I’m not particularly fond of political correctness. I think it’s stupid when people get upset over trifling, petty, insignificant little things. But sometimes the anti-PC brigade is just as annoying. One of the most notable examples is the people who throw hissy fits every time they hear “Happy Holidays” or “Season’s Greetings” or whatever. Get over it. Is Christmas the predominant holiday of the season for the vast majority of Americans? Yes, it certainly is. But where’s the harm in “Happy Holidays”? No one is trying to offend Christians by that. Should non-Christians be offended by “Merry Christmas”? No, they should shut up and get over it. But I can’t remember the last time I heard a Jew or Muslim or atheist or anyone else complain about hearing “Merry Christmas.” So they’re obviously doing okay. It’s the annoyingly thin-skinned, easily offended douchebags among the Christians who bitch and moan every time anyone slips into generic holiday greetings. Continue reading ‘people who are offended by “happy holidays”’
Monthly Archive for November, 2009
As you probably know if you have half a brain, the English language is under constant assault from people who don’t have any clue what they’re doing. Often celebrities (actors, singers, sports stars, etc.) do most of the damage—they’re on TV all the time, they’re always talking, and many of them are complete and utter morons. And just about every time one of them accomplishes something, they say, “I’m humbled.” It’s the sort of thing that’s basically the opposite of what it should be, like when people say “I could care less” when they really mean “I couldn’t care less.” Continue reading ‘the misuse of the word “humbled”’
I see a lot of theatre. Not as much as some people, I fully admit, but I probably average seeing 35-40 shows a year, maybe fewer when I’m busy doing my own shows. This number includes trips to New York (I usually go there roughly once a year), and it will include the Broadway tours New Orleans has just now gotten back after Katrina, but the vast majority of these are locally produced, whether by professional or semi-professional companies, schools, community theatres, churches, etc. I tend to see more musicals than straight plays, but it’s definitely a little of both. Unfortunately, I get treated to a lot of the same damn shows over and over again.
Most of the shows that are produced frequently are well-written shows. But does everybody have to do Little Shop? There have been at least three productions of it this year, and I think there are even more on the way. At least that’s a funny, smart, well-written show. But then people will do crap like Annie eight billion times. That show is so bad that my mother (who sees every single show I’m in at least twice) has said that she wouldn’t come to see it again if I were in it. Or they do Bye Bye Birdie. Now the book actually has some pretty good jokes in it, but the score is atrocious, featuring several horrendous attempts at rock songs by people who had no clue how to write them. I think I’ve seen about eighty-seven productions of Birdie, all of them dreadful. Including the Broadway revival. Continue reading ‘overproduced musicals’
Now, I’m going to start this with a disclaimer: I didn’t see much of the LSU/Ole Miss game because I was moderating at a quiz bowl tournament. But I did hear everything from LSU’s failed two-point conversion and successful onside kick through to the end of the game, and when I got home I rewound and watched the game from the same point on. But I’ll just be concerning myself with the last minute of the game, so that shouldn’t matter.
LSU got a remarkably good break with their successful onside kick, and then another when Brandon LaFell made a superb play, racking up the yards after catch en route to the Ole Miss 31-yard line. At that point LSU was in excellent shape, with two timeouts left and within Josh Jasper’s range (he had already made a 50-yarder earlier in the game). That said, a 48-yarder is no gimme, so Les Miles was entirely justified in trying to pick up more yards through the air. But Jordan Jefferson has got to have the pocket presence to get rid of the ball. On first down he successfully avoided a sack by throwing the ball away, but on 2nd down the 10-yard loss was a killer. Certainly one could argue for running the ball there, but the fault for the sack has to rest with Jefferson. The 3rd down play call for a screen pass is one of those things where if it works right, we’re all talking about how much of a genius he is. That’s the sort of play that very easily could have gotten fifteen yards and put LSU solidly back within Jasper’s field goal range. Was it the best call? Maybe, maybe not, but I have to rail against the results-oriented thinking I’ve already bitched in my Belichick post. If Ciron Black gets out and makes a block there might’ve been a decent gain on the play instead of a loss. While Les Miles and Gary Crowton’s playcalling was certainly questionable, it was also defensible. Continue reading ‘bad clock management #3′
People can be irrational sometimes. Especially women. One inexplicable disease which seems to strike almost every member of the female sex is a pathological obsession with guys who play the guitar. Now, if they were only going to obsess over some brilliant guitarist playing for a famous band, that would be one thing. But if they see a guy strumming a three-chord song on a guitar, he’s some kind of artistic genius. Never mind the fact that he can barely play the damn instrument. And if he writes his own music, even better. Then he’s “sensitive” and “artistic.” Even if said song involves three chords and trite, cliched lyrics about how his last girlfriend dumped him. Congratulations, anybody can spew crap like that out. You know the sort of guy I’m talking about. Perpetually stoned. Unkempt hair and a scruffy beard, unless he’s still at his private high school, in which case he keeps his hair as long as he possibly can without getting a detention. Wears band t-shirts and a pair of jeans all the time. Women would not consider him attractive at all, except when he plays the one song he knows on the guitar. Then they throw themselves upon him as if he were a overstuffed shopping cart from Sam’s and they were a bunch of emaciated, swollen-bellied six-year-old Ethiopians. Continue reading ‘women who fawn over guitar players’
People are bashing Bill Belichick’s decision to go for a 1st down on 4th-and-2 from his own 28-yard line. Now, I think Bill Belichick is probably the biggest douchebag ever to coach an NFL team. He strikes me as a brilliant and driven but despicable and classless human being. His petulance every time he loses a big game (as he did last night, or as he did in the Super Bowl against the Giants) is the antithesis of the sportsmanship players and coaches should display.* But there is one decision he made that should be defended: his decision to go for it may have caused an uproar, but it was the right call.
Some people, even ones with Super Bowl rings (including Tony Dungy, former Colts head coach), said that Belichick should have gone with the “percentages.” What a load of crap. The percentages don’t tell you this, not even close. The tired, hackneyed conventional wisdom tells you this. Coaches are far too conservative. As the blog at pro-football-reference.com notes, “If [Faulk] catches the ball [cleanly instead of bobbling it and being knocked back], the Patriots win and he’s the hero. If he drops the ball, Belichick becomes the goat. And that’s why most coaches never go for it in that situation.” When a “gutsy” call goes wrong, they get the blame. When they play it safe, the players get the blame. Continue reading ‘the people who bash Bill Belichick’s 4th-down decision’
The 20th century brought us lots of wonderful inventions. The World Wide Web. Satellites. Airplanes. Bikinis. One invention, however, has a few benefits, but on the whole has been a terrible scourge to humanity. I speak of the microwave, of course, that destroyer of taste and producer of soggy, flavorless dishes. Any good New Orleanian must take a stand against bad food. And since microwaves make bad food, we must unite against them.
One of my favorite foods ever since I was little has always been rice and gravy, which my 91-year-old Maw Maw* (who grew up in rural southern Louisiana and whose first language was French) often cooks for us. Rice and gravy is a staple of Cajun cuisine; there’s a few variations with different types of meat, but hers always uses veal rounds, which my family would get from Guillory’s on Derbigny Street in Metairie, just a block down the street from where I grew up. The meat and gravy are prepared by braising the veal rounds with some onions and garlic over a low heat; my grandmother seems to leave it on the stove all afternoon. As the veal rounds cook they make a wonderful gravy. It’s really fantastic, and I’ve never had anything like it.** Continue reading ‘microwaves’
In case you hadn’t heard, there’s been some sort of recession or financial crisis or something. I mean, I didn’t notice because I have a humanities degree (two of them, actually), so I wasn’t planning on having, like, an actual job or anything—I fully expected to be underemployed. Now, no one really knows how the economy works. It’s kind of like the weather—a lot of people make predictions, they’re usually wrong, but they still manage to keep their jobs. The only difference is that people who predict what the economy is going to do usually make a lot more money than the meteorologists. But a lot of individuals and corporations did horrendously stupid things and then wondered why they ended up in a huge gigantic mess. Now, you, dear reader, are probably not running a corporation, so I’m not going to bother with much advice there. But I will point out some of the stupid things people have done so that hopefully you won’t make the same mistakes. Continue reading ‘stupid things people do with their money’
[edit]–I keep getting google hits for “last night’s Glee episode” and I don’t want to confuse anyone. So know that this is about “Wheels,” which aired November 11, 2009, and not about any future episode that may be “last night’s Glee episode” at any particular point in time. But while you’re here, check out my post about Glee’s ridiculous amount of Auto-Tune usage.
Let me start right off by saying that I’m a huge fan of Glee. I start with a positive disposition to any sort of movie or TV musical, and I was hooked on Glee from the pilot, not only for the musical sequences but also for the outstanding ensemble of character actors and actresses, the cameos by Broadway superstars, and the bitingly sharp writing. The first few episodes of Glee have shown that it’s willing to mock Christians, cheerleaders, people with lisps, homosexuals, blacks, football players, mysophobes, and plenty of others. There were the occasional sensitive moments—Kurt coming out to his dad, Will learning from his wife that they’re going to have a baby, Ken’s longing for Emma despite the fact that she’s hopelessly in love with Will, etc. But last night’s episode (“Wheels” is the episode title) went way off the deep end of maudlin sentimentalism with a veritable miscellany of topics fit for an after-school special or a very special episode. Warning—Spoilers after the jump!
Sometimes there is such a thing as a free lunch (or breakfast). Maybe you’re at some conference or meeting or whatever, and there’s a table with free food. Maybe you’re checking out the continental breakfast at a motel (in which case you paid for the food unless someone else was paying for the hotel, but whatever). Maybe there’s some finger sandwiches or something.* If it’s a free breakfast, maybe there’s a few baskets of muffins and pastries. Or maybe there’s a tray of cookies. I’d like to discuss two specific things: muffins, and cookies. What always runs out first? Blueberry muffins and chocolate chip cookies. Always. Everyone likes them, so why even bother with the other crap? Continue reading ‘inappropriately low numbers of chocolate chip cookies and blueberry muffins’