brainsplotch

Things I think about when I'm taking a walk: What possesses someone to want to be president of the United States? Certainly has to be someone with a "type A" personality. Someone who has an ego the size of Washington, D.C.: after all, if you run for president, you have to believe that you have what it takes to make a mark on history, and are the best person in America to be leader of the free world. Shrinking violets need not apply for job of U.S. president. I couldn't be president. Don't have the personality for it (and certainly don't have the money to run, anyway). I'm most definitely not a type A personality, closer to a type C, (whatever that may be--I just made it up). Plus, the idea of half of the country hating my guts is not so appealing. Think about it, roughly 100-150 million people probably don't care for you. Of that number, maybe 10 million wouldn't mind seeing you dead. That sounds like a pretty horrible existence. Just the thoug...

This is an experiment. I always complain that I don't have enough time, or any time, to write in this Brainsplotch blog. Today (4-17-2013) I've decided to sort of "live blog" throughout the day, and publish it when I finish late this afternoon. The end result may be a jumble of various thoughts. (Naturally, as is often the case, my attempt to get this off at the end of the day was a complete failure. I'm coming back to this blog post four days after I originally started it). *** I'm a few days late, but April 15 marked the 30th anniversary of the near perfect game Milt Wilcox of the Detroit Tigers had against the Chicago White Sox at Comiskey Park back in '83. To this day, I have not forgotten watching that game with my dad. It was a Friday evening contest, and we both were on pins and needles as the journeyman Wilcox closed in on a remarkable baseball milestone. After setting down the first 26 Sox batters with precision, Wilcox faced pinch hitt...

Hi everyone, sorry that I've not been here in awhile. I've been spending most of my time on my MSU sports-related blog, the ridiculously titled "Treasures from the Spartan Attic." It's a little late--in fact I really should be getting to bed--but thought I'd take some time in these wee hours of Saturday morning to jot in here. Went to see Life of Pi tonight. It was a good movie. Sort of Castaway goes to India with a ferocious Bengal tiger replacing "Wilson" the volleyball. Okay, that's severely underselling the movie, but go out and see the movie and let me know if you agree.

I see that by Edgar Winter review has had 647 views...but no comments. Come on folks, what do you think? If you think it's crap, let me know. I'm a big boy, I can take it! If you have any feelings about They Only Come Out at Night , let me know about that, too. In fact, I'm offering up this post as an open invitation for you to let me know what you like on this blog and what you don't like. Apparently, there are some people out there who actually look at it once ain awhile. If you dig my local history stuff, maybe I will get off my butt and write more of that. If you want to read more Bargain Bin Finds, I will oblige. Here's your chance to let me know what you think. Thanks in advance.

I like football, as you may have gathered from reading this blog. I know it's violent and excessively macho, chockful of ridiculously overused war cliches--but I love it anyway. Having said that, I'm already sick of Super Bowl coverage, and the game hasn't even started. The wall-to-wall analysis and coverage of this game has reached insane proportions. It's probably been this way for several years, but I have really noticed it this year. Every day and every hour for the last two weeks, ESPN, NFL Network, Fox Sports and just about every other television outlet has had some kind of Super Bowl show. Who the hell watches all of this? There must be an audience for it, or else they'd have some other programming. Right?...Right?!? I long for the good old pre-cable TV, pre-internet days when the pre-game hype consisted of an hour-long show immediately preceding the game--and that was it. Those days are long gone and will probably never return. Okay, the game started finally...

Hi folks. I am coming to you from the Michigan Chess Association's youth tournament at the MSU Union. It's an all day affair and it will probably go until late afternoon. I've become sort of an old pro with these all day tourneys, as I've been through several of them and know what to expect from the parents' perspective: bring lots of toys to occupy you throughout the day, which in my case means a good book, my Nook, my writing journal (which zI have neglected for far too long) and my phone. My son has his laptop and phone. As you can see, we're not hurting for electronic toys to keep us busy during the down time between matches (and to keep me busy in the quiet time when the kids are upstairs playing their matches). The way these tournaments work is as follows: all of the kids and parents establish a "base camp" in the basement of the Union. Each community has a designated area of the basement to camp out. I was thrown off this morning because the...

Hello everyone and welcome to 2013. I hope your new year is going well so far. I am writing this on my/our new Nook tablet. It's quite a nifty device and the kids are not allowed to touch it. We finally packed up the Christmas decorations and took the tree down. As I was wrapping the tree in a tarp, shoving it in the back of the van, and finally disposing of it at the township-sponsered Christmas tree drop-off, I was struck by how odd the whole Christmas tree tradition is. We cut down a perfectly good tree, place a lot of shiny decorative objects on it in our homes and allow it to slowly die (though we keep it on "life-support " by watering it). When our holiday is over, and the tree is as good as dead, we remove the decorative objects and unceremoniously dump the tree corpse in a huge pile of other tree corpses. December and January are months of massive coniferous genocide. *** I'm taking a break from this post for now, but will try and get back to it later....