Category: football

Roger Answers Your Question, Arthur

Arthur @ AmeriNZ, that blogger and podcaster from New Zealand via Illinois asked:

Oddly enough, recently I bought “This is the Moody Blues” on iTunes (to replace the vinyl copy I had), and this was one of the songs. I still love it.

A question? Well, by way of preface, there’s an Australian talk show host called Rove McManus (the show is called “Rove Live”) who ends every celebrity interview with the same question: “Who would you turn gay for?” The current Prime Minster of New Zealand answered Brad Pitt, though he as asked by some one not quite the stature of Rove.

So, in my best imitation Australian accent, I ask, who would Roger turn gay for?

When I was in high school, I had this conversation among some of my male friends. I suggested one of the guys from our high school swim team. Interestingly, at least three of that group of friends turned out to be gay, though they were in the closet at the time, at least to me.

I suppose if you had asked me 25 years ago, I might have said Tom Selleck. This in spite of the fact that I almost never actually watched Magnum, P.I. In fact, the only time I specifically remember watching the show is when it had a crossover with Murder, She Wrote, a show I’ll admit to watching fairly religiously. Cabot Cove, Maine: highest per capita murder rate in the WORLD. But Selleck’s politics, I’ve discovered are rather right-wing, so not him.

I suppose George Clooney. He’s rich, handsome, talented, and his politics don’t suck. Incidentally, it was never Brad Pitt for me, even in his Thelma and Louise days.
***
No one asked me, but I do have rooting interests on this last weekend of the regular season of the NFL:

The New York (New Jersey) Jets: I’d like them to beat Miami, which COULD go from being the #3 seed to out of the playoffs. So, I’m also rooting for Buffalo to get to 8-8 and beat New England. For good measure I think I want Jacksonville to beat Baltimore, but it ain’t gonna happen.

The Philadelphia Eagles: this for Greg. Not only must the Eagles beat the Cowboys (I ALWAYS root against the Cowboys), but Oakland should beat Tampa Bay AND Houston must beat Chicago. Yeesh.

The Carolina Panthers: my mom, one sister, one niece live in Charlotte. They’ll probably still be in the playoffs, but it’d do them well to beat the Saints.

The San Diego Chargers: the other sister and one niece live in the San Diego area. So if the Chargers beat the Broncos, they’ll be in the playoffs! At 8-8. Yuck.

ROG

ROG

What are YOU doing on Thanksgiving?


From the BLS: What activities do you have planned for this Thanksgiving? Perhaps cooking and enjoying a meal with family or friends, playing sports or watching sports on television, doing volunteer work, or shopping? Here’s a look at some BLS data behind those Thanksgiving scenes.

For me:
Cooking? Perhaps a little, but I’m at my in-laws, so it’ll mostly be table setting and clean up.
Meal – yes, most definitely. I don’t know why I don’t have turkey at other times of the year. I LIKE turkey.
Watching sports – maybe; if my father-in-law is, then I am.
Doing volunteer work – actually I had planned on having done that already by helping move furniture around the church on Monday for the EQUINOX Thanksgiving dinner in Albany, but then my daughter got sick with pink eye, the scourge of day care centers everywhere, and that plan went out the window.
Shopping – not if I can help it. Shopping on Thanksgiving Day should be limited to buying forgotten cranberry sauce. And NO ONE loathes shopping on Black Friday more than I do. Though online shopping is not out of the question.

The American Farm Bureau Federation tells us that the Classic Thanksgiving Dinner is Still Affordable. For those of us lucky enough to still have jobs, I suppose. For which I AM thankful.
***
The presidential cookie poll.

ROG

ROG

Walk-Off Balk


There’s this fun website Win Expectancy Finder that determines the likelihood that a baseball team with a lead of X in the Y inning is likely to win the game.

I discovered it in a conversation in salon about one game in which a team with a five-run lead in the sixth inning stole a base. The losing team seemed to think that this was somehow unsporting and (allegedly) threw at a subsequent batter. The WEF shows that a team with a one-run lead in the eighth inning was statistically more likely to win the game than the team in the first scenario, yet no one would chastise a team up 3-2 to try to pad its lead.
***
I have a Google alert for Roger Green. What I get a lot of is the Brett Favre drama, with NFL commissioner ROGER Goodell arbitrating between Favre and the GREEN Bay Packers.
***
I understand why teams play preseason football games. What I don’t know is why anyone WATCHES them, let alone thinks they’re significant. It’s August; football weather requires at least a sweater. At least when they play hockey in June – another anomaly in my mind – it means something.
***
Synchronized librarians.
***
I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m intrigued by this guy who you call up and he writes your life story. On a postcard. Any of you done this?
***
We had an intern this summer, and she said that this website “captures the essence of Roger”. I think that’s good thing.
***
It pains me, it really does, for tI used to ban the very mention of her name from this blog: I’ve begun to see Paris Hilton in a more positive light.
***
The Psychology of Color.

ROG

ROG

Book Meme

Before I get there: I’m not sure I’m happier about the Giants winning the Super Bowl, 17-14, or the Patriots going 18 and ONE.

I generally gauge a Super Bowl commercial by whether I can remember it he next morning, without notes, without notes. I remember hot air balloons fighting for Cokes, the annual “awww” commercial from Bud of dog training horse, a talking baby throwing up on e-Trade, that GoDaddy commercial tease to see Danica Patrick on their website, and those pandas in Chinese “dialect” for some career builder site which I expect to engender some warranted controversy (after it aired, I said, WT…). Oh, yeah, the first Victoria’s Secret ad since 1999, but I had read about that in AdAge; it was tame for VS.
***
I’m fairly sure I’ve done this before, but since Nik tagged me, not only will I answer it, I will endeavor to give answers different from the ones I gave last time. Whenever that was. If I can remember the answers I gave last time.

1. One book that changed your life?

The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology by Barry Commoner. It came out in the 1970s, and I ended up voting for Barry Commoner for President in 1980.

2. One book you have read more than once?

The Fate of the Earth by Jonathan Schell. Despite the dire predictions, it’s also such a hopeful book that a segment was used at a wedding I was at.

3. One book you would want on a desert island?

Oddly enough, Joel Whitburn’s Top Pop Singles text. It will allow me to recreate some of the songs in my mind.

4. One book that made you laugh?

Pajama Time by Sandra Boynton. I swear this children’s story was inspired by rap music.

5. One book that made you cry?

This is so hokey and cliched – Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt.

6. One book you wish had been written?

The Bible. I’d leave in the good stuff.

7. One book you wish had never had been written?

I like Nik’s answer: “Well, the whole genre of right-wing Let Me Tell You Why Liberals Suck books by O’Reilly, Coulter, Limbaugh, et al I guess. I find them bankrupt as literature and usually preaching to the converted anyway.”

8. One book you are currently reading?

A book about cubicles that I hope to review soon.

9. One book you have been meaning to read?

I have shelves of them. If I pick one at random: Wired by Bob Woodward.

10. Now tag five people.

Well, I have to pick Eddie, who broke the pledge that Nik had been holding to;
Kelly Brown, because of her mysterious mind;
Deborah, in the hope that the meme will travel through Europe;
Uthalena, who hasn’t posted since early September;
and
Fred, because it’s been a long time since I’ve asked him to. ROG

ROG
Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial