Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
March Returns
Saturday
March 1, 2003
"You could write a running commentary on anything and it'd be interesting. There are so many things that can be observed."
-Scott Massey, during out Best-of-3 NBA Live showdown, last night
Now playing -- a mix of Dashboard Confessional and Coldplay on shuffle via MP3. It's actually a really nice combo.
It's funny... Carrie (the girl I met through pre-dating.com) asked me if I worked weekends. And I told her no, since generally I don't. So what will I be doing later today? Naturally, I'll be working. But it's because I want to. The promo packages will be ready any day now, and I need to have the Airborne Express deals ready to mail out.
Sleeping in until noon can really throw off your timing on things. Like today. But so it goes.
Last night I met up with Len Clark and Ryan Priest at the Carrabba's restaurant in Palm Harbor. Ryan wanted to pick a restaurant that would be in close driving distance for all of us. But unfortunately, it ended up being way of everyone's way. I ended up being a half-hour late, due to the fact that I totally misjudged the distance it was from Clear Channel Tampa. I figured if I could make it to Largo in a half hour, Palm Harbor would be about the same. Not quite. A 7 PM arrival time became 7:30. But with the long wait, we didn't get our table until well after 8 PM.
It was great getting to talk with both of them. Ryan lives in Pinellas County, but with our schedule differences we don't get to hang out a whole lot. Len happened to be in town -- he was the station manager when I worked at WUEV, so I enjoyed getting to talk with him about the new career working with Bubba the Love Sponge.
The food at Carrabba's was really good. The pasta was incredibly rich and buttery. I just ate the leftovers for a late lunch, and wow the butter taste was strong from the alfredo pasta. Tasty, but probably not the healthiest thing in the world. But it hit the spot.
There's not a quick way to get from Palm Harbor to Tampa. I stopped at a Shell station last night and asked for directions (albeit reluctantly). Tampa Road to Memorial to I-275 to the Ybor Exit on I-4. But that Tampa Road part takes a long time...
Later on, my friend Scott Massey came over and we played some Sega Sports Tennis and NBA Live 2003. Fun times. I took 2-of-3 from Scott in the bball; I need to break down and buy that game on eBay. I've bid a few times but always passed when the price got above $30.
I felt bad for leaving my friend Jeff Riley hanging over at the pizza shop. But the basketball went till almost 3 AM.
Today I caught up on the Jimmy Kimmel Live shows from the past two days. I love that show. I find it absolutely hilarious. Next week the co-host will be Sarah Silverman, who is Jimmy Kimmel's girlfriend (that lucky bastard). I remember a few years ago my friend Tali asked me to name three celebrity women who I would most want to sleep with. I think I named Heather Graham at #1; now there's no question, Sarah Silverman would be top of the list. It should be fun seeing her on there next week. Though she'll be very, very hard pressed to top the unintentional comedy that Don King brought this week. Some favorites of those included:
-King making the attempt at interviewing Robin Leach via satellite from Australia an absolute disaster. Leach was voted off on the ABC Survivor rip-off show "I'm a Celebrity -- Get Me Out Of Here!". Kimmel tried to ask Leach questions, but King would keep interjecting and throw off Leach, due to the two second delay because of the satellite feed from halfway across the world. A real train wreck of an interview, yet hilariously compelling for some reason.
-Actor Vince Vaughn hardly got to say a word during his segment on Wednesday, as King kept butting in with all sorts of ramblings. Kimmel seemed to be getting frustrated, though he took it in stride. I imagine that King was "talked to" during the commercial break, because he cut back quite a bit on his interjections from that point forward.
-They did a running bit on Friday's show where they had up closed captioning for the duration of the program. Trying to caption King live is like the poor sap who had that job for Turner when Dusty Rhodes did color commentary on WCW Saturday Night. The captioning woman kind of reminded me of Lorraine Bracco from The Sopranos.
If nothing else, King was a nice contrast to Janeane Garofalo, whose anti-war statements last week brought an awkward edge to the program.
And what's the deal with the anti-war protests? Even Rosie O'Donnell is on that bandwagon. And wow, what a disgusting human being she is. It's appropriate that the Executive Meddler made us run a story one time last year about O'Donnell's short-lived attempt to get Florida to allow gay adoptions. Nothing against gay adoptions, but the EM and Rosie... hahaha. Two people inexplicably given entirely too much power in their respective positions (not that Rosie really has a position doing anything these days, but you get my drift).
But back to the war protests, it seems like people (celebrities) are doing it more because it's en vogue, not because of any real tangible reason. Vietnam, there was a war worth protesting. But I suppose nothing, not even the deaths of 3,000 people on 9/11/2001, will make some see the necessity of taking a pro-active effort to finally drive a long-ruling dictator who kills and tortures his own people from office.
And another thing, did you know that I was banned from running video of the attacks a few weeks after the attack. Banned. Not just me personally, but stationwide WTSP laid down that as a blanket policy. And I said then -- people will forget, the emotion will die down and then we'll go back to the same bullshit mindset of political correctness that got us to where we are now.
So now we have the U.S. taking measures to force out a ruthless dictator and potentially prevent another mass-casualty type of attack. And people want to protest it. The same people who, would another attack hit, would lash out at the administration for "not doing enough" to prevent it. Hypocrisy.
March is here again. Which means we're almost through the post Super Bowl sports doldrums, and also means that it's been one year since my homepage moved to the LouPickney.com domain. Last month this site averaged in excess of 1,500 hits a day, obliterating the old record. Thanks to all of you who take the time out of your day to visit and read what I have to offer on here...
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