by Mark RoseYou think your life is screwed up? How about the guy whose stepdaughter was murdered somehow in the midst of a plot concocted by the same stepdaughter and the guy’s wife to have him killed? http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/local/46027_murder09.shtml (Extra credit if you can diagram that sentence.)
Mark Grace’s drunken speech at the Arizona Diamondbacks World Series fan appreciation parade was a disgrace. But he might not have been the only one on the sauce. Apparently, the D-Backs managed to drive the beautiful World Series Trophy into a tree. http://www.arizonarepublic.com/arizona/articles/1109ruelas09.html [Apparently, the Arizona Republic wasn’t very proud of their Diamondbacks achievement, so this link is dead.]
Don’t you think Regis Philbin is already overexposed enough? http://www.thedenverchannel.com/sh/entertainment/stories/entertainment-106353620011108-101102.html
Researchers from Harvard (!) have found out that men respond well to the faces of pretty women: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011109/hl/faces.html. We needed a study like this, right? [And you don’t need to read the page anyway since it’s no longer on site. I’ve also read that researchers have found that men respond the most sexually to the smell of pumpkin pie.]
The rest of the world seems intent on making The Langley Schools Music Project CD “Innocence and Despair” into a best-selling alternative disc. I’ll be the naysayer here. Sure, I bought it. It’s awfully cute to hear little kids’ voices sing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” with no irony, no pretensions, just having fun and trying to do a good job. But the fun pales quickly. Hear it once, file it away, donate it later.
Chuck Colson is insane. Or just not very articulate. http://www.christianity.com/CC/article/0,,PTID2228|CHID100546|CIID1074576,00.html Or he’s saying that Bill Gates is the Creator. [I think Christianity.com took Chuck Colson away. There is still the Chuck Colson Watch site at: http://www.postfun.com/pfp/ccw/welcome.html, which includes an interesting sidebar on Adult Christianity, and no, it’s not what you think.]
Bored with life in general? Bored with work in general? Bored with . . . . Er . . . well, you get the idea. Here’s a new game called Switch Poker which is kind of fun. Switch cards in columns or rows so you can create scoring poker hands. Cards must be adjacent to each other in order to form a scoring hand. It’s more addictive than it sounds. Give it a try at: http://www.distractionmedia.com/games/switch.htm
Seattle: Can you believe The Pink Door restaurant downtown is 20 years old? Many restaurants have been bitching about their lack of business lately (Icon was most notable in Friday’s Seattle Times) but every place I hang out (Ballard: Madame K’s, Bad Albert’s, Grapes, Market Street, Sam’s Sushi) is crowded to the max. Just went to Cafe Eva (the old Brie & Bordeaux up by the old Honey Bear Bakery) and was pleasantly surprised with the venison. Very nice atmosphere, every table full but no one’s on top of you, fine service, good wine. Highly recommended. Next time, try their signature dish of braised rabbit.
Last movie I cried at: Jet Li’s The Enforcer, which probably just means I need a drink. But it does feature the best example of a child as a sidekick, AND as a lethal martial arts weapon, in film. And Anita Mui, well, muy Anita!
Sports: For those of you who watch Monday Night Football, is there any question that this is the worst troika of announcers we’ve had since the show’s inception in 1970? And I’ve been there since the beginning, suffering through the likes of O.J. Simpson and (shudder) Fred “The Hammer” Williamson. Dennis Miller’s shtick was funny on HBO but it doesn’t translate well to the game, and the whole sniggering “he’s smarter than us” attitude is patronizing, condescending and dumber than most of his truly forced references. And when he does make a joke, Al Michaels feels compelled to try and top him in some ill-conceived vaudeville routine. Al baby, you’re barely an announcer, you’re no comedian. You made your mark with that whole “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” line and you’ve been a horrible announcer who seems incapable of watching the actual sporting event ever since. You are not fit to sniff the crap that an announcer like Keith Jackson, Kevin Calabro, Harry Kalas or Jim McKay makes. The only one with any oomph in the booth is ex-San Diego Charger quarterback Dan Fouts. He’s really quite good. He has lots of insights, some of which may be served up to him by the producers, but he’s still good at getting analytical points across. He even made a joke tonight about Howard Cosell, who coined the word “jockocracy,” and Fouts used it in a line! This means Fouts has actually read Cosell’s book, which is more than either Michaels or Miller has done. Not that that makes him a better announcer, but you have to like the depth, a quality sorely lacking in the other two lame-o gabbing heads. And as for the game: a) great game; b) the officials got it right; c) Eddie George is a wuss running back and the Ravens have him figured out ‘cause he can’t run against Baltimore; d) Jeff Fisher needs to cut his hair and grow his brains because having McNair try to win the game on a quarterback sneak wasn’t going to cut it. Use the people you have, Jeff, don’t try to win with the people you want to have. Rose on football out. Well, not quite out. Of course now, we don't have a troika and they got rid of the only announcer I liked, Dan Fouts, who went back to college football. At least Madden is better than what they had before but Michaels still has to go.