Sports
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Can’t lose, in a way
I grew up in New Jersey and New York, rooting for the Giants. (And, in the Namath era, the Jets too.) Then, after 20 years in North Carolina (mostly as a college basketball fan), I lived in the Bay Area for 25 years, and rooted for the 49ers there. One daughter lives in the Bay… Continue reading
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Happy to have been there
That’s what many thought when they first saw the poster for Hassle House, in Durham, North Carolina, back in ’76 or so. As soon as any of the posters went up, they disappeared, becoming instant collectors’ items. At the time, all I wanted was to hire the cartoonist who did it, so he could… Continue reading
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Making the basket (ball) case
As a (literally) old basketball player, I have always hated dealing with net-less hoops. Full satisfaction for a shot well made requires a net. But nets do wear out. Schools and cities fail to replace them. So I sometimes take matters into my own hands, and replace nets personally. This is also what Maria Molteni does, but… Continue reading
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Fuel for denial
Got together with four members of my kid’s 8th grade basketball team and their coach (another dad, much younger and better than me) this afternoon for a shoot-around. I was too wasted to play in the real game (I did sub briefly, and scored one lay-up), but we finished up with a game of P-I-G… Continue reading
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Reputation vs. Branding
Branding has jumped the shark. The meme is stale. Worn out. Post-peak. If branding were a show on Fox, it would be cancelled next week. I can witness this trend by watching links going to three posts I made last month: Brands are Boring, Brands are Bull and The Unbearable Lightness of Branding The latest… Continue reading
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March Madness and Radio’s Future
March Madness for me this year was a double treat. First, my team, the Duke Blue Devils, won the championship. (Though my heart went out to Butler, which came within inches of winning at the buzzer on a half-court shot.) Second, I got to follow the Devils, and North Carolina Basketball in general, on WDNC.… Continue reading
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Remembering Jack Jensen
I just learned that Jack Jensen died yesterday, at age 71. I knew Jack a bit when I was a student at Guilford College in the late ’60s. (Class of ’69, to be precise.) Jack wasn’t much older than the rest of us then. When I was a freshman, Jack was a 26-year old assistant… Continue reading
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Go Crimson Quaker Gaucho Blue Devils
Seems like all my favorite college hoops teams are playing in tournaments. Harvard’s Crimson go up against Appalachian State tonight in the CIT. UCSB’s Gauchos are the 15th seed in the NCAA Men’s Midwest bracket, a checkbox win for #2 seed Ohio State on Friday night. The Quakers of my alma mater, Guilford College, are… Continue reading
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Not a medal, but still an Olympic win
Anything look familiar about the ice crystals on NBC’s Vancouver Olympics bumper screens (some of which float behind Bob Costas’ head when he sits talking at his desk)? You can see the originals here. They were shot at our apartment near Boston one year ago, on a morning when it was way below freezing outside,… Continue reading
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Dats love
Sez Dave (now back in Metsland), “As the 1969 Mets undid the betrayal of NY fans by the Dodgers, the Saints give hope to a city that was betrayed in so many ways.” Exactly. And let’s not forget the betrayal of NY fans by the Giants too. Losing both was a double-whammy for me as… Continue reading
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Heavy Whether
Chris Daly posts a 1995 essay he wrote for the Atlantic, recalling almost exactly the experience I had as a kid growing up and skating on ponds in the winter. An excerpt: When I was a boy skating on Brooks Pond, there were almost no grown-ups around. Once or twice a year, on a weekend… Continue reading
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Ice stories
For most of Winter in the Northeast, skating is possible only during the somewhat rare times when the ice is thick and not covered with snow or other unwelcome surface conditions. And bad skating has been the story, typically, for most of this Winter around Boston. After an earlier snow, there were some ad hoc… Continue reading
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Wintry mixing
I grew up on our town’s best hill for sledding. After a good snowfall, the town would sometimes block the steet so kids from all over could ride down the hill. The top was steep, but there was a long flat straight-away at the bottom. We used to compete to see who went fastest, and… Continue reading
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Skiing is believing
The shot above is a pano taken by The Kid with my iPhone, which isn’t good for much else here in Switzerland. (Click here or on the shot to see the original, including larger sizes.) On the left is the Matterhorn, which may be the most impressive mountain on Earth. It’s hard to imagine more… Continue reading
Cervino, Gornergrat, Matterhorn, snow, switzerland, vacation, Valais, Wallis, white, winter, Zermatt -
Whitman wins
I am the teacher of atheletes. He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own. He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher. — Walt Whitman That’s what came to mind when I heard that Denver beat New England today. Rookie Broncos… Continue reading
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Good broadcasting sports
I like sports, and I enjoy sports talk radio. That’s one reason I have five car radio buttons set on stations carrying games or sports talk: four on AM (WRKO/680, WEEI/850, WAMG/890, WZZN/1510) and one on FM (WBZ-FM/98.5). The other is that sports talk is about 50% advertising, so I like to punch around. But… Continue reading
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WQXR goes to WNYC, WBCN leaves FM dial
Heard this morning on WNYC that the New York Times has unloaded its remaining broadcasting asset, which consists of the channel and facilities of WQXR, which has been a classical music landmark for as long as it’s been around. (One way or another, since 1929. Wikipedia tells the long story well.) The story on WNYC’s… Continue reading
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We’re gonna need a bigger boat
WebTV was way ahead of its time and exactly backwards. The idea was to put the Web on TV. In the prevailing media framework of the time, this made complete sense. TV had been around since the Forties, and nearly everybody devoted many hours of their daily lives to it. The Web was brand new… Continue reading
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Looking over St. Louis
Got these shots of St. Louis and the convergence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers while flying to Austin by way of Chicago two Fridays ago. You can see the Gateway Arch, right of center, Busch Stadium, the Edward Jones Dome, the City Museum, and lots of barge traffic on the river. I actually didn’t… Continue reading
2008_03_13, aerial, bos-ord-aus, Busch Stadium, Canon Powershot 850is, City Museum, eads, Eads Bridge, Edward Jones Dome, Gateway Arch, Illinois, infrastructure, Martin Luther King Bridge, mississippi, Mississippi River, Missouri River, Photography, Poplar Street Bridge, St. Louis, ual, united, united arilines, windowseat, windowshot -
Wanted: à la carte HDTV
So our Verizon FiOS home bill has been about $160/month. We were looking to chop that down a bit when I called Verizon this morning. To put it as simply as possible, it’s complicated. What I care about most is keeping the 20/20Mbps down/up Internet service. That’s $69.99/mo. What I don’t care about is POTS,… Continue reading