Monday, November 14, 2011

Announcer Mute Button, Herman Cain, and Memories

So far Mariah Carey and Charlie Brown are in a dead heat for best album. Cast your vote now! I did expect Amy Grant to have a better showing than this. Maybe my middle-age women demographic is not as strong as I thought.

While watching the game last night over at Matt and Elsa's, Matt came up with a brilliant idea: somehow rig a broadcast so that you could mute certain announcers with the click of a button. For example, when Jon Gruden begins his five-minute doxology of Aaron Rogers, you simply hit the "Mute Gruden" button and enjoy the silence left by his paean to the Packers. It would be equally effective for: Bill Walton, Dick Vitale, Chris Berman, Dan Dierdorf, etc. The only snag would be baseball games announced by Joe Buck and Tim McCarver because you would be left with only the sounds of the fans in the background after silencing those two jokers sometime during the pre-game show.

I don't want to talk about the Vikings game last night; it's still too painful.

I just saw that the video game Halo is celebrating its 10th anniversary. That makes me feel quite old. I remember playing that game for quite a few hours during my senior year with Brady Anderson and Joe Idziorek in between school and basketball practice or on Saturday mornings after spending the night. Oh, the days of playing video games for hours on end without a care in the world toward productivity. Now, even the thought of playing video games makes me guiltily reach for some work or a book I should be reading.

It looks like Herman Cain caught whatever mind-blocking disease was ailing Rick Perry at the last debate:


This is a similar approach that I used to stall during my Spanish oral examinations in high school. You know, when I was asked, "Como estas?" I would shift in my chair awhile, asking "Como estoy? Eso es la pregunta? I just want to make sure I understand the question. Hmm...Pues, es dificil...necesito tiempo..." Until I could think of how to conjugate whatever verb I was supposed to conjugate into the preterite and say something that would use only Spanish words and fill the alloted time. I was very good at stretching the meaning of common verbs to make them more inclusive to whatever need I had for them at the time. I think it was really an art form.

Speaking of high school and art, I was the only kid that my parents didn't force to take an art class in high school. My mom later confessed it was because she didn't want to ruin my GPA and hurt my chances for scholarships. Mom - 1, Dave's fine motor skills - 0.

It's always around this time of the year that I long for a house with a fireplace. My house in Hermantown had one, and I fondly remember sitting in the basement, watching movies, and listening to the fire crackle as we cozied up on the couches/chairs. I remember a bit less fondly going out to the garage for my dad to stack our arms full of wood and trying to navigate to the house and down the stairs with my arms shaking underneath the load and my vision obscured by the pile of wood. I can remember more than a few accidents on the stairway followed by fights concerning who left their shoes right in front of the staircase.

Well, this turned into a reminiscing post. Deal with it.

2 comments:

  1. HA! Yes the shoes in front of the staircase...I blame Stephen, just because.

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  2. What, you don't want to hear about "these guys"?

    ReplyDelete