A Liberated Mind

Well, folks, this week is the last football game for my beloved Sooners for about a month until their bowl game rolls around, and it is the Big 12 Championship…Thus, it is a biggie…

The build up to the game has been sort of quiet with all of the national sports guys talking OU down and Texas up, but you know what?  OU is there and Texas is not…So just hush it up…

Missouri is there, too, and that makes this game a re-match of last year’s game…Except this year the game is outdoors in Kansas City (um, cold anybody?) instead of inside in San Antonio (mmm…warm)…

And to be honest with you, I am not just real fired up about this game because I don’t think it will be much of one…Of course I say that and lo and behold something bad will happen like 8 feet of snow and then all bets are off…

But if the Sooners win, they go to the national championship game, and again, they have been disrespected all week, so I say that they win and win big…

And Chase Daniel (Quarterback of Missouri) whines about it after the game…a lot…Good times had by all…

Look for lots of cold, lots of Sam Bradford touchdown passes (and him wrapping up his Heisman), and lots of OU playing iffy defense…It will be interesting at first, but then OU pulls away in the second half…

Oh, how great it is to be a Sooner fan…OU 49 – Missouri 28…

BONUS SELECTION:

The SEC championship game is tomorrow also, and it is big because the winner will play OU in the national championship game if OU wins…

Here you go, and in a bit of an upset:  Alabama 24 – Florida 23…

Enjoy the football on the last Saturday of games before the bowls start up later on in the month…

S 

It is Friday, and before I get to an OU prediction for the Big 12 Championship, I need to get some questions off my mind…

I don’t necessarily have the answers to these questions, but that is okay – questions don’t always need answers…

Unless you want to provide them in the comment section below…(hint, hint)…

The first question is something that is really bugging me lately: 

What’s the deal with people lining up in the cold at 4:30 in the morning the day after Thanksgiving to buy stuff they really don’t need to survive and can’t really afford the other 364 days of of the year?

And how did this whole “Black Friday” thing start anyway?  Maybe somebody could give me a history lesson…

Lastly on this topic, how many folks have to literally get injured or killed before stores take a look at this policy and figure out it is not a good deal?  5? 10? 25?  How many?

Moving on (sort of), and I am being serious here, is it possible in this country to discuss the true meaning of Christmas and not offend someone?

Thus, I am all about not having a state-run church, but to what length do we go to in that separation?

And why I am being so freaking deep today?

How about this one then: Is there ever an appropriate time for a man to wear a tank top?  Ever?

Have you ever watched a college or pro basketball game from a court-side seat?  If not, like Ferris said, “It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.”

Is there anything funnier than watching a two year old try to say “Christmas Tree”?  Not for my money…

And who’s with me is saying that we should figure out some way to do “spring and summer decorations” for our homes?  After all, we already have fall and Christmas decorations, right?  

Speaking of fall, how exactly does wind ”cut right through you”?

And why does this only seem to happen when it is cold?

Moving on to pop culture, what is the best 80’s movie that is still watchable (read: not too cheesy) to watch right now?  Well, the whole “not too cheesy part” cuts out like 95% of the movies made in the 80’s so you have your work cut out for you on that question…

Sorry if I am clueless, but who are Heidi and Spencer?

How massively shocked were my wife and I that Barbara Walters picked Barack Obama as the most fascinating person of the year?  Seriously?  Who saw that one coming?

Can anybody name the 5 Grammy nominations for album of the year that were just announced earlier this week without internet cheating it?  Okay, can anybody name just one of them?

Why does Mariah Carey still have a career?  Really?

And on the random front, soda, pop, or Coke?  If you understand the question, you will probably have an answer…

If cell phones cause cancer, what does it mean for me if I carry around two of them and an iPod all day?  Uh oh…

And lastly, and most importantly, Michael Phelps was named Sportsman of the Year this week by Sports Illustrated, and sort of reliving all of those Olympic moments made me wonder if anybody else was constantly uncomfortable with how low that dude wore his pants while he was swimming? 

Seriously, anybody else freaked out about that like I was?

Weekends are good, enjoy yours…

S

Your turkey has finally been eaten up, the relatives have all travelled back home, the Christmas decorations are either on display or the plans have been made for you to get them out of the attic (and really, do you need to be reminded again to get them down?), and you are back at work!  Yes! 

And really, don’t you love the first day back after an extended holiday weekend?

So if you will allow me, let me take stock of my weekend, and then we will move on to bigger and better things…

Thursday – drove to Sayre, OK, to have Thanksgiving with my side of the family…

Now if you know your Oklahoma geography (and really, who doesn’t?), you know that Sayre is about as far west on Interstate 40 as you can get in Oklahoma without getting into the panhandle of Texas…Basically, it is a looooong way out there…

Anyway, our two year old did well on the 2+ hour trip out there, we had a terrific and fun time with the family, and I didn’t eat too much that I felt sick afterwards…All in all a great Thanksgivng…

Friday – My wife and her parents took our daughter shopping all day, and I got some stuff done around the house…Pretty simple day…And thanks for letting us off work, Ned…

Saturday – Tried watching a few of the football games in preparation for the OU game on Saturday night and just couldn’t get into them…

Bedlam finally came on, though, and had about 6 heart attacks as the second half unfolded…Big win for the Sooners, though…And thanks for putting Mack Brown on the telecast, ESPN…That was awesome…Yep, loved it…Which leads me to…

Sunday - Channeling my inner “The Story of Us”, the highlight of Sunday was watching the BCS ratings with my wife and child (I know, I lead such an exciting life) and seeing the Sooners jumping the hated horns and thus earning a spot in the Big 12 title game…

But the lowlight was watching all the ESPN shows last night that did nothing but trash my beloved Sooners because of this very thing…

(And here is a quick anecdote – the guy hosting the college football show last night on ESPN actually asked one of the other ESPN commentators this question “What does this situation teach the Texas players about the fairness of the world?”  Seriously?  You asked that question?  What!?!?  I’ll tell you what it says to them – it says you should have beaten Texas Tech and not given up a last second touchdown!)…

But as I wrote elsewhere, come on, national media, just keep telling us all how unfair it is that OU jumped over Texas in the BCS standings, and keep drilling home the point that OU doesn’t deserve a shot at the Big 12 title because Texas beat them head to head…And then magically forget that Tech beat Texas head to head and that we beat Tech by 44…Oh, and then we went on the road and beat the #12 ranked team by 20 (who Texas only beat at home by 4) and that we laid 60 on yet another team…Keep talking, guys, keep talking…

The thing is, historically Stoops has done well when he can convince his boys that they are being disrespected and they should play with a chip on their shoulders because of it…

Now all he has to do is show them all the stuff that everybody on ESPN said about them last night and that chip could be huge come Saturday night…

Anyway, because I know that there are a few people out there who could care less, I will finish by saying to look for a prediction on Friday for one of the bigger games of the Stoops era…

Moving on with non-sports related stuff, here is what I figure will be on tap this week at ”A Liberated Mind”:

I do want to tackle some of the political stuff going on right now – this would include looking at Barack’s cabinet selections and how wildly different and fresh and new they are…It is almost as if he is simply re-picking every one of Clinton’s aides and appointees…Seriously, that is almost too much change to Washington for one guy to handle…

And I do want to comment at some point on what is happening with the US Senate in the light of the Coleman victory in Minnesota (Yes?  No?  Maybe so?), the Chambliss knock down drag out runoff in Georgia, and Liebermann’s wildcard status…And yeah, I kind of dig that guy even though he has been in there for way too long…

Oh, and I would like to talk a little bit about the economy now that we have come through Black Friday and we are at Red Monday…Red?  Maybe pink?  How about gray?  Although it is pretty sunny here today so how about Yellow Monday?  I am at work, though…Let’s try Blue Monday? 

Okay, I am done…

And speaking of Black Friday, I have never partaken in the whole “go somewhere at 4:00 a.m. just to stand outside in the cold until they open the doors at 5:00 a.m. just to rush in and hope you don’t get trampled to death in order to get a off brand flat panel TV for $299″ deal, and after last week’s multiple incidents, I don’t know that I ever will…I’m just saying… 

I would also like to discuss what the recent terrorism attacks in India mean to our security here, and how we should react to that tragic news…I am not saying we will react the way we should, but we do have some definite choices to make now as a country…

And here is a good idea on the terrorism front – why don’t you go ahead and shut Gitmo down, Barack…Then bring those 250 or so guys here, let them get nice and comfy in our prison system, help them all you can to recruit angry and embittered convicts serving alongside of them, and then watch how that original 250 or so grows to thousands…Wow, great plan…

Anyway, I hope your week has started off well, and that you stay tuned for what we have in store this week…It will hopefully be worth your time…

But I am definitely not making any promises…

S

Ah yes, Thanksgiving Day has come and gone, and Black Friday is here in full force…My in-laws and wife are hustling around the metro looking for bargains for Christmas gifts, and I am at my house, thankful to be off of work today…

Currently OU is playing on TV – though it is the basketball version and not my beloved Sooner football team…But, they do play tomorrow in a nationally televised game that has Big 12 title implications, national championship implications, and even Heisman Trophy implications…Um, wow…And I was hoping for a big game atmosphere…

Anyway, all sarcasm aside, this is a big game for the Sooners against their instate rivals up at Oklahoma State, and I am quite nervous about it…In an ongoing dialogue between myself and a fellow OU grad this week, we discussed why I am so nervous and he gave me all the reasons not to be…A great argument to be sure as he talked about our defense versus Tech, our powerful offense, and their lack of defensive prowess…But I am still not convinced as he is that this game will not be close…

Why do I think it will be close?  Ah, the curse of Stillwater…

What I mean is that for some reason the Sooners rarely play really well when we play the Cowboys at their place…Only once in maybe the last several trips to Stillwater have the Sooners rolled, and the Cowboys always seem to get fired up to play their big brothers from Norman – especially when such big stakes as national title contention is at stake…

They have seemed to gotten more fired up than the Sooners have recently in this series…And yeah, OU has won the last five games in Bedlam, but still…

Thus I will be with the wife and the daughter tomorrow night, and my hope is that the Sooners come through…I am predicting a score of OU 45 – OSU 31…Close for the Sooners, but a win is a win at this point…Especially on the road…

I also predict a trip to face a salty Missouri squad in the Big 12 title game by leaping Texas in the BCS standings and then a  trip to Miami for the National Title game…But, I am getting ahead of myself; more on that later next week…

So until then, enjoy the game tomorrow, Sooner fans, and I hope you will be more relaxed as you watch it than I will be…

S

As a new week dawns and work calls most of us to a very busy 3 days of not getting behind as we head into the holiday weekend (I love Thanksgiving!), I hope, faithful readers, that your weekend that just passed was as great as mine…

Let me hit the highlights before I try to squeeze out one more post for the day…

And I apologize beforehand to all my non-Oklahoma readers…Some of this stuff may bore you, and I will try to get back on the whole political/pop culture vibe this afternoon…

Anyway, first off, I got to spend a lot of time with my wife’s family over the weekend, and with Thanksgiving coming up, I hope and pray each of you have reason to be thankful for your families…Yeah, they may drive you crazy from time to time and you may be all weirded out at them other times, but still…Family also should be the ones who would lay down in traffic for you and not hesitate to help you when things are not quite right with the world – even if they are the ones who made the world not quite right…

And I realize this is not always the case, but we still need realize how blessed we are to have family, and we should do our best to be thankful for them… 

Secondly, a couple of you pointed out that I was incredibly far off on my OU/Texas Tech prediction…Well in my book this is a very good thing…Yeah, I would do horrible if I ever went to Vegas, but as long as my beloved Sooners keep playing like they did on Saturday, I am happy with that…

I really felt like it would be a better game than it was, but all I know from being there is that the crowd showed up and helped make sure that the home team came out on top…In all my years of going to that stadium and watching that team, I have only seen the crowd that hyped, electric, and excited one time…It was truly a memorable night to be a Sooner fan inside that place…Just tremendous…

By the way, when they played “Jump Around” by House of Pain right before half, that was the most awesome thing I have ever seen from a crowd at a sporting event…And yeah, they ripped it off of the University of Wisconsin, but it was awe inspiring nonetheless…

And I realize the two guys from Texas Tech who sat in front of us will never read this because we never even introduced ourselves by name, but guys, it was a ball hanging out during the game…Texas Tech should be proud to have you guys as students and as ambassadors of the school…Nice job the other night…It was a good time watching the game with you both…

Thirdly, we also went to the OU women’s basketball game yesterday, and alas, they lost to North Carolina in the last few seconds when the OU girl (name escapes me) missed a layup as time expired…Pretty good crowd, though, and very good teams on both sides…

And I kind of dig women’s hoops…Not nearly as exciting as men’s, but still very fun to watch…

Lastly, on Friday I also won the Editor’s Choice (again) on blogivists.com for my post about term limits, and that is a very cool thing for me…Considering I have won little in my life besides secretary/treasure of the Math and Science Club in high school, I kind of dig the thought of someone out there enjoying my endless ramblings…Thanks for that, Mr. Editor…That was a great way to start the weekend on Friday…

So check back later for more musings, and please leave your comments and concerns below…I wholeheartedly accept them both…

S

I am at home on this beautiful Friday in Oklahoma and with most of my wife’s family…Thus I can’t spend a lot of time waxing intellectual about why the dollar needs to be stronger or why the media is dying a slow death…

But, I do have an OU/Texas Tech score…

Before I give it to you, though, let me just say that this is probably the biggest OU game since Nebraska in 2000, and I expect the Sooners to play well…But Texas Tech will play pretty well, too…

A lot of experts are thinking a big score will hit the board, but I think it will be relatively low scoring because of the two weeks the defenses have had to get ready…

Plus, it is a massive game regarding the national championship picture, the Big 12 picture, and the Hesiman so there is a lot on the line…The hype this week has proved that…

And yes, I am going to the game, and I am way excited because I think OU pulls this one out late in the game since they are at home…

Final score OU 35 – Texas Tech 24…

Have a good weekend, faithful readers, and talk to you again Monday…

S

I have a lot of thoughts about what is happening in the world right now, but I figure the best way to wrestle with them is to ask you, faithful reader, to make this new media tool known as a blog a true two-way street…

Thus, I have some questions about pop culture, politics, sports, and even food to ponder and a big old box below this post for your answers…Enjoy…

Seeing that it’s Monday, I have to start out with this question: Will those kids ever freaking find out how you met their mother, Bob Saget?  Seriously, just tell them already…

And what will happen to Monday Night Football’s theme music when Hank Williams, Jr, finally joins his legendary father in the Grand Old Opry in the sky?

Speaking of which, why is it that the country crowd has a monopoly on the introductions to primetime football telecasts?  (And if you didn’t know, Faith Hill opens up NBC’s Sunday Football Night in America…)

Does it give anybody else the willies to talk to political grassroots activists who believe in the black helicopters?

And why do a lot of these people insist on showing up at American Majority events and then talk to me as if I care about who the next president of Belgium is and how he wants a one-world government?

Because here is the question I want to ask them: Would I rather protest the UN’s involvement in doing away with the United State’s embargo against Cuba in the middle of freaking November or hang out with my daughter while she says, “Ready…Stet…Gooooo” and then runs down the long hallway at our house as if she has nothing at all to worry about except if Da-Da is going to give her a big hug when she runs into his arms?

Which brings me to this question: Is it bad that I work in politics and have absolutely no desire at all to get involved in politics when it is not work related?

On to pop culture, anybody seen “Tropic Thunder”?  Is it actually as funny as it looks in the trailer?

And what about “Pineapple Express”?  That movie funny?

More to the point, does anybody else think that the trailer for “Pineapple Express” that used M.I.A.’s ”Paper Planes” was the best trailer ever?  I freaking do…

If not that trailer, then which one is the best ever?

Anybody remember “Popular” by Nada Surf, circa 1995ish?  Well anybody heard their new stuff?  You should take a listen (especially ”See these Bones”)…

And who here is like me and excited about Conan eventually taking over for Jay?

Do you think these two men look alike?           

Turning to more political stuff, is anyone else offended that President-Elect Obama brought back his presidential seal and then had the government set up a website called change.gov? 

And did they just magically create the “Office of the President-Elect”?  I have never heard of this until now…

Thus who else thinks Howard Kurtz is going to be blasted by someone somewhere in the mainstream media for this editorial?  And who can believe the garbage the MSM is doing as outlined in the story?

And even though I got that last story from there, why am I not as enthralled to look at Drudge throughout the day now as I was before the election?  Same goes with Newsbusters…

By the way, who here knows the name of their city council people?

And because I can’t think of a single effective transitional way to do this, I am just going to ask this question to my Chicago readers: How is it that people talk all the time about Chicago Machine Style Politics as if it is a really bad thing and yet the city is still run by Chicago Machine Style Politics?

Moving on to sports, who else missed the weekly OU Football score prediction on Friday because of the team’s bye week?  Okay, then…I guess I am the only one…

And who gets to go to the OU/Texas Tech game on Saturday night that will be on national television?  I do for one…Anybody else?

In regards to the NFL, how the crap are the Tennessee Titans 10-0?  This should not be happening…

And do you think I would have this attitude if I had any of the Titans on my fantasy football team?  Um, yeah, probably would think that actually considering wins and losses of teams do not play into fantasy football scoring…

And does the NHL still exist?

Does OKC have an NBA team now?  Cause I swear they look like a bad college team…

In reference to the blog you are now reading, why is it that my most popular post on “A Liberated Mind” is the one I where I laid out my “Top 10 Blog Ideas I am Fleshing Out Right Now” and yet I only covered maybe two of those topics?

What happened to “Wednesday’s Music Nobody’s Ever Heard of”?  Ah, look for a new band on Wednesday to find out…

And how about all those local stories you said you would write about?  Yeah…About that…

How much do I have to pay someone to be “Blogivist of the Month” now that I have an avatar?  Cause, really, I am willing to go up to like $100 because then if I win and get $200, then I have made $100, and that isn’t too bad for doing this crap…

Why am I so addicted to Facebook?  I mean, seriously, why?

Lastly, what is it about supreme pizza that is so good?  Seriously, have you ever thought about this?  Because on their own, the ingredients are not very good…Green peppers?  No thanks…Mushrooms?  Um, fungus…Sausage and pepperoni?  Okay, those are good on their own…Olives?  Not a big fan…Onions?  No way am I eating those by themselves…

Yet you put it all together, and for my dollar, you can’t beat it…

And wow, was that not the most random question possible to end this blog post?

S

Yep, regardless of who wins…

But thankfully there are just two days left until we have a new President-Elect because things are getting crazy right now…Just go to Drudge to laugh at the humor of it all…

And yeah, the election is still up in the air and who knows what will happen tomorrrow, but if the polls are correct, Wednesday will be a new day with a new agenda for President Obama…

Am I nervous about this?  Just a bit…

Am I racked with nervousness?  Not so much…I have way too much other stuff on my plate right now to be totally wrapped up in this whole deal…Which is a good thing

And is this the most important election ever?  No, I think they are all important, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise…

My only hope is that we all do our best to try and keep a little perspective come Wednesday…Sound good?

As for a couple of quick hits from the weekend:

Loved the McCain stuff on SNL (he was really funny and showed a realness about himself that was quite entertaining) and how they absolutely lambasted Keith Olbermann…About time somebody took some swipes at him…

Did the whole Halloween thing with the wife and child on Friday, and yeah, just a little overwhelmed by the whole experience…Almost hit a kid, too…Not good at all…

Saturday night was fun with the OU game lasting one quarter and the Texas Tech-texas game coming down to, literally, the last second…Just a great finish…I love how OU is now officially under the radar and getting no love nationally even though we are scoring more points than anybody else in the country…

I won my Fantasy Football game, and let me just say this: if you don’t play fantasy football and you like football anyway, please play the next season…It actually gives you something to cheer for as you sit through a Chiefs/Lions matchup if you have one of those players on your team…

I am leading my league, too…Good times indeed…

Oh, and I was sort of sick this weekend, too…I just hate being sick…

Lastly, get out and vote tomorrow…It will be well worth your time regardless of who you choose…Seriously, just get out there and enjoy the responsibility of it all…

S

This week was a long and winding road filled with travel, phone calls, appointments, and the other normal trapping of the normal work week…But, some stuff did pop up that I thought was worth noting, and now I want to give you a summary of some of those things in today’s edition of quick hits…

And if you haven’t noticed, it is hard for me to blog everyday…My apologies…That is why I try to make Friday entertaining for all…

So on with the show…

The Fall Classic wrapped up this week with the Phillies beating the Rays 4 games to 1…I generally like the postseason of baseball, and if I had one dime for every inning I watched of the World Series, I would, well, have a dime…Just didn’t do much for me…Sorry, Doug…

However, the Oklahoma City Thunder did tip off this week to sold out crowd at the Ford Center…and promptly lost to a pretty average Milwaukee Bucks squad…Come to find out, the crowd was a little too energetic for the Thunder players…What?!?!

And not to sound like a bandwagon fan (although if you ever preface a sentence with that, guess what? Yeah, you’re probably a bandwagon fan), I may not be able to really get into this whole NBA in OKC thing if the product continues to be like it was the other night…Just horrible…

And, yeah, I know – me actually verbalizing that thought was pretty horrible, too…

And in a strange bit of NBA news (which will transition us to election stuff), it seems certain NBA players are urging folks to vote by putting messages on their shoes…Guess we know who Kevin Garnett and Tracy McGrady are for…But don’t you know the tax implications for you guys if your guy wins?  Love them higher taxes…

Yeah, so about the election: Evidently, lots of folks are voting early this year for the election…Is this new?  Did I just miss the memo on it?  Can someone explain why this is necessary?  I am so confused…

And keep kicking people off your plane, please…It makes you look bad…Thanks…

Speaking of the election (and this will be it, promise), why is the CBS/New York Times poll still 11 points?  Seriously, all of the other polls have tightened a bit, but this one is still double digits?  And I have never gotten polled…Wish someone would call me…

And this week I made the mistake of getting sucked into “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” one night, and just as I turned there he was ripping Bill O’Reilly and saying he had beaten him in the ratings for the third straight night…I was flabbergasted by this, and so I did some research on this issue…Come to find out, MSNBC only counts the demographic of 25-54 as viewers and according to this AP article, “essentially ignores older viewers” which “O’Reilly dominates”…

Thus, while it is true that Olbermann may have won the other night in the demographic of 25-54 year old viewers by a score of something like 1.7 million viewers to 1.6 million viewers, it is categorically untrue that he beat O’Reilly in the ratings…This is because if you add the older viewers in (like a certain aunt of my wife’s who is staunch O’Reilly supporter), then O’Reilly essentially crushes Olbermann by something like 3.7 million viewers to 1.8 million…Almost 2 million more…

But yeah, Keith, if you want to say you beat him, you go right ahead…Now if McCain ends up beating Obama because of the older vote and yet Obama wins the 25-54 year olds, are you going to say Obama won the election?  Hmm…

And just to make sure everybody is aware, I do like O’Reilly…A lot…Hannity I can kind of do without, but O’Reilly is just fine…

Glenn Beck is still the best, though…

Speaking of countdowns, too: it is officially 2 weeks until I see Chris Faulkner in the flesh…Oh, the excitement…

Oh, and if McCain loses, then Palin in 2012…Who’s with me?  Love that quote to ABC News by the way…

And yeah, I still think McCain is going to lose on Tuesday…Alas…And if McCain does happen to pull it out, let us all pray that folks keep their heads about them and not fall into the trap this lady is setting…Seriously, we are all better than that…

Oh sorry, that was more election stuff…My bad…

And on a really random note, I decided this week to do a little research on “Atlas Shrugged”…I had been hearing about this book from libertarian folks I know, and I had no idea what the book was about…After reading this Wikipedia account, I am even more confused now and not sure I am willing to read the book after finding out it is over 645,000 words…For reference, this blog posting is only 708 words so far (okay, now we are up to like 720), and yeah, this posting is almost too long for my liking…

Now multiple this by a whole bunch until you get to 645,000…Wow…“War and Peace” was not even that long…

L. Ron Hubbard has a book on that list if you hadn’t noticed…I don’t know why I mention that besides the fact that Scientology creeps me out…a lot…

So lastly about “Atlas Shrugged” – George, can you explain the draw lots of people have to this book?

Moving on once again, love this cartoon…He he…It does us all to have a good laugh at the press’ expense before the drama unfolds next week…

And to conclude this “Artamene” length blog posting, my beloved Sooners take on Nebraska on Saturday night on ESPN, and I should be a lot more excited about this traditional rivarly than I am…But yeah, can’t quite get all pumped for some reason…Could be because Nebraska is so bad, but still…Anyway, I see this game being somewhere in the neighborhood of OU 56/Nebraska 36…Our defense gives up lots of points once again, but our offense rocks…

Until Monday, enjoy your weekend…

WAIT: BREAKING NEWS ALERT!!!

Evidently McCain is going to be on SNL on Saturday…Seeing that he is the funniest of all the candidates, this may be a good thing for him…I will be watching for sure…

S

Considering I wrote that previous post last night at 1:00 in the morning (was that an oxymoron?), I left a lot out about what I wanted to open for discussion…But now it is 11:00 in the morning, I am feeling good, I am about to go to lunch, and here are some more quick thoughts…

In reference to “Camp Rock”, I am proud to say I have never heard a Jonas Brothers song before…And I only know of their association with Camp Rock because it is all over Target…Seriously, it is horrible…Kind of like The Jonas Brother’s hair…

The New Kids are back, and for some reason I am just as jealous of them now as I was during their heyday when I was 13 years old…That smells of irony…

Speaking of the New Kids, I gotta give it up to Donnie Wahlberg (is that two Wahlberg references in two posts?  Wow)…The guy has a pretty decent Hollywood career going (just great in “Band of Brothers”, brilliant in the now-cancelled “Boomtown”, and he stood out in the otherwide awful “Annapolis”), he gets to travel with the Boston Celtics to games outside of Boston, and he has basically become the de facto leader of the New Kids – which means he gets to talk in all the interviews…For my money, that is a pretty decent living…

And I will never mention he or the New Kids again…ever…promise…

And yeah, I have a Blackberry…Yeah, I carry it even when I am not “working” even though I have another cell for personal use…Yeah, I check sports scores on it and use it for directions…And yeah, I even love when it tells me I have an e-mail…But, no, I am not addicted to it…And no, you cannot take it away from me to prove it…

I bought gas today for $2.09…Ah, to live in Oklahoma…

New Vince Flynn book came out this week – for those of you into post 9/11 covert op thrillers, you can’t be Mitch Rapp…But this is the 10th book in the series, so yeah, if you really want to get into it, you gotta read 9 other books…Ugh…

What else?  Oh, saw Bill Cosby on TV this week, and he is looking aged…And I am not saying that is a bad thing – just the picture I have in my mind is him on “The Cosby Show” or even as a younger man on the cover of his comedy albums…Which are genius by the way…

Speaking of which, how did Frank Caliendo get so famous?

And just to let you guys and girls know, I average about 25 visits to my blog per 24 hours and around 100 views per 24 hours…This should be higher…So here is what we are going to do: If I can get it up to 50 visits per 24 hours and 150 views, everybody will get free postings for a year from “A Liberated Mind”…Sound like a deal? Alright!

How great is the fall foliage? Seriously, this is why the fall is the best season of the year…Heck, even the Today Show had a map of where the foliage is best right now during the show this morning…Just tremendous…Ah, to live somewhere other than Oklahoma…

Three words that will change a city: Oklahoma City Thunder…

That is what Seattle gets for having one of its citizens steal my in-laws camcorder out of our rental car when were there for our honeymoon several years ago…Okay, that had nothing to do with them losing their team, but still…

Most underrated American city I have been to: Durham, NC…

Most overrated American city I have been to: Columbus, OH – looked kind of dumpy to me…

And lastly, do you like the new season of “The Office”?  It has sort of lost its way to me…I think it is because Pam is not there…Yeah, she definitely needs to come back and come back now…

Okay, I am done…Promise…

Oh, and I love comments so post them if you got them…

S