Category: Uncategorized

Apparently, this was created by Sky One TV in the UK as a promo for “The Simpsons.” It is just plain freaky…and really freakin’ cool:

My friend Christian has put a couple of more songs—”Open Spaces” and “Great Ideas”—up on his MySpace.com site so check ’em out.

Good stuff!

Actor Anthony Rapp, best known for originating the role of Mark Cohen in the musical, “Rent,” came to Rider earlier tonight and talked about the part, the play and dealing with the losses of his mother to cancer and “Rent” writer Jonathan Larson to a twice-undiagnosed aortic dissection due to suspected Marfan syndrome—all of which is discussed in Rapp’s first book, “Without You….”

Each person attending the lecture was handed a ticket on the way in. It turns out, they were giving away 20 copies of Rapp’s book through a raffle. Now, since I was the elder statesman in the crowd among 19-, 20- and 21-year olds, I would have felt awkward walking up to claim my prize if I were to win so I just sat there hoping my number wouldn’t be called.

Of course, my number is the third called…why couldn’t I have had that kind of luck playing Mega Millions a couple of weeks ago? Ugh.

So I gave my ticket to the girl sitting in front of me and she went up and got the book. Now, I just hope my action earns a karmic reward. A benefit celebrating the 10th anniversary of “Rent” is being held at the New York Theatre Workshop on April 24; and Katie and I are going to enter the lottery for two of the 34 tickets being made available for $25. Hopefully, one of our cards is picked then.

Anyway, Rapp was very entertaining and insightful Monday night, and he gave those in attendance a treat by singing a bit of “Seasons of Love”…

One of my favorite days each year is the when the Phillies play their first spring training game of the season. The games in March might not mean anything in the standings, but to me they mean the return of baseball…and that is a beautiful thing.

So I have the radio in my office tuned to 1210 WPHT-AM to hear the sounds of Harry Kalas, Scott Graham & Co. as they broadcast the Phils’ 2006 Grapefruit League opener against the New York Yankees at Legends Field in Tampa, FL.

Woo-hoo!

When former FEMA chief Michael Brown testified in February before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee investigating the government’s failings in the wake of Hurricane Katrina that he felt like a scapegoat “abandoned” by the Bush administration, I thought he might have a point but figured that he was just as much part of the problem as Bush and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff were.

However, the Associated Press has obtained video of briefings conducted in the days before Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast that seem to bolster Brown’s claims.

Linked by secure video, Bush’s bravado on Aug. 29 starkly contrasts with the dire warnings his disaster chief and a cacophony of federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm.

A top hurricane expert voiced “grave concerns” about the levees and then- Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren’t enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome.

“I’m concerned about … their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe,” Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall.

Some of the footage conflicts with the defenses that federal, state and local officials have made in trying to deflect blame and minimize the political fallout from the failed Katrina response…

A “catastrophe within a catastrophe”? Those were Brown’s words to Bush and Chertoff. Brown actually tried to tell them that a failed aid and recovery plan would lead to a disaster on top of the initial disaster from the storm.

Interestingly enough, Chertoff — Brown’s boss at the time — said the following in an interview about a week after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast:

“…if we had an atomic bomb on top of this…and we could pile on catastrophes…whenever you do a planning process, you have to deal with what is reasonably foreseeable. It is true that you can sometimes have a combination of things that are reasonably foreseeable but that combination is unforeseeable.”

Uh, Chertoff…according to these videos, your own FEMA director warned you about the multiple catastrophes on the day the storm hit New Orleans.

Another great line the Bush administration used in the days right after Katrina was that New Orleans appeared to dodge a bullet and that nobody knew about the levee breaches until the following day, Tuesday, Aug. 30.

Of course, just before Brown’s appearance before the Senate committee last month, e-mails were produced that showed federal, state and local government officials were notified of levee breaches as early as 8:30 a.m. ET on Monday, Aug. 29.

And then there is the line Bush himself used — “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees” — during a “Good Morning America” interview on Sept. 1.

Hmm…those videos AP got a hold of apparently tell a different tale.

Bush declared four days after the storm, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees” that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility — and Bush was worried too.

I guess he was worried because he knew there was no way his administration could deal with a recovery and relief effort that huge — something that actually required so much of the humanity and compassion his administration seriously lacks.

So Bush decided to play the “ignorance” card, which comes oh so naturally to him.

As David Letterman would say, “George Bush. Oh…my…God!”

(P.S. Thanks to Katie, I attended last night’s taping of “The Late Show with David Letterman”…woo-hoo!)

This is a great video that shows the difference between Apple and Microsoft when it comes to marketing savvy:

If you haven’t heard about the story of Jason McElwain by now, now is a good time to do so.

Jason’s story is not only one of the greatest sports stories ever, it is one of the greatest stories ever. He was diagnosed as highly functioning autistic and has served as a team manager for the boys’ basketball team at Greece Athena High School near Rochester, NY. As a gift to him his senior year, the coach of the team let him suit up for the final game. With four minutes to play and Greece Athena up by 20 points, Jason entered the game to a rousing ovation.

With the crowd going nuts and hoping beyond hope Jason would score in his only high school basketball appearance, he air-balled his first shot attempt–a three-pointer from the right corner. His second shot attempt rimmed out.

Things looked bleak until reality suddenly became surreal, and a high school basketball game became one of life’s inspiring moments.

Jason tried another three-pointer…and swished it. The gym erupted. The place was going nuts.

But Jason was far from finished.

He hit another 3…and another…and another. When it was all over, Jason tied a school record with six made three-pointers and finished with a game-high 20 points–in just four minutes!

With each made basket, the place erupted more and more. Just watch the bench in the video below…it is one of the greatest things I have ever seen. And when he is carried off the floor by his teammates and fellow students, it looks like it is out of a movie, which I am sure is already in the works.

But you know what? A movie will never be as emotional and inspiring as the real thing.

So while Bode Miller was “partying at an Olympic level” instead of actually competing at an Olympic level and showing us the bad side of sports, Jason McElwain came along and reminded us all of how great and wonderful sports can be.

From YouTube.com:

Usually around this time of year, I’m getting set to go to the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) Basketball Championships. The MAAC Tournament typically alternates each year between the two New York cities of Albany and Buffalo each year. This year, it’s back in Albany, which I like because it’s only about 3 1/2 hours away and it does a nice job of hosting the event.

Another cool thing about Albany is The Egg, the performance arts venue shown in the accompanying picture. It’s a fascinating building that seems ridiculously out of place.

Unfortunately, I won’t be going to Albany this year because the Rider men’s basketball team–the very reason I go to the MAAC Tournament each year–is, to put it bluntly, not very good this year. It would just be a waste of time and money.

But I’m still thinking of Albany…and it just so happened that I came across the following video from They Might Be Giants. It is from a CD/DVD project called “Venue Songs,” for which they wrote a song about the city or venue they were in each day during a recent tour. Here is their musical tribute to Albany’s famous Egg:

Seriously, I can’t imagine a bigger asshole than Bode Miller.

The guy is a total failure at the Winter Olympics and what does he say about his performance? He summed it up in four words:

“Man, I rocked here.”

Are you freakin’ kidding me? In what universe, does failing to finish three alpine events and a best finish of fifth place in the downhill count as having rocked?

But, wait…Bode didn’t stop there.

“Me, it’s been an awesome two weeks,” Miller said. “I got to party and socialize at an Olympic level.”

PARTY AND SOCIALIZE AT AN OLYMPIC LEVEL???!!!!???!???!!!??!?!??!

Holy crap!

I’m pretty sure Nike and the sponsors of the U.S. ski team didn’t spend all their money to send the team to the Winter Games just so Miller could go for the gold in the local bar scene.

Nike should have reminded Bode its slogan is “Just Do It.”

Not “Just Screw It.”

I have wanted to chime in on this sale of London-based P&O to Dubai Ports World, based in and operated by the United Arab Emirates. However, my main problem is why are we so outraged over this now? Yes, I realize we would be giving control of many key U.S. ports to a country with alleged ties to terrorism. That could be a disaster.

However, I am curious to find out why we weren’t up in arms that a foreign company was responsible for securing our ports in the first place. Let me repeat…P&O, the company being bought by DP World, is based in London…England…in the United Kingdom! To me, it is insane that we have a foreign country looking over U.S. ports. Shouldn’t this fact have been a bigger issue BEFORE DP World even got involved?

Forgive me if I missed it, but I think there should have been a mainstream media story years ago about what would happen if the ports operated by a company based in a nation that is an ally were to be sold to a nation that quite possibly funded the 9/11 hijackers?

Anyway, that’s not the point of this post. My point is a slip of the tongue by Pres. George W. Bush. In this AP story, Bush says this about the ports being sold to DP World:

“The more people learn about the transaction that has been scrutinized and approved by MY government,” Bush said, “the more they’ll be comforted that our ports will be secure.”

My government? The last time I checked, the United States of America is still supposed to be a democracy. In a democracy, it is supposed to be “our government.”

Obviously, Bush meant to say “my administration.” But what came out was what Bush really feels. He thinks he is beyond reproach…that because he is president, he can’t be questioned or challenged. This is HIS government. It’s not ours anymore.

I don’t know…maybe I’m being too cynical, but between the Bush administration and some of these U.S. “Olympians” who think the point of the Games is to do a whole bunch of commercials before they start instead of actually representing–proudly and wholeheartedly–their country during them (yeah, I’m looking at you, Bode “Can Barely Finish a Race But Have a Ton of Cash from Nike” Miller), I’m just down on this country right now.

I mean, I’m not looking for everybody on Team USA to win a medal, but don’t sound stupid and don’t act like you don’t care when you are wearing the uniform with those three letters on it. Just do your best.

But instead we get a skater (Johnny Weir) who failed because he felt “black inside,” a snowboarder (Lindsey Jacobellis) who is sent to the Olympics to represent the United States but thinks she is there to have fun (and do a “showboat” move that costs Team USA a gold medal), and the infamous Mr. Miller, a fraud on skis I have started to call the James Frey of his sport.

Yeah…can you tell I have wanted to write somthing on my displeasure with the attitudes of many of the athletes on Team USA, too. Hadn’t gotten around to it until now, though.

But Kansas City Star columnist Joe Posnanski, a very good writer I have just recently discovered who is covering the Torino Winter Games, had this take on Mr. Miller:

“I was super aggressive,” he said. Bode really likes using that word “super” as an adjective, doesn’t he? You know, I’m going to say that if he really had been SUPER aggressive, he might have, you know, inspected the course beforehand like other skiers did. Bode did not. He rarely does. Instead, Bode tumbled out of his trailer with barely an hour to go before the race, like some college kid rushing to his 8 a.m. class.

If that’s super aggressive, I can only imagine what plain old normal aggressive might have been. Sleeping through the first half of his race?

I encourage you to read Poz’s work on the KC Star site, especially the recent Olympic columns. Good stuff.

OK…let’s see. Criticized the sale of the U.S. ports. Check. Mocked Bush. Check. Called out the overhyped U.S. Olympians. Check. Plugged my new favorite sports columnist, Joe Posnanski. Check.

My work is done for today.