Did I see him in a Warner Bros. cartoon?

I was watching the ESPN program Pardon the Interruption, and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was on. While watching the interview, I realized that if he wasn’t the owner of my beloved Cowboys, just how much I would make fun of him. He is really a cartoon character.

1) When he forces a smile he reminds me of Jack Nicholson’s Joker from Batman.

2) He has had so much plastic surgery, and, and one of his eyes look bigger than the other eye. It is really weird looking.

3) He also suffers from an affliction that seems to affect a bunch of rich business men. A bad hair cut. Not really cartoonish, but it adds to the whole ensemble.

3) When he talks, he has this real gravelly voice on top of sounding like he has been sucking on helium. I hardly hear him talk with out smirking.

The only thins missing was he didn’t have any of those weird grammatical expression he makes on his weekly radio show that leave you scratching your head. For example, “I don’t know when I knew that.”

All that being said though, if he isn’t the best owner in the NFL he is definitely in the top 3. He does a great job of making you believe all he cares about is winning, and not the money.

Chocolate Chex Cereal

I eat cereal at least once a day, sometimes more. It depends on how lazy I am feeling once dinner rolls around. One of the trends I have been noticing lately is established brands adding sweetened versions to their line. One of the new ones is Chocolate Chex.

The genius part of this cereal is that not all of the Chex pieces are chocolate. Which gives it a milder flavor, and not super sweet like your traditional “kids cereal”. Also it is a mix of both Rice and Corn Chex, borrowing from the excellent Kellogg’s Crispix. Plus I have felt that the rice and corn flavors are the two best flavors anyways. Like other Chex cereals it does a pretty good job of not getting soggy to quick. It holds it form really well.

Another good point about it is that it is only 10 calories more than regular, or plain Chex. The only problem I have is the chocolate is kind of chalky. Even that is just a small gripe.

This is a good cereal. Not too sweet, not too plain. Just as healthy as a regular Chex cereal. Plus it is a nice change of pace if your are burned out on traditional cereals. It really hits that sweet tooth.

Stop...Just Stop

Something has been bothering me for a while now. Can we please…please quit naming ever scandal “Whatever Gate”? This new bally-hoo with the New England Patriots is just another example in lazy journalism. “Video Gate” “Videotape Gate” “Camera Gate”. A team from MENSA must have worked long and hard on those names. I mean come on, Watergate was 35-fucking-years ago. Pre-Disco. America was still in Vietnam. The Godfather hits theaters. The last manned mission to the moon. What I am saying is that is was a looong time ago. Lets move on people. At least one person at ESPN called this new scandal “Spy Ware” which is culturally relevant. So I plead with all journalists out there no more Gates! For the sake of all that is holy!

Favorite Radio Line of the Week #2

Heard this week on the radio:

"Would you break off your engagement to bag a president's daughter?"

I'd like to congratulate myself

Nanu-nanu! On bringing back the word "Shazbot" to my office. Those of the appropriate age should appreciate that. I've gotten a couple of other people around here saying it as well as me. It is a pretty proud moment.

Favorite Radio Line of the Week

I pretty much listen to one radio station when I am at work, and this was my favorite from last week. It was a "man on the street" interview:

Host: How long after you met this woman before you consummated the relationship?
Man: About 30 minutes.

Dream Theater Concert

Last week I went to the Dream Theater concert at the Nokia Center in support of their new CD Systematic Chaos. The last time I saw them, they were on tour with Queensryche on a double headline bill, and this was during the Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence tour, I believe.

The opening acts. First up we had Into Eternity. I only caught the last few songs from these guys, and I think I am a better person for. At times they degenerated in to that awful Speed Death Metal “singing”. At other times it didn’t even look like the guitarists were playing anything but the most basic of chords, they didn’t even have their fingers on the frets. I’ve seen better acts playing on the streets in New Orleans

The other opening act was Redemption, or as I like to call them Dream Theater Jr. Similar musical style, and I thought the lead guitarist was really good. Their main problem was that the lead singer seemed to be singing a different song than the band was playing. Also they had some really weird musical transition in their songs that would throw me out of the tune. They have a keyboardist like Dream Theater but the others drown him out too much.

Now we get to the main act. I think Dream Theater is quite an awesome band, and their drummer Mike Portnoy is probably my favorite drummer out there right now. He is just awesome, and he has the best stage presence in the group. He really knows how to get the crowd riled up. I think the guitarist, John Petrucci, is quite good, I don’t go ga-ga over him like others do. Like others, John Myung, the bassist, fascinates me, because he seems so detached from everyone else. He seems to have his part of the stage staked out and everyone just leaves him alone there to do his thing. James LaBrie still has a great voice. Keyboardist Jordan Rudess is not drowned out and he is pretty great too.

Jordan had a couple of really nice solos, and I think a keyboardist can never look cool, but he does try and he can almost pull it off. The last time I saw Dream Theater, Mike Portnoy seemed to have a bunch of solo sections, but this time he didn’t have any which I was a little disappointed in. I have only listened to their new album once, and a few other songs a couple of times. That was mostly what they were playing so I wasn’t as familiar with what they were playing. The encore paled in comparison to when they played with Queensryche. This time they came out and played a couple of more songs. Mike Portnoy returning in a Dirk Nowitzki jersey which is cheap pandering to the crowd, which I like. With Queensryche both bands came out together and played the Who’s Baba O’Riley. That would be hard to beat. No complaints really with Dream Theater, they were just great.

Side Note: One guy sitting by me, from Indianapolis, purposefully scheduled his business trip so that he could see Dream Theater. I don’t think there is any band I would do that for.