I'm old...

Played a game of 3 on 3 basketball yesterday, and 3 volleyball matches. Went 2-2 on the day, but mostly right now I just feel old and sore. I need to get in shape.

Open call for podcasts

So J recently gave me a Shuffle for my birthday, and I've started listening to different podcasts during the day while doing lab work. I really like NPR's Talk of the Nation as well as ESPN's PTI. I've tried a few others, but don't like them as much as the aforementioned two. Anyone else listening to podcasts? Any that you particularly like? I'm usually stuck doing cell culture work a couple of hours a day, and it helps pass the time.

Youtube rules

Someone forwarded this to one of the football official associations to which I belong. You have to get to the explanation the referee gives for the penalty...



And then, finally there's a halftime show that appeals to my generation (and maybe a little bit younger)

Airplane etiquette

When did it become acceptable to rush down the aisle to the front of the plane as soon as the plane lands so you can be the first off? This happened to us on all three of our flights for the Thanksgiving Break and I have noticed it a lot more lately. I think this is the Southwest-ization of our airways where everyone thinks that everything is a free-for-all. Now I'm all for bypassing someone who seems to be surprised that the plane has actually landed, but this is starting to annoy me. On one occasion, the lady had so much stuff that we were stuck in our seats and could not retrieve our own bags, and therefore were passed by 5 others from the rear before J had to block the aisle so we could get out.

Segmented Society

David Brooks, an often conservative columnist for the NY Times, wrote about the fractioning of music into subgenres and the lack of any bands that span many age and ethnic groups yesterday, read it here. After reading it, my wandering thoughts are below...

While I cannot comment on the overall musical depth of knowledge of current musicians, I can't really say that I can totally agree that the lack of bands like Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band and Rolling Stones are necessarily a sign of our declining national experience. While I do think that the prevailence of pop performers (let's be honest, we can't really call these American Idol type people musicians) who do not (1) write their own music and (2) know how to play an instrument is disturbing, I think there are still many cases of music bringing people together.

I find this especially relevant since I went to my first breakdancing competition this weekend (as an audience member only). While the competitors were all male, their ethnicity ran from Asian, African American, Hispanic, Eastern Bloc, to suburban white. The DJ played mostly things that I didn't really recognized, but a free dance intermission was prolonged when the DJ started playing James Brown (universal and timeless). There was also a point were he played a mambo tune (interesting to see many of the breakdancers not sure what to do with that, but many of the ladies started taking the lead).



Every once and a while, you still get to see the melting pot in action, and it's quite incredible. While I still see the segmented society that Mr. Brooks speaks about in his column, I'm not sure that music is either a symptom or a cause of it. I often feel that there is a lack of shared experiences, or a lack of recognition of these shared experiences, in our culture today.

Looking back in my life, I can think of 3 moments of "where were you when..." that people my age can look back to. (1) The Challenger exploding (I was in my 2nd grade classroom with Mrs McGwirck (SP??)), (2) OJ's verdict and his Bronco chase (Verdict - Mr Wunderlin's Calculus class), and (3) 9/11 (GE Appliance Park, Dishwasher building, most info came to me on my pager news system since the web was ground to a halt as everyone tried to get on news sites). It's interesting that I think that (1) and (3) are probably a very similar experience for all Americans not from the areas hit (obviously different for those who knew/lost loved ones), but (2) appears to be a very different experience based largely on what race you are. There's still a large schism when it comes to race (and in many ways class, IMO) in this country and I often wonder about how that affects us socially and politically.

For T

In remembrance of t, I sometimes get tattooed for volleyball games.

On Friendship (part 1)

I have decided to write on a more serious topic of friendship, what friends have meant to me through the years, and just my generally feelings on the subject of friends and making friends. These are mostly my thoughts or ideas that were spawned through conversations with others, mainly t. These are maybe better described as essays (although I am very out of practice in the art of essay writing), and these definitely more thought out than my usual ramblings (but not nearly coherent enough). Part 1 will be about childhood friends…

“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?”

The above quote is from Stand by Me. I always thought it was a very apt description of the friends I had from about 10-14 (especially for a suburban kid with no real problems).

Since I lived kind of far from school I had neighborhood friends and school friends, only occasionally did they overlap. But the dynamics were great. The summers were spent in the neighborhood playing baseball (usually with a tennis ball or wiffle) in the backyard or “The Field” (the local huge open field that seems pathetically small when I revisit nowadays). Playing basketball in nearly any driveway (this was standard in KY, heck I think my brother got his included in his mortgage). Swimming with friends in backyard pools. I know we eventually had Nintendo, but I have little memory of playing those games with friends.

At school, it was a matter of who you ate with at lunch, played games with at recess, and which team you were on for basketball and baseball (although I gave up on that pretty quickly). I was never one of the cool kids, but I had good friends and never experienced the ridicule of being a nerd as depicted in 80’s film.

From my 10^th birthday, I have a picture with my three best friends. There was John from the neighborhood with Brian and Brent from school (we thought we were the Beastie Boys according to Austin D). By the time I was 11 all three had moved far enough away that I could only see them on special trips (very rare when you are that age). I thought at the time that it was going to be horrible.

But getting new friends at that age is easy. One friend moves out, another moves in a few doors down. It’s easy to make new friends at school.

You have sleepovers and your discussions are not that different from the ones in Stand By Me. Who would win in fights of your favorite cartoon characters (Snake Eyes was a badass compared to Storm Shadow)? Favorite baseball (I loved Ozzie Smith, I don’t care how much better a hitter Ryne Sandberg was) and basketball players (no fair, I grew up in the Jordan era, there was only one answer). Starting to notice the girls. Quoting Hot Shots, Airplane, Caddyshack (wait, I still quote these movies religiously). I guess we didn’t wonder down the tracks singing “Lollipop.” But I think it’s amazing how well this movie captures friendship, the feelings at the transition to adolescence, and how kids talk to each other.

There’s an innocence there that is lost with growing up that is captured in that movie. I often wonder about this lost innocence. When is it lost for the poor, the abused, those that have lost loved ones? And when it is lost at a young age, isn’t that a tragedy? I often found some of the stories my mother had from teaching at a downtown Louisville elementary school incredibly depressing. I grew up in a world that was sheltered from problems of drugs and violence. And how does this difference in how people are raised make it difficult for us to relate? (maybe these are questions for another blog, because I’m rambling off subject here)

I have a hard time pinning down what was most important for friends at that age. Proximity was obviously important, and I guess for me, interest in sports, movies. There were kids in the neighborhood that I didn’t really like, and I’m not sure why. Even the friends I still have from that time, the relationship has changed. People grow up, the problems are real, and we now have responsibilities. But at least we still have Hot Shots and the Naked Gun.

NOTE: APB for Brent W and Brian D, have no idea what happened to them.

The Mellon Collie that should have been...

I always thought that Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was an overly-ambitious mediocre album with too many b-sides or crappy songs surrounding a core group of songs that would have made a pretty damn good album. Help me create the 10-14 song album that should have been. * and bold for songs that make the cut, + for songs that could, N for songs that don't have any business on a major album. Feel free to agree, disagree, suggest. After we choose songs, we can get the mix right. I have 9 songs that I think definitely make the cut.

From Disk 1:
N 1. "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" – 2:52
* 2. "Tonight, Tonight" – 4:14
+ 3. "Jellybelly" – 3:01
* 4. "Zero" – 2:41
* 5. "Here Is No Why" – 3:45
* 6. "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" – 4:18
+ 7. "To Forgive" – 4:17
+ 8. "Fuck You (An Ode To No One)" – 4:51
N 9. "Love" – 4:21
N 10. "Cupid de Locke" – 2:50
+ 11. "Galapogos" – 4:47
* 12. "Muzzle" – 3:44
N 13. "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans" – 9:21
N 14. "Take Me Down" – 2:52

* 1. "Where Boys Fear to Tread" – 4:22
+ 2. "Bodies" – 4:12
N 3. "Thirty-Three" – 4:10
N 4. "In the Arms of Sleep" – 4:12
* 5. "1979" – 4:25
+ 6. "Tales of a Scorched Earth" – 3:46
* 7. "Thru the Eyes of Ruby" – 7:38
N 8. "Stumbleine" – 2:54
* 9. "X.Y.U." – 7:07
N 10. "We Only Come Out at Night" – 4:05
+ 11. "Beautiful" – 4:18
N 12. "Lily (My One and Only)" – 3:31
+ 13. "By Starlight" – 4:48
N 14. "Farewell and Goodnight" – 4:22

Last day in my twenties

So I turn 30 tomorrow. But as Dilbert (and Greg) said something like "Just because someone arbitrarily decided on a base 10 numbering system, doesn't mean that I should celebrate their milestones."

Anyway, I haven't noticed any changes. I'm not sore after playing vb for 4 consecutive days, and I have two football games this weekend. I was assigned to my first playoff game in the Philadelphia Catholic League for tonight, so that should be exciting.

Here are some pictures of a squirrel I saw walking into school the other day. Sorry about the quality, it was my camera phone...


Hehe, a squirrel riding a bike.