February 8, 2010
Ad Bowl 2010
The top entry in this year's USA Today Ad Meter was the Snickers spot featuring Betty White playing football. I liked that one, but my favorites came in lower on the list: Doritos's "Kid scolds mom's boyfriend" ad at #11, and Google's spot at #43. The Google ad, additionally, might have been sappy, but was refreshing compared to other stuff.
February 4, 2010
iPhone/iPad live TV
It looks like live TV is coming to the iPhone and iPad via SlingPlayer. I might have to check that out on my iPhone, and a good experience would be a reason to check out the iPad....
February 3, 2010
Black golfers
Tom Watson says that Tiger Woods should "show some humility to the public" and clean up his act when he returns to golf (!). I wish I could find an In Living Color skit where they showed what would happen once Blacks started taking over golf courses....
January 29, 2010
HeLa cell line
In 1951 an African American woman's biopsy cells were made available to biological researchers, without her knowledge or consent. Today her cell line is one of the most powerful ones for scientific research. See a Wired magazine article on Henrietta Lacks for more information.
January 22, 2010
SF adventures
Last weekend I was in San Francisco. I'll have to channel Clint Eastwood and detail The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of an unusual trip:
The Good:
- I took my niece and nephew to a movie theater they had not been to before.
- I was able to get zipcars without any problems. Well, the gas card did not work in one car, but I was reimbursed for using a personal credit card, and also received an hour of free driving.
- One zipcar lot was extremely tight. An Asian Amercian woman servicing one of the other cars tried to direct me between cars sandwiched on both sides and a truck behind me, but I was worried about hitting one of them. She said "let me try; getting cars out is my speciality," and got it out! Go 'head on, sista, and bust those stereotypes!
The Bad:
- For the first time in 8 years of visiting at least once a year, it was raining (a lot).
- I had to walk 7 blocks to the hotel in a downpour after a wind gust tore up a cheapie umbrella purchased from Walgreens.
The Ugly:
- An elderly African American man got into a fight with a non-American White tourist when the tourist ignored a request for the tourist's son to stop filming with a Flip camera. The resident slapped the camera out of the kid's hand, then the tourist pushed the resident down while retrieving the camera from the front of the bus, and then the tourist and son went back to confront the resident (!). That's when I got off.
There's never a dull moment in San Francisco!
January 9, 2010
college football bowl games
This year I watched at least part of all 34 college football bowl games! While I saw all of only 4 games (Insight, Outback, Rose, and BCS championship), I did catch significant action in half of the others, and saw at least a couple of series in each game. I can hardly wait for the 2010-2011 bowl season to arrive. Hopefully the Gophers will be playing in a January 1 bowl next year....
NBA basketball games
Yesterday I went to my first Minnesota Timberwolves game. It has been at least a decade since the last time I attended an NBA game, and it'll probably be years before I go again. The game itself was OK, but all of the surrounding "entertainment" was annoying: fan promotions, Barbie doll cheerleaders, half drunk fans, loud music every time the home team has the ball. I'm gonna stick to the much more exciting WNBA and college game experiences....
January 3, 2010
January 2, 2010
first sub-zero bus rides
It has now been three months since V and I decided to go without a car. Today I twice went out into sub-zero weather to catch the bus to and from campus. The experience both times wasn't that bad!
December 25, 2009
another Christmas memory
In 1983 I saw A Christmas Story with my dad and brother. As a 15 year-old I reluctantly tagged along to a "kid's movie" (my brother was 11), but I remember loving it from the get go. Now I see at least parts of it every Christmas season, and watched the whole thing today.
