All Things Bob

My centralized web presence is now at http://bobbland.wordpress.com.

All right, Hamilton!

Josh Hamilton DOMINATED the Home Run Derby like nobody ever has, yet he only managed to finish in second place, because he hit so many home runs in the first round (28!) that he had nothing left in the tank for the finals. But even though Justin Morneau technically won, it is Hamilton’s awesome performance everyone will remember for years to come. Here’s what Baseball Tonight had to say about it:

[redlasso id=”0709ce36-d0c0-41e0-94cf-68a407b260d8″]

Skip Bayless & Nelly Unite to Throw Romo Under Bus

On ESPN’s First Take this morning, noted Cowboy hater Skip Bayless and his 1st and 10 sparring partner for the day, rapper Nelly, found common ground in their dislike of Tony Romo. Their point of contention is that Romo’s “80% of what is said about me are lies” comment is total BS. I say F both Skip and Nelly, but here’s the clip if you want to hear their crap for yourself…

[redlasso id=”ba433158-98a1-49b6-971b-39654202940d”]

Italian Spiderman is Hilarious!

My buddy shiv over at Obner alerted me to a series of hilarious short films called Italian Spiderman.  They are produced by an outfit called Alrugo, who we’ll need to keep our eyes on for more web-based hilarity to come.  Here are the six episodes of Italian Spiderman released so far:

Episode 1:

Episode 2:

Episode 3:

Episode 4:

Episode 5:

Episode 6:

The Return of “Match Game” Has Me So Excited I’m Liable to _______ Myself

Match Game was my favorite show as a kid growing up in the ’70s, so I am overcome with excitement about its impending revival on TBS. It’s got some of my favorite funnymen, including Norm MacDonald and Bob Einstein, and is being executive produced by the comedy giant Robert Smigel.

Best of all, it will be hosted by Andrew “Dick Pepperfield” Daly!

New “Side” Blog

Otisburg remains my primary blog, but for those of you who are fans of SportsRadio 1310 The Ticket in Dallas, check out the blog I’ve started called “Sideshow Blog.”  It’s just me providing running commentary on shows like The HardLine and Dunham & Miller, as well as mixing in some occasional schtick (fake ads, etc.)

Time for Celebrations!

It certainly is time for celebrations, as I have been offered and accepted a new job.  There are many, many reasons this calls for celebrations, but these are the main ones:

1. I will be shaving 68 MILES off of my daily round-trip commute.  Not only will I finally be able to put months and months of extreme fatigue behind me, but I won’t have to cough up $20 in gas a day just to get to and from work.
2. My new job is a promotion both in terms of salary and title.  I’m not fixated on either, but both are very nice perks, to be sure.
3. I will be returning to a career in my original field of study after a prolonged absence…nine years, to be exact.  If I ever hoped to go back, it was pretty much now or never.
4. I will no longer be required to wear a tie every day.  I don’t mind wearing a tie every now and then, but now that it’s getting to be summer and triple-digits are fast approaching, I’m much less likely to sweat myself into spontaneous combustion while in business casual attire.
5. My new job is located close enough to my mother’s place of employment that we can now carpool to and from work.  This really is a good thing.  Really.  I’m not just trying to convince myself.
6. Health and dental insurance take effect as of my first day of employment.  I had to wait 90 days for it to kick in at the last job.  Suffice it to say that my household has its fair share of prescriptions to fill on a recurring basis.
7. Last, but most certainly not least, the time I save by not spending up to four hours a day in rush hour traffic should free me up to start posting somewhat regularly to this blog again.

And isn’t that really the greatest gift of all?

I’m Hoping My Return is Imminent

It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted, but I just might be able to resume semi-regular posting in the very near future.  Wheels are in motion.  Being cryptic is fun.

Spurs Scoreboard Suns

Growing up as a Houston Astros fan, I had to compensate for my team’s lack of championships by pointing to the fact that they lost the two most exciting National League Championship Series ever played (1980 to the Philadelphia Phillies and 1986 to the New York Mets). So, in a sense, I feel kind of bad for fans of the Phoenix Suns, who now can only compensate for their team’s lack of championships by pointing to the fact that they have now lost the two most exciting playoff games in NBA history.

Yesterday’s double-overtime loss to the defending champion San Antonio Spurs (who now are only 15 victories from claiming their fifth title) had to be eerily reminiscent of Phoenix’s triple-overtime loss to the eventual champion Boston Celtics in the 1976 NBA Finals.

Tim Duncan was absolutely phenomenal, capping his 40-point 15-rebound performance with his first three-pointer of the year to save the day for the Spurs and send the game to a second OT before Manu Ginobili won it with one of his patented whirling dervish drives.

Of course as a lifelong Spurs fan who doesn’t really care about baseball anymore, thanks to living in Texas Rangers country, the Astros don’t mean anything to me anymore and I shan’t be shedding any tears for Suns fans.  EPIC FAIL LOL.

GO SPURS GO!!!

WordCamp Dallas 2008

I’m not yet advanced enough to take this blog self-hosted using the customizable platform downloaded from WordPress.org, but I’m definitely a huge WordPress fan and do my best to closely monitor all related news and updates, which includes subscribing to Matt Mullenweg’s blog.  In fact, it was from a Photo Matt RSS update that I learned about WordCamp Dallas 2008.  I was intrigued, because I live in a suburb 30 miles north of Dallas, so imagine my surprise when I went to look up the details and discovered it’s actually being held IN MY VERY SUBURB!

It’s always dicey trying to find the right opportunity to peel away from the wife and kids for any sort of solo venture on the weekend, but should circumstances allow, I would love to try and swing by WordCamp Dallas 2008 to check things out.  Hope to see you there, but if I can’t make it, welcome to my humble little burg!

The Genius of Sawyer

One of the greatest things about TV’s Lost is all of the hilarious nicknames Sawyer peppers all of his fellow castaways with whenever the mood hits him (which is almost always). Thanks to YouTube, we can now bask in Sawyer’s genius, as three seasons worth of “Freckles,” “Hoss,” and all the rest are condensed into this single clip. I still think the best one is, “Union trouble down at the sand factory, Norma Rae?” Classic!

Thanks For a Great Leap Day, Dick Pepperfield!

Up until Friday, this was quite possibly one of, if not THE, worst week of my life.  I was getting slammed at work, both figuratively and literally, and was staring down the barrel of a sudden return to the unemployment line, where I spent a miserable five months during the last half of 2007.  But thanks to nothing short of divine intervention, this disaster of a week did a complete 180 on Friday.

While work had been an absolute disaster from Monday through Thursday, I managed to bail enough water out of my sinking ship to completely resurface.  My boss was even so pleased with my effort and the progress I made that she rewarded me with an early trip home…minus the long-anticpated pink slip.

So, to capitalize on that hard-earned reward, I treated myself to a movie.  Me and a couple of buddies (Big Dave and Mexican Junior, for those in the know) went to go see the new Will Ferrell ABA comedy, Semi-Pro.  We had been anticipating this for a while, as we love both the ABA and wacky “Frat Pack” comedies.  The movie was even funnier than I expected, but not because of Ferrell, who’s really falling into a bit of a one-note rut.  The guy who really stole this movie was Andrew Daly, who portrayed the hilariously understated straight-arrow Dick Pepperfield, the play-by-play man for Ferrell’s team, the Flint Tropics.

I went to his IMDB page to see if I had seen him before, but just didn’t realize it, and the only role of his I remembered was a one-episode stint on NBC’s The Office as a Ben Franklin impersonator.  Apparently, he spent a couple of seasons on Fox’s Mad TV several years ago, but you honestly can’t blame me for not knowing that.

Me and Big Dave both agreed after the movie that Dick Pepperfield (that’s one of those names you always have to say in its entirety) was definitely the best thing about Semi-Pro, due to both his brilliant delivery of comedic gems and his potential for starring as the lead in The Gordon Solie Story.  If that flick ain’t in the works, it needs to be!

Bob’s Sideshow – Episode 1

Barack Obama Speaks Before 18,000 in Dallas

Here is some video taken at yesterday’s Barack Obama rally here in Dallas at Reunion Arena. An estimated 18,000 were in attendance, with another 1,000-2,000 stuck in line outside unable to get in, because the arena was already at maximum capacity. Meanwhile, across town, Chelsea Clinton spoke to a handful of undecidededs (as in, their major) at the UTD Student Union.

I Was Once Published in a Magazine

Several years ago, I submitted an entry to CMJ’s New Music Monthly magazine, to be considered for the “Geek Love” column that ran at the end of every issue. Each installment of “Geek Love” was a first-hand account by the writer of his/her first favorite band, one which would typically be very uncool to admit liking. I always found it to be an enjoyable slice of life, and decided I’d like to give it a try, even though they really weren’t officially accepting submissions.

My first attempt was a rather bizarre reminiscence of my Devo devotion. The editor didn’t think it was quite suitable for printing content-wise, but liked my writing style enough to suggest I give it another shot. So, I went even further into the wayback machine and wrote this piece on Grand Funk. My dad had passed away a year or two earlier, and a lot of the emotions I felt at the time were still pretty raw, which becomes evident rather quickly upon reading this piece. I feel kind of bad about that aspect of it, in retrospect, but I can’t go back and change things. Like Todd Rundgren once sang, “Time heals the wounds that no one can see.”

Newspaper Columns I Wrote in College

I spent the majority of one semester in college as the Sports Editor for my campus newspaper.  I recently unearthed three of the columns I wrote, and have posted them here.

10 years since hardliners.com (My first site/blog)

It’s now been 10 years since I first started blogging (though it wasn’t referred to as such back then), and I’ve recently become a bit nostalgic for those days. The website was called hardliners.com (no longer in existence) and was focused entirely on the very popular afternoon drive sports talk show called “The HardLine,” which aired (and still does) on SportsRadio 1310 “The Ticket” (KTCK AM) in Dallas.

There have been some notable changes to the show since then, but co-host Mike Rhyner (actually, call him “Rhynes,” because “Rhyner is dead”) still holds forth every afternoon from 4-7. I loved the show then and still do today. In 1997, I began looking into trying to start an unofficial website dedicated to both that show and the station in general, because they did not really even have an official station website back then. With some tremendous help from Joe Lopez and Mike Boles, we soon were able to launch the site.

Both the passage of time and a hard drive crash have resulted in very little evidence of hardliners.com remaining to chronicle those days, but I was recently able to locate most of my weekly blog entries from back then. One thing about these “columns” as I called them then is they are absolutely jam-packed with jargon and terminology that was prevalent at the station in those days. Unless you listened back then and have a mind like a steel trap, a lot of this is going to seem very incoherent and bizarre taken out of context. But it’s still a fun trip down memory lane for those of us who were there.

So, without further ado, I proudly introduce The “Sideshow Sez” Archives.

Super Tuesday Was Super Fascinating

For the first time in a long, long time, I am absolutely fascinated with the presidential campaign.  As the results poured in to CNN’s Land of 10,000 Plasmas last night, I simply could not turn away.  The Republicans have a fairly interesting three-way battle in progress, but it seems fairly certain that despite the random state upsets by Huckabee and Romney, McCain will eventually emerge as the GOP nominee.  The outcome on the Democratic side is much more difficult to forecast.

Last night, Obama won more states (and not just a couple more) than Hillary, but she won the big ones.  Most surprising to me was the fact that the endorsements of every Kennedy short of the Ouija-ed visage of JFK, Jr. not only failed to give Obama a win in Massachusetts, but didn’t even keep him from being routed.  And perhaps even more shocking was how poorly Obama did with Hispanic and Asian voters, most notably in California, where Hillary also left him in the dust.

I would think Obama and his supporters, while encouraged by his overall showing on Super Tuesday and current neck-and-neck status with Hillary, might be more than just a little worried that the biggest remaining prize – Texas – is largely Hispanic.  It’s difficult to imagine Obama being able to overtake Hillary without winning Texas, and after last night, it’s difficult to imagine him winning Texas…unless they can somehow manage to get the primary date changed to Cinco de Mayo.

Bob’s One-Song Show: Episode #9

Mobile post sent by bobsixtysix using Utterz. Replies. mp3

Album of the Month: Wussy – “Left For Dead”

Rock has seen quite a few bands fronted by male-female duos over the years, but none has truly captured so many of the qualities of their predecessors as Cincinnati’s Wussy. Deftly mixing the unhinged intensity of X with the irreverent quirkiness of Timbuk 3, Wussy’s sound is both familiar and unique all at once. Led by Chuck Cleaver (of the now-defunct Ass Ponys) and Lisa Walker, Wussy’s new album, Left For Dead, is a marked improvement over their 2005 debut, Funeral Dress, which was solid in its own right.

To hear Wussy for yourself, stay tuned for the next episode of Bob’s One-Song Show, which should be online in the next couple of days. In the meantime, here’s my current ranking of 2008 albums to date:

1. Wussy – Left For Dead
2. Hayden – In Field and Town
3. Drive-By Truckers – Brighter Than Creation’s Dark
4. The Helio Sequence – Keep Your Eyes Ahead
5. Chris Walla – Field Manual
6. Marah – Angels of Destruction
7. Destroyer – Trouble in Dreams
8. Cat Power – Jukebox
9. Nada Surf – Lucky
10. Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks – Real Emotional Trash