John from Cincinnati was cancelled after one season and ten episodes. I can't say I'm surprised. That was one strange show. I am a little annoyed, however.
HBO must not have known what they had on their hands when they signed contracts, no? Think about it. They either didn't think it'd be a strange show, in which case they must have slept through their meetings with Milch, or, they overestimated their viewers- in terms of the kind of challenge for which they were prepared- a distinct possibility given the success of other HBO shows with fringe content. As with most things, the reality is likely a combination.
I think this show had a quality to that it shared with jazz. Most people don't listen to jazz, though most people freely admit they don't listen to jazz because they don't understand it and not because it isn't worthwhile. This show was challenging in that it required active consumption; something that makes most Americans uncomfortable if the mindless bullshit enjoying success on TV is any indicator.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
The Yanks
This season has been an odd one. I'm not used to watching the Yankees play from behind, let alone from far behind, for the majority of a season. It'd gotten to a point where the glass was half empty in my mind. It's unusual for my typically bleary outlook to spill over into my baseball. I'd begun thinking about what changes needed to be made and addressed before next year. I'd been a whipping boy for any and all baseball conversations in and around the office. And I was without ammunition. What could I say? The Yankees were below .500. I took it on the chin. Gay porn style.
Well my friends, the times they are a'changin. Albeit against lesser opponents, the Yankees have done what has been necessary to make their season relevant again. Well, everything except address their bullpen whoes with a noteworthy addition to their staff. They have, however, dropped the dead weight that was Scott Proctor and Mike Myers via trade and assignment respectively. If only Farnsworth was a marketable entity. If recent history teaches us anything, it's that void that is Yankee middle relief will cost them in the postseason.
Last night's game seems to me a punctuation mark to this resurgence. A resounding "us vs. them". Great to see the Yanks dispose of division foes all the while defending each other without hesitation. No brawl but two bench clearings highlighted by Clemens' retribution and dismissal from the game.
"I heard somebody chirping when I was talking to Lyle [Overbay] ... Tony Pena is running his mouth off and I was like, 'What's this guy running his mouth off for?' This dude is a quitter. He managed a team and quit in the middle of the season because he couldn't hack it," said a sour grapes Josh Towers.
I am guessing he was referring to the incident that began at first base and soon after featured A-Rod questioning, as he stepped toward the mound, "Are you talking to me? Is he talking to me? Are you talking to me?!"
It seems the breath of the Yankees ability to polarize is as far reaching as ever this year. And I couln't be happier about it. I can't wait til they take first place from the Red Sox.
Well my friends, the times they are a'changin. Albeit against lesser opponents, the Yankees have done what has been necessary to make their season relevant again. Well, everything except address their bullpen whoes with a noteworthy addition to their staff. They have, however, dropped the dead weight that was Scott Proctor and Mike Myers via trade and assignment respectively. If only Farnsworth was a marketable entity. If recent history teaches us anything, it's that void that is Yankee middle relief will cost them in the postseason.
Last night's game seems to me a punctuation mark to this resurgence. A resounding "us vs. them". Great to see the Yanks dispose of division foes all the while defending each other without hesitation. No brawl but two bench clearings highlighted by Clemens' retribution and dismissal from the game.
"I heard somebody chirping when I was talking to Lyle [Overbay] ... Tony Pena is running his mouth off and I was like, 'What's this guy running his mouth off for?' This dude is a quitter. He managed a team and quit in the middle of the season because he couldn't hack it," said a sour grapes Josh Towers.
I am guessing he was referring to the incident that began at first base and soon after featured A-Rod questioning, as he stepped toward the mound, "Are you talking to me? Is he talking to me? Are you talking to me?!"
It seems the breath of the Yankees ability to polarize is as far reaching as ever this year. And I couln't be happier about it. I can't wait til they take first place from the Red Sox.
My Sister & Her Machete
Everything is good here. Today is a bagaces day for me. I'm going grocery shopping soon because it ' s my turn to make dinner. I'm making breakfast ....for dinner.
So my last two days in the field were pretty sweet. I got lost alone for the first time, awesome. All of the sudden Juanca (a 33 yearl old Tico that i work with) yells 'Intergroup!!!!!' and he and this girl Katie start RUNNING down the steep hill we are on. An 'intergroup' is when the group of monkeys you are with that day comes into contact with a separate group of monkeys. Same species and everything, just a different group. It gets crazy, sometimes just a lot of screaming and running, sometimes it gets bloody and warlike. So it's a very interesting and exciting thing to witness. This would be my first. So I'm pumped and start running behind them (the monkeys run super fast when this happens so we couldn't see them, just hear all the screaming).
Then I fall and slide down on my ass about 20 feet, and end up tangled in vines when I finally stop. Every time I moved, the tangling got worse. Like a bug in a spider web. My machete was all stuck in tangles, every loop on my backpack was twisted up in vines, and my legs and arms were stuck. It was pretty hilarious if you weren't me. But I had a bit of trouble getting myself out, so I missed the intergoup, and lost the two people I was out with. Awesome. I did find them after about 45 minutes, so that was alright.
I also saw my first boa constrictor two days ago. It was 6 feet long. The monkeys LOVE alarming at snakes, so it's helpful to know where the snakes are. The monkeys just all mob around it and yell their snake alarms, so you can tell exactly where the snakes are. Also a good thing for us.
Yesterday it rained for 5 of the 14 hours we in the forest. That was sucky. It rains HARD here. Like nothing I've ever seen. It's nuts. We can't take any good data on the monkeys in the rain because they go high up in the trees and visibility is poor. So we just have to babysit them...follow them around, sloshing through the mud soaked to the bone. Luckily this one kid Isaac is HILARIOUS and kept me laughing hysterically the entire time. Which is good because it might be hard to laugh after sliding down a muddy cliff on your ass and getting stabbed by acacia trees and bamboo all along the way. Right after I slipped down a cliff and was trying to keep up with this guy Joey who SPRINTS everywhere, even in the pouring rain, I was climbing over the roots of this GIGANTIC old Pichote tree that's all twisted and creepy looking and lowering myself down to the ground because there was a bit of a drop on the other side. This tree, like a lot of old trees in the forest, had this big gaping hole in its base, but was so huge that the hole is as tall as me, making it like a cave. I guess from me climbing on the roots and causing a disturbance, swarms of bats starting flying out of the hole!! I had to duck a little and it startled me at first, but it was sooooooo awesome to watch. Such a cool thing to be alone in the forest in Costa Rica and get to see something like this. There were so many of them. And they just took off.
So everything is great. Every day is a really cool adventure of some sort. Gotta go grocery shopping; also an adventure because of my terrible Spanish.
So my last two days in the field were pretty sweet. I got lost alone for the first time, awesome. All of the sudden Juanca (a 33 yearl old Tico that i work with) yells 'Intergroup!!!!!' and he and this girl Katie start RUNNING down the steep hill we are on. An 'intergroup' is when the group of monkeys you are with that day comes into contact with a separate group of monkeys. Same species and everything, just a different group. It gets crazy, sometimes just a lot of screaming and running, sometimes it gets bloody and warlike. So it's a very interesting and exciting thing to witness. This would be my first. So I'm pumped and start running behind them (the monkeys run super fast when this happens so we couldn't see them, just hear all the screaming).
Then I fall and slide down on my ass about 20 feet, and end up tangled in vines when I finally stop. Every time I moved, the tangling got worse. Like a bug in a spider web. My machete was all stuck in tangles, every loop on my backpack was twisted up in vines, and my legs and arms were stuck. It was pretty hilarious if you weren't me. But I had a bit of trouble getting myself out, so I missed the intergoup, and lost the two people I was out with. Awesome. I did find them after about 45 minutes, so that was alright.
I also saw my first boa constrictor two days ago. It was 6 feet long. The monkeys LOVE alarming at snakes, so it's helpful to know where the snakes are. The monkeys just all mob around it and yell their snake alarms, so you can tell exactly where the snakes are. Also a good thing for us.
Yesterday it rained for 5 of the 14 hours we in the forest. That was sucky. It rains HARD here. Like nothing I've ever seen. It's nuts. We can't take any good data on the monkeys in the rain because they go high up in the trees and visibility is poor. So we just have to babysit them...follow them around, sloshing through the mud soaked to the bone. Luckily this one kid Isaac is HILARIOUS and kept me laughing hysterically the entire time. Which is good because it might be hard to laugh after sliding down a muddy cliff on your ass and getting stabbed by acacia trees and bamboo all along the way. Right after I slipped down a cliff and was trying to keep up with this guy Joey who SPRINTS everywhere, even in the pouring rain, I was climbing over the roots of this GIGANTIC old Pichote tree that's all twisted and creepy looking and lowering myself down to the ground because there was a bit of a drop on the other side. This tree, like a lot of old trees in the forest, had this big gaping hole in its base, but was so huge that the hole is as tall as me, making it like a cave. I guess from me climbing on the roots and causing a disturbance, swarms of bats starting flying out of the hole!! I had to duck a little and it startled me at first, but it was sooooooo awesome to watch. Such a cool thing to be alone in the forest in Costa Rica and get to see something like this. There were so many of them. And they just took off.
So everything is great. Every day is a really cool adventure of some sort. Gotta go grocery shopping; also an adventure because of my terrible Spanish.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
USC....the other one.
Steve Spurrier is up in arms after two recruits were denied admittance to the University of South Carolina after he told them they wouldn't be. He's actually threatening to leave if the school's standards are not relaxed to accommodate the athletes he so desires.
The University of South Carolina is not a school renowned for it's academics. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Mediocre at best, USC should be commended for attempting to maintain some semblance of admittance standards in the face of Steve Spurrier and the university's football machine. I presume these standards are already lower for football players, as they are at every "big time" football school. To assume, as Spurrier must have, that anyone who meets the NCAA's minimum requirements will get a free pass from the admissions board is nothing short of ridiculous. Maybe they should add Dean of Admissions to his job description?
He's tried to make this an issue of credibility. More specifically, his is compromised if he tells recruits they will be able to get into the school when he is, in fact, without a say in the matter. Well, who told Steve Spurrier he should guarantee admittance to every kid he speaks to? He's a college football coach. College. I'll say it again, COLLEGE.
Maybe he should give the NFL another try. Judging by Vince Young's wonderlic test, their admittance standards are at least as lax as the University of Texas. Then, he won't have to be burdened by academics and their ivory tower standards. Then, he'll have to worry only about being consistently out-game planned by smarter coaches. Which at least, provided he remembers his last go round in the NFL, he'll see coming.
I say let him go.
The University of South Carolina is not a school renowned for it's academics. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Mediocre at best, USC should be commended for attempting to maintain some semblance of admittance standards in the face of Steve Spurrier and the university's football machine. I presume these standards are already lower for football players, as they are at every "big time" football school. To assume, as Spurrier must have, that anyone who meets the NCAA's minimum requirements will get a free pass from the admissions board is nothing short of ridiculous. Maybe they should add Dean of Admissions to his job description?
He's tried to make this an issue of credibility. More specifically, his is compromised if he tells recruits they will be able to get into the school when he is, in fact, without a say in the matter. Well, who told Steve Spurrier he should guarantee admittance to every kid he speaks to? He's a college football coach. College. I'll say it again, COLLEGE.
Maybe he should give the NFL another try. Judging by Vince Young's wonderlic test, their admittance standards are at least as lax as the University of Texas. Then, he won't have to be burdened by academics and their ivory tower standards. Then, he'll have to worry only about being consistently out-game planned by smarter coaches. Which at least, provided he remembers his last go round in the NFL, he'll see coming.
I say let him go.
Friday, August 03, 2007
GFY
It's happening. I have absolutely nothing to say. That undeniable itch to spew blog in all directions has slowed almost to a complete stop. I can't put my finger on it. Wait!
I've been extremely busy at work lately and it's been slowly robbing me of my will to live. I feel adults, parents in particular, are generally failing children in this particular area. I'm not sure I'd be this affected if my parents had warned me how terrible life becomes after graduation. At least I'd have seen it coming. I could have used a little, "Seamus, the vast majority of your life will be excruciatingly painful from 22 beyond," in high school and college. This is perhaps too heavy a concept to dump on a pre-pubescent kid. But surely I'd have conducted myself differently in high school and college had I known. Or at least I would have been prepared.
There are seven days in every frigin week. Seven! For five days out of every seven, ever notice how no one ever asks, "What are you doing tonight?" No one. Ever. It's like the Pearl Jam "Do the Evolution Video" where everyone's in an identicle cubicle connected to their computers by tubes protruding from the ears and notstrils. We're barely even human for the vast majority of our existence. And, for me, the malaise is usually so thick, the terms of this existence don't even bother me until I have a week like this one.
Things I hate hearing that I always hear at least 50 times on Mondays and Fridays:
"So what's on tap for the weekend?"
"TGIF!"
"How was the weekend?"
"Too short! Yours?"
"Happy Monday!"
"I feel like I was just here."
"I feel like I never left this desk."
"Someone kill me. Please."
Um, yeah, I'll take a whisky please. Stat.
I've been extremely busy at work lately and it's been slowly robbing me of my will to live. I feel adults, parents in particular, are generally failing children in this particular area. I'm not sure I'd be this affected if my parents had warned me how terrible life becomes after graduation. At least I'd have seen it coming. I could have used a little, "Seamus, the vast majority of your life will be excruciatingly painful from 22 beyond," in high school and college. This is perhaps too heavy a concept to dump on a pre-pubescent kid. But surely I'd have conducted myself differently in high school and college had I known. Or at least I would have been prepared.
There are seven days in every frigin week. Seven! For five days out of every seven, ever notice how no one ever asks, "What are you doing tonight?" No one. Ever. It's like the Pearl Jam "Do the Evolution Video" where everyone's in an identicle cubicle connected to their computers by tubes protruding from the ears and notstrils. We're barely even human for the vast majority of our existence. And, for me, the malaise is usually so thick, the terms of this existence don't even bother me until I have a week like this one.
Things I hate hearing that I always hear at least 50 times on Mondays and Fridays:
"So what's on tap for the weekend?"
"TGIF!"
"How was the weekend?"
"Too short! Yours?"
"Happy Monday!"
"I feel like I was just here."
"I feel like I never left this desk."
"Someone kill me. Please."
Um, yeah, I'll take a whisky please. Stat.
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