Huckabee Fail

Remember when some people were saying Jon Stewart wasn't going to be as funny and witty because Bush was leaving the White House?

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I Love This Stalemate

I wouldn’t refer to myself as a fan of it. Fan is too strong of a word. I watch it on occasion, but I can’t rattle off names or participants and give you their corresponding stats.

Every year I reach a point when I think America’s obsession with it is, well, pathetic. The amount of time and energy consumed, no, wasted by it is overwhelming. It is sad, to see how much interest and money goes into it.

I don’t care about the outcome. Really, I don’t. I might prefer one group of guys over the other, but if they don’t finish on top, why should I care? I am not invested in them. I can’t relate to their life and they can’t relate to mine.

Obsessions aren’t necessarily unhealthy. I have mine, but even I take a break from them every once in a while and I want to see America take a break from its obsession. I think it would greatly benefit throngs of people across this country.

And sometimes I feel like I am the only one out there who isn’t hoping for a resolution. I want it to go on and on, past the point of no return, and straight on to the cancellation of this year’s NFL season. There, I said it.

Free up your Sundays, Monday nights, and the occasional Thursday night. Invest in something other than your couch, your TV, and your waistline. That fantasy league that requires you to spend hours watching games and researching the team you want. That will all be there in 2012. Give it a rest. Step outside. Talk with people, not your TV.

You know when you are sitting there, watching a game, and thinking that you really want to be doing this or that, but you don’t move because it is easier to watch a silly football game. I hate the feeling, but fear not; with no football this year you could do those things.

To be honest, just in case I hadn’t been, I don’t care about the players or the owners. They are all millionaires. Their struggle and their wants and needs are so ridiculous they too could benefit from a year off, realizing they have it so much better than all of us. I hope they get that reminder. And I sincerely hope Americans can get their Sundays off this fall.

Facebook Poetry

From The New Yorker, May 16, 2011 issue. Sherman Alexie has a sonnet about Facebook called, conveniently, “The Facebook Sonnet”. Here are a few lines:

"Let’s exhume, resume and extend

Childhood. Let’s play the games

That occupy the young. Let fame

And shame intertwine."

It’s a brilliant poem, full of barbs that, I feel, really dig at the farce that is Facebook. Read the rest at The New Yorker.

Kids and the Future

A friend recently wrote to me about his feelings on the future. He’s been reading a lot and staying up on current events and watching documentaries and “it just depresses” him “that things are so bad right now.” He went on to say, “I’m ready for something big to happen, but I’m really scared about the future. There’s a lot of talk about things getting a lot worse and I don’t really know what to believe.”

My anxiety about the future grows the more I pay attention to the direction of the world and of humanity. I wrote him back, saying, “I too worry about the state of the world. I sometimes feel like there is a great, great struggle ahead of us, either for our generation or for our kids, which brings me to kids. While we still want them, it is not without reservation that we will choose to bring them into this world. With exploding population centers, the changing environment, and the unsustainable ways of living we have adopted, it is hard to go forward with building a family when you know deep down things are not going to get easier for humanity. I hope the news doesn’t depress you too much and that all those documentaries don’t make you fear the future. I hope you stand up against the tide and do all that you can to improve the world on a large or small scale. That’s all we can do.”

So I have been thinking about this a lot lately. More specifically, what are the realities the next generation will face? One that always comes to mind, and my generation could see this too, is the end of oil. It’s going to run out. Everything about this world is going to come to a screeching halt. Sure, more oil reserves will be discovered while I am alive; perhaps extending our consumption of oil past the end of my generation, but that is delaying the inevitable. How are we going to do as a species when we revert to much older forms of transportation to do anything from go to the grocery store to ship something across the country/world? My confidence in humanity to properly address these issues without panicking and all hell breaking loose is slim to nonexistent. When not getting an iPad 2 means the end of the world for you, how are you going to deal with two-mile long lines at the gas station?

I recently saw a prediction of the world population leveling out, or at least reaching a point of much slower growth than in the past 50 years. That’s somewhat comforting, but it doesn’t mean our consumption is leveling out or decreasing, something that desperately needs to happen in order for future generations to live a good and peaceful life.

Keeping hope alive is crucial, but it is hard to ignore the feeling I have that we are hurtling toward an inevitable and disastrous conflict or conclusion of our time here on Earth. It’s tough to strike a balance between concern for the direction of things and a hope in the future. My mind runs wild: Is there going to be another war, a war to end all wars? There can’t be more than three world wars. If sea levels significantly rise in the next 50-100 years, where are the millions of displaced people going to settle? What strain is that going to put on the world’s food supply? Are the world economies going to collapse?

All I’ve got to say is that you better have some faith left when you decide to bring someone into this world.

OBL: Conspirators and Complainers

Rarely does a politician pull something off that we can all celebrate regardless of where we are on the political spectrum. I think Bin Laden’s death is worth celebrating. Although it was President Obama who made the call, President Bush deserves congratulations as well. Bush said we would never stop searching and Obama made finding and killing or apprehending Bin Laden the priority of our wars in the Middle East.

I was at work just a couple of days after the Bin Laden news broke when I heard someone talking about it. There was talk among some employees of the Bin Laden conspiracy. Is he really dead? If he is dead, then where are the pictures? This has come to be called deatherism. Also, there seems to be quite a few people out there who don’t know why we buried him at sea. I explained this to someone the other day and their response, “So, all of a sudden we respect Islamic tradition?” My response, “Well, isn’t it better now than never?” Seriously. Could you imagine how many more people would be upset about Bin Laden’s death if we didn’t observe the burial custom?

Most Republicans have congratulated President Obama and President Bush in their statements about the killing of OBL. However, as far as I know, one only congratulated Bush. Her name I will not mention, but if you’ve graduated high school you know about as much as she does about U.S. history, government, geography, and current events. Which is to say, you just graduated a U.S. high school, so you probably don’t know too much, but it’s enough to get your name on the ticket for VP of the U.S.A. Dream big.

Lastly, I hope I never have to celebrate another man’s death to the degree I celebrated OBL's death. I am happy he is dead. The dancing and singing in the streets the night of his death does not seem barbaric to me. Our celebration that night is in no way comparable to barbaric celebrations in the Middle East over Koran burning, successful terrorist attacks, or the maiming/killing of western troops throughout the region, which happen a couple times a week. Like I said earlier, I think we can have one night in the last ten years to dance in the streets. I approve.

From The New Yorker

Steve Coll, author of The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century, and staff writer at The New Yorker has an informative post up on the News Desk blog. Worth the read.

The Death of Osama Bin Laden

This is as close as our generation will come to experiencing the sense of joy and excitement millions around the world felt on May 8, 1945, VE Day. Osama Bin Laden, long removed from direct day-to-day operations of al-Qaeda, but still the influential and spiritual leader of al-Qaeda and many splinter groups around the world and the leading force in the 9/11 attacks was killed yesterday.

Bin Laden, more than anyone else, has shaped US Foreign Policy in the last ten years. From our security at home to our approach to the rest of the Middle East to our action on three fronts (Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan), Bin Laden was the primary target of the war we have been waging for 9 years. This is huge. It took the most powerful nation in the world nearly 10 years to find and kill one man. One man. His ability to camouflage himself will not be forgotten, but his violent end will overshadow everything else for me. I was ready for sleep last night and I turned on the TV. Instantly, I sat up in bed and told Kate to stop talking for a minute. There was a CBS News special report and along the bottom I read that President Obama is going to make an announcement soon. About what I did not know until a few seconds later when a reporter said Osama Bin Laden has been killed. I looked at Kate, whose eyes were huge with the news, and I sat up a little more, turning the volume up and settling in for President Obama’s announcement.

The details of his death are rapidly spreading across the media and blogosphere. According to some sources, it was a double-tap to the side of the head during or at the end of a firefight outside a curiously large compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The operation, in the works since August, was completed in 40 minutes. Bin Laden’s body was taken by US Navy Seals, identified, and buried at sea within 24 hours of his death (according to Islamic tradition).

I have spent the morning reading the blogs and news feeds of most of the world’s major papers. The one thing that is not overlooked by the media, who are always speculating about political implications, is how this will affect Obama’s chances in 2012 and if it will be his defining moment as President. I think it’s important to examine the political effects of this news, but more important is to first celebrate what this means for our troops, the families of the thousands killed and injured on 9/11, and the American psyche in regards to the war against terrorism.

It is not natural to celebrate a death. But this morning, I was happy to. I watched archival footage of the 9/11 attacks. I watched cadets at the Naval Academy yelling their hearts out. I watched someone spraying champagne from his perch on a light post onto the crowd gathered below him at Ground Zero. And, truly, I felt pride for what America has done. My pulse elevated and I recalled the morning I was going to class as a freshman at the University of Wyoming with people crying throughout the union, unable to pull themselves from a TV to go to class, where, if they went, they would undoubtedly be watching a TV anyway. I recalled the spring break the USA went to war in Iraq. Sitting on the couch with Aaron, watching the shock and awe campaign, wondering if this was really a necessary strike to avenge 9/11. Nearly two-thirds of the country had given up on finding/killing Bin Laden, but our troops and intelligence gatherers have never rested. Neither has President Obama who clarified again and again as candidate Obama in 2008 that if he received reliable intelligence that Bin Laden was in Pakistan, he would not hesitate to go in there unannounced and take Bin Laden out.

Naïve our generation is not. I don’t think one of us believes this means the end of terrorism. The detractors are already pointing this out, assuming that some must believe the end of terrorism has come. We know it hasn’t. There will be more terrorists. There will always be evil in this world, but this was a victory America had to have. The celebrations across the country do not bother me at all. If the extremists can go kill Westerners anytime a Koran is burned or stomped on, then we can have one day in the last ten years to yell in the street, to wave the American flag, to put on display our fanaticism for all the world to see. Yeah, I don’t feel bad about that.

Reading through the blogs has uncovered bits of information about the raid and the coincidence of May 1^st in 20^th and 21^st century war. May 1, 1945: Hitler’s suicide is announced to the world. May 1, 2003: President Bush gives his infamous Mission Accomplished speech from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. May 1, 2011: President Obama shares the news of Bin Laden’s death in Pakistan.

Most troubling about the news of where Bin Laden was hiding out is the fact that he was in a relatively affluent neighborhood and not in a cave like many presumed for years. He was in a mansion six to eight times bigger than any of the surrounding houses with high walls and barbed wire. How could anyone in the ISI (Pakistan’s intelligence service) not know about Bin Laden’s location? This makes it clear for those who doubted it; Pakistan is the home of al-Qaeda operations and the source of much of what we are dealing with in Afghanistan. The Pakistani government routinely denied that Bin Laden was hiding out in Pakistan. Wisely, the US intelligence did not share much information of the operation with the ISI, worried that word would get to Bin Laden and he would slip through our fingers again.

If the administration were looking for another reason to get out of Afghanistan, this is it. Bin Laden has been the target from day 1: September 11, 2001. He was the reason we went to Afghanistan, almost sealing the deal at Tora Bora in December 2001. His death marks the end of a chapter and the beginning of a new one in the war on terror. I think it is important to remain cautious and to not let our guard down, but today, tonight, whenever, remember 9/11, remember the firefighters, remember the policemen, remember the troops, and remember what you felt that morning and raise a glass, spray some champagne, sing the Star Spangled Banner and wave the flag.

Reading the News

It's official. I am going blog crazy this morning. Thank God for the internet on days like this. The accessibility to the facts and the commentary on Bin Laden's death is amazing. I highly recommend stopping by Andrew Sullivan's blog (now on the Daily Beast, but my link in the sidebar still works) or Talking Points Memo (also linked in the sidebar). Both of those blogs are covering all angles of this story, from archival footage of Bush and Obama speaking about Bin Laden to amateur footage of 9/11, which is tough to watch, but a good reminder of how justified the USA was in hunting this man for nearly the last ten years.

I headed out early this morning to pick up a New York Times. I like to collect newspapers the day after huge events. Anyway, the Times was the only paper without a headline on Bin Laden's death. The news broke too late. Tomorrow's paper will have plenty of coverage, including Bin Laden's obituary, which runs seven pages on the Times' website.

What Trump Was Doing While Obama Was Killing Osama

Also from Sullivan's blog. One of his readers too.

A reader writes:

While Obama was addressing the nation last night, Donald Trump was hosting a cat-fight between NeNe and Starr Jones, voting off some chick named Hope, and making an "historic" decision to bring back LaToya Jackson.

Seriously.

Sweetness

Thanks to Sullivan for posting this on his blog. I don't know where it came from, but it's truly awesome.

Birthday Cards

I finally did sell a picture to that greeting card company. I know I blogged about it months ago, but now it is finalized. I received my free box of them today, giving me the birthday cards I will send out for the next few decades. That's probably the most exciting thing about this, I won't have to shop for a birthday card for a very long time.

Please run, Don.

I really, really want Donald Trump to run for president. I can’t think of a more entertaining candidacy, or a more embarrassing one for America. Things can’t get more embarrassing than Sarah Palin being a Vice Presidential nominee. A Trump candidacy would just maintain the norm of having an ignorant moron run for at least half of the Republican ticket.

Could you imagine Trump in a debate? Laughable, it would be if he were debating other Republicans. And if he were debating Obama? Well, it would be like Obama in a Battle Royal against 40 Trumps. One at a time or all at once, Obama would walk all over him. Proverbial powerbomb here, choke slam there, and then a clothesline. And the wrestling metaphor is not that far off, Trump has a close relationship with WWE Chairman Vince McMahon. Trump has his own theme song and participated in a hair vs. hair match, after which he got to shave McMahon’s hair. I’m not making this up and neither is Wikipedia.

Not to be overlooked by fiscally conservative Republicans, is Trump’s rollercoaster ride of financial problems and resurgences. According to Wikipedia, we are currently in a Trump resurgence, but their have been low points, like Trump’s personal debt of $900 million and business debt of $3.5 billion in the early 1990s. But it seems Trump takes offense at anyone low-balling his net worth. Author Timothy O’Brien estimated that worth to be at most $250 million. This pissed Trump off, who sued O’Brien for libel because, according to Trump, he is worth much, much more, like $5.75 billion more. The case was dismissed, but I am sure Trump would argue that the taxpayer’s money spent on handling this very important case was a very good investment for the American people.

Most of Trump’s recent TV appearances have included discussion about his own investigative team looking into the legitimacy of Obama’s U.S. citizenship. That’s right, the leading candidate in some pre-preliminary polling of Republicans is a birther. This is the defining characteristic of Trump’s flirting with presidential candidacy. This will be the defining characteristic of a Trump candidacy. That is, it will be if we can momentarily avert our gaze of wonderment at his hair and pay attention to the drivel coming out of this dumb, dumb man’s mouth.

Lessons Learned at the Denver Auto Show

Despite all the press and the ads mentioning global warming and the importance of decreasing our carbon footprint and our reliance on foreign oil, most cars still have very poor gas mileage. It is not just the SUVs that fail miserably in this category. I walked the entire floor of the Colorado Convention Center. I saw many cars. As I arrived at Subaru’s section of the floor I thought, now here is a make of car that will have good mileage. Nope. Not even the Outback had any impressive numbers. Our Highlander’s gas mileage is technically 17/24. Although we get a little better than that, it isn’t great gas mileage, but after walking the floor at the auto show, I feel much better about what we get in that car. You mean I could be driving a granola-lover’s Outback, be sacrificing legroom, style, speed, and other space and get one more mile per gallon than a Highlander? No thanks. (And I do apologize to anyone who drives a Subaru. I am sure you love your car and that you get better gas mileage than the Subaru I saw. The thing to keep in mind when you are at the auto show is that every car is fully loaded and typically has the most powerful engine they put in the car. But still, I was expecting much better from Subaru and everyone else.)

Hyundai’s display wasn’t good enough to even get me to step on their section of the carpet. *This lesson wasn’t really learned at the auto show, just reinforced.

Since childhood I have eyed BMW’s 7 Series, thinking, now there’s a sedan I can fit in. The only problem being, it’s a BMW 7 Series and way, way out of my price range. Now there are two problems. One, the price as I’ve already mentioned. Two, I don’t fit in the 750. As is, the $107,000 BMW I sat in does not have enough room for me. The backseat has tons of room, air-conditioning that shoots up into your butt, and heated seats, but who wants to be in the back seat of a 750? Not me.

I do fit in a BMW X5. Again, the price is an issue, but I had to try. I’ve always been curious about the X5’s legroom. That said, when I was sitting in the driver’s seat, there was approximately one inch between the back of the driver’s seat and the end of the second seat. The car turns into a four-seater when I am driving.

Driving an expensive car means you’ve made it, you’re happy, satisfied, and successful. At least that’s what a lot of people think after talking with a few car-crazy nutters on the showroom floor last week. It really made me just want to walk out of the convention center.

People spend beyond their means. Not really breaking news, but the number of people interested in BMW, Audi, Mercedes, and the like, drastically outnumbers those who can actually take on that financial burden. But, note the last point. People have drunk the Kool-Aid.

The most surprising lesson: I fit in a Mini Cooper. No lie. I could actually drive one if I needed to. I fit better in this car than in some SUVs and most sedans. Love this.

Misc. March

Just some photos from March...

Kate under black lights at the Denver Art Museum.

The floor in the DAM's light exhibit.

At Roxborough Park, south of Denver.

My grandparent's letters from WWII.

Obit Quote

From The New York Times obit on Geraldine Ferraro, Sunday, March 27, 2011:

In any event, she said, the political realities of 1984 had made it all but impossible for the Democrats to win, no matter the candidates or their gender. “Throwing Ronald Reagan out of office at the height of his popularity, with inflation and interest rates down, the economy moving and the country at peace, would have required God on the ticket,” Ms. Ferraro wrote, “and she was not available!”

A City Washed Away

I post this video because it better displays the power and devastation Japan was up against than any other video of the disaster I have seen. It just makes you want to help. I assume the person taking the video is on top of a building. I am amazed it doesn't collapse. The building across the parking lot remains standing. Also incredible. But everything else is washed away. The power is jaw dropping. The consequences are heartbreaking.

From The Onion

NYTimes.com's Plan To Charge People Money For Consuming Goods, Services Called Bold Business Move

Classic.

Damn You, MSNBC

All I want right now is to get some information about our newest war in the Middle East, err, I mean, Africa, and I am surfing the cable news channels (all of them), but freaking MSNBC, you're showing "Lockup"? C'mon!

Freelance Whales

Okay, so I am probably discovering the band Freelance Whales very, very late, but I don’t care, it’s a new band to me and I really like their sound. I had the TV on for a few minutes this morning and I heard a song that sounded so great I quickly wrote down the first line so I could look it up later and find out who was responsible for it.

I did the Google search and found Freelance Whales and all their quirky sounds. I watched a video of them performing at SXSW 2010 for NPR Music. They were performing Generator (First Floor), which at this infant stage of my appreciation for them, I can tell this must be one of their more popular songs, or their most popular song. After all, it was playing during a Starbucks commercial.

While watching them jam away I was reminded of Arcade Fire (although Freelance Whales is a smaller group), but in their performance they had this awesome connection like they were all sharing the same brain to tell them when to start into the song or when to pick it up or slow it down. Arcade Fire is extremely good at this. I know this comes from a ton of practice and memorizing all the songs and reading each other’s signals, but not all groups do this very well. So, Freelance Whales definitely caught my eye because of this.

And there was one more thing, they looked very Portlandish. A couple flannel shirts, a couple glasses leaving you to wonder if the people wearing them actually need them, some tight jeans, and one pair of pink leggings. It appeared to be a carefully crafted image that is no longer unique and now the fodder for jokes in Portlandia. And then I read that they weren’t from Portland. They’re from New York. All of a sudden I liked what they were wearing and I liked them a heck of a lot more.

In the Heart of the Bisti

Kate and I were in New Mexico over the weekend. We had a great visit with my parents and we saw some extraordinary land called the Bisti Wilderness. Here are some pics of our hike there.

This looks like a leg coming right out of the ground.

Why I Didn't Tell You

This time around, if things went the same way they did last year, I didn’t want to tell anyone about not getting into grad school, not even my in-laws. I just didn’t want to deal with that public failure again. Last year hurt, a lot. Going into the process, I didn’t think I wouldn’t get in anywhere, but after 4 or 5 rejections, I realized 10 rejections was possible, even likely.

A writer’s ego is a very fragile thing. Sharing about the rejections over and over again, I felt like I was announcing through a large megaphone from the top of the world, “My writing sucks and no one likes it.” It’s hard to describe how that shattered my motivation and made me dislike—even hate—things completely unrelated to my attempt at getting into grad school.

After months of recovery and having to focus my attention elsewhere, it was autumn in Colorado and with a lot of support and guidance I reevaluated grad school and my interests. I chose a few schools to apply to, all of which wouldn’t prevent me from doing some writing, from letting me develop my voice, and share my opinion in some format. Essentially, I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to grad school just to go to grad school and because I didn’t get in the first time. So, I committed and vowed to give it another go, telling only my wife, sister, and parents. No one else.

However, doing this again meant dealing with this menace from my past. The GRE. As you may recall, I first took the GRE in April 2009, prepping in advance for my first attempt at grad school. I wrecked my car on the way to that test and was seated for the first part (the essays) less than 40 minutes after a four-car accident on the interstate. I managed to do okay on the test, or at least I convinced myself that the results were good enough, especially given the situation. That held for a while, but for me, applying again meant doing everything better this time around. I signed up to take the test on December 9^th.

Shortly after the New Year, I wrote a brief summary of 2010, mentioning the highs and the lows of each month. For December I mentioned, “I celebrated a private accomplishment.” That accomplishment, improving my score in every category of the GRE, gave me a helpful dose of motivation to finish this round of applications. I did so in the first couple weeks of January. And I did so with no expectations this time around and with no sense that I deserved this. I guess that was more me protecting myself than wholeheartedly believing I truly didn’t deserve to get into grad school.

And last week I opened an email and I didn’t have to worry any more about weathering another round of rejections. I admit to taking a little pleasure in keeping this all a secret until now. It was a storm I was prepared to face privately and now it’s a little piece of success I am happy to share publicly.

It is my pleasure to inform you that…

I don’t have to spend another year wandering and wondering what if?

The eleventh letter doesn’t begin with “I regret to inform you…”

I don’t have to file this letter away with the other ten I still have.

Perseverance pays off, which is good, because I apparently had some to do this all over again, to take the GRE…again, and to pay the application fees again, to contact professors who may or may not remember me again.

I didn’t have to look up at the sky and curse. I, instead, closed my eyes and sighed, releasing burdens taken on long ago.

The first word I read was, “Congratulations!” That one word, I don’t know why I had to see it so badly, why that combination of letters could change my thinking in a split second, but they gave me hope, a smile, laughter, and tears.

I read the first paragraph over and over again before moving on to the second. “It is my great pleasure” (to eradicate doubt for the time being it could have said) “you have been accepted to the Master of Arts in International Studies program” and “I would like to invite you to be a part of the University of Denver community.”

I still feel like Michael Phelps, Jordan, Usain Bolt, and Arnold. But all for different reasons than last year. All for different reasons.

A Panther Going To NCs

Going to NCs (NCAA Championships in D1) for swimming is a huge deal. NCs is one of the fastest meets every year, including international meets. If you go to NCs for swimming you are very successful. If you final at NCs you're close to, or in, the top tier of swimmers in your event in the world. So, it is no small deal that UW-Milwaukee has someone going to NCs this year. She's a freshman and already a three-time Horizon League individual champion who holds the conference records in all three of those events (100 and 200 Breaststroke and 200 IM).

Read about the story here. I had to put a shout out to Kyle and Emily on the blog for an amazing season that isn't over yet!

On The Red Carpet

I like watching the Oscars, but damn, all the ass-kissing and sucking up on the red carpet is almost enough to turn the whole damn thing off.

Champions

I helped coach a championship team last year at UWM. It was the time of my life and I love that team like I've loved no other job. That's the funny part. It was my job to show up and be friends with them, coach them, make them faster, yell at them on occasion and swim with them every once in a while. It was my job to make them better and they got better. I never dreaded going to work. Work was exciting. To call it work, that's just an insult. It was a little slice of heaven and winning a championship with them was a dream come true.

Well, last night, these guys did it again. Going into the last night of competition in second place, UWM pulled ahead early on and had an unbelievable night of racing, finishing in first by 27 points. I had to watch the meet streaming over the internet and as painful and somewhat tear-jerking as that was, I am thankful that I could view it somehow. But there is no substitute for the real thing and my heart ached at times, even questioning decisions I have made in the past. But I wasn't questioning how much UWM deserved another championship. They work harder than anyone else. They have a head coach working harder than anyone else. And they have something common in all great championship teams, especially those back to back championship teams. It was printed in bold on their conference t-shirts: UNITY.

They couldn't have picked a better word. Congratulations, Milwaukee!

Oscar Predictions 2011

Last year I made a prediction for every Oscar category. It was a lot of guesswork and sort of a waste of time trying to guess who would win Best Sound Mixing or Best Short Documentary when I know nothing about what qualifies a movie to win Best Sound Mixing and when I hadn’t seen any one of the short documentaries nominated. This doesn’t mean I won’t take a stab at either one of those this year, but we’ll see.

I don’t think it has ever been easier to predict best actor and actress in a leading role than this year. Watch, I get those completely wrong. Here are the predictions…

Writing (Original Screenplay): The King’s Speech – This is a great story and an amazing screenplay. Even the story of writing the screenplay is fascinating. Did you see the 60 Minutes piece last week? I still haven’t seen The Fighter or The Kids Are All Right, but both of those are also strong contenders.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay): The Social Network – I hate to say it, but this movie will probably win. After first seeing it, I thought it should win because it was a good movie and fairly accurate from what I hear and adapted from what was probably a boring book. However, after seeing parts of the original True Grit and listening to the Coen Brothers on Fresh Air, I realized two things. One, the original True Grit really sucks. It is awfully bad. Embarrassing to a point. Two, the Coens stuck to the original language of Charles Portis’ novel, but still made a relevant movie at times both serious and hilarious. They made a Western in 2010 that was popular. That is award worthy.

Visual Effects: Inception – Whatever you thought about this movie, it’s visuals were hands down the best of the year. Nothing even compares to it. Harry Potter? Iron Man 2? Are you kidding me? Inception’s cinematography paired with the visual effects is a combination that cannot be matched.

Music (Original Song): Toy Story 3 – “We Belong Together” by Randy Newman – I haven’t heard all the nominated songs, but I know this one is great and I know that no matter what, Gwyneth Paltrow will probably sing the nominated song from Country Strong, but please don’t give that song the Oscar.

Music (Original Score): The Social Network – I almost skipped this category, but I found the music from the SN to be compelling throughout the entire movie. It really contributed to the feel of the movie. High-strung, tension-filled, the music brought more anxiety to the legal proceedings and more mystery to the goings-on in Zuckerberg’s head as he is hammering away on the keyboard.

Foreign Language Film: Biutiful – Honestly, I haven’t seen any of these, but the buzz for Biutiful and Javier Bardem’s performance is enough to make a slightly educated guess here.

Film Editing: The King’s Speech – I can’t remember a scene from the movie that I would want arranged in a different way. Of course, as viewers, we don’t know what was left out or cut from the movie, but The King’s Speech was so complete and strong it seems like they made all the right cuts and selections.

Documentary Feature: Inside Job – There are a lot of strong nominees here. Exit through the Gift Shop and Restrepo could also win. I haven’t seen the former yet, and I haven’t seen Restrepo, but I have read the book Sebastian Junger wrote about his time in the Korengal Valley while making Restrepo. That book is called War and it is the best book I’ve read about the Afghanistan front.

Directing: Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan – I could easily be wrong here, but I think this is one of the categories Black Swan will actually win. Some years it seems like the Oscar for Directing is guaranteed to go to the director of the favorite in the feature film category, but maybe not this year.

Animated Feature Film: Toy Story 3 – How could this movie not win? It’s touching and fresh, even for the third revival.

Actress in a Supporting Role: Melissa Leo – The Fighter – She has won most of the awards already, might as well make it a sweep.

Actress in a Leading Role: Natalie Portman – Black Swan – This pick couldn’t be easier. I watched some of the Golden Globes when Portman won her acting award. Her speech was a little long, awkward (nothing new there) but it was that night I discovered Natalie Portman has an annoying laugh. Interesting…

Actor in a Supporting Role: Christian Bale – The Fighter – I think this is another easy prediction. Flawless is most often the description of Bale’s performance in this movie.

Actor in a Leading Role: Colin Firth – The King’s Speech – I think I’ll be offended if he doesn’t win. I won’t cry and I’ll probably keep watching, but when an actor makes a historically accurate film and puts in such a believable, touching performance (especially when the film is about the monarchy, i.e. Helen Mirren in The Queen) they deserve it.

Best Picture: The King’s Speech – I think this movie is in danger of being beaten by The Social Network, but I sure hope that doesn’t happen. Then, I will turn the TV off. Just for the hell of it, I am going to rank the six movies I have seen out of this category. Obviously, The King’s Speech takes the top spot, but second would be True Grit, then The Social Network, Inception, and Toy Story 3. Now, had I seen all of these movies, The Fighter and Winter’s Bone would undoubtedly rank ahead of The Social Network, but I haven’t, so I can only stick with those five.

Free Internet

Starbucks has free internet. Actually, they have had free internet for a long time now. It's great, the free internet and setting up your own personal office in Starbucks. But coming in and using the internet to play World of Warcraft? Really!?

Remember Again

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Unnecessary Roughness, err dining

5280’s annual Top of the Town guide to dining is typically a reliable and safe source for finding a great restaurant. Having found Root Down, Lola, and 9^th Door through Top of the Town, I couldn’t be happier with the picks from the editors and Denverites. However, a few days after the meal, I still don’t understand why Elway’s is listed as the best steakhouse in Denver.

The name—Elway’s—sets an expectation because Elway is a god in Colorado. Maybe that’s the problem. Can anything branded with that name be second best, maybe even average? It seems that is the case, but, not surprisingly, some Coloradoans pass on critiquing the meal they are having because it is Elway’s. The name hypnotizes the diner into thinking this must be what a high-class steakhouse is supposed to be like.

There is no shortage of steak houses that refer to their interior as elegant, their clientele as sophisticated, and their steaks as the finest cuts available. Among these meat houses, it isn’t unusual to see a selection of steaks in the $40-50 range. It is no small commitment to put a fifty on the table for one steak. However, it is worth restating that there are plenty of restaurants that ask that of their clientele. At these places you are likely to get a good steak. It will be cooked to perfection and to your liking. The service will match the price. And the rest of the menu, from starters to desserts, will also pair well with the selection of cuts. For a steak house to stand out as “the best” or great, it needs to surpass these minimum qualifications. A restaurant that does this is extremely rare. Knowing this, I still expected Elway’s to wow me. It didn’t.

“Our interior is elegant.”

Upon entering Elway’s, one faces a huge, gaudy fountain prominently displaying the name. Aside from serving its purpose…ostentation, the fountain works as a divider for the main dining room and the bar. The interior touches at Elway’s were, actually, elegant. It was dark, although, not dark enough. Dimming the lights would add to the intimacy of each table, helping the diner hone in on their plate. No one wants distractions when they go all out on a dinner, but I thought the lighting was just one of a few encountered throughout the night.

Another distraction, and probably my biggest gripe about the interior, was that tables at Elway’s weren’t spread out anymore than they are at the Olive Garden. You know how much I love the Olive Garden, so this didn’t sit well with me. In fact, if you brought the house lights up, got some paint by number frescos of Italian scenery, and nailed up some shutters on either side of a window painted on the wall, this place could really hold its own against the Olive Garden. Spreading the seating out not only gives a restaurant a little more distinction, but it opens up the space in the restaurant, cuts down on noise, and I wouldn’t feel like I am in the middle of someone else’s conversation if I lean back in my chair.

“Our clientele is sophisticated.”

Elway’s dress code is listed as business casual. We dressed appropriately. I wore a dress shirt and sport coat. Part of the enjoyment of dining at a classy restaurant is dressing to par. It heightens expectations, excitement, and emphasizes the special occasion, whether it is a birthday or Valentine’s Day. So when you arrive at said restaurant, you don’t want to see baseball caps, un-tucked shirts, or long sleeve tees. I saw all of these upon entering the restaurant and I let my disappointment show. “Really, a Rockies hat?” I said to my wife.

C’mon. I know this is America and Americans like dressing like slobs. It’s not stylish, but it’s comfortable and easy. But if you are going to have a dress code, live up to it. Like in the movies, I know there are places that ask their patrons to don a sport coat or a collared shirt at minimum if they show up dressed for the football game. These places usually have a few sport coats on hand to give to the needy.

There is nothing wrong with saying your clientele is sophisticated. Just do a little more and make them look that way.

“Our steaks are the finest cuts available.”

Elway’s does serve a good steak. I won’t go as far as calling it great. My rib eye and the filet we had were average for the class of restaurant Elway’s is. While both of us ordered the béarnaise sauce, it was unnecessary. After a few dunks, the sauce sat unused for the rest of the night. That’s a good sign for Elway’s. A steak that doesn’t need a sauce is a solid foundation. But with the meat I was left wanting more. It wasn’t as lean a piece of meat as should have arrived at the table. A good third of it was riddled with gristle.

Sides at Elway’s are typically shared. We went with the standby starch, Yukon Gold mashed potatoes. Let me just preface this. When my wife and I go out to an expensive restaurant we expect to eat something we feel we couldn’t cook at home. Although they were delectable, we didn’t have this feeling about the mashed potatoes. If there were ever a next time (and there won’t be a next time) I would try something else.

As a starter, we shared the lobster cocktail, which was described as having “three large Canadian lobster tails.” We have had lobster enough to know that for $18, these lobster tails weren’t going to be “large”, but one would expect them to be bigger than prawn shrimp, which they weren’t, but they tasted exactly like that. What a pity. If I had known I would have been eating an expensive shrimp substitute I would have ordered the shrimp and saved a couple of bucks.

A quick word about the service: average. Elway’s is much too large to employ swarm service, but for how much you are paying, the restaurant should try their best to emulate this type of service. A few things that would help: hold the chair for the lady as she sits down. Attempt to wipe down the table in between courses. Obsessively top off water. Switch out silverware with every course. Keep an eye on the table like the quality of the whole dining experience rests on your ability to find needs at the table I didn’t know existed.

The consensus as we walked out of the restaurant was, “Well, we’ve been. We won’t be going back.” That consensus hasn’t changed. Inevitably, when one dines out, one draws comparisons to prior experiences at similarly priced restaurants. So, I started thinking about the city we left to come to Denver. It took me less than a minute to think of four steak houses in Milwaukee that I would rate better than Elway’s, not only when it comes to steak, but including atmosphere, clientele, and décor. I was hoping it wouldn’t have been that easy.

Carnevor Review - Milwaukee, WI

*This is a restaurant review I wrote when I lived in Milwaukee. I thought it was on the blog. It wasn't. Here it is. If you're ever in Milwaukee and want a superb dinner. Go here.*

With no more than twenty-five feet of restaurant façade, Carnevor’s nondescript and dark exterior is not easy to find. In the upper right corner of the restaurant front, ‘Carnevor’ is written in lettering no taller than a foot and no wider than five feet. As I stood outside examining the exterior, its subtleties comforted me. Carnevor lets its reputation, and perhaps the occasional Lamborghini parked in front of its door, speak for itself.

My wife and I were there in search of Milwaukee’s best steaks. It was also my birthday and no employee at Carnevor let us forget it. The host immediately wished me a happy birthday and led us back into the dark, split-level restaurant. Immediately to our right was an orange-lit bar with dark clad employees waiting behind it who nodded to us as if we were regulars. Carnevor’s interior is modern and clever, using arced wood on the ceiling and vertical bamboo to separate the dark pockets of the restaurant. We were led to a secluded corner table on the third level where our waiter took over by handing us menus with ‘Happy Birthday’ printed on them. Not a few seconds later a bar attendant ran down the drink menu and left us to make our first decisions of the night.

If you are anything like me, there is no reason to hold back when you choose to go out to a high-end restaurant. The majority of us are going to be paying maybe up to four times more for a night at Carnevor than compared to our typical fare. So don’t hold back in an attempt to keep it cheap. Trust me, you are already screwed, but read on to find out if it is worth it.

Carnevor’s martinis are reasonably priced at $11. We were served superbly mixed drinks with top shelf liquor that hid its potency under the smoothest of finishes. I ordered the effeminate sounding Bloodytini, which is Carnevor’s Bloody Mary disguised, perhaps, for the purpose of getting more mid-day and evening orders out of a traditional brunch drink. Even though it is served in a martini glass, the Bloodytini still packs a punch with Ketel One vodka and plenty of Tabasco and Worcestershire. My wife ordered the Cosmopolitan, a wise choice, because if a restaurant can’t do the most popular drinks very well it starts us worrying. This wasn’t the case here though. The Cosmo had a beautiful, translucent shade of pink, not too cloudy from too strong a dose of lime or lemon juice.

Bread with herbed butter is complimentary at Carnevor. It was a hint of the delicious appetizers to come. We chose the crab cake ($16), yes singular, and a cup of the special butternut squash soup ($9). Luckily, the crab cake was big, with truly large lump crab served with garlic saffron aioli which we took alternating swipes at to drench the crab. The soup was thicker than expected, but inventive and adorned with a tantalizing heap of beef.

By now we had noticed that servers in Carnevor are, without a doubt, some of the best we have seen, comparing only to the service we once had at Ocean, the now defunct seafood eatery in Denver. The waiters were hiding out in a dark corner of the room, seemingly busy, but never letting an eye leave our table. As soon as we were done with our dishes they would swoop in and clear the table, taking away our silverware and giving us a new set for the next course. Water glasses were never close to empty and at one point I brushed a crumb aside. The waiter must have seen, coming in the next minute to wipe down the entire table. This may all sound like it was distracting to the serenity one might desire while eating out, but it wasn’t at all. It was subtle, but we obviously noticed their attentiveness. But don’t worry; it didn’t speed the dinner up at all.

Appetizers, or as Carnevor calls them, ‘Small Plates’, range from $9 to $16. You are mostly going to find experimental twists on traditional dishes like Panko Calamari ($9), tomato dusted and served with roasted garlic aioli and a cocktail sauce. They have even jumped on the sliders train by serving Steak Tartare Sliders with chives, shallots, Parmigiano-Reggiano, fried quail eggs, mustard oil and mushroom salad on toasted brioche buns.

The larger appetizers, designed to share at the table, are seriously big portions of Seafood ($45 to $85), Mac & Cheese ($11) and a Wisconsin Cheese Plate Sampler ($9 to $17). The latter two might seem a bit out of place, but not if you live here. It is expected for a restaurant in Wisconsin to offer at least a few dishes that prominently feature cheese, Wisconsin’s pride, second only to the Packers.

On to the good stuff—the meat. That is why we were there after all. Carnevor features two classes of cuts, ‘Carnevor Prime Cuts’ and ‘Reserve Cuts’. I noticed right away the first difference, price. The prime cuts range from $34 for a ‘Barrel’ cut 8-ounce filet mignon to $55 for a bone-in 16-ounce filet. The reserve cuts are priced from $52 for a 14-ounce New York strip to a mind-boggling $160 for a 7-ounce Imported Kobe ‘A-5’ filet mignon (Carnevor being one of a handful of restaurants in the U.S. that serves this Japanese delicacy, they brag) with tosa zu dipping sauce and wagyu beef jus.

Our waiter was very helpful, explaining the difference between the prime cuts and the reserve cuts. All prime cuts are wet-aged, meaning the steak ages for one to four weeks in vacuum-packed plastic where it doesn’t lose any weight. Here it is tenderized, but there is no flavor development as there is in the dry-aged process, which is used on some of the reserve cuts at Carnevor. Also, wet aging is cheaper, thus much more common. Dry aging is when the steak ages in an open-air, refrigerated environment. There it forms a crust that is trimmed away eventually leaving a juicier, tender cut. Dry aging can make a steak lose much of its original weight, not ideal for cost-cutting, mass market steak processing. Thus, it is very hard to find now, reserved only for those who are willing to spend half a week’s wages on one steak dinner. I am not one of those people.

At Carnevor, it is completely up to the diner to pick the toppings and sauces for the steaks. We inquired about ideas for our steaks, which arrived, like all steaks there, sans side dishes. You have to order those separately and you can do no better than the truffled mashed potatoes ($11), which is enough to serve two. Sides range from $7 to $11 and include a variety of vegetables to truffled frites. I went with the 20 oz. ribeye au poivre with béarnaise sauce. My wife, a filet mignon devotee, ordered the barrel cut with two sauces on the side, roasted shallot wine and a shiitake and brandy reduction.

Everything had been good up until the steaks, but that is when the night truly became memorable. The béarnaise complimented my steak wonderfully, calming the somewhat overwhelming and impenetrable peppercorn covering on my ribeye. The steaks were perfectly cooked. Filets are often delivered as damaged, overcooked goods, but not at Carnevor. The steak was served pink throughout and the sauces on the side weren’t necessary, but the shiitake and brandy reduction was our favorite of the two. The roasted shallot wine had a great oniony flavor, but it didn’t pair well with that specific cut.

One must take advantage of the wine list at Carnevor. Featuring glasses of reds, whites and champagnes from $8 to $15, there is something for everyone who doesn’t want a bottle, which at Carnevor is going to cost you quite a bit. The cheapest bottle is $35, and there is only one. After that the prices jump to more than fifty and then sky rocket to an impossibly high $4500 for a DRC La Tache ’05 Burgundy. I opted for a King Estate Pinot Noir ’06 from Oregon. It was smooth, but I admit it may not have been as great if I wasn’t drinking it with the finest steak I had ever been served.

We were served Carnevor’s donuts and dipping sauces (chocolate, raspberry and vanilla) as a birthday bonus. These delicately fried dough balls were a not-too-sweet ending to a memorable meal. You may want to end the night with dessert so ask your waiter for any recent additions, but if you are in the mood for chocolate you can’t go wrong with their torte.

Maybe a Scotch is in order if you want to continue the trend of spending more money on a meal than you ever have before. A modest 10-year Talisker is offered at $13 a glass and, on with tradition, there is a 30-year Macallan for $130 a glass just in case you are determined to have a final bill with four digits left of the decimal point.

As you can imagine, Carnevor’s clientele is unique. We saw a few groups of businessmen and businesswomen clearly spending on the company credit card. Besides those groups, there are many patrons celebrating special occasions and a few couples who were eating so casually that you just knew they were regulars. Little known to this diner, there is actually a celebrity watch site for Carnevor and other eateries on Milwaukee Street. Celebrities, in Milwaukee? Yes, at least celebrities to upper Midwesterners. The Brewers, Bucks, and Packers have all frequented Carnevor. If you are in town and have the need to be seen and to spend a lot of money, this is the place to go. But my wife and I weren’t itching to spend this much on a dinner. This clearly wasn’t the case with most people inside. We just were in search of Milwaukee’s best steaks. We found them. You will too.

Reminder

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The Problem With Getting Jacked Up

With gift subscriptions to The New Yorker, The New York Times, Time Magazine, Travel and Leisure, and Cooks Illustrated, there is never a lack of reading material in my apartment. With all these publications covering tables, desks, and bedside tables it is sometimes hard to find a book to read. This household went from having zero subscriptions I was interested in to five in the span of a few weeks. All this reading material has been a bit overwhelming and lately I haven’t been doing the best on keeping up with it. As an example of that, I was reading a New Yorker issue from late January last night.

The article (available online here) was written by Ben McGrath and titled “Does Football Have A Future?” It was well researched and informative in a good, addicting kind of way—the way all magazine writing should be. McGrath covers a lot of ground in this article, which addresses a topic sports fans have heard a lot about in the last year, concussions. I think what a lot of sports fans or parents of footballers aren’t terribly aware of are the repercussions from a career in football. And I’m just not talking about NFL football; I’m talking about junior high football to the NFL. And, to be fair, McGrath does point out that concussions occur in sports other than football, but the focus here was football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E., which occurs in an alarmingly high number of football players. Detailed in the article are current and former players who admit to having memory problems and some who fear the side effects of a hit (not the hit itself) so much that they leave the sport altogether. I read about a 40 year-old brain resembling a brain from an 80 year-old Alzheimer’s sufferer.

I thought this quote about the parents who encourage or don’t mind the thought of their kids having a career in football rang true.

“Any parent who has let their child play football in the past fifty years and claimed never to have understood the risks involved was either kidding himself or an idiot,” Buzz Bissinger, the author of “Friday Night Lights,” wrote last week in the Daily Beast.

A few lines down, the author poses a question:

How many of the men on the field in the Super Bowl will be playing with incipient dementia? “To me, twenty percent seems conservative,” Nowinski said.

A conservative estimate? 20%? Ouch.

Right off the bat, this article addresses the issue of reporting on the concussion crisis and being attacked as anti-football, which translates for some to mean anti-fun, wussy, etc. And I understand that attack. People don’t like to find out that what they’ve been doing or what they want someone else to be doing is life threatening and certainly life-impairing. It’s like millions of people who must have been in denial for so long once people were coming out about the dangers of smoking and saying, surprise, smoking isn’t good for your health. Look, it makes your lungs look like this and they don’t work so well when they look like that.

I suspect, for many, knowing what we now know about concussions won’t be enough for them to step off the field or guide a son or daughter away from a sport which could make them a vegetable by 60, if they even live that long. We pick and choose the risks we are willing to take. I didn’t have this decision to make, but if I did, I hope I wouldn’t sacrifice the second half of my life for incredible material wealth during my 20s.

I Need Your Help

I got a tip from my grandma that the Denver Post is having a contest. The paper is looking for op-ed columnists. Anything like this peaks my attention and interest so I did some research. The Denver Post is asking for each contestant to send in two 650-700-word columns by February 22nd. I want to enter, but I need your help (if you are willing to give it) in selecting the writing I should send in. As far as I can tell, the writing samples don't have to be exclusively about living in Colorado, but it won't hurt if they are. So, let me know your favorite pieces of writing from this blog. There are over five years of writing on here. Pick out the stuff that stood out to you, stuff that you think you could be reading in a magazine or newspaper. If you find anything like that, email me at bperica@gmail.com and let me know what piece you like. If you don't find anything, email me anyway...I like emails. Or leave a comment on this post with any ideas.

Seriously, I would appreciate your help on this. Whenever there is a writing contest or a job to apply to that requires a writing sample I have a hard time picking out the piece of writing that most accurately shows promise or talent. Here is a link to a column about the contest and details.

Made My Day

When I was leaving work last week I pulled in behind a car with a bumper sticker on it. I read it and then started scrambling around for a pen and paper. I got my pen and I found an old receipt from Target and I wrote it down. The message stung a little, but damn, I haven’t read something so honest on a bumper sticker in a very long time.

“Show me someone with a deep loathing for all mankind and I’ll show you someone who works in retail.”

Brilliant.