A Day In The Life

How far our country has sunk with Trump as president

2017-10-11T11:11:00.000-05:00

In what was the only post I made in the past year-plus where I talked politics, I wished the United States of America's new president – Donald Trump – the best. Reflecting on his very polished victory speech where he spoke in an almost vanilla and unifying tone, I came to the realization that maybe things would work out and America would come out looking quite well in the eyes of the world.

...if he leads like he spoke during his almost vanilla acceptance speech early this morning, he will be at least a middle-of-the-road president who can at least keep America on track and remaining as the most powerful country in the world.

Oh, how things have changed rather quickly. In a short nine month span we have seen allegations – which seem to be rather true – that Russia at least meddled in, if not flat out influenced, the 2016 presidential election. Meetings between Trump, his family, his advisors and Russian officials happened. That tidbit alone should send up thousands of red flags but through Trump's continual and almost masterful way of distracting the country via his Twitter tirades, we are instead now a divided nation over NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem (which itself is utter bullshit due to the fact that NFL players didn't even come on to the field during the anthem for some games until only a few years ago.)

This summer alone we've had alt-right (Neo-Nazi) protests take place on American soil with Trump failing to stand up against their hate-speech. We've seen women's rights be stripped with employers now able to opt-out of providing birth control coverage in insurance plans on the grounds of their religious beliefs. We've seen a president who has failed to help residents of Puerto Rico and instead opted to call San Juan's mayor "nasty" and that she exhibits "poor leadership".

Rather than unite in the face of tragedy and take a stand against hate speech, Trump has instead found a way to further divide an already divided country on nearly every issue.

But that, I feel, was his goal all along. As a private businessman, he likely sees the presidency as yet another avenue to eventually profit from. Whether it's his foreign-made Make America Great Again hats or conducting foreign policy meetings at his New Jersey golf courses or his Florida resort, he is mixing government business with his private business ventures. How he is still managing to get away with his is beyond me.

His continued cries of "Fake News" are yet another issue. Whenever he disagrees with factual new reporting from a news outlet that isn't Fox News Channel, it's fake news. It's yet another tactic in dividing the country's citizens. It's not just left versus right, it's friend versus friend, neighbor versus neighbor and America versus the World.

His continued threats toward obviously insane North Korea leader Kim Jong Un could very well lead us to a short-lived nuclear war at the worst or World War III at best. Trump continually chooses divisiveness over diplomacy. He chooses divisiveness over unity. He chooses to put himself first because he knows that he and his family will ultimately reap huge profits from his time as president.

If we make it to the 2020 presidential election without starting a wide-scale war, I can only hope that Americans have opened their eyes to the fact that the man who promised to Make America Great Again spent four years tearing down years of progress so he could have even a chance to live up to his 2016 campaign slogan. A man with no previous experience in government, as we now know, has no business having the most powerful political position in the country.

To the 49% of American voters who are responsible for electing Donald Trump as America's president: YOU WERE DUPED. You believed a man who is nothing but a divisive, pathological liar hellbent on making himself richer on the backs of people whom he doesn't give two shits about. You believed lies and became a vehicle for his hatred of minorities, women and anyone whose beliefs don't fall squarely in line with his own. The 49% of Americans who voted Trump bought a truckload of lies because they couldn't bring themselves to trust a smart and experienced woman to be president. In short, the 49% of republican voters in this country are no better than the hate-filled, racist president we are now stuck with.

The Twin Cities... FROM SPACE

2017-01-20T10:41:00.000-06:00

As the space station passed over Minnesota earlier this week, a United States astronaut tweeted a photo of the lights of the Twin Cities and portions of greater Minnesota which is particularly interesting. Hey, we've all seen satellite photos but the most striking thing about this photo is how easily you can depict the various cities which flank the metro area. Also quite visible are the various highways and a handful of natural features in the good old state of Minnesota.

Good morning USA! Twin Cities, Minneapolis - St Paul, Minnesota. pic.twitter.com/fHAXLuA6mg
— Shane Kimbrough (@astro_kimbrough) January 19, 2017

Inspired by Bob Collins at the Newscut blog, I took the liberty to further notate the cities, highways and features shown in this nighttime photo of Minnesota. Enjoy!

Looking back at 2016

2016-12-20T15:46:00.001-06:00

When I look back at 2016 at a personal level, I am truly thankful for everything I have and what I have been able to do. Sure, I fell short of almost every goal I set forth for myself earlier this year but in terms of the big picture, I as well as my family are truly better off.

We were able to take our first true family vacation in the form of a road trip to Montana and back through Wyoming and South Dakota where we made what are hopefully countless memories for our two kids. To make that a safer trip, we bought our first brand new vehicle a few weeks before leaving for the mountains of the west. Six months later it still has hints of that much-talked-about new car smell.

We also celebrated the missus beginning a new job. Still in a management role, she was able to find a job which sparked her interests without having to take a hit in the wage department. After a staggering 12 years as a restaurant manager with a stellar track record she moved on to become production manager at an up and coming company in the same town she has worked for the majority of her career.

The boy began his educational journey ass he began preschool in September. Barely three years old, we rolled the dice and outside of a couple hiccups in the first few days of school, he is doing surprisingly well. He knows the names of almost everyone in his class and claims those that he knows as his friends. Not bad for a kid who h as never spent a day in a traditional daycare.

The girl began second grade this year and after a few notes from the teacher regarding her need to be constantly talking, she is hitting her stride. She is reading basically a full grade level above her classmates and is billed as the top reader in her class. She is also kicking ass in the area of spelling – even without really practicing spelling any of the words the is tested on.

All told, 2016 has been pretty damn good to us even though my onion crop went to hell after being hailed on in May. I am just hoping that 2017 is even better. After all, that is the American dream...

So Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States

2016-11-09T15:44:00.003-06:00

I'll be honest that I don't have a lot invested in the 2016 presidential election. I've learned as I've aged that to distance yourself a comfortable amount from politics will help to preserve your sanity and lower your blood pressure. To say that Americans had a choice in yesterday's election between two similar shit sandwiches is extreme but neither did much to excite me or to spark my emotions.

Hillary Clinton has spent her life – at least since the 1980s – in the public eye by way of being married to Bill Clinton. Beginning as Governor of Arkansas, then President of the United States and Hillary's foray into her own political career as United States Senator from New York and on to her role as Secretary of State for Barack Obama. She is the stereotypical career politician. She can promise change and progress until she's blue in the face but when you've spent your entire life focused on advancing your career, you tend to become distanced from those you claim to represent.

On the flip side in Donald Trump. He made a name for himself as a real estate tycoon and businessman who parlayed that into a relatively long career as a reality television host. The fact that throughout his campaign he claimed to represent the average Joe and Jane while the opposition dug up tales of shafting contractors and shirking employee rights screamed of the perfect example of the pot calling the kettle black.

Neither truly rose above mediocre in my eyes. Curious, as election day neared, I took some survey which supposedly would align your values with those of one of the presidential candidates. My closest choice was Jill Stein. That was the first time I had hear of Jill Stein. I'll be honest in saying that when the momentum behind Bernie Sanders was still strong, he seemed like the best choice if the goal was to have a president who truly understood the struggles and needs of the American populace.

The only problem was that the American media deemed him unworthy to face down Donald Trump. That's how the Democrats arrived at nominating Hillary Clinton as their candidate to face down Donald Trump. The only problem being that the length of time she had spent in public office, while it can definitely be viewed as valuable experience into how government functions, became her downfall. She was the establishment even though she was the first female presidential nominee in the history of the United States.

The fact that Americans, in general, are constantly fed up with politics and politicians was her undoing. It wasn't emails on a private server. It wasn't skyrocketing health insurance premiums. It was the views of half of the voting public that they had had enough of career politicians leading this country.

We can view Donald Trump as running an extremely nasty and negative campaign but, like nearly every political before him, he unearthed the dirty little secrets on his opponent which resonated with those who supported him and that message amplified organically.

If Donald Trump's time in office – whether it is four or eight years – is anything like his campaign, we are in for 48 or 96 months of turmoil and further divisiveness. However, if he leads like he spoke during his almost vanilla acceptance speech early this morning, he will be at least a middle-of-the-road president who can at least keep America on track and remaining as the most powerful country in the world.

Maybe I have mellowed, but one person does not change the course of history for better or worse. If you want to worry about something, let's realize the both the Senate and House of Representatives have a Republican majority. If there is an ultra-conservative agenda which looks to roll back the progress made in the 21st century, they'll have an extremely easy road in front of them even if Donald Trump ends up being a reasonable and decent leader. Trump may be the most powerful man in the world come January 2017 but the title of President is nothing more than a figurehead – the real power lies in congress.

Star Tribune's CJ vs. Jana Shortal

2016-09-08T11:58:00.001-05:00

When I first caught wind of the Star Tribune's "gossip columnist" and her latest trivializing piece of lowbrow "writing", I thought it was par for the course. Then I re-read her blog entry on Jana Shortal's choice of wardrobe as Shortal reported the latest on the Jacob Wetterling case. That's when I got truly mad.

While Shortal marches to the beat of her own drum with her fashion choices, that fact does not effect how she reports stories for KARE-TV. She has been a Twin Cities television fixture for a dozen years and has done her job well in that time as evidenced by her longevity in the market. When Shortal reported Tuesday evening's update on the Wetterling case, she was dressed in what I deem to be a professional manner.

The Star Tribune blogger, likely looking for something to fill some space after a slow holiday weekend on the "gossip" scene in the Twin Cities obviously thought differently. Penning a take – a degrading one at that – on a true journalist's fashion choices has no place in what is supposedly a legitimate, large market newspaper.

Wednesday, after the brief publication of the blog piece on the Star Tribune's website, the shit truly hit the fan as social media blew up with the general take being that the blog entry was uncalled for and has no place in a legitimate newspaper – some (myself included) even going as far as calling for the blogger's resignation or her firing.

That, to me, is where things get sticky. A newspaper column is an opinion piece but rarely ventures into the attack category. To criticize a television journalist's fashion choices within the pages of a once-respected print media outlet is tacky. It screams of desperation. It shows a true lack of working one's sources to find a legitimate story. Maybe the blogger from the Star Tribune has a degree outside of journalism. Maybe she doesn't have a college degree at all. Either is fine but writing such a degrading and trivial piece of observational television watching is truly bottom of the barrel blogging.

Minnesota deserves better blogging than that which the Star Tribune pays that particular blogger for. The apology issued by the Star Tribune's editors is a cute little attempt at back-pedaling but the simple fact that an editor approved the blog entry in the first place shows a lapse in judgement or a lack of checks and balances.

I tweeted earlier that the Star Tribune blogger in question should be demoted or fired. Firing someone for an incident like this one may be extreme but I have seen reporters at my previous jobs fired for sending an inappropriate email to the wrong person. Hopefully this leaves a lasting impression on the blogger but given her track record, I doubt that she is even capable of apologizing.

Thoughts on the Jacob Wetterling case

2016-09-06T19:51:00.003-05:00

I was only ten years old when the news of the Jacob Wetterling case broke. Like Jacob, I lived in a rural area of Minnesota near a fairly sizeable city. Even at the relatively young age of ten, I knew what abduction meant. To be frank, as I heard the somewhat sketchy details become public, the idea of a kid close to my age being abducted scared the shit out of me.

That's what child predators, child abusers, rapists and other cellar dwellers of society thrive on is fear. If you have confidence and feel safe, those who prey on other can catch you off guard. If you live in fear, the abusers, murderers and rapists win. It's truly a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario.

The basic idea of that scenario came to light for me a few years after the abduction of Jacob Wetterling. I remember that my parents, and probably every other parent across the country, became extra vigilant. Stranger danger was no joking matter. The eerie tale of an adult male abducting a nearly teenage boy in the very state I lived in struck fear in me. I was scared. Suddenly we were told in school to be on the lookout for strangers. Schools – those buildings where you were supposed to be safe from the evils of the outside world – weren't even safe any longer.

As I aged, though, a good portion of that fear left me. Once I reached the final year of middle school I felt safer. The disheartening tale of the abduction in the fall of 1989 near St. Cloud, MN faded from my memory. But for the Wetterling family it never left. It became their mark on the world. They never forgot about the son they lost – and in recent years it came back into my world.

As I had children of my own, I recalled that sense of vigilance my own parents instilled in me as a ten year-old. The fact that one of the worst people on Earth has confessed to the abduction and murder of Jacob Wetterling closes a very dark chapter for the Wetterling family and likely for the entire generation who grew up in the aftermath of his abduction. What it has done, though, lives on forever.

We teach our own children to be aware of strangers – to not talk to them or get in a vehicle with them or even leave a "safe area" with a stranger. Our neighborhood is safe – at least in our eyes – and the parents know each other. Our children roam from home to home in the summer months and play with each other but even when the children aren't within our range of vision, I still wander closer and listen for their giggles and playful screams. I pay attention to vehicles which drive through our area of town and pay attention to that vehicle which is going too slowly or paying too much attention to one thing or another.

I guess that those lessons instilled in all of us after the abduction of Jacob Wetterling have stuck with us. Maybe fear didn't win out after all. Maybe the Wetterling family can finally have some closure after that terrible tragedy in 1989 that made every neighborhood seem less safe. Maybe justice will finally be served. Maybe.

Big 12 Expansion Saga Never Ends

2016-06-23T11:32:00.001-05:00

The Big 12 college conference has always stunk of instability. Created in the 1990s with the merger of the Big 8 conference and the four strongest members of the scandal-ridden all-Texas Southwest Conference, the Big 12 ushered in an era where two 12-team conferences (the SEC being the other) dominated the college football landscape with sprawling 12 team line-ups.

The only problem with the Big 12 is that the Big 8 teams and their relatively scandal-free reputation conceded the majority of the power to the Texas schools – going as far as allowing the conference's headquarters to be in Texas. With the majority of power residing in Texas, the Texas schools virtually dictated the direction of the conference. This became painfully obvious to anyone paying attention to college sports in the late 2000s when conference realignment became front page news.

With Nebraska, Colorado, Texas A&M and Missouri all leaving for greener pastures, the conference recruited yet another Texas school Texas Christian (TCU) and eastern outlier West Virginia (WVU) to shore up the Big 12 ranks for a total of ten teams. But rather than even try to get back to 12 schools, the Big 12 conference stood firm with ten schools and the majority of power still squarely residing in Texas. The likelihood of stability was further lessened when ESPN partnered with the University of Texas and gave the school its very own cable sports channel, The Longhorn Network. That move by Texas only served to further alienate the former Big 8 / non-Texas schools. It became obvious the the Big 12 conference was merely the University of Texas, a handful of other lesser Texas schools and some former Big 8 schools with limited options for new conference homes.

The turmoil in the conference came to a head more than once in the past half decade. The Pac 10 nearly became the Pac 16 by plucking off the best of the Big 12 conference but this move was apparently squashed at the last minute because the University of Texas wanted to bring along a few of its Texas school cousins.

Other schools in the conference have still been mentioned at attractive expansion candidates by other conferences. The B1G (Big Ten) has been tossed about at a potential home for the University of Kansas and the University of Oklahoma. The complication lies with both of these school supposedly being tied to their in-state brethren (Kansas State University and Oklahoma State University). The SEC has as well as the Pac 12 has also been tossed in as potential homes of the University of Oklahoma.

But then the talk of expansion came up. The Big 12 looked like it was just days away from getting back to a total of 12 schools in its geographically sensible conference. The University of Cincinatti and Brigham Young University were mentioned as frontrunners. Of course there were others such as the University of Memphis, Colorado State University, University of Houston, University of Connecticut, University of Central Florida and University of Southern Florida who were brought up.

There was a divide, though, It seemed like the University of Oklahoma and the remainder of the former Big 8 schools as well as WVU were in favor expansion while the University of Texas and its Texas bloc of schools were against expansion. Again, the University of Texas looked to be wielding its power and standing in the way of expansion. No expansion meant no possible chance for an increase in television rights fees and definitely no lucrative Big 12 cable sports channel – especially with the University of Texas and their Longhorn Network standing in the way.

Now, though, expansion talk has cooled. In fact, many are speculating that the Big 12 has come to a consensus that ten schools is the perfect fit for the foreseeable future. Well, for the future until 2025 when the conference's Grant of Rights agreement as well as current television agreement comes to an end. If you were one for conspiracy theories, you could speculate that this stability is only leading to one final upheaval in 2025 where the conference wither finally dissolves to be swallowed by the Big Ten, Pac 12 and SEC or flexes its might and swallows at least a portion of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and the Power Five conferences (Big Ten, SEC, ACC, Pac 12, Big 12) shrinks to the Power Four conferences and finally makes sense for an expanded college football playoff.

Either way, any significant upheaval seems to have been pushed down the road around nine years. In 2025, though, all bets are off and that's when I'll be back to update you on this hot topic.

Goals for 2016

2016-02-09T16:18:00.002-06:00

Normally people pontificate on the upcoming year towards the end of the prior year. With everyone and their little dog, too, having already done that; I opted to wait a handful of week into the current year to set some goals for myself.

I feel like I spun my wheels for the most part in 2015. For better or worse I settled into a groove, or rut, depending on how you look at it. Things need to change this year.

After some unfortunate developments in 2015, I was thrust into a number of new roles within the company where I work. For 2016 I need to get better at those roles because those roles drive revenue and with a radically new ownership structure on the horizon, ever dollar will be scrutinized and that is something we are entirely unfamiliar with. What was previously a free-wheeling company with virtually no revenue expectations is now expected to be a money-making machine. Being responsible for approximately 15% of that revenue (if not more), I need to step things up.

Secondly, I need to be better about distancing myself from work. There will always be that need for taking care of problems minutes after they arise – that's the nature of a small 24/7 business. The key is knowing when to prioritize things. I have been careful in how I approached things, letting other know that I put work second but still being able to fix problems when they need to be fixed. I stay in my corner of the work world and let others fight their battles because I control my own destiny and people repeatedly state that they notice how much work I do and are impressed with how I exceed their expectations.

The third area is self-improvement. I am used to working my ass off. It comes from growing up on a farm where manual labor and long hours were the norm. I need to get back to that. I intend to step up to bat in the area of helping my parents who are no longer young. I also intend to pitch in whenever I can to help my in-laws whose health is beginning to fade. One would think that with eight children that there would always be help around when it is needed but that simply isn't the case. I enjoy helping them out and I look at it as returning the favor for them letting me have garden space at their farm.

The fourth area is my health in general. Item three will go a long way in improving my health but I also need to make smarter choices about what I eat and drink. Now don't go crazy thinking that I'm cutting out beer, wine or alcohol in general because I'm not. I actually consume those rather infrequently. I do need to completely eliminate soda from my diet and find ways to improve my overall fitness. Maybe that means more bike rides with my kids or running with them as they ride their bikes. Whatever the case, I intend to lose ten pounds this year and gain back the muscle tone which has become a bit soft in recent years.

Wait and see if I meet these goals in eleven months.

Buffer strips on Minnesota waterways = overkill

2015-12-21T15:52:00.001-06:00

There, maybe I got your attention. In no way am I saying that buffer strips aren't needed. They are needed. The one size fits all approach that Governor Mark Dayton has shoved down the throats of Minnesotans, though, is simply wrong. Dictating that open rural drainage ditches are subject to a 50 foot wide buffer strip (on both banks) is simply wasteful.

What the public and even Mark Dayton fails to understand is that when drainage ditches are initially dug and cleaned periodically, the soil removed is placed fairly close to the banks to create what is essentially a berm alongside the ditch. This berm acts as a barrier, preventing surface water from entering the ditch directly. Instead, the surface water must make its way through the soil to tile a few feet below the surface or through grass seeded waterways which also filter sediment, chemicals and any excess nutrients from the water before it enters the waterway.

In the case of the family farm where I grew up, there is a combination of grass waterways, tile, catch basins and berms to prevent runoff and water pollution. Oh, and buffer strips measuring some twenty feet wide.

Farmers, contrary to popular belief, do care about water quality and pollution. After all, they depend on that clean water just as much as their non-farming friends and neighbors.

Just this year, though, my family farm has been strictly told that in no way can they improve the water flow in their drainage ditch which stretches nearly a mile through the farm. Instead, it seems like various governmental agencies whom apparently control the rights of a privately-owned drainage ditch would rather have this ditch slowly fill with sediment which enters the drainage ditch through open road ditches and un-bermed naturally flowing areas of this particular drainage system. In the long run, such a scenario will lead to overland flooding which will push even more sediment, organic matter, chemicals and fertilizers into the very waterways the government has stated that they want to protect.

In an era where government increasingly doubts that the stewards of the land can actually do the right thing, the government themselves are the ones who will do longterm harm.

If Governor Mark Dayton and the various legislators who support the implementation of 50 foot buffer strips would look at the true source of erosion and pollution in our waterways, they would see that closer attention needs to be paid to the state's larger natural waterways.

Efforts to protect shorelines and banks of many areas along the Minnesota River should be one of the top priorities. Anyone who has witnessed the aftermath of a flood will tell you that a stable shoreline will at least begin to decrease the mass erosion events I have seen first hand along the Minnesota River. When a river bank collapses, that soil ends up in the river. Those are the scenarios where, at least during normal rainfall events, a berm and buffer strip combination would be beneficial. Without a berm, though, any amount of rainfall will take soil, chemicals, fertilizers and pollutants to streams and rivers rather quickly.

While agricultural practices have come a long way in the past twenty years, there is still room for improvement. I know that the voice of one person who has seen the value of a berm/sensible buffer strip combination will never change the minds of a politician who rarely ventures outside of the 494/694 loop. Maybe, though, common sense will prevail before a 200 acre farm loses an additional 17 acres due to the forced implementation of 50 foot wide buffer strips.

Reflecting on 2015

2015-12-18T10:55:00.001-06:00

With life as hectic as it is sometimes, there is often little time for reflection. As I sit writing this I am actively procrastinating on no less than half a dozen projects both for work and on a personal level but that's how I have always operated. It is also how 2015 has gone for me. I am sure that if I were to dig deep enough and carefully analyze every minute detail of the past year that I would be able to pick out a vast array of accomplishments. Maybe this feeling of unaccomplishment is due to a birthday next year which for whatever reason is troubling to me. I'm not turning forty years old but it's still disconcerting none the less.

Sure, 2015 was definitely marred by turmoil. There was a situation in my professional life which rocked my world not even before I had celebrated one full year at what I still look at as being one of the most amazing jobs I have ever worked at. That job has given me freedom, opened up a world of possibilities and at the same time tied my stomach in knots due to the actions of one who caused heartache and tremendous loss felt across a wide area.

Those actions truly stuck with me. With that event occupying a piece of my mind, I was less able to enjoy what was normally a fantastic weekend with some of my best friends. It was still a great weekend but those tragic events were still very fresh in my mind. I am, however, looking forward to our 2016 weekend and actively making plans because life truly goes on and while the events of 2015 definitely stung and left me with more questions than answers, it's not wise to dwell on the past.

There were plenty of highlights. My first grade daughter was voted into the student council at her elementary school. My two year-old son got his first haircut at the hands of his mom. He also developed a deep liking of tractors -- so much so that he often sleeps with one in his crib. My daughter learned to ride her bike without training wheels.

Overall, my family is in a far better place than we were three years ago when I was just beginning my foray into the world of marketing and we found out that we were expecting the birth of our son.

I earlier said that this year has often tied my stomach in knots but it has also been far more relaxing than previous years. We finally had a year without large, time-consuming projects. We vacationed on the Hawaiian island of Kauai with two of the best couples anyone could ever ask for as friends. We replaced the tires on both of our vehicles (hey, not everything can be hugely exciting).

We also tackled a handful of small projects which had been bothering us for years. The kitchen ceiling was replaced. The living room ceiling was redone with tin panels. I fixed a few cosmetic electrical issues. I plan on redoing some of the grout in the master bath. I stained 300 linear feet of fence by hand. I finally built the workbench in the basement which I had been planning for over a year. I got back into selling fall decor (mainly pumpkins and gourds) but doing that reminded me of my teen years when that was a cash cow for me.

I took our kids to my parents' farm this fall to show them what the fall harvest was like and managed to get both of them into the combine with me driving. Showing the what I used to do when I was some twenty years younger was huge. It also showed me that I still remember how to operate the farm equipment just as well as I did in the 1990s.

With that being said, 2016 looks to be a great year. We look forward to a calmer year filled with even more accomplishments and landmarks. I hope for good health for my parents and my in-laws. I look forward to more frequent gatherings with friends and family and a year full of personal accomplishments!

Jaclyn Swedberg Rocks A Red Bikini On The Beach

2015-09-10T12:24:00.004-05:00

The 2012 Playboy Playmate of the Year showed off her stunning figure in a tiny red bikini on the glorious beaches of Miami, FL.

Minnesota State Fair Food Bingo

2015-08-26T13:45:00.000-05:00

The Minnesota State Fair is known across the country for being a mecca of sorts for food on a stick. The portability of food on a stick, coupled with the variety of deep fried everything makes the Minnesota State Fair a ten day orgy for your taste buds.

With that being said, it' was high time for someone to come up with a basic but fun game centered around the crazy food available at the Minnesota State Fair. While you can find highly organized maps detailing where to get the newest fair food creations nearly everywhere and websites have detailed every category of food available at the 2015 Minnesota State Fair, the time is right for a bit of chaotic fun in the form of Minnesota State Fair Food Bingo.

Just like any other form of bingo, you can play horizontally, vertically, diagonally, blackout (or what I call "food coma") or take the easy route and go for four corners.

Download the card, share it, print off a hundred copies and leave them around the Minnesota State Fairgrounds.

Is 105 The Ticket finally done in Minneapolis?

2015-06-12T11:28:00.001-05:00

It hasn't even been a complete week since afternoon talk hosts Bob Sansevere, Mike Morris and Ben Holsen were given their walking papers at third tier Minneapolis-St. Paul sports talker 105 The Ticket but when a barely noticeable radio station cuts the only paid and local on-air staff they have, the writing is usually on the wall.

To begin with, nobody was clamoring for a third sports talk radio station in the Twin Cities -- much less, one spread across three FM frequencies which seem to be a better fit for a niche music format as opposed to fulfilling a contract which owner Cumulus made with CBS Sports to give them an outlet for their national sports talk network.

I know all too well that sports is where the money is and that while a talk format -- especially one using local talent -- isn't cheap to launch, maintain, nurture and grow; it is a gold mine when it comes to advertising because of the ad availability in a talk format. With Cumulus management axing their five hours of local sports talk, they seem to be sending a signal that they either don't care that these three small FM signals could actually make some money with local content even with microscopic ratings or that a new format is on its way.

If the new format route is the future for the stations that, when run as a trimulcast, have featured alternative rock, hard rock, alternative rock, classic R&B, alternative rock, soft oldies, oldies, adult contemporary and now sports talk; the next likely step is the Cumulus broadcasting format of classic country billed as NASH Icons or a return to adult contemporary as they were at the end of the Love 105 format. Cumulus has been sitting on a pile of web domains registered for the NASH Icons format -- one of which seems to coincide with the Minneapolis-area 105 signals so that is at least a possibility.

If Cumulus decides to ride out the CBS Sports format, though, the company is using three frequencies to fulfill a contract. Not knowing the language of the contract with CBS Sports, I am curious if Cumulus could use just one of the frequencies -- 105.7 has the best coverage of the immediate Minneapolis-St. Paul metro -- to broadcast sports talk and throw a music format on the 105.1 and 105.3 frequencies which could actually appeal to listeners and make this clusterfuck of an ownership group some money.

CBS fall 2015 schedule thoughts

2015-05-13T09:57:00.002-05:00

In the past two or three years, network television's quality has both declined and increased. I have The Walking Dead) being shown on AMC -- a cable channel.

seen a number of great ideas with an almost infinite amount of potential completely squandered and left to wither and die. I have also seen dreck and lowbrow, low-concept programs become middling hits. To find a hit nowadays, though, is a challenge as television viewing is more fragmented than ever before with the continuing rise of Netflix, Amazon becoming a player and the most popular series (

CBS (aka The Tiffany Network) had been able -- until the past year or two -- to avoid the sliding ratings and rarely had more than two series which turned out to be complete dogs. They continually churned out crime dramas which pulled in steady ratings and spawned spinoffs. On the comedy side, their multi-camera shows followed a formula of set-up, easy joke, laughter. It worked and they built on their Monday comedy success with a solidly watched Thursday comedy block. That new Thursday block quickly laid waste to NBC's once-popular Thursday comedy block.

But the success of the CBS Thursday comedy block came at a price. Failing to find a big hit after How I Met Your Mother began its decline and eventually ended its run, the two-hour Monday comedy block was scaled back to a mere hour for the 2014-15 season. The anchor 2 Broke Girls failed to improve or even maintain its viewership levels.

The schedule for the fall 2015 season on CBS is the most disappointing and lackluster of all of the networks -- and that says a lot given the bottom-of-the-barrel crap NBC is rolling out.

CBS FALL 2015-16 SCHEDULE
(New programs in UPPER CASE; all times ET)
MONDAY
8-8:30 PM The Big Bang Theory
8:30-9 PM LIFE IN PIECES
8-9 PM SUPERGIRL (Starting in November)
9-10 PM Scorpion
10-11 PM NCIS: Los Angeles
TUESDAY
8-9 PM NCIS
9-10 PM NCIS: New Orleans
10-11 PM LIMITLESS
WEDNESDAY
8-9 PM Survivor
9-10 PM Criminal Minds
10-11 PM CODE BLACK
THURSDAY
8-11 PM, ET/ NFL Thursday Night Football (Premieres Sept. 17)
5-8 PM, PT
8-8:30 PM The Big Bang Theory (RTP) (Starting in November)
8:30-9 PM LIFE IN PIECES (Starting in November)
9-9:30 PM Mom (Starting in November)
9:30-10 PM ANGEL FROM HELL (Starting in November)
10-11 PM Elementary(Starting in November)
FRIDAY
8-9 PM The Amazing Race
9-10 PM Hawaii Five-O
10-11 PM Blue Bloods
SATURDAY
8-9 PM Crimetime Saturday
9-10 PM Crimetime Saturday
10-11 PM 48 Hours
SUNDAY
7-9 PM 60 Minutes
8-9 PM Madam Secretary
9-10 PM The Good Wife
10-11 PM CSI: CYBER

The biggest shock is that beginning in November, CBS will have no comedies on it Monday night lineup for the first time in over 60 years. This is not just the end of an era, it also marks the continued slide of sitcoms on network television. There will be a mere 12 hours of comedies each week on network television when November rolls around. I am sure that the number has been far lower before but when spread across four major networks it is definitely a low point for televised comedies.

The one series that sticks out like a sore thumb for CBS is Supergirl. It's not geared towards the silver hair crowd. It features a female lead. It could also be the beginning of CBS actively trying to attract younger viewers with the cheesy but young-skewing Scorpion pairing well with Supergirl. Two hours of dramas which could actually appeal to people under 50 years old. Or Supergirl could be a complete failure and vanish by February. Just wait and see.

How not to mess up Easter

2015-04-06T15:23:00.004-05:00

Easter is one of those holidays which brings all parts of the family together. The host family spends hours cleaning their home, preparing food and planning this only to have it turn to shit in mere minutes.

For us, hosting Easter dinner for the third time in ten years, we partially remodeled both our kitchen and living room, meticulously cleaned our money pit of a house and planned a pretty kick-ass meal. Of course, as luck would have it, the electricity had gone out when we arrived home from an excruciatingly long Easter morning mass. We hauled what we needed to my sister-in-law’s house and the wife cooked what she could there. I stayed home and minded the rugrats and waited for guests to show up.

The guests showed up in a trickle. The electricity came back on at ten minutes before noon and we hustled to get everything on the table by noon. We missed the mark by about ten minutes but that was, by far, the most timely holiday meal which had been served in over a decade for this particular family by anyone hosting it.

The problem, though, was that eleven people had yet to show up. I graciously waited five minutes and, after that time, calmly proclaimed “screw ‘em” and told everyone to eat. The food was as good as could be expected but where in the holy hell have people’s manners gone? I know that life gets in the way and kids can be a total bitch to get out the door in a timely fashion but it’s not like this was sprung on you a few hours ago. We told people months ago, followed up by a reminder a few weeks ago and a reminder about what to bring about two weeks ago.

So, why can’t people show up at a designated time? Everyone lives within ten minutes of our house. The wife’s dad showed up 50 minutes late. One of her brothers and his family showed up over an hour late. Her sister and family rolled up thirty minutes late. That accounts for a whopping fourteen guests showing up late. I get that holidays should be fun and relaxed but, shit, plan your time a bit better. While this isn’t a fucking job interview, have some respect for those who have the kindness to invite you lazy, untimely bastards into their house and feed you for free. Showing up on time is the least you can do.

Bunnies and eggs, an Easter question

2015-04-02T13:53:00.003-05:00

Why are the two traditional symbols of the commercialized Easter holiday entirely unrelated?

Bunnies don't come from chicken eggs and chicken eggs don't come from bunnies. Sure, if my science here is correct, bunnies do in fact come from eggs but that involves freaky bunny sex which, amazingly, I know nothing about except that 'fucking like bunnies' is a popular term when describing your friends who have insane amounts of sex.

Great, I went off on a twisted tale involving humans fucking like bunnies while trying to decipher the symbols of easter. Just give me the ticket to hell, please.

Where is the relationship, folks? Why must we surround ourselves with an Easter basket full of varying types of eggs and fill the fucker out with an Easter bunny? Which came first, the bunny or the eggs? Huh? Wait a minute.

That old tale is about a chicken and an egg, two things which are related. Chickens come from eggs and vice versa. Not the same with bunnies. Bunnies are born alive, they are not hatched.

Maybe bunnies, in some corner of the world, give birth to eggs where pollution runs rampant and thus began the tradition. Or maybe they swim underwater at the Mall of America like Scuba Bunny does...

Enlighten me, please.

Last Man on Earth WAS promising

2015-03-31T11:39:00.002-05:00

FOX comedy “The Last Man on Earth” started out with an explosion of greatness. A stunning and almost dangerous concept starring but one actor, the under appreciated Will Forte who was the bumbling MacGruber in numerous SNL sketches. The concept was risky but played out wonderfully — one solitary man leaving a bleak if not interesting existence after a virus wiped out 99.99999999% of humanity. It was a wonderful one-man show. Forte’s Phil Miller traveling the country in search of any glimmer of humanity.

I even liked the second episode where the moderately grating Kristen Schall was introduced. She is wonderful as the voice of Louise Belcher on another FOX comedy, the animated and overlooked “Bob’s Burgers” but just like her role as Hazel Wassername on NBC’s “30 Rock” a few years ago, her acting simply rubs me the wrong way. Her characters are grating and borderline annoying but I suppose that’s why she is playing the characters she is playing.

But a comedy starring even two characters was too good to be true and too good to last for long. Future episodes saw the addition of two more characters. Hopefully that’s where the character additions stop because what quickly became a multi-faceted show focusing more on Phil Miller’s desire to be with the more attractive of the last two apparently living females in America showed just how much of a dickhead he is — even to the only other apparently living guy in America. Everyone needs friends, no matter how much they deny having such a need, and pushing them aside in an effort to have the more desirable of two women possibly shows why Phil Miller survived. He was left behind to suffer through a miserable and incomplete life.

He could choose to be a better friend and a better husband but instead he continually finds ways to alienate those around him. That is, until the most recent episode. Forte’s character chose to change his life to make a better life for those around him. He decided to clean up his poop pool, he reluctantly allowed his wife to move into his house and is beginning to realize that, for better or worse, this weird existence is his new life and that he needs to make the best of it or continue to be a self-loathing and shallow dickhead.

I know that even after a short while that television shows change and evolve but I hope to see more of the weirdness that comes with what is now a small group of survivors left as the last people in America — possibly Earth — and less of the relationship drama. Check out “The Last Man on Earth” Sundays at 8 PM and/or 8:30 PM (C/T) on FOX.

The string of family deaths has begun

2015-03-18T10:44:00.002-05:00

It happened last Wednesday. My mom called in the middle of the day to inform me that her sister’s health was worse than previously expected. Her sister, the youngest of three siblings from my mom’s family, had never married and lived alone in the same apartment for over thirty years. Her health, though, had gone downhill rapidly over the previous six weeks.

I offered to come after work and visit them as they waited for news at the hospital. With her brother from out of state on his way, though, my mom opted to wait for him. She is both an open and closed-off person — at least emotionally speaking. I have rarely seen my mom show her emotions. It’s the way she was raised, I suppose. They grew up with little, thrived on hard work and long hours and survived on little. It’s a generational thing.

I knew, though, that when my mom declined my offer to visit her, her brother and my dad (as well as my aunt) that things were not good. Nobody want to be seen when they are in rapidly declining health by members of even the extended family. As it stands, I am the only nephew my aunt and uncle have. My uncle, married twice, never had children and my parents have only me. Small families are typically close-knit and I suppose ours is no different. I arrived home form work that evening and further discussed with my wife what was going on. I flatly explained that this is just how my mom is. My wife knows it and has seen it. A hug is a rarity but the love, often unspoken, is still there.

When my phone rang on my way to work the following morning I already knew what it was about. My aunt, at the age of 63 years old, had passed away at 2:23 AM at St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester. After only one day in the hospital in Mankato, she was airlifted when bad became worse. They contemplated surgery but with the medication my aunt was on she would have likely bled to death. If medical attention, and a consensus between doctors at the clinic and the hospital in Mankato, would have been sought out earlier, the trio of conditions could have likely been treated. Instead my aunt passed away due to complications from a kidney disease, a possibly ruptured colon and a nerve disorder. All of which stemmed from a poor diet and a lack of medical attention.

When this happened, I wondered how my mom would deal with it. Separated by about 100 miles, the two spoke weekly via phone. My mom is the oldest in the family and she is the glue that holds not only her family but my dad’s family together, too. They visited in person regularly and my mom looked out for her as plenty of older siblings do for their younger siblings.

My mom, though, described what she was experiencing only as “a bit tough”. That’s who my mom is. She can talk for hours but when it comes to anything remotely personal, the conversation is quickly steered away from that topic.

The troubling part for me is that this was the first death of a close family member. The first aunt to pass away. Sadly, it marks what will likely be a regular occurrence for years to come. My dad is one of seven siblings and he also has two step-siblings. That leaves around a dozen family members when you factor in spouses. The next twenty-five years will be full of losses for my extended family.

But instead of thinking about the losses, I like to focus on the positives. My daughter will have her first of probably many boyfriends. My son will start school and slay plenty of ladies with his good looks. Things will continue to change and evolve for my wife and me. Our friends and family will continue to grow. We’ll have far more good times than bad.

The inevitable changes will happen but the memories will last forever.

The best Mai Tai on Kauai

2015-02-14T15:13:00.001-06:00

I recently returned from a trip to the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Populated with far more chickens that humans, this is definitely the most authentic look at Hawaii I have seen and truly the most laid back of the islands I have visited. In our time on the island of Kauai, we managed to sample a wide variety of Mai Tai cocktails and throughout our travels on the island came up with the list below chronicling the tastiness, price and location of some of the Mai Tais we threw down our drink holes. Use this guide as you plan for your vacation to Kauai as this is the definitive guide to the best Mai Tain on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

9th Island
Kapa’a
$11
Fruity but definitely not watered down. Two of these will sneak up on you and remind you that you are, in fact, drinking a tropical cocktail that is laden with alcohol. The 9th Island Bar and Grill is located in a strip mall adjacent to the Safeway grocery store in Kapa’a. If you ever get a hankering for a slice of the mainland while on the island of Kauai, this is the bar and grill for you. It doesn’t hurt that it’s owned by a guy with Minnesota roots who is originally from White Bear Lake, MN.

Smith's Family Luau
Kapa’a
Free with admission
The food was the best of the three luaus I have attended in Hawaii and the Mai Tais were the second best of my entire trip to Kauai. You can grab two at a time from the open bar during dinner and it’s entirely possible to drink a dozen cocktails while you eat. While they may be a bit weaker than those which you pay for out of your own pocket at other bars and restaurants, the sheer quantity you can consume in a short amount of time will make up for the somewhat weak mix. They definitely do not lack in the flavor department, though. The show at the Smith Family Luau isn’t bad but not stellar either. I got a hearty laugh out of one of the cultures portrayed whose supposed claim to fame was being able to stroke a chicken to sleep.

Outrigger restaurant/bar - Oasis on the Beach
Kapa’a
$12
Tall and tasty. Mixed with a different blend of tropical juices than I had come to expect, possibly a bit heavy on pineapple. The setting is nice as the Outrigger Waipouli in Kapa’a sits just feet from the beach on the Pacific Ocean. This just so happens to be the very hotel/condo which we stayed at and I would definitely go back again as the Outrigger properties are definitely top notch (we honeymooned at Outrigger Reef on the Beach in Waikiki).

Rob’s Good Times Grill
Lihue
$11
Definitely tops as far as Mai Tai drinking is concerned on Kauai. A little sports bar tucked away next to a bowling alley in Lihue, an ad for Rob’s Good Times Grill ironically played on the radio as we pulled into the parking lot. A buddy of mine boasted about how these were the best Mai Tais he had had during his vacation and he should know as he was rarely seen without a Mai Tai in his hand.

Tiki Iniki
Princeville
$14
Strong Mai Tais. Little if any juice. Good if you want to get rip-roaring drunk in paradise but not flavorful at all. A bit lacking in atmosphere as well as this bar, owned by Todd Rundgren, is located towards the back of a cute little shopping center in the north shore enclave of Princeville. The service was a bit slow at Tiki Iniki and a friend of mine discovered a little paper umbrella smashed in the bottom of one of his green ceramic Mai Tai glasses. That leads even the slowest person to believe that the glass had not been washed. A bit of a disgusting vision to be sure but, like I said, the Mai Tai from Tiki Iniki in Princeville on the island of Kauai was strong and full of alcohol. One short swig and I knew that this outing would be interesting.

The Current fires Barb Abney

2015-01-28T09:54:00.000-06:00

Broadcast media is a fickle animal — particularly radio. On-air DJ firings and format flips happen regularly. It’s practically expected because it’s just another business chasing a larger profit. When an on-air DJ is fired from a public radio station, though, that’s shocking. When Barb Abney, now-former mid-day on-air host at 89.3 The Current tweeted last night that “I Loved My Job” it was immediately apparent what that meant. It’s a rarity when a public radio DJ is fired. I believe that it has only happened once before at 89.3 The Current in its ten year run and that happened to be Thorn whom Abney replaced.

Barb Abney was definitely an outsider when she came to Minnesota after her former on-air home 97X WOXY in Oxford, Ohio was sold and flipped to a cookie-cutter ass-rock format. She has always had the chops for modern rock and alternative radio. I used to listen to the 97X WOXY stream and remember Abney and instantly recognized the name when she landed in the Twin Cities. I emailed her a short pronunciation guide for some of our hard-to-pronounce-for-outsiders sit names on what must have been her first day on the air at The Current. A few days later she emailed me back and thanked me for listening to her show.

I routinely listened to at least half of her show on The Current and her cover to cover segment was a breath of fresh air and tonal real was like stepping back in time to simpler days. She knows how to connect to the community and even if her style wasn’t for everyone you’d be hard pressed to find a Minnesota music fan who hadn’t seen Abney at a local show at least once. She is passionate about what she does and it has always showed in the way she is the biggest fan of the music she has played. The fact that Barb Abney said that “I Loved My Job” was the best statement she could have ever made. It was obvious, given her passion, that the biggest fan of The Current very well may have been Barb Abney.

Her mid-day on-air replacement, Jade Tittle, will need a lot of patience from MPR management because while she has been on the air doing overnights and fill-ins, her style seems custom-tailored for late nights and overnights. Her mellow tone, to me anyway, seems to be the complete opposite of what is needed for the heart of the 9-5 workday. Her age, too, is exactly what The Current is after as far as listener and member demographics. MPR wants and needs younger listeners as The Current is a feeder for their classical music and news services as those Current listeners age.

I’m not saying that Abney was fired due to her age and a perceived disconnect with the younger listeners the station wants as members but it sure seems possible.

But Barb Abney will survive. The great DJs always do. Maybe the Pohlad family hasn’t completely finalized their on-air line-up for Go96.3. It sure would be a welcome treat to hear a knowledgeable female voice who has shown that she can connect with the Minnesota music scene show up on a locally-owned station which seems to cater to the exact same audience as The Current.

Good luck Babney.

Craig Ferguson will be missed

2014-12-23T08:52:00.001-06:00

I will admit that when Craig Ferguson first took the reins of ‘The Late Late Show’ on CBS, I missed
Craig Kilborn. That feeling, though, would be short lived. Craig Ferguson had a bit of a bumpy start as a talk show host but soon found his footing and developed a quirky, off-beat sense of comedic art that will not be replicated any time soon.

The low budget of the show paired with the fact that it was owned by David Letterman’s production company — Worldwide Pants — meant that the show wasn’t going anywhere even if ratings fell to ‘Mulaney’-like levels. Low expectations often mean creative freedom and that is exactly what the quirky Scottish-born Ferguson took advantage of.

With a cast of oddball characters including a foul-mouthed assortment of puppets, the horse Secretariat, Geoff the skeleton robot, lip-synced songs and plenty of random dancing in what he referred to as a “dimly lit studio” gave the show the flavor it needed to be a success at 11:30 PM (CT).

Craig Ferguson could have easily been another talk show host with a band, a mildly edgy joke-filled monologue followed by two showbiz guests and a band to round out the hour but he took things a step further. Sometimes he had only one guest. There weren’t always bands on the show. And his interview style was one where it was conversational and he held nothing back. He made guests feel comfortable and made his producer feel uncomfortable by often times swearing which made Ferguson come across as more genuine than any late night talk show host before him.

Ferguson got the job because he had stand-up comedy chops and had already proven himself during his tenure on ‘The Drew Carey Show’. He was a dark horse and that made him even more likable and real.

It will be quite some time before another show is as uniquely different and genuine as ‘The Late Late Show’ with Craig Ferguson was. His ten year run, which ended Friday, will stand out as the pinnacle of 11:30 CT late night talk shows for quite some time as others strive to be lesser-known carbon copies of their 10:30 PM CT siblings.

7 essential Thanksgiving foods

2014-11-26T15:11:00.001-06:00

America is truly a melting pot but there are some dishes -- especially for a day set aside to celebrate

the one time when the pilgrims got along with the native Americans before killing them with weapons and disease -- that are essential to your Thanksgiving Day feast.

1.) Pumpkin Pie.
This is a necessity. Without having at least one (preferably more) Pumpkin Pie at your Thanksgiving Day feast, you obviously hate America and all of the awesomeness which it stands for.

2.) Mashed Potatoes.
Forget adding shit like cheese and bacon bits to them. Thanksgiving is about celebrating with the most basic foods in the largest quantities available. Cheese has no fucking place on your mashed potatoes and if you are having Au Grautin Potatoes, then you're obviously a terrorist. Heap that pile of mashed potatoes high and be sure to go back for seconds because on Thanksgiving, your belt gets the day off.

3.) Cranberry Sauce.
The Pilgrims probably had the luxury of fresh cranberries picked by the hands of the native Americans whom they would later conquer and kill so as modern Americans we shall at least have the same food. Of course we should do so with a modern twist. Take that can opener out of the kitchen drawer and crank open a couple cans of Jellied Cranberry Sauce. Brand has no place, I prefer the cheapest I can find, and slice off discs of jellied Cranberry goodness. If your relatives don't like the Jellied Cranberry Sauce that simply leaves more for you. If they begin to taunt you for liking something so weird, tell them how you truly feel about them. Don't hold anything back. They are now DEAD to you.

4.) Stuffing.
Don't call it "dressing" because what the fuck is it actually dressing. This stuffing comes out of your turkey's ass like it ought to. And it needs to have plump, juicy raisins in it. Not giant chunks of onions but raisins because that's just the way it is. If your spouse says this is gross, it is grounds for divorce. Seriously, consult a lawyer.

5.) Gravy.
This is the only accessory which is acceptable for your mountain of mashed potatoes. Put a healthy drizzle of gravy -- hopefully from a can, jar or a bag which came stuffed up the turkey's ass -- on those potatoes. Then put more on. Dump it on your stuffing and turkey. They lick the rest out of the gravy boat. Laugh maniacally at the person who would have received the gravy next, pound your fist on the table and proclaim yourself "king of the gravy" as you leave no gravy for anyone else. Maybe they'll think twice about making only three gallons of gravy next year.

6.) Candied Sweet Potatoes.
They are healthy because they're orange. They're delicious because they are glazed with butter, brown sugar and milk. Notice how I didn't mention marshmallows. That's because marshmallows have one purpose -- s'mores. Marshmallows are NOT a Thanksgiving food. Leave my house, hippie.

7.) Turkey.
Cook it breast down after seasoning it. DOn't just throw the headless bird in a pan and shove it in the oven. Take some pride in this genetically modified turkey and at least make an attempt at seasoning the poor bird. Use some Kosher salt, Paprika, hell, maybe ever some freshly ground pepper. Shoved a few sticks of butter under its skin. A few more up its cavernous ass. Rub butter on the outside, too. Eat half a stick of butter then, and only then, can you shove it in the oven and routinely baste it.

There you have it. The seven essential Thanksgiving foods necessary for a proper Thanksgiving feast complete with the best way to prepare each one. Eat until you feel sick because that's the American way!

The best pop music song this century?

2014-11-11T19:39:00.001-06:00

In the late 1990s there was a Swedish pop star who crossed the Atlantic Ocean and had a big hit or two. Her stage name was Robyn and after trying to replicate the success of her initial couple hits here in the states she faded into relative obscurity.

It took over a decade for her to regain a sort of foothold in the UnitedStates music scene and her small bit of success should shave been much larger with hits like Dancing on My Own and the even better Call Your Girlfriend. She performed both of those hits on the venerable SNL but that never translated to radio airplay.

No matter what happened, those two songs -- especially Call Your Girlfriend -- are pop music gems. They are high energy, ultra danceable and have an infectious beat. The video for Call Your Girlfriend is a classic continuous-shot video but as fascinating and odd as Robyn's dancing is, the making of the video is even better. I, for one, love seeing the work it takes behind the scenes to produce a perfect four minute music video.

Here is the finished music video...

Here is the making of the video feature...

Standalone HBO streaming is a good thing

2014-10-16T09:39:00.002-05:00

HBO announced yesterday that their streaming service, HBOGo, would be available as an a la carte service for anyone who wants to pony up the subscription fee (estimated to be around $20/month) could do so without having any cable television subscription. That is the first step in cable television channels giving viewers the power to choose the most important channels and paying for only what they want to watch.

The bad part is that most of the people who would want to subscribe to a standalone HBOGo service would still need to be strapped to a cable television company to receive streaming content because cable internet is the norm for a large percentage of internet customers.

In the end the cable companies still get your money and you are still dependent on them because people have few, if any, options. The only other viable option is to sever all ties to cable companies. I did this just over a year ago and went with DSL (just a fast and actually cheaper) but opted to subscribe to DISH TV service because my cable company (Mediacom) moved to metered internet service and my Netflix habits would have burned through that data cap in no time at all.

And it's those very data caps / metered internet access that cable companies will impose on their customers to keep them from cutting the cord to television service completely. This borderline monopoly is the kind of practice that keeps the cable companies insanely profitable and keeps customers tied to their television service.

The only hope is municipal fiber internet service or for a company like Google to become ultra aggressive in their deployment of fiber internet service. True competition is the only thing which will force cable television companies to be competitive -- both in price and speed -- with their internet service.

I watched Mulaney last night

2014-10-06T13:54:00.000-05:00

I went out of my way to set my DVR to record the newest FOX sitcom, "Mulaney" last night and I still am unsure what to think of the new multi-camera series starring comedian and former Saturday Night Live writer John Mulaney.

The series got off to an admittedly rough start. I may have cracked a smile or two early on but the series premiere was well over half finished before I laughed for the first time. Given John Mulaney's history -- hell, he wrote and created the hysterical SNL character "Stefon" -- I still have hopes that this show finds its footings and starts to become a consistent performer and generator of laughs.

In terms of what "Mulaney" is all about, the series is drawing a lot of comparisons to "Seinfeld". Both comedies star a stand-up comedian who appears to have absolutely no acting chops. Both show feature roughly the same number of supporting cast members including a man who could be compared to "Seinfeld" arch nemesis Newman, an Elane character portrayed by former SNL player Nasim Pedrad and John Mulaney's best friend who is also a comedian and appears to be the George Costanza of the cast.

The biggest problem with John Mulaney is that his acting is stiff. No, scratch that, his acting is as stiff as setting concrete. His on-camera presence is lifeless while what I have seen of his stand-up performances, while still somewhat stiff, has sings of life. Somewhere, buried deep beneath the fact that "Mulaney" appears to be about, wait for it, NOTHING again like its on-paper cousin "Seinfeld", there is a decent sitcom hiding.

After reading numerous reviews about "Mulaney" from those privy to seeing screeners of future episodes, the FOX sitcom does manage to find the funny and shore up its shaky footings by, at the latest, the sixth episode. With this being a desperate network and that the executives had enough faith before this series even aired a single episode to hand it a whopping sixteen episode commitment means that the suits at FOX will either ride out the 16 ordered episodes and see how things pan out or unceremoniously ax this show over the extended Christmas break. All signs, though, point to "Mulaney" airing its 16 episodes in their entirety and maybe more if ratings and reviews improve.

I, for one, want this show to succeed even though it has the often maligned laugh track and is a blatant "Seinfeld" rip-off. Be sure to get in on the ground floor of "Mulaney" and watch as it improves. It airs Sunday evenings at 8:30 PM C/T on FOX.