Why I Like Fox News

Last night I was watching Hannity and Colmes and learned some important information. Do you know who these guys are on the ferry in Washington? Like me you probably do but are withholding information in an attempt to pass a constitutional amendment that replaces the Supreme Court w/ the ACLU. However, real reporters are asking important law talking guys about the situation. That's why Hannity and Colmes invited former LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman to discuss the situation. It turns out he's a regular guest. Awesome!

Things I Thought Weren't Only In My Head

I've had this song stuck in my head. Maybe you've heard it. It's a Flight Of The Conchords song, but in my head Prince is singing it. Needless to say I haven't seen it on any Prince bootlegs. However, on the most recent episode of Flight of the Conchords one of the guys wants to look good for his date by dressing like Prince. Game. Blouses.

Bang Your Head

We went to the sparsely attended Vince Neil, Quiet Riot, Slaughter triple bill last night at the coliseum. We missed the Slaughter, but I wanted it see Quiet Riot in 1983 so I was glad to finally get the job done. The lead singer looks like Rod Stewart which is a little disconcerting when you are trying to bang your head. They have a new album, but they only played a couple of songs off it. That's not too bad since I only knew 3 of their songs anyway. Despite never owning a Motley Crue record I knew every song Vince Neil played. Maria claims that over the course of her life she's spent so much money on Motley Crue merchandise that she's made a mortgage payment for Vince Neil. That money also helped me learn all of the tunes. There were 2 things that stood out about the show. One, both bands were incredibly enthusiastic. Often times more enthusiastic than the crowd. And the second thing was beer was $8 for 24 ounces. I have to start saving for Van Halen right now.

How Much Is Too Much?

Finally, Van Halen is playing w/ David Lee Roth and tickets go on sale this Saturday for the September 29th show in Greensboro. There was some rumblings about 10 years ago that this would happen, and people were so excited that I actually heard 1984 at a Pink House party. The real question is how much are tickets going to cost. You could go the presale through livenation, but I always buy my tickets from the coliseum at the box office to save the "convenience" charges. I'm thinking about $75 sounds right. I just don't know if I'll actually pay that much.

Record Breakers

Of course Barry Bonds broke the MLB home run record yesterday and he was asked if the record was tainted. I'm amazed that the baseball junkies ask things like this. The game has a long history of cheating. From throwing world series games, to stealing signs, to spitballs, to corked bats, to too much pine tar, to sculpting the playing field for the home team's advantage, baseball has a always been known for cheating. Obviously the evidence points to him using steroids beginning in the 1999 season, but I don't care. He hit 421 HRs before 1999. He's drawn more walks than any other player in history. In my opinion, his biggest problem is the media regards him as a first class jerk. I remember an usher at Veteran's Stadium telling me the first English phrase Juan Samuel learned was "No autographs kid". I didn't care about that, I still wanted Sammy to hit a home run to beat the damn Mets. The bigger problem w/ Bonds is MLB did nothing to address the growing steroids problem and now the numbers that always meant something to "history" aren't relevant. Still, even Game of Shadows says Bonds got on the steroid program b/c he was pissed Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were getting tons of recognition about breaking the HR record and he was jealous. He didn't originate the steroid problem. He just used it to his advantage b/c baseball wasn't doing a damn thing about it.

The record I'm more concerned about is WUAG dj Johnny Walker trying to break the Guinness Book of World Records mark for longest radio show. You can listen to him here, but I'll let you know the rules as I understand them. He can take a 5 minute break every hour. If he doesn't take the break during the hour he can accumulate 5 minute breaks and use them consecutively as he sees fit (so 4 hours of non-stop dj action gives him a 20 minute break). All songs must be less than 6 minutes. This means my strategy of playing John Coltrane doing My Favorite Things for an hour won't fly. I'm not sure how anybody can stay awake for that long (or why they would want to), but good luck to him.

Ethnic Identity

My wife's mother is from Colombia. That makes her 100% Hispanic for census purposes. Now I've never classified Maria as Hispanic but since she's 50% Colombian and 50% cracker I guess she could claim to be w/o any trouble. I recently had to fill out some papers for Desmond's kindergarten and while it was pretty easy to classify him as "white" I didn't know what to do w/ the separate box that asks if you are also Hispanic. If the cops pulled him over, they wouldn't think that so I figured I wouldn't check the box (Maria wasn't sure what to do either). To even things out maybe I'll classify Izabella as Hispanic but not Desmond. Does that make any sense?

I was listening to an interview w/ a lady who runs an adoption agency in Winston-Salem that helps people adopt kids from the country of Georgia. She explained that part of the popularity of adopting kids from foreign countries was that most adoptions in the US are open adoptions and many people aren't comfortable w/ that. I'm not sure how I feel about immigrant babies taking jobs from American born babies, but I'm really confused about how these foreign born kids will view their ethnic identity when they are adults. In reality they will be 1st generation Americans from Eastern European somewhere, but will they grow up thinking that they are of Irish descent b/c their dad is Tom O'Brien? Will they continue to identify w/ that ancestry in some way? I don't have any answers for my own kids so this situation is even more confusing. Maybe we should all just consider ourselves Americans and get over it.

NASCAR Quiz

ESPN is broadcasting NASCAR this year, so they have coverage on shows where the hosts don't have a lot of knowledge about the sport (yeah, I said sport). Usually, it's a highlight on sportscenter or a 1 minute segment on PTI, but I listened to a 25 minute podcast by the Sports Guy w/ Tony Stewart that obviously was not his idea. He prepared a lot of questions and some of them were even related to racing, but someone should have asked the Sports Guy a few questions before they let him interview Stewart. I am that someone. Feel free to play along.

1) What company sponsors Tony Stewart's car?

2) Who is the car owner?

Maybe these aren't the most important questions, but Bill Simmons was under the impression that Stewart drove the #33 Old Spice car. While he has driven that car a few times in the Busch series, Home Depot spends something like $15+ million to sponsor him every week. Also, since Stewart is from Indiana, Simmons wanted to know if he likes the Colts. While he said yes, nothing was ever mentioned that the guy who owns the #20 Home Depot car is the Hall of Fame coach of the Washington Redskins.

I think this podcast proved 3 things. First, ESPN is cramming NASCAR down its employees throats even more than Arena Football. Second, Bill Simmons can fit his interview/writing style into any template (which is good if you like him but your interests aren't quite in line w/ his). Third, Tony Stewart can be a heck of a nice guy since he didn't mention the gaping holes in his interviewer's research for the entire 2o minute interview. I was already aware of the first two things, but I had no idea Stewart could be so gracious. I don't know if that makes me like him more or less.

Myrtle Beach Vacation

The most noteworthy thing that happened on our vacation was we lost Desmond. We were at the pool and were planning to go out on the beach. He had been 10 steps ahead of us all weekend and left the pool area to head to the beach. After we got our beach bag together, we headed out there and didn't see him. Since he had his surfboard we guessed he was in the water. He wasn't. I went back to the pool area (there were 4 pools) and couldn't find him anywhere. I went back to the beach and walked along the surf awhile and still couldn't find him. Maria was pretty upset at this point. I convinced her we should go back to the room and see if he was up there and as we headed back there he was w/ the cleaning lady bringing him out to look for us. Needless to say I tipped this cleaning lady very well even though I told her we didn't need the room cleaned every time she came by. I guess he learned his lesson b/c he was only 5 steps ahead of us for the rest of the vacation. The whole episode lasted maybe 10 minutes, but it was pretty scary.

Other than that it was pretty typical. The hotel was nice enough. We were smart enough to get a suite so the kids could go to sleep and we could shut the door and watch the Discovery Channel. The KISS Coffeehouse is still standing. They seem to be more focused on the actual coffee w/ about 20 flavors instead of the 4 they had last time (Maria bought Let Me Go Rocky Road). The rides were as usual a family favorite.

About the only other interesting thing to happen was we ate at what I think was a segregated restaurant. We went to this pancake house at lunch and this black lady and her teenage son walked in right before us. As I was holding the door for my family a teenage girl who was w/ the mother and son came to the door so I held it open for her too. I noticed a handful of black people eating in this section of the restaurant. The hostess immediately seated my family despite the fact that these people were there first and any table that seats 4 would be the logical place to seat 3. She took us to the other side of the restaurant which was separated by glass windows and we sat in a section full of white people. Maybe it was all innocuous, but I didn't have a real good feeling about this place's intentions. Probably b/c it was staffed by a bunch of thick accented Europeans. You just can't trust their kind.