Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Turn it off!: The 50 worst announcers in sports today - Y! Sports Blogs - Yahoo! Sports
THAT'S HOOOOOORRIBLE: Remember Alex's post on the 50 greatest announcers in sports history? Via Deadspin, here's one halfway decent take on the 50 worst announcers in sports today. (But for real? You can't include Gus Johnson anywhere near such lists.)
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE: This is the day that comes four times a year when I'm reminded that bureacracy, had it not stumbled upward out of the primordial ooze on its own, would have been invented by Franz Kafka anyway. The occasion for this quarterly reflection is the filing of employment tax forms, which in California consist of a Form DE6 and a Form DE88. To make this as fraught as possible with possibilities for error, California requires that the DE88 be sent to a PO box number ending in 6 and that the DE6 be sent to a PO box number ending in 88.
Also, you can buy blank W-2 forms that can be used with a typewriter, or you can avoid that completely and use either government-sponsored or government-approved third-party forms that can be printed on standard 8.5 x 11" paper (note: you have to use the right fillable forms if you're using the government-sponsored option, and watch out for the fillable forms that the government helpfully provides that cannot be used because why would you expect that you could actually use the government-provided fillable form?). But if you use the online forms, beware, because the employee's copies of the W-2 must be perforated for easy separation and must not be cut with scissors, which rules out standard 8.5 x 11" paper.
Also, you can buy blank W-2 forms that can be used with a typewriter, or you can avoid that completely and use either government-sponsored or government-approved third-party forms that can be printed on standard 8.5 x 11" paper (note: you have to use the right fillable forms if you're using the government-sponsored option, and watch out for the fillable forms that the government helpfully provides that cannot be used because why would you expect that you could actually use the government-provided fillable form?). But if you use the online forms, beware, because the employee's copies of the W-2 must be perforated for easy separation and must not be cut with scissors, which rules out standard 8.5 x 11" paper.
THE ANNUAL SEASON-ENDING BIG GAME POOL: We're changing things up a little for our fourth go at this, which last year was won by Joseph J. Finn (2007: me; 2006: Benner). Since an Anheuser-Busch spot has topped the USA Today Ad Meter for each of the last ten years, we are retiring that question in place of a narrower one suggested by Matt.
As with last year, there are two prizes -- first, of course, Fame and Glory Forever ("forever" being until next year's pool), and second is that the winner has the non-assignable right to make a post of his or her choosing (relevant to the site's subject matter) on the blog at a mutually agreed-upon time. With that in mind, it's first-come, first served for you to make predictions as to the following:
"State Trooper"/"The Ghost of Tom Joad"/"Lost in the Flood"/"Dream Baby Dream" "Light of Day"/"Life Itself"/"Hungry Heart"/"Born To Run".
As with last year, there are two prizes -- first, of course, Fame and Glory Forever ("forever" being until next year's pool), and second is that the winner has the non-assignable right to make a post of his or her choosing (relevant to the site's subject matter) on the blog at a mutually agreed-upon time. With that in mind, it's first-come, first served for you to make predictions as to the following:
- Winner/final score.
- Official Game MVP.
- Which movie ad/trailer will get the top score on the USA Today Ad Meter? (Between Ad Age and Variety, I'm seeing reports of reporting commercials for "GI Joe," "Transformers II," "Star Trek," "Monsters v. Aliens,""Angels and Demons," "Land of the Lost," Pixar's "Up" and "The Fourth-Most Fastest and Furious-est", with not-yet-purchased-but-still-possibles for "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," "Watchmen," "Fighting," and "State of Play.")
- Springsteen's setlist, being reported as four songs squeezed into twelve minutes. (You can use "New Song" as a placeholder, but you'll lose any tiebreaker to someone who gets it right. Folks who made predictions back in August can grandfather them in, but if and when Backstreets.com leaks the answer based on soundcheck, this category is closed.)
TWO GIRLS FOR EVERY BOY: Wise choice by Idol to shorten up the auditions this year, because wow, do they ever run together. It's like one three-week-long run of melisma sung by every destitute blind orphan who ever shopped at American Apparel.
So after seven hours of audition footage (watched in approximately three hours of real time, because when a guy walks out in an iPod costume you know you can skip the next three minutes), there are maybe eight or ten I can remember, almost all of them women. Sure, I remember the blind guy because he was inspiring (because he sang without his piano! Not because he's blind!), because he was memorably dull, because his A&F-model brother was too much of a dick to teach him how to use conditioner, and because Seacrest tried to high-five him. And I remember the Osmond because he was an Osmond, was memorably dull, and apparently is one of 13 kids of the -- well, I'll call him the high-strung Osmond. Is that euphemistic enough? If those two get through to the finals, watch them split the Archuleta's moms-and-tweens demo.
Meanwhile, the women were a lot more memorable. I don't give the pixie orphan much of a shot, but the single mom Carmen Kass doppelganger with the one-sleeve tattoo and the Jolie Holland-meets-Tori Amos delivery made the kind of noises you don't usually hear on this show. And I remember not being irritated by the auditions of the ringer who used to be signed to A&M, the sorority girl who they made come back to sing in makeup, the South Asian single mom who they compared to Amy Winehouse (without all the open sores and racism), the teen with the huge smile and crippling poverty, and the one punky woman who had to quit her all-girl band (which, per her MySpace, according to some site I read, included two guys). And while the women who sing thoughtful versions of religious songs always put me to sleep and get the fast-forward treatment during the season, I'll accept that the nine-foot-tall girl from Samoa had a pretty good voice.
Now I'm looking forward to Hollywood week, because there's nothing like people who don't know each other staying up all night to arrange a capella manglings of trashy '80s pop. And I mean that in a good way.
So after seven hours of audition footage (watched in approximately three hours of real time, because when a guy walks out in an iPod costume you know you can skip the next three minutes), there are maybe eight or ten I can remember, almost all of them women. Sure, I remember the blind guy because he was inspiring (because he sang without his piano! Not because he's blind!), because he was memorably dull, because his A&F-model brother was too much of a dick to teach him how to use conditioner, and because Seacrest tried to high-five him. And I remember the Osmond because he was an Osmond, was memorably dull, and apparently is one of 13 kids of the -- well, I'll call him the high-strung Osmond. Is that euphemistic enough? If those two get through to the finals, watch them split the Archuleta's moms-and-tweens demo.
Meanwhile, the women were a lot more memorable. I don't give the pixie orphan much of a shot, but the single mom Carmen Kass doppelganger with the one-sleeve tattoo and the Jolie Holland-meets-Tori Amos delivery made the kind of noises you don't usually hear on this show. And I remember not being irritated by the auditions of the ringer who used to be signed to A&M, the sorority girl who they made come back to sing in makeup, the South Asian single mom who they compared to Amy Winehouse (without all the open sores and racism), the teen with the huge smile and crippling poverty, and the one punky woman who had to quit her all-girl band (which, per her MySpace, according to some site I read, included two guys). And while the women who sing thoughtful versions of religious songs always put me to sleep and get the fast-forward treatment during the season, I'll accept that the nine-foot-tall girl from Samoa had a pretty good voice.
Now I'm looking forward to Hollywood week, because there's nothing like people who don't know each other staying up all night to arrange a capella manglings of trashy '80s pop. And I mean that in a good way.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
THIS IS PART OF THE STIMULUS PACKAGE, RIGHT? America's strategic chicken wing supply is running low, and at the worst possible time with Wing Bowl 17 tomorrow morning in Philadelphia.
This year's gimmick: local competitors only; none of the competitive eaters from the national circuit, which provides room for folks like Dave "The Acidic Jew" Spector, who ate ten lemons in less than five minutes, playing the saxophone after each; and Doug "Obi Wing" Petock, who ate melons (including skin and rinds) while being punched in the stomach.
Related: The Colonel (eyes: wee, beady) wants you to know that "KFC employs a dedicated, trained cook in each of the kitchens of the chain's 5,300-plus restaurants nationwide" responsible for hand-breading the chicken using the secret blend of herbs and spices -- including, of course, an addictive chemical that makes you crave it fortnightly, smartass.
This year's gimmick: local competitors only; none of the competitive eaters from the national circuit, which provides room for folks like Dave "The Acidic Jew" Spector, who ate ten lemons in less than five minutes, playing the saxophone after each; and Doug "Obi Wing" Petock, who ate melons (including skin and rinds) while being punched in the stomach.
Related: The Colonel (eyes: wee, beady) wants you to know that "KFC employs a dedicated, trained cook in each of the kitchens of the chain's 5,300-plus restaurants nationwide" responsible for hand-breading the chicken using the secret blend of herbs and spices -- including, of course, an addictive chemical that makes you crave it fortnightly, smartass.
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