Chloe amused
The many faces of 24’s Chloe O’Brian, played by Mary Lynn Rajskub:
Chloe excited
Chloe enthusiastic
Chloe optimistic
Chloe content
Chloe overjoyed
Archive for January, 2010
The Following Takes Place Between 6 p.m and 7 p.m…
January 19, 2010Bullets Fever, Happens to Me Every Year, Bullets Fever, and this Year’s the One…
January 17, 2010Somehow I started thinking about Nils Lofgren’s classic song “Bullets Fever,” which told the story of the Washington Bullets 1978 NBA championship. I remember writing down all the words in pencil at the time, and I kept it for years and years. I found it recently but it was all moldy so I had to throw it out. (Poor Nils. 30 years in the E Street band playing alongside Bruce Springsteen and some of the songs he’s most known for are “Bullets Fever and the classic “Jhoon Rhee” commercial – jhoon-rhee-nobody-bothers-me-nobody-bothers-me-either. Of course Nils is known as one of the best musicians in the band).
That year, 1978, was the first year I was a sports fan. The Bullets won the NBA title. Still waiting to get back there. I’ve written in previous blogs that the Wizards should go back to their old name of the Bullets. Of course, after the Gilbert Arenas fiasco, that’s not likely to happen anytime soon.
About 15 years ago I was working as a traffic reporter. There was this one station that wanted a female reporter to sing a different song every day before the traffic report. Actually, now I remember – it was WTEM, the sportsradio station and the show was the Tony Kornheiser show. I filled in for her one day and sang Bullets Fever. That was the first and last time I sang on the radio.
Anyway, here are the words. You can find the tune somewhere on the internet. (Sorry, I can’t figure out how to space the text properly in WordPress.)
Bullets Fever! Happens to me every year
Bullets Fever. And this year’s the one
Bullets Fever. Got the Doctor and the Iceman
Bullets Fever. Seattle was stunned
You’ve gotta be a fan from old DC
To know what the Bullets mean to me
To see them get up and go all the way
For me Bullets Fever is here to stay
Bullets Fever! Happens to me every year
Bullets Fever. And this year’s the one
Bullets Fever. Got the Doctor and the Iceman
Bullets Fever. Seattle was stunned
C.J. and Larry, Greg, Joe and Mitch
Ran the Bomb Squad into a ditch
C.J. Tom and Larry are fast as light
Kevin, Bobby and Elvin they shoot out of sight
Aint it beautiful how Bobby D plays so great
With the Big E!
(inaudible) …we blew the Sonics out
Now all the world knows what our team’s about
Bullets Fever! Happens to me every year
Bullets Fever. And this year’s the one
Bullets Fever. Got the Doctor and the Iceman
Bullets Fever. Seattle was stunned
With all his heart Wes fought the west
Now every Bullet wears a champion’s ring
They’ve got our town screaming and stompin’
They turn it into a family thing
Come on coach Motta
King of basketball chess
Come on now fans support them every test
Bullets Fever! Happens to me every year
Bullets Fever. And this year’s the one
Bullets Fever. Beat the best in the world
Bullets Fever. Now we’re number one!
Bullets Fever. Come on Bobby D
Bullets Fever. Put in a swish for me
Bullets Fever. Let’s see that turnaround, Mr. Hayes
Bullets Fever. See your play is amazing
Bullets Fever. Hey Dick and Bernie, we’re pulling for you
Bullets Fever. Dreams come true
Number one, number one…
WIZARDS FALL TO BULLS IN 2 OT, 121-119. Rose Leads Chicago with 37 and Game-Winning Shot.
January 16, 2010By Mike Frandsen
The Wizards fell to the Chicago Bulls 121-119 last night in a double overtime classic in Chicago. Antawn Jamison’s 34 points and 18 rebounds weren’t enough as Chicago’s Derrick Rose scored a career high 37, including the game-winner in the second overtime. The game featured 29 ties and 23 lead changes.
Caron Butler scored 27 for the Wizards and Brendan Haywood had 16 points and a career high 20 rebounds for Washington. Wizards coach Flip Saunders relied heavily on his starters. Butler played 56 minutes and Jamison played 55.
Earlier in the day, Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas pleaded guilty to a felony gun charge. The undermanned Wizards, playing without the suspended Arenas and Javaris Crittenton, had just 6 turnovers in a well-played game by both teams. Wizards guard Randy Foye had 22 points and seven assists though he missed shots at the end of each overtime.
Rose made a short jumper from the left baseline to tie the game at 104 with 26 seconds left in regulation. Kirk Hinrich stole the ball from Randy Foye with 5.1 seconds left in regulation.
Rose also made the game winner, a short jump hook in the lane with 5.4 seconds left in the second extra period.
The win was the fourth in a row for the Bulls while the Wizards lost their fourth consecutive game. Washington takes on the Sacramento Kings tonight at 7 at the Verizon Center.
Actual Match.com Email Exchange
January 14, 2010Actual match.com email exchange from two weeks ago:
Me: (I “winked” at her – admittedly a lazy thing to do instead of emailing).
Her: I enjoyed your profile. Specifically your timeline of events and your clarity on having kids, refreshing. Great pics. Also nice to have an MBA make good money and still be liberal and believe in universal healthcare, even more refreshing.
Off to the gym this morning, perhaps we can extend this into an exchange then a conversation?
Me: Thanks for the email. I have to admit I don’t make much money right now working with kids. But let me know if you’d still like to meet.
Mike
Her: No response.
My comment: I have seen a lot of women who marry partly for the money, and it is true that they are happy — for the first five years or so.
New Rule: Washington D.C. residents need to know the names of the local NBA, NHL, and MLB teams (Wizards, Caps, Nats)
January 13, 2010I’m making a new rule. If you live in the Washington, D.C. metro area, you need to know that the Wizards are the area’s pro basketball team, the Capitals are the hockey team, and the Nationals are the baseball team. (Everybody knows that the Redskins are the football team, and unfortunately, it’s too much to ask for people to know that the soccer team is D.C. United).
Last night I met a woman who didn’t know who the Wizards were. When I told her they were Washington’s NBA team, she laughed and said, “Oh yeah, but they’re new – they’re an expansion team.” Then I told her that, no, the Wizards were the Bullets before that, and they won the NBA championship in 1978 and appeared in the finals three other times in the 70s. Both the Wizards and the Caps franchises have been in D.C. for nearly 40 years, and the Bullets were in Baltimore before that.
(The current state of the Wizards is irrelevant. I predicted disaster for this team in my blogs before the season began).
This has happened now almost 10 times to my estimation – someone doesn’t know who the Wizards are, doesn’t know who the Caps are, or mixes them both up. This isn’t like the 140-question test on football that one of the characters in the movie “Diner” gave to his fiancé. Just know the basics. The names of the teams. If you don’t, it’s disrespectful. Disrespectful to yourself, to Washington, to your country, and disrespectful to God.
It’s like with the news. I may not be an expert, but I can at least tell you the very basics. I also think people who live here should know the very basics about area geography.
One time I mentioned to a lifelong area resident something about the Caps. “Oh, they’re the basketball team, right?” “No, they’re the hockey team,” I said.
A month later, I mentioned something about the Wizards and Caps. “Which one is the basketball team?” she said.
About another month later, she still didn’t know the difference between the Wizards and the Caps.
Is it too much to ask that you know who the local sports teams are? I’d never expect anyone to know that D.C. United is the pro soccer team, though it’d be nice. The Nationals have only been around for five seasons so not knowing them might be slightly less egregious.
The Bullets had two of the NBA’s all-time greatest players – Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld. Hayes was known as the “Big E.” The crowd at the Capital Centre used to say, “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…” when he went up for one of his patented fadeaway jumpers. He was also a great rebounder and shot blocker. Unseld was a center who played great defense and was an excellent rebounder. He won the Rookie of the Year award and the MVP award in the same season. His specialty was the outlet pass over his head all the way down the court. I know, nobody cares. I’ll probably save this stuff for another blog post.
The Caps made the Stanley Cup finals in 1998 and the semifinals twice, in 1990 and last year. They have the greatest player in the world in Alex Ovechkin.
Just like local residents should know about the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the White House, and the museums, you should also at least know who the local sports teams are.
Mark McGwire and Steroids
January 12, 2010Mark McGwire’s admission of using steroids and human growth hormone (HGH) is no surprise. Baseball knew about it and looked the other way. I look back to how Jose Canseco was universally ridiculed years ago for saying that much of baseball was using steroids. It turns out he was right. People don’t like it when you speak the truth.
What’s surprising is that there’s no outcry about steroids in football. Obviously many players are using steroids or HGH, which is not detected by tests. It’s true that baseball’s records are considered sacred, and people would probably be more accepting of football players using steroids, but steroids and HGH still give players a huge unfair advantage.
The average weight of an offensive lineman in the NFL is about 310 pounds. Thirty years ago it was about 260. Not all of that can be accounted for with improved weight training and nutrition. When you see wide receivers with huge arms that look like they’re flexed when they’re not, and they recover from broken legs in less than two months to play again, it’s pretty suspicious. Thirty years ago you didn’t see any wide receivers like that.
In 2006 former Redskins tackle Jon Jansen said a large number of NFL players were using performance enhancers. “When there is something out there that people believe is going to help them, we’d be very naive and foolish to think that if you can’t test for it, guys are going to try it,” Jansen said. “Right now there is not a test for HGH, and when they develop that, I hope the NFL will institute that in our drug policy.” Jansen backed off his statements when he was told to be quiet.
So the NFL now is just as bad as baseball was in the 1990s. They turn the other way even though a very large number of ex-players die decades earlier than they should. For years the NFL ignored the problems of concussions, while former players came down with early dementia.
Former Pittsburgh Steelers offensive lineman Steve Courson wrote in his book “False Glory” that coach Chuck Noll “conveniently and most definitely turned his head to it.” The word is that the Steelers, who won four Super Bowls in the 1970s, were one of the first teams to use steroids.
Former NFL player and coach Jim Haslett said “It started, really, in Pittsburgh. They got an advantage on a lot of football teams. They were so much stronger (in the) ’70s, late ’70s, early ’80s,” Haslett said in 2005. “They’re the ones who kind of started it.”
Bug Juice
January 12, 2010If you scroll down a little bit, you’ll see a post I wrote about healthy juice drinks. Today I grabbed a Sobe Life Water Pomegranate Cherry. It tasted pretty good. The main problem was that it had too much sugar — 24 grams in the bottle. A lot less than in a Coke but still a lot more than necessary. It has some vitamins in it which is good. I was a little disappointed not to see pomegranate or cherry juice listed under the ingredients but it looks like they’re covered under “natural flavors.”
Then I noticed another ingredient: “cochineal extract (color).” Turns out, cochineal is a bug. More accurately, according to Wikipedia, “The Cochineal (Dactylopius coccus) is a scale insect in the suborder Sternorrhyncha, from which the crimson-coloured dye carmine is derived. A primarily sessile parasite…” So Sobe Lifewater has dead bugs in it. I guess that’s better than live bugs.
A female cochineal beetle.
But it gets better. Wikipedia goes on: “The insect produces carminic acid that deters predation by other insects. Carminic acid, which occurs as 17-24% of the weight of the dry insects, can be extracted from the insect’s body and eggs and mixed with aluminum or calcium salts to make carmine dye (also known as cochineal).[1] Carmine is today primarily used as a food colouring and for cosmetics.”
I had to admit, the drink did have a nice, reddish/maroon color. More: “Cochineal is one of the colours that the Hyperactive Children’s Support Group recommends be eliminated from the diet of hyperactive children.”
So I went to a drug store and looked at some of the red drinks. Sure enough, some of them had “cochineal” in them. Actually, it’s in a lot of foods: “Together with ammonium carmine they can be found in meat, sausages, processed poultry products (meat products cannot be coloured in the United States unless they are labeled as such), surimi, marinades, alcoholic drinks, bakery products and toppings, cookies, desserts, icings, pie fillings, jams, preserves, gelatin desserts, juice beverages, varieties of cheddar cheese and other dairy products, sauces, and sweets.”
The good news is that the Food and Drug Administration will require all foods and cosmetics containing cochineal in them to be labeled as such, starting NEXT YEAR (January 5, 2011).
How about using beet juice or purple carrot juice for coloring? Not a sermon, just a thought.
Or maybe just switch to water.
Revised Cover Letter: Lowered Expectations
January 12, 2010To Whom It May Concern:
I am looking for a job. My experience is listed on the attached my resume. I am available for an interview at your convenience store.
Cardinals 51-45 win over Packers brings back memories of Packers 48-47 win over Redskins in 1983
January 11, 2010Yesterday’s 51-45 win by the Arizona Cardinals over the Green Bay Packers in the playoffs brought back memories of another high scoring game the Packers were involved in a quarter-century ago.
On October 17, 1983, the Packers beat the Washington Redskins, 48-47 in the highest scoring game in Monday Night Football history. It was a game that featured the most prolific scoring offense in the NFL at the time. The Redskins finished that season scoring 541 points, then an NFL record.
The two games had a lot of similarities and some differences. Yesterday’s game had 96 points; 26 years ago the Packers and the Skins scored 95. That game resulted in 1025 total yards while yesterday’s battle had 1024 yards of offense.
While yesterday’s game featured a big comeback as the Packers tied it at 38 and 45 after being down by 21, the 1983 contest featured five lead changes in the final period.
Aaron Rodgers set a Green Bay playoff record with 422 yards passing, connecting on 28 of 42 attempts for four touchdowns. So Rodgers, not Brett Favre, owns the Packers record for most passing yards in playoff game. Even more impressive was that Kurt Warner, playing against the NFL’s second-ranked defense and without starter Anquan Boldin, was 29 of 33 for 379 yards with five TDs and no interceptions.
In 1983, Washington’s Joe Theismann completed 27 of 39 passes for 398 yards, two TDs, and no interceptions. Green Bay’s Lynn Dickey completed 22 of 30 passes for 387 yards and three TDs.
Each game had one team with a great rushing attack. The Cardinals had 156 yards on the ground. The Redskins rushed for 184.
Interestingly, Russ Grimm was a part of both games. The former Redskins guard is an assistant coach with the Cardinals. Grimm is a future Hall of Famer and a future NFL head coach.
After the game, Theismann said, “It never stopped. Grimm said ‘Let’s go.’ I said ‘Why? We just scored.’ And he said ‘So did they.'”
After yesterday’s game, Warner said, “Whew. Anybody else tired?”
Neil Rackers missed a 34-yard field goal at the end of regulation that would have won the game for Arizona.
Mark Moseley missed a 39-yarder with three seconds to go that would have won the game for Washington.
Washington won its next 9 games to finish 14-2, two points away from a perfect 16-0 record. However, the Skins peaked in the first round of the playoffs during a 51-7 win over the Rams, and Washington got crushed in the Super Bowl by the Raiders, 38-9. Giving up 48 points in a single game should have been a sign of things to come.
Likewise, it’s hard to imagine the Cardinals winning the Super Bowl after giving up 45 points in a playoff game.
The offensive performance may have been more impressive in 1983, because offensive statistics are up dramatically from where they were then.
The Skins-Packers game featured four future Hall of Famers: John Riggins (98 yards, two TDs), Art Monk (five catches for 105 yards), Darrell Green, and Grimm (well, Grimm should be in and will probably make it this year). Yesterday’s contest featured a lock for the HOF in Warner, a probable Hall of Famer in Larry Fitzgerald (six catches for 82 yards and two TDs, and other great players like Darnell Dockett of Arizona and Rodgers and Charles Woodson of Green Bay. The 1983 game featured a player who would be named MVP that season (Theismann). Yesterday’s game featured a past NFL MVP (Warner).
(Theismann was NFL MVP in 1983. He has the same number of MVP awards as Dan Marino, John Elway, and Tom Brady (1). Theismann was better than Joe Montana that year and that’s a fact. You don’t have to like it, but you do have to admit it is a fact.)
One of the things I remember most about the 1983 game was the missed field goal by Moseley at the end, because it was so uncharacteristic of him and because if he had made it the ending would have been so great. I also remember thinking that a great team shouldn’t give up 47 points. Because the Skins’ weakness was pass defense, they nicknamed themselves the Pearl Harbor Crew, because they were always being bombed. Green was a rookie, Vernon Dean was a solid corner but not overly fast, and Curtis Jordan was a slow safety. Charles Mann would become a great pass rusher but he was only a rookie too.
The thing I remember most about yesterdays game was Warner’s surgical prescision. He just wouldn’t miss. And I thought that it was a shame that the Packers didn’t go farther than the Vikings this year, though I think most Green Bay fans would be very happy with Rodgers’ year and performance yesterday.
| 2010: Arizona 51,
Green Bay 45 |
1983: Green Bay 48, Washington 47 | |
| Points | 96 | 95 |
| Yards | 1024 | 1025 |
| Final Field Goal Attempt | Neil Rackers, 34-yard miss as time expired | Mark Moseley, 39-yard miss with :03 left |
| Winning QB Stats | Warner: 29-33, 379 yards, 5 TDs, 0 INT | Dickey: 22-30, 387 yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT |
| Losing QB Stats | Rodgers: 28-42, 422 yards, 4 TDs, 1 INT | Theismann: 27-39, 398 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INT |
| Interesting Stat | Two comebacks by Packers from 21 down | 5 lead changes in 4th quarter |
| Quote | Warner: “Whew. Anybody else tired?” | Theismann: “It never stopped. Grimm said ‘Let’s go.’ I said ‘Why? We just scored.’ And he said ‘So did they.'” |
| Hall of Famers | Warner (lock), Fitzgerald (probable), Rodgers (maybe), Charles Woodson (maybe) | John Riggins, Art Monk, Darrell Green, Grimm (probable) |
| Russ Grimm’s role | Cardinals Assistant Coach | Redskins Pro Bowl Guard |
| Did the game feature an NFL MVP? | Yes: Warner (1999, 2001) | Yes: Theismann (1983) |
Honest Tea: Nectar from Heaven?
January 10, 2010I’m still amazed at how great Honest Tea and Honest Ade drinks are. Honest Ade Cranberry Lemonade is the best – it goes down so smoothly and has just the right mix of cranberry juice and lemonade – followed by Peach White Tea and Orange Mango with Mangosteen. The Honest Kids drinks are really good too – they’re light. The pomegranate drinks are a little heavy but maybe that’s just me. Honest Tea/Ade is organic – the most important part of that is that it’s free of pesticides – and it also has less sugar than other drinks. Some of their teas have no sugar at all.
A couple of Izze drinks are giving Honest Ade a run for its money, though. The Sparkling Blackberry is great, and the Sparkling Clementine and Sparkling Grapefruit are very good too. Izze drinks have real juice and “no refined sugars, no caffeine, no preservatives, no artificial colors or flavors.” There are also a lot of Izze drinks I haven’t tried yet.
Ok, now Honest Tea has added Honest KOMBUCHA with probiotics. Sounds great. This is just a little too much to keep up with, though. So anyway, here are my rankings:
1. Honest Ade Cranberry Lemonade
2. Honest Peach White Tea
3. Izze Sparkling Blackberry
4. Honest Ade Orange Mango with Mangosteen
5. (Tie) Honest Kids, Izze Sparkling Clementine
(Yes, I know – I’m doing a blog about Honest Tea and Izze drinks while I have tons of unbelievably important stuff to do).
Mike's Blog 