Smoking Children

I doubt I'll have many posts with a title as odd as this one. I know when people first hear what this story is about they're going to be upset. Nevertheless, it's not every day you see a couple of four year olds on a train smoking. In fact, in all of my years traveling on the subway I have never seen anything like it. I thought we let a lot go in NYC, but apparently in China it's Thunderdome once you board the train - anything goes, no holds barred train riding!

Now comes the really hard part......



Did you smile? Even a little bit?

I probably shouldn't admit it, but I did.

(Update: The video does not seem to be loading for some people. As a result, I have added a screenshot for those of you having trouble viewing the video.)

Five Best Workout Songs

With the weather getting nicer it's time to get back into working out. I know some people do so all winter, but I tend to have trouble finding the motivation until the weather turns warm and I am reminded that it's not so easy to hide those extra few pounds while wearing a t-shirt. As such I decided to post my five favorite work-out songs:

1. Get By - Talib Kweli (More hip-hop songs should utilize the mid-song visit by Busta Rhymes. 'Get By,' 'Scenario,' they're all better off because of it.)



2. Young Men Dead - The Black Angels (I've seen the song popping up recently in one of the infinite number of Detroit car commercials. Not sure when Detroit became relevant again, but it seems to be a pretty common trend of late in ads.)



3. Are You With Me - Vaux (I actually have never heard any other song by this band, and I'm not sure how this one ended up on my iPod. Nevertheless it's been a regular in my rotation.)



4. I Can't Help It - The Roots (Just a solid song with a great ending.)



5. Going Out in the Style - Dropkick Murphy's (I always go with a song or two by this group - Shipping Up To Boston and State of Massachusetts are a couple other favorites.)



The list is always bending but some songs never seem to get a break from the rotation and that's why they make the list. I'm always looking for suggestions though, so feel free to add your own.

Elevator Music?

I realize that people can sometimes be unaware of their actions. It's a big world out there and there's a lot to do and worry about. I mean, how could you possibly look where you're walking AND answer a text message from your sweetums about which wine would go better for tonight's uber important dinner? You can't just leave that kind of question hanging in the balance for a few minutes, ya know. This is important stuff that needs immediate answering. I get it!

Elevators are different, though, aren't they? You get into this mechanical tin can the size of a small bathroom with several other equally ecstatic people. If you're lucky you'll only be in there for a half minute or so. Is it really that hard to just stand there quietly? Seriously? Don't try to talk louder on your cell phone. The volume isn't the problem. It's the cell signal. That's right! This has happened to you before, hasn't it? Cell phones in elevators don't work very well yet people INSIST on trying to squeeze out that phone call until they reach their floor; and with every floor you pass (1.....DING.....2.....DING.....3.....DING) the reception gets worse and eventually craps out on you. You couldn't wait to get on the elevator and finish your call instead? You just had to multitask, didn't you? Well I don't want to hear you shouting into your phone, "Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Hello? Stacy? Hello? Stacy? Hello? Can you hear me? Damnit! Stacy? I'm on an elevator. Hello? Stacy?". Um, hey doucher, Stacy can't hear you. BUT I CAN! I'm right the fuck next to you. ON AN ELEVATOR. Hang up the damn phone and wait until you get to your floor so that I can spend these 30+ seconds, shoulder to shoulder in an enclosed and upwardly moving jail cell, in some kind of peace. Thank you.

It's not just the cell phones, though. I was just on the elevator a few minutes ago and some guy insisted on tapping. Tap tap tap tap tap. Right on the side of the elevator. Don't worry, brother, no one can hear it but you. Oh, and everyone else on the elevator too. Is it that hard to just stand still, watch the stupid floors escalate on the LCD and get off at your floor when the doors open? This isn't a root canal. It'll be over before you know it. I promise.

Yesterday a women had a water bottle with her, dangling it from her hand. The water bottle had ice in it. Can you guess what she proceeded to do with that water bottle for the entirety of the elevator ride? You guessed it. She shook it. With gusto no less! She wouldn't stop. You would have thought that the elevator would cease to move had she not continued to shake her water bottle. "Oh, I can't stop shaking it. See, we might stop in between floors if I stop. I have to do this. It's vitally important to the mission of this elevator".

Other honorable mentions:

- feeling the need to chew, mouth agape, for the length of the ride.
- farting (no explanation needed)
- feeling the need to converse with your elevator buddy ("What brings you here?")
- playing your iPod so loud that it actually plays over my OWN headphones
- staring
- changing shoes
- anything else that you can think of that can easily be done 30 seconds later on your floor, with more space, not in an elevator with others

So please, when you're in an elevator realize that it is indeed an elevator and not your office/cubicle or your living room or your honey's apartment or anywhere else you feel like it's okay to be overtly rude. You're sharing a minimal amount of space with other people. Pretend like you care.

March Madness

March Madness. It’s all over – and for the first time in my life I think I am going to add the word thankfully to the end of that statement. Maybe it was simply that Syracuse was eliminated in the round of 32 or maybe it’s that I have yet to get past the memory of what was easily one of the worst basketball games I have ever witnessed, but either way I am just glad this season is finished.

I had a feeling this particular tournament was going to be a disaster as soon as the brackets were announced. Here are some on my thoughts on the tourney as it progressed since I didn’t do any updates during the tournament itself:

The Round of 64:
When the brackets were first announced I had two major problems. My first issue was that VCU and UAB even made the tournament. Like most of the college basketball analysts I couldn’t quite figure out why the committee elected to place either team in the tourney, however, after seeing the run VCU made to the Final Four it appears they saw something I definitely missed. I still don’t think they should have been selected based upon the criteria the NCAA has laid out in the past, but it was certainly fun watching a true Cinderella dance all the way to the Final Four.

The downside of course to VCU making the Final Four is that anyone arguing for a 96 team tournament, a huge mistake in my opinion, has some pretty big ammunition now.

My other big gripe was that the NCAA did such a poor job of seeding the teams that deserved to make it. It was relatively simple to avoid having Big East teams playing each other in the second round, but apparently the committee couldn’t be bothered to go that extra step. In general they’re supposed to avoid having teams in the same conference match up that early, and with 11 teams it was going to be difficult, but it was possible.

As a result of the lazy seeding my beloved Orange as a 3 seed got stuck being matched up with a Marquette team (11 seed) in the second round that had already beaten them once this year. Quite the reward for a year’s worth of hard work!

The first round was fairly unspectacular with a few upsets, and after having a record number of teams make the tournament the Big East was already showing signs that they were going to struggle.

Round of 32:
The second round saw the Orange fall at the hands of Marquette, and the rest of the Big East mostly faltered as well with only Marquette and UConn advancing on to the Sweet 16. In the tournament’s most compelling game Pitt managed to lose to Butler with one of the most memorable, and stupidest fouls, in the history of the tournament.

Now the round of 32, and the entire tournament for that matter, left it’s most memorable mark in my mind with the absolutely horrendous officiating that played out on that Sunday. UNC vs. Washington, Arizona vs. Texas, and Syracuse vs. Marquette all had games that ended with the officials making game changing calls – incorrectly. Syracuse had an over the back violation that wasn’t. UNC vs. Washington has so many bad calls and new rule interpretations that I’m still confused to this day. And the Arizona vs. Texas game ended with an official calling a 5 second violation after he had only counted to 4. I’m still not sure how you make that mistake since counting doesn’t really seem to be a talent one would need as an official, we all just sort of know how to do it. I guess they should start asking if that’s something you have experience with before handing out assignments from now on. Great job guys!

Sweet 16:
Duke got blasted by Arizona! At this point I was still just bitter about Syracuse. Watching Duke go down in flames is always a nice pick me up though, and they really got destroyed by Arizona in the second half. Welcome back Arizona, it was nice to see you return to national relevance after a few down years.

Elite 8:
UConn wins again – could this team really win it all after playing five games in five days to win the Big East tourney a week before the NCAA Tournament began? At this point it was starting to seem like a realistic possibility, and UConn was the Big East’s last chance to regain some respectability. If the 9th place team in the Big East could win the whole thing maybe the Big East wasn’t as bad as the first two rounds suggested.
Final Four:

VCU is out. Butler is in. Why? Why are the basketball god’s subjecting me to another tourney filled with Gus Johnson and every other announcer yelling “And the Butler did it again…” I hear it in my sleep. It haunts me. Butler is one of those teams that people love and I’ll never understand why. They play hard, and they play good defense, but they clutch and grab and it just makes for ugly basketball. They also flop – a lot. I really don’t want to see them in the championship.

Championship:
Butler made it!!!! Ugh.

Well, the worst tournament in history ended with one of the worst basketball games ever played outside of the Big 10 conference regular season. It’s never a good sign when thirty minutes into the game I’m still wondering if whether I might be good enough to play for either of the teams involved in the game (at least on that day).

Now, some people (UConn and Butler fans) are trying to chalk it up to stellar defensive play, but anyone watching that game knows that no defense is capable of being played so well that it can make an offense look that bad. It was pretty much a competition to see which team could suck less – and UConn did it! They sucked slightly less than Butler!!

I just hope that nobody was watching basketball for the first time Monday night, because if they were they most assuredly will never watch the sport again.

Can’t wait till next year!

Track What on Side Which?

A long time ago in a record store that was never too far, far away there were things called albums. Oh, they came in all sorts of sizes, shapes and forms. There was vinyl (awesome), 8-track tapes (retrohhh), audio cassettes (Dolby!), DATs (what?) and CDs (oooh, shiny). The common denominator? When you bought any one of these you typically had to listen to the entire album from the first track to the last. Oh, you could pick the needle up from your record player and place it down VERY GENTLY! on the track you wanted to listen to; but in doing that you could feasibly scratch your record. The horror! You could fast forward through a tape but that was kind of annoying even though it sounded like Alvin & the Chipmunks.You could easily skip tracks on a CD with the press of a single button. This is what I like to call the beginning of the end.  Digital music.

It's not that I have anything against the form itself. The MP3 player is one of the most amazing inventions of its time. If you could go back in time (bear with me), bring an iPod with you and tell some stoner from 1974 that he could "put all of his records on ONE single device", let's just say that you wouldn't need that tab of acid to blow his mind. Initially he might really dig the idea and think it was really groovy. He might have some questions for you, though, that might make you think twice about the current state of albums, tracks, music, etc.

Well, I actually have a friend (we'll call him Bieber) who bought a time machine off the internet recently. eBay. $20. No big deal. He went back to Greenwich Village in NYC circa 1974 and found this guy hanging around Revolver Records on 8th street.

Bieber: Hey, what's up, dude? I wanted to show you something you might be interested in.

Stoner: Nice hair, man, but I'm not that type of dude.

Bieber: Ha. No. Why does everyone say that? I wanted to show you this cool device that plays music that I think you'll really like. It's hot!

Stoner? It's stolen?

Bieber: No, no. It's just something that we say where I come from when something is, um, cool.

Stoner: Oh, ok. So what is this "device" that you want to show me and what does it do?

(Bieber proceeds to show Stoner the ins and outs of an iPod that he has brought with him from 2011. He lets Stoner test out the little white earbuds which kind of freaks Stoner the hell out, but he gets used to them. Then he shows him how to select tracks, play them, skip them, and then lets Stoner listen to a few)

Stoner: Well what about the record covers, man? They're like iconic. Andy Warhol and shit, dude, ya know? I like to check them out, look at the liner notes, etc.

Bieber: Well, you get to see a little picture of the record cover, but only if you take the time to download it. See, there are legal purchases and illegal purchases. Napster. Limewire. iTunes. It's a long story.

Stoner: Huh? Well, where do you get your music from? Are there like record stores? I meet a lot of my buddies there, we look at albums, talk about music, listen to music, sell dru.. err, you're not a cop, are you?

Bieber: Well we have online stores where we can purchase music, listen to samples of music, etc. You don't even have to leave your house. We use computers but not like the giant ones you've seen in the movies.

Stoner: But what fun is it to just sit at home, man? I'm trying to get OUT of my pad, not stay IN it.

Bieber: Well there are chat rooms, blogs, message boards. These are all places for people to virtually meet and 'hang out' in a sense.

Stoner: Virtually? What is this, "2001: A Space Odyssey"? Do people go outside where you come from?

Bieber: Sometimes. Any other questions?

Stoner: Well if I'm buying these MP3s, can I just buy like one song instead of 12? Ya know, since they're all on this little iPood thingamabob.

Bieber: That's iPod, not iPood. And yes, you can just buy one song. So if you like "A Day in the Life" from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, you don't have to purchase the whole album. You can just buy that one song! Isn't that awesome?

Stoner: Okay, wait. But "A Day in the Life" like COMPLETES that album. It ties it all together. I mean, it's an epic song and I friggin' love it but how can you not listen to the whole album? It's sacrilege, brother. It's like if the Beatles were JUST Paul and not the 3 others.What about rock operas like Tommy?

Bieber: Yeah, but you should be able to listen to whatever you want to listen to. You shouldn't have to listen to "Good Morning, Good Morning" if you don't want to.  That song is kind of lame and sounds like a kid's show.

Stoner: But what if people just start listening to the most popular songs from albums? What if they only listen to like their own greatest hits? What happens to all of those groovy songs that not everyone knows about? Ya know, like track 4, Side 2 of Sticky Fingers? Or QUADROPHENIA?

Bieber: Quadrowho?

Stoner: Yeah, by the Who.

Bieber: Well, I dunno. I guess those songs really won't get heard very much if ever. All my friends pretty much have the same songs on their iPod. It's all the most popular music.

Stoner: Bummer, dude. I think I'll stick to my records. You can have your iPod. It's cool that it's so portable and carries so much music but you're just not experiencing what I'm experiencing, man. It's not just about the popular song. It's about artists collaborating on music and art, people talking, images, vibes, digging on similar songs that not everyone knows, etc, etc and so on. Plus, those little ear buddies suck! You ever listen to a full size set of cans? I mean, those things rock.

Bieber: No, I can't say I ever have. Um, do you think I could take some records back with me to where I come from?