Movie meme

Stealing the idea from (among other people) Jamie S. Rich...

"Head to IMDB.com (or imdbpro, if this is your career), and look up ten of your favorite movies. List three plot keywords for each movie, and then see which of your friends can guess what movie you're talkin' bout. NO cheating, now..."

1. Library/Newspaper/Opera
2. Friendship/Reporter/Outlaw
3. New Jersey/Alien Conspiracy/Rock Band
4. Military/Redhead/Duel
5. Forest/Fog/Based on Play
6. Hangover/Loveless Marriage/Uranium
7. Bistro/Suicide Death Fall/based on novel
8. Locker Room/Violence/Mooning
9. Pennsylvania/Political/Guitar
10. Homoerotic/Narration/Berlin Germany

movin' on up

Goodbye, Hampton Roads.

You will not be missed.

best laid schemes

sorry this hasn't been updated more often.

Illness played a part.

and, getting ready to move from VAB. thank goodness. This place is way too Red State for my psyche. You can't drive 10 feet without seeing either a fish or a yellow ribbon (or both) on the car in front of you.

more soon.

Radio Row at the Super Bowl

Email written in response to today's column about radio row at the Super Bowl by Steve Czaban on his website:

Czabe,

I really could not agree with you more about what a horrible waste of time
Radio Row is/has become.

As you know, I'm a sports radio connoisseur/junkie and I can say that it
is, largely, a horrible waste of time.

On an average day, I'll now listen to some programming of all three
national sports networks as well as at least 4 different local shows
across the country.

Do you know many times last week I heard the same guest on any particular
day?  Even worse, you could hear the same guest on the same network on
different day parts. GAH!

The best show that I heard all of last week was Dan LeBatard's show. Why?
He went out of his way to NOT ask his guests about the Super Bowl and talk
to them about just about anything else in the world. Also, no predictions
the whole week. And to top it off, they broadcast from outside the Versace
Mansion the night of Shaq's party there.

Contrast that with the anticeptic nature of the Four Letter. Same old
guests, same old talking heads, same old cliched analysis. The last time I
have to hear from Little Sean (TM Deadspin) will be too soon.

Shouldn't Radio Row be time for a show to be creative, instead of B-level
football star plugging and then making innocuous small talk? To his
credit, at least Andy Polley wisely got the plug out of the way first,
rather than having to cram it in at the end and run over a break.

There were some shows that were so out-of-character and fraught with
technical issues that I just gave up listening by the end of the week.

All in All, it's probably great for the talent to schoomze, eat free ice
cream and get to hang out for a week on a semi-vacation. But, for the
average listener, it just comes off as one big circle jerk.

A former editor does some editing

Some of you may have seen my letter to George Solomon in today's WAPO sports section. It seems to be that he/they took a chunk of my email about coverage of the NHL, specifically the All-Star game, and I think gave it an un-intended tone.

Here's what they used:

Hockey fans know their sport is down at the moment and that it has many problems. That said, it's very irksome and tiring to constantly see the only national attention given to it is negative.

Here is the entire email:

Thanks for apparently being one of the few Post columnists who knew that
the NHL All-Star Game was on TV and where to find it on your cable. That's
more than I can say for some of your superstar columnists, who seem to
think that the only thing to say about the sport these days is to take fun
of its admittedly-poor television package.

Hockey fans know their sport is down at the moment and that it has many
problems. That said, it's very irksome and tiring to constantly see the
only attention given to it on national outlets like ESPN is negative.

As someone who has taught journalism in the past, I'm sure you know all
about "gatekeeper theory." While its not the media's job to cheerleader
for what they cover, I think they do have to realize just how much
influence they have over their audience. Seeing and hearing respected
national columnists do nothing but belittle a product cannot help
something that needs all the positives it can get these days.

This was spurred after mainly after a week of "What channel is the NHL on?" one-liners from radio and TV people, notably Wilbon on PTI. Yes, it was my ox being gored. But it's funny to hear Wilbon make the same remarks when he chastises anyone and everyone who make generalizations about the NBA (which is now his main area of coverage for ESPN).

Who needs football when hockey is on all day?

Currently in the process of watching my fourth hockey game today.

1) Caps vs Penguins. Caps lost again, but at least didn't get blown out. Another victory for Sir Sidney over Alex O.

2) Edmonton vs Colorado -- game 1 of the CBC triple header. Oilers win on the road.

3) Toronto vs Ottawa -- battle of Ontario + Coach's Corner. TO wins in the shootout.

4) Vancouver vs Calgary -- 2-1 Canucks as this is written. Luongo took a wicked slapshot off his mask a few minutes ago from, I think, Dion Phaneuf. Amazingly, he stayed in the game.

Tomorrow afternoon, CBC has an afternoon game with Sir Sidney vs Les Habs before the Super Bowl.

Great day for VAB Radio

I'm no fan of Dan Snyder, but his Red Zebra Radio has started a sports radio station in VAB. It's at 102.1 on the FM Dial.

Thank heavens.

Anything to offer an alternative to the horrible ESPN Station here. If you thought regular ESPN Radio programming was unlistenable (*cough* Cowherd *cough*), you can't even imagine how amazingly podunk the local afternoon guy is on the radio. Oh yeah, and in like most small market, he's also the PD or GM or some other such title.

Folks here can now hear, without listening to an internet stream, the wacky Bram Weinstein (formerly on WTEM in DC) and the amazingly irreverent John Riggins (Redskins great, who used to host a show on the Sirius NFL Channel). Riggo's show includes former TK sidekick Gary "Big Time" Braun, as well as another former WTEM guy, Kevin Sheehan.

Podcasting Killed the Radio Star

http://www.thecubsfan.com/jvstw/JVSTW38.mp3

Listen to me ramble for over an hour about old wrestling, working for an indy promotion, my crappy origin story involving wrestling, the NATIONAL (RIP) and more on this week's JOE VS THE WORLD podcast. Sadly, the talk about wrestling and comics didn't make the cut this time around.

Thanks for Joe Gagne for inviting me on.

All-Star Game

Contrary to what most sportswriters would have you believe, some believe do know what the Versus channel is and where it is located on our cable/dish.

The NHL All-Star Game is going on as I type this. I was occupied (more on this soon) during the first period, so going to catch up now.

Huh?

Not a reference to the 2nd World Series (won by the New York Giants).

Nor it is about Brownian Motion (which does not have to do with eating bad shrimp).

It's an alternative title of the great Russian film by Sergei Eisenstein, Battleship Potemkin.




And, as you may or may not know, we publish (infrequently) a little thing about popular culture called ODESSA STEPS MAGAZINE, which also takes its name from Potemkin.

What we plan on doing here is put stuff up on the web that may or may not go into the next print issue of the magazine. Or, it might turn into a place just to post dumb stuff.

Get it? Got it? Good!