Pull up

There’s something both tragic and uplifting about watching someone take risks and fail.

I think it’s important for us as a society—and individually—to push limits, to follow dreams, to make bold plans. If you let that part of you atrophy, what are you left with? Breathing, eating, sleeping. Watching bad TV.

Steve Fossett was (and possibly still is) one of those risk-takers. It’s silly to try to guess at his personal motivations or glamorize his successes and failures. But from a third-person perspective, it’s good to see someone try to, for instance, fly around the world, solo, without refueling, just because it had never been done. Sometimes I think we’ve become so inoculated against that kind of daring that it doesn’t even register in the public consciousness as it has in the past (see Lindbergh, Chuck).

As of Wednesday night, Fossett still was missing somewhere in the sun-baked wilderness of Nevada after taking off on what should have been a routine three-hour flight.


I have a major soft spot for aviation. That particular winged horse might be well out of the barn for me, but I still love watching the state of the art develop, the envelope expand, pilots continuing to give gravity the middle finger. So to see someone whose public life was predicated on trying to leap tall buildings trip and fall over the equivalent of a sidewalk crack… well… that’s only sad, and nothing else.

I hope they find him soon.

'Tis not quite the season... but still....

Football is upon us.

And as much as I dig football (if not Brodie Croyle’s decisionmaking), for some reason it just makes me miss college basketball more. For now, though, all I’ve got is recruiting news, preseason rankings and Internet videos… like this one, featuring ex-Kansas Jayhawk Julian Wright, 2007 NBA lottery pick, semi-pro bowler and sporter of occasionally wacky haircuts.





I appear in none of those clips, in case you were wondering.

Anyway, here's to watching more sports--football, basketball, baseball, occasionally soccer and never NASCAR--in person. And the great thing about going back to Lawrence is that a) Southwest gets you there cheap-like and b) that leaves you more money for darts and beer.

The stars at night are big and bri... usually obscured by light pollution

Chicago’s a big place. About 10 million people. If you lived in Chicago and met 250 of its residents every day for your entire life—and you lived to be 100—you’d still wind up with a few strangers in your life. On the other hand, think how many cards you’d get on your 99th birthday. (note: My math skills are suspect. But I used a calculator to arrive at these figures.)

The point is, given the wealth of humanity in the Chicago metro area, it would seem tough notice two or three leaving. But as a couple of my good friends hit the road on Wednesday, I noticed. They’re heading to Austin after spending the last few years here in one of the Windy City’s hippest neighborhoods.

There’s something comforting and good about having friends nearby, even if you don’t see them every day. And there’s something equally displacing about watching friends leave, even if there’s no question that you’re going to stay in touch. Personally, I have a much easier time moving from Point A to Point B and saying goodbye to my homies in Point A than I do watching the aforementioned homies heading off to Point C.

Maybe it has something to do with the excitement and anticipation of finding one’s self, i.e. me, in a new locale. And I know my friends are excited about their move and exploring a city that is known for being a pretty fun place.

So that, I think, is what I’ll focus on. For them, safe travels and new adventures.

For me, having a place to crash during South by Southwest.

Sing a song of sci-fi

I don’t know how I managed this. I spend enough time bumbling around on the Internet that, really, I should have noticed it earlier. And what about my friends? Why didn’t they share this news with me? Were they afraid of how I might react?

Because, honestly, it’s pretty damn cool that the final season of “Battlestar Galactica” is going to kick off with a two-hour movie.

As has been established in this blog and elsewhere (by “elsewhere,” I mean “my life”), I enjoy good science fiction. If you think that makes me a dork, stop reading, because it’s only going to get dorkier.

“Galactica” is a great show, not because there are neat-looking spaceships shooting at each other or because the female leads are pretty hot, but because it’s full of great stories. Like the best fiction in any genre, the stories and characters transcend the settings. The overstory is about a search for home—a subconscious aspect of all of our lives, at least in my wholly inexpert opinion. The subplots are about everyday life: Love, death, longing, chasing dreams. And also neat-looking spaceships.

But what I think makes my enjoyment of the show about as dorky as it gets is how much I like the main theme song. It’s… haunting. Probably because it’s a hymn from the Reg Veda (parts of which I had to read in high school—thanks, Bettye Tracy!). Doesn’t get much more haunting than a spiritual cry for redemption. Especially if there are neat-looking spaceships involved. Observe:

Translation: “O God, Thou art the giver of life, the remover of pain and sorrow, the bestower of happiness; O Creator of the Universe, may we receive Thy supreme, sin-destroying light; may Thou guide our intellect in the right direction. Grace Park is smokin'. Amen.”

As far as science fiction-related songs, it doesn’t get much better than that. Although Peter Schilling’s “Major Tom” is a close second, if only because he’s a German synth-pop specialist who wrote a song in German, later translated to English, in homage to a David Bowie song ostensibly about the American space program. Which has neat-looking spaceships.

It's coming for you like a giant foam ball rolling down a padded maze

Is there anything cooler than watching everyday Americans get pummeled by oversized athletes weilding giant padded Q-tips?*



NBC is bringing back American Gladiator, a childhood favorite of millions of people who were children when I was. So I guess that would make it an adulthood or adolescent-hood favorite of other people. But that’s not the point.

The point is that once again, viewers will get the privilege of experiencing bulging muscles, pointless obstacle courses and gargantuan mullets on the small screen. The only way they could do it better this time around is by including American Idol washouts.

*The correct answer is "No," by the way.

BAT BOY EATS TABLOID STAFF!

It’s the kind of news you’d hope to never see in any media outlet: Weekly World News, purveyor of fact-free reporting and extreme Photoshoppery, is folding.

Vicious vampire child struck without mercy.

Yeah. I know. You wouldn’t think that a paper with fact-checking and research budget of zero could run out of money, but it looks like it happened anyway. Strange, but true, like Hillary Clinton adopting an alien child.

It’s too bad, because although there’s a Moab-like drought of fun in the newspaper biz these days, the staffers at Weekly World News really seemed to enjoy their jobs. And who can blame them? If all reporters were given a computer, a phone and a license to invent as many UFOs as they could fit into a 10-inch story, the world would be a happier place in general. The Washington Post has an interesting history of the paper, tracing it from its early days as the Enquirer’s trashier cousin to its demise as a "comedy" rag that forgot to be funny.

At any rate, the next time you make an impulse purchase while waiting for the person in front of you at the grocery story to HURRY UP ALREADY AND JUST PAY WITH A CREDIT CARD, WHILE WE’RE YOUNG, whisper a prayer of lament toward the empty tabloid rack next to the gum. Weekly World News has gone to heaven (which the Hubble Space Telescope took pictures of. True story).

Rangers' D holds Orioles to field goal

OK, now, look people--this just isn't right. Or maybe it makes perfect sense. I dunno.

The Rangers are standard-bearers for the most insufferable of states, Texas. Texas is well-known for its obsession with football, to the exclusion of other activities like basketball, baseball and smart government.

Perhaps that's why on Wednesday night, the Rangers, a baseball team, went and scored three touchdowns (with extra point!) and three field goals against the Orioles in a double-header. Their bend-but-don't-break nine-man front gave up only an early field goal.




The resulting carnage equaled the most runs scored in 110 years. That's before even Jerry Jones was invented.