GodsendJen

It's always fun when pop-culture recylces itself.  I grew up watching The Karate Kid over and over on video tape.  An upbeat soundtrack, classic good vs. evil storyline and cute boys...what more could a pre-teen girl want? Skinny little Daniel was a great hero, but we all secretly wanted bad-boy Johnny with his perfect hair and glistening muscels.  My how times change.  The Phat Phree dug up a video from the group No More Kings called Sweep the Leg Johnny. Mr. Belding has stepped into Mr. Miyagi's tiny shoes but Cobra Kais all showed up to play themselves.  You can see for yourself that Johnny and the boys were much hotter in highschool.  On the other hand, Kreese and Daniel haven't changed that much.

At work I usually refocus by taking a few minutes to read random internet writings to clear my mind.  Often I read about sports, but occasionally I end up reading the chronicles of expats who are living overseas.  I find their stories of adjusting to life in a different culture fascinating, especially the stories from people who find themselves living in Asian cultures.  The small details are fascinating.  The Wall Street Journal chronicles these frustrations in a column called The Expat Life, but some of the best stories are chonicled on blogs.

One of these is Captain Japan's Sake-Drenched Postcards. The captain provided a seven-part series on Japanese Hostess Clubs. It is a fascinating concept--men paying for the pleasure of a conversation with women.  For many women this sounds like one of the only routes to finacial independance they have, "It is no secret that the allure of becoming a hostess usually comes down to one thing: money. The chase for brand-name goods and the chance for an affair with a successful corporate executive provides all the motivation necessary for a girl to take up work in one of Tokyo's thousands of hostess clubs."

I've had a bit of free time this week and have spent some of it crawling through the dark recesses of the internet. Imagine my surprise when a Google Image Search turned up this Saturday Evening Post magazine cover.  The artist is Ellen Pyle and from looking at the contents listing the art doesn't relate to any particular story.  I just keep thinking about how women playing team sports is portrayed as a bit unorthodox during the 1940s in A League of their Own, but here we have an attractive woman playing hockey in 1927. It turns out Women in Sports is actually a recurring theme in the Post's cover art that began in 1923.

You can order prints of The Saturday Evening Post that are ready to frame from Curtis Publishing. I'm not sure where I'd hang it, but if I can think of the right spot I might have to acquire this. Would filling the space between my kitchen cabinets and ceiling with the Post sports art be strange?

This comes to us from geek blogger Phil over at Haacked.  It's a father's day advertisement from condom-maker Durex.

Online dating caries with it implicit risks. You never know when that anonymous Mr. Right is a personal stalker waiting to happen.  The trunk of his sports car might be filled with guns, knives, rocks or worse--computer equipment.  But the biggest risk is the one you probably don't give a second thought to...that a coworker with PhotoShop might happen upon your profile.  Then just imagine the fun they might have with all those photos of you enjoying yourself in the great outdoors.  If you are a shirtless male with a porn star caliber mustache...well hot dawg we're in business.

If it turns out this is my last post...well it just indicates that my coworker Bruce, the former Marine pictured here, doesn't share our sense of humor.  If that is the case I only hope our government trained him in the art of the quick and painless death.

One of the strangest yearly rituals in colliegate debate was the tournament banquet at the Liberty University tournament.  At each fall's banquate Dr. Fallwell would spend a few minutes talking about his political experiences and then open himself up for an extended question and answer session with the gruop of overwhelmingly liberal college students.  The questions were often outlandish but Jerry was never short, never rude, and he always had a joke in hand to lighten up any topic.  His speaking ability included some magical tap-dancing skills that he often used to shift his answer away from the question at hand and into a familiar territory.  One year I taped his questions and answer session and analyzed his "answer shifting" technique for a socio-linguistics class. But the most memorable encounter came when Liberty hosted the NDT in 2007. Tournament meals were held in the LU dining hall where an enterprising worker had hung a sign beside the bagel bin assuring diners that despite being a "Jewish" food the bagel provided had been prepared in a "Christian" kitchen.  A Jewish teammate took exception to the sign and when Q & A time rolled around he used the opportunity to ask about the sign.  Rather than defend the sign Fallwell immeadiately said it was innappropriate, that he didn't know about it, and that my teammate had his permission to remove it (our coach promptly took the sign from the wall and returned later during the Q&A with the sign as a trophy).

Love him or hate him, Fallwell was an outspoken advocate for mixing morality with politics.  You have to wonder if his demise will make it easy for a moderate Republican to find acceptance on the Republican ticket in the next Presential elections.

 

 

Vernon Wells hasn't been on my personal radar screen since he left the Expos Nationals to play for one of those American League teams.  Well today Deadspin had a blurb that really makes me appreciate Vernon for his sense of humor.  Too many professional athletes take themselves far too seriously. And they take it personally when someone in the stands trys to take heckling to an all new level.  I'm not a heckler, but I can imagine these guys got a real charge out of Vernon's response.  After several innings of playing to the hecklers just a bit he went into the dug-out and signed a baseball for them.  The inscription:

Dear Mr. Dork,
Here is your ball! Can you please tell me what gas station you work at, so when you are pumping my gas, I can yell at you!!! Now sit down, shut up and enjoy the game.
- Your favorite centrefielder

Go Vernon.  Way to show everyone in baseball that you are just playing a game and fun is of paramount importance.

This week marks the first time in at least 2 months that I've felt good.  Not ok, but really good. I spent much of the last two months trying desperately to funnel enough caffiene and sugar through my body to function.  My house suffered, my yard suffered, and I made sure everyone around me suffer--though hopefully not too much.  The hidden upside to going through cancer treatment is it really makes me appreciate this point, Feeling Good Again.  It's when you wake up in the morning and think you've just gotten a new lease on life.  So appropriately my theme song for this week, and maybe this whole month, is Robert Earl Keen's Feeling Good Again.  How fitting that he's swinging back into town for a show at Variety on May 16th.  Like Robert Earl says,  It feels so good feelin good again.

Feeling good also means I can once again appreciate some of the creative exploits people post on the internet.  It's no secret that I completely dug The Muppet Show as a kid. They were on every afternoon and they were funny. The Muppets didn't try to shove education down your throat with stupid parlor tricks. The shows weren't Brought to You By The Letter 'P' and there was no segment requiring you to slowly count 5 items over and over again.  The Muppets were about entertainment, complete with musical guests.  It was Saturday Night Live for the first-grade set. The movies, they were a little lame.  But the TV show was the best thing on in the afternoon.  What else could make a 6-year-old understand that Harry Belafonte was...cool? Well here is an updated trip down nostolgia lane.  A trailer showing what might have happened if Jim Henson, rather than Quentin Tarantino, had directed Pulp Fiction. Yes, the fountains of blood are missing, but otherwise I say Spot On!