Sunday, and a game of "Grab Bag"

This week got hectic, but there have been a few things I set aside to post:

-The skywalks are coming down. They were a neat way to get around a few areas of downtown, although I always got a bit disoriented by them. They were handy getting from the Convention Center to the hotel to Tower Place during the Transformers convention this spring, though. Skywalks, I hardly knew ye.

-I know it's probably a cheap shot to even point it out, due to the gruesomeness of the story, but surely when kids are getting decapitated and losing their feet it's time to start questioning the safety of theme park rides in general. Admittedly, yes, he was where he wasn't supposed to be, and scaled security fences to get there, but the Superman ride snapped cables with enough (super?) force to slice through a human limb (one travelling at probably 60 mph, but still) and this Batman ride has killed people standing near it twice now. Six Flags and superhero rides are a dangerous combo. I saw "The Mangler," dude, it's time to put that machine down.

-"8 members of the baseball team?" 3 different molesty-teacher-chick accusation stories broke. The talking heads in the clip cover most of my hotpoints, so let's start with saying if it's true. Having said that, the 23 year old woman should have known better, much less the 60 year old.(What, did she see "A Night in Heaven" one time to many?) They should because they're adults. 15 year olds may talk tough and act like they own the world and know it all, but you know what? They kindas don't. They're kids. You're adults. Did you somehow forget yourselves and think you were peers or something? Not cool. The accused are however, female, so the whole double standard "Boys will be boys" thing may come into play. At least as a knee-jerk response. These teachers can at least relax in the knowledge that both presidential candidates and the Supreme Court won't put them to death.

There were rumors about 2 teachers at my high school. One was a teacher who was said to have made plays for at least 2 different girls, one who was pregnant. He was fired, so this one was validated. The other was rumors of a teacher who'd gotten it on with a student. She was female. Kids talked about it with a touch of awe and respect. It never came to anything.
To pose a question Carrie Bradshaw-style: "Are public school teachers the new Catholic priest?"

-I saw this ad on Perezhilton.com earlier this week and then the next day on both CNN.com and Salon.com in different stories about how it was yanked. I thought it was funny and the message very clear. The Heinz will make your sandwich taste like it came from a deli. They playfully present this in a manner that evidently a good chunk of the populace decided to ignore and instead focus on the act that is the "button" on the joke. Brit Dad (which pretty much translates as "stuffy") sharing a good ol' marital "See you tonight, dear" smooch with the big gruff NY Deli guy who's a stand in for Mum. It's cute. Also, according to the link in the Salon story, another even that proves that Bill O'Reilly really is dumb as a box of hair and quite the bully about it to boot. "It was obviously a gay thing." Really, Bill? How FUCKING STUPID are you. I mean, that's a cheap joke, and you're really just very, very thick. Moron. (Although, Bill does seem so tense that we should probably give him a referral to a masseur or something. I'm sure Ted Haggard knows one who'd be just perfect for him!)

Such a shame this charming commercial got pulled.


-There was always a really neat thrill to going and catching some band you've never heard of from halfway across the county pop up at a bar. You'd never hear them again unless you went up to talk to them and buy their tape, but maybe, just maybe they'd make it big one day. Now they can't afford to go on tour. They can play around home, but not travel to those far off college towns to commune with the kids who can make them. They can't make it to a big city to get seen by a rep who'll sign 'em and make them. I just hope they keep playing until this all maybe blows over. They can always distribute their work over the Internet, but that is in no way the same thing. I think the last regional (as opposed to local) band I saw was when Dave came up years ago and we saw Forget Cassettes in Newport one night and up in Dayton the next. They were awesome, too.