brainsplotch

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...