General folderol

WHAT I COULD BE DOING TONIGHT
I could at this very moment be attending my company's Christmas party at the Hyatt Reject—sorry, Regency—hotel.  Now, I'm normally not one to pass up free food and free booze, but the weather outside is a tad frightful with semi-icy roads, and I literally don't have a thing to wear to this gig that would be appropriate anyway.  Anymore, these annual rituals are little more than fashion shows as the women-folk are in competition to outdress one another, anyway, and I can view the photos of the event later on.  In the meantime, I'll just drink beer in the relative safety of my humble abode here and entertain y'all with my verbal bazooka instead...

SPEAKING OF CHRISTMAS AND BEER...
I wish Miller High Life would bring back this old TV commercial they used to play every year during the holidays.  The scenery was just gorgeous and it was always one of my favorite holiday ads, along with this one.  Surely, Miller (the beer that made Milwaukee burp) could forego a few playings of their current fancy Christmas ad with the Transsexual Siberian Orchestra and still give the "I'll Be Home For Christmas" spot a few spins each year.  While I'm on beer commercials, I was reminded of an oldie but a goodie while watching History Channel's "History of beer" show today.  Schlitz Malt Liquor was crappy beer, but they had great commercials.  Would I BULLshit you?  Sorry, bad pun...

SPEAKING OF HISTORY CHANNEL...
...at least they are what they say they are—a history channel.  So many other cable channels don't live up to their names, thus I have a few suggestions to correct this problem.  For instance, Lifetime should really be called Chick Flicks And/Or Disease Of The Week Network, Discovery Health Channel should be renamed the Baby-Birthing Channel, and TV Land can easily change to the Andy & Opie Network.  ESPN2 should be called Poker Central and BET should switch to the more accurate moniker, Pimps R Us/The Infomercial Channel.  The Weather Channel should become the Doomsday Network, and MTV should just plain be stricken from cable television, period!  Oh, and one more—I think it would be more appropriate for BBC America to be called the English Channel, don't you?  Get it?  English Channel!!!

WE GOT DEM 'OL POWDER BLUES AGAIN
Big news out of the Kansas City Royals camp this week, as they unveiled their new retro powder blue uniforms that some fans have been clamoring for the team to bring back for years.  I was never especially fond of the originals from the '70s myself—I always thought they were kinda wussy-looking.  Hope everyone's happy now, but I hate to tell ya, kids—this ain't gonna help the Royals win any more games...



QUICK QUESTION HERE...
I'm curious—exactly how many pints of blood do these Ultimate Fighter dudes on Spike TV, Vs. channel, et al, have to lose before they stop these fights?  Jaws was less gory than this show is...

CLASSIC MISHEARD LYRIC #63
"Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting"—ELTON JOHN (1973)  "My old man's a drunkard and a barrel full of monkeys and my old lady, she don't care..."  Or try it my old way as a 9-year-old with "My old man's a druggist..."

OOPS, THEY DID IT AGAIN!
The Grammy nominations were announced this week.  Once again, they fail to recognize that the music business has become so fragmented that it's useless to lump so many different genres into the same award category.  Prime example this year:  Album of the Year, which pits Foo Fighters, Vince Gill, Herbie Hancock, Kanye West and Amy Winehouse.  Thus, you have a Rock band, a Country singer, a Jazz player, a Rap singer and some tattooed no-talent skank drug addict all vying for the same award!  This is all just about as pointless as waving to Stevie Wonder, wouldn't you say?  In addition, my buddy Mellencamp is nominated for his shilling-for-Chevy song "Our Country" as is the Paul McCartney album that contains that gawd-awful "Nod Your Head" track.  Is it just me, or are the Grammy Awards just about as obsolete as 8-track tapes, rotary-dial phones, Apple IIe computers, Pong games and MTV?

REUNITED AND IT FEELS SO GOOD? WE'LL SOON SEE...
I'm more than a little curious how Monday night's Led Zeppelin reunion concert in London will turn out.  Messers. Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones are hooking up with the late John Bonham's son Jason for this one-off show in tribute to late Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet "Don't Call Me Omelet" Ertegun.  Word has it that if things go well, a lengthy tour may well ensue.  I love Zeppelin on record, but I've never been terribly impressed with their live recordings—Page's guitar always sounded woefully out of tune, and they would often go off on these tangents right in the middle of a song and never come back to it.  Now, I'm not saying anyone should reproduce their songs note-for-note in concert, but lawdy Miss Clawdy, do we really need 25 minutes of "Dazed And Confused"?  Oh well, for what it's worth, Plant was still in good voice when I saw him open for The Who five years ago, especially on Zep classics like "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You", so hopefully he can still bring it now.  You can bet if there is indeed a subsequent tour after Monday's show, it'll be the Motherlode of all reunion tours.