weekend in preview

Welcome to the new, freewheeling Thursday feature, Weekend in Preview!

Because we all know the weekend starts tonight.

What to watch out for this weekend...

Sport: Actually no too much going on here for my teams of choice. Mercifully, the Knicks will be sparing the world of their horror this weekend. It turns out you can’t blow a 1st half lead when there will be no second half... or any game for that matter! Woop! The Blueshirts will play the Ottawa Senators on Saturday, Ottawa being the capital province of Canada, apparently. That’s why their name is the Senators. To think the Rangers are so named because some Texan owned them once... terrible! In other, non-shitty New York area, team news we have some pretty good football games on our hands. Peyton is going to take on Mr. Brady in what NBC would have us believe to be some kind of armageddon of football - in Week 10 no less! I think it should be a good matchup, but really, nothing will silence the debate between who is the better out-and-out quarterback until we can see them in some kind of one on one deathmatch... where the winner is the crowned the best and the loser, well, dies.

Cinema: Speaking of armageddon, that disaster (of a?) movie 2012 comes out on Friday. It seems like reviews are mixed so far, so maybe I shouldn't judge it too harshly ahead of time. One thing I know for sure is that I am not going to fork over any of my hard earned dough to see it in the theater. Why? Well mainly because I don't need to see it to know generally what is going to happen: the main character is going to have some hardship (the world is ending), will probably reconnect with some old flame as a result of this conflict (the world ending will have that effect on you, see also Jeff Goldblum's character in Independence Day), and he will either sacrifice all (a la Bruce Willis in Armageddon (3rd use so far!)) to save the world, or just do it in some kind of half believable fashion (see Independence Day again). I will save my 12 bucks ($20 if you include the movie-sized Twizzlers and large Diet Coke that are REQUIRED) and probably get 1.5 pounds of Wegmans asian cookery and watch whatever is on cable. Win.

Beer: Is it just me, or did the fall ales this year have too short of a run on store shelves? Just as I was getting into my Sam Adams Octoberfest groove, I can't get it anymore. What gives? Well, I am on a quest to get some new beers in my repertoire this weekend. Those on the hit list include: Brooklyn Pennant Ale '55; Rogue Shakespeare Stout; and some sort of pumpkin ale. If I can manage all three in significant quantity... well kudos to me, I will be in for another weekend I probably won't remember much of. Let's shoot for one or two...

Whimsy: I plan to fully dedicate at least 40 minutes of my weekend exploring the YouTube channel of the fine folks who brought you Auto-Tune the News. Its... fantastic!

Alright, its time to stop previewing and start... viewing?

tuesday museday

After that brief post fail, I bring you the true tues muse:

• So my beloved Merengues fell to AD Alcorcon today (1-0, 1-4 on aggregate) in what was at times a spirited defense of the Bernabeu. As I was telling some friends today, while the loss is disappointing, it must be viewed in the larger context. While this loss may sting (as it came at the hands of a team with roughly 1/400th of the value of Real), it is not by any means a defining moment of the season, or a sign that the Galacticos project is doomed. The team had one bad game (the 0-4 loss at Alcorcon) and could not manage to score 4+ goals on a team that has not given up many throughout their whole campaign. This season does not, and never has, rested on how well the team did in the Copa Del Rey. Imagine for a moment, if at the end of the season the team had come in second in the league, crashed out of the Champions League, yet won the Copa. Would that season be considered a "success" by the fans, the front office, and the media? Heavens no. At best the King's Cup is a cherry on top of a season for Madrid, and at worse its a distraction from other competitions. The Champions League is the stated aim of this Club, and the season truly hinges on success and progress there.

• In other painful sporting news, my beloved New York Football Giants lost a heartbreaker to the Marmalard-powered Chargers. Just imagine if Lawrence Tynes had decided to participate in that field goal attempt on the Giants' first drive? All other things being equal, that would have put the difference at 9 instead of 6 heading into that final Chargers drive, changing the entire complexion of that game and rendering Tom Coughlin's gutless playcalling moot. / tears flow freely for what is shaping up to be a lost season for the GMen.

• Mad Men had an utterly awesome finale! What a bonus after that dreadful JFK penultimate episode. I honestly did not see the Jerry Maguire-esque turn of creating a new firm coming until it did. And the necessary return of Joan? Perfect. I really don't know what I am going to do with myself until next August when Season 4 starts up.

• I am actively looking for the proper chocolate syrup concoction to add to my coffee to make my everyday lattes into mochas. Any suggestions / is this a really unhealthy move on my part?

• Finally got caught up on FlashForward and I must say that I like what I am seeing from the show... **SPOILER ALERT** I was sad to see the suicide of Al, and would really hate to see some shit still happen to that chick he was supposedly trying to save. Maybe he will return to guide Demitri from the other side... and speaking of Demitri, does anyone buy his relationship with Zoey? Their relationship is probably the least believable part of this whole show, one that supposes that everyone on earth blacked out for 2+ minutes by some strange phenomenon cooked up by evil(?) Brits, mind you. Something has got to change here. Can Demitri run off with Janis and be her baby daddy or something? And finally... I am really into Sonya Walger right now in a cougar-prey kinda way. Dr. Benford can perform on me any time...

tuesday museday

And now, with the late-night musing! In quick-hits form because its close to bedtime!

I waited to muse until more of the Election Day results poured in. The results for the Blue Team are turning out to be not so fantastic:

• Alleged candidate Creigh Deeds lost emphatically to Bob McDonnell. Are we surprised at all? No. Deeds ran a terrible campaign and ran away from the bread and butter issues that turned out progressives for Obama last year. Coming out against the public option and cap and trade to appeal to voters who won't swing for you anyway is not the best strategy, Blue Dogs! Sry!
• Jabba the Hut Chris Christie appears to be on his way to victory in the Dirty Jers. This Christie character might lower your taxes, but watch your lunch, New Jerseyans!

The pain in fantasy football continues, as my team of note plummets to a 1-7 mark on a 7 game losing streak. Hmm, the pain in real football also seems pretty tangible, as the Giants fall to a 5-3 record on a 3 game losing streak. Reality imitating fantasy as it would seem.

At least the RMF side of me can take solace in the fact that it would appear that the Yankees are going to doom the Phillies tomorrow's Game 6 of the World Series. Maybe seeing a ticker-tape parade for another team through the city will inspire the Mets to, I don't know, learn how to run the bases properly and stay healthy for more than half a season. One can always hope, right?

I promise myself, and you dear reader, to have a more convincing Halloween costume next year. I was Andy from The Office this year, and just couldn't get into the Halloween spirit, as I felt that I was just dressed especially dweeb-ily and not in any particular costume.

On Monday I saw Michael Jackson's This Is It. I wavered at times from enjoying what I was seeing (Thriller and They Don't Care About Us seemed especially promising) to wondering why I was at the theater in the first place (the entire movie seemed like I could have made it on my Mac, what with its cheap-looking intro and transitions and all). The overall message I got from the movie, though, was that MJ seemed like he was in pretty good health in the weeks before his death, so really he was probably just negligently murdered by his doctor. Oops! Sigh.

Thats all I have for this Tuesday, but more frequent blogging should start later this week.

tuesday museday

Single, extra-long muse today:

On this most auspicious day of days, the 27th of October 2009, I am dedicating my post to a subject that has consumed New York sports talk radio for the past week or so. That subject, for those of you who don't listen to WFAN religiously like I do, is what good Mets fans should do given the horror matchup presented to them by the 2009 World Series pitting the Yankees against the Phillies. In this muse, I present my case for why any Rational Mets Fan (a group of which I consider myself a member) CANNOT root for the Phillies.

The Rational Mets Fan (RMF from here on) gets his own title to distinguish himself from the Irrational Mets Fan (raving idiot from here on), who through some twisted logic finds himself calling into NY sports radio blasting those who would cheer on the Yankees and cursing them to fan purgatory. But onto the substance of the argument:

The RMF has three acceptable courses of action:

(1) Bury head in the sand and ignore baseball for the next month. This is a very sound plan, if you are passive enough about the sport itself to not want to watch the culmination of this very painful baseball season. By late November, all baseball talk will have shifted to free agency and next season, which will hopefully be an improvement on the fucking disgrace of 2009. The RMF is forced to make no hard choices in this scenario.

(2) Watch the Series, just root for good baseball (difficult). Observing games as a neutral has always been hard for me personally, and especially difficult in baseball, as its hard to watch throughout an entire game without a compelling interest the result. I admire fans who are able to just cheer for good baseball, its the sign of true love for the sport. This is an exceedingly dispassionate way of approaching a series with two teams that are none too friendly to the Metropolitans, so again kudos to those fans that take this approach.

(3) Watch the Series, pull for the Yankees (as much as you can given that they are the Yankees). Here is the crux of the debate. Rooting for the "cross-town rivals" can be a difficult pill to swallow, but if you are going to root for a team, this is the only choice. Why? Because while the Yankees may be "cross town rivals", the Phillies are REAL rivals in every sense of the word. They compete in the same division, fight for the same pennant, and ultimately their success comes at the price of the Mets'. The Mets play the Phillies 18 times a year... the Yankees a mere 6, and that is only a recent phenomenon. They also hail from a city with which New York has a direct sporting rivalry, with some of the most obnoxious fans south of New England. They are the real enemy. They win, and the Filthadelphians (Killadephians?) get something they never deserve: a championship.

Possible Raving Idiot rebuttals, rebutted:

• But I have so many obnoxious Yankee fan friends and relatives, I couldn't stand to have them rub another title in my face! Look, they have ultimate scoreboard on us. This title is not going to really change anything. The asshole Yankee fans who make fun of the Mets are not going to change, and whether they have 13 times as many championships as we do or 13.5 as many really won't make a difference in the end.
• I hate what the Yankees stand for, with their ludicrous spending... Well, I hate to say it, but the Mets also know how to splash out a good deal of coin as well, just not as wisely. Sorry, no merits there.
• You have to pull for the National League! Yeah, I would buy this MAYBE if we were talking about the Hollywood Dodgers here or the Astros or something, but no one from the NL East, please. Were you cheering on the Braves in '96 or '99? Come on. We all hated the Braves back then because they consistently kicked our ass. This situation is really no different.
• They are our rivals, too! Not really. But we are the inheritors of the Giants and Dodgers National League tradition, and they had rivalries with the Yankees! I must admit I am a sucker for the New York National League history aspect of the Mets, but that argument will not cut it with me. The Giants had a rivalry with the Yankees going back to when the Yankees weren't even playing in New York (the Giants poached players from the then-Baltimore Orioles). The Dodgers were foiled by the Yankees numerous times in the World Series back in the 40s and 50s, sparking a rivalry then. We didn't inherit those teams' championships, their records, or their names (a la the Cleveland Browns (minus the championships part! Ha!)) so I don't buy that we inherited their rivalries either. Until interleague play started in 1997, the Mets didn't even face the Yankees in meaningful baseball. Sorry, can't form a real rivalry when there is no meaningful competition (and some would even say that calling interleague play "meaningful competition" would be a stretch).

In conclusion, fellow RMFs out there: we have 3 choices before us. Lets pick our poison.

Oh, and I know I said this was a single topic muse, but I can't help myself: reasons to no longer want to be Don Draper. Blasphemy?

tuesday museday

The latest edition of Tuesday Museday:

• I thinking I need to revise my approach to Glenn Beck. Until now, I have sometimes paid attention to his insane rants whether I caught them on the TV at the gym or in a reposted link from someone else's blog or facebook page. Usually my reaction is to have my jaw drop at his stupidity or my heart palpitate with rage in reaction to the bullshit he is peddling. No more, I say. Insane people can't be reasoned with, and nor should they get any attention from right thinking people. Just like you politely ignore the crazy homeless person on the street who is swearing loudly and warning you about the infrastructure destroying rays coming from your computer (this actually happened to me in San Fran, btw), Glenn Beck too should be politely ignored. "Did you hear that crazy thing that Glenn Beck said on his show today?" No, I didn't catch that, I try not to trouble myself too much with the screeching monkey throwing feces at the wall of his enclosure at the zoo, either. They are really one in the same.

• ... and having said that, the new policy does not go into effect until tomorrow. Check this crazy rant that he puts on about national service. Apparently he is against the government encouraging its citizens to do things like, oh I don't know, help inner city youths read, rebuild devastated areas, and aid military families. Oh the horror! He also calls the Corporation for National and Community Service "Obama's Corporation for National and Community Service." Sorry Glenn, but President Clinton created the CNCS, so it was Bush's CNCS as well. This whole "service" thing isn't new either, its been kind of big for a while now. While I don't think its the best idea that Disney is rewarding people for doing service, its also a bit hypocritical to say that you would prefer you see people doing service through church or a synagogue, where you replace a trip to Disney as a reward with a trip to heaven instead. /end beck rant

• In other news, Mad Men is getting pretty exciting. Betty finally got her pretty little hands into Don's drawer of terrible secrets. What this means for Don is uncertain, but with only three more episodes to go in the season, I am sure the soup is just about ready to hit the fan.

• Rangers lost big time last night, which was pretty sad. To the Sharks no less. And by 4 goals. Ugh. Hopefully this doesn't mark the beginning of the end for a season that was showing great promise.

• Ohhhh Giants. That was a painful game to watch. Almost as painful as seeing my fantasy team lose by 1 point because I a) chose to start Eli Manning over Kyle Orton, b) Denver's D couldn't get one more fumble/sack/int, and/or c) LaToeinjury decided to actually get some points while on my bench. Its gotta be wins from here on out if I have any hope for playoff football.

Again, back to the other writing... and bourbon?

tuesday museday

Today's edition of Tuesday Museday:

• Truvia update: simply put, so far so good. My coffee has tasted just fine and I don't feel any new cancers sprouting up anywhere, so I would have to say that a week in, the truvia experiment has been a success. My next coffee related decision will be whether to switch from my staple Pilon to an espresso made by Shenandoah Joe. Having the Joe twice this weekend in Charlottesville has really turned me onto this particular brand of bean, but at 3x the cost per pound of the venerable Pilon, I have to wonder if the juice is worth the squeeze. More to come later.

• Don't look now but the Rangers are on a 5 game win streak. So are the Giants! The Jets, not so much. Steve Sommers on the Fan tonight made a good point about the wildcat offense that also made me laugh: the wildcat is nothing more than the running game by a different name. Somehow calling it the wildcat gives defensive coordinators a pass because it makes it seem so much more new, exciting, and dynamic. Way to go, Steve-o!

• Interesting article about Mad Men I read today in the Atlantic. The author makes some good points, especially with regard to the occasional failings of historical accuracy (of special interest to me as a known history man). I do fault the author for using the word verisimilitude TWICE in one piece, which smacks of insufferable douchery.

• Continuing with the Mad Men theme - man, January Jones is really hot.

Thats all for now, I have arguably far more important writing to be doing.

tuesday museday

In what should hopefully be a new weekly feature, I present to you Tuesday Museday. I will present some things that have caught my eye and hopefully provide some witty commentary!

• Today at the grocery store I purchased a new type of sugar, at least new to me. Before I was content with Sugar in the Raw for adding to my coffees and teas, as it is a) tasty and b) pretty natural seeming. The new sweetness in town (or at least my cupboard) is called Truvia, which is made with the plant extracts from the genus Stevia and the sugar alcohol erythritol. A sweetener that isn't totally genotoxic sounds too good to be true, so hopefully it doesn't taste like ass or cause me to grow a third eye. I am sure if it fucks up my daily dose of coffee in any way, though, you will hear about it.

• This completely insane painting has been making its way around the Internet today. Is it just me or do the wingnuts grow more insane by the day? I mean the overall rhetoric of this isn't that wild (there is even a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. in there!), but the overall presentation smacks of crazy. Cowering immigrant? Really?

• In my daily listening to Benigno and Roberts on WFAN today, the topic of the Mets' Citi Field paying too much homage to the Dodgers (and to a lesser extent the Giants). Among their chief complaints was that modeling the stadium after Ebbets Field was a poor start. I couldn't disagree with their position more. Look, the Mets were based as a replacement team for the Dodgers and Giants. In their selection of uniform colors, they specifically chose Dodger Blue and Giants Orange. The "NY" in their official logo comes straight from the Giants. The team was CREATED to pay homage to these two franchises that left New York high and dry (thanks a lot Robert Moses). Ebbets Field is (was?) iconic, and I think modeling the new stadium after another so important to the city's National League history was more than appropriate.

• The Rangers won again yesterday. Yay. Their overall record is now 2-1-0 with a big test coming up on Thursday against the Caps at the Verizon Center. I really hope they can make up for their shameful playoff performance with a win.

• I renamed my fantasy football team to Poo Poo Muldoon H.E.C. (hand egg club) because of their high degree of suckitude. More on this later.

Thats it for Tuesday Museday for this week. Lets see what other rhymed daily themes I can come up with... or not.