One hour into the Olympic opening ceremony….

James Fallows watches the Olympics opening ceremony in real time and tells you what to look for when you watch it 11 hours later in NBC time.

The first 35 minutes sound awesome!

Free at last

No more Comcast at Casa NewMexiKen. I have installed Qwest high-speed internet (fiber optic) and it seems at least as fast, even much faster. (How does one tell for sure? And how much does it matter anyway?)

It’s definitely cheaper!

DirecTV delayed until Wednesday due to installation limitations. (That pesky HOA.) Guess I can continue to blog, as potatoing on the couch not much fun with only 10 channels.

You people are so boring

… that after two-and-a-half years without cable TV I’ve ordered DirecTV (and Qwest Fiber-optic internet). You’ll miss me when I’m a couch potato instead of a blogger.

I had to renew my vehicle registration this month. Every year I just renew for one year instead of two because I figure I’m due — now after seven years — for a new car. (I had the last one seven years before I got this one.) Anyway I went over to the air inspection place, got the necessary inspection, came home and registered the car online. Altogether, 30 minutes — it was 3:14 when I left and 3:44 when I started updating this post.

Registration in New Mexico is $51 a year (unless you have a special license plate). There are no other taxes or fees for cars that I know of. How much do you pay?

This plate is $37 extra. I think about it — and then figure, who cares.

Most revealing line of the day

“But as far as sitting down and watching a sporting event, that’s just not part of my day, it’s not part of my night, and, ahh, I’ll be honest with you, watching The Bachelorette is.”

Joe Buck, Fox Sports’ lead announcer for Major League Baseball and the NFL, on ESPN Radio’s The Herd via Awful Announcing.

NewMexiKen wrote this about Buck six months ago (January 6, 2008):

I’m thinking that Joe Buck doesn’t actually like sports. He likes the life — he learned that from his dad, and he can recite from his notes with the best of them (and then some), but I don’t think he actually likes sports (the game on the field). He got into this because it was the family business.

The ‘Real’ Ron Burgundy Passes Away

Gawker

Take me out to the ballgame

This item was first posted here four years ago. I had found it at “Morning Briefing” in the Los Angeles Times.

There was an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” on HBO in February in which Larry David, the show’s star, creator and executive producer, took a lady of the evening to a Dodger game so he could use the carpool lane on the freeway.

Footage shot at Dodger Stadium for that show, The Times and other media outlets reported recently, exonerated Juan Catalan, who had been charged with murder.

Outtakes, viewed by Catalan’s attorney, showed that Catalan, as he had maintained, was at the Dodger game last May at the time he was accused of committing the murder of a 16-year-old girl in Sun Valley.

As a result, a judge set Catalan free.

The National Open Championship

NewMexiKen has been watching sports for at least 56 years that I can remember and while fully understanding the emotion that makes the contest du jour the event of the century, I must say that the past three days of U.S. Open coverage have been absolutely compelling. It just doesn’t get any better.

91st hole, sudden death. Woods putts for win, misses, then taps in. Mediate putts to tie (and continue the match).

P.S. The four most dramatic putts in memory (on 18) and the imbeciles who manage the local NBC affiliate run a programming crawl that cancels out the high definition picture, then forget to change back until Woods and Mediate have finished.

Fire his ass this time, too

“So — but my point in telling you this is that there must be real animosity toward the Clintons at high levels of this party. To go with a veritable rookie whose only chance of winning is that he’s black.”

Rush Limbaugh, June 2

When Limbaugh made the same kind of remark about Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, he was fired from ESPN’s Sunday Night Countdown. Football, now that’s religion in America. You’re gone if you make a blatantly racist remark.

Who gets elected president, say what you will.

Dick Martin

Comedian Dick Martin died Saturday at age 86. Martin’s biggest claim to fame by far was the TV show Laugh-In that ran 1968-1973. Martin is on the right with partner Dan Rowan.

Is she still Goldie Hawn, or do we just call her Kate Hudson’s mother now?

Heeeerrrreeee’s Johnny

Johnny Carson last hosted The Tonight Show 16 years ago today. The mental_floss Blog has “5 Memorable Moments from The Tonight Show.” Videos.

Obscenity

You know, you can’t say “fuck” on the radio, but here’s a real obscenity —

“The poor guy’s been suffering for years, you know? Unfairly he’s been accused of alcoholism, but we see now that it was something much more deep-seated. And so, to cut this out in some respect for Ted Kennedy, here’s a tune coming at you from the Dead Kennedys. Go ahead and play it, please.”

Nationally syndicated radio host Michael Savage yesterday, the day Senator Edward Kennedy’s tumor was announced.

Idolatry

In last week’s New Yorker, Sasha Frere-Jones had an interesting profile of American Idol. It included:

“Idol” watchers have been trained to think about aesthetic concepts like arrangement and song choice, and, by the time the judges weigh in, we have already been sorting out our thoughts. The viewers need compete only with Cowell; Jackson and Abdul both give us plenty of opportunities to feel superior. The self-flummoxing Abdul is physically incapable of not reassuring the contestants. One of the few variables that Jackson seems able to track is pitch.

Fun

New Mac ads. I like this one best, but watch them all.

Oh, BTW, some HBO shows are now available from iTunes.

Best line of last night

“And sadly, the ‘father of LSD’ is dead.” He “has died at the age of 102. But the good news, the ‘mother of LSD,’ still alive and working as a judge on ‘American Idol.’”

Jay Leno

What do you think?

The beginning of the end for Hannah Montana?

The New York Times

Here is the Vanity Fair article — Miley Knows Best.

I gotta find another way to spend my time (rather than blogging)

Here’s the top four search strings in the past few hours here at NewMexiKen:

katrina campins 306
virgen de guadalupe 13
warning sign 11
“katrina campins” 9

Katrina Campins was among the first group on the Apprentice. It’s no doubt her photo they want now. I’m guessing this is the one.

I feel used. I’ve never posted that photo or linked to it before. The one I have that gets the traffic headed this way is, I suppose, this one from four years ago.

Hey Albuquerque Comcast customers

You really should see the Masters in HD. It’s awesome.

[To explain, the CBS channel here is not in HD on Comcast; some sort of contract dispute. I am watching a free HD signal through rabbit ears.]

Hmmm, let me think about that while you put on your sweater

“The presence of a grandparent confirms that parents were, indeed, little once, too, and that people who are little can grow to be big, can become parents, and one day even have grandchildren of their own. So often we think of grandparents as belonging to the past; but in this important way, grandparents, for young children, belong to the future.”

— Fred Rogers, born 80 years ago today.

Around 35 years ago NewMexiKen (I was just Ken then) wrote Mr. Rogers a letter. I thought the way two elderly characters were portrayed on the show was silly, especially the old messenger Mr. McFeely (McFeely by the way was Rogers’s middle name).

I received back a five paragraph letter, apparently from Fred Rogers himself (and oddly not dated). The man took the time to respond to my criticism in a thoughtful way that — at least it seems to me — showed the type of class he evidenced in everything he ever did. Read for yourself his reply. Click each image for larger version.

Best line of the morning, so far

“Adams was famously (infamously?) sardonic and pompous. Convinced that he was the smartest guy in the room, even when the other occupants included Franklin and Jefferson…”

Ari at The Edge of the West panning Paul Giamatti’s portrayal.

OK, OK this is absolutely the last item about this year’s Oscars

Reality TV

NewMexiKen has come up with a sure-fired idea for a new reality TV series. I don’t want to give too much away while I search for backers, but what I’m thinking is a combination of “Cops” and “Supernanny.” This supernanny will prowl high schools, movie theater lobbies and, of course, malls looking for unruly teenagers.

Big deal you say. Ah, yes, but here’s the attraction. Starring as the supernanny will be Javier Bardem in his Oscar-winning characterization of Anton Chigurh.

Censorship out of control

At the same time, we recognize that not everyone out there loves a potty mouth. So if there’s an obvious bad word on a blog, story comment, or message board post, we’ll try to censor it.

It seems though that FOX Sports’ censor can become a little too zealous. This is from This Week in History: Jan. 23-29.

Via Awful Announcing .

[It's Walter Johnson.]

I hate the Super Bowl

The Super Bowl, in the eyes of real sports fans, is for the tourists. It’s not just that you must sift through the clutter of all the off-field hype for an interminable two weeks, or that it’s the one sporting event covered by morning talk-show hosts who otherwise have no apparent connection to the world of football today. (Like, say, Tiki Barber.) It’s that the actual game of football, at the moment when it is supposed to be at its glorious peak, is utterly irrelevant. It is impossible to keep up the appropriate level – the expected level — of psychotic fandom when the pregame show is 10 hours long, three-quarters of the people at your party are sprinting into the room when the commercials come on and Vegas is taking bets on the duration of the inevitable Tom Petty nipple slip. When the Patriots and Giants take the field Sunday, a fan can be forgiven for thinking, for the first time, that the game itself is oddly small.

Will Leitch, The Fifth Down

Hey here’s a great idea for a TV show about Albuquerque

First, this news item from the Albuquerque Tribune:

Police say somebody stole an “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” utility truck from the parking lot of a hotel near the Big-I on Tuesday night — the same day the crew unveiled a new home to a Southeast Heights family.

The show was in town to build a home for the Martinez family, who live in the Trumbull Village neighborhood, known for its history of crime and poverty — a fact mentioned repeatedly on promotional material for the show.

Here’s my idea — Extreme Makeover: Cops Edition.

Bad boys, bad boys, what’cha gonna do
What’cha gonna do when they come for you

The problem with my idea is that four years ago Mayor Marty banned Cops from filming in Albuquerque. “The city’s police officers are portrayed in a good light, but the rest of the city looks horrible. That has a real impact. That’s all people see, and that’s not who we are.”

Tell that to the Extreme Makeover guys.

Poor sports

Eli Manning enjoys “Seinfeld” reruns.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Many NFL players have far worse vices.

But Jay Zollar, general manager of WLUK, a Fox affiliate in Green Bay, this week made it clear that he, not the Giants quarterback, is the master of that domain.

On a video on the station’s Web site, Zollar points at the camera and says, “Eli, no ‘Seinfeld’ for you!”

Yup, the station has pulled its regularly scheduled 5:30 p.m. Saturday “Seinfeld” rerun in an attempt to disrupt Manning’s preparation for Sunday’s NFC Championship Game against the Packers.

Newsday.com

I’m thinking Eli can probably afford a portable DVD player.

‘Apple-scrapple. That’s a keeper.’

A truly substantive interview with The Wire’s David Simon by Nick Hornby.

An excerpt:

[Simon:] But instead of the old gods, The Wire is a Greek tragedy in which the postmodern institutions are the Olympian forces. It’s the police department, or the drug economy, or the political structures, or the school administration, or the macroeconomic forces that are throwing the lightning bolts and hitting people in the ass for no decent reason. In much of television, and in a good deal of our stage drama, individuals are often portrayed as rising above institutions to achieve catharsis. In this drama, the institutions always prove larger, and those characters with hubris enough to challenge the postmodern construct of American empire are invariably mocked, marginalized, or crushed. Greek tragedy for the new millennium, so to speak.

If you’re into The Wire, you’ll want to read this one. If you wonder what’s with all the fuss about The Wire, you’ll want to read it too.

Link via mental_floss Blog.

More on The Wire

David Simon responds to Matthew Yglesias’s thinking The Wire has too bleak a vision of the urban world.

You might want to scroll back up to the top to see what Yglesias says before reading Simon’s comment, but the link is to the comment.

The Wire

On the eve of the fifth (and final) season of the HBO series “The Wire,” Mark Bowden profiles creator David Simon, The Angriest Man In Television.

As The Wire unveiled its fourth season in 2006, Jacob Weisberg of Slate, in a much-cited column, called it “the best TV show ever broadcast in America.” The New York Times, in an editorial (not a review, mind you) called the show Dickensian.

Season five begins Sunday.

Note: Bowden’s profile is admiring but not friendly toward Simon.

NewMexiKen thinks The Wire is so good — and I haven’t even completed watching the first season on DVD yet — that I have acquired all four seasons on disk and — AND — am seriously considering satellite TV after a two year lapse from cable — just to get HBO just to get this show.

Most obnoxious

If you’ve been watching much college football, as have I — no really — then you are probably very tired of certain commercials.

For example, the Dr. Pepper commercial with the dancing football player who dives off the goal posts. Cute the first hundred times, but stop already.

Or even worse, the Dr. Pepper commercial with all the sweets — candy, ice cream, pie, cupcakes — substituting for Dr. Pepper. Could they possibly make a soft drink seem less appealing?

I’m a little tired of Durwood and his buddies chasing after Bobby Bowden, too. Again, funny — hilarious even — the first few times, but annoying now. Why would Allstate insure that guy? I wouldn’t want to pay premiums to help cover him.

Even the AFLAC duck is getting on my nerves.

Any others?

Who’s on first?

It’s down to the semi-finals in Who’s the Worst Sports Announcer? and Who’s the Best Sports Announcer?.

Another reason to vote for Obama

According to an upcoming story in TV Guide, Barack Obama says his favorite TV shows all-time are M*A*S*H and The Wire.

Doldrums

I got nothing.

Last night I did watch the first three episodes ever of the HBO series The Wire and find myself hooked. Disks two and three are on their way from Netflix and I’ll probably watch the first three shows again tonight.

Also, I finally got around to seeing Volver, the film that won Penélope Cruz an Oscar nomination, and The Last King of Scotland, the film with Forest Whitaker in his Oscar-winning portrayal of Idi Amin. Both films were superb — indeed, Whitaker was really just remarkable.

Haven’t paid much attention to fall weather elsewhere in the country, but Albuquerque officially hasn’t reached freezing yet. October 29th is the average date for the first frost. We’ve had no measurable rain for six weeks.

Mental Floss has the date covered: Condi Rice, Joe McCarthy & Prince Charles Were Born (and other things that happened November 14).

Gore Cameos on “30 Rock”

Crooks and Liars has a video of the Al Gore cameo on “30 Rock.” Predictable — until the end, which made it all worthwhile.

The WGA strike — what it’s about

More videos — from cast and crew of Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, Desperate Housewives.

And if you really want the union’s point of view — actually quite interesting — Why We Fight.

The Heart of Texas

Nancy Franklin has a loving and appreciative — and worried — review of the NBC series “Friday Night Lights.” It includes this:

I took a wait-and-not-see approach to “Friday Night Lights” last year, until an unlikely friend recommended it—a young filmmaker who had grown up in Manhattan in a literary and theatrical milieu and had no interest in sports. We were in the Museum of Natural History when we had this conversation, and when she told me that she and her husband were “addicted” to the show, even the animals in the dioramas were so stunned that they froze in their tracks. The following week, I watched an episode, and went from ignorance to bliss.

Best line of the day about TV, so far

“If you watch bad television because you think it’s good, you’re screwed up. But if you watch bad television because you like the feeling of watching bad television, you’re OK.”

Jack Shafer - Slate Magazine

Character Assassination

“Television characters live with the constant worry of being written out of the plot, turned evil or – even worse – killed off. These twelve weren’t so lucky. Honor the memories of television’s fallen legends by testing yourself on their causes of death.”

Character Assassination

Where do they get these guys?

NewMexiKen has been listening to the radio broadcast of the California-Arizona football game on the Cal network. We all misspeak, but really …

“He hit the right crossbar.” (Isn’t it the right upright?)

“The motivation has changed.” (Isn’t it the momentum that changes?)

“Tuitama is over center.” (Aren’t quarterbacks under center?)

And all these in the first half.

In the Trenches

Have you admired Ken Burns’ work in the past but now find it somewhat wearisome? Be sure to see Nancy Franklin’s review of his World War II documentary. She gives a very high rate of zingers return on your reading investment.

And the Emmy goes to …