Concert News!

The Wreckers are going to be at the Riverside Casino as part of the casino's Country Fest in late February. Pat Green is going to be at the First Avenue Club in March. Anyone want to go with me? Cause I'm going, even if I have to go by myself. And for the music portion of the post, here's The Wrecker's singing Leave The Pieces:



Followed by Pat Green singing Feels Just Like It Should and then Wave On Wave:





I couldn't find a video of my current favorite Pat Green song. It's called I'm Trying To Find It, and it's off the new, or relatively new, release Cannonball. It's a great, great song, and here are the lyrics

There's a road that goes to an old friends house
Where we grew up, where we hung out
I've been on this highway for three hours now
And I'm trying to find it

And I remember an old pinball arcade
Where I lived out all my yesterdays
And I'm sure it's torn down and gone away
But I'm trying to find it

And there's a feeling that I left behind
I felt it once running down my spine
The fear of God the joy of life
And I'm trying to find it

There's a spot on earth a man can go
To find himself and free his soul
A place somewhere between hell and heaven
Where no one hurts and all's forgiven

A door that leads to light and grace
But the keys are in the darkest place
Though it feels like I've been there before
Though I dont know what I'm looking for

And I'm trying to find it
I'm trying to find it

There's an attic in my old mans house
Full of history I need to know about
Of a life I've lived too long without
And Im trying to find it

And I know you're up there in your room
And I want so bad to heal the wound
But I've hurt you in so many ways
And I dont know why you choose to stay

And I know it's me that let it die
And there's a fire that's gone when I look in your eyes
An innocence that you once had
A piece of you I miss so bad

And I'm trying to find it

Well It's three AM and I'm on my knees
She cries and her eyes looked down on me
As I searched for the book
She loves to hear her daddy read
And I'm trying to find it

There's a road that goes to an old friends house
Where we grew up where we hung out
I've been on this highway for three hours now

New Links

Two new links – Ken Levine’s blog and Monkey Punch Dinosaur. Ken Levine is an award-winning tv writer from such shows as Cheers and M*A*S*H. Monkey Punch Dinosaur is, well, a collection of artwork, photos, etc. of monkeys punching dinosaurs. You can’t go wrong with monkeys punching dinosaurs.

Sweet Baby James

I love singing to Ethan. I’ve sung to him since he was a baby, mostly at night. When he was very young, he would wake in the middle of the night and the only way to get him back to sleep was to drive around. Many times I’d find myself driving him around town at 3:00 am or so, singing. I sang songs I loved, songs I knew by heart, I made up songs for him. One song I loved, one song I sang, was Sweet Baby James.

Sweet Baby James is the title song from James Taylor’s second album. Also on the album are Country Road and Fire and Rain. Think about it. Sweet Baby James, Country Road, and Fire and Rain all on the same album. Those three songs would be a great career for someone, and James Taylor had them all on the same album.

I know Fire and Rain by heart too, and love it dearly, but it’s not much of a lullaby. It’s very downbeat, even depressing, though a wonderfully written song. I mean, that opening lyric is great

Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone

How painful is that? And the close to the chorus,

I always thought that I would see you again

Takes on more and more meaning as you get older.

But Sweet Baby James, there’s a lullaby. And it’s optimistic, at least to me, with notions of setting out on your own, of being comfortable with who you are, not to mention wonderfully evocative. I've never seen the Berkshires, but I have an image of them I will never shake.

There is a young cowboy, he lives on the range
His horse and his cattle are his only companions
He works in the saddle and he sleeps in the canyons
Waiting for summer, his pastures to change

And as the moon rises, he sits by his fire
Thinking about women and glasses of beer
And closing his eyes as the dogies retire
He sings out a song which is soft but it's clear
As if maybe someone could hear

Goodnight, you moonlight ladies
Rockabye sweet baby James
Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose
Won't you let me go down in my dreams
And rockabye sweet baby James

Now the first of December was covered with snow
And so was the turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston
Lord, the Berkshires seemed dream-like on account of that frosting
With ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go

There's a song that they sing when they take to the highway
A song that they sing when they take to the sea
A song that they sing of their home in the sky
Maybe you can believe it if it helps you to sleep
But singing works just fine for me

So, goodnight, all you moonlight ladies
Rockabye sweet baby James
Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose
Won't you let me go down in my dreams
And rockabye sweet baby James.

But we were talking about singing to Ethan, weren’t we?

So the other night, it’s bedtime. He’s not feeling the best, and he asks me to sing to him. I sing Old McDonald, and let him choose the animals. I sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I sing You Got A Friend In Me from Toy Story, his favorite movie. I then ask what else he wants me to sing, and he says “the cowboy song”. I’m puzzled, because I can’t think of a cowboy song, then it hits me. I sing the first lines of Sweet Baby James, stop and ask if that’s the one. He smiles, says yes, and I sing it for me. I don't know if he remembers it from when he was a baby - I sang it to him again just a few weeks ago - but I like that he remembers it.

And yes, I posted that in part because it gives me a chance to use this again – James Taylor and the Dixie Chicks singing Sweet Baby James.

Shoveling

So, as those who made it out to the old house know, the driveway (at least the one by the front door) was small. I’d say roughly a car and a half long and barely wide enough that when you got out of the car you stepped on driveway and not grass. I parked there in the wintertime, too. The garage was detached from the house, and sat at the bottom of a steep hill. The one time I parked in the garage and it snowed, it took a half hour to back the car far enough down the lane that I could get enough of a running start to get up to the top of the hill over the snow and ice. After that, I just parked in the driveway. So, when it snowed, it took maybe 10 minutes to clear the car and shovel the snow enough to get the car out. My mother’s house, on the other hand, has a two-car wide driveway that is two and a half car lengths long. Shoveling is a much lengthier proposition. This Sunday marked the second week in a row I spent about 45 minutes shoveling a driveway. Needless to say, I was not thrilled at this. Here’s hoping for little snow the rest of the winter.

Hey! Actual Text!

Sure, it's links to stuff other people did. But still. It's an improvement over You Tube clips.

Anyway, for the Star Wars fans, I give you a link to a person explaining how R2D2 is the genius behind the whole rebel alliance.

When you're done with that, here's the Buffalo Beast's 2006 50 Most Loathsome List. A sample:

14. Britney Spears
Charges: Boozy celebrity bimbos are replicating at an alarming rate these days, but the difference is this bilious tramp has two doomed children, both cursed with the warped ribonucleic helices of a beer-chugging swamp princess with a defective larynx and a lucky low-rent wannabe hustler who may actually be the more responsible parent. Spears’ marriage to a universally detested embarrassment to humanity was trashy in two flavors: showbiz in its brevity and trailer in its impressive babies-per-year output. But the worst thing about their unholy matrimony is that we ever had to know who Kevin Federline is. His fame is entirely her fault, and her fame has by far outlasted her initial perverse schoolgirl/jailbait appeal.

Exhibit A: If Britney had shown the world her bald crotch four years ago, it would have caused widespread rioting and possibly a national holiday. Today, even Madonna thinks it’s gross.

Sentence: Thrown from an airplane with a parachute that will only open if she can hit the high E above middle C.

Box In A Box

Because equal time is important

March of the Emporers

Very, very cool ad.

Fiesta Time!

Yes, the slow evolution of Corn O'Copia into a You Tube blog continues. But I couldn't pass this up - it's the last few minutes of the Fiesta Bowl, with the best ending to a college football game ever.

I'm Famous!

No, not really. But I did get a cool shout-out.

Dan Shanoff, current blogger and formerly a writer for ESPN.com, used to write a Sports Night Before Christmas each year for ESPN.com's Daily Quickie. This year, he wrote one for Deadspin, the place online where you are most likely to find me these days. (Here's the wiki entry for Deadspin, for those unfamiliar with the site.) You can find the complete poem here, and see that there, in verse 14, he gives a shout-out to the commenters of Deadspin, and references a few by name. The first referenced? Well, read it and see

On Dweeze! On Lt. Winslow! On Kid Canada! On Denis Lemieux!
On Metschick, on Pam (NJ), on Jen P (Alas, room for too few!)

Pretty cool, huh?

Best Christmas Song Ever

The scene in Meet Me In St. Louis where this is first used is heartbreaking. It is a sad, sad song, but still, in no small way, optimistic. Kinda where I am right now.

Fun With You Tube

Let’s open with a little thing from Saturday Night Live (Note: Not family friendly, but incredibly catchy)



A little London Calling, from the Joe Strummer tribute at the 2003 Grammys (look at that line-up: Bruce Sprinsteen, Elvis Costello, Miami Steve, and Dave Grohl!)



James Taylor and the Dixie Chicks singing Sweet Baby James



Fatboy Slim’s Weapons of Choice



Because you can’t go wrong with Christopher Walken dancing, Pennies from Heaven



And because it never gets old, The Evolution of Dance

Library Thing and Other Free Stuff

Ladies and Gentlemen, Library Thing. This is a great little site for book lovers. On it, you can track and catalog your personal library. You can open a free account, with up to 200 entries, or a pay account, with unlimited entries. The site is linked to both Amazon and the Library of Congress, so you can search by book name, author name, or other fields. Once you find a book you own, you click on it, placing it in your personal catalog. You can use the site to set up your own library catalog for record keeping purposes, or use other functions to search for books to read in the future based on the contents of your library. Try it out – it’s somewhat addicting. (Link via Written World.)

While we’re on the subject of free things online, Kung Fu Monkey had an item awhile back linking to a post at The Simple Dollar listing 30 essential pieces of free and open source software for Windows. You can find the piece here. I don’t have an Office Suite on my home computer, so I have been using AbiWord for Word Processing and Open Office’s Spreadsheet as an Excel substitute. Both work very nicely. I also downloaded Gimpshop, a Photo Shop substitute, but haven’t played with it much.

Notes From The News

Just a couple of tidbits from today's Press Citizen:

Man escapes police by crawling out of squad car window

While under arrest Monday night, Kenneth Charles Cannon, 47, of Coralville, performed a disappearing act by squeezing through the rear window of a squad car.

When pulled over, police said Cannon was wearing a wig to hide his identity. He also “reeked” of alcohol and refused to take blood-alcohol tests at the scene, police said. Cannon was searched, handcuffed and placed in the rear of a patrol car. However, Cannon somehow rolled the rear window down, crawl through it and stumble from the car, police said. Officers found him trying to hide behind a small tree and he was taken back into custody.

Guess you could say he was a loose Cannon.

Hundreds of people waited over night for new Buffalo Wild Wings to open so they could get free chicken wings for a year

Their friend, Mike Hanson, 19, of North Liberty showed up several hours later to take a spot for someone else who had to leave the line for work.

All three said they would definitely brave the cold again, but not just for the free Buffalo wings, Hanson said.

"To tell our kids 20 years from now that we were here the day it opened," Hanson said.

Okay, Mike, maybe you were being ironic and it didn't come through in the article. But if you are, please not that your kids? Are not going to give a fuck that you waited in line all night just to get free chicken wings for a year.

In re Swiper

How incompetent are you as a thief if all it takes to stop you is someone saying “Swiper no swiping” to your face three times? Does that really work, and, if it does, would standing in front of the White House saying “W no desecrating the Constitution” over and over work? Further, do you suppose his parents named him Swiper, as they were members of a large family of thieves and high hopes for their son? Or is Swiper a nickname, given to him ironically the way people call big guys “Tiny”?

The Pace Of Blogging

Here's the thing. It may seem like I haven't been doing a lot of blogging this fall. And I haven't at least here. But I've done most of the Survivor and Amazing Race summaries this fall over at our summary sites - the last five Survivor's in a row and five of the last six Amazing Race's. In other words, one or (usually) two 2,500 - 5,000 word posts a week, every week, for three months. But we're down to just one more Survivor I need to summarize, the episode this week, so my bogging mechanism can return to Corn'O'Copia.

Sign On

Mediacom (in case my previous post didn't show where I was coming down on the issue) came out today and hooked up cable Internet. And Sinclair caved in and will allow Mediacom to continue airing KGAN (our local CBS affiliate) til January 5, 2007 so negotiations can continue. I have a theory why, based on something I was told at the Mediacom office in Iowa City yesterday (I was there setting things up for the Internet - did I mention I have access to broadband at home again? And it was cheap - $9.95 a month). I asked for an antenna kit, as they were giving them to their customers to be able to get KGAN. The clerk told me I didn't need one, because they had been able to find away around the restrictions that were prohibiting them from simply swapping KGAN with the CBS affiliate in the Quad Cities. I'm sure that was a come to Jesus moment for the folks at Sinclair. If Mediacom can do that, it pretty much makes KGAN irelevant. More as the situation develops.

Bye, Bye To The CBS Eye

My non-Iowa readers, and you know who you are, are probably unaware of the little battle we are experiencing between Sinclair “Rightwing Bastards ‘R’ Us Broadcasting and Mediacom Cable. This means that, barring a last-minute resolution, I will no longer have access to CBS on my cable package after tonight.

You can find a nice summary, though obviously from Mediacom’s point of view, here. To me, the heart of the disagreement appears to be this:

Mediacom’s lawsuit against Sinclair was driven in large part by our desire to protect the interests of our customers. Sinclair has insisted that Mediacom pay for all of its stations in our service areas in a single package without consideration to the differences in the various markets. We believe this all-or-nothing scheme violates antitrust law.The ultimate result of this “tying” of Sinclair’s stations would be to increase the price of cable television to consumers by millions of dollars. It is not fair to our customers who ultimately bear these costs and we have decided to draw the line by asking a federal court to stop these practices by Sinclair.

In effect, Mediacom is accusing Sinclair of requiring Mediacom to pay one price for all 23 Sinclair stations in 18 Mediacom markets instead of negotiating individual prices for each market. It’s easy to see how this could result in a nasty increase in the amount Mediacom has to pay for rebroadcast rights for Sinclair stations. Cable pricing is unfair enough as it currently stands; I would never pay for Lifetime on its own, for example, but have to pay for it as part of the package. But at least it is part of the package, and if I choose to watch it I can. Requiring Mediacom customers in eastern Iowa to pay for Sinclair stations in Alabama that are not now and never will be part of our cable package is beyond unfair.

Sinclair’s statement of the situation is here. It might just be me, and it might just be my opinion of Sinclair, but I find their statement to be a lot more weaselly than Mediacom’s. Most noticeably, there is nothing contradicting Mediacom’s assertion that Sinclair is trying to force Mediacom to pay one price for rebroadcast rights to every Sinclair station in a Mediacom market.

Now, being without CBS is not that huge a thing for me. The only thing it affects are Survivor (available online), NFL games (don’t really care all that much as CBS carries AFC games and I am an NFC fan), and TAR (ACKKKK!!!). But it is kind of disconcerting to think that a station I grew up with will not be there anymore. Still, I hope Mediacom doesn’t do a massive cave-in; I think Sinclair will be hurt far more, with advertisers jumping ship to other options, than Mediacom. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. At the very least, it inspired this little parody from me:

So bye, bye to the CBS eye
Turned my TV to the station but the station was dry
Them Sinclair boys demand too much of the pie
Guess I’ll pull the signal down from the sky
Pull the signal down from the sky

Brain Or No Brain

I’m not usually inclined to watch Deal Or No Deal. It’s not appointment television for me by any means. But it is on prior to several shows that are appointment television for me, most particularly Heroes, and so I will, on occasion, watch parts of it. If you don’t know how it’s played, here’s a nice Wiki write-up.

So anyway, last night’s contestant was a big ol Southern guy, currently unemployed, living in his sister and brother-in-law’s basement. His sister, brother-in-law, and best friend were there as his supporters. He got off to a nice start, eliminating lower-valued briefcases from the board, and at one point, getting a $218,000 offer from the banker.

Now here’s the thing. After accounting for the fact that you’d probably lose roughly 35% to taxes, with $218,000, you’d clear around $140,000. I don’t know about you, but $140,000 would pay off all my debt, buy a new car, and give me a serious down payment on a house (or, if not a house, cover rent payments for four to five years) with some left over, and I’m absolutely certain I probably have more debt than our contestant. I’d have jumped so fast at the deal it would make head spins, which probably eliminates me from the contestant pool because I’d be too willing to make a deal instead of gambling and still playing.

Not last night’s Brainiac, however. He chose to keep playing, after a couple more rounds of choosing briefcases, was down to a $57,000 or so offer from the banker. There was only one high value briefcase left on the board, the $750,000 one, and approximately five low value ones. But he kept playing, eliminating several low value briefcases, until there were only three left: the $750,000, the $100, and the $10. This prompted an offer from the banker of $150,000, which after taxes would still be roughly $98,000. I’m no longer making a down payment on a house with that, but I’m still paying off all my debt, buying a new car, paying rent on a new place for a year, and having some left over.

Encyclopedia Brown’s support group was mixed. His brother-in-law and best friend were telling him to say no deal and eliminate another briefcase. But not his sister. Oh no. You could tell she wanted nothing so much in the world as for him to take the money and move the hell out of her house. When he said no deal, she plopped down in her chair, unable to watch what happened next. So what happened next? The next briefcase he picked held the $750,000, meaning his prize was either $100 or $10. He rejected the banker’s offer of $55, a split of the difference, and then walked away with $10, roughly, oh, $217,990 less than he could have had.

So why am I writing? Is it to comment on a show so idiotic that the only skill you need is to be able to identify the numbers between 1 and 26? Is it to comment on the gambling mentality that says keep playing long after the odds have shifted against you? No. It’s because of this.

As they kept eliminating briefcases, they would update and say things like “You started with a 1 in 26 chance of having a highest remaining dollar value briefcase and you now have a 1 in 20 chance!” But I don’t think this is correct. If you turned your briefcase in each round and selected a new one, yes, when you selected your new one you would have a 1 in 20 chance, but you don’t do that. So instead, you still have just a 1 in 26 chance, the original odds when you chose your original briefcase. Because your briefcase doesn’t change during the course of the game, the original odds don’t change. At least that’s how I see it intellectually.

Yet, somehow, this doesn’t seem right intuitively. By the time you are down to three suitcases, you have a one in three chance that the briefcase you initially chose has the highest remaining dollar value. Right? Or are we talking two different things? Is it that you still have the 1 in 26 chance you chose the highest remaining dollar value briefcase initially, but the odds that you have the highest remaining dollar value briefcase in your possession changes as briefcases are eliminated? Does that make sense? Help me, mathletes!

Leaving Pennsylvania In The Broad Daylight*

*Note: Did not actually leave Pennsylvania in broad daylight, but rather under the cover of the night.

Okay, this weekend was the road trip to Coatesville, Pennsylvania to drop off cats and a dog and pick up a four-year-old. Here are some bullet points from the trip.

The trip was supposed to be me, three cats, and one dog. However, when I went to Lone Tree to pick up the cats from my friends who were housing them, Sweetie, the oldest female cat, had gone missing. She was hiding in Bob and Von’s basement like Anne Frank in the attic. As a result, only two cats went east. So, if anyone wants a cat, let me know. (She was found over the weekend while I was gone, too late to make the trip.)

I’m glad I live in a civilized state where we don’t charge people to use the highway. From the far side of Chicago on, the trip was on tollway. Hat tip to the Indiana Tollway for being one of the best maintained roads I’ve ever driven on, for having a 70 mph speed limit, and for being the cheapest. Hat tip to the Ohio Tollway for being three lanes for all but about 50 miles of the 236 mile tollway. Hat tip to the Pennsylvania Tollway for, uhm, not having anywhere near as much construction as people said there would be.

Heaviest amount of traffic, volume-wise? The stretch of 80 between I-55 near Chicago and Gary. This stretch also had the greatest concentration of billboards for adult-oriented businesses. Six if you count Hooters, and I do; Hooters is an adult-oriented business for people too cowardly to frequent actual adult-oriented businesses. “Oh, I go to Hooters for the food!” Right, and I go to strip clubs for the music.

Worst congestion? The stretch of Highway 30 from Lancaster, PA to the extremely misnamed Paradise, PA that runs through Pennsylvania Amish country. For my local readers, think the bit of road in Main Amana with all the shops on a Saturday or Sunday, except multiply the stretch of road by five miles, the people by 100, and make the stretch of road a major highway instead of a side street.

I know it’s judging a book by it’s cover because I didn’t go into either establishment, but I imagine the quality of entertainment at the Amish Musical Dinner Theatre and the quality of the food at Jakob’s Amish Barbeque is not very high. And don’t get me started on the store that referred to itself as America’s Best Southwestern Store. Southwestern what? You had an Indian and cactus on the sign, so I assumed Southwestern United States. Sorry, there’s just no way I am believing that America’s Best Southwestern Store is located in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Note to hotel owners: If you offer me a complimentary newspaper, I? Will take it. That’s who I am; that’s how I roll. Conversely, if you offer me a lukewarm glass of orange juice and a cold Danish and call it breakfast, I? Will pass. That’s who I am; that’s how I roll.

I took my mother’s car, because, well, mine sucks and her car is relatively new. It also has a six-cd changer, which makes traveling nicer. Here are some songs I listened to repeatedly.

Iowa
Dar Williams

I've never had a way with women
But the hills of Iowa make me wish that I could
And I've never found a way to say I love you
But if the chance came by, oh I, I would

But way back where I come from, we never mean to bother
We never make our passions other people's concern
And we walk in the world of safe people
And at night we walk into our houses and burn

Iowa, oh-oh-oh-oh, Iowa, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-I, Iowa

How I long to fall just a little bit
To dance out of the lines and stray from the light
But I fear that to fall in love with you
Is to fall from a great and gruesome height

So I asked a friend about it on a bad day, her husband had just left her
She sat down in the chair he left behind
She said, "What is love, where did it get me?
Whoever thought of love is no friend of mine."

Iowa, oh-oh-oh-oh, Iowa, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-I, Iowa

Once I had everything, I gave it up
For the shoulder of your driveway and the words I never felt
And so for you, I came this far across the tracks
Ten miles above the limit and with no seat belt, and I'd do it again

For tonight I went running through the screen doors of discretion
For I woke up from a nightmare that I could not stand to see
You were a-wandering out on the hills of Iowa and
You were not thinking of me

Oh-ah-a- ah-a Iowa

Untouchable Face
Ani DiFranco

think i'm going for a walk now
i feel a little unsteady
i don't want nobody to follow me
'cept maybe you
i could make you happy you know
if you weren't already
i could do a lot of things
and i do

tell you the truth i prefer
the worst of you
too bad you had to have a better half
she's not really my type
but i think you two are forever
and i hate to say it but
you're perfect together

so fuck you
and your untouchable face
and fuck you
for existing in the first place
and who am i
that i should be vying for your touch
and who am i
i bet you can't even tell me that much

two-thirty in the morning
and my gas tank will be empty soon
neon sign on the horizon
rubbing elbows with the moon
a safe haven of sleepless
where the deep fryer's always on
radio is counting down
the top 20 country songs
and out on the porch the fly strip is
waving like a flag in the wind
y'know, i don't look forward
to seeing you again soon
you'll look like a photograph of yourself
taken from far far away
and i won't know what to do
and i won't know what to say

except fuck you...
and your untouchable face
and fuck you
for existing in the first place
and who am i
that i should be vying for your touch
and who am i
i bet you can't even tell me that much

i see you and i'm so perplexed
what was i thinking
what will i think of next
where can i hide
in the back room there's a lamp
that hangs over the pool table
and when the fan is on it swings
gently from side to side
there's a changing constellation
of balls as we are playing
i see orion and you say nothing
the only thing i can think of saying

is fuck you...
and your untouchable face
and fuck you
for existing in the first place
and who am i
that i should be vying for your touch
and who am i
i bet you can't even tell me that much

Wednesday Song

Final move update tomorrow. For now, a song.

Dimming of the Day

This old house is falling down around my ears
I'm drowning in a river of my tears
When all my will is gone you hold me sway
I need you at the dimming of the day

You pull me like the moon pulls on the tide
You know just where I keep my better side

What days have come to keep us far apart
A broken promise or a broken heart
Now all the bonnie birds have wheeled away
I need you at the dimming of the day

Come the night you're only what I want
Come the night you could be my confidante

I see you on the street in company
Why don't you come and ease your mind with me
I'm living for the night we steal away
I need you at the dimming of the day

Yes I need you at the dimming of the day