First off, this is something that I have been asking since I was a little kid, and this weekend I was reminded of it yet again because both teams were in the tournament. Why do we pronounce Kansas as we do, but pronounce Arkansas ‘Arkansaw’? Shouldn’t it be pronounced ‘Ar-(and the way we pronounce ‘Kansas’)? Alternatively, couldn’t we pronounce Kansas ‘Kansaw’? I am not proposing we change anything here; I just want an explanation. Yes, I really do think of these things.
You know what commercial bugs me to no end? Those Cingular commercials where one guy has a Cingular and the other guy doesn’t, and the Cingular guy is a total asshole to his non-Cingular buddy. Okay man, we get it, you have a better cell phone, you don’t have to be such a cock about it.
Thursday and Friday, people keep asking me, “What are your plans for St. Patty’s Day?” And my response was always the same: Nothing. Look, I like drinking and debauchery as much as the next guy, but St. Patrick’s Day annoys me to no end. Everyplace you go is crowded with drunken assholes. Now that’s all well and good, but on St. Patrick’s Day, at least half of those drunken assholes will be wearing leprechaun’s hats. I don’t know what it is, but that puts me over the edge, and as a result, I boycott the entire day.
Last week the check engine light in my car came on. Since I’m not a car guy, I called the only car guy I know, Brett from Blafayette. I told him the light was on, so he asked if I had checked my engine. I told him I had, and he asked what I saw. “I don’t know,” I told him. “I opened the hood and looked at it. I didn’t see any big open areas where a part should be, nor did I see anything obviously wrong, like a stick jammed in the motor. Beyond that, I’m clueless.” Which leads me to the question, if my care can sense that there is a problem, why can’t it go the extra step and give me a hint? Why can’t I have a light that says “CHECK ENGINE (HINT-IT’S A PROBLEM WITH YOUR FUEL INJECTOR)?
Quote of the weekend comes from Russ. Our esteemed undergraduate school is one of the Cinderella teams still alive in the tournament. Russ doesn’t really follow college basketball, so towards the end of the game, when our team was about to win, I IMed him and told him to put on CBS. He saw the score and said “I never stopped believing in them in the five years since I graduated and completely forgot they had a basketball team.”
I really hate Duke, and I am starting to hate Gonzaga, but I am sort of rooting for both of them to make it to the Final Four so they can play in the ultimate grudge match to determine who has more dorky looking white guys. JJ Redick gets a lot of heat, and in my opinion, Adam Morrison doesn’t get nearly as much as he deserves. Is there any doubt that this guy is a complete douchebag?
And finally, I caught that new NBC show about young prosecutors, ‘Conviction’. It’s alright, nothing special, similar to the law part of ‘Law & Order’. Two of the actors stuck out to me. First, excellent job of casting this guy. Does he not look like someone you know from school? Maybe he’s sitting in your classroom right now. Maybe you’re sitting next to him. Maybe it’s you. Anyway, this guy is the epitome of what I think a smug young lawyer looks like. So great job by the casting director. On the other hand, I had been watching the show for a half hour before I realized that this guy was a lawyer, not a defendant. Does he look like any lawyer you know? I swear I thought he was on trial, not conducting the trial. He looks like a huge sleaze ball, maybe a drug dealer or date rapist, or both. Anyway, it’s an okay show, I doubt I’ll plan on watching it again, but if I am flipping around and it’s on, I’ll watch.
