What was the #1 most popular song on the day
youDan Patrick and Keith Olbermann were born?
Not that Dan’s and Keith’s mothers had radios on in the delivery room.
And even if they did they wouldn’t have heard these versions.
(Devoted DP and KO fans will be able to figure out which song goes with which fellow.)
After approaching what the department’s public information office called “the beleaguered beaver,” Police Officer John Angus secured the animal in a safety noose and pulled it on to the rear of the harbor launch, where it was kept in a bucket and doused with water.
I’ve been remiss in attending to this, the Blog of Evil. A lot of spare time has been spent at two ends of the technology spectrum lately. On the low end, the weather has been nice and conducive to getting out in the yard to dig around in the dirt in preparation for this season’s gardening. Nothing like having grass stains on your hands and dirt under your fingernails at the end of each day. On the high end, I’ve been doing a lot of reading on hardware and software in preparation for buying a new computer. Part of me would like to buy a bunch of parts and put together a computer from scratch, but I’ve never done it before. I’ve worked on computers a bit but I’m afraid of messing things up if I try to build one from the ground up. (Plus there is so much cat hair floating around the house I worry about creating a computer with a built-in hairball.) Once the new computer is up and running then I’ll re-do the old machine; that’ll be my guinea pig.
It’s hard to know where to start when trying to catch up after being away from this blog for a few days. A lot has been going on: bitterness, DP’s discussion of Tibet and the Olympics, Mets fans boo the Mets. Not to mention your comments, most of which send me off on wild tangents of thought. If I was a more disciplined writer I’d do a better job of responding to your comments.
For now I’m just going to leave a nugget of information I stumbled upon when browsing the Web, 72 Tips for Safer Computing.
Remember what Sgt. Esterhaus said:
“Let’s be careful out there.”
Caught the very end of the show live today and heard DP’s mother on the air. With the addition of sidekicks Paulie (where’s he been; I don’t think I’ve heard him all week) and Seton I assumed DP moved the show into a studio, but I guess he must still be doing it from home if Mom can just drop by to say hi.
It sounded a bit awkward (yeah, wouldn’t you like it if your folks visited you at work?) but as a big DP fan it was kind of neat to hear his Mom. Especially after all the stories he’s told about the family. He tried to get her to chat about the time she whacked DP’s brother Bill in the head with a frying pan; she didn’t open up about that, although she did seem to revel in the memory of getting “nice green switches” from a tree which she would use on the misbehaving children. Yikes: corporal punishment! DP’s right: If his mother did that sort of thing these days then she would go to prison.
Not getting to hear Keith Olbermann yesterday was disappointing, but hearing DP’s Mom was nice.
Maybe Lou will be on next.
Hawaii commented in The Dan Patrick Show: Deep Throat!:
Leave it to Dan to tease something into the last hour. Though now he says he can’t mention who it is in case he can’t make it. That’s a change of story, and would be good for the KO theory. If it wound up being Peter Gammons, I would not mind that too much. An excellent second choice to KO. I like Reilly, but that would be a disappointment.
So much for The KO Theory.
It’s Reilly.
Dang.
I like Reilly, too, but this certainly is a letdown.
The mystery continues ….
I didn’t hear DP mention the Mystery Guest at the opening of the show, but about 15 minutes ago he did say the guest would appear during the final hour. And that they have to keep it under wraps, or else the guest might not be allowed to appear.
Wow!
It sure sounds like it could be one of those verboten ESPN Guys, like Rick Reilly, Peter Gammons, or Keith Olbermann.
Or maybe he’s getting Michael Vick to call in from Leavenworth ….
Stay tuned.
Well, the Mets open at home today. First pitch is in a few minutes.
MLB.tv was giving us a hard time, but I was willing to work with it to find a fix. But a few days ago my call was routed to billing and the customer service rep offered a refund. Gads! It’s like they were waving the white flag! I asked to speak with a supervisor and while he was nice and all he didn’t seem to have any idea what was wrong and how long it would take to fix. I so just decided to get the money back.
Our computer is a little old but from what I’ve read on a couple of message boards even people with state-of-the art systems are having difficulty with mlb.tv feeds. We’d been thinking about upgrading and will likely go that route. By the time we get a new computer maybe MLB will have their system fixed. DirecTV (and a TiVo to record the day games) is just too expensive for something I want for only six months a year.
It’s kind of weird following Mets games on via live blogs and MLB.com’s live scoreboard (Gameday reception has been pretty erratic) after two years of mlb.tv and a few years of Gameday Audio before that. Then again, it’s been a bit liberating to not feel like I have to be married to the computer during games.
Baseball is the opiate of the masses.
Play ball. Let’s go Mets!
Hawaii commented in The Dan Patrick Show: Colonel Mustard in the Library with a Knife:
I just got back from a long weekend out of town and started listening to the show, and I hear about this “mystery guest”. I am so glad you had something up here to come check out(I put something at Palaver too now but linked here). I certainly hope you are right about KO and there are some real hints that way - the KO predictions last night and DP withholding his, the fact that he often jokes when referring to Keith (mystery guest would fit into that), he has been playing a KO clip in the bumper lead ins, the contract running out etc. But a little part of my brain says that there are probably lots of other sports possibilities too that aren’t nearly as entertaining from my point of view so we’ll have to wait and see. And no doubt it will be the last five minutes of the last hour! ;)
Aha! “Out-of-town.” When DP started dropping hints about a Mystery Guest the first place I checked was Palaver to see what you had to say about it.
A good clue from Paulie this morning that the Mystery Guest is indeed a “he.” A caller during the first hour mentioned Rob Dibble; another good possibility. DP ended the show today by referring to the Mystery Guest using the phrase “sneak attack.” So it could well be one of those off-limit ESPN personalities like Rick Reilly or Bob Knight. Having Reilly on right before The Masters kicks off would be good timing. Whoever the guest is, the appearance certainly does sound like a one-time deal.
I am on record as wishing the show was new and different, but a return to KO would be a blast from the past.
Part of KO’s success with Countdown is that he was not afraid to take something serious like the news and add a twist of goofy humor to it. DP seems hesitant to take the reverse angle with sports talk radio: to inject a degree of seriousness into an inherently light and entertainment-oriented genre. A few weeks ago he apologized to listeners for bringing up the topic of John Daly’s problems; I think he mentioned some other serious issues that day. But to me those are the shows that really stand out. I kept talking back to the radio that day: “Don’t apologize, Dan!” He pokes fun at Bob Costas and all the Emmy Awards, but I think he’s a little jealous of Costas’ ability to mix the light with the serious. DP seems secure in cultivating the persona of the nice goofball, but I think he’s a lot more intelligent than he wants to let on. I suppose for the sake of ratings he needs to be Goofy Sports Guy. But he has been mentioning the protests regarding the Beijing Olympics, and even read an email from a listener who wrote in support of the protests. So we know he’s thinking about things other than Andy Roddick’s fiancée.
From The Dan Patrick Show: Mystery Guest:
Gilbert wrote: If it’s not Olbermann, it would have to be a really big-name, right? Why else would Dan keep it a secret and promote a mystery guest?
jh added: Mentioning KO recently after weeks of nothing kind of gives us a clue, I hope!
… and then reported this tantalizing piece of information: PS Olbermann just did his baseball picks-
Defintely another clue!
Did someone say Clue?
The plot thickens ….
Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking on my part. But Gilbert is right: It has to be a big name. Whe else do such a tease? (I listened to most of Monday’s show live. I believe the annoucement of a Mystery Guest came towards the end of the second hour of the show or at the beginning of the third hour. I thought he’d bring it up again at the end of the show, but I didn’t hear it mentioned again.)
And jh is correct in pointing out that DP has mentioned Keith a few times recently. Just in passing; real subtle, but the careful listener will have picked up on this. And KO’s baseball prediction could also be a good sign. (I was thinking that I’d missed DP’s baseball prediction as I haven’t been able to catch a lot of the show lately, but he mentioned on Monday that he hadn’t made his picks yet. Geez, that’s disappointing. There he is Mr. Big Shot Sports Radio Guy and he hasn’t bothered to scout the MLB. So maybe KO will be on Wednesday’s show and shame him into catching up on his baseball homework.)
Of course, the last time I guessed at a major DP announcement I thought he and Keith were going to be auctioned off at ESPN for the V Foundation fundraiser.
Maybe DP will have David Cassidy on the Wednesday show.
Or maybe it will be Lou.
Lou would be good.
I thought this was rather amusing:
The Absolut vodka company apologized Saturday for an ad campaign depicting the southwestern U.S. as part of Mexico amid angry calls for a boycott by U.S. consumers.
The campaign, which promotes ideal scenarios under the slogan “In an Absolut World,” showed a 1830s-era map when Mexico included California, Texas and other southwestern states. Mexico still resents losing that territory in the 1848 Mexican-American War and the fight for Texas independence.
Some Americans are ticked off because they don’t like the idea of losing territory to a foreign power. Hello-o-o-o! Manifest Destiny was all right for a while but now everybody has to stay put.
OK, so I know immigration is a touchy issue. But lighten up: it’s an ad campaign.
I like the old Absolut ads; they were simple, but clever.
The original ad:
Spin-offs:
I guess Absolut felt these ads had gotten old, so they’ve come up with the “Absolut World” campaign.
One December many years ago I got home and was happy to find that the latest New Yorker had arrived. I picked it up and flipped through the pages when a Christmas carol started playing. In the magazine. The magazine was playing a Chrismas carol!
WTF …..?
Turns out it was an Absolut ad: a Christmas card inserted into the magazine, when the card was opened a microchip was activated and the carol played.
Way cute!
Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.
