I could have stayed home to watch Celebrity Boxing

In spectacularly dumbass fashion, I managed to break my arm last night.



We were finishing up curling last night, clearing the rocks off the ice. I knew there were stones behind me, and heard voices saying "look out for the rocks behind you. So I jumped a little -- literally jumped, maybe only an inch or two off the ground, but just enough to ensure that I ended up on my ass -- or rather, my right forearm.



How fucking stupid was that? Did I really expect to have a 42-pound chunk of granite and metal -- a hypothetical one at this point, since I had no idea what was behind me, if anything -- zip safely under my feet while I was airborne? I'm lucky there were in fact no rocks immediately near me -- I could've landed on one or more and really messed myself up.



We were done for the night, so I stuck around for a little while, mostly to see if my arm was going to stop hurting. It didn't -- while I could bend my arm at the elbow, turning my forearm (extend your arm and turn it, palm-up to palm-down) or holding anything without my arm supported --hurt like hell. So I drove myself, mostly one-handed, home, where I collected Kirsti and headed off to the ER. I would have gone straight there had I remembered to bring my cell phone, but I travel light to curling due to a lack of secure pockets.



After about three hours, mostly spent sitting around, I was told I have a very small crack in my radius, near the elbow. So right now I'm in a splint, with a referral to a bone guy and a scrip for Vicodin. I can type (obviously), so I don't expect to miss work, but I'm working from home today anyway, doing the stuff I brought home intending to do while waiting for the dryer repairman. The ER doctor thinks this will heal much faster than the usual 6 weeks. I wonder what sort of plaster getup I'll be in for Steve and Steph's wedding on the 23rd. Needless to say, my curling season has come to an abbreviated end. But I think I'll still sign up for next year.



...and that Mediaweek guy's name is Marc Berman, not Stuart.

I'm a genius!

I've been reading Stuart Berman's Mediaweek column regularly, and he has a daily TV trivia question. In early January I answered one of his questions (I don't recall what it was), and got listed on his page as a correct respondent for that week. And I'm still there, nearly three months later, although I've not ventured a guess since! Yay me!



I'm a klutz!

Took my first spill curling last night. We went to wearing the full sliders instead of the training-wheelesque half sliders, and while walking back to the hack after throwing a rock, I went down hard on my left knee, just below my kneecap. No swelling, and surprisingly no bruise, at least not yet. More hurt pride than anything else, and hey, it took me over a week to finally fall. For me, that's pretty damn good.

David Letterman announced last night that he's staying at CBS. It would have been a stupid move, anyway -- Letterman was never the savior CBS was looking for, and he'd just be jumping to network that has the same problem CBS had when he left NBC. One would think this would be the end of the story that's been brewing about a month, but ABC still hasn't announced what it plans to do with Nightline. And this is what TV critics and columnists will continue to complain about: how can ABC do away with this fine journalistic institution, blah blah blah... But I think most of the controversy has very little do with the sanctity of Nightline. The real issue is that finally, after 40 years of being catered to and pampered by the media, the Baby Boomers are becoming irrelevant. Nightline and The Late Show pull in about the same number of viewers, but Letterman gets more of the coveted 18-to-34 demographic. And the idea that networks would pander to this demographic -- instead of the Boomers, again, drives them crazy.

A cameraman showed up at curling last night, apparently from Fox Sports. No one was interviewed; he just seemed to be gathering footage. Rumor is this was going to be for a feature on the sport's post-Olympic boom, but no one knew when it would air, or if it was for the Regional or National Sports Report -- if that. Whatever. I don't have cable. But if you tune in and wait for who knows how long, you might just see some really bad curling. Then again, could you tell?



Postscript to Tuesday's post: Watched the Eltingville pilot and it was EXCELLENT.

Best TV Theme Ever



I haven't seen Welcome To Eltingville yet, but having enjoyed Evan Dorkin's comic-book work (I especially like Fisher-Price Theater) I'm sure it was brilliant and will continue to be so, should Cartoon Network pick up the show. I can verify that the show has the best theme song ever, as you can hear from this short MP3.

You're older than you've ever been and now you're even older

Had a low-key birthday yesterday. Kirsti bestowed CDs and Girl Scout cookies on me in the morning, and took me out for Argentinian food for dinner. I also got cookies and a hatching goblin (must get that digicam!) from coworkers, and am doing a joint b-day lunch thing today. I didn't have an I feel old moment until driving home from the restaurant. The radio played "Brass Monkey" by the Beastie Boys, which I realized came out half a lifetime ago. Of course, the strange thing is that a so-called "New Alternative" station is playing a song older than its key demographic.



CDs

White Stripes, White Blood Cells

White Stripes are two siblings from Detroit who play just guitar and drums. Buying this for me was a sure sign of Kirsti's love, as we've both had the insanely catchy cowpunk single "Hotel Yorba" in our heads for the longest time, only she hates it. I'm not as crazy about the album as the linked review -- "Yorba" is not representative of the whole CD -- but I'm warming up to it. And nowhere does the linked review mention its similarity to the Pixies.



Dan the Automator, Wanna Buy A Monkey? and Lovage: Music To Make Love To Your Old Lady By

Dan "The Automator" Nakamura is seemingly all over everything these days. Wanna Buy A Monkey? calls itself a "mixtape session" -- the Automator's work with various groups (De La Soul, Deltron 3000, Gorillaz, etc.). Lovage is a whacked out parody of (ahem) mood music. I'm liking both of these quite a bit.

HARRRRRD!!!

I tried curling this weekend. I didn't get to see any curling during the Olympics, but had seen it on the CBC when I was living in Michigan. But during the SLC games, a simple web search turned up four curling clubs within 30 minutes of home. During my research I found that the Chicago Curling Club (based in Northbrook, actually) had a "just do it" open house over President's Day weekend -- when I was in Boston. But apparently over 100 people showed up, so they quickly scheduled similar events for 3/3 and 3/10.



People turned out in similar numbers yesterday -- about 32 in my group at 1:00(so everyone was on the ice at the same time), and then over 60 at 3:00, who had to be split up as the club has four sheets. Seemed to be a fairly even mix of men and women, mostly under 40, and a good number of kids. We spent the first part of the session getting our footing, practicing throws, and working on delivery (our group didn't get up to sweeping). We watched a brief instructional video, and then we split into teams and we played a two-end (inning) game.



Curling ice is different from skating ice in that it's "pebbled" -- think of bumpy raised glass. Still slippery, but you can run along and sweep without much uncertainty. You wear a slider -- a slip-on teflon sole -- on one foot when throwing. My delivery isn't terrible in terms of mechanics; my worst problems are shifting balance from my hack foot to the sliding foot, and then gripping the rock too tightly; I'm relying on it too much for stabilization. What I have no grasp of is controlling the stone's weight (speed) -- each throw felt the same, so my rocks either didn't cross the hog line and were removed from play, or zipped straight through the house and were again removed from play. This was a common problem for most of my team, so we didn't have to sweep much. We ended up losing, 3-0. We had a good rock in play during the second end which would have tied the game, but the opposing skip threw a perfect take-out and they scored with two rocks in the outer ring of the house.



Surprisingly I'm not too sore, though had I played a full 8-end game I'd probably be feeling it. I signed up for most of the remaining March events for $25, and we'll see how I like it from there.