Swear jars

June 16, 2007


It’s been a while since a random You Tube.

Here’s one that’s been circulating around the ad biz for a while. We’d all make a lot less money if we had to throw money into a swear jar.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Random YouTube |

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The birth and death of King James

June 15, 2007


I’ve been strangely silent throughout this NBA Playoff racket, a series of games that seemed to have lasted seventeen months, two weeks and three days. So why am I saying anything at all?

Well, first of all, I’m happy for the Spurs.

That’s right. I hate the Spurs. Still, I respect them. I realize that they have great players, selfless players that do everything possible to win, every day, all the time. I love the idea that they have stuck together, that they have bonded unlike any other professional team, with a consistent coach and a consistent leader. I love the team’s superb eye for international talent; how they can draft a random foreign nobody and let him develop on his own, supported by the greatest team players ever to grace the court.

I hate them for this reason, but I respect them as well. Nobody should be that good. Nobody should be that boring, that foul happy, that ingratiating to the refs and opposing fans, yet still be as effective and efficient as possible. They have a smugness that they’ve earned, so they wear it well. It’s too easy to hate them, I know. But we all hate them just the same.

In the late 80s, as a blossoming Chicago Bulls fan, I hated the Pistons in much the same way. They were unbeatable. They won their own way. I now look back and respect many of the players from that team – Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer, Joe Dumars – all players that I’d love to have on my team today. That’s this Spurs team. They methodically grind down their opponents and systematically create a hostile environment. They are too good. And they need to be vanquished.

Those Pistons teams were finally vanquished by Michael Jordan, our league’s Lord and Savior, the one man that brought ratings to highs unheard of today. This year, we had our own Michael Jordan – the young upstart ready to break through the old guard and make his name known. LeBron James. The new Lord, the King, the high-flying superstar ready to make the leap.

He didn’t, though. He fizzled, a star burned out before he was ready. Much like Michael Jordan did. Two years in a row, Jordan slammed into a wall of Pistons and two years in a row left defeated. People questioned his heart, his talent, his ability to win the big one.

Eventually he did. Six times. That’s where LeBron is right now – he’s slamming into his own barriers. Some say he was lucky to get past the Pistons this year. I think that’s partly true – the Pistons are not what they used to be, and LeBron showed us what he can do.

But when you head into a series with just your own back to depend on, with a lower-tier cast filled with the too-young and too-slow, you risk looking horrible regardless of what you could do otherwise. LeBron had a horrible series. Hell, everyone had a horrible series. These Finals were dreadful to watch. No one could hit a shot to save his life. And it became one of the lowest rated Finals ever.

So with that, LeBron has slammed into the next wall. He’s discovered what it’s like to face a Western Conference team in a seven game series. He was swept by a compact winning machine, a team that wastes no movement and no time in ruining its opponents and sending them back to their hometown.

The Spurs are champions for a reason. But don’t think we’ve heard the last of LeBron. Let’s just hope that, at this time next year, we have a more balanced set of conferences, a faster style of basketball, a couple of teams that people actually want to see and some storylines that pan out as actually exciting.

Because as much as I love this game, the last three series of the playoffs were like pulling teeth.

Tags: Basketball, Sports |

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Enchiladas as life

June 13, 2007


Here’s something I thought about on the way to work today.

What is more important – a business that does lots of things pretty well, or a business that does one thing perfectly?

Some people might go for the first. I know a few myself. They’d rather grab everything they can in one fell swoop, knowing that, while there may be problems, the ordeal will at least be convenient. This is the Wal-Mart approach – cater to everyone with everything, regardless of how well it’s done. It has merit. It’s easy to get things done in one quick errand. It saves time, and gives a survey of the day’s shopping without leaving the building.

I, personally, go for the second – the boutique environment, specialized and perfected. I would rather buy my CDs from a music store, not Best Buy. I would rather buy my sports equipment from Scheel’s, not Target. These stores have the ability to offer more specialized product that a larger, more diversified store cannot.

Consider the restaurant industry.

I understand the allure of a restaurant that spans an entire horizon of cuisine. Some restaurants seem to latch onto the ideal of serving more items and giving a choice, because choice is always better.

But my favorite restaurants don’t do that. Instead of serving 25 pretty good entrées, they serve two or three. They do one thing, and they do it better than anyone else.

We have a restaurant in Downtown Sioux Falls called Mama’s Ladas. They sell one thing – enchiladas. I have gone to Mexican restaurants and had enchiladas – lots and lots of enchiladas – and none have matched up to the ones at Mama’s Ladas. They have taken one thing and perfected it.

I often think of this when I’m stretching myself too thin. I would like to be a brilliant writer, a prolific reader, a perfect future father and loving husband, a unceasingly effective home caretaker and healthy, in-shape human. I’d also like to be up to date on current pop culture, sports, video games and online writing. I’d love to be a beer connoisseur, a purveyor of fine arts and a snappy dresser.

But I only have the time, the means and the energy to perfect two or three of those things. It’s impossible to be everything to everyone and do it perfectly. So I’ve started stripping some of my wants and focusing on doing the things I do well. Instead of being known as a true renaissance man – a “jack of all trades, master of none” – I’ve decided to just be myself and serve up the dish I’m known for.

Which reminds me. I’m hungry.

Tags: On... |

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Broken molars

June 11, 2007


Intrusive. Awkward. Banal. Antisepticised and stretched taut with rubber.

Have you ever chewed on your fingernails? You know the taste you get, like a grinded piece of old plastic, dark and deep yet earthy and natural?

Mix that taste with cinnamon, then scrape at your eyelid.

That, to me, is the dentist.

It’s a common fear – one that’s so often used that it’s become a frightfully easy cliché. But it’s mine. Not a fear, per se, but a dread – a sneaking, looming rain cloud over the picnic that is my life. It’s like ants in my sandwich, except the only way the ants can be released is by numbing my hand, removing the sandwich and drilling a hole into it.

Somehow – I don’t know why, I wish I knew when – I broke my tooth. A clean crack has appeared straight through my bottom left backmost molar. It has come loose from the main tooth, secured and propped in place by gums and other teeth. It’s broken – a pretty smooth break that could be along the line of an older filling or could be a fresh new problem – and it just, well, happened.

And now I have to go to the dentist. A month early. I don’t like the checkups. I don’t like leaning back and staring into a too-bright light while a bearded man whose hands taste like latex prods and pokes and scrapes at my sensitive champers. I mean, 30% of my teeth have been drilled and filled already – it’s not like I have anything to be accountable for anymore.

Yet, still I go. I called yesterday and was instructed to come in ASAP. There’s no pain in my newly cloven molar, but it’s enough of a red flag to warrant an “emergency” meeting. And by “emergency,” they probably mean “costly.”

A month later, I’ll be back for my cleaning.

I hate the dentist. Have I mentioned that before?

Tags: Annoyances, Vilhauer |

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At the dog park

June 8, 2007


'Dog Park' by Donna ColemanI always wonder what dogs think when they’re thrown into a situation filled with other dogs.

For instance: today we took Becket to the dog park. Once there, he encountered at least 15-20 other dogs, all running around in circles, sniffing each other’s privates and drinking each other’s saliva. Becket would prance from dog to dog, encountering not just a new animal, but an entire cacophony of smells – hundreds of pieces of that dog’s environment, clashing together in disharmony.

At times, he would break out into a run in order to follow a group of dogs. Other times, he would completely ignore the same dogs, instead focusing on a section of fence line or a specific spot in the grass. When we wanted him to run, he would stand and sniff. When we wanted him to stay or come, he would barrel off. He was in his own world.

At the dog park, you’re not in human territory anymore. Human rules don’t hold up. With the thousands of scents left by former dogs, it could only be doggy paradise.

No one is in charge at the dog park. No dog is more important than the others. Such is the benefit of a dog park – everyone is on equal footing. Each human takes care of everyone else’s dogs.

Every dog is friendly. Scuffles are laughed off, with even the dogs seemingly shaking it off and retreating to another new friend. People who wouldn’t normally talk are amazingly latched together, all by virtue of a common thread – dogs, and the love for them.

What do dogs think when they meet not just one new friend, but a dozen? How does the overabundance of scents affect their noses? Are they having fun? Or are they just over-stimulated enough to become docile?

The only thing I’m sure of is that Becket seemed to smile the entire time.

Tags: Outdoors |

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Two wheels and the dirt

June 7, 2007


It’s always weird to get back on my bike.

For years, we were inseparable. Being a college student without a car, I made my bike my primary mode of transport. I rode every day, from home to work, from work to my friend’s house, from my friend’s house to home. I would ride it to the Mall. I would ride it to the library, from one side of town to the other, letting the road be swept behind, silenced by the hum of the knobs on my mountain bike tire – each knob working together to keep me upright, creating a harmony of balance upon the asphalt.

I used to say I was a bike person. Not true. Really, I wasn’t a bike person – I was simply too cheap to buy a car. I would have loved to have the freedom that came with being able to go anywhere quickly, regardless of weather – in rain or snow or suffocating winds.

Instead, I found a different kind of freedom. Sitting upon a bike seat, floating on two tubes of stale air, you feel a rush of wind that you can only get on a motorcycle. It’s a breeze that doesn’t just blow your hair back – it envelops your body. It glides through the hairs on your arms and escapes under your clothing. It stings your eyes when it’s cold, and brings tears when the wind crosses it incorrectly.

It’s freedom from anything. Your bike can go places your car can’t, and it can go faster than you could on foot. You can cruise downhill as if tied to the end of a bungee cord, friction holding you back from burning a hole through the cement. Off road sends you bounding around like a pinball. The speed is relative – 15 miles per hour feels like 100.

So I’ve started riding my bike again – strapped to the top of the car in the morning, strapped between my legs on the way home. And, though the winds can be horrible and the route can be unruly, it gives me time to think – time to unwind fully, in a way that the fitness center never can.

It’s peace and quiet in a city filled with noise. It’s a float through 5:00 traffic, weaving between people and cars and buildings as if the laws didn’t pertain to me. It’s just me, my bike, and my music. Even though I sometimes go out of my way, it’s still the best part of my day so far.

So if you see a guy riding a Gary Fisher mountain bike with peeling paint (after ten years of abuse) and an over-large helmet (the same ten years) down Western Avenue near 57th street around 5:00 PM, you’ll know it’s me.

You might think I’m riding my bike. But no.

I’m doing much more than that.

Tags: Outdoors |

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Travelling lit

June 6, 2007


This is my last Millions: A Blog About Books post for a while. I have a funny feeling that I won’t be as willing to write two articles a month about the books I’ve read, you know, because of kids and stuff.

Anyway, for this last one (for now) I touched upon travel lit, specifically Travels with Charley.

From Millions: A Blog About Books:

If there was one thing the book renewed, it was the wanderlust feeling of adventure that a travel novel can bring out. I found that old feeling of vicarious living, meeting and getting to know people from around the country right along with the author, as if acting as a resident intern assigned to proof the pages as they are being written.

And these pages, older as they might seem, are far from dated. Good travel literature touches upon more than just the sites and scenes - it frames the human condition at the point of travel. This point - the late 50s in the United States, shortly after the Interstates were designed but far before they stretched from coast to coast - is brilliantly illustrated in Steinbeck’s attempt to find the America he thought he had forgotten. After living in New York, sheltered from his people and as far away from native Salinas as possible, he sought out the real American voice.

So yeah — go check it out.

Tags: Books, Literature |

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