Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Playing
posted at 1:14 PM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
If you're unfamiliar with the immense value of playing, I commend playward.com to you. It has many suggestions as well as other links. Life can be draining at times and play can be a helpful antidote and boost. This isn't feel-good touchy-feely but genuinely interesting and useful. Hey, after all, Thomas Jefferson et al thought happiness (one result of play) important enough to be one of three pursuits after which all humans should strive.

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Sunday, March 29, 2009
A.I. two million
posted at 10:15 PM | Permalink | 2 comment(s)
I'm not sure what season of American Idol this really is but I've had a hard time warming up to this year's group. I watched early on and couldn't stand anyone's voice or song choice. However, this week I was caught up at the end of the show and saw only two and a half performances but was blown away by Allison Iraheta. She's only 16 and you'd expect one of those annoying current kinds of renditions but she belted "Papa was a rolling stone" to the tops of the rafters while still remaining coherent. I have no idea if she's "pop" enough to win or even if she should, given the kind of powerful voice and presence she has, but she was terrific. The others, at least in their brief revisits, all seemed boring and uninteresting. Maybe I'll have to watch again, now.

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Let's try again
posted at 11:31 AM | Permalink | 6 comment(s)
It's been a fairly crazy time since I last blogged and I was / am not entirely sure if I'm going to keep this up. I really have enjoyed blogging. I was rocked by the negativity of reactions during the presidential election. I don't want to be a political blogger and I don't want to demonize or be demonized. I like this enough and value the exchanges with people all over the place that I don't want to stop. I guess I need to zero in on what JMBM is all about, what's its focus is. I suppose I should have done that at the outset but I figured it would sort itself out. I think I'd like to be a commentator and observer, not particularly a dissenter or calvanizer. Anyway, we'll see. Wish me luck.

Update - Humor for blog nerds: I should've waited two days and written this more dramatically and then said it was an April Fool's joke.

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Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Square root day
posted at 12:07 PM | Permalink | 2 comment(s)

It's square root day! I kept thinking 3/3/9 looked interesting but didn't stop long enough to realize why, so am grateful to USA Today for reminding me why. Next one's in 7 years, 1 month and 1 day (4/4/16).

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Monday, March 2, 2009
Rules of Engagement
posted at 9:11 AM | Permalink | 0 comment(s)
It probably brands me as a light-weight but I've enjoyed Rules of Engagement from its beginning. It's a pretty standard sitcom in many ways, not a formula I usually find endearing, but I enjoy the show. I'm not sure what it is about Patrick Warburton that slays me - besides his obviously fabulous voice and timing of course - but I laugh at anything he says, anything at all. The rest of the cast is pleasant though not headline-grabbing and I do wish anyone besides David Slade played the goofball because he really really annoys me but you can't have everything.

I'm not sure why RofE stuck in the ever-dyspeptic Alessandra Stanley's craw so deeply yesterday but she really should lighten up. That she managed to summon praise (however faint) for "2.5 Men," "How I Met Your Mother" and "Big Bang Theory" while dismissing "Rules of Engagement" as trite, boring and unworthy is beyond me. It's not exactly high art, but RofE has no pretentions for anything other than being just plain silly fun. And it's marginally better written than those others, or at least I think so. Anyway, taste in light tv fare is highly personal and subjective so it's just-plain-wrong to rank them or say one should be banished and shunned while the others are peachy keen. Anyway, I'm glad it's being given another chance to grab enough of the audience share to hang in there for a few more seasons.

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