They are on fire! Not!
McCourt if you really want to improve the fan experience at Dodgers Stadium, put a fan in charge of it. Obviously a competitive team on the field would considerably help. The Dodgers are 18-24 at home this season and are getting worse. As a Dodgers fan I expect a quality team on the field every year and every few years able to challenge for a World Series title. Under current ownership I don't see either of those things happening. Obviously no team is going to win every year. However when that happens, a team can still be run with class. I'm hopeful that McCourt is unable to cover payroll on June 30th and that will be the beginning of the end for his destructive ownership.
Other baseball news: Today Derek Jeter turned 37 years old. Happy Birthday Derek. I'm not a big fan of the Yankees, in fact I'm a Yankees hater. However Derek Jeter has represented both MLB and the New York Yankees with class. Jeter is also closing in on 3000 hits. He likely will reach that milestone soon after he comes back from his injury. It's very hard to believe that Jeter will be the first Yankees hitter to have 3000 hits. Jeter currently has 2,994 hits.
I'm not sure how I missed it but last Sunday was Lou Gehrig's birthday, he'd been born 108 years ago. Again another Yankee, but a man known for class, humility and as a fantastic player. He had one of the coolest nicknames ever in professional sports, The Iron Horse. His nickname came from his playing consecutively in 2,130 games. This is Gary Cooper's giving Lou Gehrig's farewell speech in "Pride of the Yankees":
One of the greatest speech's of all time. Gehrig was one of those players that played the game the right way, it seems there are very few of those types of players today.
So people won't contact me and remind me, yes I know that the last two Dodger managers have very extensive ties to the Yankee organization. Joe Torre won a few World Series with the Yankees. In fact he played in their old-timer game today. And who can forget the skilled hitting machine known as Donnie Baseball. That's Don Mattingly for those of you who don't know.
Here are some great songs. I saw the play of "Rent" yesterday. I was amazed again by how amazing the music is. It features a lot of rock music, but that's supported by all sorts of genres of music. From some amazing rock songs to very tender songs, this is full of great songs. The following song is the song that stuck with me the most:
Just an amazing song, Harry Chapin's "Cats In The Cradle":
I don't remember Guns 'N' Roses covering this song, but apparently they did. I do remember the Ugly Kid Joe version. No one will ever top Harry Chapin's version, but I quite like GNR's version as well. This is their version:
Paul Young's "Every time You Go Away":
themusicaddict
It seems Charlie Brown will never kick the football, that I'll never marry Jennifer Aniston or that the US Men's Soccer team will ever break through mediocrity. Yes, I'm writing about yesterday's disastrous Gold Cup Final. I admit I know very little about soccer. But I've watched probably hundreds of soccer matches in my life. So I know enough to see who was the better team yesterday, but that was blatantly obvious. There's absolutely no doubt that Mexico is better by a long ways. I was hopeful that this might be a breakthrough win for the USA when they went up 2-0. As a USA Men's Soccer fan I thought I'd seen a breakthrough win many times. Unfortunately and again yesterday wasn't the day of that breakthrough. Although that was a great assist by Clint Dempsey which led to that beautiful goal by Landon Donovan.
I thought that the USA might pack it in on the defensive end to get the victory. Instead the USA just stopped playing defense. As with most soccer matches, possession is the name of the game. Mexico dominated possession throughout including missing many early chances. Once the match was tied at 2, I was very nervous about the USA's chances to win. Once Mexico scored the third goal, I was all but sure the match was over. At that point I disgustingly stopped watching as the USA choked again. Embarrassing!
Hopefully the USA women can redeem USA Soccer in the Women's World Cup. It will be difficult for them or anyone else to get past host nation Germany. Germany is the two time defending champ and won their first match today 2-1.
I'm also absolutely disgusted with the state of the LA Dodgers organization. The longer Frank McCourt owns the team, the longer it's going to take to clean up his mess. Hopefully he won't be able to cover June 30th's payroll and that will be the beginning of the end.
One of McCourt's chief weasels, Steve Soboroff, apologist and yes man quit yesterday. He was hired this past spring to be in charge of the fan experience at Dodger Stadium. In fact, he was hired "one day before MLB took over the team and eventually sent in Tom Schieffer to oversee the club's finances". (Thanks to espn.com) The rats continue to flee the Titanic with Captain McCourt driving the Dodgers to the bottom.
On the field the Dodgers were equally dismal, at Dodger Stadium they lost to the cross town Angels 6-1. The key point was when Matt Kemp was ejected in the bottom of the fifth inning for arguing balls and strikes with the home plate umpire. With him ejected, approximately 30% of their offense left the game. Ironically the Dodgers scored their only run right after Kemp was ejected. Ultimately that was their only run in their latest pasting.
How bad is it for the Dodgers? They've lost 3 straight and 8 of 11 games. LA is 10 games below .500. They are probably out of any kind of playoff contention unless MLB decides to let all teams into the playoffs. In their last 13 games at Dodger Stadium the Angels have won 10 of those. These are games played at Dodger Stadium! Other than Matt Kemp, they don't have a reliable bat. Their offense is inept and so is most of their starting pitching. I'm thankful Clayton Kershaw pitches for the Dodgers today, he's been their only consistently good pitcher. Maybe he can drive in a couple of runs today and get the win. After 8 innings in today's game the Dodgers have exploded for one run. Kershaw is pitching a two-hitter at this point. He was the one that had a hit and got him on base and Tony Gwynn tripled to drive him in to tie the game at 1. The Dodgers went on to earn a meaningless win, they now have a one game winning streak. They are on fire! Not!
McCourt if you really want to improve the fan experience at Dodgers Stadium, put a fan in charge of it. Obviously a competitive team on the field would considerably help. The Dodgers are 18-24 at home this season and are getting worse. As a Dodgers fan I expect a quality team on the field every year and every few years able to challenge for a World Series title. Under current ownership I don't see either of those things happening. Obviously no team is going to win every year. However when that happens, a team can still be run with class. I'm hopeful that McCourt is unable to cover payroll on June 30th and that will be the beginning of the end for his destructive ownership.
Other baseball news: Today Derek Jeter turned 37 years old. Happy Birthday Derek. I'm not a big fan of the Yankees, in fact I'm a Yankees hater. However Derek Jeter has represented both MLB and the New York Yankees with class. Jeter is also closing in on 3000 hits. He likely will reach that milestone soon after he comes back from his injury. It's very hard to believe that Jeter will be the first Yankees hitter to have 3000 hits. Jeter currently has 2,994 hits.
I'm not sure how I missed it but last Sunday was Lou Gehrig's birthday, he'd been born 108 years ago. Again another Yankee, but a man known for class, humility and as a fantastic player. He had one of the coolest nicknames ever in professional sports, The Iron Horse. His nickname came from his playing consecutively in 2,130 games. This is Gary Cooper's giving Lou Gehrig's farewell speech in "Pride of the Yankees":
One of the greatest speech's of all time. Gehrig was one of those players that played the game the right way, it seems there are very few of those types of players today.
So people won't contact me and remind me, yes I know that the last two Dodger managers have very extensive ties to the Yankee organization. Joe Torre won a few World Series with the Yankees. In fact he played in their old-timer game today. And who can forget the skilled hitting machine known as Donnie Baseball. That's Don Mattingly for those of you who don't know.
Here are some great songs. I saw the play of "Rent" yesterday. I was amazed again by how amazing the music is. It features a lot of rock music, but that's supported by all sorts of genres of music. From some amazing rock songs to very tender songs, this is full of great songs. The following song is the song that stuck with me the most:
Just an amazing song, Harry Chapin's "Cats In The Cradle":
I don't remember Guns 'N' Roses covering this song, but apparently they did. I do remember the Ugly Kid Joe version. No one will ever top Harry Chapin's version, but I quite like GNR's version as well. This is their version:
Paul Young's "Every time You Go Away":
themusicaddict
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Do You Remember Where You Were........?, Nick Charles dies
Hello,
Two years ago today one of the greatest musicians ever died. Can you believe it's already been 2 years since Michael Jackson died? Where were you when you heard the news? I was working at Verizon Wireless and was in what was called transition. It's a period of 11 weeks when we were transitioning from training to actually taking calls by ourselves. I actually heard the news from one of the customers who called in. He asked me if I had heard that Michael Jackson had died. I hadn't heard at that point. It hit me like a ton of bricks, I had to take a quick break and talk with one of my supervisors. I had to have a connection with someone to commemorate his death. I remember I was in a daze the rest of the day. R.I.P. Michael.
Nick Charles is someone that didn't quite have the same impact on the world as Michael Jackson. However he was an inspiring figure at the end of his life. (BTW: I know that both of these men are deeply flawed, but aren't we all? We all make mistakes and hopefully learn from them. I try to remember most people for the good they've done or the positive impact they left. Michael Jackson left behind some of the greatest songs ever. Nick Charles died with grace and left behind a legacy of enjoying every minute our Heavenly Father gives us.)
A few months ago Joe Posnaski wrote this amazing feature in Sports Illustrated, this is in the Point After feature.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1182632/index.htm
Nick Charles died this morning at the age of 64. Charles would have been 65 on June 30th. I looked around the 'net but I wasn't able to find out if he was able to take his daughter to Disneyland. However he was able to reach 3 of his other goals, have one more Easter, see his daughter play the piano and to see his dream home built. I love how he wanted to reach one more Easter, that was probably especially moving for him and those around him as he prepared to die. A man at the end of his life celebrating beginnings that comes with Easter.
Now on to things that are nowhere as important. I find it hard to believe that I'm living in a time where pretty soon 2 of the 4 major sports leagues will be in a lockout. How does that happen? One of the main tenets of corporate America is urgency. Of course, that's mainly for the lowly rank and final employees. However I'm surprised that neither one of the leagues or player associations is having more urgency. MLB and NHL this is your time to shine.
Tonight is the Gold Cup final. The United States will battle Mexico for the Gold Cup Title. (I hope this isn't like the ending of the "The Killing", you know unresolved. Although it's very disappointing that the final can end in a tie. The USA is 2-3-2 in Gold Cup finals. Soccer I love you, but you don't play a game to end in a tie.) The game will be at the Rose Bowl (Go Trojans) in LA, however some people are projecting that up to 80% of the crowd will be cheering for Mexico.
I love the United States Men's Soccer team, but something tells me they'll never be one of the world's best. It seems to me they'll be just like Charlie Brown, who will never be kick the football. Or like me who will never marry Jennifer Aniston.
However the US Women's Soccer team, now they are another story. They are constantly among the elite and have actually won World Cups. They won in 1991 and 1999. Who can forget Brandi Chastain's shirtless celebration in 1999. Speaking of the Rose Bowl, if memory serves me right the 1999 finals was played there. The US was third place in the other 3 World Cups. The next Woman's World Cup starts Sunday in Germany. The United States first plays on June 28th, they'll be playing Korea DPR at 12:15pm EST. Colombia and Sweden are the other two countries in their group.
Great songs:
The Clash have a song that's titled "The Magnificent Seven". It reminded me of this song:
Which reminded me of this song:
Now let's go back to The Clash's "The Magnificent Seven" song:
Shawn Colvin's "Sunny Came Home". (As always one of the best things about youtube.com is the comments written below the video.)
From one of the saddest songs ever to one of the all-time most joyous songs. This is John Denver's "Thank God I'm A Country Boy":
Which reminds me of this amazingly beautiful song, John Denver's "Annie's Song". Not to be too maudlin, but this song is dedicated to all newlywed couples that might be struggling financially. Just be grateful for what you have. Many people look back at this time as some of the best times of their lives.
Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash's "Jackson":
The very under appreciated James Blunt:
themusicaddict
Two years ago today one of the greatest musicians ever died. Can you believe it's already been 2 years since Michael Jackson died? Where were you when you heard the news? I was working at Verizon Wireless and was in what was called transition. It's a period of 11 weeks when we were transitioning from training to actually taking calls by ourselves. I actually heard the news from one of the customers who called in. He asked me if I had heard that Michael Jackson had died. I hadn't heard at that point. It hit me like a ton of bricks, I had to take a quick break and talk with one of my supervisors. I had to have a connection with someone to commemorate his death. I remember I was in a daze the rest of the day. R.I.P. Michael.
Nick Charles is someone that didn't quite have the same impact on the world as Michael Jackson. However he was an inspiring figure at the end of his life. (BTW: I know that both of these men are deeply flawed, but aren't we all? We all make mistakes and hopefully learn from them. I try to remember most people for the good they've done or the positive impact they left. Michael Jackson left behind some of the greatest songs ever. Nick Charles died with grace and left behind a legacy of enjoying every minute our Heavenly Father gives us.)
A few months ago Joe Posnaski wrote this amazing feature in Sports Illustrated, this is in the Point After feature.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1182632/index.htm
Nick Charles died this morning at the age of 64. Charles would have been 65 on June 30th. I looked around the 'net but I wasn't able to find out if he was able to take his daughter to Disneyland. However he was able to reach 3 of his other goals, have one more Easter, see his daughter play the piano and to see his dream home built. I love how he wanted to reach one more Easter, that was probably especially moving for him and those around him as he prepared to die. A man at the end of his life celebrating beginnings that comes with Easter.
Now on to things that are nowhere as important. I find it hard to believe that I'm living in a time where pretty soon 2 of the 4 major sports leagues will be in a lockout. How does that happen? One of the main tenets of corporate America is urgency. Of course, that's mainly for the lowly rank and final employees. However I'm surprised that neither one of the leagues or player associations is having more urgency. MLB and NHL this is your time to shine.
Tonight is the Gold Cup final. The United States will battle Mexico for the Gold Cup Title. (I hope this isn't like the ending of the "The Killing", you know unresolved. Although it's very disappointing that the final can end in a tie. The USA is 2-3-2 in Gold Cup finals. Soccer I love you, but you don't play a game to end in a tie.) The game will be at the Rose Bowl (Go Trojans) in LA, however some people are projecting that up to 80% of the crowd will be cheering for Mexico.
I love the United States Men's Soccer team, but something tells me they'll never be one of the world's best. It seems to me they'll be just like Charlie Brown, who will never be kick the football. Or like me who will never marry Jennifer Aniston.
However the US Women's Soccer team, now they are another story. They are constantly among the elite and have actually won World Cups. They won in 1991 and 1999. Who can forget Brandi Chastain's shirtless celebration in 1999. Speaking of the Rose Bowl, if memory serves me right the 1999 finals was played there. The US was third place in the other 3 World Cups. The next Woman's World Cup starts Sunday in Germany. The United States first plays on June 28th, they'll be playing Korea DPR at 12:15pm EST. Colombia and Sweden are the other two countries in their group.
Great songs:
The Clash have a song that's titled "The Magnificent Seven". It reminded me of this song:
Which reminded me of this song:
Now let's go back to The Clash's "The Magnificent Seven" song:
Shawn Colvin's "Sunny Came Home". (As always one of the best things about youtube.com is the comments written below the video.)
From one of the saddest songs ever to one of the all-time most joyous songs. This is John Denver's "Thank God I'm A Country Boy":
Which reminds me of this amazingly beautiful song, John Denver's "Annie's Song". Not to be too maudlin, but this song is dedicated to all newlywed couples that might be struggling financially. Just be grateful for what you have. Many people look back at this time as some of the best times of their lives.
Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash's "Jackson":
The very under appreciated James Blunt:
themusicaddict
Friday, June 24, 2011
NBA Draft, "Bad Teacher"
Hello,
I watched the new Cameron Diaz movie, "Bad Teacher", this early afternoon, I love having 3 day weekends! It's a little more nasty than I would usually watch. But it was either that or "Cars 2" and I have a feeling I'll be seeing "Cars 2" with my kids next weekend. Anyway "Bad Teacher" was about as mediocre as I expected. It's not the worst movie ever, it's not even the worst movie this month. It truly has some genuine funny lines in it. (For instance, "Hey Twilight".) I left the theatre thinking at least it's better than "Green Lantern".
It was a lot better than the last Cameron Diaz movie I saw, the horrendously stupid "Green Hornet". At least the characters in "Bad Teacher" are believable. Two things I didn't like about the movie why did they make Justin Timberlake play such a wussy character? Timberlake has proven that he can act, he's simply amazing as Sean Parker in "The Social Network". And Cameron Diaz is getting to old to play the babe in a movie. Then again, I never understood why people thought she was a babe in the first place. A perfectly fine actress, Cameron it's time to start stretching. It's hard to believe for how famous she is and how many movies she's been in, how few good movies she's been in. I'm not a big fan of "There's Something About Mary". That's probably her most famous film and after that, not a whole lot.
The NBA Draft was yesterday. I can't say that I'm jumping up and down happy about the Jazz's draft. Of course, it will be a few years before we know how good of a draft it was. When I see European players I'm a little concerned, they seem to be injury prone. Look how many games Andrei Kirlenko and Mehmet Okur have missed the last couple of years. I hope Enes Kanter isn't the same as them, I hope he's more the Dirk Nowitski type. Then at # 12 the Jazz picked Alec Burks. I'm more than a little concerned when ESPN announcer Jay Bilas says that Burks can't shoot or defend. Then what exactly can he do? Oh great.
I'm glad that the Jazz ended up not drafting Jimmer Fredette. Some experts, for instance ESPN's Ric Bucher, predict he'll be better than Kemba Walker. Also Dick Vitale tweeted that he thinks Fredette will be the Rookie of the Year. Going to Sacramento I don't know how good that will be for him. If he has to be one of the main guys, especially for such an epically bad team, things will be rough for him. He would be better for a team like the Miami Heat where he would be the third or fourth option. He'd be a great shooter to open up the floor for LBJ and Dwayne Wade. If Jimmer is hitting the outside shot, who would you guard? I'll be perfectly fine if I'm completely wrong about Jimmer. I'd like to see him have a good career. I just don't know if that is possible for him in Sacramento.
Kyrie Irving went #1 to Cleveland. I wonder how good of a move that is for the Cavaliers. Duke players have been terrible NBA players. The best one probably is Grant Hill, but how many games did he miss in his career. Most Dukies flame out in two or three years. Who was the idiot team that drafted Kyle Singler? Oh it was the Pistons, that explains a lot about them. I'd be very surprised if he plays 3 full seasons in the NBA.
The draft pick that surprised me the most, other than anyone picking Singler, is that SDSU's Kawhi Leonard fell all the way to #15. Really? I'd rather the Jazz have picked him at #12 than pick Burks. Honestly I know very little about Burks. But I did see quite a few games that Leonard played. Granted not much of an outside shot. But he's an athletic player that does well in wide open offense. Maybe for that reason he might not have been as good for the Jazz as another team. Although he ended up in San Antonio, which really is known for a very structured offense.
On the Dan Patrick show, Charles Barkley predicted that there would be no NBA season this upcoming year. Well if that happened, that would completely kill the momentum the NBA has generated by their amazing postseason. I think both the NBA and NFL will be surprised at how little they will be missed once they games are missed. The long either league is gone, the less we will miss them. I just can't get over the fact that the NFL players and owners can't come to an agreement in how to share 9.3 BILLION Dollars.
Great songs:
Lifehouse's "Breathing":
I know that I feature the same Lauryn Hill songs over and over. However every time I hear a song off of "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill", I'm reminded of how great that CD is.
This is "I Used To Love Him", a song with some amazing lyrics. Hill has that amazing voice and sings all of her songs with so much feeling.
Just to mix it up a bit with Lauryn Hill a bit, here is the best (the only?) good Fugees song:
Thanks to Carrie Underwood reminding me of this song when she picked it for Lauren Alaina. I love everything about this song. I love how Tillis sings it, love the literary lyrics and the great music. This is Pam Tillis' excellent "Maybe It Was Memphis":
Daughtry's "What I Meant To Say":
The Black Crowes "Hard To Handle":
The Clash "Train In Vain":
themusicaddict
I watched the new Cameron Diaz movie, "Bad Teacher", this early afternoon, I love having 3 day weekends! It's a little more nasty than I would usually watch. But it was either that or "Cars 2" and I have a feeling I'll be seeing "Cars 2" with my kids next weekend. Anyway "Bad Teacher" was about as mediocre as I expected. It's not the worst movie ever, it's not even the worst movie this month. It truly has some genuine funny lines in it. (For instance, "Hey Twilight".) I left the theatre thinking at least it's better than "Green Lantern".
It was a lot better than the last Cameron Diaz movie I saw, the horrendously stupid "Green Hornet". At least the characters in "Bad Teacher" are believable. Two things I didn't like about the movie why did they make Justin Timberlake play such a wussy character? Timberlake has proven that he can act, he's simply amazing as Sean Parker in "The Social Network". And Cameron Diaz is getting to old to play the babe in a movie. Then again, I never understood why people thought she was a babe in the first place. A perfectly fine actress, Cameron it's time to start stretching. It's hard to believe for how famous she is and how many movies she's been in, how few good movies she's been in. I'm not a big fan of "There's Something About Mary". That's probably her most famous film and after that, not a whole lot.
The NBA Draft was yesterday. I can't say that I'm jumping up and down happy about the Jazz's draft. Of course, it will be a few years before we know how good of a draft it was. When I see European players I'm a little concerned, they seem to be injury prone. Look how many games Andrei Kirlenko and Mehmet Okur have missed the last couple of years. I hope Enes Kanter isn't the same as them, I hope he's more the Dirk Nowitski type. Then at # 12 the Jazz picked Alec Burks. I'm more than a little concerned when ESPN announcer Jay Bilas says that Burks can't shoot or defend. Then what exactly can he do? Oh great.
I'm glad that the Jazz ended up not drafting Jimmer Fredette. Some experts, for instance ESPN's Ric Bucher, predict he'll be better than Kemba Walker. Also Dick Vitale tweeted that he thinks Fredette will be the Rookie of the Year. Going to Sacramento I don't know how good that will be for him. If he has to be one of the main guys, especially for such an epically bad team, things will be rough for him. He would be better for a team like the Miami Heat where he would be the third or fourth option. He'd be a great shooter to open up the floor for LBJ and Dwayne Wade. If Jimmer is hitting the outside shot, who would you guard? I'll be perfectly fine if I'm completely wrong about Jimmer. I'd like to see him have a good career. I just don't know if that is possible for him in Sacramento.
Kyrie Irving went #1 to Cleveland. I wonder how good of a move that is for the Cavaliers. Duke players have been terrible NBA players. The best one probably is Grant Hill, but how many games did he miss in his career. Most Dukies flame out in two or three years. Who was the idiot team that drafted Kyle Singler? Oh it was the Pistons, that explains a lot about them. I'd be very surprised if he plays 3 full seasons in the NBA.
The draft pick that surprised me the most, other than anyone picking Singler, is that SDSU's Kawhi Leonard fell all the way to #15. Really? I'd rather the Jazz have picked him at #12 than pick Burks. Honestly I know very little about Burks. But I did see quite a few games that Leonard played. Granted not much of an outside shot. But he's an athletic player that does well in wide open offense. Maybe for that reason he might not have been as good for the Jazz as another team. Although he ended up in San Antonio, which really is known for a very structured offense.
On the Dan Patrick show, Charles Barkley predicted that there would be no NBA season this upcoming year. Well if that happened, that would completely kill the momentum the NBA has generated by their amazing postseason. I think both the NBA and NFL will be surprised at how little they will be missed once they games are missed. The long either league is gone, the less we will miss them. I just can't get over the fact that the NFL players and owners can't come to an agreement in how to share 9.3 BILLION Dollars.
Great songs:
Lifehouse's "Breathing":
I know that I feature the same Lauryn Hill songs over and over. However every time I hear a song off of "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill", I'm reminded of how great that CD is.
This is "I Used To Love Him", a song with some amazing lyrics. Hill has that amazing voice and sings all of her songs with so much feeling.
Just to mix it up a bit with Lauryn Hill a bit, here is the best (the only?) good Fugees song:
Thanks to Carrie Underwood reminding me of this song when she picked it for Lauren Alaina. I love everything about this song. I love how Tillis sings it, love the literary lyrics and the great music. This is Pam Tillis' excellent "Maybe It Was Memphis":
Daughtry's "What I Meant To Say":
The Black Crowes "Hard To Handle":
The Clash "Train In Vain":
themusicaddict
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