• Toothpaste. My dentist believes that toothpaste is a giant marketing scam. He said all you really need to be doing is watering your toothbrush and scrubbing. That’s it. Toothpaste is just a way to make it taste good. He said it’s not detrimental or anything, but it’s not necessary. Have you ever seen the list of ingredients in toothpaste? Good heavens. Anyway, I can’t bring myself to just use water, I must be brainwashed. I use Tom’s of Maine Spearmint toothpaste. I don’t know if they have their hooks in me or not, but it feels more natural than, say, Crest, which compared to Tom’s smells like cotton candy. The other thing he told me was that tartar control toothpastes are very abrasive and he think they can actually cause damage and recession. Never knew that. He said the very worst thing you can do for your gums is brush too aggressively or use “aggressive” toothpastes.

• The other thing I learned was that nearly all of his patients who have more advanced recession in their gums previously had braces. He says he gets the need for braces, but it almost always caused some kind of damage later in life, because food gets stuck in those things and it’s hard to clean it all out completely. Of course, most gum recession issues are genetic, but if you have both issues (braces and genetic), expect issues later. I, of course, have both issues. I had braces or some kind of ortho crap for nearly five years. That’s why I go get my teeth cleaned now every 3-4 months and I floss every night. Every night….they say I’m one of their best and most stable patients now, so that makes me chuckle to myself, for a few various reasons.

There you have it. Your tooth and gum lesson for the day.

• The Goldfish crackers remind me of my dad. I think we always had them in the house when I was growing up. I have fairly specific memories of my dad sitting in this huge red chair we used to have, watching TV, smoking, eating goldfish crackers and drinking Hawaiian Punch! It’s just one of those snapshots I have in my head. He gave up smoking in 1981 and I think he gave up Hawaiian Punch not too shortly thereafter. But the Goldfish - a constant in the Copetas house.

• Mike Tyson is in the news again and again, it’s not for anything good. Seems he had a scuffle with a photographer at an airline counter yesterday. Tyson is a little nuts of course, we all know that, but I have to say if I had photographers following me around all the time, I might flip out too. The prospect of being a celebrity has changed in this generation. I don’t think it’s something many people dream about anymore, because of all the baggage that comes with it. I did see the Tyson documentary, by the way. I remain unsure if I liked it, but I can tell you one thing: it is absolutely worth watching. He is a complex person. Scary.

• Did anyone see Taylor Swift on SNL last week? I don’t know a single thing about her music other than its radio-built country pop (so not up my alley), but she was really funny in a couple of skits and her monologue killed it. I also got a kick out of this one, see here:

Your 1988-89 Nashoba Hockey Cheerleaders

I’ve been laughing to myself lately because of all the cheerleader talk. For some really odd reason, cheerleading has come up in several conversations I’ve had lately. One actually involved a work conversation I was having in regards to whether or not the query “cheerleaders” on a search website could be construed as a person searching for porn online. Intent of that search query has a huge range of intent. Another cheerleading poke happened yesterday as I was scanning Perez Hilton and came across a post about Dakota Fanning and how’s she’s a cheerleader in high school now. For real.

By the way, I love Perez Hilton. I am totally NOT the guy who reads People or US magazine. I don’t care about celebrities and what they do, who they birth, what diseases they have, how fat they are or whatever. But I love Perez Hilton. Why? Because he doctors up the photographs. That’s it. It makes me laugh. Exhibit A here.

Anyway, it all got me thinking about high school hockey. I used to play in the summer, fall and spring for various teams around the area like Leominster or North Middlesex. Then in the winter we all went to our various high school teams. This made it kinda fun because I knew a couple of guys on almost every team I played against in high school. We’d trade notes on who was disliked on each team in case we got the opportunity to throw an extra hit or something. So if there was a guy on North Middlesex who was universally disliked by his team, the North Middlesex guys I knew would tell me and I’d try to put in some extra digs on that guy during games. They did the same. It was marginally evil, I admit. But not undeserving.

Anyway, the cheerleaders. What I heard universally from other teams players was that the Nashoba Regional cheerleaders were the most robotic of them all. I specifically remember one guy saying he suspected the cheerleading coach was a Nazi because our cheerleaders were almost always in perfect unison. The funniest thing ever about this was that just a few weeks ago a guy I play with now told me the same thing! Not the Nazi part, just the robotic part.

I never really noticed that one way or another. I was always surprised that cheerleaders would even want to cheer for hockey. I mean, it was usually pretty cold in there. I actually couldn’t believe it when our cheerleaders came to our game in Winchendon - an outdoor rink - in January. Bless their hearts.

Regardless, the point of my post today is my total awkwardness back then. You see, if we won a game or played well, we’d be allowed to sit with the cheerleaders on the bus on the way home. I’m not sure how the rest of the team felt about this, but I was mostly mortified. Not because I didn’t like them or whatnot - they all seemed relatively normal and nice - but because I was so painfully awkward around girls back then. I never knew what to say or do. If my memory serves me right, that resulted in me being a little quiet when we sat with the girls. I wonder if they thought I was just a quiet guy or lacked personality? If they only knew…..!

Each cheerleader had “their own player” (they’d decorate your locker or whatnot) and usually you’d sit with the cheerleader on the bus. I honestly don’t remember who mine was each year. However, there’s a sophomore year memory here - the cheerleader who actually asked me out on a date just days after she’d broken up with another guy on the team. Now, there were times I was a pretty dumb kid, but not that time. I wasn’t going anywhere near that even though she was a popular, pretty girl and someone I always liked as a person. Of course, I was mortified. Had no idea what to say in response. I think I just got her phone number and then avoided her as much as possible, even though I would have totally dated her if it wasn’t for that little issue about the guy on our team.

Another totally embarrassing, awkward episode: Junior year. I was looking at a cheerleader about 40 feet away who was trying to say something to me or maybe someone else around me. I then proceeded to try to eat a Snickers bar with the wrapper still on. Of course, she broke down laughing and I probably turned all shades of red.

Then there’s the other one - the one I had a crush on from like 7th grade to 12th. I doubt you’ll ever get that name out of me, so don’t even try. And no, she’s not in the picture. I guess she missed picture day.

Ah, the memories.

It was before he was weird.

A movie? Come on? Nobody wants to pay to go see a Michael Jackson movie. Not only that, but a movie of freaking rehearsals where a desperate 50 year old man who weighs 100 lbs is trying to redeem himself? No thank you. I think people know what’s going on here - it’s all about the money. Part and parcel to the modern day. Nobody rests until the bones are picked apart and clean. It’s like watching Animal Planet when all the lions rip apart the poor gazelle. The gazelle - a pretty cool looking animal in its own picture, but when the jungle comes calling……..it ain’t pretty.

• This whole H1N1 thing is really random. I know quite a few people n the next town over who seem to have gotten their kids injected with the vaccine without any problems, but our place in Acton seems to be getting ignored. Our whole family got the “normal” seasonal flu shot, but we can’t get the H1N1. This is the second year I’ve gotten the seasonal flu shot. It is also the second year I got sick right after getting the shot. I don’t really think the shot caused me to get sick both years, but it is odd.

• I had a gift card burning up my wallet, so I went an upgraded to Windows 7. I have a Dell XP machine (Dimension 9100) and I’ve tricked it out over the years so it’s processing power and memory is maximized and pretty killer. The upgrade went without a hitch and my machine, four years old, is humming along with no problems. Windows 7 is really nice. I did have to move nearly everything to my external hard drive for safe keeping, so that was the longest part of the upgrade. Yeah, that’s nine years of photos and 8,555 songs in my library that I had to move. I think I saw the computer sweating at one point….

• I have to admit, I love Glee. Modern Family is also a totally kick-ass show - reminds me a lot of Arrested Development and any show with my #1 celeb crush Julie Bowen is good in my mind.

• I had my car in the shop for its regularly scheduled service the other day and I went and sat in a new Prius. Whew, it is super-nice in that cabin now! A lot of updates, a lot of fun technology and real smooth looking. I still have never driven one. I’m always struggling internally on this, because I have no payments on my current car and it only has 84,000 miles on it. I could probably go another 80K on it and save a ton of cash. But the car is boring me to tears now! I’ve had it for almost eight years!

• I could have sworn I read something about there being an afternoon World Series game this year? In looking at the schedule, though, all the games are at 8pm….

Me: Zachary, what are you doing

Zachary (finger deep into nose): Nothing!

Me: What are you doing with your finger?

Zachary: Nothing (moving finger towards mouth)

Me: Zachary…..(said sternly, while I reach for his hand)

Zachary: No Daddy!

A touching moment, yeah? Glad I could document this for future reading. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.

Song time. I’ve been meaning for almost a year now to post a song by a Brit band called Field Music. A few months ago, I posted a song sample by Matt Pond PA, a chamber-pop outfit based on the east coast of the U.S. This is fairly similar, if not a little richer. There isn’t much info on them on the internets other than what’s to be found on Wikipedia, but the basics are that they’re an English group fronted by two brothers, who seem to break up the band and put it back together now and then. But I’ll tell you what, the music is excellent. Very full sounding, chamberesque and beautiful. Check out “Trying to Sit Out” and turn it up a little……it’s not a loud rock song, but sounds gorgeous with a little power behind it. And Frank P, you’ll love this one. Promise.

[See post on blog to listen to audio]

a) I had never been on a plane before and I loved it. There’s a lot of things where “you never forget the first time” applies and flying is one of them. I have such a clear picture of sitting on that plane in Boston and taking off from the runway, plastering my face on the window in wonderment at what was going on. I still do it today.

b) I got to take a week off of school!

Anyway, my dad shot this picture as I was walking back to my bedroom to chill. There’s another reason why it’s so memorable - the next day when I returned to school I would find out that our very popular and funny science teacher had just been arrested for child molestation. Nobody, except the victims of course, saw that one coming. As a 7th grader, you’re shocked, but the complexities of that whole situation were way above our heads. As a parent today, I can’t imagine what would be going through my head if this happened at their school and hope I never have to.

It was also that same day when I got back into school that I discovered that Tracy Pirro was no longer my girlfriend! She had moved on to someone else! Really, an 8th grade relationship isn’t something I was totally broken up about, but still…..that was also a surprise.

Ah, rites of passage. We all have ‘em.