That's Un-American

Far be it from me to get overly worked up over minor league sports, but it needs to be said: the Rochester Americans are having a terrible season. They have won one game since the end of November. Their long-time parent franchise, the Buffalo Sabres, will end their affiliation with the Amerks next season. The dispute between the NHL and AHL clubs was primarily over the fact that the Amerks management signed a secondary affiliation with the Florida Panthers so they could line their pockets. But it also has to do with the fact that the Sabres management doesn't want anything more to do with the Amerks management. There has even been talk of buying/forcing/litigating the team's executive (an ignorant greedhead) out. It's sad - read more about it here.

I don't think I've attended an Amerks game in about two years. Is it any wonder why?

Would you buy a computer from this man?

Well, would you? It is the wonder computer of the 1980s, after all.

I love how their big selling point is that it's a serious computer that will teach you all these valuable skills, but you can still play cool arcade games on it right at home! Kind of anticipating those Mac vs. PC commercials.

Shiny new "lifestyle accessory" (?)

Is it really a lifestyle accessory, or is it just a darn music player? At any rate, I recently realized my old iPod was approaching the age of five - that's probably unheard of for a digital music player. I also noticed that the battery life was never very good and that storage was dwarfed by the contemporary generation. So I bought a new iPod this weekend. And the cosmos restored balance by breaking my garage door. How about that?

Synergistic convergence

Ahh, YouTube - preserving our pop culture heritage. The video above is a music video (remember those?) of The Ramones covering a Tom Waits song, with animation and cartoons by Daniel Clowes.

I'd call it my perfect storm, if "perfect storm" weren't on the list of banished words for the new year.

Incidentally, I think this song would have been perfect for the jug band, but with, you know, less volume. And no drums. And a kazoo solo in the middle.