"Girl Talk" messes with your head

On a recent episode of NPR's All Songs Considered Podcast, I was introduced to Girl Talk. Which is some producer named Gregg Gillis. And basically, he makes entire songs out of just samples. It confuses and intrigues the brain. You know those great montage sequences they show during the Oscars or Emmys and hundreds of familiar images quickly flash across the screen? Well this is the audio version of that.

One time at work I grabbed Chick Fil-A for lunch but they forgot to give me BBQ sauce to put on my sandwich. So when I got back to the office I used some Arby's sauce that was in the fridge. My head was immediately troubled by the fact that two separate eating experiences were being combined. It wasn't necessarily bad, just very confusing. That's kind of how this video makes me feel. Roy Orbison/Traveling Wilburys singing over a rap track and then a quick Dee-Lite segue into Salt N Pepa rapping along with Kurt Cobain. I kinda dig it, I kind of hate it. Judge for yourself.

A Franchise on the Brink

"We got no food, no jobs... our PET'S HEADS ARE FALLING OFF!" That's basically how the Hawks are making me feel right now. What else could go wrong this summer?

A big thank you to Atlanta Spirit Group and Rick Sund. They've really made me excited about being a Hawks fan the past couple of months. You know, I wouldn't have minded if we gave up a 2nd round pick for Marcus Camby. If I knew Josh Smith had thoughts about signing with other teams, I may have at least met with a high profile free agent. Instead, the biggest splash of the summer is either these ongoing rumors that neither Josh is interested in staying with the Hawks or that Speedy Claxton is healthy enough to play in summer league. Woo Hoo! Where do I sign up for season tickets?

Mark Stein on Josh Smith:

"Josh Smith's increasing reluctance to return to the Atlanta Hawks has little to do with Mike Woodson, despite repeated media suggestions that Smith is eager to play for a new coach.

Smith and Woodson are fine, one confidante insists. Smith's frustration with the Hawks is the slow-moving state of negotiations, with Smith apparently still waiting for a serious contract proposal nearly three weeks into free agency.

Not that this is a grand surprise given the Hawks' rep for spending or a quandary exclusive to Smith. The only team in the league with salary-cap space to throw at premier restricteds such as Smith, Charlotte's Emeka Okafor and Chicago's Luol Deng is the Memphis Grizzlies, who have no plans to make their money available this summer, preferring to focus on trade possibilities. So the Hawks, Bobcats and Bulls are naturally proceeding slowly and conservatively, figuring that their prized assets have limited leverage.

Which is true. Threatening to sign a one-year qualifying offer that would lead to unrestricted free agency in the summer of 2009 is pretty much the only way Smith can apply pressure on the Hawks now.

Yet I suspect the sign-and-trade chatter will begin to pick up, maybe in all three cases, with Smith said to be especially eager to move on.

I wonder, for example, if my coaching pal who asked me why the Dallas Mavericks aren't trying to assemble a deal that features former ACC player of the year Josh Howard going to Atlanta in some sort of package for Smith isn't onto something."

Yahoo on Josh Childress:

"Childress flew to Greece late Sunday and is scheduled to meet with Olympiakos officials on Monday. Childress, 25, is so flustered with the Hawks’ refusal to make a sign-and-trade deal to another team, one source familiar with his thinking believes there’s “better than a 50-50 chance” he’ll sign with Olympiakos. The team also will cover the Greek taxes for Childress, making it even more lucrative."

I don't think Josh Childress is hard to replace nor do I think we should throw a lot of money at him. But I think his desire to leave the franchise is telling."

They Took Our Beer!

So this week's news that Belgium's InBev plans on buying Anheuser-Busch brought up two interesting things to me. The first from the article itself:

"Based in St. Louis, Missouri, Anheuser-Busch has more than 48 percent of American market share with brands that include Bud Light."

Really? 48%? I predominantly drink Bud Light as do most people I know. But I also buy a lot of other stuff. At the very least you would think that Miller, Coors, and all of the microbreweries would account for more than 52%. Which brings up the question of what that statement means. Are they saying that 48% of all beer purchased in the US is an Anheuser-Busch product? Or that 48% of all American owned beers sold are Anheuser-Busch products.

The reason I ask is because, once this sale goes through, what will be the biggest American owned beer?

Anheuser which will become Belgium owned brews the following: Bud, Bud Light, Busch, Michelob, Natural Light, and Rolling Rock

SABMiller which is South African based currently brews: Miller, Milwaukee's Best,Icehouse, Southpaw, Steel Reserve, Hamm's and Red Dog. They also appear to contract brew Pabst and Stroh's.

Molson Coors appears to be based in Canada though I can't totally figure out who had the upper hand in the merger. Also they have some sort of joint venture with SABMiller to market all beers under the MillerCoors name. Anyways, they brew: Coors, Keystone, Killian's Red, Blue Moon, and most importantly Zima.

So where does that leave us? Off the top of my head I would have to guess Sam Adams. Then you have all of the smaller regions beer companies like Sweetwater, Shiner, Flying Dog, Anchor, etc. But it seems the day of the watered-down funnel worthy American owned beer is gone. I guess you can hold on to the fact that they are still brewed in America.

2008 College Football TV Listings Guide

It's almost that time of the year. Here is the complete list of every college football game that will be televised this year.

Atlantans I Hate: Cynthia Good

I love Atlanta. As a result I have a general bias for Atlantans. I just naturally assume that they're all as awesome as I am. Every now and again I have to face the facts that some Atlantans just suck. I hate these people.

You probably haven't heard of Cynthia Good before because she's the editor of a magazine you've never heard of that caters to a market you've never heard of. Her magazine, Pink, "focuses on professional women". And if I've picked up anything from hanging around professional women, it's that they have plenty of time to sit around and read about other professional women. But this is irrelevant. I don't hate Cynthia because of her obscure magazine. I didn't know of her, or hate her, until I read this AJC Article.

"Across Atlanta they stood, orange signs with black letters that read "Men At Work" or "Men Working Ahead." Sometimes, the signs stood next to women working alongside the men. Good demanded Atlanta officials remove the signs and last week, Atlanta Public Works Commissioner Joe Basista agreed. Score one for gender equality, Good said Wednesday."

You can award a point for Cynthia Good for wasting taxpayer money and also sullying the name of women's rights. Let's see if we can come up with a more logical sollution than paying $144 for new signs or $22 to adapt old signs.

1) Agree to not make any more "Men at Work" signs and as they get damaged, replace them with "Workers Ahead Signs". So now you're not spending any additional money and you're addressing the problem.

2) Figure out how much it would cost to replace the current signs. Realize that in some small way that it might be a biased statement and accept it. Replace new signs with the proper terminology as needed. Now take the money that you didn't use to replace the signs and spend it on job fairs for women or special training for females in high school. See what I did there? I addressed the issue that your magazine is supposed to handle. But instead of wasting government money to fix something that's no even offensive, I used that money to actually improve our society.

3) This really isn't a solution. But what's so bad about Men at Work. Sometimes I want a vegemite sandwich.