Media Coverage

I usually don't criticize the mainstream media, but in my opinion, there has not been nearly enough coverage of the terrorist attacks and its aftermath in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt from last Friday. I do not want to diminish the sad story about Natalee Holloway, who has been missing in Aruba for more than two months, but I don't think I've seen a story about the bombings in Egypt since the middle of last week while there are still daily reports from Aruba.

Sorry for the moment of being serious. I'll have a lot of good stuff tomorrow including some special mid-day posts!

Washington Monuments

Since I am going to miss the tournament next weekend, I had my final ultimate frisbee game last night. The games are usually spread out throughout the DC area, and last night was the first time this season I played on a field next to the reflecting pool. Even though I have lived in the DC area for the past four years, I rarely go to the Mall unless I'm playing a tour guide for family and friends. I really take the Mall for granted. I enjoyed walking by the Washington Monument, World War II Memorial and Lincoln Monument before and after the game. Seeing the monuments and the Capital Building at night is always beautiful. In case you were curious, my team won the game 13-8 (called for darkness), and despite a few poor throws, I played very well.

Socks

I went to Kohl's over the weekend because I needed dress socks and was hoping to find some good deals on short-sleeve shirts and shorts. Overall, a successful trip...or so I thought. Yesterday, I wore a pair of my new black socks to go along with my black pants and black shoes. When I got home from work, I noticed that the socks seemed to look different than the socks and pants. It turns out that the black socks are actually dark brown. Now that I've worn one pair and taken the other two pairs out of the package, I guess that I'm stuck with them. The morale of the story: stores should sort socks based on color!

ESPN 50 States Tour

As you may or may not know, ESPN Sportscenter is visiting 50 states in 50 days in order to show sports in various states. In reality, they are probably hoping for some improved ratings during the summer and are able to fill some time before football season begins. Anyway, since Washington DC is not a state, they are not getting any coverage. Mayor Anthony Williams submitted a press release questioning why ESPN snubbed the District. Personally, I think DC government should focus on other issues such as the budget, statehood and education, but I agree with Williams. The Washington Area Frisbee Club, in which I am a part of, is following the Mayor's lead by attempting to get ESPN to visit DC to showcase Ultimate Frisbee as among the largest co-ed participant sports played in DC. If you are interested in finding out more about this, check out the WAFC website.

New Quiz

If you ever wanted to know if you are more Yankee or Dixie based on language that you use (or even if you didn't really want to know), here is a link for a quiz. I was 53% Dixie for whatever that's worth.

Way Past My Bedtime

I just finished the 6th Harry Potter after reading non-stop for the past 2.5 hours. I will not give anything away, but I certainly want to talk to people who have finished the book. I think this is the best of the series, and the 7th book cannot come up soon enough. J.K. Rowling should be given anything she wants (like seclusion for a year or her own coffee shop in Edinburgh) to write and finish the last book. I'm really going to be hurting in the morning.

Dream Analysis

I rarely remember my dreams, but there is part of one from last week that I wanted to share. For no real apparent reason, I was getting ready to go to the Oscars with Zach Braff and Vince Vaughn. We were all wearing black tuxedos, but for some reason, I wanted to wear a red or pink boa because I wanted to stand out. I guess I was worried that people would not know who I am. Vince and Zach (it's my dream, we might as well be calling each other by our first names) were trying to convince me not to wear the boa. And that's all I remember about the dream. Anyone want to analyze the dream?

Saturday Morning Ramblings

I haven't done this for a while, but here are some thoughts from the past few days:

- Willie Nelson must still owe a lot of money to the IRS. He has "collaborated" with Jessica Simpson to remake Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin." He has also recently released a country/reggae fusion album. I hope he's also making good money for The Dukes of Hazzard movie.

- Dan already wrote about this yesterday, but the Penguins won the NHL (that's National Hockey League for everyone who was forgotten) lottery. They are going to draft Sidney Crosby, who apparently is the next Mario. It does seem odd that a potential superstar athlete is named Sidney.

- I woke up around 2:30am this morning/last night with a cramp in my left leg. What an awful feeling.

- Maybe related to getting the cramp is what I did last night. I (and my team) played its best ultimate frisbee game of the summer in a 15-8 win. I am finally getting into decent shape, which worked out well since the team didn't have many substitutes.

- After the game, I had dinner at one of the great restaurant chains in the country (and I'm being completely serious), Long John Silver's. There are only two Long John Silver's locations that I know about in Northern Virginia, and neither is close to where I work or live. Therefore, I only eat at LJS maybe once a year. I know that every time I eat there takes a few weeks off of my life, but the fish, hushpuppies and little fried pieces (of what I don't know) covered in vinegar is so good.

- I'm about 300 pages through Harry Potter. So far, very good!

Bobby Brown and the Dalai Lama

There really is nothing on TV. While flipping channels, I found Being Bobby Brown. I don't know why they were meeting, but it certainly looked accidental since they were meeting on the street. Naturally, the Dalai Lama had no clue who he was (although I'm sure if he heard his song from Ghostbusters 2, he would definitely know Bobby). Anyway, when Bobby Brown's guy realized that the Dalai Lama had no idea who he was, he started referring to Brown as Whitney Houston's husband. Very funny.

Empire Today

I really don't know much about the company, but they seem to be taking over the world. I thought they were just a local DC area company that does carpeting and windows. Then, I saw commercials for the company when I was in Pittsburgh and in San Diego. And I can't get the song from the commercial out of my head (singing: "800-588-2-300 Empire" person's voice: "Today"). This is the most catchy phone number since 867-5309. I don't remember a commercial being so and memorable (and a little annoying) since "Don't Say Olds, Say Bendick Olds" and Call Attorney Edgar Snyder at 391-2101, 391-2101.

City Test

Here is a link where you determine where you should be living based on the importance of numerous factors. I must have done something wrong. #1 on my list is Long Island. No offense to my friend Christian or anyone else reading this who is from or lives in Long Island, but please shoot me if I am decide to move to Long Island. Rounding out the top 10 are:

Boston, San Francisco, Middlesex-Somerset-Hunterdon, NJ, Washington DC, Monmouth-Ocean, NJ, Danbury, CT, Bergen-Passaic, NJ, LA/Long Beach and Nashua, NH

Other notables: Pittsburgh was #13, San Diego #19 (behind Newark at #18?), Atlanta #64, Jacksonville #120, Las Vegas #156 and Columbus #220.
The last three...Enid, OK (#326), Gadsden, AL (327) and Pine Bluff, AR (328)

XBox Question

I've started seeing commercials for NCAA Football 2006. Since I'm still new to having an XBox and since I really like NCAA Football 2005, I'm trying to decide if it is worth buying the new version. For any XBox/PS2/Nintendo folks out there, do you buy the new games each year (like Madden 2004, 2005, etc.)? Do you know if there is anything really new and different about NCAA 2006?

Airplane Movie Reviews

No, this is not in reference to Airplane! and Airplane II: The Sequel, two very funny movies (particularly the first one) from the early 1980s. This is about my flight to and from San Diego last week and the fact that the two movies during the trip were Fever Pitch and Ice Princess.

WARNING: IF YOU ARE REALLY INTERESTED IN THE ENDING OF THESE MOVIES, (are you really?) DO NOT READ BELOW HERE.


(I put a few extra spaces here if you accidentally looked down.)








Let's just say, these are not the best movies ever made (like Airplane!). Ice Princess features Michelle Trachtenberg (from Buffy) as a high school physics nerd who becomes a great figure skater by figuring out scientific equations and formulas. She is able to qualify for the U.S. Nationals even though she has only skated in one competition prior to Sectionals, her coach tried to sabotage her, she asked the coach back, she finished 5th in the short program, then proceeded to fall very hard in the long program, stopped to stare at her mom for about 20 seconds in the middle of the routine and everyone in front of her seemed to do fine in their long program. Yet, all of this was more believable than Fever Pitch. In this movie, Jimmy Fallon decides to sell his season tickets for life near the end of Game 4 of the Red Sox-Yankees game, Drew Barrymore is able to buy two tickets from a scalper in the 8th inning of the game (what scalper is still around to sell tickets that late in the game?), drop down from outfield seats on to the field, elude two security guards by using Johnny Damon as a shield (Damon is perfectly calm even though someone who married Tom Green is running around him) and makes it all the way to the 1st base seats without getting caught by security. After 9-11 (even before 9-11), you would think that Fenway and Major League Baseball would have better security especially during a playoff game. The worst part is the book by Nick Hornby is great. The movie has nothing to do with the book. I hope that Hornby at least got a lot of money for this.

Striker!

More Harry Potter

Just for fun (and since I have several other books on hold), I went to the Fairfax County Public Library (FCPL) website to see where I would be on the list to check-out the new Harry Potter. Even though the library system has 323 copies throughout the 20 or so locations, my position in the holds queue is 1292! Both the number of copies and my number in the queue has to be a record for FCPL.

Just as a comparison, when I first reserved 1776 by David McCullough and A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby my position in the holds queue was approximately 150-175. I am currently #49 and #63 respectively. This should work out well since I'll have a few more books to read after Harry Potter.

Why Leave Out Tommy Maddox?

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and CBS Sportsline both reported a story in which a man is accused of impersonating Steelers quarterbacks Ben Roethlisberger and Brian St. Pierre so that women would go out with him. The Post-Gazette has a picture of Brian Jackson (the impersonator), Roethlisberger and St. Pierre. Jackson looks nothing like either Steelers QB.

My favorite part of the story is at the end of the CBS article. "When the woman did watch a Steelers game, she saw the real Brian St. Pierre on the screen and realized that Jackson was an impostor, police said. Jackson tried to explain to the woman that he looked "different" on TV, but she asked him not to contact her, police said."

I would love to have heard him explanation of how he looked "different" on TV. He looks heavier in football pads?

It's Here!

At 3:08 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, the mailman/letter carrier (what is the actual position title these days?) delivered the latest Harry Potter book. I hope that I'm not giving anything away, but the book is called "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and the first word in Chapter One is "It." Maybe I have given something away since I just heard thunder and "it" is raining heavily here.

By the way, UPS can ignore my letter from earlier today. Somehow they pawned delivering the book on to the U.S. Postal Service. According to the UPS website, the book is still in transit.

Dear UPS:

Can you please deliver the Harry Potter book sometime soon? According to the tracking page of your website, the book has been in Chantilly, VA (only 20 minutes from here) since 9:56 A.M. yesterday and is "in transit to final destination." I know traffic around here is bad, but I know you can make it! I'll be here (or going to Costco, but my wife will be here) awaiting the delivery.

Sincerely,
Sean

Harry Potter World

I'm sure that you either can't get enough Harry Potter coverage or you are ready for it to go away. I'm somewhere in between. While I am looking forward to Book 6 being delivered to my door sometime in the next 8-15 hours, I am worried that there is no possible way the book can live up to the hype.

Anyway, for all of the latest Harry Potter news, visit Mugglenet.com or, if you're living in Indonesia, this blog.

Dick Butkus

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported this week that Dick Butkus, one of the greatest linebackers in NFL history, will work as a football coach for the Pittsburgh-area Montour High School as part of a new ESPN reality show. The second article states that Butkus will actually be the head football coach. The coach who was hired by the school in January (not Butkus) said "For the purpose of the show, he's going to be the head coach," [Lou] Cerro said. "For the purpose of [reality], I mean -- well listen. Coach Butkus has not coached a down of football in his life."

I'm glad that Cerro stated that Butkus has never coached football. I'm sure we all remember his outstanding job as a basketball coach on the reality show Hang Time.

What do you mean that wasn't a reality show?

Metro

Today was the first time I took Metro to work since the terrorist attacks in London. I didn't notice any extra security during either trip, but there seemed to be more people riding Metro both to work and back home than there has been in months. Same with the buses. I have no idea why. The shocking Metro event of the day was the posting on the electronic bulletin board saying that there were no reported elevator outages!!!!! (The exclamation points were on the bulletin board, not my reaction to this news.) Of course, escalators may have been out all over the place, but I'll be happy for the people who need to use elevators.

I'll have more about my San Diego trip including my thoughts on the airplane movies (Fever Pitch and The Ice Princess) tomorrow and/or over the weekend.