I've been on the local news a few times over the years, but here was one moment of fame captured forever thanks to my mother and her trusty VCR. I converted the VHS to DVD and the DVD to MPEG on my computer, so there could be some other stuff coming online too someday (to those that have known me for a while, you might have heard about an infamous Taco Bell video project from 8th grade - it'll be online whenever I get around to cleaning it up and re-editing it). The short clip is from back during my senior year of high school at Union City when our team made it to the state playoffs. Woohoo. I have dozens of VHS tapes with my basketball games all the way from the Cambridge Springs junior high days to UC varsity... I'd like to convert them all eventually, since VHS is all but a dead technology (and so I can sit there with my kids when they're at the basketball age and talk about all of the 360 alley-oop dunks I did with my eyes closed while they're rolling their own eyes and checking their watches), but not sure if I'll ever make the time or not.




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Do you miss me
like I miss you?
If you miss me,
never go away,
I'll wait here,
dream of you
all alone as I ache.
-Foo Fighters "How I Miss You"

Labels: Videos

"After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her."
-Mark Twain

A poll conducted by CNN released today says twenty-three percent of Americans think George W. Bush is the worst president ever. Another poll, conducted by me, says twenty-three percent of Americans are idiots. Granted, I'm not a big Bush supporter by any stretch of the imagination - seven years in and he still seems confused about what exactly his job entails and his tax policies are ignorant, to say the least - but honestly, worst president ever? Give me a break, kids.

I bet if you asked these twenty-three percent who Herbert Hoover was, they'd tell you he was the guy that invented vacuum cleaners. Or who was Warren G. Harding, who appointed all his inexperienced buddies to powerful government positions while in office, just to have them all rob the government blind. Or how about Andrew Johnson (no, that's not the fellow on the twenty dollar bill). Or Millard Fillmore. Or James Buchanan. They've probably heard of that Nixon guy though, because wasn't there a movie about two hippie girls, you know, Spider-Man's girlfriend and that chick from Dawson's Creek, sneaking into the White House to meet him? Who would have known that was a true story though, right...? President Josiah Bartlet was pretty good though. There was that good reality TV show about him for a while...

Sheesh.

Of course, it's impossible to say now what Bush's legacy will be (surely, it'll be a negative one), but I'm telling you, if it had been Al Gore or John Kerry or whoever else running the country for the past seven years, the American public would be condemning them instead. I guarantee it.

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President James Marshall: Get off my plane!
-Air Force One

Labels: Current Events

If you watched the absolute pounding that my homeboys down in Pittsburgh gave to the Baltimore Ravens last night, you're undoubtedly in agreement that James Harrison gets the much sought after Man of the Week award.

3 forced fumbles. 1 fumble recovery. 2.5 sacks. 1 interception......... all in the first half. It was a legendary performance, one of those that will be discussed in Pittsburgh for years to come, and it was only appropriate that it took place not only on national television, but during the game where Pittsburgh was recognizing their 75th Anniversary All-Star Team, and the likes of Terry Bradshaw, Lynn Swann, Franco Harris, John Stallworth (and hey, Cowher even showed up on the field for a while... boy, as much as I'm liking Coach Tomlin this season, I'm still missing Cowher in all his spitting glory out there on the field).

At any rate, Harrison had a monster performance and now he's getting a lot of attention that he never really got before. That's what is expected when you do stuff like that on Monday Night Football though. Some people seem to be forgetting the other highlight of his career though, possibly the more important one that took place during a Steelers and Browns game in the past. Need a refresher?



In other news, my favorite player in the NFL, Hines Ward, had some monster blocks in the game (he's easily the best blocking WR in the game, but I'm sure you know that). One of his monsters blocks this game was on linebacker Bart Scott. Hines talks about what Scott said to him after the play, which make me chuckle at his stupidity:

"He tackled me and said he was going to kill me. But as long as you don't shoot me, I'll be fine. I don't think there's any place in the game for that type of stuff. I always thought he was a great player, but I guess he doesn't like me."

Hines is one cool dude. Love how he smiles after almost every play. After last night, Pittsburgh is 6-2 and looking better than ever (I mean, c'mon... Roethlisberger's 5 TD's in the first half? Jeez...). If we get the W against Cleveland next week, well... we'll be in great shape in our division. Absolutely cannot wait to see the game against New England here in a few weeks...

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Boobie Miles: Y'all wanna win? Put Boobie in.
-Friday Night Lights

Labels: Rambling, Sports

I felt like a criminal walking out the library today. The beep, beep, beep of the alarm went off, something that I've seen often in the past, whether at the school library or American Eagle in the mall, but have never actually had happen while I was strolling through. I would have just kept walking, as I was fairly confident I hadn't stolen anything, but the librarian immediately made her way over to the exit and asked me if I had any books that weren't checked out. I told her I had a few books that I had checked out the day prior and she asked if she could see them. Naturally, being the innocent man that I was, I agreed. I pulled the four books out of my backpack so she could have her inspection, her adrenaline rush of the day, while she asked me to walk through the sensor a couple of times without my backpack, just to make it even more of a scene than it already was.

She printed out a library invoice of the books I had out and noticed two of the books I had had in my backpack weren't on there. She gave me a cold, questioning look, I gave her a smile, and she notified me that I didn't have two of the four books I had in my backpack checked out.

"Well, I checked them out yesterday," I replied honestly. When she simply stared at me, I informed her that I had actually checked out the two that weren't on the invoice with the other two that were on there. "That's weird, huh?" I added.

She continued to give me that cold, questioning look, as if I were nothing more than a common criminal, a petty thief, then she proceeded to repeat what she already told me once. "These just aren't on the invoice. See," she put the paper in front of my eyes, "The other two are on there, but these two aren't."

"I see that," I replied. When she didn't respond, but still held the slip of paper for me to see: "Well, can I check them out again then?"

After a moment's pause, she did just that. Then as I thanked her and began to walk away, she said warningly, "Be careful." As if the whole thing had been my mistake, and not that of the library staff.

I chuckled to myself and left.

I also found it pretty amusing that the two books that she believed me to be heisting were all about serial killers (for a paper I'm writing - err, or thinking about writing - due Monday), and another of the books that actually were checked out was a Richard Matheson horror novel called Hell House. I bet with that odd smirk I returned when she was more or less accusing me of stealing, she probably has some crazy ideas in her head.

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Questioner: What do you think when you see a pretty girl walking down the street?
1970s Serial Killer Edmund Kemper: One side of me says, 'I'd like to talk to her, date her'. The other side of me says , 'I wonder how her head would look on a stick?"

Labels: Rambling

Okay, so not really. But I was able to convert the .mov of Slow Children Playing to .avi, so I cut together some of it with the original One Lane Bridge to make it look like a (poorly made) trailer, and I did it just because I had a half of an hour to waste the other day and I enjoy doing this sort of thing. I tried to implement some overused trailer cliches, and I even had a lot more ideas in mind, but Windows Media Maker has its limits, so most of my ideas are still just ideas until I get a better video editing program - you know, the kind that doesn't come free with Windows. For something I threw together in half an hour though, I'm pretty happy with it.



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Rita: And they think the stupidest things are funny.
Michael: Yeah, that's a cultural problem is what it is. You know, your average American male is in a perpetual state of adolescence, you know, arrested development.
Narrator: Hey. That's the name of the show.
-Arrested Development

Labels: Movies