You Know You're a Daddy When ...

You go to Disney on Ice. Don't think I'd ever been to one of these things before I accompanied Rachel's family and toddlers Jackson and Julia last night to 1st Mariner Arena (proud home of the indoor soccer Baltimore Blast). Although I can't remember if I actually saw Sesame Street Live on Ice when I was a kid.

Saturday evening's show could have used more of Disney's classic songs. But it was still pretty entertaining, mainly because the kids loved it, even at the probably too-young ages of 2 and 1. The plot was heavy on The Incredibles' family teaming up to find Mickey and Minnie, who have been kidnapped by pirates and others in a Magic Kingdom gone haywire. Or something like that.

But I suppose the plot (and sloppy falls by Dad and Daughter, always my deviously favorite part of ice skating) were beside the point. Disney's stories and characters have a mostly strong record. Call me old school, but my favorites are still Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and The Jungle Book.

Steelers and Babies Are So Cute

Pretty clear why these are worth posting for posterity on my blog.

Cab Crashes Into My Buddy's Bar Solly's

Check out the story at DCist.

And here's the link to Solly's. Hope this all turns out OK, John!

The update: The taxi driver supposedly doesn't have a license! An arrest is pending. Another reason to dislike DC cabbies.

And, hopefully finally, "Solly has a hell of a sense of humor."

What's Wrong With Greg Monroe?

Georgetown appears done for the season at this point. What once looked like one of the nation's best teams has sunk to an NIT candidate.

The Hoyas' 2-point overtime loss to Cincinnati today was another sorry performance. Freshman phenom Greg Monroe (pictured, left) blew three free throws in overtime and the team shot 0-8 from the field in those final five minutes. Monroe's once-sure hands have turned pillow soft. He can't finish and he can't really do much else either.

Chris Wright is maddening in his underwhelming selfishness. JTIII's play-calling seems ever-more suspect. Jessie Sapp was benched for the entire second half for unknown reasons. My season tickets are going to be tough to play out.

Allen Ginsberg's Poetic Moment

This is the first post of a series based on articles from this book I'm reading. Stories Done, by Mikal Gilmore, is a great collection of tales of excess from counter-culture leaders.

Allen Ginsberg's story leads off the book.

In the early 1950s, after at least a couple of sexual encounters at Columbia University with fellow Beat Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg had a similar suaree with Neal Cassady and fell instantly in love with him. But Cassady played hard to get and found the occasional sex with Ginsberg meaningless. Ginsberg eventually sought psychiatric treatment over his pained lost love, gave up his poetry, and started work at an ad agency in Manhattan.

One day, Ginsberg's therapist asked him what he really wanted to do with his life. Ginsberg replied: quit his job and write poetry. The therapist said: "Well, why don't you?" By 1954, the group had begun to reassemble in the San Francisco Bay area. Ginsberg often hung around City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, but one day he drove out to San Jose to visit Cassady. When Cassady's girlfriend walked in to find the two men in bed, she drove Ginsberg back to San Francisco, gave him $20, and left him there. It was the best thing that ever happened to Ginsberg, as he soon found the man he would stay involved with for the next several decades. And his poetry career took off with the publication of the compilation Howl.

Georgetown In a Rut

The crowd was decidedly sparse (kind of like the amount of postings at one of my favorite Hoya blogs, The Van Buren Boys) for Tuesday night's home game against Rutgers. Georgetown won 57-47 to snap a 5-game losing streak. Before the streak, Hoya games were exciting and lively. The team looked like world beaters.

But now, the team looks like a Big East last-place team (which they were as of tip-off) against a high-school-like Scarlet Knights club. Rumor has it that Jessie Sapp and Chris Wright threw punches at each other in the locker room, but who knows what's causing this team to collapse.

On the court, Sapp led the unexcitement with 11 points and Greg Monroe followed with 10. Georgetown is now 13-8 and 4-6 in the Big East.

At least Peter and I ate good sushi at Wok and Roll beforehand. And, as an interesting footnote, Wok and Roll is in the same rowhouse where John Wilkes Booth planned the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Steelers Six-Pack!

NBC Anchor Bob Costas ended the Steelers' record-breaking sixth Super Bowl win by declaring the franchise the greatest sports team in American history.

Photos

Video

Play-By-Play

Stats

Final: Pittsburgh 27, Arizona 23

Super Steelers Sunday

Finally time to end two week's worth of pre-game hype and get onto the field!!!

Super Bowl IX

Super Bowl X

Super Bowl XIII

Super Bowl XIV

Super Bowl XXX (boo)

Super Bowl XL

John Lennon: A Life Most Interesting

John Lennon was brilliant from the start. By age 5, thanks to his Uncle George picking out particular words for John to learn from the Liverpool Echo, he gained a lifelong addiction to newspapers.

At school, he didn't draw the normal renditions of kitties or his "Mummy." One example was a painting of Jesus, which was "like a psychic vision of himself 20 years into the future." 

Because he had bad eyes and hated to wear his glasses, little John possessed "the very Liverpudlian traits of a fascination with language and an irresistible compulsion to play around with it." He often misread words or had a myopic vision of his immediate surroundings. But rather than viewing this as a disability, he turned these flashes into puns, spoonerisms, and double entendres. Once on holiday and near broke, he sent a postcard to his Aunt Mimi saying, "Funs is low."

There are all kinds of great and well-researched stories in this book by Philip Norman. One could ask: What more needs to be said? But no journalist knows The Beatles better or has better access (this book includes in depth interviews with Yoko Ono). So if there's one Lennon biography to read, this is it.

Here's an excerpt about how John's life was transformed by the birth of his son Sean. 

I read the first several chapters and will probably finish this epic sometime in the next decade. With juicy new details like Lennon supposedly contemplating whether to have a gay fling with McCartney and an afterword by the heretofore hush-hush Sean, it will be hard not to dig back in.

Is The Love Guru Really That Bad?

Often named as one of the worst movies of 2008, I actually enjoyed The Love Guru. The supporting cast was pretty bad, except for Jessica Alba, who was harmlessly perfect in her fairly nondescript role as the Bill Bidwill-like owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Mike Myers may never reclaim his Austin Powers mojo. But even if this movie is not entirely memorable, Myers is weird and funny the whole way through. He's difficult to stop watching and The Love Guru is well worth 90 minutes of your life.

*** 3.5 out of 5 stars ***