Bag of Randomness for Monday, February 8, 2016

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  • NFL
    • Super Bowl
      • The last time all former Super Bowl MVPs were introduced, the late Harvey Martin wasn’t mentioned as the co-MVP of Super Bowl XII. They didn’t forget him this time.
      • Lady Gaga doesn’t disappoint when she’s on the big stage. But it would have been more ‘MURICA! if she wore the meat dress.
      • The commercial I laughed at the most was the Doritos ultrasound one. Heck, I can’t remember laughing so hard at a Super Bowl commercial. But it seems like some people were grossed out by it or offended because a baby was born premature.
      • I had no idea that Buzz Aldrin was a Cowboys fan.
      • The Advil commercial was breaking trends by having a male pole dancer.
      • A Super Bowl constipation commercial? This must be a bigger problem in the U.S. than I’ve imagined. Ditto with the diarrhea commercial.
      • Heard U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” played before a kickoff.
      • The Texas Law Hawk, Paul Rudd and Jeff Goldblum were in the most commercials by my count, two each.
      • Looks like the Cowboys don’t have the only stadium in which players have to go through a bar to get on and off the field.
      • Coldplay was at a slight disadvantage having to play the halftime show in daylight. Most others get to play in an indoor stadium and of course, the sun sets earlier on the east. When they first started playing, I thought the Dallas Carter high school band were behind them since that had their colors on.
      • I’m thinking there was a lot of lip-synching going on, at least, parts of the performance. Personally, I thought the halftime show was OK, but Coldplay was taking it in the shorts on Twitter, and man, Twitter was brutal, hilariously brutal.
      • Peyton Manning really didn’t say “Omaha” much. Betters should have taken the under.
      • Per Buzzfeed, Kevin Durrant was a photographer at the Super Bowl.
      • Goat of the game – Carolina’s right tackle.
      • Happy for former Cowboys DeMarcus Ware and Wade Phillips. Phillips looked like he was ready to party as he was sporting the shocker.  I don’t think Ware would have been as good as he would have been for Denver if he stayed in Dallas, the man needed a change after his divorce and the Dallas mediocrity. He got a fresh start in Denver
      • Did Papa John have to be the first person to kiss Manning after time ran out? And how much is Budweiser paying Manning to reference them twice? Well, if you believe the person that leads communication at Budweiser, nothing.
      • Manning has been to the Super Bowl with four different head coaches.
      • I’m surprised that Steve Young, Joe Montana, or Jerry Rice wasn’t involved with the trophy presentation since it was on San Francisco’s home turf.
      • Elway’s “This one’s for Pat” was quite nice.
      • I didn’t enjoy or appreciate those Cowboys Super Bowl victories enough thinking there were so many more in the tank.
      • Mark Cuban sure did have a lot of famous folks at his party – Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, owner Jerry Jones, and his son, Stephen, were all in attendance. Cuban also had the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Rum-DMC perform at the event. Snoop Dogg, Tim Tebow, Joe Jonas and Jeremy Renner were there as well.
  • HOF
    • No modern day receiver makes the HOF on the first ballot unless his name is Jerry Rice. Of all modern receivers, the reclusive Marvin Harrison was the most deserving, and now that he’s in, we’ll start to see other modern day wide receivers get in.
    • Though not a modern day receiver, Drew Person should be enshrined.
    • Eddie DeBartolo getting in just clears the path for Jerry to get in one day.
    • I only caught snippets of the NFL Honors broadcast Saturday night, but I did catch the announcement of the new HOF class by Scott Pelley and Jim Brown. After the class was announced each appeared on stage, except Harrison and the deceased had a family member as a representative. Right before they went to commercial, current members of the HOF approached the stage to welcome the new class, which I thought was pretty cool and special moment. I hope that become tradition.
    • If Tony Dungy got in because of his body of work as a player, assistant coach, and head coach, I guess I can understand, but not on the first ballot. He was good, but not great and his resume as a head coach is a bit small, he never crossed that 200 wins mark. Heck, Madden also never crossed that 200 wins mark with his short tenure as a head coach and he had to wait decades to get into the Hall.
  • SNL
    • I’m not sure why Larry David hosted SNL, per his IMDB page, he’s not promoting anything. But hey, I’m not complaining.
    • To us anti-social folks, he’s our hero, and had my heart with this line from his monolog, “One of the great pleasures of my life is leaving anywhere I am.“
    • The “Bern Your Enthusiasm” skit in which he plays Senator Bernie Sanders in a ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ was greatness.
    • I’m not advocating for Senator Sanders, but I got a kick out of all his appearances alongside his lost brother, Larry David.
  • Campaign thoughts:
  • GIF – Sometimes we all should attack an obstacle, or Mondays, just like Mr. T.
  • GIF – Navy S.E.A.L. Seals
  • I caught up with programs I recorded on the DVR. One line from ‘Agent Carter’ really stood out, made me pause the show, and made me ponder for a few minutes, “A boring life is a privilege‏.” It was in the context of the world wars, but for someone that feels he’s not getting the most out of life and an underachiever, it put things in perspective. I understand that a boring life and underachieving or getting the most out of it isn’t exactly apples to apples, but I think you get my overall point.
  • MIT Dean to start new type of university, non-profit & centered around virtual online learning, without lectures, classrooms or majors.
  • Buzzfeed – A Man Died After Participating In A Run Requiring Participants To Eat 12 Donuts – The challenge consists of eating a dozen glazed donuts while running five miles in an hour.
  • GIF – Today’s dose of ‘MURICA!
  • Will Ferrell was a guest on Colbert last night dressed in jungle type attire. He told Colbert that since he doesn’t have an animal expert on the show, he’d like to be it. Ferrell then had his helpers hand him a puppy, cat, hamster, and a chicken. He gave them all odd names said they were from exotic locations. It was a good bit.
Posted in Personal | 8 Comments

Bag of Randomness for Friday, February 5, 2016

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  • For over a decade I’ve noticed this one church near the border of Lewisville and Flower Mound with a very tall cross, perhaps 40-feet in the air. It wasn’t large or unsettling to the eye, it was basically a very tall flag pole with a simple cross at the top, and I thought it was kinda cool. Recently I noticed the church has leased the space just underneath the cross and now it serves as a cell phone tower, which makes me uncomfortable for some reason. Here’s a pic if you are interested.
  • About a decade ago WifeGeeding and I was in New York and invited for breakfast at a loyal reader’s house. In our email exchanged, he asked my breakfast preferences, and half jokingly, I stated as long as there wasn’t any seafood I’d be fine. Nothing grosses me out more than food from water and I thought there was no such thing as breakfast made from such stuff. But hey, I’m just a boy from the sticks and I was visiting the cultural melting pot of the world. Thankfully he and his wife cooked an amazing breakfast. However, last night while watching one of our new favorite sitcoms, ‘Life in Pieces’, they were eating something I’ve never heard of for breakfast, lox, which is brined salmon traditionally served on a bagel with cream cheese, and is usually garnished with tomato, sliced red onion, and sometimes capers.
  • My sister says she loves me unconditionally except for how I “disgrace” my East Asian heritage by not eating anything from the water.
  • I say “anything from water” instead of seafood because crawdads and catfish aren’t sea creatures. There’s probably a term that includes all of them, but I don’t know my enemy well enough.
  • WifeGeeding isn’t much for cuddling, but I’m an advocate.
  • The inside of this new passenger 787 without any seats looks fun to play in.
  • Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (someone I’ve always admired) had a good critique of Dirk Nowitzki up until he called him “a one trick pony.” Of all the responses, I liked Chandler Parsons’, “Carried franchise for almost 20 years, Finals MVP, regular season MVP, 6th all-time? Wish I was a 1-trick pony.“
  • I know there’s a lot of drama going on with Cumulus Media (owners of The Ticket) management, and their stock was trading around a quarter, but I decided to roll the dice and pick up some shares earlier this week.  Don’t take my investing advice, I’m no Peter Lynch nor have I slept in a Holiday Inn recently.
  • Tomorrow is the birthday of that Wise County blogging lawyer. Whenever I reference him like, I’m reminded of a quote from one of my all-time favorite shows, ‘Ed‘ on NBC when he’s referred to as the bowling alley lawyer, “I am a lawyer, I own a bowling alley. Two separate things.“
  • That Wise County blogging lawyer made a post yesterday about Martin Shkreli’s congressional hearing. Like many others, I thought the lady behind him looked like Spock in drag.
  • Buzzfeed – A Mouse Has Died Inside A 155-Year-Old Mousetrap In A Museum Exhibit
  • This concrete that comes in rolled sheets is an interesting product, they claim it’s cheaper and easier to use.
  • Goofy interactive political site of the day that allows you to toot your own horn – TrumpDonald.org
  • Quentin Tarantino can get a little too real sometimes – The victim was an authentic Martin from the 1870s, on loan from the Martin Guitar Museum, Ulano said, and everyone was pretty freaked out when they realized what happened.
  • Oil-rich Venezuela is now importing U.S. oil 
  • Today’s dose of ‘MURICA! – The average American will spend 43 days of his life on hold – People who live in Kentucky are the fastest to hang up, followed by those in Ohio, North Carolina, New York and West Virginia. Meanwhile, people in Louisiana, Colorado, Florida, Illinois and Minnesota will stay on hold the longest.
  • Consumerist – Hasbro, Mattel Reportedly Talking About Making One Big Toy Company To End All Others – There’s a Monopoly joke somewhere in there.
  • Imgur – I checked the Rotten Tomatoes percentage for every Best Picture nominee in Academy history. Here’s who they think should’ve won
  • An air of mystery – Schlitterbahn: World’s tallest water coaster coming to Galveston – Schlitterbahn’s MASSIV watercoaster under construction in Galveston will be 926 feet long and will be the world’s tallest watercoaster, with the exact height and opening date yet to be announced
  • The Olympic was the sister ship of the Titanic. Here’s a picture of it before the Titanic sank, and here’s a picture of it after the sinking, complete with lifeboats.
Posted in Personal | 13 Comments