Snowed in with no school and nothing to do until 10:00 tonight.
Commence Better Call Saul Season One marathon!
I think if I start now I’ll be caught up by tonight’s premiere.
Life. Is. Good.
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Ten score and seven years ago, in a one-room cabin most Americans are surprised to learn was actually in Kentucky, not Illinois, our nation’s sixteenth president was born.
I’ve heard it said that Abe’s mother, who desperately wanted her son to grow up to be president, was a bit disappointed that day.
Oh, dear, she exclaimed. With his birthday so close to General Washington’s, they’ll never give him his own holiday. They’ll just lump them together on a Monday and call it something like “Presidents Day.”
Presidents’ Day.
President’s Day?
Happy Birthday, Mr. Lincoln!
A website called LoudounNow (loudounnow.com) this week has picked up the ongoing story featured in the previous Sunday’s “Loudoun” section of the Washington Post. These are laughable pieces describing so-called “economic development” that I thought I left behind when I escaped Binghamton five years ago.
Nope. Even in rich counties such things exist.
More than just “developing” economies, though (let’s face it, Loudoun’s already pretty developed), the meddlesome folks down here are looking to boards, panels, and committees of experts to find things for us to do in our free time. Apparently that’s difficult and requires the work of quasi-government agencies.
Like I never left Binghamton.
Let me regale you with a few names.
You see, at the top seems to be the Loudoun County Department of Economic Development. Okay, bad enough.
Of course there is the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce (I usually put “commerce” in quotes when discussing such things). Quoted in the LoudounNow article is the “Director of Membership and Brand Strategy” of said chamber of “commerce.”
There is the Loudoun Young Professionals, whatever that is. A dating service, perhaps?
And then the Leesburg Economic Development Commission, different from the county version.
The Loudoun Economic Development Advisory Commission is some type of subgroup of the Loudoun County Department of Economic Development (I think), then a subgroup of that is the Nighttime Economic Advisory Committee.
Yup, that’s a thing.
Still can’t figure out whether I’m in Binghamton, la-la land, or Soviet Russia.
But I repeat myself.
Secretly I hoped it would turn out this way. Didn’t want to jinx it, but yeah, I was hoping the Old Man-ning would get one more ring. Wasn’t the prettiest game I ever saw, but at least I got to see this one rather than being stuck at work as I’ve been for most Super Bowls the last decade and a half. This Super Bowl was especially sweet because it was the first one I got to watch with my son. (Well, he made about 15 minutes of it.)
This is an exciting few days at the O’Connell household. As a throwback to how we used to do it in the ’80s (before Twitter and Facebook and other useful distractions), we’ve decided this year to celebrate every minor holiday we can, and there are three in a row this week that are just perfect. Following yesterday’s “big game” we have Chinese New Year today, then tomorrow, of course, is Mardi Gras! That’s a pretty sweet trifecta right there and I plan to milk every minute of it.
In 1965 golfer Bobby Jones said of a young Jack Nicklaus, “He plays a game with which I am not familiar” (or something to that effect).
Watching the Golden State Warriors bring their magic show to the floor against any other NBA team reminds me of that sentiment.
Wednesday night I was treated to not one but two broadcasts of the Warriors against my hometown Wizards (thanks, local TV station). Sort of a one-sided ass-whooping from the word go, though the Wiz did make a game of it in the second half thanks to some spot-on play from John Wall. Completely overshadowed, of course, by the greatest show on hardwood.
The Warriors of 2015-16 have won 45 of their 49 games played. Yes, that’s on pace for a record. How do they do it? Hocus pocus, more or less. They’ve wowed and cowed so many other teams this season that one can’t help rooting for them, no matter the hometown allegiance. Indeed there were many oohs and ahhs for the boys from Oakland at the Verizon Center Wednesday night, a deference reserved for no other visiting team.
They say that football markets its teams, baseball its history, hockey its sport, and basketball its stars. The Golden State Warriors have defied this model. Yes, the team has stars, but they’re not flashy or braggadocious in the manner of a Kobe, LeBron, or Bulls-era Michael (all of whom got their individual respect in D.C., though it did not extend to their teams). Stephen Curry may be the best player in the world but he doesn’t act like it. He scored a quiet 51 points in Wednesday’s game.
Quiet 51?
Draymond Green had a quiet triple-double.
Quiet triple-double?
It’s a cliché, but the Warriors play as a team. They’re unselfish. And they put on a show. Don’t think Showtime Lakers or the Miami LeBrons. Kerr’s kids just go about their business. Bird-era Celtics? Teams led by Wooden or Smith?
The only example I can imagine from my own lifetime was the late-’80s/early-’90s UNLV teams under Jerry Tarkanian, beating up on Big West Conference opponents en route to an NCAA Tournament berth. It just looked like they were playing a different game than everyone else. Not beating up literally like Pistons Bad Boys or Georgetown of a few years before. Not one-man wrecking crews following Pistol Pete or Ralph Sampson or Austin Carr. The Warriors are a team of stars, playing as a team, and they’ve got youth on their side as well. They play a fast, perimeter game that’s somehow still stingy on D, and look cool doing it too.
It’s a game with which I am completely unfamiliar.
I used to think that there was no better theatre than politics on TV. One might think that this would be especially true in 2016. Bernie? The Donald? Come on! These guys are the SNL versions of themselves playing themselves in real life!
However…
Caucuses, primaries, debates, coin flips or no, the best thing on TV today is The People v. O.J. Simpson. If you missed last night’s premiere episode on FX, do yourself a favor and find it. It’s even more entertaining than when it was real.
I don’t care if 99% of it is made up or exaggerated, this is what I want to watch on TV. The cast is A-listers a mile long, playing people who became or already were famous themselves. Gotta love that.
Thanks, TV, for keeping me away from the real world just a little bit longer.
I’ve got to say I’m a big fan of 10-day weekends and I think we should have them more often. That being said, I think I’m not alone when I say that getting back to work today is not going to come easy.
Two-hour delay gonna make that transition nice and smooth.
Ten and a half-day weekend.
I watched three minutes of last night’s Republican Presidential candidates’ debate on the Fox News Channel. That was enough for me.
Of course I wanted to see whether The Man, Donald Trump, would appear on stage. He did not. I figured it would be worth my time to see what the other candidates had to say in his absence, so I stuck with it for another two and a half minutes. The first speaker, Senator Ted Cruz, began with a crack about Donald Trump. The second speaker, Senator Mark Rubio, began with a crack about Donald Trump.
Owning the stage when you’re not even there. That’s a winner.
Day Five of being snowed in and it’s starting to get a little dull.
Nah, who am I kidding? It’s been great! I have especially enjoyed wasting all of this free time when I could have been doing something productive.
Ha.
Wednesday I usually comment on something from my hometown paper (that’s The Washington Post) but I’m eschewing that today. You see, I never got around to reading the paper this weekend. I’m sure it’s out there on my lawn… somewhere… and I’ll find it in about April.
Until then… let the Simpsons marathon continue!
So yeah, the storm turned out to be serious business. Being from upstate New York I think I’m qualified to call myself an expert on such things, and I’ll say this one was a doozy. Twenty-two inches of snow outside my door, though I know places around me received much more. No school today or tomorrow for me or my friends, and I don’t plan to go anywhere or do anything. Luckily (or perhaps by design) I’m at a point in my life where no one relies on me and I don’t really rely on anyone else, so I can sort of live in my little bubble and not talk to anyone when such things occur. Thanks, everyone else, for making the world work! I appreciate it!