this blog has a fever

and the only prescription...is more cowbell.



tonight, the beckster and i laughed and cajoled our way through "cowbell night" at one of south texas's longest standing traditions.

ice hockey.



the rio grande valley killer bees are in the powerful central hockey league. and the fabulous thing about mid-level professional hockey is that there are usually more fights than goals. that's what puts the butts in the seats.

well, the fights were all well and good, but it was another aspect of mid-level pro hockey that made this a night to remember: sponsorship mania.

now, i would expect a certain amount of named sponsors to appear on any given night (ie. the "VALLEY YAMAHA FAN OF THE GAME") but the shear volume and thoroughness of sponsorships in this instance is staggering. they literally left NO aspect of the game without a sponsor. to prove this, we have concocted the following mocked-up play-by-play for you to enjoy:

"it's a BUFFALO WILD WINGS RIO GRANDE VALLEY KILLER BEES PENALTY on #16, mark o'leary. 2 minutes for slashing. that means your killer bees are on the INNOVATIVE BLOCK PENALTY KIIIIILL. the puck is up the ice and that's a RIO HOME CARE.....ICING! and play resumes, and the killer bees pass and, uh-oh, it's a MCALLEN NORTH IMAGING OFFSIDES call. and it looks like we have a player down on the ice. that means it's time for a RIO GRANDE REGIONAL HOSPITAL PLAYER INJURY. the BUDWISER POWER PLAY comes to an end and the rio grande valley killer bees are back to FULL SWARRRM! the puck is hit over the glass. that's a CORRS REALTY PUCK OUT OF PLAY. here's one final shot as time expires at the SUPERIOR ALARMS END OF PERIOD BUZZER." *

not to mention the between period antics of SIR-STINGS-A-LOT and the world's most enthusiastic p.a. announcer. let's just put it this way, the simple act of throwing out t-shirts becomes "Who! Needs! A TEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! SHERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT!?!?" (proof.)

bless the killer bees' little hearts, they tried tonight, but still fell 6-2 to their bitter rivals, the laredo bucks. personally, i think it was the 3 goals they gave up in less than a minute in the first period that did them in....but i don't know that much about hockey.

basically, all this means is if you are in the valley of south texas and need some simple, cheap and wonderful entertainment...check out the bees.



* i swear absolutely NONE of these are made up. every one was written down and recorded verbatim. no joke.

this just in

i got myself a job. like a JOB job.

more soon.

peace out.

a somewhat solicited opinion

alright. alright.

everytime i have talked to anyone this week they have wanted to know one thing: what is my opinion on the miss usa/trump thing?

well, up to this point my answer has been something along the lines of "i respect that he is giving her another chance" or "i for sure thought he would take her crown, but was happy with his ultimate decision" or "i am not at all surprised that this is coming out, she's been a trainwreck from day one."

but now, i have been forced to craft a new response:

"i hate rosie o'donnell and think she has serious psychological problems."

i am not condoning the donald's retaliatory remarks about rosie's weight or her looks or many of his other comments (though i found his comment about suing her to "take some money from her fat-ass wallet" quite hilarious). but the reason rosie's comments bother me more is that she stuck her nose in where it didn't belong and mistook angry commentary for comedy. she thought she was being funny by imitating trump and conner (miss usa), but all it did was come across as a personal attack. and you can just ask michael richards how that usually works out. i mean, she can make fun of trump all she wants, it's no secret that the two don't get along, but she crossed all kinds of lines when she mocked a very apologetic and shaken conner.

my point is this. miss usa obviously messed up. i am not supporting her recent actions. but the only thing that i have EVER defended when it came to the miss usa and miss teen usa pageant system that i have been involved in for nearly 13 years now is that it offers young women the chance to grow and gives them the opportunity to make themselves a better person. that, i believe, is what trump has done. then rosie opened her big mouth....and trump opened HIS big mouth...and now entertainment tonight has all the crap programming it needs to fill a month's worth of shows.

and it's not even CLOSE to being over.

tomorrow, rosie will undoubtedly play the victim and rally her troops around whatever nonsense she has to spout. and then trump will continue to throw his weight around and toss back equally stupid (but far funnier...who is the comedian in this pair anyway?) retorts and this will eventually die away.

all the while, tara conner will be getting the help she needs to get her life in order and start making some good decisions. she will grow up more in the next 3 months than she did in her first 20 years...and the miss universe organization will help guide her to a far more promising future than the one she was headed toward.

make fun of that, rosie.

it's like i never left

so today i did the load-in for the miss kansas usa pageant at this place:



in lawrence, ks.

for those who don't know, this is the lied center at the university of kansas. a place at which i not only cut my technical theatre teeth on, but i also helped break in (sometimes literally) when it opened my freshman year in college.

it had been a 6 years since i had set foot in this place, and today was full of wave after wave of not only nostalgia, but a distinct sense of pride at the work that i did when i was there. looking around, seeing even a small handful of the projects that i worked on a decade ago, i couldn't help but smile the whole day.

and knowing where everything is, from extension cords to bathrooms, is always a nice feeling.

i even made an unplanned but necessary trip to old murphy hall and to the university theatre venues i spent so many hours in as a student. all the while, chatting away with a favorite former GTA of mine that now leads the tech department at my beloved lied center. it's a small and lovely circular world sometimes.

to make the matter even more great and surreal, every song i have heard on the radio today has been from the 90's...or more specific, from the years '93-'98. i mean, you hear songs like pearl jam's jeremy and no rain by blind melon on a pretty regular basis...but dreamlover by mariah carey? no, this is all just for me. i am convinced.

so, as the weekend full of strange flashes from a time in my life that i truly love continues tomorrow and sunday, i will enjoy every moment.

this city of lawrence will always be one of the places i can call home. and even though it's currently incarnating the form of a dingy holiday inn, it's always nice to have a place to call home.

a rare post about the national football league

i don't care that tony romo is apparently the greatest young quarterback in the history of mankind.

i don't care that bill parcells is a "genius."

i don't care that the cowboys are planning on building a new ka-zillion dollar stadium to replace the awful concrete tent they've been calling home for the past 200 years.

i don't care that the cowboys are again relevant.

i am an american.

what does any of this have to do with anything, you ask?

easy. the dallas cowboys are NOT nor have they EVER been "america's team." just because they are having some success again doesn't mean that they (or the media) can throw around that ridiculous moniker again. they need to knock off the foolishness and go back to the lovely obscurity they had earned over the last few years.

man, i hate the cowboys.

sidenote: to the kansas city chiefs - just stop it. if you don't want to go to the playoffs, that's fine. but do us a favor and stop giving us a reason to cheer. don't finish 7th in the league. that is just not right. finish last or something. well, second to last anyway...i like where the raiders are right now. cheers

this place needs some serious lightening up

still love british humor. still love youtube.

at the risk of being eternally labeled as a "grump," i have one thing to say...

i hate christmas.

now, before anyone goes off on my curmudgeonly dislike for the holiday formerly known as noel, allow me to explain.

it has little to do with the unbearable barrage of horrid christmas music that is piped in everywhere from airports to home depot. i can count on one hand the number of actual good christmas songs. and those are never played at the mall.

it has nothing to do with the weather. i generally like cold weather. so that's not it.

i know that i am not alone in the reason i hate "christmas." many of you share my view whether you think you do or not. this should be nothing new.

it is, quite simply, that the holiday that we have created has taken it's original message; one of hope and peace, and turned it into an extended midnight sale at wal-mart.

i saw an innocent commercial for k-mart this morning that (from the parts i didn't block out) had a couple of women running around and singing about all the stuff they had to get done for the holidays. k-mart then promised to help us get through the stress of christmas.

let me repeat that. the stress of christmas.

so let me get this straight. we, as a society, have turned the good news of the birth of jesus into a stressful race to spend too much money on gifts so that our loved ones will FEEL loved, cook (and subsequently throw out) more food than we could ever eat and eventually crash once we have drunk too much and the new calendar year (don't even get me started on new years) has been effectively and irreversibly rung in?

just run yourself ragged physically, financially and emotionally and worry about the consequences in january. all in the name of the "christmas spirit."

count me out. i have enough stress in my life to have to fabricate more due to a bastardized version of one of the most important foundations of my faith.

i have reached the point where i don't expect gifts. my friends and family tend to be over-generous throughout the rest of the year as it is, so i feel no need to ask them for anything in addition. that is not to say that i look with scorn upon those that give gifts. i CAN be a truly appreciative person...really i can. i just don't like it when people make a fuss about it. i also struggle with giving gifts, but that has more to do with the fact that i am a terrible gift buyer and not so much that i don't want to give things to the people i love. but why do we have to go crazy with the gifts to celebrate the nativity?

sidenote: this is a rambling post and i apologize if the true meaning of what i am trying to say doesn't come across as clear as it is in my head.

my point is that there are a lot of things i don't care for in our society (this country in particular). most of which i get caught up in and am as guilty of as the next. it just strikes me as strange that "christmas" has become, in today's world, synonymous with gluttonly and greed just as "christianity" has become synonymous with moral superiority and intolerance.

i am asking no one to abandon the festivities, and won't judge anyone who partakes. i realize that there are people who love the secular christmas. that is fine...as long as you have the right mindset about it. i DO propose that we (for those of us who choose to) keep to the basics of quietly rejoicing in the birth of Jesus Christ and not confuse it with it's capitalist doppleganger.

merry america-mas to all, and to all a good night.

yea!!!

there's a tsunami mini-series! sweet!

link