reldnahkram

Three major issues here: life, sports, music, in no particular order.

Ultimately, these are all going to blend together.

Today was supremely successful. I bought cartridges and styli for WSRN, CDs for the folk library, and had the dentist poke at my teeth. I don't think we're going to be doing much to my teeth for a while, maybe bonding (right term?) the front two to fill the gap (which is still *much* smaller than it was before I started having my teeth poked at by anyone other than Dr. Bob) and matching the color to the teeth around it, which, heh, aren't even real! I also did laundry, which I really needed to do. I also poked around and read up on the SEPTA Regional Rail System. Yes, the transpo prof I'm taking a course from next semester at Penn is responsible for the numbering scheme and the pairing of PRR and Reading lines. Then we hung out for a while at dinner coming up with numerically appropriate error messages for computers such as:

Error 2001: I can't allow you to do that
Error 64: Will you still need me, will you still feed me?
Error 1066: Normans have conquered your computer.

and so on, hopefully they'll be posted to

swil soon.

I finished my donuts. Begone evil chocolaty temptation. I wonder if that has anything to do with my energetic mood. I bought said donuts on Wawa on Sunday, where Jeremy and I seem to think I scored an A-line goal, but nobody else saw it. I also had a puck bounce off my chest. Hmm...still a little tender. I guess it's good it bounced of my face mask first, and I guess it's better I was wearing a face mask.

To music

So I picked up Los Lonely Boys at Tower today, and it's very good. It's Rock-Country-Latin-Pop all rolled up into one. If you listen to XPN a lot, you've probably heard Heaven, as well as (possibly) Senorita and Real Emotion. The band is three brothers; the harmonies are really tight and it's a lot of fun. Definitely a contender for one of my top albums of the year, which I'll cover much later.

They were playing The Thrills in the store. The Thrills have that song One Horse Town that I like, and they remind me a little of Travis - I think it's the banjo that does that. I'll have to explore it more, but l think I'm going to buy pop-oriented albums I'm interested in from MusicMatch or iTunes. Speaking of which, the Fountains of Wayne album is also tempting, but oh so popular (not necessarily a bad thing, but who knows).

Also, John Ondrasik (aka Five for Fighting) is coming out with a new album soon (about time), the single I've heard is very piano driven, so I'm going to guess the album is going to be a direct descendant of Americatown, which was a very, very good album. But I think I like the varied musical styles (and less cohesive lyrics) of Message for Albert more, and I'd like to see him experiment more with musical styles (and the strings were really, really neat - bring 'em back please).

I poked at the Let it Be...Naked that's just out, but I don't know Let it Be (Two of Us, Across the Universe, Let it Be) very well, so I can't compare them very well. It's an interesting concept, stripping it away and letting it be (didn't even mean that...I think) what it was intended to be.

To sports:

Firstly, the Keyshawn issue. The Bucs basically said that you're not part of our future, and you don't want to be part of the present, so even though you're still a good receiver, we don't want you around, since your attitude is not what we want. They're going to have to trade him, and holding him out of games isn't going to help his trade value, nor is admitting that his attitude is detrimental (not that people don't already know that). The Bucs are also more or less admitting that their season is over, since they're willing to bench a player for the rest of the season on principle. I could see benching him for a game, but for the rest of season is admitting defeat. In other words, I think this is a horrible move. They may not make the playoffs, but they have a weak schedule left (Giants, Jax, 'Aints, Houston, Atlanta, Tenn) and could easily finish 5-1 or 6-0, which would probably put them right back in the thick of it. So holding Keyshawn off the field is just admitting they aren't going to defend their title, which they may have been able to do.

Secondly, Terrell Owens should be an Eagle next season. He's a great receiver and he plays hard all the time. Sure, he's a bit of a fiery personality, but this team needs one. I think they'll have the money, Bobby Taylor is as good as gone, as is Duce, and that frees up a good bit of cap space. Andy Reid probably won't want him because of the personality thing, but it'd be a great fit and really, really put the team over the top.

Finally, the baseball steroids policy is a joke, but it's better than nothing. I mean, the first time you get busted, it's anonymous and all you have to do is get counseling. I really don't know if it's a serious problem, but it's worth looking into and weeding people out who are getting ahead by cheating. Pro athletes have the freedom these days to spend the enire offseason staying in shape or improving their physical condition. There's no need to resort to drugs to improve your body, since even if you're not among the best, you're still making a better living then most everybody else. The real problem is that the talent pool is a bit too depleted, because there are a few too many teams, and so minor league players are in the major leagues. I wonder how many of Japan's best players are going to come over here and become stars before the leagues do something to officially merge. If Japaneese players can come over and become stars in this league, there may be enough players who can play in the bigs to up the talent level a bit, and it shouldn't be the free agent system currently in place, since the big money teams are going to get free shots at the best Japaneese players.

Enough. More later perhaps. Oh, and sorry about not posting my playlist - I forgot, maybe i'll try and dig it out next week.