Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
Pulled Plug
Sunday
April 9, 2006
"Run me straight into the ground
Drowning deep inside your water
Drown in love and memories..."
-O.A.R. "Love and Memories"
Sorry about the site being down the past couple of days. My hosting company didn't have my new billing information, and they decided to put my account on lockdown on Friday. Unfortunately, due to being at continuing education classes all day, I didn't find out about it until Friday night. And because the hosting company's weekend staff is limited, they didn't flip the switch to turn me back on until tonight.
My Dad came to town on Friday (to go to the AOWA conference where I was taking the aforemention classes at), and he helped me hang up my two Salvadore Dali prints and my diploma. Today I hung up my Budweiser neon clock that I've had for almost ten years now in my bedroom. Granted, there's a clock in my computer, and there's one on my alarm clock, but if I'm playing a game on here (like The Sims 2), I can't easily tell what time it is. It might seem like overkill, but I can already tell a positive difference having it up here. Plus, it's nice to have a few decorations up.
During my most recent trip to Nashville this week, I suffered a flat tire on my Honda Accord (aka "Lou Junior"), less than a mile from my brother's house. It was my own fault. I had turned the wrong way on Old Nashville Highway in Smyrna, and following a U-Turn I made, the directions I had written on the back of an envelope slipped between the driver's seat and the middle divider. As I reached for it, taking just a second, my car swerved to the right and caught the edge of the curb. It was enough to shred my front right tire and bang up both right-side hubcaps. Live and learn. Luckily I was able to replace the tire the next day at Wal-Mart (I went ahead and replaced both front tires), but still it was not a fun experience.
I suppose I should be glad that the incident didn't blow out both right-side tires, since I only carry one spare (and who carries more than one?) I still managed to watch Hustle & Flow at Matt's house when I finally got there, though I didn't get to see the latest episode of The Sopranos. I guess I'll have to catch up on two episodes this upcoming week, presuming that they'll be bringing me back up to Nashville again this week. I'm not able to get HBO as of now; I'll get into my crazy cable situation another time.
|  | Left: old BP logo; Right: new BP logo.
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One thing I've noticed from the many miles I've had on the road in the past 30 days is how awful the new BP logo looks. I can't think of a logo change that has been more of a downgrade. The old shield with the BP letters inside looked pretty cool, I thought; I remember when BP (British Petroleum) invaded Nashville (and most of the southeast) in 1989, replacing Gulf, which had been a mainstay there for many decades. Ironically, my grandparents on my Dad's side once ran a gas station/convenience store on River Road in Nashville, and they were a Gulf affiliate for years until Gulf screwed them over during the oil crisis of the 1970s. They switched to Amoco at that point. Recently, BP and Amoco had a merger, one of several gas company mergers that took place in the past few years. Keep that in mind the next time you go to the gas station and wonder why prices are so high. Granted, Venezuela's lack of cooperation isn't helping things, but (alleged) collusion on the domestic front isn't helping the situation any, either.
But I digress. The new BP logo is awful. It looks like something that was conceptualized in the 1970s, with this green-and-yellow pinwheel and a lower case "bp" that replaced the nicer looking BP. It's as if someone intentionally rebranded it to look as horrible as possible. In looking up the logos to include for this column, I found more information on wikipedia; the link is here, if you're curious for more details.
There's a new song out by Devin McGraw that sounds *very* Black Crowes-ish. In fact, the first few times I heard it, I thought it was the Black Crowes. Only after I heard it on Sirius, where they show it with the name, did I find out that McGraw did the song.
I enjoyed watching The Masters today (in the background as I did various work on my home computer.) I flipped between it and the NASCAR race; neither is my top sport of interest, but I pull for Tony Stewart (it'd be impossible for me to do otherwise after meeting him and seeing how down-to-earth he is), and I connect The Masters with moving in a way, since it was The Masters five years ago that I remember watching at my then-new apartment at the old Camden Ybor in Tampa with rabbit ears on my TV. One thing that is disturbing: between Phil Mickelson and Gonzaga's Adam Morrison, is long hair in guys starting to make a comeback? With Morrison, he looks like a guy who just doesn't know any better, but you'd think that one of Mickleson's sponsors would whisper to him, "Phil, I know you're one of the best golfers in the world, and you can do whatever, but you might want to get a haircut and not look ridiculous on international TV." Unless Ford (one of his sponsors) put him up to it, or he lost a bet, I say: bad idea. Though he won his second green jacket today, so I'm sure he doesn't care at all what I think about his ridiculous hairstyle.
If you're looking for a good new rock song, I recommend Love and Memories by O.A.R. It's a great song; if you have Sirius, you've probably heard it on Alt Nation, but otherwise make an effort to track it down. It's outstanding.
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