Things that Robert is thinking about that keep him from accomplishing anything.

 
Indian Nicknames
USAToday has this article about Indian nicknames and the NCAA. Marquette has been going through this tortured process with its nickname, Warriors to Golden Eagles to Gold to whatever now. I can see how nicknames like Redskins (Miami (OH), Washington) and Redmen (St. John's) are problematic, and logos definitely enhance the problem.

What I wonder is why schols like Texas Tech haven't gotten flack. I mean, what the hell else could "Red Raiders" mean? At least FSU has the blessing of the Florida Seminole Nation, and couldn't Marquette just change its iconography and keep Warriors? Why is this so hard?
posted by RSaunders at 8:37 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Indoor Mini
Sunday I orchestrated my own indoor mini-triathlon. 1500 m swim; 10 mi bike; 2 mi run. Just to get the feel of doing all the things at once. I think I'll survive an Olympic distance based on the test run. If Sunday had been T-day, I would've made it, but this was a good test to see how much more work I need on the bike.

On the other hand, my swimming is coming back together. Sunday I did a 400 IM straight. I lingered on the 3rd turn on the butterfly, and I took two 1-arm strokes into the 3rd turn, but otherwise I made it all straight. That in itself felt more impressive than the triathlon or even the half-marathon. I never thought I'd ever be able to make 4-lengths butterfly again.

I'm also noticing my times coming down on sets. Where I was doing my 200 FR on 4:00 and finishing in the 3:25-3:35 range, I'm now finishing at about 3:00-3:05 and repeating between 3:20 and 3:40. I also added some stroke work, and my 100 BK sets are about where my 100 FR sets were a couple weeks ago (in on 1:40-ish, repeating on 2:00). I won't be making Nationals anytime soon, but it is progress.
posted by RSaunders at 8:14 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Let Me Get This Straight...
They hired Jessica Alba, who hovers near the top of the perv-list rankings (though I guess she's finally in her 20's) as the actress to play the invisible woman in The Fantastic Four? Wouldn't it have made more sense to hire Rosie O'Donnell as the invisible woman?
posted by RSaunders at 7:31 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
What the Hell?
Is there such a thing as adult-onset dyslexia? I've been wondering this for a couple years now, but I'm really starting to get concerned: flipping through a listing of Nick Hornby books on Amazon, I ran across a title that I read as Snogbook but was actually Songbook." Perhaps because he's British I "wanted" to see it say "snog" rather than "song," but I don't think so.
posted by RSaunders at 8:28 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Updates Redux

• Latest article, parade of homes preview, is online. Nothing else lined up for now.
  
• Frustrated with dissertation data. Struggling to make a compelling question out of rancid data.
  
• Went to Jackson, MS last week. Apart from its being in Mississippi and all the red state baggage that entails, it is pretty nice little city, with my favorite hotel, The Edison Walthall Hotel.
  
• Miscellaneous SAS freelance stuff is going alright. One fell through (just got tired of back and forth on the specs, so I quit), the other is just about done. Again, fortunately, nothing new is scheduled.
  
• Go to Boston for a research conference a week from Fri. Presentation is Sat., but the highlight will be getting into Fenway Mon. night and seeing my friend from Vanderbilt while I'm up there.
  
• Just shy of 3 weeks until my LASIK surgery. Nervous, less about the procedure, though that has amplified some, but more about what it reveals about me (i.e., I'm shockingly vain). I hope this isn't the anti-Powerball jackpot that I finally "win."
  
• Still haven't settled on a triathlon. I'm worried that the LASIK will somehow incapacitate me (e.g., can I really swim in a hyperchlorinated pool with scarred eyeballs even with goggles?). I probably mentioned this before, but I am thinking I might add a marathon to my portfolio this year, one on my birthday and in Baltimore, 10/15.
  
• Why is it, with all the information stored on the magnetic strip on your credit and debit cards (not to mention stored at the bank), that the ATM machine still feels the need to ask me what language I prefer? Can't that be added to my strip, or can't I call my bank and ask them to have that default information accessible to the card/machine when I swipe?
  
• I have a Curb Your Enthusiasm spec script bouncing in my head. Probably pointless to write a spec script for an improvised show that's almost entirely controlled by the Larry David and Jeff Garlin, but what the heck. I'm going to commit as much as possible to paper; we'll see if I can finish something.

posted by RSaunders at 11:20 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Updates
Here is the latest news about Robert:

• Most recent freelance article for the Tennessean about a family's kick ass basement.
• Still on the triathlon routine. Settling in at 195. The weight lifting is going o.k.
• I ran for the first time since the half-marathon, and my foot seemed to hold out o.k. I only did 5 min. walk/5 min. run alternating for about 35 min., but it's a start. I felt like I could go longer, faster; but, patience seems a good strategy for now.
• I still feel like I'm swimming with gunshot wounds to my shoulders, but today I actually didn't feel terrible. I can see my sets getting faster on the clock, and doing 10 200's today I wasn't thinking, "Jesus, if I just could get to 150 I'd only have 50 to go," which is a nice place to be.
• While I'm on the fine-tuning my body kick, I've decided to fork over the money to get LASIK done in July. Feels incredibly self-indulgent. I'm hoping that's it's just self-indulgent and not self-mutiliation.

Oh yeah, and my mom leaves for the Carribbean tomorrow. Note to self: Remember to call, remember to call.

posted by RSaunders at 3:33 PM ⇒ (2) comments

 
Let's Get Ironic
So I'm at the rec center Saturday lying out on the deck while the Tennessee Summer Special Olympics was going on at the surrounding ball fields when I hear the cleaned up version of "Let's Get Retarded." It's odd that changing from "retarded" to "it started" is sufficient to make people happy with, or at least forget, the origins of the song.
posted by RSaunders at 5:59 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Adjustment Process
I think this weekend I will post my first week's worth of exercise routines. Sets, reps, distances for all the crazy stuff I'm doing.

In the meantime, I'm struggling with how to deal with my weight. For the past 14 months, I've been focused on losing weight, primarily by eating better and walking/running on the treadmill, which saw me drop from about 253 lbs. to a low of 187, but a comfortable range of 192-195.

Now that I'm doing the weight lifting, I have to start dealing with the "adding muscle adds weight" issue. I can't focus exclusively on weight loss anymore. However, I don't know how to figure out whether my increase in weight is truly muscle gain or eating more than usual because the demands of weight lifting are causing me to be crazy hungry. It's only been a week, and it's only been about 5 lbs. (194 up to 199 in a week), and I know I took a plate too many at the Chinese buffet last night and a scoop too much of squash casserole and piece too much of cake the day before at the campus picnic. Still, I would've thought all the extra work would leave my weight unchanged.

So, by publishing my routines I hope to gain your insights into my problem.

Special note: today was my first biking experience. I can't tell if my hamstrings are still sore from lifting earlier in the week or if it's the biking itself, but Christalmighty are they sore. I always thought of cycling as more quad-intensive. Perhaps having the pedal straps means you get extra work on the up beat.
posted by RSaunders at 8:30 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Coincidence?
I got my first trial issue of Sports Illustrated yesterday and flipped through an article by Albert Chen (registration required) about Kenny Rogers rediscovering his changeup. Cut to this morning when I'm flipping through ESPN.com, where I see a piece "special to ESPN.com" by Phil Rogers on Kenny Rogers. The latter article spends a little more time on the "pitching past 40" angle and has fewer quotes from Dick Egan, a former Tigers scout who had worked with Rogers in the minors over 20 years ago in the Rangers system.

My questions are: (1) does Kenny or MLB have such an effective publicist that he got simultaneous articles about his effectiveness this past month or so?; (2) was this story so "obvious" that two national baseball writers were bound to write on it because this is a highly competitive business?; or, (3) did ESPN poach yet another story idea from elsewhere and pass itself off as original content?

I doubt it's (1), and (2) might be plausible. However, I'm inclined to believe (3). Before I went cold turkey off of sports talk radio (the precipitating event was largely a switch from being a SportingNews radio affiliate to being an ESPN affiliate), the folks at SportingNews radio used to complain all the time about one of their gets (a radio interview, reporting by one of its analysts from the radio or magazine) being talked about on ESPN without attribution, often with almost no additional reporting at the initial phase then followed up with a, "Stephen A. Smith is now reporting" after he (or whatever other reporter) had finally gotten around to talking to an original source.
posted by RSaunders at 8:12 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
On Track
I started back to exercising Saturday following the half-marathon pain. My foot no longer hurts, but that may be because every other body part hurts. In pursuit of my new triathlon goal I've added weight lifting and swimming into the routine. Running is still out until June, so I've substituted stairmaster. I'll start exercycle probably Thursday.

Let's just say I was happy to yesterday was my first rest day. The swimming hasn't been too bad, still a little choppy, especially as I get tired. Still, it's amazing what 50-60 fewer pounds does for your ability to move through the water. I think things are painful because instead of doing my usual "weightlifting for tone" mode I've shifted to "weightlifting for mass."

Don't worry, I'm not looking to join Arnold myself. However, I had noticed over the past couple of years that even though I gained weight in my torso my arms and legs stayed essentially the same size. I now describe my physique in this way: torso of a plumber, arms and legs of a female supermodel. So, I thought I'd try to make my limbs more masculine while my torso gets less so.

I'm still looking to pick a triathlon date/location, but I'm pretty firm now that I'll plan to do an Olympic length one. In the meantime, I'll be investing in Advil and Aleve.
posted by RSaunders at 10:10 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Check 1, Check 2, Syballance, Syballance
I'm sitting just outside my office watching Little Richard go thorugh his sound check for tonight's concert for VU's graduates and their families. It's hard to believe 50 years ago Little Richard couldn't get arrested in Nashville--check that, all he could do in Nashville was get arrested--and now here he is performing at one of America's whitest universities. Fortunately, it's also one of the greenest, and I don't mean environmentally. Progress.
posted by RSaunders at 3:26 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Post-Half-Marathon Marathon
The time after the half-marathon has been perhaps more stressful and exhausting than the half-marathon itself. I would've written sooner, but shortly after the race on Saturday I went with my sister and new baby niece to see my grandmother in Alabama, followed by a return drive home, a dash to the airport, a dash to work to start my new temporary position at the university (until our grant starts in July), finish grading papers and collecting miscellaney from the kids and turing in final grades to the registrar, plotting for my trip to DC for a meeting, and doing some data checking for my dissertation. In between I agreed to help co-write the evaluation portion of a small grant, help a friend get connected to some folks before writing his own grant, and took on a new freelance opportunity with the paper. It's hardly shocking then that I had to push a freelance deadline back to the middle of the month. On the bright side, I'm going to see the O's Saturday, and I got a free radio subscription for baseball on the internet, through which I caught the Marlins-Braves, Jays-O's, and Nats-Dodgers yesterday.

So, with my kvetching out of the way, here are the pertinent race details:

• I finished.
  
• My final time was 2:01:43, well ahead of my seed time of 2:25, but just shy of my goal of 1:59:59.
  
• I wish they had splits for each mile, but they calculated an average mile pace of 9:17.
  
• My 10k time was about about 53 or 55 minutes.
  
• I finished above the median for my age group (30-34), but only barely.
  
• Complete results can be had at www.cmmarathon.com and looking up my number (11752) in the half-marathon results.

Now for some racing commentary:

• The time waiting to start the race was not dissimilar to the time spent behind the starting blocks at a swim meet when you're in one of the first events. Lots of standing around, pacing, dissipating nervous energy. Only with more clothes on and no goggles.
  
• The race used a wave start. This is a terrific idea, especially considering how crowded the race proved for the first 4 miles. I can only imagine what would've happened if they all started in one pack. The critical problem I think is that the course bottlenecked between markers 1 and 2 and stayed that way for, oh, the next 5 miles. Imagine letting out a U2 concert at Giants Stadium but forcing everyone through a turnstile.
  
• The congestion, coupled with my naively chosen seed time and surprise that you could skip ahead to a different starting corracl, meant that I probably ran 14 miles just from weaving in and out of race traffic.
  
• My sister and her baby camped out at my improv friend Ann's house, which is located on the race route on Music Row. She took some video footage, but looking through the camera while holding a baby doesn't make for effective identification (though it probably qualifies her to work security at an airport or perhaps the British consulate's office in NYc). So, she didn't notice I was going by, and only barely caught me on camera after I was about 3 steps past her. I hadn't bothered to yell out to her because it looked like she was shooting me already and, you know, I was running and afraid to waste oxygen.
  
• I expected more cell phone usage on the course, but I didn't see my first mid-race cell phone usage until the sixth mile. Apparently people like to call each other to find out where they are on the course. I only saw one other instance (about mile 10), so it wasn't too bad.
  
• I expected I'd start out fast, and I did, going roughly 7:30 to 8:00 for each of the first 2 miles before settling into the 9:30 neighborhood. I did a good job of picking people to pace off of, and for the first half of the race, I used pretty good judgment about abandoning folks to find somebody further ahead to pace off of who were closer to 9:00, which I would need to get under 2:00.
  
• The problem came around mile 8: I got a little over-confident and stepped up my pace to about 8:30 or 8:45 for the next two miles. I hadn't run any beyond 8 miles before, but my previous good judgment for the first 8 miles and my first hit of water at mile 7 deluded me into thinking I would be able to cruise the last four miles.
  
• Things were ok through 8, 9 and most of 10, but mile 10 turned out to be the longest damned mile of the race. As they readied us for the full/half course split, they ran us up a not too big hill but big enough in a short enough distance at that stage to cause me to take my first 20-30 second walk break.
  
• I think I might've been ok after that except I let myself get a little dejected when I saw that we were going to have to double-back through part of the route: instead of turning left onto James Robertson Pkwy, we had to turn right for a piece then U-turn back. It just violated my sense that you should always feel like you're moving forward. So, I walked another little piece, about 60 seconds this time. I had one more 60 second walk up a slight downtown hill toward the beginning of mile 12.
  
• The running experts say that unless you're one of the elite racers it's actually faster to plan to walk for some stretches because you end up running faster enough during the time that you run to offset the slow down that occurs by walking. It actually kind of makes sense based on my treadmilling: I can walk on the treadmill (if I hold onto the bars) at the pace that I practice at. Perhaps I should practice harder.

Well, that's all for now.
posted by RSaunders at 9:10 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
And the Other Arcticle
This one is on resources in Nashville for picking a neighborhood to live in.
posted by RSaunders at 8:30 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Tub Be or Not Tub Be
Here is my latest freelance piece. It looks like it got a little mangled pulling some pieces out for the sidebar, but you get the point (and I get the check).
posted by RSaunders at 7:15 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Official
Well, I plunked down my credit card number and am officially entered in the Country Music 1/2-Marathon on April 30. $65. I hope it's worth it.

Also, here is one of those Tennessean articles I mentioned, this one is on bonus rooms. I have one on clawfoot bath tubs that was supposed to be out yesterday, but I think it got bumped. I also have a Sunday Home feature due out on April 10.
posted by RSaunders at 12:16 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Lighter
Hey, blogging will continue to be light for the forseeable future. Too much to do between class and freelancing and work and dissertating.

I did want to take a second to suggest an invention for t.v., if it doesn't exist already. Somebody needs to invent a way to "layer" television networks so that you can place content from different shows/networks on the same channel.

For example, say I'm watching a movie on HBO, but I want to know the scores for the day in sports, I could select content from ESPN (e.g., it's BottomLine ticker) to overlay the channel that I'm watching. Ditto for placing the CNN or FNC or CNBC ticker on top of a block of videos on MTV (if, in fact, MTV still plays videos). I could ultimately layer as much as I want (put a stock ticker and news ticker and a sports ticker), and ideally I would be able to resize and relocate the graphics with some kind of a mouse, too.

You could also set up reminder services like the flags/notifications on a computer screen. If I'm watching the basketball game on CBS and golf on NBC, I might like to set a flag that notifies me whether the other station (or stations) is back to live coverage or at commercial.

I think what would make this feasible is that the viewer decides what to overlay on the screen. The other networks aren't interfering with a particular network's broadcast, the viewer is. I mean, nobody complains that viewers are able to turn on closed captioning, and some people even like to watch shows while captioned. People don't seem to have a problem using picture-in-picture. It all seems like pretty similar display technology.

Whoever owns the ticker or notification agent could then sell ad space and piggyback onto other shows (e.g., ESPN could charge big(ger) bucks to Verizon to sponsor the ticker when it overlays CSI: and less for "Still Standing"). It is possible you might need to cut the bottom layer network some fraction of the ad rents, but there's a price for everything. This would seem like a great opportunity for expansion into TV for somebody like Google (adding external content to a main content page) or maybe an expansion area for Tivo.
posted by RSaunders at 11:08 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Geez, It's Been a While
I've been pretty damned busy with more grants, lots of teaching, a little travel, and sundry other projects. I'll mix some random thoughts with some random events/projects I've got going on.

• I've got 3 new freelance articles in development for the Tennessean, all due in the next few weeks. All are home/design related.
  
• I'm working up another parenting related idea, based on a talk and interview I did with infant development expert Renne Baillargeon of the University of Illinois. She's damned impressive, and her work is really interesting. She studies how infants learn about their physical world and how they learn about their psychological world (i.e., interpreting the actions of others). The experiments are as interesting as the results of the research.
  
• Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen are splitting up. Who would've thought marrying a whore-chaser could turn out poorly?
  
• Chris Rock is taking some heat for the Oscars. I blame a bigger trend in award's show: the marginalization of the host. If you were to watch the Oscars from 1985 and from 2005, you'd see that the host used to introduce all the award presenters; now the presenter does the monologue, introduces a fraction of the presenters, and the voiceover artist handles most of the introductions, in addition to the "fun facts as they walk on stage" info. He can't have much impact if he doesn't get the screen time.
  
• I'm pleased to see that the Oscars have stolen yet another of my ideas. In addition to stealing my idea for moving it into the sweeps period (I routinely posted this in email questions to USAToday chats and to Ebert's movie answer man), they've now taken my idea of gathering nominees on stage to cut down on the walking up to the stage. (I'll search my blog for evidence of this.) I'm telling you, that in itself cut the telecast down by 30 minutes.
  
• My sister, Courtney, had her baby just under a month ago. I can't remember if I blogged on this, but she's Haley Elizabeth, 8 lb. 5 oz., I think 19". I'll be home a week from today to meet her and continue showering her with gifts.
  
• I'm going to a presentation on Friday by this guy Edward Tufte. He's speaking on ways to improve visual presentation of information. People seem impressed by him, but I just don't know enough to be wowed yet. Right now, I'm content to be excited about attending an all-day workshop free, including getting 3 of his books, while others are paying substantial sums. I'll rave or rant afterwards.
  
• I spent this past weekend in Townsend, Tenn., on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, with a friend and some of her friends. I know many of these people, but most of them I only know or would be around through my connection to her. Anyway, it was pretty fun. I kind of expected more hiking and adventure within the Park, but it was nice to be out of my apartment being sociable and largely away from the television.
  
  It also further cultivated my fantasies about being a real estate mogul and living in the mountains. Of course, there was no snow, and it was pretty mild out; but, then, that's what makes fantasies fantasies, no?
  
  Probably the oddest thing about the trip though is that we exit off of I-40 and take US-321 North, only if you look at a map, it is more than a little obvious that we're not in any way going north.
  
• The weight is holding steady between 190 and 193. Look for details on my "Oatmeal Diet." Got a publisher? I'm able to run 6 miles at a time. I think when I'm home, I'll try some outdoor running. I checked the price for the 1/2-marathon. Holy crap! $65 for a shitty t-shirt and the right to be jostled by strangers on the city streets? Can't you get that on Times Square free? I guess I know where all my freelance money will be going.

Alright, time to call it a night. God bless the man, woman, or deity that invented Spring Break.

posted by RSaunders at 9:40 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Boob Revealed
Thanks to a new friend in Ontario, we can now relay to you that the Nikki Cappelli character from the godaddy.com ad is Ms. Candice Michelle, and apparently she is known to Playboy. Here is her personal website.

posted by RSaunders at 8:15 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Super Bowel
Something about me and my relationship to sports has changed. Except for baseball I no longer care about the events themselves--mostly because they're too slow and not enough happens--and I'm content to follow the stats and results alone.

So, it's more important to me that I was right in my prediction of the game (an Eagles backdoor cover and the under), than that the game was entertaining. It actually was pretty decent, but nothing about it forced me to stop flipping through magazines. What's that Donovan McNabb is throwing another interception? Oh, they're punting again? [You may be saying to yourself, "When did I read Robert's predictions for Eagles covering and taking the under?" Well, unless you were the student I emailed my predcitions to on Saturday, you probably missed it. But, I have the email to prove it.]

I'm tired of the whole concert thing before the game. "Hey gang, let's go scream our heads off for a bunch of mediocre current acts who are lip synching!" I don't mind a concert at halftime if it's U2. I guess Sir Paul was fine. Still, I prefer something shorter. The game should be enough on its own.

And the ads were pretty weak, though I confess to missing a few to play in the kitchen. I was surprised that after Budweiser's ad mocking the Janet Jackson situation was pulled that the godaddy.com ad made it to air; apparently the NFL put the kibosh on a second airing. Nevertheless, I'd say she, Nikki Cappelli (if that is her real name, was the breakout character this year. Look for the requisite FHM spread in a couple months. (You can view the ad that aired and the full two minute version here. Note: she's definitely the kind of girl that looks better from a distance.)

I think the one that everyone will go sentimental on is the Budweiser one with the troops coming home. That'd be a nice ad for when they're coming home for good. Will we see random, spontaneous standing ovations now wherever more than two uniformed soldiers are? I guess since it's a (more or less) volunteer military, you have to give them credit.

Still, the ad itself felt unseemly to me. It's like we've outsourced responsibility for defending the country to these people, and we get to absolve ourselves of responsibility for their deaths or injuries by clapping for them and knowing they volunteered. As the song goes, "We eat and drink while tomorrow they die."

posted by RSaunders at 2:46 PM ⇒ (1) comments

 
A Fun Ad You Won't See in the Super Bowl
I saw a link to this ad posted over at Marginal Revolutions. Dick Cheney's wet dream.

posted by RSaunders at 10:27 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Teri Polo?
I meant to write about this yesterday. Local radio station 106.7 has switched to 24-hr sports with its local sports programming and nationally syndicated games (e.g., Westwood One's NFL and NCAA coverage) layered on a skeleton of Sporting News Radio. My new wake-up show is that network's "Murray in the Morning," which features Bruce Murray, who may be familiar to Washington Bullets fans, and Second City's T.J. Shanoff. Probably not going to be confused with Imus or Stern in terms of influence, but it's a solid alternative to Tony Kornheiser since I don't yet have an alarm clock that wakes me up to an Internet (or satellite) radio station. (An invention we definitely need, and soon.)

Since the show is new to me, I have learned that they routinely take advantage of their Chicago location to gain access to Playboy playmates for interviews. (Headquarters are at 900 N. Lakeshore Dr., which, incidentally, is the same building in which I would have worked had a gotten and taken the job I applied for at Northwestern. Would make for interesting office parties, no?)

Yesterday, though, they had Meet the Fockers co-star and current Playboy covergirl, Teri Polo, on the show by phone. I've seen the cover advertised on the show's website, and I'm sure she's quite lovely, but I wonder, "Is this who America is clamoring to see naked?"

This is actually related to a couple of questions I've been pondering for the past few months: when did it stop being cool to pose in Playboy, and who was the last person launched to stardom by Playboy? Playboy has always had two key features, besides the interviews and the "girl next door" model for its playmates, and those were that it was the place where you might see some superstar woman naked for the first time ever and that it was a legitimate career move for a nobody actress to become a somebody star.

Who is the last B-level star discovered by Playboy? Jenny McCarthy? She, Anna Nicole Smith, and Pamela Anderson (Lee) are the last to "make it" in the sense of being recognizable by some critical mass of people and having their own tv shows or name modeling gigs. Is there anybody else?

As for celebrities, who is the last person to pose for the first time that made you think, "Oh my god they finally got her!" Maybe Elle MacPherson? (Bill Simmons touched on this topic in a mailbag a few weeks ago, to a degree, focusing on would qualify as a "must purchase." As I recall they considered the Bush Twins, so you it's a slightly different kind of list.)

Perhaps this is just an age thing. Obviously I'm too old to be giving a shit about this, and perhaps I'm too old to care about who the young people care about. For example, maybe Denise Richards would get somebody stoked, but havent' we seen her naked before? Isn't she why Wild Things is part of the "creepy old guy" DVD starter set? (The other is Swordfish featuring a pre-Monster's Ball Halle Berry and a gratuitous boob shot. The criteria for "creepy old guy" status are (a) jaw-dropping nudity in a (b) movie with no other redeeming quality to it than the jaw-dropping nudity. And no, I don't own either, thank you very much!) America's already seen her naked and already ponied up its cash for her. Do they really want to see her after having married Charlie-fucking-Sheen?

And perhaps it's just a sign of market segmentation (e.g., people who are really into naked chicks have cheaply available porn and those who want the "softer side" have Maxim) and better career choices for women. Michelle Pfeiffer and Jennifer Anniston, whatever their merits as actresses, never had to stoop to pimping themselvs to that degree to get a good job.

Whatever it is, the magazine's efforts to hip itself up by poaching Maxim's editorial staff seem not to be paying off in terms of their gets or their launches.

posted by RSaunders at 1:40 PM ⇒ (2) comments

 
Way to Go, Kid-o
I watched Conan's tribute to Johnny on Tuesday. I found his to be the most eloquent and effective. He perhaps had the advantage of not being as close to Johnny as the other big hosts, but I thought he did an amazing job of making his only slight personal connection to Johnny into something appropriately grand and funny:

• A sweet story about being a goofy kid working on the Simpsons giving Carson wrong directions off the Fox lot;
• His opening for Carson at a birthday party for NBC's Bob Wright in the weeks between getting Late Night and starting Late Night; and,
• A brief phone conversation with him five months ago after he landed the Tonight Show beginning 2009, where he said nobody could take away that moment when Johnny picked up the phone and said, "Hey, Kid-o."

It would have been the perfect eulogy for my "All-Star Celebrity Funeral" network.

For all of Conan's quirkiness and twitchiness as a perfomer (e.g., constantly flapping his hand down on the desk and banging his wedding ring and wrist during his eulogy), there's something to be said for having somebody who's not only funny but also quite intelligent giving a speech.

posted by RSaunders at 1:23 PM ⇒ (1) comments

 
Weight Updates
My weight is still holding steady, today at 189.6 lbs. Back on the treadmill after my week and a half of grant writing and class prep stuff. The cool news though is that I went to get my body fat tested "for real" (compared to what my scale reports back to me). Turns out that my actual body fat is now at 16.8%. My scale tells me anywhere from 20-24% these days. This compares to my last official test 11 years ago (caliper-based) of 25% (at 233 lbs). Not too flabby...I mean shabby.

posted by RSaunders at 1:20 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Johnny Bye-Bye
I didn't get to post on Johnny Carson. I taped Leno last week and Letterman last night. I'm taping Conan tonight. While I'm no longer a Leno fan (I admit I liked him before he took over the show), I thought he did a really nice job with his opening speech. Delivery was a bit awkward, but it was a difficult speech to give and was clearly sincere.

I was irritated with Letterman initially because I thought, "Is that bastard off this week, too!" because I recognized all the jokes. Then I realized he was doing a "best of" of jokes Johnny had been submitting to the show. They were good jokes.

I gave up on Leno's show about half way through (I had only set the tape for 30 minutes not knowing he'd do the whole show on him), but I thought it was a nice touch to have Newhart and Rickles tell stories, and Ed was a sensible choice. The thing that really burned into my mind watching Leno's Carson clips was how much it was like "The Larry Sanders Show" (or rather, how much TLSS was so spot-on about Carson). I kept mentally filling in what it was like backstage after the show.

Letterman's tribute though epitomized the difference between their two shows and reinforced why Carson seemed to love Letterman more. While Leno chose stock footage (great footage, but footage we've seen a bazillion times) and showed Carson mugging for a joke (e.g., dealing with the lost moustache, jumping in to lap up the Alpo when a dog walked off during the commercial), Letterman's approach captured the dignity of Carson while also showing his humor. Getting Doc and Tommy together was really nice. Even though I liked having Rickles and Newhart, it felt like it was about them, and not so much about Johnny. I guess Fred DeCordova is dead now, but I thought Peter Lasally was wonderfully sweet and respectful as the primary guest, and that just underlines the difference.

It also showed the relationship between the two men and what Carson meant to Letterman, which is a big part of what I came looking for: it was his love letter to his fallen hero. Leno was the adopted foster child, Letterman the first-born. Perhaps Leno could never win the contest with me: I mean, if he had showed clips of himself with Carson, would I have thought it tacky or self-serving? I would like to think I could be fair about it, but maybe not.

I remember thinking in the early '90s that Carson should hit the road, not because I never found him funny but because I didn't find him as funny as often. He had long since stopped using his characters, but more importantly he was on only 3 days a week at times (a Monday repeat, a Leno guest host, and 3 nights of new Carson). Also, he didn't seem particularly engaged with the guests much anymore, and at the time I thought Leno was doing better monologues. Then again, Leno was at the top of his monologue game back in the late-80s, and it's easy to look great 1 night a week.

Still, I loved Carson. It got me thinking about what his wake or funeral must have been like. Perhaps because he was so private, it might not have been as great as I would expect. But, in my imagination Dave and Leno and just a revolving door of about 10 people would get to speak, and it would be the funniest sad day in the world. If ever a funeral called for C-SPAN coverage, this would be it.

It also got me thinking about whose funeral I would like to attend, assuming I had to let a celebrity I admired and loved die. I still miss Phil Hartman, but I think his funeral was such a shock that it would have been tough to be pleasant. I think about the stories from public funerals (e.g., Dick Schaap's as told by Kornheiser), and I wonder if there isn't a market for it on t.v.

Anyway, thank you, Johnny, for being so funny.

posted by RSaunders at 5:07 PM ⇒ (2) comments

 
Up for Air
I've been toiling away at a grant for the past 10 days, if you were wondering where I've been. It's a grant to help coordinate government and provider resources for teens with substance use problems in the state of Tennessee. We led the writing of it for the state; our reward is the evaluation contract, which means salary for me after '05 if we get it.

I've been so busy with it that not only did I not blog, I did not use the treadmill. Nevertheless, I was able to keep my weight between 191 and 193 for the whole week. I got on today, and I'm back under 190. It'll take a bit to get back up to speed, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I ran shorter but faster, and then I walked for a while.

posted by RSaunders at 4:38 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Dreams Come True?
Some quick hitters here:

• I mentioned I've started running on the treadmill. I can now run continuously for an hour (5 miles). This weekend I'll try to push it up to 8 miles. Considering before last week I had never run more than 3.75 miles continuously (once around Crofton Pkwy), I'd have to say I'm pretty pleased.
  
• Could the disaster of Social Security reform end up making me a happy man? Saw this link where Bob Rubin, former Sec. of Treasury for Clinton, talks about its devastating effects on housing prices and interest rates. I still need to know what the interest rate-housing price tradeoff is. Any real estate agents out there?
  
• I've started writing again related to the dissertation. I'm moving on to working on the proposal, even though I still need to finish my area paper. All pages count in the end.
  
• I woke up in the middle of the night with an idea for a pretty good novel. It's not Moby Dick or anything, but I bet it could get published if I did it right, and really, that's more than enough.

posted by RSaunders at 9:52 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Crossing Under
Another weight update: As of yesterday, I was 187.2. It seems running has really boosted the calorie output. For those of you keeping score, that's now 66 lbs. I think this is the lightest I've been since late 1991 or early 1992.

posted by RSaunders at 5:55 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Are Americans Teens More Immature than the Rest of the World?
I was flipping through IMDB looking at the info for Lost in Translation, and I noticed that while the film is rated R in America (no one under 18 w/o a parent), in the rest of the world it's viewable without restriction by folks ages 12 to 15. What gives? This could be an interesting study actually, comparing cross-cultural age appropriateness of films. Hmmm...

posted by RSaunders at 3:46 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Dumb-de-dumb-dumb-dumb!
The Packers are considering hiring Seattle's VP of football operations, Ted Thompson, as their GM. This is the man responsible for accumulating their talent at wide receiver and developing the core defensive talent that yielded three losses to St. Louis. Sounds like a wise choice. This is not to say Mike Sherman should stay in the GM role; they just need to hire somebody better.

posted by RSaunders at 2:02 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Indian Tsunami, American Rains?
Is the tsunami responsible for the California rains/mudslides and the large volumes of precipitation throughout North America this month? I haven't seen any reporting connecting the two, so I wonder if it's simply so obvious nobody has bothered reporting it, or nobody has made this connection yet, or I simply haven't looked hard enough. I guess it's an open question: is there an unusually high volume of precipitation in North America this month?

I would have thought there'd be a ton of articles by now linking the two events, and tons more meteorlogical research discussing this, but so far I haven't hit on anything. To add a political slant here, Bush would then be able to claim the mudslide disaster relief efforts to be part of the tsunami relief, letting him raise the amount of aid offered but direct it locally.

posted by RSaunders at 10:05 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Survivor: Nashville
Well, things could have gone a shitload worse today. I think I scared them sufficiently that it would be a lot of work, though probably not as much as I let on.

I think the most important thing I learned today is that 75 minutes is a long-ass time, and that's after I only used 60 minutes and yielded the balance of my time to the senior professor from another section of the class.

posted by RSaunders at 1:26 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Eve of Destruction
Tomorrow marks my debut as a university teacher. I will teach undergraduate research methods course under the most ridiculous course title, "Systematic Inquiry." I am excited to get to do this, but I am kind of anxious about the outcome. For somebody who craves praise and desperately wants to be liked, standing before a group of 20-year-olds in a required course trying to impart the wisdom of the ages seems like a recipe for disaster. I was asked the other day, "What's the worst thing that could happen?" I said, "They might come back on Monday."

I was only half joking. I like the idea of this as a regular performance opportunity. I like the idea of putting together new material twice a week for them. However, I'm not used to the scheduling aspect. I can't be late, as I often am. I can't half-ass my way through this. Or, I could, but I actually take seriously the responsibility of teaching them.

I don't have any grand illusions that they'll become researchers or that they'll like the material. I do hope that they will be able to separate the course and its content from their judgment of me, even if I suppose that's impossible since I determine the content.

Anyway, I guess I'll take a break from obsessing about this for a while and get back to work.

posted by RSaunders at 11:48 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Conspicuous by Its Absence
Two things struck me from CNN's headlines. First, a case involving Vanderbilt is going forward. At issue is whether the university can remove the "Confederate" from the name of its dorm, "Confederate Memorial Hall." Second, NBC-Universal is in trouble over Motly Crue's New Year's Eve performance: Vince Neill screamed "Happy Fucking New Year" to Tommy Lee. (I'm surprised, actually, that it took so long for it to make the news. I saw it and though, "Oh, fuck!" But, I hadn't seen anything about it until today.)

What gets me is this: at the bottom of the Vanderbilt article, the judge asks whether it would be less of a memorial without the word "Confederate" on it; in the Crue article, the copy uses dashes to replace the "fuck" in "fucking." If you remove the word, but everyone knows what was there, then what does removing it accomplish?

Now, in the VU case, since you might write about the dorm, removing the word removes it from future writings. But isn't the dorm still tainted? Wouldn't the college be better off, except for the cost, tearing the dorm the hell down and building a new one, thereby sidestepping the legal issue?

I'm just not sure who is served or protected when the "bad word" is removed, especially in the fucking case: if you're offended by the ordered letters, "f-u-c-k," aren't you offended by space left available representing "f-u-c-k"? I mean, the idea is spelled out for you without your actually seing the word. If you know the word, you can't make your brain not conjure the image of the word. In the case of the dorm, aren't you just relying on people being lazy and ignorant enough not to know the history of the dorm's construction and presence on campus for decades, or for people who already know eventually forgetting. I don't know, I guess I'm just a vulgarian.

posted by RSaunders at 8:43 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Old Pet Peeve
I have a running argument going in my head over the NFL playoffs (and all professional sports playoffs) which guarantee postseason berths to division winners. To me this amounts to geographic affirmative action. We've seen division winners host teams with worse records, but to prove my point I hope next year provides a team that with a better record than a division winner who gets excluded from the postseason. There may be a rationale for affirmative action in employment and education, but I'm not sure whether there is a meaningful basis for geographic representation in the playoffs for pro sports.

posted by RSaunders at 2:40 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Latest Article
My Nashville Parent article is finally online. To all the parents out there, feel free to send me your abusive comments.

posted by RSaunders at 2:39 PM ⇒ (0) comments