My Return

You have probably noticed that except for two sentences about commercials that I'm already tired of, I haven't written much in the past week. I'll try to make up for that over the next few days, starting tonight.

* The football teams I follow most are off to great starts. The Steelers are 1-0 and Pitt, Ithaca College and Ohio State are all 2-0.

* I am in four separate fantasy football leagues this season and had a 2-2 weekend. In the two leagues I care about most, I'm 1-1.

* I watched VH1's Behind the Music: Nick Lachey edition. Did you know that 98° was originally signed by Motown? Did you also know that Lachey was married to Jessica Simpson?

* "Men in Trees" with Anne Heche debuts tonight on ABC. Why is this important? I picked this show as one of ten that won't make it to next season. (I'll write more about this later.)

* I can't believe I'm watching "Dancing with the Stars," although it is quite funny watching dance judges ridicule Tucker Carlson. His scores: 5, 4 and 3. I haven't really watched this show before, so is this out of 10?

Commercials

The first week of the NFL season is not yet complete, but I'm already tired of GM's "Floating Cars" commercial and the Coors commercials featuring former NFL coaches Bill Walsh and Dick Vermeil. They are starting to make me miss the days of the gellin'/zinfandelin commercials.

Your Newest Pittsburgh Penguin

This picture of Evgeni Malkin makes me laugh. First, why of all pictures, is the Post-Gazette using this one? Second, Malkin, along with Sidney Crosby, is the future of the team and will hopefully lead the Penguins back to the Stanley Cup. However, I worry that since Malkin seems to be having trouble getting his jersey on, how will he do on the ice? From this picture, Mario Lemieux may be thinking the same thing.

The Zidane Head-Butt

Two months after the World Cup ended, Zinedine Zidane's head-butt in the Italy-France final is still making news. Yesterday, the Italian defender Marco Materazzi who was on the receiving end of the head-butt spoke out. According to Materazzi, he tugged on Zidane's shirt who said "If you want my shirt so much I'll give it to you afterwards." Materazzi's reply: "I'd prefer your sister." That's a pretty funny reply. Maybe not as good as the George Costanza's jerk store line, but not bad. However, why do I think that maybe Materazzi is telling the entire story. Was that line really worth a head-butt? I can't see Joey Porter responding like that to a "I'd prefer your sister" line.

Guest Entry

This is Sean’s wife for a brief side commentary. What is it like to visit Michael’s craft store with Sean? Well…it is very amusing! I wanted to make a brief visit to see if I could possibly come up with a craft to do in my spare time. Sean went directly to the Halloween area. He had done this before while we were looking for fake flower arrangements a few weeks ago.

In the Halloween area my wonderful husband began pushing all the buttons of the toys that made noises. Basically, the sounds were the ones you may hear while trick or treating. He would push the buttons or even step in front of the toys and then proceeded to laugh.

Our visit yesterday topped everything. Sean proceeded to put on a cat ear headband and purr like a cat. (Sean’s note: I did not purr.)

It was quite cute, even if he got a few dirty looks from other customers.

Shampoo

I can't believe I'm writing about this. I went to Hair Cuttery yesterday for a haircut, and they were really trying to sell me Nioxin shampoo, which apparently helps with hair loss (hopefully with slowing hair loss). A small bottle of this stuff is $12. $12?!?! I refuse to spend that much for shampoo. I don't have enough hair to spend $12 on shampoo!

So I'm now writing to look for shampoo suggestions. I have used Pert Plus (shampoo and conditioner in one!) for many years now, but I wonder if there is a better product out there that may help reduce hair loss but does not $12 per bottle? I apologize if I'm sounding like Tony Kornheiser with his hair/lack of hair stories. Any suggestions?

Mayor O'Connor: 1944 - 2006

Pittsburgh Mayor Bob O'Connor died last night from his battle with brain cancer. While this is obviously all over the place in Western Pennsylvania, I just happened to discover that Mayor O'Connor passed away by checking the Post-Gazette website late yesterday. Mayor O'Connor had only been on the job for 8 months and was truly passionate about serving the city. He had wanted to be the mayor for nearly a decade before being elected last year.

While the city is mourning the loss of O'Connor, the focus is slowly (or maybe even quickly) being turned to Council President and now Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, 26. He has some big shoes to fill and fairly or unfairly will be under the microscope because of his age.

Manilow vs. Diamond

With Barry Manilow's Emmy win the other night, I had a conversation with some folks recently about who is the better musician: Manilow or Neil Diamond. Feel free to weigh in on this topic. I'll share my thoughts later this afternoon.

Neil Diamond's acting performance in "Saving Silverman" should not be considered in this discussion.

Best Steelers Website

I have a link on the right to Steeler cornerback Ike Taylor's "Face Me Ike" website, and I have also profiled Joey Porter's website in the past. Neither of these compare to the MySpace page of Steelers backup center Chukky Okobi. Did you know he's a rapper? I didn't either until I found this site. He's actually pretty good, although I may be a little biased since he mentions the Steelers and Pittsburgh quite frequently. Please note that some of the lyrics may be R-rated. I personally like the 412 references in "In the Strip," but my personal favorite is "Steelers '06 Who's..."

In case you've been wondering, Steelers backup tackle Trai Essex also has a MySpace page.

August 29th

August 29th will always be a special day for me. The 29th was my grandmother's birthday and is the birthday of my best friend growing up (basically from 3-18). Unfortunately, I haven't talked to him in years. Exactly two years ago today, another set of friends had a baby boy and of course, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast last year. Michael Jackson's birthday is also today, but I really don't care about that.

Slide

Over the weekend, I went to my first concert in probably four years to see Counting Crows and The Goo Goo Dolls. Much to my surprise, the Goo Goo Dolls put on a better performance (with the exception of the two songs sung by the guitar player and not by John Rzeznik). Two days later, I'm still amazed at this. I don't own any Goo Goo Dolls CDs, yet I knew almost every song they performed. Meanwhile, I didn't seem to know many of the Counting Crows songs, and they played a really odd version of Mr. Jones.

I have had the Bengals-Packers game on in the background as I've been typing this. Bengals Quarterback Carson Palmer is back and looks really good. That's good for the NFL and is even better for the Steelers-Bengals games. At least now we don't need to hear the "Palmer is hurt" excuse when the Steelers beat the Bengals!

2006 Emmys - Live!

Welcome to my live comments and thoughts on the 2006 Emmys! I am typing live from my couch and will be here all night (or at least until I get bored or tired). Anyway, feel free to post comments or predictions throughout the evening. Enjoy the show...
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I should mention that I will be joined tonight by my wife. Tonight's Emmy host: Conan O’Brian, who I think still has a TV show on at 12:30. I honestly have no idea since I don’t stay up that late anymore. I’m not really a big fan of his, but I thought he did a great job. Of course, making fun of your network is always funny (see Letterman, David). Putting yourself in a montage of TV shows (Lost, The Office, 24, etc.) was also a good move.

First award of the night: Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series being presented by Patrick Dempsey and Grey of Grey’s Anatomy. Grey is not funny (her joke bombed). The winner: Megan Mullally. I really think this is going to be a Will & Grace tribute show tonight. Debra Messing will definitely win for Best Actress in a Comedy. I'll also predict a big night for Grey's Anatomy despite Grey not being funny.

Best Supporting Actor in a Drama: Alan Alda. Why does Sean Hayes get to accept Alan Alda’s award? I think the presenter should say that they're going to put the award on EBay.

From my wife: I don’t think I want to watch this with you. I’m bored already. Could be a short night.

Bob Newhart = funny. Even if he's not talking, he's still funny. I also think he's extremely underrated. Two hit shows and the best series finale of all-time.

Congrats to Jeremy Piven for winning Best Supporting Actor in A Comedy Series. He was great in PCU!
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Is it bad that I know Cloris Leachman from "The Facts of Life" and not because of her eight Emmys?

Dick Clark looks better than he did on New Year's Eve.
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I'm getting tired (and a little bored), so I'm not sure how much more I'll be writing.

The Jon Stewart Show won a couple of awards.

Is Bob Newhart sitting in the glass case all night? Do they let him out to use the restroom or have some nachos?

Tony Shalhoub won for Best Actor in a Comedy for Monk. While most people know him from Wings (does anyone watch Monk?), I also remember the short-lived show he was on with Neil Patrick Harris. Without checking IMDB, can you name that show?
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Stephen Colbert's rant, especially about losing to Barry Manilow (apparently, he's not a Fan-ilow) was great. OK, I'm done for the night. Too tired. I'll just share my predictions for the rest of the main awards:

Best Comedy: Arrested Development
Best Drama: Grey's Anatomy
Actress Comedy: Debra Messing
Actor Drama: Martin Sheen (Peter Krause could be an upset winner)
Actress Drama: I have no clue on this one. Maybe Geena Davis.
They will keep Bob Newhart alive.

New Referrals

Once again, I’m “borrowing” this idea from Sarah, who just redesigned her site so check it out! Anyway, these are real searches (usually from Yahoo or Google) conducted by real people:

VH1 Flavor of Love
One of the greatest TV shows of all time!

Kevin Federline
Would you be at all surprised if he had a VH1 reality dating show in 10 years? I didn’t think so.

test answers for dmv driving test for day august 23, 2006
Unlucky. I had the answers for August 22, 2006. Make sure you stop completely at a flashing red light.

I Hate Taylor Hicks
Is that you Justin Timberlake?

rumors about celine dion being a lesbian
Sorry, no rumors here. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

wife of "pat mears" baseball player
Why is anyone even searching for Pat Mears?

breezewood park-n-ride
Breezewood has a park-n-ride? It really is a traveler’s oasis!

family ties "not the theme song"
That would be every song besides the actual theme song.

World cup speedo
I have nothing even remotely funny to write.

tempur pedic bad results
Sorry to hear that. Maybe you shouldn’t buy a bed after seeing a 3:00am infomercial.

are you gellin and zinfadellin
NO! How many times do I have to say that I hate these commercials? I’m going to go now to have some watermelon. Damn, they got me rhyming again!

There's a really good chance that I'll have a live journal for the Emmys on Sunday, so feel free to provide your comments then. It should be fun.

College Rankings

The 2007 U.S. News & World Report edition of America's Best Colleges and "The Princeton Review" rankings have both been released recently. The spin by colleges and universities are always the best part of these rankings. For example, I received the following information from The Ohio State University boasting about being named 19th among the nation's top 50 public universities, up from 21st in 2005, 22nd in 2004 and 2003, and 24th in 2002. If Ohio State goes to say 42 next year, would there be this type of press release?

Conversely, while many current students of Penn State (#2) and West Virginia (#3) may be happy to be ranked among the top party schools by the Princeton Review, the administrators want to put a different spin on it. In response to the ranking, Penn State university spokesman Tysen Kendig said, "Certainly, we want our students to have a great experience at the university, both academically and socially. But I think we need to be careful at all colleges and universities because we are dealing with a climate of alcohol abuse. And that's definitely not something that any college or university would be proud of." Of course he's right. However, he then pointed out that the Washington Monthly had a poll of the best universities in terms of service to the nation, where Penn State ranked No. 3 in that poll.

Other schools of note for the Princeton Review rankings:

Ithaca College
#4 Best College Radio Station
#18 Best College Theater
#14 Reefer Madness

George Mason University
#16 Students Dissatisfied with Financial Aid
#13 Their Students (Almost) Never Study
#2 Diverse Student Population
#14 Least Happy Students

The George Washington University
#5 Most Politically Active
#20 Dorms Like Palaces
#18 Great College Towns

The Ohio State University
#7 Teaching Assistants Teach Too Many Upper-Level Courses
#19 Students Pack the Stadiums

To see the complete list, click here (you may need to create a username and password) or if you're looking for a particular school, let me know and I'll check it out for you.

Updates, Updates, Updates

* The air conditioning is working again! Unfortunately, the cost to fix it was a lot more than I hoped. Of course, I had hoped it would be free.

* The first episode of season two of Prison Break was great last night. I don't want to give anything away, but there was definitely an unexpected "wow" moment.

* I know that no one cares about other people's fantasy team, but in case you were wondering, here is my team from my 16-team fantasy football league. The number in parentheses is the overall pick number.

1. (3) LaDainian Tomlinson
2. (30) Kevin Jones
3. (35) Torry Holt
4. (62) Trent Green
5. (67) Tony Gonzalez
6. (94) Muhsin Muhammad
7. (99) Drew Bennett
8. (126) Kevan Barlow
9. (131) Byron Leftwich
10. (158) Jacksonville D
11. (163) Jerry Porter
12. (190) Zach Hilton
13. (195) Michael Turner (Tomlinson insurance)
14. (222) Bobby Engram
15. (227) Sebastian Janikowski

Toilet Talk

I have said many times (although mostly to myself) that the United States is way behind in toilet technology. The primary toilet innovations come from the Japanese company, TOTO. I'll get back to TOTO momentarily. Maybe the U.S. is starting to make some strides in toilet technology, however, thanks to the Fish 'N Flush, a two-piece aquarium toilet that is pictured. I don't know how it works but you can check out the FNF website for more details.

While I like the idea of FNF, it's really a novelty compared to TOTO's most famous product, the Washlet. Some of the Washlet features include a heated seat, warm air dryer, air purifier, remote control and it self-cleans. I can only dream!

Manic Monday

I love using music references in the title of my posts. Anyway, this is a special afternoon posting because I'm home today. We have had some air conditioning problems so I have been home waiting for the HVAC guy. He was here this morning and has to come back because a major part was broken.

Besides the air conditioning, here are a few things I wanted to share:

- Prison Break - Season II starts tonight. Watch it or set your TiVos!

- There's a website I just discovered called TopBlogArea.com, which is a blog directory with a ranking system based on the number of unique visitors each blog receives every week. You can see where I rank with other blogs. For this week, I'm #11 in the sports section (I had to choose one and figure I write just a little bit more about sports than entertainment) and #293 overall.

So Bored

I've talked about my love for fantasy sports many times in the past. I am typing this at the 2.5 hour mark of my 16-team, 15-round fantasy football league online draft. Yes, I've been spending my Sunday evening sitting in front of a computer. Did I mention that this is a 16-team league? Oh, and there are 3:00 minutes for each pick. That is an eternity especially in Round 11 when all of the good players are long gone. We're almost done, so I can go back to enjoying fantasy football soon.

On the bright side, I'm watching the Teen Choice Awards. Nick Lachey won an award for Best Love Song (I think) which could have made for great television since Jessica Simpson is the host. Unfortunately, Jessica did not present the award; she was probably in a dressing room. However, I'll give Nick some credit. His first word for the acceptance speech was "awkward," followed by the sound of 1000 squealing girls.

Kevin Federline will be performing for the first time ever. This could be very entertaining.

Update 10:04: Chewing her gum and looking the opposite of classy, Britney came out to introduce Kevin. His performance: not very good. I guess he thinks that he's a rapper. He may be a good dancer, but singing/rapping, not so much. All I know is that he would never be performing on TV if his wife wasn't Britney. They are just a train wreck.

Christina on GMA

If you're reading this early this morning and happen to be at home, Pittsburgh's own and one of Ramblings' favorites, Christina Aguilera will be in concert on Good Morning America. I'll miss the performance (that work thing gets in the way), but if you see it, feel free to share comments about how she did.

Pedro Astacio - Greatest Pitcher Ever

I attended the Nationals-Braves game on Tuesday night and witnessed the best pitching performance I can recall seeing in person. The amazing part about this is that Pedro Astacio was pitching. Astacio threw only 89 pitches in the complete game win giving up no runs, two hits, no walks and five strikeouts. This was Pedro Astacio, who many casual baseball fans have probably never heard of. For the non-casual baseball fans out there, do you realize (I did not) that Astacio has been in the majors since 1992 and has a career record of 127-121?

For those of you keeping track, I rank this game with one where Kip Wells took a no hitter into the 9th inning (2001?).