Winter Storm Jonas

If your city is going to be paralyzed by a blizzard, it might as well be an historic one. Winter Storm Jonas arrived in the DC area on Friday afternoon and finally finished its work sometime late Saturday night / early Sunday morning. While you can see the snow totals for the DC area here (my estimate is that we received about 27 inches at my home), I decided to give a thumbs up/thumbs down on the snowstorm.

Thumbs Up: Jonas. Look, I don't understand why every storm needs a name, but Jonas is fine particularly since the Jonas Brothers are probably thrilled by the extra exposure. Meanwhile, I hope that Hanson is plotting somewhere to have their own blizzard.

Thumbs Down: Snowzilla. Is this name really necessary? Why did this name make it in news stories?

Thumbs Up: My son (The Moose) helping shovel.

Thumbs Down: My street. The snow plow got stuck on Sunday morning, and I don't think it's been back since. My side of the street isn't bad but the other half is still a mess.

Thumbs Up: I found a bag of Stacy's Pita Chips. Sure the expiration date was last month, but they still taste good to me.

Thumbs Down: Sweets. I don't seem to have any here. I should have bought a bag of Hershey's kisses before the snow hit.

Thumbs Up: Me. I did an awesome job shoveling. Here are before and after pictures from Saturday morning.

Of course, we received another foot of snow after I finished, so there was much more shoveling. However, after I finished I felt like quoting Lords of the Underground. They don't understand, I'm the motherf'n man. (Some of the words in the video are NSFW.)



Thumbs Down: My car. I don't think it's ever getting out of this parking spot. My car is in the middle.

Thumbs Up: Pittsburgh Sports. Pitt won an exciting basketball game on Saturday afternoon while the Penguins defeated the Vancouver Canucks.

Thumbs Down: This was supposed to be the annual hockey road trip weekend. It didn't happen. Of course, the New York Islanders actually cancelled the game in Brooklyn, so maybe it will happen in February instead.

Thumbs Up: The Washington Post. The Capital Weather Gang provided great information over the past few days.

Thumbs Down: The Washington Post. I'm a Sunday subscriber, and while I didn't expect to receive the Sunday paper, I liked getting the circular on Friday. Unfortunately, instead of including the Comics, Travel and Arts sections, all I got was the weekly ads. Heaven forbid we don't know the sale prices at Kohl's and Target!

Hanson Brother Runs NHL All-Star 5K

The National Hockey League and the Columbus Blue Jackets hosted the NHL All-Star 5K Race on Saturday since apparently the city of Columbus and the NHL thought that holding a 5K in mid-January was a good idea. I mean, Columbus regularly has 60 degree days in January, right? Anyway, tt seems like folks had a great time including this guy (who happens to be a good friend of mine) dressed as one of the Hanson brothers.

Fortunately, he didn't dress like one of these Hanson brothers since that wouldn't have made any sense.

Actually, the hair looks similar!

Friday Video

I flipped to VH1 the other morning and came across the video below. Yes, VH1 actually shows videos in the morning. Anyway, I thought this was a catchy song by a new band with a cool sound that was somehow able to convince Kat Dennings to appear in their video.* Only at the end of the video did I realize that this band isn't exactly new.



* Perhaps even more amazing is that Dennings isn't showing off much cleavage in the video.

TMI Monday

I realize that I’m three days early for TMI Thursday, but it’s not every week when the Pittsburgh Steelers are in the Super Bowl. For the non-sports fan readers, you’ll have to excuse me for all of my football coverage this week. I plan to have some entertaining takes on the game as well as an exclusive interview, so it won’t be all sports, but my writing will tend to focus on the Steelers over the next week or so.

For this week’s TMI, I need to admit something that may or may not be a big deal. I really like Taylor Swift’s new song Love Story. While this alone probably isn’t alarming, I am seeing a trend I am not proud of. In May 2008, I admitted to liking a Miley Cyrus song; in December, I wrote that a Britney Spears song is catchy; and just a few weeks ago, I used a TMI Thursday to share my thoughts on The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Am I turning into a 13 year-old girl? The only think I’m missing is a love for the Jonas Brothers. Well, approximately a year ago I wrote that the Jonas Brothers were no Hanson. Well, it turns out that the Jonas Brothers are bigger than Hanson could ever be.

While I'm not writing that I like the Jonas Brothers, I better end this post now before more damage is done.

Procrastination Week

It is a short week for everyone unless they work in retail, and I don’t want to write about the Steelers embarrassing loss to the Jets (special teams and offensive line problems AGAIN) or Ithaca College falling to Mount Union (this was not unexpected but I was hopeful for a huge upset). Actually, how can a team allow the Jets, who only had 9 sacks in 9 games, record 7 sacks? OK, I don’t want to talk about football anymore. Instead, I’ll share the following links and quizzes that will hopefully occupy some time if you don’t feel like working very hard or if you’re waiting for the turkey to be ready. In case you were wondering, national procrastination week is in March, so I wish you a late Happy Procrastination Week!

* Rolling Stone presents “The Almost-Impossible Rock & Roll Quiz.” I scored a 32 but with lots of guesses.

* The Chicago Tribune lists the top 25 worst TV shows ever. There is no reason why Mr. Belvedere should be on this list especially when shows like MTV’s Date My Mom or A Shot of Love with Tila Tequila or the quickly cancelled Heather Graham show (Emily’s Reason Why Not) are excluded.

* Dr. Freada Kapor Klein wrote an article in the Post-Gazette titled 'The Office': Why doesn't anyone ever quit? While this could and should be a funny article, the author decides to make it serious. Sigh. (I’m not even sure why I am linking to this article. I guess if you work in HR, which I do not, it could be useful.)

* Here is a game to match the movie heist mastermind(s) to the score they tried to steal. I was 12 for 12 on this one.

Finally, I watched some of the American Music Awards on Sunday night and saw part of the Jonas Brothers performance. When they entered the stage, one of the brothers tripped and fell. It was quite funny. (Why is there not a clip of this on YouTube yet?) Anyway, it seems like people think the Jonas Brothers are going to be the next big teen band. Well, let me tell you that I knew Hanson; Hanson was a friend of mine (well, not really). Jonas Brothers, you’re no Hanson.

Freaking Daughtry

Ten years ago this summer, my brother and I took a 4,000-mile road trip across the eastern half of the United States. When we were not listening to tapes (the car did not have a CD player; it was 1997, so there were no iPods yet either), we scanned radio stations to try and find good music. We even tracked the songs we heard the most over the month-long trip. In case you were wondering, “The Freshmen” by The Verve Pipe, Hanson’s “MMMBop” and “Everyday is a Winding Road” by Sheryl Crow were the top three songs.

Anyway, during the past weekend, we drove about 13 hours, and while we listened to a few CDs, we switched to the radio for much of the way. Although I did not keep track of songs we heard on the radio this trip, Daughtry was the clear winner. Every time we hit the scan button, “It’s Not Over” or “Home” came through the speakers. I was indifferent about Daughtry before this weekend; now, I can’t stand him. I started swearing each time one of the songs played and quickly turned the station. Unfortunately, he would not go away. Daughtry was in Binghamton, Scranton, Moosic, Harrisburg, Northern Virginia and everywhere in between. I’m just grateful that Daughtry did not become the lead singer of Fuel as was rumored last year after Brett Scallions left the band. “Shimmer” and "Hemorrage (In My Hands)" are great songs; it would have been too bad if I had to start hating them because of Daughtry.

The sooner Daughtry becomes Bo Bice (meaning out sight and off the radio), the better.

UPDATE 6/5/07 @ 11:59pm I left a very long comment in response to the other comments. I also apologize for including Bo Bice in my Daughtry rant. At this time of night, I can't think of anyone to substitute in place of Bice.