Bloodless Coup

Things Noticed on a Stormy Drive

Thought I'd pass along the following observations from my long drive on Saturday:

Boston College is possibly the most underrated team in college football (now that Alabama is on everyone’s radar). Their victory over a good Virginia Cavaliers team was probably more convincing than the final 11 point margin, and I won’t be at all surprised if they finish the season with a 9-2 record and go to a good bowl game.

The news on NPR lately has gotten really weird. At times it’s far better than any other (sort of) major media outlet at seriously considering the serious events of our times. But some of those features – does anyone care? And I really wish they would get people who’ve actually been on the internet to interview bloggers, but perhaps that’s just a pet peeve.

Unexpected favorites in the cd rotation: Beulah’s The Coast Is Never Clear and Pernice Brothers’ Yours, Mine and Ours. I like both much more than I remembered, and my memory of both was reasonably favorable to start with. A cut below those two was Nada Surf’s Let Go. Hadn’t listend to that in some time. Still good.

Favorite songs heard on the radio on the drive back: “Animal” by Def Leppard, and that pretty current thing by Gwen Stefani (which I presume must be called “Cool”). No, I can’t put my finger on the appeal of that rather odd pairing, but I probably partially like the Stefani because of the ridiculously pretty video. Does anyone, anywhere, actually live in such beautiful surroundings?

Worst song: “Girl Next Door” by Saving Jane. Nothing else came anywhere near being as awful as this monstrosity. The badness of it really boggles the mind. It should soon be challenging “We Built This City” for supremacy of the “worst songs in the last 20 years” lists. The barely mediocre music (and that is being SOOOOOO kind) is bad enough, but those lyrics – talk about a celebration of a would-be violent, bitter, utterly-pathetic, whiny losers. And as if the message wasn’t bad enough, the words, the wording, the prose, the lameness of it, the expectedness of it, the total lack of any imagination or skill - ok, got to stop remembering that before I have some sort of stroke.