Rules #6, 32 & 17
6. Read every day.
32. On snow days always do something fun (thanks Walt).
17. Fold and put your clothes away immediately after taking them out of the dryer.
A♯
Stories and Other Sundry Affairs of a Sharpe
Chuck vs The Greatest American Hero
Monday evening I came home from an excellent calzone dinner (thanks Melissa!) and spent the evening watching television with my roommate. NBC’s Monday line-up consists of two shows (Chuck and Heroes) I typically watch via Hulu but since I was home I decided to watch them with the rest of the non-DVR/TiVo/Hulu users.
My roommate normally doesn’t watch these shows so during commercial breaks there were often questions from him for me to answer about the shows. When he asked me about Chuck, as I described the show’s premise, I was reminded about The Greatest American Hero and how they are essentially the same show.
In Chuck the primary character gains access to a super power. This power is in the form of a computer that is downloaded into his brain that he does not know how to use. To his aid comes two CIA agents to help him learn how to use this computer as they battle criminals mostly in California.
The Greatest American Hero has a teacher, an FBI agent and a UFO meet in the desert and the benevolent aliens give the teacher a suit that grants him Superman-like powers. To help him use the suit he is given the instruction book that he promptly loses. From then on the teacher, in the suit he doesn’t know how to use, and the FBI agent fight crime in California.
Since these are the same show I feel it is necessary to list what they have in common and rank them and use these completely biased responses to decide which is the better show.
Theme Song
Believe it or Not may actually be my favorite song. Chuck’s theme is fun but it doesn’t make me want to be a better person. One vote for The Greatest American Hero.
Suspension of Believability
However much I want benevolent aliens to come to my next cook-out (or just to the Cook-Out) it’s not going to happen. Could a supercomputer be downloaded into my brain. Maybe. Chuck gets the vote because I’m forced to eat at the Cook-Out alone.
Sidekicks
Bumbling FBI agent (The Greatest American Hero) vs Stone-Cold CIA agents (Chuck). I’m going to go with Chuck because of the relationship Chuck has with Agent Walker. They have a strained romantic relationship due to the nature of their work. Now in season 3 we see her struggling to deal with Chuck’s continued growth as an agent as it steals from him many of the qualities she found in him so attractive.
Normalness of Title Character
Both shows have a main character that are quite relatable. Both are working normal jobs (teacher and sales clerk) and each longing to make more of a difference in their world. Both are overwhelmed by their new found abilities but each work to understand themselves more so they can make a difference. Here I declare a toss-up (which should happen at least once since they are the same show).
So this completely unscientific survey of my opinions leaves me with Chuck being the better show losing only to it’s predecessor in one category. So I suppose I can continue enjoying Chuck in good conscious. Now if I could just find a t-shirt of The Greatest American Hero…
Snow Day 2010
Today is the first official day off of school due to snow in 2010. A long time ago (by that I mean five years ago) I began working with an older gentleman called Walt. He has sense retired.
One day we were talking about snow days and he let me in on his typical snow day agenda. He and I both had spent time in a public school district where each snow day had to be made up. This led to he and his friends always doing something vacation-ish on those days because a day of their actual vacation was going to be used up.
I thought that sounded great so I have begun to engage in some sort of snow day fun on each snow day. Today it’s Scrabble. If you want to join in come on over! We’re starting around 2!
The Men Who Stare At Goats
My favorite non-major/minor class (also known as a core class) in college was World Literature and Film. Here we read books, watched movies and discussed (and wrote) how the director’s choices in the film making process changed the story from the text. It was fascinating.
In November I saw the movie The Men Who Stare at Goats. This afternoon I finished reading The Men Who Stare At Goats by Jon Ronson. As I was reading the book I could not help but think of how the film makers changed the overall point of Ronson’ s book.
I’m not one that thinks a movie based on a book needs to be exactly the same (think the first two Harry Potter films or The Lord of the Rings). It’s very difficult to translate words on a page to images on a screen. Even still a story has a certain point and it should be conveyed in the film. I feel this is lacking in the movie version of Ronson’s book.
As I watched the movie I felt it was primarily about Ewan McGregor’s character Bob Wilton, a journalist, and the transformation of his character after his wife left him for his boss. Wilton finds himself thrust into a bizarre story in the desert of Iraq with Lyn Cassidy (George Clooney). Here Cassidy shares with Wilton about his days in the First Earth Battilion. Through their relationship and experiences Wilton returns home a new man. A Jedi Knight if you will.
The book is about an idea moving from the imagination to application. Like nearly all ideas they can move in two directions; one that helps and one that does not. The book does a good job demonstrating the consequence of ideas where the movie barely touches on this fundamental issue.
Even still the movie was one of my favorite’s of 2009 and maybe one of my favorites from the last few years.
Rules #19, 16 & 13
19. Eat at home.
16. Don’t ask a question that you want to answer.
13. If you find yourself only talking to people when you need something from them stop talking to them.
Did I Win It or Did I Buy It?
A few Saturday’s ago I was invited by a friend to accompany her to the Johnson & Wales Reformed University Fellowship’s annual fundraiser for their student mission trip. This was an evening full of delicious food, excellent conversation and an auction.
Normally my role at auctions is to simply bid items up so the big spenders will spend a bit more. This is always a risk because someone may not bid higher so I have to be careful to actually bid on something I would not mind having around the house. This year I bid on an oil painting and won it!
January’s Songs
This month I came across two new albums. I also came across the anniversary of my birth. I’ve yet to come to my senses.
Eric Wilson and Empty Hearts — Quarterfuse
Last year Roman Candle (one of my favorite bands) released their album Oh Tall Tree In The Ear (one of my favorite albums). Instead of buying the album in a local store or from Amazon I decided to order it directly from the band with the hopes that they would receive more of the proceeds. In doing this I found myself on the mailing list of the Carnival Recording Company. This same company decided to give a gift to the folks that bought albums from their store last year and the gift I chose was Eric Wilson’s Quarterfuse.
This is Wilson’s debut album and it is filled with story songs (Quartefuse and The Coal Runs Through My Veins) with the usual singer-songwriter love songs thrown in for good mix. The material where I feel Wilson shows himself the strongest is his songs about home, be it his original Kentucky or present Tennessee. This is most easily seen on the final song Kentucky, Your My Lover where he sings of the pull between his original and current homes.
Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors — A Million Miles Away
After I saw Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors back in December I have begun to listen to more of their catalog. This recently developed behavior prompted me to purchase their most recent full length album A Million Miles Away. Here we have Drew Holcomb and his wife Ellie primarily singing duets with only guitars accompanying them.
So far my favorites are Better Love and Hung the Moon. What is not my favorite is that I can’t hear my old friend Jon Radford playing drums.
Rule #7 & 26
7. Talk to children like they are people.
26. Spontaneity is a virtue.
Yoda & Me
Today as I was browsing through the iTunes store I came across a new podcast that is blowing my mind with hilarity. Yoda & Me is made by two roommates, Bill and Yoda, and they share stories and ask each other questions.
And if you’re wondering Yoda is not the Jedi Master we all know and love. Instead this is the real Yoda that is a 25 inch tall green character actor who is most known for playing Yoda the Jedi Master we all know and love. And like most things I like this is not for the faint of heart (or those with proper senses of humor).
The Book of Basketball
One thing that I rarely talk about at this point in my life is my involvement with basketball. Sometimes friends are surprised when they find out that I coach basketball (assistant Middle School boys) and am now in my fifth year coaching. They are equally surprised when I actually play basketball and don’t completely embarrass myself. What is probably the most surprising to my friends once they know I enjoy basketball is that I greatly prefer the NBA to college basketball.
This enjoyment of the NBA has me attending Charlotte Bobcats (two big wins this weekend!) games regularly and prompted me to buy The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy by Bill Simmons. Simmons is a columnist on ESPN.com where he pontificates about sports during every sports season of the year. His long-winded book is much like his long-winded columns; definitely enjoyable and worth reading but often cumbersome.
In The Book of Basketball Simmons takes on the task of giving a history of the NBA. Here he pieces together what has come before to show what we have now in 2010. He lists the best players and best teams and rips on Kareem Abdul-Jabar mercilessly.
What I am taking away from this book as I consider my own life is “The Secret.” Any regular Simmons reader knows of his war of words with Isaiah Thomas, the former point guard for the Detroit Pistons, because of his ineptitude as General Manager of the New York Knicks. Simmons once ran into Thomas at a pool in Las Vegas and after they were introduced they began a civil discussion where Thomas told Simmons about “The Secret” to winning basketball. Thomas told him that “the secret of basketball is that it’s not about basketball (pg. 39).”
Instead it’s about people on a team that like each other.
When you look around the NBA each team is full of talented players. Each roster spot has men that can play at the highest level in the world; there is no dearth of talent. What is lacking is people liking each other. When you watch the best teams play every player on the team, from the twelfth man to the star, is ecstatic when a teammate does well. When they are substituted out of the game they do not sulk but instead relish in the chance for a teammate to do well.
I try to encourage this in the middle schoolers under my charge but they haven’t quite caught on. Hopefully they will at some point as they mature.
All in all I enjoyed the book. As I mentioned earlier it was quite cumbersome (coming in just shy of 700 pages) and sufficiently crude but always enjoyable.
Here Here
A pop song used to be a powerful thing.
