Some College Football Speculative Fiction

Posted in Football, Sports with tags , , , , on December 5, 2009 by Janna

I’ve always wanted to write some good alternate history or dystopian future fiction, but I’ve never been able to fully realize a vision, including all the little details and ramifications of a single pivotal change, around which one could build a story. Until the nightmare I just envisioned tonight.

Now, I’ve been saying all week that with a win over Pittsburgh, Cincinnati would be able to edge TCU (suffering from a bye week) for that coveted spot in the Bowl Championship Series rankings right behind Texas, waiting to overtake them and challenge Alabama for the National Title,  should the Longhorns falter. Sure, Iowa fans might cry foul for losing a potential at-large BCS Bowl bid to Texas or an ACC champion of questionable quality. Undefeated TCU supporters, whose coach is a proclaimed supporter of the BCS system, would claim superiority and conference discrimination until the end of time. But it wasn’t until the Longhorns tempted fate with a single (almost debatable) second remaining in the Big XII Championship game against Nebraska that I realized the ridiculous drama and “doomsday” scenario that very well might’ve played out had the Longhorns lost that game (they won on a field goal kicked after that one second was put back on the clock, following an official review). Read more »

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The World’s 3,744,987th Blog Post About Twitter

Posted in Internet with tags , , on November 27, 2009 by Janna

Exactly seven months ago today, I wrote a little blog post announcing to the world that I was committing  to Twitter. And commit I did. I’ve since linked it with my Facebook account, so all my Twitter posts are simultaneously fed to my much larger Facebook audience. I’ve also started using it with my dumb-phone, as text messages to Twitter are an easy way to post to Facebook when I don’t have an internet connection.

However, when I wrote that original post, I thought Twitter was “less like blogging and more like an instant messaging tool, except you’re broadcasting your messages to everyone.” I’ve since learned that I had it completely backwards.*

Except with a couple of people, I never got around to using Twitter “@” replies or Direct Messages as a viable means of communication. I have all those guys’ cell phone numbers, and they’re much more likely to keep up with their texts than the Twitter DM’s pushed to their iPhones. The vast majority of Twitter accounts of friends that I follow are also linked to their Facebook profiles, and several of my friends who often post great links post exclusively to Facebook. And most of my favorite Twitter accounts are those run by bloggers, news outlets, public figures, and organizations, not people I know personally.

So, my Twitter use ended up being about 2% direct communication with friends, and 98%… blogging. That goes for my Twitter output, as well. Most of my Tweets are designed for mass consumption, providing interesting links or photos, random facts and one-line thoughts and experiences I want to share with people. You know, just much more succinct versions of the exact kind of things one might write in, oh, say, a blog.

Somewhere around the peak of my Twitter use a couple months ago (I tend to post a lot while I travel, and I’ve done a lot of that), I fell victim to one of those horrible trends that are a sign the internet is destroying the universe, etc: I started to encapsulate all my important thoughts into 140-character tidbits. If I couldn’t trim it down enough, it wasn’t worth posting; it would be too long to read for my News Feed-skimming audience. My focus on producing comment-generating Facebook posts (via Twitter, of course) reduced the number of more expansive thoughts and opinions I wanted to write down to about nothing.

In short, Twitter killed my blog.

However, in the spirit of my totally bitchin’ Zombie Song Girl Halloween costume (now, see, wouldn’t that ridiculous process and adventure have made for a great blog post instead of a series of one-liners on Facebook?), I will attempt to make my blog rise from the dead. I will challenge myself to expound on those bite-sized flashes of insight I normally post to Twitter, and see if I can’t generate as much interest in a few paragraphs of writing as I do for 140 characters on Facebook every day. And I’m totally gonna shamelessly self-promote my blog posts over Twitter more often.

*I realized after writing this that I’ve pretty much recited this blog post as a topic of conversation at parties at least twice this year.

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“Wait, What City Am I In?” – A Brief (Cell Phone) Photo Essay of Minneapolis

Posted in Backpack Hobo Adventure, Cell Phone Photography, LA Fun with tags , , , on August 27, 2009 by Janna
“Wait, What City Am I In?” – A Brief (Cell Phone) Photo Essay of Minneapolis

Not in Hollywood

Not in Hollywood

Not in Echo Park

Not in Echo Park

Not in Hollywood

Not in Hollywood

Not in Silverlake

Not in Silverlake

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A Bizarre Facebook Mystery

Posted in Internet with tags , on June 22, 2009 by Janna

A while back, Facebook introduced this “Suggested Friends” feature wherein it would skim your friends list and their friends and lists of people who went to the same school as you, etc., and would post people on your homepage, encouraging you to friend them based on your common past or amount of mutual friends. I’ve actually taken up a couple of these opportunities, and recognize lots of people it suggests, though I ignore many of them (sorry, younger brother of that guy from my high school history class!), and there are always some suggested friends I have never met in my life.

Of course, Facebook gives you the option to delete people out once you’re sure you never want to be Facebook friends with them, and it won’t suggest them anymore. However, I’m pretty lazy and don’t do this very often. So I’ll get a few complete strangers who show up on my homepage on a regular basis that I continue to ignore, but have probably glanced at their names enough times that I’ve memorized them. Yesterday I saw one of those regular names, and suddenly, it seemed familiar. And not just because I had seen it suggested to me a dozen times, but it felt like I actually knew the name. Girl who went to the other high school in my home town? Friend of my mom’s? College professor from a class I slept through? No, no, no. I clicked through to see her “limited” profile so I could investigate further. All I had to go on was a first and last name and a geographic network, “Northern Arizona”. This mystery person and I share no mutual friends.

Then it hit me. I don’t even know in which tiny corner of my brain I had saved this name, but I recognized it.

I bought soccer tickets from her. Over Craigslist. Two years ago.

We shared a half-dozen e-mails through my GMail account, and nothing more. We were never communicated through Facebook, or anything else. But somehow Facebook knew. Does Facebook somehow skim my e-mails? Is this some new kind of stalker tool I was unaware of? And if so, why isn’t it better at giving me targeted ads on the side of my profile page?!?*

*Actually, that “I’m On A Boat” t-shirt advertised to me today was pretty rad…

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Football Movie Madness #3: Leatherheads

Posted in Football, Football Movie Madness, Movies with tags , , , on May 19, 2009 by Janna

Today’s film selection brings us a George Clooney-directed old-timey screwball comedy, just with modern actors. Much like with Good Night and Good Luck, Clooney emulates the film’s time period, except this time it involves lots of sepia-toned shots and slapstick chase scenes that aren’t even that funny. You could tell right from the beginning – kids were smoking, prohibition was in full force, and we saw a college football game set to a rendition of “Tiger Rag” that didn’t even involve any cussing – this is football in the 1920’s, folks!

Overall, the movie was only so-so. I didn’t ever believe John Krasinski’s character had a chance in the film’s focal love triangle, and I never bought any of that silly comedy.I think more than anything I was a bit sad the Duluth portrayed in the movie wasn’t more… Duluth-y. How early did this season manage to finish that there was no snow in Duluth or Chicago, really?

The football was also only OK. The final game takes place on a field so muddy that Clooney’s team wins thanks to team jerseys no one can tell apart. Again, it was more about the physical comedy than creating any drama, but did they really let players go out there without a cup even 90 years ago?

Basically, if I wanted some of the fun old-fashioned football jokes in Leatherheads, I could have saved myself a great deal of time and just re-watched this clip from SNL earlier this season: http://www.hulu.com/watch/55596/saturday-night-live-nfl-films

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The World’s 2,453,346th Blog Post About Twitter

Posted in Internet with tags , , on April 27, 2009 by Janna

I’ve had a Twitter account for several months now. And I barely use it. In fact, I used the Twitter for Facebook app so that my Twitter updates and Facebook status are always the same thing. I’ve been a Facebook power user for years, and as of yet didn’t have a reason to put any additional effort into also keeping up a Twitter profile. The only person I knew who actively used it was my brother, and that was only because all of his friends and co-workers used it, and it became a common form of communication for all of them.

Well, today I caved. I downloaded a Twitter app for my desktop (I’m currently using Tweetdeck because it also sends me Facebook status updates, but the window has to be so large! anybody have other suggestions?). I browsed a couple of coworkers’ “following” lists and found more people I knew and suddenly I’ve got a decent number of people to keep up on and I don’t want to refresh a Firefox page all day now that there’s actually content for me to see. Still not on par with the massive Facebook newsfeed I’ve got to follow, but I can see it getting there someday.

But mostly I decided to finally commit to Twitter because it appears it’s going to be around for quite some time as an internet-use standard. As I use the desktop app I realize it’s become less like blogging and more like an instant messaging tool, except you’re broadcasting your messages to everyone. This feels similar to when everyone got on the AIM and/or MSN bandwagon, eight or nine years ago. Except that there is only one Twitter. I wonder when some crazy, renegade alternative micro-blog network will pop up and cause a battle a la AIM-MSN (though those battle lines were mostly geography-based) or Facebook-MySpace (which drew divides among education and age levels). What will separate Twitter users from the others, and what new must-have internet communication and networking tool will come along in a few years to replace them all?

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Football Movie Madness #2: The Express

Posted in Football, Football Movie Madness, Movies with tags , , , on April 25, 2009 by Janna

Tonight’s entry in my quest to watch way too many football movies: The Express, yet another film based on a true story about football players overcoming racial barriers.

One of the first things I noticed were all the beautiful scenes shot on location at Syracuse University. It made me totally jealous; there aren’t any movies about Trojan Football! Why can’t somebody make a cinematic love letter to USC?? (oh, wait, that’s what Love and Basketball is for) But those scenes, as well as all the gameplay involving awesome old-fashioned football uniforms (Kansas in baby blue!), made me realize I have yet to experience East Coast football and really, really old sports programs. I think sometime in the relatively near future I’m gonna have to get myself to an Ivy League game or something else involving a rivalry or stadium nearly as old as the sport itself. Hopefully I’ll avoid the crazy, redneck, beer-throwing West Virginia fans portrayed in the movie, who reminded me a lot of… crazy, redneck, beer-throwing Notre Dame fans. Maybe I’ll watch Rudy next week…

It was in the scene right after that West Virginia game that the movie’s main character, Ernie Davis, was shown with a mysterious bloody nose, and then I suddenly remembered how this story ended in real life – Davis died of Leukemia just a year after graduating from Syracuse. But I was brought back to a much happier place shortly thereafter when the Orangemen were offered two different bowl games, and got to decide through (gasp!) a team vote. Oh, how I long for simpler times.

They of course chose to face off against #2-ranked Texas and their superstar player, supposedly the only other team in America that could bring down our heroes, who had been ranked at the top for the entire season.  And then they powered over those jerkoff Longhorns and won the game and the national title outright, and rode off into the sunset, as they rightly should have (what? I’m not projecting or anything).

Well, they did win, but not before enduring something that more resembled hockey, what with all the punches thrown and all. This was because of the three black guys playing for the Orangemen, which didn’t sit so well with all those white people from Texas. Of course the developing civil rights movement was a major theme in this, the movie about the first black man to win the Heisman trophy, but it was maybe even too much to handle, mostly due to Ernie’s totally blatant goal of being a great black athlete and inspiration to all – football’s Jackie Robinson. Not one of those modest, reluctant heroes, oh, no.

But, maybe he was just a man who knew his destiny all too well. He did win that Heisman trophy and get a ton of signing money, got an awesome Forrest Gump-style doctored photo shoot with JFK, and died young to boot – a Hollywood-perfect real-life hero. Come to think of it, why exactly did it take 45 years for this movie to be made?

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Football Movie Madness #1: Remember the Titans

Posted in Football, Football Movie Madness, Movies with tags , , on April 20, 2009 by Janna

College Basketball is over. My season tickets are already purchased. This weekend’s NFL draft will just serve as a painful reminder that people like Mark Sanchez won’t be back for college football this fall.

Only 135 days left until kick-off.

To tide me over through this horrible time of year I call “Baseball Season”, I decided to take on a project I miserably failed to do last year: watch a crapload of football movies. Hopefully this will get me excited about next season, or gain a new perspective on and appreciation for sports cinema. Or just provide additional motivation to get more than one movie a month from Netflix.

So, I started with a list. Browsed some websites, perused Netflix’s suggested movies, etc., and came up with 25 movies to start with (and I am very open to suggestions for movies to watch!). That’s gonna be one or two movies a week until I can’t close my eyes without thinking of underdog stories, dramatically-timed injuries, heartwarming endings, and bone-crushing simulated football action scenes. I’m gonna hope that by the end I can’t recognize every stadium ever used and re-used as a film location, but there is a distinct possibility I will have gained that ability.

First up, in no particular order, was Remember the Titans, a classic by which many more recent football movies are judged, and which I’ve seen many times but not very recently. Filmed in Georgia, apparently, and starring lots of people I didn’t even remember were in it – Ethan Suplee, a very tiny Hayden Panettiere, and Donald Faison as the same character he plays in everything he’s ever done.

It was a good movie overall. It’s one of those films that’s great the first time you see it, but it gets so over-hyped and over-played that it means nothing to you for a long time, until you end up like me and go without seeing it for something like six years, and then it’s fresh and entertaining again. At least up until near the end, when I remembered that this was one of those team-captain-gets-permanently-injured movies, and it felt unoriginal and unnecessary, even though it was based on a true story. Then about ten minutes later I realized it only seemed that way because I’m pretty sure this movie started that whole trend.

But all-in-all, a good football movie; it’s easy to see why this is one of the “definitive” films of the genre. It’s got it all – a period soundtrack, drama within the team, evil-doers with really bad sportsmanship, etc. It was a good one to start off my football-movie-watching journey.

Stay tuned as I tackle (ha!) more films, and please send me any movie suggestions you think I should include in my list!

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