The Super Bowl, Architecture, and a Random Reminder

In order of appearance, I'll start with the Super Bowl. I don't suppose there's any way it can end in a tie is there? No, I'd guessed not. Being a Philadelphia Eagles fan, it'd be really hard for me to actually root for the Giants, much in the way it's kind of ridiculous for me to watch Cornell hockey, being an RPI alum. That being said, I do not like the Patriots, particularly this season. Tom Brady chief among them. Super Bowl XLII does not feature the Patriots and the Giants for me. No, it is a game between a rock and a hard place. But I think that if the Patriots won the game, we'd never hear the end of it. Particularly from ESPN. Chuck Klosterman wrote a very good article as to why the Patriots should lose on ESPN.com. Something about them being humanized, perfectly imperfect and the such. So when it comes down to it, I think, as much as it pains me to say it, I'm going to have to root for the Giants. Because really, no matter what happens, when they come to Philly, they'll still be a bunch of losers and the fans, quite possibly the greatest in the country, or possibly the world, although I have little to no exposure to hooliganism, will probably try to make Eli Manning cry. That and I hope that Strahan or whoever else plays for the Giants defense rolls up on Tom Brady a la Kimo von Oelhoffen and blows out his perfect knees.

A random thought I had regarding building planning. Basically the thought was that if I ever designed a building, which is unlikely enough, for either something corporate or for a university, there would be no definite room numbers. I'm not sure whether this would be some sort of dynamically changing room assignment, vague room numbers, or just large general open areas, but I would like to be able to say: "Why don't you meet me in my office, it's number 140ish.

The other things are just random reminders for myself for things that I am likely to forget at some point. The first is actually a sandwich: seeded rye, turkey, bacon, coleslaw, muenster cheese, toasted. Simple enough. The other is similar, but is actually a salad: lettuce (duh), tomato, cucumber, chicken, bacon, hard boiled egg, red onion, blue cheese, and some form of vinagrette. That's it.

Wikipaths

So I, much like most people, use Wikipedia. I use it a lot. Everything from school work to checking random facts and things of that nature. The interesting thing for me is that I can sometimes get absorbed into the very fabric of Wikipedia, going from link to link in multiple topics, especially when it concerns something like comic book characters.

If I recall correctly, I had previously mentioned wondering whether Google and/or Wikipedia would track those topics that you search/view. This musing either appeared here or in the real world. But I've been wondering in the past few days what my Wikipedia activity looks like. So I've decided that at some point, for a period of time, say a week, that I'm going to track my Wikipedia usage as a tree structure, where a new search starts a tree and an opened link from within an article represents a branch of said tree.

Additionally, I wonder whether this could turn into a new game in the vein of 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon. See if you can get from the 1880 Republican Convention to Bernhard Riemann in 6 moves...

Random Thoughts (August 27, 2007)

Three things today:

Number one: After driving through a thunderstorm on Friday night, as well as one on Saturday, I decided that one of my life goals, albeit one of the more dangerous ones, is to witness a lightning strike from close distance. Not that I have any desire to be struck by lightning at any point in my lifetime, as I would imagine the odds of surviving are not that great. It’s just that you really only ever see the beginning and middle of a bolt of lightning, and just once I’d like to see the end, preferably from a safe distance.

Number two: So I began wondering about this over this weekend, although I have yet to put any real amount of research into this. Back in the day, you often had these partnerships from a musical standpoint. I’m thinking along the lines of Sonny & Cher, Jan & Dean, Hall & Oates, Peaches & Herb, The Captain and Teneil. These were often instances where some sort of synergistic effect was seen, in that by themselves, half of the duo might not produce as well, but together they are able to produce a hit single or two. The exception to this may be Sonny & Cher, as Cher has gone on to have an extensive career of her own after the end of that partnership, and, lest we forget, Sonny went on to be a Congressman.

But nowadays, the permanent duo is not something that is often seen, if it is seen at all. The only time you really see anything along the lines of a duet or a duo is when it is a collaboration between an older established artist and a bevy of younger starlets. Tony Bennett comes to mind. I suppose to a certain extent, I can throw Carlos Santana in here, although I may disqualify his past collaborative efforts because I’m not sure that he can carry an album on his own anymore. As far as a permanent couple/duo currently recording, nothing comes to mind. Now I wonder why this might be, and I have a few ideas in mind. One: It’s entirely possible that songwriting is not as good as it was thirty years ago. I would rather image that this fact is entirely true. Two: record labels may have more money to throw at people, and so artists can actively pursue solo careers instead.

If anyone can come up with a relevant, current example, let me know. I’d love to hear it.

Number three: What is the average length of a pop song these days? Granted, there are going to be songs that last longer than three minutes, but for the most part it seems songs don’t eclipse four minutes. Is this because artists, and I use the term loosely in this instance, have by and large failed to come up with more than three minutes worth of material? Or is it just that the average American Top 40 listeners, or perhaps the average American in general, does not have an attention span beyond three minutes? Do we have some sort of national attention deficit disorder or its hyperactive cousin?

It's Really Strange When...

I hear some of my favorite music, which by and large flies somewhat under the radar, as the musical scoring to a network television show. The show in this case is NBC's Chuck, which I suppose can best be described as a spy-comedy. So now, after finishing watching the first three episodes, I've heard both Spoon and The National. While I expected to hear Spoon on television at some point, particularly following Britt Daniels scoring Stranger Than Fiction, it was a surprise to hear The National. There are other songs that I recognized from the show as well, but I really didn't feel like identifying them as I watched the show.

I would liken this to the whole Grey's anatomy thing, only because I've heard rumors about there being songs selected from a similar vein, a la Metric and Let's Go Sailing. Only difference here is that I actually like Chuck. Grey's Anatomy does significantly more pussy-footing around as a show, which is okay in small doses, but can really get annoying. The nice thing about Chuck is that there is an element of action to the show, which gives one license to rock out, as the case may be. Besides, they can always save some tender moment for some sappier song. Although I do admit, I liked the use of The National's Slow Show at the end of the third episode, during a tender moment at that.

I'll be putting up another update following this, although it really only makes sense retroactive to the end of August. Or at least part of it does.

Additionally, I'll be putting up some album reviews this week, so keep an eye out for that.

Quote of the Day

From my Product Engineering and Design class professor, David Lipon, while briefly talking about the ebola virus:

"Say you run into the wrong monkey."

Question: can one ever run into the right monkey?

Discuss.

Presidential Elections

Just a couple things here, although note that this may lead to a torrential downpour of retroactive blog posts.

Upon starting up Internet Explorer this afternoon, MSN.com loads up, as it is the default homepage for IE7, and I haven't felt like changing it since updating this summer. The first thing that catches my eye is one of these slideshow things that seem to be all the rage lately. the story being displayed contains the headline: "Can Anyone Beat Clinton?" And there's this picture of a very haggard looking Hilary Clinton. So my question is this: does anyone think Hilary Clinton is starting to look like Richard Nixon? She has these very defined jowl lines. Either that or by the time her first term in office, more on that later, is over she'll look like the Emperor from Star Wars.

This whole situation with the unstoppable political juggernaut that is Hilary. Rodham. Clinton. (in the Tim Russert style) takes me back to last year. Specifically to Monday Night Football. It was a game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Chicago Bears. Famous for the Cardinals collapse and coach Dennis Green's postgame tirade, which included, among other things, the line "If you want to crown them, then crown their asses!" It just seems to me that everyone has given up hope on the rest of the Democratic candidates and seems ready to just hand the nomination over to Hilary Clinton. Let me remind you what happened to those Chicago Bears. Sure they made it to the Super Bowl, but were beaten by the Colts and, at that time, Peyton "Always the bridesmaid never the bride" Manning. So maybe Hilary does get the Dems nomination and goes head to head with, oh I don't know, John McCain. Or better yet, Ross H. Perot. And maybe, because she doesn't strike me as the most likeable, more on that later, or genuine person, she'll lose. And then it'll be another four years of bleeding heart liberals bitching and moaning about how the Republicans are screwing everything up and we could do so much better if we just had the chance.

Which brings me to another point. There's this whole stink about this ad run by MoveOn.org in the New York Times about Gen. David Petraeus, calling him Gen. Betray Us. I think this may have something to do with why middle America does not like Democrats. All of these pinko pansy liberals spouting off about how America's military is screwing up does not endear the entire party to those of us in the middle. Likewise with the ultra-conservatives. I would have thought that both parties would have learned these things by now. Maybe it's about time that Howard Dean sits down with the people at MoveOn.org and says "Listen, we appreciate what you're doing. Really we do. But back off. It's not helping."

Back to Hil-Dog. Sort of. There are all of these facebook applications these days. One of them is showing who you support for your candidates. And I was wondering whether or not I really support any candidates. I suppose I'll put Rush Holt on that list, because I think he's done a bang up job the past few years. But aside from him, who is there? Specifically for the presidential race. Which brings me to this point. If I don't want to vote for someone, can I vote against someone? Is that possible? I mean in the long run, it doesn't make a difference, particularly if I reside in either New York or New Jersey, two predominantly Democratic states. There it's just another drop in the bucket, but still it makes a statement. Specifically, it says "No, Hilary Clinton. I don't want you as my president." Of course some might say I should just vote for a third party candidate, but then I might as well not vote.

Mashed Potatoes AND Gravy?

Here's a post that never made it back in the day, mostly because I had completely forgotten about it.

Quick post. I know for a fact, because I've had them, that Country Crock, and I would assume other companies as well, sell tubs of mashed potatoes. Now I may be naive enough to think that someone hasn't come up with this already, and at the time of writing this, all of the supermarkets in my area are closed, including the Stop and Shop, leaving me unable to see if this is in fact true. Now if you're like me, you like gravy on your mashed potatoes. However, there may come a time when the meal you have mashed potatoes does not make its own gravy. So what if one of these pre-made potato companies packages gravy with the mashed potatoes that heats up at the same time as the potatoes do in the microwave? To paraphrase Brian Regan: "Dinner and no clean up? Can life get any better? I submit that it cannot!"

Whoops!

So yeah. I screwed up. Big time. I'll try to get back to regular updates within the next week, so hopefully, some new stuff will be showing up here in a day or so. Also note, that the content may change as well. In addition to what I have posted here, you may find posts ranging from music to movies to current events to God only knows what else.

Keep your eyes peeled.

Updates

So there may not be an update here for a while. This is mainly for two reasons. One being that I am insanely busy this time of year. The second is that I have started work on a side project which will, hopefully, make its appearance here at its completion. I don't want to give anything away blatantly on the internet, but if you want to know, you know how to reach me.

The Movie Musical

So I was watching Singin' In The Rain on PBS this afternoon, starring Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor. I began to wonder what ever happened to the movie musical, which happened to be oh so popular back around that time period. It also makes for good watching too. Thinking about it, the last real movie musical was probably Blaues Brothers 2000. Things like Chicago or The Producers don't count because they were simply movie adaptations of stage plays, although I suppose that The Producers is a movie adaptation of a stage adaptation of a movie. But even so, musical movies have fallen out of fashion as well. Even with the Walt Disney Company, which really hasn't had a musical animated feature probably since the days of the Lion King. I suppose this can be attributed to at least two things: one being the lack of good source material, and two being the lack of well rounded star talent. I suppose the major reason surrounding all of this is that people just aren't interested in them anymore, that they'd rather see some formulaic action or comedy movie.

Since the majority of the 'classic' musicals were made into movies several decades ago, there hasn't been much of a need to make any of them ever again. That being said, writers also stopped creating original movie musicals in the style of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly films. So the well has run dry, and it really isn't much of a surprise that there aren't any more in the works. Although that particularly surprises me when it comes to Disney, or Pixar or Dreamworks. The plan these days seems to be more to take some preexisting story or some variation thereof, add in a catchy theme sung by some pop princess of the day and add in some other odds and ends pieces by various notable artists to fill out the soundtrack and get it flying off of shelves. But where are the days of Aladdin, Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and Toy Story? But I digress.

The other thing I have noticed, and this one more than the aforementioned and elaborated reason annoys me. There is a definite lack of starpower capable of pulling of such a feat as Kelly and Astaire once did. Which is funny, because the industry papers and what not will tout the hot young stars as triple or quadruple threats because they can act, sing, dance, and chew gum or something else. But in actuality these appear to be very superficial assessments. I think what has killed this once vanguard of American cinema, and it seemed very unique to American cinema, although I suppose there are a plethora of Bollywood pictures that would argue otherwise, is the specialization and separation of the entertainment industry. Things have divided themselves into at least two separate categories, film and stage. It's always a coup when there is crossover from film to stage, at least in a dramatic sense. But there are very few who have the ability to make the crossover from film to musical stage. Off the top of my head, Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Christina Applegate, that's all I can come up with. But within this subdivision, roles are subdivided so you have dancers and singers and actors, but rarely one who combines all three to a level of capability. The late Gregory Hines comes to mind.

Bring back the days of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. Hell, bring back the days of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.