comics i like

After reading about Intern Architects In Hell on Brad's blog, I thought I'd share a couple of my favorite strips.

They are strange, but that is probably why I enjoy the humor so much. They're just a little bit different than the average cartoon (I still like Garfield too, if you were wondering).

Wondermark:



And Red Meat:

Roy Rules

Saturday Night Live isn't what it used to be, but it still has its funny moments.

A new SNL Digital Short came out last weekend, called Roy Rules. Whatever Andy Samberg does is usually goofy, and I don't believe you can be on the fence about his stuff. It's either hilarious to you, or absolutely stupid.

Anyway, enjoy. Or not.

Bud Light commercials

I think I sent this information via forwarded e-mail a while back, but I thought I'd spread the word a little more this way.

Several months ago, a friend of mine sent me a link to this website. Someone has taken the time to compile all of the Bud Light "Real Men of Genius" and "Real American Heroes" commercials that you hear on the radio. (It may not be completely up-to-date, I think the last time I was there, the last update was late 2006.)

Some of them are pretty funny. Check it out.

Here's the Wikipedia page about Real Men of Genius.

And, I guess there are some video versions I didn't know about.

Martinville

It only took about 24 hours for Kansas State to act quickly and name a new basketball coach.

Frank Martin, who was an assistant under Bob Huggins last year, was named head coach, and Dalonte Hill, also an assistant last year, was named associate head coach (associate -- to quote one of my favorite movies -- "it means less than....*weeping quietly to self*"). A press conference was held yesterday.

Basically, there are two groups of people that formed after this news was announced.

One group thought it was good that Tim Weiser and Jon Wefald acted so quickly. Also, they promoted the two guys who have the best chance of keeping this current crop of recruits that several are deeming to be the "#1 recruiting class in the country next season." I'm in this group of folks.

There is another group of negative-nelly naysayers who are crying foul about all sorts of things. Among others, they're saying that Martin was an awful choice of coach. He has no collegiate coaching experience. They only kept him and Hill around to keep these recruits onboard. They're going to have talent, but no coaching to go along with it. After all these recruits play for a year or two, they're gone, and the Wildcats are back to square one with no talent and no coach. And, of course, they bring up mention of recruiting violations that happened while he was a high school coach back in Florida. And, they mention what an angry, foul-mouthed man he can become on the sidelines (they say he makes Bobby Knight look like a therapist).

Jason Whitlock is one of the idiots who is lambasting K-State's choice of Martin as coach. Here are a few of his articles recently.

Huggins' con continues on
Martin OK, but kids in control

And here are a few more of the articles that seemed to pop up almost instantly after Frank Martin was promoted:

New Kansas State Coach Frank Martin's Unethical History
Shaky past for new KSU coach Frank Martin?
Wildcats' panic yields big gamble

The media is so quick to jump on this decision or that, but it really comes down to good reading. Heck, yes, I'll try to dig up all these articles that I can find, so it can be that much sweeter when they're proven wrong.

Who knows what's going to happen, both this coming season and the next several? Time will tell. We'll at least get a solid season or two out of it.

Frank Martin is a recruiter, not a coach. I've heard that a couple times from different sources. OK -- then maybe this will give K-State the chance to become one of those schools that all the recruits take a look at as they're finishing up high school. Maybe he can actually coach, too.

I'm thinking positively about this situation (probably because I'm such a KSU fan), but I think that's how all K-Staters need to look at it. Let the naysayers nay, and then look dumb as we cruise to the Final Four next season.

(Here's a few links to some more positive articles -- I don't want to give the cranky side all of the attention:

Martin: 'I'm a fighter'
Anatomy of a grinder

Huggins - thanks for the memories

While this story is still breaking, I thought I'd post something about it really quickly.

Unfortunately, with the West Virginia coaching job recently vacated by John Beilein (who, small bit of trivia, has a nephew who went to my high school), Bob Huggins has decided to leave Kansas State after one fairly successful season to go coach where he was born and attended college.

Here are four stories about it that have popped up within the past hour:

Huggins to replace Beilein
Bob Huggins Leaves Kansas State for West Virginia
Huggins to Coach West Virginia
Huggins leaving to coach alma mater

What a bummer. This is a real disappointing turn of events. I understand the fact that this was a sudden chance at his "dream job," to coach where he was born and raised. But, after all of the excitement and anticipation that was building about the program, with K-State coming into next season with the best recruiting class in college, having the rug pulled out from under all of us is such a downer. Who knows what will happen to all the recruits now? They obviously all came to Manhattan, Kansas because of Bob Huggins. K-State is not a Florida or Kentucky or Duke.

The program, it unfortunately seems, is now back to where it was just two years ago.

Yet, not everyone is in a bad mood about this whole situation.

squirrel solution

I can't say it isn't awful, but I haven't posted in ages, and I do love using the embed video function.

you may need to sit down for this

July 4, 2007: A new Die Hard movie is being released.
Live Free or Die Hard

And it looks ridiculous. Also, ridiculously awesome.


(Others are excited about the Transformers movie coming out on the same day, which also looks pretty cool.)

video blog?

It's easy, and probably more entertaining than long, drawn-out ramblings of mine, so I thought about turning this blog into a more video-based journal.

Now that I've mastered how to embed YouTube material (and trust me, it's a challenge), I can share videos with you that I find out about over the course of the week.

We'll see how it goes.



My favorite band, Ween, came out with a country album back in 1997. It was a new genre for them basically, though they are constantly "testing the waters," so to speak, of every other genre out there. Nonetheless, it was a bold move on Ween's part, only because, as I've read in several interviews, releasing an entire country album did two things. One, it alienated a lot of the casual Ween fans ("ugh, country? I hate country"), and two, piqued the interest of country fans while misleading them at the same time ("this is some decent country; let me check out some of their other stuff....oh my, this is not what I expected"). To be blunt, though, Ween didn't, and still doesn't, give a damn.

I personally enjoy the album a lot. You have to be in the right mood, but it's a kind of country I actually enjoy. (Twangy, but also bluesy -- very different than, say, the Faith Hills and George Straits of our day...I don't know how you classify those two types of country, but they're different in several ways).

Anyway, it gets me to the two videos I'm posting today. Ween brought in a number of legendary country musicians from Nashville, who they eventually dubbed the "Shit Creek Boys." The musicians included Bobby Ogdin (piano), Russ Hicks (steel guitar), and Charlie McCoy (harmonica).

Here's a video of Russ Hicks and another guy on guitar. Is this not one of the most badass instruments ever created? It looks extremely hard to play (but what do I know?), but these guys make it look simple. Also, I'm amused that there is such a thing as an International Steel Guitar Convention, and that it was in St. Louis, my hometown. (Darn, upon closer inspection, they only are allowing a link to YouTube, but no embedding of the video. Here's the link if you want to check it out.)

And here's a video of Charlie McCoy, who can play the mouth harp like no other:

best video of 2006?

To me, at least, this was the funniest video I had seen all year (though I'm sure I don't remember every video I saw all of last year, so we'll say within the last month or two of '06, to be truthful).

I also wanted to experiment with the "embed" function between YouTube and Blogger, so we'll see how it works.

Enjoy.


Special Christmas Gift

unfortunate hiatus

My lax attitude towards this blog saddens me.

That doesn't mean it will end anytime soon, though.

Don't miss me too much.

I'll be busy raking leaves, catching up on Onions I haven't read yet, and buying Christmas presents.

Have a happy December.
(Let's say I make writing in my blog a New Year's resolution.)