Poppin' Ain't So Easy Neither

I'm eating my lunch in the company lounge this afternoon when one of my co-workers walks in to heat up a bag of popcorn. Ought to be simple enough, right? Well, apparently not.

First thing I notice is that the guy is pressing like two dozen buttons. Beep...beep....beep beep beep. Really dude? That many buttons? You can't put a minute up there? Or how about....oh, I don't know....maybe hitting the button that says "Popcorn?" No? Keep pressing buttons? Cool, cool.

Eventually this hooligan gets the microwave on. I go back to eating my lunch. Couple minutes go by. Guy goes to retrieve his Orville Reddenbacher and opens it on the counter...out comes the smoke monster from Lost. The popcorn is somehow both burnt and mostly unpopped. And he's irate.

"Oh my god. This always happens. I can't figure out what the hell you need to do!"

Ummm...you can't figure out how to microwave popcorn? This is a common occurrence? Wow. I am now officially terrified for the future of this company.

It's Showtime

Its official, in my opinion, Showtime is the new HBO. It has superseded the Home Box Office as the place where my favorite, must-see televisions shows reside. The tide started turning last year when in addition to Weeds, I started watching Californication (Duchovny is perfectly casted as Hank Moody, the sly-talking, self-destructive, shoot-from-the-hip, struggling novelist that the show is centered around). Then just recently, after several trusted sources vehemently recommended that I watch the show Dexter, I did. And that was the end of my internal HBO vs. Showtime debate.

While HBO has been hit (Flight) or miss (John from Cincinnati) lately, Showtime has been quietly churning out some of the best shows on TV. I urge everyone out there to watch the three shows listed above and please let me know if I should be watching one of their other shows.

Showtime Site

"I love women. I have all their albums." Hank Moody, Californication

I Was Born To Lick Your Face

While flipping around last night, I noticed TV Land was screening Caddyshack...albeit with one whopper of a description:

Movie, Comedy (1980) Chevy, Rodney. Oddballs and gophers undermine a
country-club caddy out to win a college scholarship.

Is it possible to create a more insane, misleading and boring description of one of the all-time great comedies?! Seriously? Who undermined Danny Noonan? Was the college scholarship even that relevant of a plotline? It's not even close to the most important golf match of the movie. Also, Ted Knight doesn't get top billing with Rodney? Come on...

The Tiger Woods Experience

Soon after we watched Tiger battle through 91 holes of inspiring golf, rolling in back-to-back birdies to raise his 3rd U.S. Open, we found out that he did it all with a stress fracture and that his season has come to an end. This news, undoubtedly, led to an industry wide “What the f**k are we going to do now” moment. TV Executives, Event Title Sponsors, FedEx, the PGA, Nike, Gatorade, etc. are all scrambling and rightfully so… they have all committed a lot of time, energy and money into Tiger’s game (aka the PGA Tour).

And it really is Tiger’s game at this point, isn’t it? His direct sponsors invested over $105 million into him this year alone. When he is in the field everything spikes: TV ratings, attendance, news coverage, it all goes up. I was trying to think of a parallel to the Tiger phenomena and it really doesn’t exist in popular sport. Typically, the sum is greater, and the sport (and even a team) can withstand injury to a great player… but not golf, not this day and age, not this player. I guess it is most similar to music and specifically bands difficulties overcoming the loss of their centerpiece. Sure, they can keep the band name, keep playing the same songs and they will still get the real diehards to come out and watch… but without Freddy, Queen is not Queen… without Slash, GnR concerts just don’t feel right... and there is no escaping it. The real fans may come, but they walk away whispering to each other that something was off. That while it was great to hear the songs, the environment never solicited the excitement and vibe that they have become accustomed too.

In a way, Tiger IS the frontman in the world’s biggest rock band. When he is playing, everyone else's shots seem more important, their game seems to be inspired and while the crowd loves Tiger… they also look as if they love the rest of the band more because he is playing. He has all the characteristics of a band leader too… he is the most confident and explosive of the bunch. It is not just the hip thrusting double fist pumps either… Tiger stands over a putt not wanting to make it, but with the feeling that he HAS to. Sometimes I feel like the rest of the field just doesn’t want to mess up. If Tiger is Jimi, they are the Experience and while individually they are fantastic musicians… it doesn’t seem right without Jimi up front wailing away on his manipulated Fender Strat. The Experience just wants to make sure to hit all the notes, to get to the end of the song. Jimi wants to stick some acid under his bandana and go on a 10 minute psychedelic solo that culminates with him brushing his teeth with his guitar. That’s Tiger. Tiger doesn’t want to just make the putt, he wants to brush his f’n teeth with it and that is why it’s his band.

I will keep watching, diehards always do, but it won’t feel the same… how could it.

Blogging Is Hard

Well, this blog has had quite a nap over the past year. After a strong surge of posts in late 2006, early 2007... we completely flat-lined and after a last ditch attempt to turn this place into something it wasn't, something easier, we died. What we tried to make the blog was not a bad thing, but it drifted away from our core values and what this place initially was meant to be; a stomping ground for our commentary on music, sports, news, movies, and any other form of culture that peaked the interest of 10CFP on a given day.

After recently looking back on it all, it became clear that we sort of missed it. Putting the pen to the pad on a daily basis not only gave us a warped sense of accomplishment, it was actually relaxing to a certain degree. And thankfully, unlike Dan Ackroyd's comedic timing, Freeze Pops are never lost for good. They may melt and turn into that liquid sugar that I was banned from as a kid, but they can always be put back into the freezer and in short order, mold into their proper form.

But the fact remains, blogging is hard. It is hard because everyone does it, because we have other jobs, because we have to consume media, TV, literature, sports, etc. to write about, because for 95% of us there is no tangible payoff. It is hard because we need more sleep now and because Celtics games end at sunrise. It is hard because we have DVR and Netflix to watch and Podcasts and Hypemachine to listen to. It is hard because everyone keeps sending me those damn Facebook applications. It is hard for a hundred reasons, but most of all it is hard because we want it to be good. We don’t want to post mindless, meaningless, trivial, bland, redistributed crap. We want the 4 or 5 people reading this thing to like it and to keep liking it.

But we missed it. So we have been rummaging around our cabinets, picking up all the unfrozen freeze pops, drinking a few grape ones, and getting them back to the way they are supposed to be.