Sports

JusWondering… Do The Kids Even Know What A Record Scratch Is Anymore?

Posted on by sgottahurt

There’s a commercial that plays here in Detroit which uses the record scratch sound to express a shock.   I can’t recall the product or manufacturer to present an example, but for those of you born in the *gulp* 90’s, the sound occurs at the 0:52 mark in this excellent mash-up:

iTod Meet Coaster Spinner With Weird Arm Thingee?

iTod Meet Coaster Spinner With Weird Arm Thingee?

And I’m being serious here.  Why would any modern advertisement resort to such an out-dated cliche?  I’m sure the writers thought they were being funny (as I often do and fail miserably), but a record scratch?  A RECORD SCRATCH?

Here’s some other things I’ve been JusWondering about:

1) In the song, Only Wanna Be With You, does Hootie cry about the Miami Dolphins, or about “the dolphins” in general (since he’s friends with “the Blowfish,” you see)?

2) Is l33t speak still called that?  Because it seems kinda like that term’s jumped the shark?

3) Has the term jumped the shark nuked the fridge?

4) Is it just me, or shouldn’t She’s a Beauty totally be a song by Chicago or at least Peter Cetera, instead of The Tubes?  It should have been in Mannequin, too.  (Was it in that?)

Kim Cattrall's finest performance

Kim Cattrall’s stiffest performance

5) Much ballyhoo has been made about Conan O’Brien being a neophyte in L.A., but didn’t he live there when he wrote for The Simpsons?  (Boom!  Research!  He lived there when he wrote for HBO’s Not Necessarily the News… No specifics on his home whilst he was on his Homer bender, but I’m still pretty sure he was at least in Hollywood.  Turn that ballyhoo into boo!)

Drunken Recollection… Going For The Goldfish?

Posted on by sgottahurt

I wouldn’t exactly say that I’ve been around the block (although technically, as a child, I rode my bike around the block a ton… I don’t know what I want this metaphor to mean!).

Let me begin instead with this: I’m for all intents and purposes (or is it “intensive purposes?”)…

I’m a bar frequenter.  An aficionado of affordable alcohol.  If you have drink specials, considered a seat filled.  It’s been this way for me for quite awhile, as I haven’t been tied down by much of anything.  Tumbling tumbleweed is how I often refer to my life.

So it’s safe to assume I’ve seen a fair amount of oddities in my bar days.  I went to New York City to participate in a Snuggie Pub Crawl for Pabst’s sake!

But now I’ve discovered this:

Yup.  Goldfish racing.  In the bar.  For prizes.

It's better than swallowing goldfish when drunk. Barely.
It’s better than swallowing goldfish when drunk. Barely.

Apparently, this is not a new practice either.  It (seems to have) started back  in Utah, as long ago as 2004 (whooohoooo), and it’s been a subject of controversy since it’s inception.  A press release by the Humane Society:

Words, words, words...

Words, words, words...

 There are a few styles practiced.  There’s the squirt gun style, as seen in the above video.  Some people use straws, and they blow above or below the water, depending on the arena.  And of course, some guy in Japan’s turned it into an art form… not unlike NASCAR:

Why do I bring this all up, you ask?  As we were leaving one of the bars I frequent, a friend mentioned he saw a sign saying something about goldfish racing.  I laughed and thought he was making it up, yet here’s this post.

Now if I can just remember which bar we were at…

InASense, Lost… Zack Morris And I Used To Be Friends… Were To!

Posted on by sgottahurt

I had several idols growing up…

  • From the Detroit Tigers, there were Champ Summers and Lance Parrish
  • From the movies, there were Luke Skywalker and Han Solo Indiana Jones
  • And from TV, there were Alex P. Keaton, Mike Seaver, and Zack Morris

Because of my heroes from the Tigers, I’ve always felt at home in the outfield or behind home plate.  Because of Luke and Indy, I learned to stand up for what’s right, and still do, whether if it’s my friends (and the galaxy far, far away) that are in trouble or if there’s an artifact that belongs in a museum. 

But with TV – that glorious, nuturing glass nipple – I’m not sure if everything’s the same. 

I was a Conservative Republican in my youth because of Marty McFly Alex P. Keaton.  Not only was President Reagan keeping us “safe” from global nuclear disaster, Michael J. Fox’s character on Family Ties knew a thing or two about money… and what kid doesn’t like money?  Since then, I’ve become more of a political moderate, and money is not the end all I thought it once was (I can get candy and toys whenever I want, you see).

Not a mug shot... Although he's in court...

Not a mug shot... Although he's in court...

While I looked up to Mike Seaver, I never got into The Boss or harassed either of my sisters into anorexia like he did.  I’m not sure what I admired him for except for his confidence (and his MILF… and his WILF), but it sure as hell wasn’t his beliefs…

When it comes to Zack Morris, it’s a little bit different, though.  We were both in high school at the same time.  He was a likable kid that couldn’t quite get the cool and pretty Kelly Kapowski.  I was going through the same thing in my mind life with a girl I had a crush on. 

But how is he different from Ferris Bueller or Parker Lewis, one might ask?  My response: he was believable.  Zack Morris, even with his time-outs and asides, seemed like a kid you could know, and the credit for that goes to Mark-Paul Gosselaar.  That’s why whenever he gets more chances to move on in his career, I applaud him, like when he was in NYPD Blue or in Raising the Bar, or last night on…

Vodpod videos no longer available.

 

 

Never mind.

Musical Musings… Maybe It’s Regina Spektor (Sing It Like The Maybelline Jingle)

Posted on by sgottahurt

To start off… I know, I know, the last two posts have been kind of lady-centric (which literally meant something way different back in the Old West… say it slowly), so why stop now on this Memorial Day.  In addition to the current state of this blog, my last Musical Musings was about songs sounding the same that may or may not have sounded the same.  Don’t hold that one against my credibility.  Heck, don’t even believe that I have any credibility.  But this time – I think I’m onto something.

Listen to the background music in this Maybelline commercial featuring Adriana Lima (hey guys, at least it’s featuring a Victoria’s Secret model… and a golf ball for some reason):

Now take a listen to Regina Spektor’s On the Radio:

(For the record I was at that Lollapalooza concert performance.  I think you can see me in the crowd at the end. I’m the guy in a striped shirt, clapping. My face was a little blurry that day, so I kind of blend in.)

Now I dare you to go back and listen to the Maybelline commercial and see how they ripped her song off.  (Maybe I should have put them on this page in the opposite order… oh well, deal with it.)

The song is definitely not the original, and amazingly, it’s coincidentally similar.  Kind of like these posters:

OneSheet (Page 1)

sweet_home_alabama

Okay, it’s even closer than these two posters… but still.

Drunken Recollection… There Just Aren’t Enough Figure Skating Movies

Posted on by sgottahurt

Yesterday was a bittersweet sports night in Detroit.  On one hand, the Tigers won their seventh straight game (barely… thanks, Zumaya).  On the other, the Red Wings lost in overtime to the Chicago Blackhawks. 

Somehow, through the course of starting the night at Comerica Park and stopping at the bar to watch the second half of the playoff game, the conversation veered to figure skating movies.  Well, it started with the mere mention of figure skating; I steered it toward chatting about film.

The topic: What’s the best movie about figure skating?

The answer: The Cutting Edge (natch).

When I finish this post, I just might watch it again. That is, if I owned the DVD. Who am I kidding? I own it...
When I finish this post, I just might watch it again. That is, if I owned the DVD. Who am I kidding? I own it…

I mean, it could be argued that since Ice Castles was the first, it’s the best by some (I’ve never seen it, but after watching this video featuring its theme song, I feel like I have to).

Some tidbit facts about Ice Castles:

  • There’s a remake coming out next year to coincide with the 2010 Winter Olympics.
  • Star Lynn-Holly Johnson went on to be a Bond Girl to Roger Moore in For Your Eyes Only.
  • Co-star Robby Benson almost won the role of Luke Skywalker in some movie I don’t recall, but he did voice The Beast in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.  He also directed episodes of Friends, apropos of nothing.
  • It’s also a song by Ween.

Arguments for The Cutting Edge:

  • It was awesome.
  • It was funny.
  • It was heartwarming.
  • It spawned a trilogy.
There really need to be five movies to tell the full story.

There really need to be five movies to tell the full story.

According to Wikipedia, there have been only 7 films about figure skating, while

  • skiing gets 9
  • surfing gets 11
  • wrestling and ice hockey get 14
  • (and oh yeah – cheerleading, skateboarding, and rodeo also get 7)

Forget the major leagues and any kind of racing, and you realize Hollywood hasn’t explored other sports all that much.  Especially when you consider that the 14 ice hockey movies include the Mighty Ducks trilogy, a second Slap Shot film, MVP: Most Valuable Primate, and The Guru – heaven help all ice-skating related works.

JusWondering… Can You Get Drunk Off Milk?

Posted on by sgottahurt

For the month of May I’ve decided to cut out some of the things that have made my life worth living… Taco Bell, Mt. Dew, beer, um, Taco Bell, Mt. Dew, and beer, yeah…

So far, four days in, I’ve managed to keep up with the plan and maintain the social habits in which my usuals are consumed.

  • Friday – MGM Casino and Detroit Tigers’ game (drunk kids behind us would have been more fun had I also been smashed)
  • Saturday – My brother’s play (totally would have drank afterwards normally, but it was actually really entertaining)
  • Sunday – My friend’s softball game (I’m the scorekeeper, usually armed with a pen in one hand and a beer in the other) 
  • Today – 80’s Night at Comerica Park (booze fest, natch)

Yet alas, here I am, prodding through with my plan, having nightmares about caving in and drinking Mt. Dew (seriously), getting tempted like crazy.

But something strange has been occurring the last few nights.  As I sit down on my couch to prepare for a late night, pre-bedtime viewing of TV shows on DVD (just finished the hilarious It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia… Burn Notice is next), I’ve been partaking of a glass or two of low fat organic milk.  And after drinking that second glass, I’ve been feeling a wee bit tipsy.

So I decided to investigate if this was a phenomenon, or merely something in my head.  I remember in the short-lived comic book, X-Nation 2099, the mutants would get drunk off of milk.  So why can’t I?

There are many cases of infantile beriberi (kakke) in Japan. In most instances the mother of the afflicted infant has beriberi. However, sometimes the mother is healthy (concealed beriberi). Ito observed such a case in which the mother did not have beriberi and called the condition “mother’s milk intoxication.” But he afterward changed this name to “breast milk intoxication” because he saw cases in babies who were nourished with the milk of wet-nurses.

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is very provocative in its media campaign about milk, but it is correct in its message. Beer is indeed better than milk for health, as are both wine and distilled spirits.

  • Doing too many shots of milk produces the same result as too many shots of liquor:
  • Bill Murray drinks a glass of warm milk before he goes to bed.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

 

more about “Bill Murray in FCU: Fact Checkers Uni…“, posted with vodpod

Drunken Recollection… The Empire Snuggies Back

Posted on by sgottahurt

In the middle of the night, a strange cough – that sounded distinctly male – startled me awake.  I was passed out in a queen-size bed with my cousin Steve.  We were in a hotel in New York City recovering from a long day of travelling and a longer night of drinking. 

…And we were each wearing a Snuggie.

 

EPISODE V
THE EMPIRE SNUGGIES BACK

The pub crawl on which the trip was focused was starting at noon.  It was ten when we started moving.  Steve kept mentioning how well he felt; I kept quiet about how much I was not.  We had set our sights on getting back to East Village by noon, but our first mission was to stop at the store to buy a vital item.

Steve called them safety pins; I referred to them as diaper pins.  Steve thought we could find them at Staples; I thought that was funny.  To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if they were still made.  Was there a need for diaper pins anymore?  (Safety pins?  Maybe.)  And why did we need them?  We each had grown fond of our Snuggies and didn’t want to ruin them.  (Oh, and we ended up finding some at Walgreen’s.  They weren’t by the baby supplies, but amazingly, condoms were.  Hmm.)

We had a plan to carry the three Snuggies we possessed in a backpack, and to don them as required (the third was Mike’s – another friend that was coming in from DC for his birthday).  It was New York though, and we probably could have worn them the entire way from Midtown, but… well, I don’t have a clever excuse.  I guess we weren’t 100% convinced the Snuggie Pub Crawl was real, and didn’t want to be left out in the cold heat (it was such a nice day… 70+ degrees).

Our first stop was the sign-up location.  We had purchased four tickets in advance (even though we thought it might not be real we used credit card information on the web… go figure), and on the train ride over, Steve verified the first bar stop on those four tickets.  When we arrived at the sign-up, Steve checked his pockets.

“I have some bad news.”  Apparently, somewhere between checking them on the subway and walking to this bar, the printed up sheets fell out and blew away.  We weighed our options.  We thought of alternatives.  They guy told us we needed tickets, and we didn’t want to have to purchase them again.  Luckily, he accepted viewing the receipts on my iPhone, gave us four tickets and four cups (Tim from Episode IV would be also joining us), and we arrived at our first official spot:

Bar None: The Fun Begins

Bar None: The Fun Begins

Now properly attired in our blankets with sleeves and with full crew in tow, the drinking began.  The three of them were off in a mad dash, but I was limping.  Mike put it best:

The days that start off slow very often end in a hurry.

Now I’ll let some pictures do the talking.

img_0056img_0057img_0061img_0063img_0065

Needless to say – some drinks were poured, some drinks were spilled, some conversation was had, and the Yankees got blown out by the Indians!  All-in-all, the crawl was a success.  But the night was not yet finished…

———————————————————————–

Over the course of the day, I had received information about a secret place.  The specifications were these:

  • It was a hot dog joint in Manhattan.
  • This hot dog joint had a “secret bar” located within it.
  • To access this “secret bar” you had to enter a phone booth and pick up the receiver to enter.
  • The location I was texted stated: 113 St Marks Pl

Here’s where my hubris caused an issue (and maybe drinking… maybe).  I thought I understood the lay the island, and I took the location to mean “113 St. @ Marks Place”… not what it said.  And the little torn brochure map I carried with me cut off around 110 St. at the the top, so how could I be wrong?  Birthday boy Mike passed out at Tim’s place (near East Village), and Steve, Tim, and I made our drunken way out to the fictional 113 St. and Marks Place.

The taxi driver didn’t even correct us, and brought us to 113 St. and Broadway, way up on the west end.  As I approached the waterfront, I stumbled into a closing bakery.

“Excuse me, do you know where Marks Place is?”

The confused baker answered, “He probably lives down by the river.”

As we brewed and stewed and reviewed my mistake, something caught my eye down the road.  It wasn’t a wasted trip after all!  This is where we had a late night burger before returning to home base (to pass out in our dirty Snuggies in a queen-size bed):

img_0068

"Doo doo doo doo, doo doo-doo-doo..." - Suzanne Vega / "Tippy toes, tippy toes, tippy toes!" - George Costanza

Musical Musings… When Memes Take Steroids

Posted on by sgottahurt

Internet memes are a phenomenon in so much that they spread faster than a wildfire, faster than a rumor in high school, and faster than any milk product through my lactose intolerant friend, Jay.

Now when you take something we’ve all seen and taken for granted and add music… Internet Meme 2.0.

YouTube user/musician ParryGripp has done just that.  I’ve featured one of his videos once before (that got taken down because the original video poster is a d-bag).  It was Hamster On a Piano that was eating popcorn.  It was hilarious, I thought, but these are of the same, if not higher, caliber.  Enjoy!

25 Years Of WrestleMania AKA “WWE” = “What Wrestling Emitted” (Wait, That Sounds Bad)

Posted on by sgottahurt

I’d never proclaim to be a huge fan of wrestling.  Even back before the World Wildlife Fund made them change their name, I wasn’t too into any of the WrestleManias or the Sunday matches.  A few of my friends were, though, so the WWE superstars of the day blipped my pop culture radar.  And a little cartoon BITD (“back in the day”) also helped:

But since this Sunday (tomorrow) is WrestleMania XXV, I’m going to post the best things I ever think came out of the WWF WWE… BITD, of course. 

5) “Macho Man” Randy Savage sure did love him some Slim Jims.  Why it’s relevant to me?  On a trip to Houston, Texas, there was one day I devoted to eating only Slim Jims and pickles, and drinking MGD.  The next day I devoted to the hotel bathroom.

4) Andre the Giant was in The Princess Bride.  Why it’s relevant to me?  I always thought he seemed like a nice guy, and the movie helped confirm that (if I remember correctly).  Man, I haven’t seen that movie in a long time.  All I truly remember is the scene where Wesley and the “Inconceivable!” guy keep switching poisoned glasses.  And Inigo Montoya, of course.

3) Sargent Slaughter was a G.I. Joe toy and on the cartoon!  Why it’s relevant to me?  He was on the cartoon!  (I wasn’t allowed to collect G.I. Joe because they were too much like Star Wars, according to my mom.)

2) Rowdy Roddy Piper was in John Carpenter’s They Live.  Why it’s relevant to me?  Just watch this clip and tell me it’s not relevant to you.

1) Hulk Hogan was a Real American.  Why it’s relevant to me?  Um, Hulk Hogan plays on an electric guitar painted like the American flag standing in front of an American flag like he’s motherfucking General Patton just before a scene of a building being demolished.  That’s just the first 30 seconds!  And it only gets better, I promise you…