How I Met Your Mother

The fall TV season began a few weeks ago. I've been enjoying a bunch of returning shows like "Dexter," "Pushing Daisies," "Chuck," and "The Office." A show that I just started watching last year is "How I Met Your Mother."

HIMYM is one of those shows ("Lost" is another one) that would have been completely different had it been written prior to TIVO, TV shows on DVD, and the ability to stream shows online. The writers of HIMYM are focused on continuity to an extent that would be superfluous if the audience did not have an easy way to watch multiple episodes back to back or to easily rewatch an episode from earlier in the season or from a prior season. Jokes are set up in one episode, with the payoff not coming for months.

I like the way this demonstrates writers' respect for the audience. I also simply like the characters. I just don't watch TV shows unless I enjoy spending time with the characters. Jason Segal (previously seen in several of Judd Apatow TV shows, such as the brilliant "Freaks and Geeks, and movies) plays Marshall, who is the focus of last week's episode. The clip below is Marshall's ode to the perfect hamburger (which, as I've previously written, can be found at Tessaro's in Pittsburgh.)

John McCain Gets BarackRoll'd

For anyone who is less of a nerd than I am, and needs an explanation of the concept of "Rickrolling," read this.

Slacktivist

Fred Clark is the author of a great blog called Slacktivist. It is best known for Fred's weekly analysis of the Left Behind books, sometimes only covering a couple of pages. He describes both the poor theology and the terrible writing of LaHaye and Jenkins.

Today, he looked into the future to share with us a news story that is sure to be written next week featuring McCain campaign manager Rick Davis.

... Davis, visibly shaken and with tears in his eyes, reiterated the McCain campaign's demand for an apology.

"Thousands of older Americans suffer from this same condition," Davis said. "So when Mr. Obama says, 'Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining' this is a vicious slur not only on Sen. McCain, but also on tens of millions of older Americans."

Obama, for his part, insisted his comment had not been intended as a personal attack on his Republican rival.

"I don't see how that can be taken as ageist," Obama said. "It's a colloquialism, something my grandmother used to say back in Kansas. And anyway I didn't even know until today that Sen. McCain suffered from this condition."

"John McCain was a POW," Davis reminded reporters. "Leave John McCain aloooooooooone!"

Asked if he would have chosen his words more carefully had he known about his opponent's condition, Obama shrugged. "Depends," he said.

This prompted further demands for an apology ...

Spelling

Some of you know about my spelling "ability," or lack thereof. One of the reasons I use Firefox is the built-in spell checker. So I loved this video.

Hat tip to Matthew Yglesis.

Be Okay

At the kitchen where I work, we listen to satellite radio. There is AAA station that we all like, and it actually plays many of the artists that are in my iTunes playlists, but they so make some weird choices. They play Bruce Cockburn, but most of the time the Cockburn song they play is from 1984, "If I Had A Rocket Launcher." Either they are trying to make a political statement or they never listened to his 9 more recent albums. And even though one of the benefits from satellite radio is suppose to be their much broader playlist than traditional radio, this station occasionally gets stuck in a rut.

A couple of weeks ago it was a John Mellencamp rut. They played two straight weeks of Melloncamp. That's right, 14 days, from the John Cougar days, then the John Cougar Mellencamp days, and finally the John Mellencamp days. They did a Sheryl Crow week earlier in the year, but at least that week was largely Crow acting as the DJ and choosing other artist's music to play. I could tolerate Crow the DJ, but two weeks of Mellencamp is two weeks too many.

This past week, the rut they fell into was with one song. I heard the same song, "Be Okay," three times in the same day. It was catchy and I could not get the chorus ("I just want to be okay, be okay, be okay, I just want to be okay...) out of my head. That night I tried to find out more about the song and discovered that it was recorded by Ingrid Michaelson.

Michaelson is one of those indie artist who is experimenting with new ways to make a living in the music world. Early on, she relied on her myspace page as well as lots of performance in coffeeshops. Her first big break was when three of her songs were used on "Grey's Anatomy" (a guilty pleasure of mine) The producers of "Grey's Anatomy" asked her to write a song specifically for the show, and it was prominently played during closing moments of the 2007 season finale. Last fall, Old Navy used one of her songs ("The Way I Am") in a commercial.

It used to be that music fans worries about their favorite arists, like Bob Dylan or The Who, "selling out." Today, in part to avoid the artistic compromises that come from signing with a music label, even indie artists are using TV shows and commercials as a way to spread their music. It has worked for Michaelson.

All of this post is mostly an excuse to post this video of Michaelson displaying her knowledge of pop culture from the year 1990. I bet her concerts are fun.

91% Male

All the cool blogs today have been linking to this nifty tool that uses your web browsing history and makes a prediction as to your gender. Since I want to be one of the cool blogs, too, I just had to join in. According to my history (I have Firefox set to keep 90 days of history), there is a 91% likelihood that I am male.

What the author of this little javascript script did was have your browser to find out which of the Quantcast top 10,000 sites you have visited and examined the male to female ratio of the users of those sites. Basically, the websites I visit are mostly read by men (news, politics, sports were the one with the highest ratio) The places I visited that are mostly read by women were shopping sites (amazon, various airline sites, etc)

Dr. Horrible

My sister, brother-in-law, and nephew arrived in town today, so there won't be much blog activity for the next week or so. To tide you over (since I know there are maybe one of two of you that actually read this thing on a regular basis) I must link to Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, which started on Tuesday. My understanding of its origin is that during the writer's strike, Joss Whedon was playing around with ideas on how to distribute content online. The resulting three part, 40 minute musical comedy is off to a good start. It features Neil Patrick Harris (if you only know of him from Doogie Howser, then you don't know him. He is a legitimate Broadway star and has an Emmy nomination for his current show How I Met Your Mother), Nathan Fillion (who worked with Whedon on Firefly and Serenity) and Felicia Day (who worked with Whedon on Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Go check out Dr. Horrible, and be sure to stick with it past the opening bit where he's reading emails. Once the music starts, it gets much better.

Why I'm a Sports Fan

One of the things that impresses me about Posnanski is that he captures what I love about sports, even when he's writing about something as boring as baseball (which he does way too much)

Last week, the Royals were involved in the losing end of a no-hitter. Here's a portion of the column Posnanski wrote following the game.

There are not many places in the world that are quieter than the losing clubhouse after a no-hitter. Everyone speaks in whispers. Televisions are dark. The stereo is mute. Kansas City’s Billy Butler, the 22-year-old kid from Florida who loves nothing more than talking and swinging bats at incoming fastballs, shakes his head.

“He didn’t make any mistakes,” he murmurs.

And to the next question: “He didn’t make any mistakes,” he murmurs again.

He is Jon Lester of the Boston Red Sox, who on a cold and windy Monday night against the Royals became the first left-hander in more than 50 years to throw a no-hitter at Fenway Park. He also became the first pitcher to no-hit the Royals since 1973, when Nolan Ryan was young and threw 100 mph. He also sparked tears of joy through Fenway Park because just 19 months ago, Jon Lester was checked out by doctors because of some sharp back pain, and he was told that he had lymphoma. They told him it was treatable. They could not tell him that he would ever be a Major League pitcher again.

“God willing … we beat it, we got it under control, we’ll start thinking about baseball, back to pitching,” he told reporters then. “Until we do that, we’ve got a long road ahead.”

From there — from a fight for his life — to here, Monday, raw night, packed stadium, harsh wind, everyone’s hearts in their throats. He threw 130 pitches, the last his fastest of the night, maybe the fastest of his life, a 96-mph fastball, high and away and rising. Kansas City’s Alberto Callaspo waved the bat helplessly.

That’s when the loudest sound that 37,000 or so people can make detonated, a World Series-clinching sound, a Secretariat thundering down the stretch sound, a birdie putt to win the Masters sound. Catcher Jason Varitek charged the mound to jump on Lester. Red Sox players rushed in from all directions. Fans all over the park unfolded their cell phones and called someone — anyone — to say they were here. They are still here. Outside the losing clubhouse, a half hour after the last pitch, they’re still talking into cell phones, still hugging and laughing and asking each other, “Can you believe it?”

The following is from his blog about the no-hitter.

One of the best parts about being a sports fan is that moment before the moment when you know something remarkable is about to happen. This feeling comes over you. It’s not something that you can easily explain, but you sense that someone is about to hit a home run, or you feel a game-winning touchdown drive is going to happen, or sense that this rush will lead to a spectacular goal, or you know even before the ball leaves the players’ hands that it will swish through.

I’m not talking here about the logical side of the brain at work — that’s different. Sure, a pitcher gets what appears to be the third out of the inning, a fielder drops the ball, you see the pitcher stomping around, you watch him mope his way to a 3-1 count against Papi or Albert or Thomenator, and yeah, it’s not hard to predict what very well might come next. You are a Cleveland Browns or Kansas City Chiefs fan or Denver Broncos fan or, well, really anyone, and John Elway gets the ball with the game on the line in the final minutes, yeah, that’s not not a hard prediction either.

No, here I’m talking about sensing something that isn’t logical, isn’t easily accessible, something that comes from a deeper place, that reservoir of all your feelings as a sports fan...

...And as I left Fenway Park, I thought again about that feeling I had, that feeling you get sometimes as a sports fan, that feeling that “Hey, I’m going to see something unforgettable.” Truth is, most of the time, the feeling dies inside you because unforgettable things don’t happen very often. Here’s the great thing, though. Sometimes, they do.

Lester's story is one of those inspiring things you come across in the sports world. Cancer survivor surrounded by doubts that he could ever play again who accomplishes something extraordinarily rare. In one simple game, you have the elements of good drama; interesting characters, conflict, internal and external obstacles, joy, and a resolution.

Sports Writing

When I wrote about Battlestar Galactica, I mentioned the idea that I don't care as much about the genre of a TV show as I do about whether or not the shows tells a good story. I feel the same way about writing in general. I'll read pretty much anything that Malcolm Gladwell writes, from articles about ketchup to IQ and race.

Joe Posnanski is a sports columnist for the Kansas City Star. While living in both Pittsburgh and in Washington, I routinely read the Star's sports coverage online as a way to keep up with the Chiefs and the Wizards. I had always enjoyed reading Posnanski's columns (he's won multiple awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors) but I really started to appreciate how good he is when I started reading his blog a couple of months ago. He's so good that occasionally even his posts about baseball are interesting.

When I first wrote this, it ended up being this really, really long post with multiple quotes about showing how Posnanski (and the show Sports Night) capture what I love about sports. I decided that it would be much easier to break it up into multiple posts.

Therapeutic Blogging

Scientific American has an article about blogging becoming a focus on study.

Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off. Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery. A study in the February issue of the Oncologist reports that cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not.

I think better when I'm writing. I am better able to clarify my thoughts and feelings when I try to express them "on paper" (actually, almost all of my writing is down on my computer, but it doesn't sound right to say I'm expressing my thoughts "in pixels," does it?) than at just about any other time. I've had times when I didn't know what I thought about something until I sat down and spent some time trying to write about it. The way that writing in general, and also of blogging, has been a form of self-medication for me is in self-discovery. I don't know about the physiological benefits, but I do understand myself better from my writing.

Maybe it's time to give playwriting another crack. Of all of the creative writing I did in college, playwriting was the most satisfying. I've had a few premises in the back of my mind the past couple of years, but never worked on them. None of those ideas interest me much anymore, but I think I'll be on the lookout for the kernel of a story that could be told on stage.

Baz Luhrmann's New Film

Baz Luhrmann, director of Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, and Moulin Rouge, has a new film scheduled to be released in November. The trailer can be seen here.

Okay, just one thing

Last Sunday, the KC Star published a long cartoon by local artist Travis Fox reminiscing about summers in Kansas City as a kid. I'm guessing that Fox is close to the same age as I am, because there were several sections that immediately felt familiar, particularly Worlds of Fun, Royals Games (in the 1980's the Royals were great and I was actually a baseball fan back then - I never worried about foul balls, though) and Cool Crest.

Check it out!

97% Safe

I received the results from my ServSafe certification class I took a couple of weeks ago. It's not a terribly impressive result. Anyone who graduated from High School ought to be able to pass this. There were important things on the test, things that anyone working with food needs to have memorized - such as the optimal conditions for bacterial growth and minimum recommended cooking temperature for various foods. There were also things on the test that I really don't think I need to have memorized.

I don't need to know off the top of my head whether a shellfish poisoning likely came from saxitoxin, brevetoxin, or domoic acid, particularly if I know that I can find out within a minute or two. Our short term memory has a limited capacity, and it takes work to move info from short term to long term memory.

One of the ways that the world has changed recently is that the value of being able to find information has increased. With so much information available on the web, knowing how to find the exact piece of information you need is critical. And while the "information superhighway" has put a vast amount of information at our fingertips, but it has also placed an equally (if not greater) amount of junk at our disposal as well. Knowing how to use a google search (or when google is not the right tool to use to find the info you need) is a skill that has real value.

I think I sometimes take this for granted, but then someone will ask me how to find a particular website. I don't usually bother to memorize an exact url, so I can't give them the answer that they think they need. I would just search for it, but usually the person with the question has already tried that. Various tips about how to use google help somewhat, but they assume you know which words to use. All the Boolean operators in the world won't help if the words you use are vague or you don't use enough words.

I imagine web search optimization (for the people doing the searches, not for people trying to drive traffic to their website) will become a standard part of school curriculum. I remember being in elementary school and learning how to use the card catalog and to understand the Dewey decimal system in a library. Learning how to use to a search engine, and then how to evaluate the results of your search, are just as important now.

Poetry

My ex-wife's best friend from college is a teacher in Baltimore. Not only is she a creative and talented teacher at an urban charter school, Emily also writes poetry. I would urge you to go read one of her recent poems.

Once

I watched a delightful, little movie last night. Once is about two musicians and the connection that they form. The guy, a vacuum cleaner repairman, spends much of his time as a busker on the streets of Dublin. He plays covers during the day when the crowds might throw him their loose change, but at night when the streets are relatively empty he plays his own songs. This is when the girl (the credits actually call the two main characters "Guy" and "Girl") stops to talk with him about his music. She is a Czech immigrant pianist who cannot afford to own a piano. She helps him record some demos of his music that he can take with him to London and pursue a music career (among other things)

Both the guy and the girl are at the very end of painful relationships, but neither have achieved any kind of closure. They spend a week getting to know each other, often through writing music together. Actually, Once is a musical, but a more naturalistic musical than any I've ever seen. The songs, which comprise almost half of the movie, did not feel to me like they were just a device, or a gimmick, as in many musicals. I had no trouble believing that two individuals like these characters in real life would sing together and to each other as they do in the movie. The songs are one of the primary means of communication between the guy and the girl.

Once is kind of like a cross between two other movies I really like, Before Sunset and Lost in Translation. Two strangers meet, spend a short but intense amount of time together, have a connection (I would be hesitant to describe the connection as falling in love, although I could understand how some might call it that), and come to some conclusions about their prior relationships.

The music in the movie is great. The way most people, I imagine, will be introduced to this movie stems from the song Falling Slowly, which won an Academy Award. I particularly liked a scene which takes place at a dinner party where everyone must sing for their dinner. Another great moment occurs after they have recorded the demos, and the guy plays one of the recordings for his father.

This is a small, intimate movie. It was made on a minuscule budget, which likely helped the filmmakers rather than hindered them. It was very enjoyable to spend some time with these two interesting characters and watch (and listen) to them encounter one another.

U2 3D

Tonight I got to see U2 in concert. Well, I was sitting in a relatively empty movie theater, but the U2 3D movie is as close as I can imagine to being there. The movie was shot during the South American leg of the Vertigo tour. The process of how they shot the footage is fascinating.

The 3D technology sure has come a long way since I last went to a 3D movie as a kid. At first, it was almost a distraction, from wearing the glasses to noticing the effect. Early in the movie I started to get annoyed at the person sitting in the front of the movie theater who was jumping up and waving their arms, until I realized that there wasn't anyone sitting in front of me. What I was seeing was part of the concert footage.

Soon, I forgot about the technology, and was able to get into the music. A highlight for me was "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own," a song that Bono sang at his father's funeral.

I know that we don't talk
I'm sick of it all
Can - you - hear - me - when - I -
Sing, you're the reason I sing
You're the reason why the opera is in me...

Where are we now?
I’ve got to let you know
A house still doesn’t make a home
Don’t leave me here alone...

I don't know how they pulled off something as intimate as that in a huge stadium. After this, they went into the most political part of the concert, including the now standard feature at a U2 concert of reading from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I wonder if the United States was the intended audience for the reading of Article 5. The music stopped and the words appeared on the screen; "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

I would have loved to have heard "40" closing the concert, but instead it ended with "With Or Without You." I have never been to U2 live concert, and that is certainly on my list of things I want to do before I die. I'm sure that U2 3D is the next best thing. Even you aren't a big U2 fan, go see this movie!

I hear that U2 will release a new album as early as October of this year. Hopefully they will tour to support that album, and I'll be there if they come anywhere close to Kansas City.

In Treatment

In college, I spent a lot of time around the theater. My roommate, and several of my close friends, were acting majors and provided me a peek at their world. I particularly enjoyed shows in the Studio Theater, which was an intimate environment. The sets and costumes were usually simple, and the plays performed there tended to have a small scale. Shakespeare and elaborate musicals were better suited to the main theater. The reason that I loved the Studio Theater, however, were the moments that involved just a couple of actors and some dialog.

I recently read that the most dramatic thing that can happen on a stage or a screen is to watch two intelligent humans have an intense conversation. Some of my favorite moments on TV bear this out. Homicide, the best cop show I've ever seen (I don't consider The Wire to be a cop show), had several episodes that still stick in mind a decade later. I've been watching the new HBO show In Treatment and it epitomizes this approach to drama.

The show runs 5 nights a week and it about a psychotherapist, Paul. Each episode is a 30 minute therapy session; Mondays with a doctor who falls in love with Paul, Tuesdays with a fighter pilot who dropped a bomb on an Iraqi school, Wednesdays with a teenage gymnast, Thursdays with a couple for marriage counseling, and on Friday Paul meet with his own therapist. All that happens in each episode is the conversation that Paul has, and that's all we need.

There are some great actors in this show (Michelle Forbes, an alum of Homicide, plays Paul's wife while Dianne Wiest plays his therapist - they both are amazing) which is absolutely necessary since there is nothing but the words for the actor to hide behind. The best description I can think of is that the show is theatrical.

The first three weeks are available for free on iTunes. Just enough to get you hooked!