Saturday, January 24, 2015.
9:30 a.m. Wake-up
10 a.m. Family storytime at public library
12 p.m. Kentucky vs. South Carolina
2:30 p.m. Georgetown vs. Marquette
5 p.m. Watch The Interview. Toast America.
7:30 p.m. NHL skills contest
10 p.m. Go outside and pretend to skate around like NHL all-star
10:30 p.m. Nurse hockey injury with hot chocolate and Wizards game
12:30 a.m. Bedtime. Nothing left to prove. #adulthood
Like the weatherman who tells you what you can plainly see is happening outside, President Obama’s State of the Union speech last night didn’t really tell me anything I didn’t already know. He’s a good-looking ideologue who speaks in pleasant-sounding platitudes. Yeah, I knew that.
Thankfully over the years fewer and fewer Americans have been paying attention to State of the Union speeches. Perhaps because they find them worthless or perhaps because there are just too many other things on TV, I’m pretty sure more Americans care about the faux government shown on Parks and Recreation that the real one that followed it on NBC last night.
Which reminds me, nobody post a comment about Parks and Rec… that one I still want to watch later.
Never doubted ya for a minute, Seattle. Thanks for making this guy look smart.
Yup. See previous post. Two for two. Eat it.
See ya in Arizona.
Well, I was oh for one on the CFP championship, but let me try again with a couple of football picks.
I’m thinking homefield advantage Sunday. Seattle and New England?
See you in Arizona.
Snow. Cold.
There’s a reason I moved away from the North Pole three years ago. It was to escape weather like this.
Some plan.
It’s here.
This is the moment we’ve been waiting for since August. Yes, August. This college football season started in August. Has it felt too long? Not a chance.
And tonight is the grand finale, featuring two teams I really didn’t think would be here. I guess I should have expected Oregon, who has now reached the elite of college football programs, though has yet to win a national title.
Let that change tonight. Go, Ducks!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m four hours late on the pregame show.
Last night proved that even a lackluster episode of Archer is going to be enough to get me through a stupidly-cold winter. The show’s not for everyone, but if you haven’t seen it yet do yourself a favor and just try it once. Proof that good television still exists in the world.
Three pitchers and one, well, everything, will be enshrined in Cooperstown this summer at baseball’s Hall of Fame ceremonies, the first time in sixty years as many as four players will be inducted. Unlike in past years, when baseball’s writers sent long-since-retired players, managers, and executives to the hall, the Class of 2015 includes four guys who could probably still lace ’em up. Seriously, you think you could get a hit of Randy Johnson today?
Johnson, a star in both leagues and a notorious Yankee killer, led the field garnering one of the highest vote totals of all time. He’s followed by fellow pitchers Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz, and catcher-come-second baseman-come-outfielder Craig Biggio.
Four players, one asks? Is the selection committee getting soft? I don’t think so. Cooperstown is still the toughest election in sports. And yeah, it’s a popularity contest, as most non-scientific elections are. If it were some formula based on stats or other metrics we could have a computer do it. But like the game itself, it’s played by human beings. There are always political consideration. So John Smoltz wasn’t the best pitcher of his era. He’s a beloved figure. And he’s now part of the media that adored him so. Biggio? Sure, he was a stat compiler. But one of the best. And he did it for one team for his whole career, and apparently never touched the juice. That’s why he’s in and Bagwell isn’t. Simple as that. I’m happy to see steriod-tinged players are still getting no love in Cooperstown.
And how do I feel about people barely older than myself being bestowed with such lifetime achievements? I guess I’m okay with that too.
Every generation has a “voice” to define it and call its own, and there’s a short list of people I would consider to be the “voice of my generation.”
Stuart Scott is on that list.
And add my name to his list of admirers, from fellow broadcasters to athletes to the President of the United States, paying tribute to Scott, who died yesterday at the age of 49.
For more than two decades, Stuart Scott was known to sports fans as one of the most recognizable voices and faces of ESPN, covering nearly every sport and at one time or another hosting pretty much every show that channel had to offer. Even before facebook and Twitter handles brought sportscasters to our every waking moment, Stuart Scott was one of those journalists who was always there. He was always there, with his before-they-were-cool hipster glasses and before-they-were-popular catchphrases. If you couldn’t be an athlete yourself, you at least wanted to be Stuart Scott. He had the “dream job” (which was in fact the name of one of the many programs he hosted or co-hosted through the years). And from what I’ve read over the past 24 hours, those who knew him “off the field” seem to suggest he was just as smooth in person as on TV.
In 2007 doctors found cancer in Scott’s appendix. He continued to work as he could through chemotherapy as his cancer went into remission, then did so again when the cancer returned. I guess one of the amazing details about Scott as a person and as a professional broadcaster was that you’d never know. Over the past eight years he was cancer-striken then cancer-free at least three different times. I guess he never really was cancer free, and that, boys and girls, is one of the bitch things about cancer.
I don’t remember the first time I heard Stuart Scott’s voice and I won’t remember the last. It’ll be with me, though, for the rest of my life. It’s there with all of us. The guy was as cool as the other side of the pillow, and dare I say… the voice of my generation.
I’m not really much for New Year’s resolutions, but the holiday does always make me think of life goals. It was December 31, 2003, shortly after I moved from one Binghamton address to another, that I began composing a list of such goals on my old business cards, the now useless ones which carried my erstwhile address. I would write one goal on each card, then throw them away when completed. At first they were quite banal: fold laundry, buy bananas, do taxes, etc., then they became more elaborate. By the end of 2005 the “list” had grown to several hundred cards, and I printed (most) of them in the December 2005 issue of The Binghamton Vanguard. I also talked about them on Politics After Dark, as I would on several subsequent year-end episodes.
Without too much self-congratulation I can say I’ve hit many of the items on that list from 2005. (I refuse to call it by the name people use now–“bucket list”–as my list preceded that film by half a decade.) I drove cross country, contributed to a deaf charity, and got married in a blue suit. Some are still in play: winning a Nobel prize, running for Congress, etc., but I’ve still got time. I’ve been adding to the list, of course, over the years, so the number of items has remained relatively constant. I guess that’s the idea. You never really want to be done. I’m sorry to say I’ve no record of what I’ve actually accomplished, as I am still in the habit of simply throwing the cards away as they are completed. But I’ve got the list from 2005, and I’ll update it here from time to time.
In the mean time, New Year’s or no, it’s always a good time for doing. Making the list is only half the fun. The real fun is in doing it. So good luck out there!