Author: mjmadaio
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Springsteen “Rehersal” Show, Asbury Park, NJ
Judging from both fan reaction outside the show and from message board postings I’ve read since, most Bruce Springsteen fans will love anything this guy does. Me, I’m not like that. I tend to be more critical of Bruce, because I know what he *can* do. I’ve been there. That’s why, after attending the second of his “rehersal” shows last Friday afternoon in Asbury Park, I was not exactly thrilled with Springsteen’s performance. There were, as always, some amazing highlights, but the entire set was marred by some bad, boring choices. The second half of the show was especially lifeless, leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth despite the much better first half of the show and incredible piano performances. (more…)
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The O.C. Recap 4/21/05
Some interesting storylines are developing…
Trey and that blond hotty — did they set up the Kyle guy? Or is she just a little whore? I can feel a staty rape change coming.
Is Zack setting up Seth? He’s clearly quite happy with the fact that Summer is virtually ready to jump back into his arms. He may not be quite that clever, but he’s certainly enjoying the way this is playing out.
Sooooo sick and tired of this Kirsten / Carter storyline. Didn’t we just watch this with Sandy and Rebecca?
We waited all this time for Death Cab to appear on the show and THAT’S IT??? I can’t imagine anything more anticlimactic. Seth was so busy with all the other crap that was going on, he barely even noticed. They could have devoted an entire plot to his obsession with this show, and instead it was a wasted footnote.
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Vince Carter is Still Overrated
The rallying cry in the NBA seems to be “Vince Carter is back!” after he’s scored 39 points or more in 3 of his last 4 games. My question is this: what has Carter ever actually done? We know this: He’s scored a lot of points, won the slam dunk title, and gone absolutely nowhere in the playoffs. In addition, it seems this season that he purposely tanked games in order to be traded. How is this guy a great player?
A few years back he had that phenomenal series against Philly and seemed to be on the verge of ‘The Leap”, but nothing ever came of it. Oh, and they LOST the series against Philly. Since then, he’s acted like an immature prima donna and hasn’t even helped his team win games. Now he’s back playing well for a short stretch, and all of a sudden he’s a superstar again?
So much emphasis is placed on individual stats and highlight reel plays in the public’s perception of NBA players, but at the end of the day, great players win games. No great player would EVER tank a game for any reason, especially for his own selfish motives. (Can you imagine Bird or Jordan doing that?). Until Vince proves himself with some meaningful Wins, he’s still an also-ran in my book.
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The New Food Pyramid
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has finally released their updated food pyramid. Check out mypyramid.gov for your “personalized” pyramid.
My first thoughts are that this is a huge improvement over the previous pyramid, which has become insanely out of date. Gone is the absurd reliance on all grains, including refined breads and pastas. Gone is the insistence that all oils and fats should be used sparingly. Instead, the new system describes a “Healthy Diet” as one that:
* Emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat milk and milk products;
* Includes lean meats, poultry, fish, beans, eggs, and nuts; and
* Is low in saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, salt (sodium), and added sugars.The food pyramid, while still utilized here, is presented with a twist: individualized plans are based on a person’s age, gender and amount of daily activity. At first this makes perfect sense, because everyone is different and needs to find the diet that works best for them. However, I also have some fears that the added complexity of this individual plan may be a problem for many Americans who have attention spans shorter than your average TV commercial. If people do take the time to research mypyramid.gov, however, they should find some good information that will encourage a healthy lifestyle. (more…)
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Happy Patriot’s Day
As a kid growing up in the Boston area, we always looked forward to Patriot’s Day, a New England-only holiday that occurs on the third Monday in April. Most importantly, this day represented the beginning of “April Vacation”, a week off from school. (In New England, schools have a week-long “February Vacation” and a week-long “April Vacation”. After moving out of the area and realizing that the rest of the country has one week off before or after Easter Sunday, I never did understand the N.E. rules, although perhaps it was to encourage parents not to take their children out of school to go skiing.)
Patriot’s Day, however is much more than just the start of Spring Break in Boston… It’s also the day that they run the Boston Marathon and the day of the only Major League Baseball game that starts before Noon (first pitch at Fenway Park is always at 11:05). So, all over the city, people take the day off and, weather permitting, get drunk while watching sports. It’s no wonder this is such a popular holiday (and why I miss it so much now that I don’t live in the area).
The hilarious thing about all this is that, although I grew up in the Boston area, to this day I had no idea what Patriot’s Day actually celebrated (no, it’s not the football team). So I did some research: It commemerates April 19, 1775 — the battle of Lexington and Concord, the beginning of the Revolutionary War, and Paul Revere’s legendary ride. In fact, re-enacting Revere’s ride is a far longer-standing tradition than the marathon or the Sox game.
Perhaps we should all be celebrating Patriot’s Day after all… (nice spring day, off work… any takers?)
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Books Overview / Da Vinci
I don’t claim to be some kind of literary expert, or even to read all that much, but I do enjoy a good book and will not hesitate to share any interesting reads in this space. I just ask that you not treat me as the New York Times Book Review — I’m just a guy who likes to read from time to time.
I’m also not ashamed to admit that I liked the Da Vinci Code. For some readers, I may have immediately lost all credibility, but let me explain for a minute before you assume my complete ignorance towards the written word.
The way I see it, there are two elements to a great book — the writing and the storytelling. Dan Brown’s writing is not good — but the guy is one heck of a storyteller. Sure, he uses a ton of cliched suspense tactics and makes some questionable assumptions based on historical myths, but the book is one hell of a page turner. Obviously, it would be nice if Brown could have taken his writing to the next level, but not everyone can be Michael Chabon. The best book I’ve read in the past, say 5 years, is, without hesitation, Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. This is also an engrossing story, but, unlike Brown’s book, it is also incredibly well-written. Just a mind-blowing read.
I recently read this book called Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code by historian Bart Ehrman, the point of which was to pick apart the logic behind Brown’s book. And while it is certianly in vogue to prove Brown’s FICTION wrong, this book shed little light for me on the actual events on which the DVC was based. One example was particularly illustrative of my frustration: Ehrman calls out Brown’s description of the Council of Nicea. According to character Leigh Teabing in the DVC, the council was where Jesus’ divinity was first decided — Teabing implies that this divinity was in question before the council. According to Ehrman, however, everyone who attended the council already believed Jesus was devine, it was just the details this divinity was decided that were in question. Without explaining this in excruciating detail, the jist is that all Christians at this time believed that God was the one and only all powerful being, and the fact that Jesus was ALSO divine calls this all into confusion. So, a bunch of people got together and devised the holy trinity, a compromise of divine proportions.
My issue with this is that, although Ehrman is correct in pointing out Brown’s creative rewriting of the story, it does little to change the overall point of Teabing’s story — that a bunch of human beings gathered around to decide how a man was divine. If you truly believe that Jesus was a diety, then it would also be logical to believe that humans don’t get to decide in what way he was divine. He either was or was not, and the fact that there had to be a council of men to decide this calls it mere existence into question. Ehrman uses this particular example as a foundation for much of his argument, and it seems more like a nit-pick than a major flaw in the novel.
I’ve strayed from my original point that DVC is simply an entertaining thriller, but I suppose the additional thought is that it is just a silly to hate the DVC simply because that’s the “in thing” to do as it is to take Brown’s fictional assumptions at face value.
(Read Kavalier and Clay first anyway.)