Cathode Rays & Power Plays

The new permanent blog can be found here if you care to read on.

Back Crackers & Weed Whackers

It's getting bad again. I last wrote a week ago now. I mean to write more often than that.

It was another busy week though.

I'm sure you've heard me whining about my back lately. So I finally went to see someone who could do something about it. My mom is friends with a guy who owns his own chiropractic practice. Try to say that aloud three times. So I went to see him last week.

Apparently, there are five bones at the base of your spine and in the case of mine, the fifth dislodged itself somehow. Yeah, so that explains the pain. Spine, mine. Explains, pain. Is this secretly an English class I've started blogging here?

Well so far it's working. I rather enjoy the back cracking and my lower back certainly feels much better than it did a week ago. So I can learn to appreciate that.

As for the "Weed Whackers" part of this headline, this is an English class I'm blogging and I wanted something that rhymed and I saw I guy cutting the grass at my apartment the other day. Okay? Now don't ask.

I know I kept it short today, but my goal was just to get something posted, not engage you in a novel. I'll try to write again later if anything comes up. But for now, if length is what you desire, go see Delay of Game. That's my hockey blog wherein I shall write about my experience working as an intern for Sun Sports at Lightning games.

Transference

Evening, all. I audited MySpace for a time and while I'm not as completely annoyed with it, I don't like my available options in terms of its bloggerdom. What? I know it's not a word.

So anyway, since, yes, I'm that in love with my own writing, I'm transferring everything from MySpace... to here. So check back below for those posts. They'll be listed under the proper day and time as set by their original postings.

If you didn't follow any of that, I'm sorry. Sometimes it happens. I'm very happy to be back here at the Blogger. In the meantime, while I'm copying over that other stuff, please feel free to drop by the hockey blog which I intend to take another shot at.

Okay, so pardon the dust during the reconstruction era here. I'll be back soon.

But I Love The Amazing Race

Do you watch it? It's the only "reality show" I'll put up with.

Who am I kidding with "put up with"? I love it. It's a great show. I may be biased in that I'd love nothing more than to spend 30 days shirking my responsibilites to travel the world. Meg and I watch it every week and talk about how much we'd love to be on it.

Tonight's Amazing Race ended with the father/daughter duo signing off. Despite the gay guys being penalized for 30 minutes over breaking the rules of the game, they still managed to live to race another day. I don't like them.

Who I like is Peter and Sarah. Perhaps its Sarah's prosthetic leg that makes her more sympathetic than the others, but I like her nonetheless. She's a fighter. But Peter... sometimes he can lose his patience quickly. That's not cool.

I started watching the show last spring, the ninth season. I thought it was fantastic. The teams were just all so fascinating. This season hasn't quite done it for me like the last one. There were more teams that I liked on that season. This year the producers were touting their ethnic diversity just in time for the Indian couple and the Muslim buddies to get the boot in the premiere. It kind of sucked.

Anyway, that's all I came to say tonight. Cheers to The Amazing Race.

Oh, and I'm considering switching back to the old blog at Blogger. I'm just not sure I like MySpace. Never have, never will.

Go visit me there.

I Thoroughly Dislike Football

I haven't written since Tuesday. I've had a busy week. It culminated last night with me spending the better part of five or six hours standing around Raymond James Stadium stringing camera cabling for ESPN.

And I realized in doing so that I never want to do it again.

It was a USF game. A football game. One of the few nationally televised games. Early in the week Meg told me about how they were looking for freelancers. She'd heard from two of her teachers. I had some previous experience but didn't quite know what would be expected of me by ESPN.

So I was asked to come in Thursday morning to help them get set up. Which I did. And that was fine. We unloaded the B-Unit truck, tagged everything with these fancy Tampa Sports Authority arm bands and whisked them away to their desired locations.

Before I go on, the cases didn't desire the locations, the production manager did. They're cases, they have no thoughts or feelings.

Anyway, then Thursday afternoon I directed my first Florida Focus. Which, I know, I said I'd put up here. But I've been busy. I'll get to it. But it went all right. It took us a long time though. If Tuesday was two takes, Thursday was two hundred. The half that Emily didn't screw up, I did, so...

Better luck in two weeks when I direct again.

Back to ESPN, though, Friday evening for the game. When Meg and I got there, we were handed blue vests with the ESPN logo on them. They give those to all the Utilities, freelancers at any sporting event they cover.

We stood around pretty much until the game started when our supervisor finally gave us something to do. And then I kind of wish she hadn't. She assigned us to the camera op on the Rutgers side, and, along with another guy (possibly named Kel) we carried cables for her while she ran up and down the field at the director's behest.

What was funny was early on right before the game started when she was getting shots of the fans. They're odd people. One of them asked us over and over if we knew what ESPN stands for. I would've told him nothing but my feeling is its best not to instigate drunkards.

Another was insistent that we explain what happened to Harold Reynolds. And while I don't know who that is, I might imagine he is (or was) an on-air personality. But does this guy really think that lackeys carrying cables have any idea what goes on in Bristol?

Which brings me to a bunch of people in the stands and even USF cheerleaders asking me and probably others of us to put them on TV. Seriously, do I look like I'm holding a camera? Well, perhaps if you're a little hammered there is the possibility you might mistake that nothing on my shoulder for a camera.

And not to pile on, but when we got there my back was already hurting. It has been for a few weeks. I don't know why and I don't have any money to give to a doctor to tell me why. So I stood at the cable pile located at the 50-yard line behind the player benches. Kel stood in the middle and Meg stood behind Trina (the camera op). And by the time we left, I couldn't feel my back.

This morning I could hardly move without wanting to fall over. It sucks.

In conclusion, I'd like to say that ESPN used to stand for Enterainment Sports Programming Network and a Google search for Harold Reynolds yields several stories about the Baseball Tonight host having been dismissed for sexual harrassment. A sportscaster? No, impossible.