Humanity's ability to screw itself up is amazing.
My wife has problems with caffeine. She gets anxiety. Yet she still craves things that have caffeine in them, when decaf alternatives abound. Maybe the problem lies in the brainwashing that's been programming people to drink coffee for decades, maybe centuries. People don't need caffeine in the morning. They only believe they do, because that's what's been fed to their brains all their lives. Just like people think beer is so great- no it's not. Both taste like ass, but they're extremely well-marketed. Commercials make them seem like they're the best part of waking up, or else that your life is dull and boring without a beer in your hand.
I'll admit, I have a beer or two socially, even though deep down I find it undesirable. But as an american male, I feel like I have to have a beer once in a while, lest I decrease my man-level in the eyes of my fellow-men. Why? Because or marketing indoctrination. I used to drink coffee too, but then it occurred to me that I had to drown it with cream and sugar just to make it taste acceptable. Coffee and beer both are bitter, unpleasant tasting. Maybe it's just me and my sweet tooth. but even water is more palatable than coffee or beer.
It's also just another example of people thinking they can just shove something down their throat and make it all better... caffeine, alcohol, drugs... why can't people face the day on their own any more? Is life so bad?
Here's a blog I found that has some recommendations for starting the day without caffeine:
7-tips-for-morning-alertness-without-the-caffeine
My own routine in the morning is Orange Juice and last night's Daily Show with Jon Stewart on DVR.
If you actually enjoy the taste of barley and hops, by all means drink up. If you actually like the taste of coffee, or need it to help you poop, enjoy, but maybe cut back, or drink decaffeinated. But think about why you drink these things and whether it's actually a good idea or not. Are you needlessly addicted? Are you just letting marketing run your life?
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Not My World Cup of Tea
The World Cup is over. Yay for Spain.
Does anyone who wasn't born in Spain care?
I tried to watch some of it. Games were on in the morning as I got ready for work. That's how I got into Buffy the Vampire Slayer years ago, watching morning reruns. But as I watched soccer, it didn't take long to figure out why americans don't care for it- nothing happens. They kick the ball around a huge grassy surface with nothing of interest happening until someone manages to get the ball within striking distance- and that doesn't happen very often.
I'll admit I know nothing about the rules and strategy of soccer. I never played as a child as many other children do. But I also know little about strategy of ice hockey, and that's enjoyable to watch. When you boil both games down to their base essentials, they're the same game. Two teams compete to move an object across a playing surface and deposit it in the opponent's goal area. The differences sprout from there. One game is on grass, the other on ice. One is played with feet and the other with sticks. One with a ball, other with a puck.
Those differences alone aren't big deals. The biggest difference I see is the size of the playing surface and the number of players. Hockey is much smaller and with fewer players on the ice at any given time. The soccer field is gigantic. This works against soccer because it takes an excruciatingly long time to get the ball down the field. It hangs up in the air too long, and it's too easily disrupted by defenders. In hockey, a team can move the puck down the ice and attempt to score in a matter of seconds, resulting in 25-50 shots-on-goal a game, several them exciting even if they don't go in. Soccer enjoys a fraction of that.
Hockey, like other sports americans enjoy, benefits from non-scoring plays that are actually exciting and entertaining to watch. There are big hits, nifty stick handling & passing that build the excitement before a shot is fired. Watching midfield soccer is naptime. Turnovers in soccer are non-events. They seem to happen all the time. In American Football a turnover is a big deal, and often determines who wins the game. Turnovers in basketball can also result in big momentum swings.
Some sports are just fantastic on TV. Soccer aint one of them. In order to cover enough of the playing surface, the camera has to be so far back that you can't tell one player from another. When you can't identify the star player, a team lacks marketable character. It may as well be a video game where all the sprites are identical.
Soccer is the most watched sport in the world. But cricket, field hockey and ping pong also rate highly on that list, so there's no accounting for taste, or entertainment value. Some non-american people enjoy soccer because they have been raised on soccer. Others simply have no alternative in their native country. One thing they certainly enjoy about soccer is that they're better at it than we americans are. At least once every four years they can kick our ass and feel great about it. But seriously now, if we actually cared... if we even tried to compete... does anyone think we couldn't win it all? Our women did it a while back, right? If we raised soccer stars from a young age the way we raise and cultivate football stars and backetball stars and baseball stars and even golf stars, we'd be a major soccer power in the world. But american children get bored with playing soccer, and american adults have more entertaining alternatives to watch. We simply have better things to do.
Does anyone who wasn't born in Spain care?
I tried to watch some of it. Games were on in the morning as I got ready for work. That's how I got into Buffy the Vampire Slayer years ago, watching morning reruns. But as I watched soccer, it didn't take long to figure out why americans don't care for it- nothing happens. They kick the ball around a huge grassy surface with nothing of interest happening until someone manages to get the ball within striking distance- and that doesn't happen very often.
I'll admit I know nothing about the rules and strategy of soccer. I never played as a child as many other children do. But I also know little about strategy of ice hockey, and that's enjoyable to watch. When you boil both games down to their base essentials, they're the same game. Two teams compete to move an object across a playing surface and deposit it in the opponent's goal area. The differences sprout from there. One game is on grass, the other on ice. One is played with feet and the other with sticks. One with a ball, other with a puck.
Those differences alone aren't big deals. The biggest difference I see is the size of the playing surface and the number of players. Hockey is much smaller and with fewer players on the ice at any given time. The soccer field is gigantic. This works against soccer because it takes an excruciatingly long time to get the ball down the field. It hangs up in the air too long, and it's too easily disrupted by defenders. In hockey, a team can move the puck down the ice and attempt to score in a matter of seconds, resulting in 25-50 shots-on-goal a game, several them exciting even if they don't go in. Soccer enjoys a fraction of that.
Hockey, like other sports americans enjoy, benefits from non-scoring plays that are actually exciting and entertaining to watch. There are big hits, nifty stick handling & passing that build the excitement before a shot is fired. Watching midfield soccer is naptime. Turnovers in soccer are non-events. They seem to happen all the time. In American Football a turnover is a big deal, and often determines who wins the game. Turnovers in basketball can also result in big momentum swings.
Some sports are just fantastic on TV. Soccer aint one of them. In order to cover enough of the playing surface, the camera has to be so far back that you can't tell one player from another. When you can't identify the star player, a team lacks marketable character. It may as well be a video game where all the sprites are identical.
Soccer is the most watched sport in the world. But cricket, field hockey and ping pong also rate highly on that list, so there's no accounting for taste, or entertainment value. Some non-american people enjoy soccer because they have been raised on soccer. Others simply have no alternative in their native country. One thing they certainly enjoy about soccer is that they're better at it than we americans are. At least once every four years they can kick our ass and feel great about it. But seriously now, if we actually cared... if we even tried to compete... does anyone think we couldn't win it all? Our women did it a while back, right? If we raised soccer stars from a young age the way we raise and cultivate football stars and backetball stars and baseball stars and even golf stars, we'd be a major soccer power in the world. But american children get bored with playing soccer, and american adults have more entertaining alternatives to watch. We simply have better things to do.
Dream Theater at The Palladium - Review
I got to see one of my favorite bands live Saturday. Dream Theater is one of the more successful progressive metal bands you're never heard of. I don't know anything about music to explain what "progressive" means, but if you're into metal, you may enjoy prog without even knowing it. Queensryche's Operation Mindcrime is one of the most commercially popular prog albums, and Iron Maiden's recent albums have been on the progressive side.
Dream Theater doesn't get much radio play, but they're masters of their craft. Technical and complicated, I like to call it "metal for musicians" because so many musicians tend to love their music since they can appreciate what it takes to produce it. But they also have enough songs accessible to an average metal fan. While they don't have many high-energy arena anthems, they specialize in beauty and uniqueness in their catalog that ranges from crunching to catchy to inspirational to depressing. They mostly stuck to their heavier stuff, ones with a lot of vocal-less stretches, and a lot of solos- including a lengthy duelling solo between guitarist John Petrucci and keyboardist Jordan Rudess. The set list (if I recall correctly): A Nightmare to Remember, Constant Motion, A Rite of Passage, Home, Wither, Hollow Years, As I Am, Panic Attack, The Mirror, Lie, Pull Me Under (with a bit of a medley of other Images and Words songs), and the encore (much to my satisfaction) was The Count of Tuscany. They have a tendency to throw in some unexpected deviations, and in this case, Mike Portnoy sang a few lines of "C" is for Cookie during the opening number. I think the only albums they left out were Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence and When Dream and Day Unite.
Their songs can be challenging, even just to toe-tap along with. The challenge is increased when you're watching them live with not much previous listening, because rock concerts are so loud lately that the music is drowned out by its own noise. That's what my wife graciously put up with for the 2+ hours. If I didn't already know all the songs they performed, I wouldn't have known what I was hearing.
Is it just me? Does anybody else think loud rock shows lack musical clarity? It seems like nobody else cares that the sound breaks up into indiscernible racket. It's ruining my enthusiasm to go see my faves perform live.
As for the Palladium itself, what a dump. It's described as a club, but other than a club-like bar area, it's a concert hall. The balcony has auditorium seating with good sight-lines. What it doesn't have is air-conditioning, or even a friggin FAN, and in July that's bad. It wasn't the hottest show I'd ever been at. Iron Maiden at the Orpheum in Boston in August claims that record (it had no climate control as well). But it was plenty uncomfortable. My wife and I agreed it's times like those that we're glad we're both thin and not rubbin up against everyone around us.
In addition to the temperature, the band literally brought the house down (in little bits). I got a light shower of what I assume was disintegrated plaster throughout the show, The ceiling was literally falling- not life threatening, but yikes.
So the Palladium is decent as a smallish, intimate venue, but not on a hot summer night... not up on the balcony at least.
Dream Theater doesn't get much radio play, but they're masters of their craft. Technical and complicated, I like to call it "metal for musicians" because so many musicians tend to love their music since they can appreciate what it takes to produce it. But they also have enough songs accessible to an average metal fan. While they don't have many high-energy arena anthems, they specialize in beauty and uniqueness in their catalog that ranges from crunching to catchy to inspirational to depressing. They mostly stuck to their heavier stuff, ones with a lot of vocal-less stretches, and a lot of solos- including a lengthy duelling solo between guitarist John Petrucci and keyboardist Jordan Rudess. The set list (if I recall correctly): A Nightmare to Remember, Constant Motion, A Rite of Passage, Home, Wither, Hollow Years, As I Am, Panic Attack, The Mirror, Lie, Pull Me Under (with a bit of a medley of other Images and Words songs), and the encore (much to my satisfaction) was The Count of Tuscany. They have a tendency to throw in some unexpected deviations, and in this case, Mike Portnoy sang a few lines of "C" is for Cookie during the opening number. I think the only albums they left out were Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence and When Dream and Day Unite.
Their songs can be challenging, even just to toe-tap along with. The challenge is increased when you're watching them live with not much previous listening, because rock concerts are so loud lately that the music is drowned out by its own noise. That's what my wife graciously put up with for the 2+ hours. If I didn't already know all the songs they performed, I wouldn't have known what I was hearing.
Is it just me? Does anybody else think loud rock shows lack musical clarity? It seems like nobody else cares that the sound breaks up into indiscernible racket. It's ruining my enthusiasm to go see my faves perform live.
As for the Palladium itself, what a dump. It's described as a club, but other than a club-like bar area, it's a concert hall. The balcony has auditorium seating with good sight-lines. What it doesn't have is air-conditioning, or even a friggin FAN, and in July that's bad. It wasn't the hottest show I'd ever been at. Iron Maiden at the Orpheum in Boston in August claims that record (it had no climate control as well). But it was plenty uncomfortable. My wife and I agreed it's times like those that we're glad we're both thin and not rubbin up against everyone around us.
In addition to the temperature, the band literally brought the house down (in little bits). I got a light shower of what I assume was disintegrated plaster throughout the show, The ceiling was literally falling- not life threatening, but yikes.
So the Palladium is decent as a smallish, intimate venue, but not on a hot summer night... not up on the balcony at least.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Welcome to Worldwide MEH!
Hello, and welcome to Worldwide MEH!
This blog will contain thoughts and commentary by an average american male, about everyday issues.
I decided to start this blog, partly to make a little of my own noise in a world that's getting noisier each day; but I'll also be interested to see what, if any, response comes of this endeavor. I'll start by offering my two cents on some current issues of varying social relevance. Stay tuned...
This blog will contain thoughts and commentary by an average american male, about everyday issues.
I decided to start this blog, partly to make a little of my own noise in a world that's getting noisier each day; but I'll also be interested to see what, if any, response comes of this endeavor. I'll start by offering my two cents on some current issues of varying social relevance. Stay tuned...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)