Sing us a song

I admit it...I watched the premier of #1 Single, the new "reality" show that documents Lisa Loeb's dating life. Now, I'm not a big fan of reality TV at all, but there were a few reasons I decided to watch this particular program -- not the least of which is I've had a minor thing for Lisa Loeb since the days of "Stay". The liberal usage of bra-shopping footage was interspersed with some lessons for all of us:

Tell me she's not a cutie!

• Even someone who has achieved the success of Lisa Loeb, who nobody will confuse with Bono or Dave Matthews in terms of recognizability or commercial success, can (and some would argue, must) afford a personal tailor and houses on both coasts.
• SIZE MATTERS! Reference the above mentioned bra-shopping scenes, wherein Lisa and her sister evaluate padded bras and discuss the "up and in" effect. Later, when getting ready for a date, Lisa throws in the anatomically correct breast augmentators. I point this out not because it's so unbelievable, but rather that it's just further evidence that everyone is self-conscious or unhappy to a degree about some part of their body.
• Don't sing karaoke on the first date. Actually, when you're dating someone, it's best to not sing karaoke until after you have an equal amount of embarassing dirt on them, because trust me, you don't sound as good as you think you do. And if you are ever in the position of dating a recording artist, for the love of God, do NOT sing them one of their own songs!
• Ryan Seacrest is a tool and douchebag of the highest order. That's nothing new or unique to this show, but he interviewed Lisa on the radio and in the 90 seconds of the interview that made it on the show, he said about four things that only a complete asshat would say.

Lisa also mentioned the website airtroductions. It's online dating meets frequent flying -- enter your profile and what flights you will be on, and it tells you who else will be on your flight. As long as their profile doesn't say that they have three small, screaming kids or that they smell like beets, I guess I'd take the chance and at least sit next to them on the plane. I just wonder what percentage of the 4134 registered users are looking for mile high booty.

Speaking of reality TV music shows...

The best pure unscripted entertainment on TV was on again last night. I'm talking about the audition rounds of American Idol. For my money, there's nothing better than the entirely predictable yet utterly hilarious cycle some of these people go through. Untalented, unattractive, cocksure contestant brags to the cameras that they are going to win the competition and become the next big thing. Contestant enters the audition room and proceeds to mercilessly attack a song, sending viewers everywhere in search of a letter opener with which to pierce their eardrums. Judges tell contestant, in brutally honest terms, that they are one of the worst human beings on the planet, for reasons that may well go beyond just their singing. Contestant informs judges that they are wrong, and that Contestant is actually borderline Whitney Houston vocally and Jessica Alba visually, when they are actually closer to Roseanne Barr on both scales. Judges tell contestant to leave the room, sometimes with the assistance of security personnel. Contestant, on their way out of the building, informs cameras that the judges don't know real talent when they see it, and that they'll be sorry when Contestant becomes a big star. It's even better when the contestant's family is there, echoing the contestant's remarks, and usually adding the fact that "Contestant is the best singer in our family!"

It wouldn't be so funny if these people didn't take this show so seriously. They really base their entire lives on the approval of the three judges and the chance to compete for a record contract. Let's see, there have been, what, four people ever given a contract because of what they did on this show? And there's what, about four million singers with some kind of deal out there? That they don't realize that American Idol is strictly entertainment -- nobody's really looking for actual talent, they're manufacturing a competition and therefore television ratings -- is the basis for the pure humor in the situation. If you take American Idol seriously, you're a moron. If you don't, then you know what I'm talking about: funny, funny stuff.

Rookie of the Year

The Fall 2005 Richmond radio ratings have come out, and apparently the word has spread. In its very first ratings period, Liberty has checked in with a solid 4.7 -- good enough for 8th place. Some of the usual suspects are near the top of the heap -- nobody is ever going to knock off Lite 98, Kiss FM, K95, and WRVA in this town. But talk about blowing away the direct competition! Liberty is the top-rated station of its genre. It's ahead of both "new rock" stations, it's ahead of both classic rockers, it's ahead of Mix 103.7, and Q94 went from a 5.2 to a 3.7! Little doubt where those listeners went! Of course, if Liberty translates high ratings into high commercial rates and we get 22 minutes of commercials an hour...well, it would still be better than the soulless programming of Q, X, and Y, but I'd probably stop listening and go back to CDs. It will be interesting in any case to see where Liberty's ratings go from here. Might the other stations break out of their corporate-formatted funk and try to compete by actually being innovative and giving us some real music (yeah right)? Will people eventually get tired of Liberty and listen to less radio, period? Or, will Liberty regress to the mean and become less and less differentiated?

Isn't Miss America supposed to be pretty?

Or at least not have a lazy eye?

Thanks for the ample warning

Driving in to work the other day, I saw the message board on I-64 near Parham actually in use for once. It said, "Traffic delays at mile marker 183". Big help, that, because the message board itself is located at mile marker 182.5. I had to hit my brakes almost before I was done reading the sign. Then, after about a half hour of crawling along the highway, I got to the merge with 95. With traffic backed up for miles on both roads, it was evident that there was some kind of pileup on the road ahead. Nonetheless, in the small area between lanes right before you actually merge with traffic was placed a portable orange sign that simply stated, "Accident Ahead". How thoughtful! And helpful! By that point it doesn't really matter the reason that traffic is backed up; everyone's already late for work and totally pissed off. And I guarantee that by the time authorities responded to the accident scene and were able to go back up the road to put that sign down, traffic was already slowed down past the point of it being useful to anyone. But I guess it's the thought that counts, especially since my assumption the previous 40 minutes had been that everyone was slowed down to let a family of ducks cross the road.

They've also been warning us for days that a New Traffic Pattern would take effect on 64 near Staples Mill. The eastbound effect was basically that you veer to the right instead of the left so the construction crews can work on the other side of the road. But the HUGE improvement is along the westbound lanes where traffic from 195 merges with traffic from 95 north which merges with traffic from 95 south all at the same place. They've put up concrete barriers along the lane coming from 195, which means that those people can't get over until after the Staples Mill exit. This is an improvement that has been a long time coming! Every day on my drive home, no matter the time of afternoon or evening, traffic would be terribly backed up along that stretch because of idiots trying to get across four lanes of traffic in about 200 feet to hit that exit. Now I can get from the 195 exit past the Staples Mill exit in about 30 seconds as opposed to the five minutes it used to take. Now, don't take this as a complaint that Richmond traffic is "bad" in any absolute sense -- especially since I've never given much credence to those who argue that Richmond traffic is bad, considering that I have extensive experience driving the highways of Chicago and DC. But when a delay of just five minutes represents 33% of my total commute, I will fully endorse the spending of my tax dollars to put up walls between the lanes.

I award you no points

Apparently there are two ways to get dumber (three, if you count excessive drinking). We all know about the effects of being in the presence of a moron or morons. The line from Billy Madison, "Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it," is funny because it's true. If you're in the upper half of the IQ distribution, you've probably had at least one conversation with someone in the lower half that left you wondering, "what did we just talk about," or "now where do I live again?" I had a couple of "conversations" with Ohio State fans in Tempe that would have forced me to repeat a grade if I was still in school. And I'll never forget the kid we called Bear in college, who would enter the room and proclaim, in his Waco, TX drawl, "Ah just reelized the red blinking laght on the phone meens yoo have voice mail." At which point I would glance at whoever else was in the room, usually Kuder, and say "are you dumber?" "Yep, I'm dumber."

The other way to get dumber, as I was made aware today, is to talk to someone smarter than you. Now, I don't consider myself any smarter or less smart than any of my friends; rather, I tend to make shit up using big words. The case in point is when I was discussing this blog (a surefire way to get dumber under reason #1) and whether I should make a post explaining why I chose the links at the right of the page. I was concerned that doing so would cross the line into self-referential metablogging -- a phrase I obviously coined on the spot. Robert (name changed to protect the innocent) did a verbal double-take at "self-referential metablogging" and said he gets dumber every time I talk to him the phone. If that is truly the case, then pity poor Robert! It's one thing to have a conversation with an Einstein or a Hawking and realize that they're just on a level that you will never even comprehend. In those situations, you just have to hope they'll appreciate that intellectual chasm and communicate to you a glimpse of a higher truth or point of view. But the 99% of us who aren't supergeniuses don't have to feel dumber around each other! Instead, when we encounter someone who won't make us dumber (usually identified by their scarlet and gray colors), we should strive to get smarter! If Robert felt dumb when I made that blog comment, it was no dumber than I felt when in the same conversation he tried to tell me about some kind of fish that puffs up (evidently called a beta fish) that I've never heard of. Isn't it great that we both learned something from each other? Conversations like that restore my faith in society, the downfall of which is accelerated every day by poor driving and truly dumb questions that honestly make me wonder if some people never progressed beyond "The Puppy Who Lost His Way".

I'm an excellent driver

If you see random car parts that may have come from a transmission scattered up and down Broad Street, they're probably from me. On the way in to work yesterday, I noticed a slight scraping sound when I got off 95 and was driving in the lower gears. It was one of those sounds that you hope will just go away, but the more you hear it the more you just know that it's really bad. When your transmission sounds like it's digesting itself, it's time to hope for a miracle. So I fully utilized and exhausted all applications of my knowledge of car maintenance and repair: I checked the fluid levels and unfortunately the clutch fluid was almost full. Bad news for the tranny. I managed to drive to the mechanic, dreading every red light on Broad because first and second gears were by now making a horrible, vomit-inducing sound. Third gear wasn't much better, so I drove most of the way in fourth gear -- not quite recommended when you're going 35 mph, but quite necessary. The mechanic's diagnosis was as I had feared: I need a new transmission to the tune of $2100.

This is a classic example of bad things happening to good drivers. I don't consider myself a bad driver, I don't run red lights like everyone else in this town (yellow is a different story, but you know the assholes who blast through blatantly red lights), I don't cut people off, I don't pull out into traffic from a dead stop, I stay out of the left lane unless I'm doing at least 70, I don't leave my high beams on when there's traffic on the other side of the road, and I don't park where there are No Parking signs. That may not make me a saint, but every single time I'm on the streets I encounter someone doing at least one of those things that oftentimes sets me off cursing at them and wishing bad things to happen to their car. Wouldn't it be fitting if someone parked illegally, blocking an alley, and in doing so drove on a nail? Wouldn't it be awesome if someone cruised through a red light and then had their transmission drop to the street? But no, those jackoffs never even consider what they're doing yet suffer no consequences, meanwhile I get stuck having to buy a new transmission. There's no justice.

Rounding 'em up

The defending AIFL champs are going to be STACKED! They've re-signed some of last year's biggest contributors, including Redd Thompson, Bryan Still, and Lawrence "The LAW" Lewis. They, along with previously announced returnees Robbie Jenkins, Will Burch, DeAndre Green, and Bobby Phillips, will comprise unquestionably the league's best skill position offense. Spots along the offensive and defensive lines and in the defensive backfield are still open, which isn't surprising since departed head coach Rik Richards was also the defensive coordinator and took some of his guys with him to Rockford. Of course, guys like DeAndre can play both ways, and the #1 Stunner himself, Nate Daniels, is back too. And the defense just has to be decent -- everyone is going to give up some points in the indoor game. As good as the defense was last year, Rik really didn't put a lot of pressure on himself. "With Brent's offense being so good, all I have to do is get one stop and we're set," he said on many occasions. With the Bandits' offense being so potent, and coach Williams building on last year's success, the defense can drop a notch or two with no ill effects on the team's record.

More details on season tickets and the home promotions are in the current version of the Bandit Beat.

Pictures

• RIR new seating tower
• Summer of 2006

Pictures

PNC Park, August 26, 2006

The view from the Clemente Bridge

The Pittsburgh skyline

Left field view

Richmond International Raceway, June 24, 2006

Check out how close we got to an actual race car about an hour before it was in the starting grid! (Also, check out how close I am to getting my ass kicked by the bald guy)