Tuesday, February 24, 2009

 

I guess this makes me feel a little better about the whole thing...

Andy Richter to Rejoin Conan O'Brien as 'Tonight Show' Announcer

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Sunday, February 22, 2009

 

Filler post #8,238...

For some reason, I can't seem to get anything out of my head and into this shitty blog for the past year or so. I broke my sole New Year's Resolution (well, the one I'll talk about here anyway), which was to write for an hour a day, just to see if I have any talent for this whatsoever. That one was busted on January 3. On the plus side, that's a new record. Christ, my last post took me two hours to write four short, unoriginal paragraphs about steroids and sports. What am I, Rick Reilly? So lately I've been putting up crap like this and this and this. So thanks to Will Leitch, here's another one, about my iTunes library:

Number of songs: 8,789
Number of albums: 862
Total length: 23 days, 6 hours, 6 minutes, 58 seconds
Total disk space: 33.04 GB

Most recently played song: "My Favorite Things", John Coltrane
Most played song: "'Charu's Theme' From Satyajit Ray's Film 'Charulata'", Satyajit Ray
Most recently added album: Blood Bank, Bon Iver

First song alphabetically: "'A' (morse)", The Conet Project
Last song alphabetically: "Zurich is Stained", Slanted & Enchanted / Pavement
First song numerically: "1-10 Announcement", The Conet Project
Last song numerically: "99 Year Blues", The Anthology of American Folk Music / Julius Daniel

Shortest song: "There's a Riot Goin' On", There's a Riot Goin' On / Sly & The Family Stone (0:04)
Longest song: "Bitches Brew", Bitches Brew / Miles Davis (27:00)

First album alphabetically: A.M. / Wilco
Last album alphabetically: Zen Arcade / Hüsker Dü
First album numerically: #1 Record/Radio City / Big Star
Last album numerically: 89/93: An Anthology / Uncle Tupelo

First artist alphabetically: Aaliyah
Last artist alphabetically: Zoot Sims
First band alphabetically: The Aardvarks
Last band alphabetically: The Zombies

First twenty-five songs on shuffle:
"The Precious Jewel" / The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
"Sign O' the Times" / Prince
"I'm a Loser" / The Beatles
"Inn Town" / Whiskeytown
"Two" / Ryan Adams
"I Would Die 4 U" / Prince
"Tonight, I'll Be Staying Here With You" / Bob Dylan & The Rolling Thunder Review
"Thank You Friends" / Big Star
"Powerline" / Hüsker Dü
"Love Is Plentiful" / The Staple Singers
"The Wind Cries Mary" / Jimi Hendrix
"Why Me Lord?" / Johnny Cash
"Willie Nelson [insert 2]" / Miles Davis
"Parting of the Sensory" / Modest Mouse
"K.O.S. (Determination)" / Black Star
"Life on a Chain" / Pete Yorn
"Absynthe" / The Gits
"Walking in Memphis" / Marc Cohn
"Sample Count" / The Conet Project
"My Brilliant Feat" / Colin Hay
"Nothing Compares 2 U" / Sinéad O'Connor
"Hard Luck Woman" / Kiss
"Christmas Time Is Here" / Vince Guaraldi Trio
"The Upper Peninsula" / Sufjan Stevens
"There She Goes" / The La's
"Sara Smile" / Hall & Oates

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Sunday, February 08, 2009

 

A-Rod, Barry Bonds, steroids, professional sports, etc...

I was shocked, shocked, I tell you, to hear that a professional athlete competing at the highest level possible with millions of dollars at stake, would dare use a sort-of-illegal substance to gain a theoretical edge over his opponents. In my view, the only thing we can fault A-Rod for is being dumb enough to continue using detectable substances when he knew a test was coming.1

The tests were supposed to remain confidential, but were seized by your federal government as part of its $55 million prosecution of Barry Bonds for "lying" about using a legal substance. The absurd persecution of the greatest baseball player since Willie Mays has led the prosecutors to raid the home and threaten prosecution of the relatives of ancillary figures in the case.2

The story that is being conveniently ignored is former Cincinnatian Dana Stubblefield "cooperating" with the BALCO case, apparently naming fellow NFLers who also used. Like with Bonds and A-Rod, I don't really have any sort of problem with Stubblefield using, but I think the sports world's relative silence on this matter is interesting. Other NFL drug weirdness:
Why the free pass? After all, if we're just considering the effects of steroids -- increased muscle mass, ability to train longer and harder, and increased healing -- wouldn't they be far more useful in football than baseball? If Shawne Merriman is 6-4/270 and run a 4.6, he's most likely going to be a star if he has a modicum of football talent, but if you can't hit the ball or throw a strike, it doesn't matter how fast you are or how much you can bench.3 I think that it's because football has become less a sport than America's favorite soap opera, and the athletes are more actors than anything else, and everything is disposed of after the season; baseball is almost mythic, instant history. I have no proof for this, of course, other than my own probably unoriginal conjectures, but it does concern me. It should concern you too.


Footnotes:
1. Interestingly (to me at least) is that this story is being reported on by noted moralist Selena Roberts, a reporter best known for buying in full-scale to the Duke Lacrosse rape fraud. I'm not doubting her reportage on this matter, but I'm not sure how someone who was so stunningly wrong on a major story can maintain any sort of crediblity.
2. As always with these things, I'm reminded of a quote by P.J. O'Rourke: "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."
3. The career of Glenn Braggs is an instructive example.

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