TONIGHT: The LeBrongest hour of TV....ever

In light of the most anticipated sports announcement since Brett Lebda's signing with the Toronto Maple Leafs (ha!), I must weigh in on LeBron James' egomaniacal one-hour special set to air tonight on ESPN.

First, let me say that I once had respect for BronBron. I thought he was one of the gentle giants, a modest NBA star (comparatively, of course). But since the "Chosen One" tattoo surfaced on his back, I've been suspicious that he really is entirely obsessed with his own greatness. And this week, when the news broke that he would announce what team he would sign with during a one-hour-long "special" on ESPN, I lost it. Any respect he once had is now gone.

Let me just put this in perspective. He's a free agent about to sign with a basketball team. He's not the only one this summer, not the only one ever, not special at all. The guy doesn't even have any championships. And while I understand that his signing is big news, especially because whatever team gets him will immediately be better, one piece of big news does not merit an hour of live television airtime.

So, I've compiled a short list of things I'd rather see get an hour special on TV than LeBron James' free-agent signing announcement.

• A Day in the Life of an Earwig: Yes, I'd rather watch these disgusting little critters crawling in and about someone's ear canals for an hour than catch a second of LeBron Mania.
  

• The Making of Gigli with special commentary from Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck: Yep, bring on the fake laughs and stupid inside jokes from two annoying ex-lovers as they talk about one of the worst movies ever made before I watch tonight's announcement.
  

• Behind the Scenes of Toddlers & Tiaras: I would love to get up close and personal with this reality show and watch how insane mothers put "flippers" (fake teeth) in their infants' mouths before tuning into ESPN tonight.

• American Idol Sings the Beatles: Please Please (give) Me the worst voices in the country and let them Maxwell Silver Hammer my favorite songs for an hour before I give any of my loving to LeBronberry Fields Forever.

• The NASCAR Sprint Cup Racing Series: I would even watch stock cars do 500 laps around a circular track in front of thousands of screaming redneck hillbillies before buckling down on the couch for LeBron. AND I'd do it sober.

Feel free to leave any hour specials you'd rather see than LeBron's self-love fest.

Commercialization to the extreme

It's so hot that I just walked down the hall past my only roommate to use the bathroom, saw the door was closed and proceeded to wait two or three minutes before realizing the light was off, no one was in there and I'm simply losing my mind.

But I've been able to keep the heat somewhat at bay thanks to two new fans from Wal-Mart, which segues perfectly into Tim King's choice for my next blog post (he won the caption contest with the only entry, therefore I must give him his due for such loyalty): The incredibly over-commercialization of my "neighborhood" in South Nashua.

From my window I can see McDonald's through the trees. From that McDonald's, looking up and down the street I can see Guitar Center, Toys R Us, Market Basket, Starbucks, Sports Authority, Best Buy, Staples, The Post Office, Pizza Hut, Modell's, Walgreen's, Bernie and Phyl's Furniture, Barnes and Noble, Panera, and more bright signs that squeeze your head. Within a five-minute drive I can go to a different Market Basket, or Shaw's or Hannaford or Stop and Shop if I prefer, any New England regional bank, Wal-Mart, Target, UNO's, Burger King, a UHaul center, Rite Aid, Jordan's Furniture, and an entire mall full of more brand-names like the Apple Store or Claire's (in case I finally decide to splurge on those faux diamond earrings that are just so fetch - yes, it's happening).

So on any given night with an unlimited credit card, I could be strumming a new guitar with a Pokemon lunchbox, gnawing on some store-brand chicken sauteed in Venti Chai Latte, slapping a 'Kazaam' DVD around with a set of Atomic Race 7s, printing off some personalized stationary to mail, and cooking some Asiago bagels in an Easy Bake Oven all from a reclined position in a blue suede love seat. Sounds like my own little slice of heaven, doesn't it?

There are so many things wrong with society today, you've really got to pick your battles. I don't have quite the historical background to properly take on this commercial giant and talk about the good ol' days when there was a milkman and payphones and plain old 2-D television, but this really has to stop. Or at least slow down.

Example: I shouldn't be able to go work out at Planet Fitness at three in the morning. Those people working that shift should be sleeping. There's truly no need for any store to have 24-hour service except the occasional gas station for late-night drivers. I mean, I appreciate the fact that if I wake up at three and find the energy to drive 15 minutes to work those glutes, I can. But it's not exactly a membership deal-breaker if I can't.

It's so hot that I'm barely able to string two thoughts together, but I think my general message is this:

While convenience is, well, convenient, it's also terrifying for the future. There are too many stores and too many people buying too much plastic shit. There's not enough education and not enough originality or authenticity. I say close down the stores in my area and send all the employees off to join the Peace Corps. Then people might start to understand how morally bankrupt our country has become.

New Summer Look

Note: New blog header uploaded. I like it, but feel free to comment and let me know what you think.

Three weeks into the real world and I already understand why people always say college is the best four years of your life. If you've got any sense at all, you know you have it good, sometimes great, during those four years. But once you get a real job, it hits you: I have to work? Like, every day? Fuck.

Yeah, not a great realization. Especially when the average time I woke up last semester was about 10:30 or 11 a.m. and I'm currently an hour and a half into my shift right now and it's 7:30. Jesus. But at least the only thing I'm responsible for right now as the only person in the newsroom (and probably the only human being awake at such an ungodly hour) is watch the idiots on WMUR, check three local newspaper websites, check the fax machine for police logs, check the AP Wire for anything interesting, listen to the police scanner, check the news computer for press releases that come in, and write up little live briefs for the web. Sounds like a lot, but believe me it's not. Why do you think I'm sitting here blogging for the first time in over a month?

Certainly, the MoJo shift (6am to 2pm) has a lot of responsibility. Say, if a massive fire or a major arrest or something crazy like that happens this early in the morning, it's all up to me to cover it and get it online. Moderately terrifying. But then I remember we live in New Hampshire, and I can breathe again. All I've had to do in the past two hours is write a three-inch brief about a Hudson kid who rolled his car yesterday, post two wire stories, and make four or five useless walks over to the fax machine/news computer. So that's what I get up for in the morning. What did you do? Sleep? OK, probably about equal effort then.

You can check out some of my front page stories so far though. Here, here and here. Enjoy. The rest of the stuff I've written is pretty meh. Even I'd tell you to skip it and pick up a book instead.

Speaking of books, I'm up to 22 so far this year for a total of 6,135 pages. And since the fax machine was empty again and the 'Send/Receive' button on the News computer came back with nada, I've got more time to write.

So I'm going to review them here. Yes, all of them. Because I'd prefer to do that than call more police officers who'd rather get shot than tell me about a minor accident in their no-name New Hampshire town.

Anyway, the book thing started with a New Year's Resolution to read 100 this year (a number that I've noticed is astronomically high for anyone younger than 80 years old) and so far I'm way behind. But, I have been reading consistently, and that's the real goal. And 22 books halfway through the year is a decent number. Here's what I've read since January, in order of when I read them:

• Piecework by Pete Hamill - Hamill is one of my favorite authors and until I read this book, I had no idea he was a journalist for a long time. This is a great book for travel writing and has plenty of good stories in it.

• Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote - Funny, short and famous. Good characters. I wanted to read some Capote and this was a good way to get a sense of his writing style.

• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote - One of the best books I've ever read. Chilling, intense, page-turning. It's shocking to believe a story this good and this incredibly detailed could actually be true. A must read.
  

• On Writing by Stephen King - I didn't really think I was going to like this book, but I actually loved it. The last thing I read by Stephen King was The Shining when I was about 15 and I swore I'd never read him again (I don't do well with horror anything). But On Writing was candid, realistic and helpful for anyone who wants to write. I loved it.

• The Tender Bar by J.R. Moeringer - Great memoir about a guy who grew up in New York City around a bar his whole life. I think I liked this book so much because I felt a strong connection with the author. Seemed a lot like me. A good pick if you like memoir.
  

• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz - Good fiction by a great writer. I'm not sure I agree with his Pulitzer for this book, but it was a good story. I enjoyed it. I was a little annoyed with the crazy amount and length of his footnotes, but I'd say it's worth reading.
  

• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - So wonderful and beautiful it's hard to call it a book. What's that? No, I don't have a vagina. Men can be romantic too. And I loved this book. It might even be my all-time favorite. I just love the language, the words, the story, the way he tells it; it's woven just perfectly. Another must read, but it helps if you have a romantic side.
  

• Where I'm Calling From by Raymond Carver - A great collection of short stories by one of fiction's best short-story writers. Read it if you like short stories. I'm not big on them myself, mostly because I like stories that don't abruptly end ambiguously in ways I can't understand (always feel like I'm missing something). That said, Carver is still a great read.
  

• The Good Soldiers by David Finkel - Unbelievable true story of life in Iraq. The author spent two years over there with the troops and he came out with one hell of a book. Seriously, if you think you know anything about a soldier's life in the Middle East, think again. This book changes your whole mentality and will depress the hell out of you. It'll color up your vocabulary and make you feel for anyone's family with a kid over there. Truly an amazing story.
  

• Justice by Michael Sandel - I read it for my persuasive writing class. The guy who wrote it is a Harvard professor and writes well. Pretty cool stuff about philosophy and all that. But it gets slow at times and asks way more questions than it answers.
  

• Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger - I hadn't read any Salinger since I was in high school, so I picked up Catcher in the Rye a little while after the writing legend died in late January. Still as great as I remember, with Holden Caufield as one of literature's greatest characters.
  

• Trash by Dorothy Allison - A bunch of vivid stories that seem fictional but aren't. The author is a lesbian who grew up on a farm with a family of nutjobs. The book is mostly little vignettes of her life, and they vary from interesting to crazy.
  

• Born to Run by Christopher McDougall - A good book about the Tarahumara runners in Mexico and the author's experience with them. To be honest, the guy's a pretty crappy writer but the subject was interesting to me. I thought it was very cool that wayy back in the day, humans used to run their prey to death. It's the only explanation as to how we could have evolved as a species, since humans are slower and weaker than just about everything else.
  

• High Fidelity by Nick Hornby - I love this movie and I've always liked Nick Hornby, so I had high expectations for the book. It met them. I thought the book was just as funny, if not funnier at times, than the movie and it was a quick read. It helps too that the movie wasn't entirely scripted from the book, so there were new parts of the story sprinkled among the great lines of the movie. I wish they had Jack Black's line in there somewhere though..."That's the worst fuckin' sweater I've ever seen man...it's COSBY sweater, a COS-BY SWEA-TAH!"
  

• Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger - I already said I'm not a big fan of short stories, but Salinger is a different breed. His writing is just so inviting. You can always relate to the characters, I feel, because they talk and speak and act like real people. The generation is different and the language is clearly outdated, but that doesn't take away from the connection. Each of these nine stories are worth reading many times over.
  

• Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell - Amazing amounts of research usually makes for a boring-as-hell book, but not in Gladwell's case. He writes with such ease, such relatability, that I went out and bought his other two books to read sometime this year. I really like his writing style and how much work he puts into his books. Crazy guy to look at though. Makes you wonder if he's actually the abandoned lovechild of Harry Potter and Sideshow Bob.
  

• In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan - The only book of the 22 that I didn't enjoy. The subject matter didn't particularly interest me (all about the health crisis in our country and nutrition) but I read it because I had to for my persuasive writing class. Not great writing and not a great approach to his argument, I thought, but lots of people like this book. Then again, lots of people like NASCAR, American Idol or mayonnaise on their french fries. It ain't right!
  

• A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson - A very cool 'get in touch with nature' kind of book. Bryson is a hilarious writer and I'll probably read more of him. This book is about his attempt to walk the Appalachian Trail and the only thing I didn't really like about it was the history and preachiness of "Save the Wildlife!" every once in a while. Other than that, I'd recommend it.

• Shit My Dad Says by Justin Halpern - It's amazing to me that a guy can get a book contract (and soon a TV show) based on nothing but a Twitter account. It's hilarious and awesome and a quick read, but it still boggles my mind.
  

• When the Game Was Ours by Jackie MacMullan - No, I'm not giving any credit to Magic Johnson or Larry Bird for "writing" this book even though they're the main authors on the cover with UNH alum Jackie MacMullan's name in small print underneath them. She wrote it because she's the writer. Very good sports book though. Really cool angle on how these two superstars were so obsessed with each other throughout their careers. I don't really like professional basketball and don't particularly care much about what it was like in the 80s, but MacMullan's writing got me past all that.
  

• Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger - My most recent read is another Salinger masterpiece. Everyone talks about Catcher in the Rye, but if you read anything else by him you really start to understand why he's so good. I liked this book even more than Catcher in the Rye, to be honest, because it was almost like it had two Holden Caufields. Franny and Zooey aren't anything like Holden, but they are two separate characters that you can connect with in the same way. It's really an amazing little book.

I'm more than halfway through my shift now since I've had to periodically stop blogging to start working, but it felt good to actually spend some time doing something constructive at work rather than update my Twitter feed 10 times in four minutes or check ESPN every minute on the minute. So, I'll be back at some point. I'd like to make this blog not always about Red Wings and get it back to the space where I can just let go and write. It's an essential part of life, after all.

It's over.

Another year gone. This one doesn't hurt like last year, but knowing that three of the remaining four teams will, or probably will, be the Sharks, Hawks and Pens is truly disturbing. I don't really want to talk about it. If you care about the Wings, you know it all anyway. See you in October.

Total domination. Wings 7, Sharks 1.

I saw almost none of this game, except the Sharks' lone goal and Mule's fourth and final tally. I had one of those days, you know the ones where everything goes right from start to finish? It was amazing. And at about 9:15 tonight, I'm happy and thinking it wouldn't even matter if the Wings head home for the summer. Then I turn the game on and it's 6-0. The day gets better.

I have nothing to say about this game because I hardly saw any of it. But what I know is Babcock wanted to win one game after Tuesday's heartbreak. He did it. Tonight, he'll say the same thing again. One game. Win Saturday. Nothing else matters. Let's take this momentum to California and bring the series back to Detroit. It's not over yet. Go Wings.

Blame me. Wings lose again.

I turn on the Wings game with 13:33 left in the third. Thornton scored with 13:18 left. Then some stupid rookie got his first goal ever when Jimmy was caught cheating and more bullshit ensued in overtime. Blame it all on me. I started recapping on the blog right when this round started and so far I'm battin' a thousand for Wings games to end with a 4-3 loss to the Sharks. Tonight was especially suspicious because the Wings looked to have the game in hand when I turned it on, then all of sudden it was over and the Winged Wheels are deflating rapidly. Our season can't end this way.

I don't really know what to say. I watched very little of the game but felt quite unsatisfied with what I saw. The Wings didn't play well with the lead and the officials took away two minutes of crucial kick-ass time at the end by calling a stupid penalty on Holmstrom. In overtime, I was too anxious and worried and freaking the fuck out to even notice how the Wings played. Then the Sharks scored and now I'm here typing out my feelings of frustration to whatever audience is left of the blog.

I can't stand a sweep. I really can't. Not to the Sharks. Not to these Sharks. The Colorado fucking Avalanche won two games against these Sharks just weeks ago. I really really really don't want to see it end this way on Thursday. Let's go Wings. Win Thursday. Win game four. Then we'll think about game five. No need to think ahead; no need to worry about four straight right now. It's one at a time. We can take these Sharks one at a time.

It's not over yet. Must. Keep. Telling. Myself. That. Pray to God for a Red Sox 2004. No fetal positions yet, no swearing off all things hockey. Not yet. Not yet not yet not yet. I'm not ready for the Wings to go home for the summer. Step it up Wings. If there's any team that could choke away four straight in the playoffs, it's these Sharks. Let's do this. Go Wings.

No time to panic: Wings 3, Sharks 4

Another game played well, another game lost. Two goals from that stupid streaking Pavelski, a ton of ridiculous penalties and game two ended exactly as game one. Wings 3, Sharks 4.

I wasn't watching as closely in the third period, but every time I looked up the Wings were on the penalty kill. I did some research afterward (opened my computer and clicked on the NHL.com box score) to find these numbers staring at me hard in the face:

Detroit penalties: 10. San Jose penalties 4. Detroit third-period penalties: 5. San Jose third-period penalties: 2.

OK. Maybe the 2007 Anaheim Ducks get five penalties in the third period, but we're talking about the Detroit Red Wings here. There's no referee in the world who can legitimately call five penalties on God's sacred franchise in a single period. The Wings don't have players on their team that take penalties, other than Bertuzzi. And since the 'Tuz didn't take allll the penalties, I have to assume most of the calls were crap. And since San Jose scored two goals in the third (both of which were annoying as all hell), I'm going to chalk this loss up to the officiating once again.

Call it poor logic if you want, but I don't see any other way to describe both games one and two. "The Sharks are just a better team" is a laughable rebuttal. That's like saying the Penguins deserved to win the Cup last June. Fuhgettaboutit.

Game three is Tuesday in Detroit. The Wings win and they're back in it; the Wings lose and it's all but over. The Triple Deke jinxed us tweeted earlier today that Babcock's Wings have never faced an 0-2 or 1-3 hole in a playoff series. Well they're in deep now. It's win four out of the next five or go home to book an early tee time. I love golf but I don't like the sound of that. Let's do this. See you Tuesday. Go Wings.