FSSN On The NHL Network

Friday night's North Dakota vs. Wisconsin hockey game was carried live on the NHL Network, using the Fighting Sioux Sports Network (FSSN) (in Grand Forks this is found on WDAZ channel 8) feed. Observations:

1) The FSSN obviously used portions of the between-periods intermissions as a recruiting tool. After the first period, Tim Hennessy gave a short tour of the glorious Ralph Engelstad Arena. After the second period, Ryan Martens provided a little overview of the NHL walls outside the Sioux's locker room - reminders of how many players the Sioux have put in the NHL over the years.

2) NHL Network fans who have never seen a FSSN broadcast got a feel for play-by-play man Pat Sweeney. He used to bore me, but I was used to the (almost-always enjoyable) histrionics of Frank Mazzocco on Gopher TV broadcasts. Now I find Sweeney to be a smooth, understated guy in the booth. Throw in the dry wit and some out-of-leftfield references (the constant phrasing of Jordan Baker's first and last name last season sealed it), and now Sweeney is my guy. Tonight's line was in regards to Badger player John Mitchell, who he once referred to as "Attorney General John Mitchell."

3) Unfortunately, the NHL Network went with their own ads at commercial breaks, so NHL Network fans weren't subjected to the amazingly catchy Home of Economy jingle. (Note: John McCain once had a map to the Home of Economy, but he threw it out the window as he couldn't read the map.)

4) I love it that people across North America tuning in the NHL Network were informed by Sweeney that Kittson County Central knocked off Stephen-Argyle in the Minnesota Section 8 Nine-man championship game. Stephen-Argyle had a 76-game winning streak on the line. (This game was played in the Alerus Center in Grand Forks, gotta love the cross-border help.)

Hats off to WDAZ for continuing to care about the northeastern North Dakota / northwestern Minnesota area. This local coverage got personal last summer when I was up at my parents' cabin an hour east of Fargo. It was a Friday afternoon and a tornado warning in the area and WDAY (WDAZ's sister station in Fargo) was the only one who had a weather guy live tracking the nasty weather and said a tornado had touched down a few miles away from me. I tuned in KVLY and KXJB out of Fargo and they were showing crap like Orpah and Access Hollywood. Oh, and three other tornadoes touched down in northwestern Minnesota that afternoon also, so it's obvious WDAY and WDAZ are the only stations that care about the safety of the residents in the Red River Valley area.

And to add insult to injury to KVLY and KXJB ... my sister, who was in EASTERN WISCONSIN that afternoon, called the cabin to make sure everybody was okay after seeing on TV that a tornado had touched down in the area. People in Wisconsin were getting better weather info than people watching channels 4 and 11 in the Fargo area!

Joe The Silly Campaign Symbol

Johnson over at Fitted Sweats sums up the John McCain/Joe the Plumber relationship perfectly: "Get a room already!"

Yesterday, Joe stood up McCain at a rally. Hilarious. Joe claims he didn't know he was supposed to be there. Boy that McCain campaign is seamless, ain't it?

Joe the Plumber comes off as the sort of dimwit who would buy that business and then run it into the ground within three years via running up his business credit cards by: 1) Charging needless "business expenses" such as starting a company softball team and buying top-line uniforms and equipment for them ... thing is his company only has three employees so the rest of the squad is made up of his beer-drinking buddies. Oh, and he would probably also charge costs incurred at gentlemens' clubs as "entertainment" and would sometimes forget to bring a client. 2) Charging all kinds of personal expenses like Friday night pizza deliveries to his home and his Netflix account ("can't get enough of that Joe Dirt!") and claiming that it's justified because "I think about this business day and night."

Then after bankruptcy, he would sit at the bar drinking Michelob Golden Draft Light and grouse about how severely taxed small businesses are.

Slacking Works?

I had pizza and beers with my college buddy Bob last Friday. We figured out that major slacker non-decisions I went with while in my twenties and employed with a salaried real job have worked out. To wit:

1) I didn't buy a house. If I had, it'd be worth less today and I'd be depressed.

2) I didn't put as much into my 401(K) as I could have. Sure, the market may rebound but more money in my 401(K) would have meant that last Friday when I got my third quarter statement in the mail it would have been even more depressing because I would have lost more money than I actually did.

3) I turned down a lateral career move that would have transferred me to Los Angeles. To get ahead in that company in accounting you had to move around the country. Turning down such career opportunities meant staying here in the Twin Cities, which is even more important to me these days: If the economy totally tanks, I'm glad to be twenty miles away from a potential home in my sister's basement.

"We're All Keynesians Now"

Justin Fox in the most recent Time magazine on the "we're comin', we're comin'" of Keynesian economics.

Esquire Names Michele Bachmann Top Ten

Problem for her is, she's named one of the Ten Worst People In Congress:

One gets the impression that if, in the name of "traditional values," Bachmann could rescind the vote for women, she would. Her vacant, wild eyes recall a doomsday prophet, or one of Charlie Manson's girls. Equal parts religious hack and party hack, she's got spunk and not much else.

Because Everybody's Been Clamoring for Them: Tax Links!

Calculate your taxes under McCain and Obama.

The McCain and Obama taxes on income levels, put in chart form. (Or if the Post asks for registration, click on the image.)

The Early Eighties Gets Even Weirder

Ellen Foley is the gal who sang with Meat Loaf (pre-eighties) on the turn-the-dial-now! tune "Paradise By The Dashboard Light." A different gal appears with Loaf in the video.

Ellen Foley dated Mick Jones of the Clash in the early eighties. He produced one of her albums, the Jones/Strummer songwriting team wrote songs for it, and the Clash dudes played on it.

Ellen Foley is allegedly the inspiration for the Jones-penned Clash hit "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?"

Ellen Foley was the pre-Markie Post blonde public defender who starred with Harry Anderson on Night Court in season two.

Ellen Foley is a fox.

Cosmic Slop Returns?

Chuck and Joel have a couple of podcasts up and are having fun.

Yes, Mark, "Rock 'n' Roll Party In The Streets" is played!

The show has profiles on MySpace and Facebook but no linkage here as I don't do those sites. (Chuck if you're reading feel free to chime in with more info - thanks!)

Saturday Afternoon Movies

I have gotten back into the fall/winter/spring groove of watching DVD movies on Saturday afternoon with coffee. The past few weeks have been awesome:

Drugstore Cowboy - Junkies on the run. I hadn't seen this one in years, so long that I had forgotten that it is set in 1971. I haven't done a "my top ten favorite movies ever" list in years, but I know this one was in there at some point. Matt Dillon's best performance?

In Bruges - Hitmen on the run. Hard to sum this one up, but I laughed out loud repeatedly and it's not a comedy and is in fact sad and violent at other times. Everybody was brilliant in this, but Colin Farrell was a revelation: his facial expressions alone would get me to praise his performance.

The Wild Bunch - Bandits on the run. I saw this years ago but didn't get it for some reason. Now I do. Amazing in so many ways - especially the robberies and shootouts scenes - plus it stars William Holden. The funny thing is that I was prompted to add it to my Netflix queue after watching an ALF rerun on WGN last summer: ALF ends up in a neighbor's house surrounded by police. He tells them that he has hostages (he doesn't.) While on the phone with Willie, he worries that this situation will "end up like a Sam Peckinpah movie."

Still Rube Central

Last night Saturday Night Live Thursday (huh?) went with a spot-on imitation of the crazy old lady at John McCain's Lakeville rally last Friday. We all thought we had lived through a short-lived phase of Minnesota being the heart of wackdom where in a single day Barack Obama was called an Arab and Magic Johnson was accused of faking AIDS, but no.

And then to up the ante, this afternoon Minnesota's #1 public wackjob - and a Christian Wackjob at that - appeared on MSNBC's Hardball With Chris Matthews and made sure that The Land of 10,000 Lakes remained rube central. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, as batty as advertised and unable to deal with Matthews's questions, stepped up to the plate and delivered some doozies:

On Obama: “Absolutely, I’m very concerned that he may have anti-American views.”

On Congress: “What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think the American people would love to see an expose like that.”

Word has it that the opponent to Bachmann this fall, Elwyn Tinklenberg, has seen a large influx of donations to his campaign tonight since Bachmann's appearance on MSNBC. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that the Democrats could convince her to go spew her nonsense to voters in battleground states.

Update: Colin Powell slams Bachmann! In your face, Congresswoman!

Saturday's game is supposed to be on channel 23 also ...

All week long, websites said that Comcast Minneapolis channel 23 would be showing tonights North Dakota vs. Mankato State hockey game. I rushed out the door at 6:30 to get beer, beef jerky, and ibuprofen (nagging back.) I come home and what game are they showing? Minnesota vs. St. Cloud State, which is also on FSN and FCS Pacific. Nice. The game isn't on a webcast and I don't feel like listening via the KFGO audio. Now what do I do? I'm someone who lives by a bunch of little schedules and when things get sidetracked I get flustered. It just seems wrong to crack open a Heineken when the Sioux aren't on TV.

Sigh. Guess I'll read a book and work on some writing.

Here's An Easier Way: Go To Google Images And Type "Virgin Mary"

People who see the Virgin Mary in trees, clouds, and hospital windows are pretty damn funny. Some window gets an acidic reaction that makes a random formation and you decide it looks like the mother of Jesus so you bring a chair to the hospital's parking lot so you can look at the window. You might not be the brightest person out there and I hope you're not skipping work to prove it ... but hey: Worshipping a woman is cool in my book.

And which vision do you believe in more: The Virgin Mary in an egg salad sandwich or the annually-guaranteed improved Vikings defense?

The MILF Ticket?

I was freaking out friends last week by saying/emailing this:

"Palin-Bachmann '012!"

Sure Glad I'm Not Temping These Days

Back in the days when I was temping, there was a stock figure who appeared in the large offices I worked at. He was the Nice Guy Accountant. Sometimes being a temp meant being shunned by the regulars, but Nice Guy Accountant would strike up a conversation with me and make me feel a little bit more comfortable. Problem was, his talk always turned to "the market":

All he talks about are bonds, investments, and the stock market. I’m sorry, I want to say, but money bores the shit out of me. Earlier this week, he was talking to the gal in the cubicle next to his about some “Wall Street Week” show that he watches on PBS on Friday nights and was going on and on about how cool the host of the show is. The gal finally shut him up by saying “you’re pathetic.” I cracked up and couldn’t stop laughing. Then she started laughing, which made me laugh more, which made her laugh more, etc.

Let's see ... I was making like twelve bucks an hour, lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, and only allowed myself to not brown bag my lunch and eat out on Fridays. You think I really cared that much about the Dow?