'El Jefe' among celebs coming to Hoppy Fest

Here's breaking news from the pages of the Daily Jeffersonian. Its good to see the locals reaching out to different audiences in their quest to draw tourism dollars to the community. 

Take me out to the ballgame

We are two weeks into the 2005 baseball season and for some reason I can't explain I actually care. Specifically, I find myself interested in the Cleveland Indians this year. They look a little uneven but they may be playoff bound if the managers play their cards right. One of their best starting pitchers C.C. Sabathia is looking good after being on the disabled list for a while. That's good news for Tribe fans, since his pitching is the backbone of the Cleveland bullpen.

In chasing my baseball fascination this year I've done several things I haven't done in previous years. First, I printed out the schedule for the Indians at www.clevelandindians.com. I've been following the Indians even during spring training by listening to 93.5 WBNV out of Barnesville, Ohio. When I'm at home I watch them on Fox Sports Ohio.

Also, I bought MLB 2K5 for Playstation 2. Its a game that has great play mechanics and is infinitely customizable. For me it was initially frustrating to get the settings the way I wanted. Once I did I've found the game to be riveting and fast paced. Unlike some of the games in real life. This game is also playable online against real human beings across the internet. I'm not sure but I believe that there's no fees for playing beyond the cost of the internet connection. This game is a steal at $19.99 new.

Mistah Thompson, He Dead.

One of the great counterculture icons slash journalist slash sports analyst Hunter S. Thompson died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Sunday. Just hours after his demise the newspapers, bloggers and news media outlets are rushing to spin their take on what is undoubtedly a harsh and sickening time for the Thompson family. Naturally, I must participate.

Of all the things Thompson did in his life, his work did the most to expose the hypocrisy in a artificial and stale social world that the United States had become after the torment and violence of the late sixties. When he decried the death of the American Dream in his books, it seemed obvious to everyone. But it took Hunter to put the pieces together.

Thompson was the most avid of critics when it came to his own profession. Stripping away at the professional veneer that journalism had enjoyed for so long was a pastime of his, enjoyed with the same sort of relish that the average American enjoys a cheeseburger. He simply loved to bite the hand that fed him. In his own way it was this paradoxical self-loathing that made an indelible mark on the work that sustained his fame.

Some will denounce Hunter S. Thompson as the poster child of the hippie culture. The last standing monument to a burned-out, dead end scene that siphoned the soul straight from its participants. But he wasn't the legacy of failure that he made himself out to be. If anything, he was living proof that while the American Dream may be barely breathing, it sure as hell isn't dead. After all, if the Dream was over, how could a man like Hunter exist? How could he be allowed to go on his merry way, drinking, indulging in illicit substances and shooting anything that moved? No, the Dream was alive. IS alive. But Hunter isn't. To quote an oft-used reference in his works to the passing of his fellow travelers, "Mistah Thompson, he dead."

Thompson realized that the news operates in cycles. As a continual cycle of birth, death and decomposition, it is forever consuming itself in order to bring new information into the world. Now that he has passed, and in such a dramatic and tragic fashion, his death becomes the story as his life once did. The endless, relentless 24 hour news cycle will consume this story and digest it in the vain hope of distilling some sense of meaning or hope out of this meaningless and hopeless event. It will chew and gnaw on the story like a teething child, attempting to break open the significance of his brutal act of self-implosion. But it will fail. And long before the cycle becomes aware of this failure, it will have moved on to something equally void of meaning.

Hunter knew this. He also knew that, for reasons that are his own, he couldn't face the light of another day. He is with us no longer. But I have his books and his articles, and that will have to do. In his absence, how many new writers and journalists will attempt to fill his void? The number can't be known. Wherever he may be right now I think he knows just how ironic it is for a man who loathed journalism so much to have inspired so many.

Ask not why the Wonderfalls. . .

Ever heard of a television show called Wonderfalls? Chances are you haven't, since it only aired four episodes on Fox in March of 2004. Now, instead of being the domain of grainy VHS and .MPG copies on the internet, you can view this great series on DVD.

This show is wickedly funny and quirky enough to appeal to a hardcore cynic like myself. The series follows the adventures of slacker twenty-something Jaye as she does the bidding of souvenir animals. No kidding.

The great thing about this show is that it uses the talking animals to delve into larger, more complex issues. Instead of tackling social concerns like Star Trek, Wonderfalls chooses to deal with how people affect each others lives in unique ways. Another charming aspect of the show is that Jaye is drug kicking and screaming into interacting with people in ways she wouldn't have bothered to before. It is a journey of self-discovery that she has been avoiding all her life.

The show has been compared many times to Joan of Arcadia. I find Wonderfalls to be much more palatable, in part because I identify so strongly with Jaye's character. She's every bit the cynic I am if not more so. She puts up walls between herself and others, even her family. That certainly sounds familiar. . .

The Sony Walkman still rules portable audio

If you're looking for a well built CD player that plays MP3's and has a AM/FM radio in it, look no further than Sony's D-NF400. This player is well built, has a radio that isn't deaf and isn't made in China. This little gem can be had at my local Wal-Mart for $68. I bought mine at Amazon for $76 shipped before I realized I could've bought it cheaper. The player also receives audio from TV channels 2-13 and NOAA weather radio. My experience has been that it doesn't hear very well on those two bands, but that could be because I live in a fringe area that's quite hilly and unfavorable to radio signals in general. In a highly populated area, I think you'd have no problems picking up stations.

I find that the MP3's I play on this unit sound identical to CD's. There are a number of DSP audio presets to choose from, or you can customize the frequency response with a primitive equalizer built into the dot-matrix display. One feature that I love is the sleep timer, since I love listening to music in the quiet of night. There are many other cool little tricks the player will do. Consult the manual for more details about this marvel of modern audio technology.

I waited on a girl tonight that I've tried to flirt with before. She wanted a pack of cigarettes, keeping her head down and not looking at me at all. She didn't say anything to me. I wasn't in a flirty mood so I said nothing also. Nice way to begin an intense relationship. As she left with her friend (who was several orders of magnitudes hotter but I paid no attention to) she forgot her cigarettes. Still not looking at me, I made some Kramer-esque noises at her and her friend, for some reason unable to articulate the fact she'd left her cigs. She said to her friend, "go get those, will you?" Again she avoided eye contact. This is not the first time she's acted this way around me.

I mentioned this whole episode to a friend over a steaming heap of fresh tacos. He said there could be a few explanations:
A.) She lacks confidence
B.) She's scared
C.) She wants nothing to do with me
D.) None of the above

Let me break this down. If the answer is A then she is simply shy and needs me to be a little more forward than "will there be anything else?". If the answer is B, then I need to stop looking so angry (which I should do anyway). If she wants nothing to do with me, then I should back off. But I haven't got any other signal from her that tells me she's repulsed and/or frightened by my existence as a human being. And as a man, I should take that as an invitation to come on to her. Shouldn't I?

Its all an exercise in futility. I probably haven't even come close to the real reason she acted the way she did. In addition, I have some background info on her that may or may not be why she acts so strangely. No need to repeat that gossip here, since the source is questionable and the info has not been verified!

There is a conspiracy among game manufacturers to deprive me of my constitutional rights to operational games. Let me clarify: a used copy of Final Fantasy 9 doesn't work for me. Its broken. It boots up, plays fine until 45 minutes into the game. When I try to go through a door with Zidane after Princess Garnet, the game goes black and stays that way. Meanwhile, the music loops endlessly without hanging or sounding distorted. So, I'm flummoxed.

I haven't had the chance to try the game in another Playstation, so its possible that it could be my system. It is after all about 6 years old. But I haven't abused it, and it plays other games flawlessly. The disc itself isn't badly scratched. It looks like it has numerous light surface scratches, but nothing I haven't played before without any problems. Perhaps FF9 requires an absolutely scratch free disc.

In the meantime I'm fidgeting, playing other old games which of course work fine. This will be resolved, the only question is how and when.