An Ohio Governor's finest moment

For several years, there has been a gigantic banner hanging in downtown Cleveland on a building across from the "Q," where the Cleveland Cavaliers play. It is a sparse Nike ad, with an image of LeBron James slam-dunking. It says only, "WE ARE ALL WITNESSES." It is a thing of beauty, and it sort of takes your breath away, and it makes you sort of proud to be a Clevelander.

But it turns out that it is in violation of some Federal law regarding the size of an advertisement and its proximity to a highway (the "Witnesses" banner is not far from where I-90 bisects Cleveland). Why this "violation" was not an issue two years ago but instead, say, THE FREAKING DAY OF THE FIRST GAME OF THE FIRST NBA FINALS THAT THE CAVS HAVE EVER REACHED IN THE HISTORY OF THEIR FRANCHISE, I don't know. But I do know that Ohio's Governor, Ted Strickland, is stepping up.

Strickland has deemed the sign "commercial art," which means it's not subject to the Federal and Ohio Department of Transportation regulations. My personal favorite Strickland quotation regarding this issue: "'We are determined to make sure this city has the opportunity to continue to enjoy this beautiful display of commercial art,' he said. Strickland disputed the notion that declaring the banner art will give Nike a special benefit. 'This is not about Nike,' he said. 'This is about Cleveland.'"

Yeah, governmental entities that aren't the Governor's office. Don't you dare try to dampen our enthusiasm and/or screw with our potential glory. Not this time.

Some obligatory Star Wars content

Many thanks to Husband for drawing my attention to this brilliant piece of work.

Which reminds me, set your TiVos, folks!

The story of Anakin Skywalker's descent into darkness and his son Luke's quest to conquer evil has spellbound audiences for 30 years. The reason for this is simple: the saga of Star Wars is universal and firmly rooted in the mythology and the political history of the entire planet. May 2007 will mark the 30th anniversary of George Lucas' space fantasy that grossed billions worldwide. For the first time take a profound look at the serious subtext behind Lucas' six film milestone. The influence of ancient mythology from Greek legends to King Arthur is visible; but also more recent historical influences, from the political rise of Napoleon to the machinations of Adolf Hitler can be seen.

And while I'm posting Star Wars-related links, may I kindly draw your attention to this book. It is endlessly entertaining and will provide you with all sorts of ammunition to argue with the Star Wars haters in your life (or even those, like my husband, who like Star Wars but just want to be difficult and argumentative).

Geddy Lee is a powerful motivator

There is an ad on ESPN for the network's free fantasy baseball "service," and it fucking rules.

I do enjoy baseball, but I would never participate in any sort of fantasy league. In fact, participating in some such league, for me, would be much less of a fantasy and much more of a hellish reality. My husband -- lifelong Mets fan, Major League Baseball employee, knower of all statistics -- as you might imagine participates in several leagues each year. He even won some cash money last year in his favorite league, thereby earning himself the right to tote around a communal trophy for the 2007 season (which is roughly the size of the Stanley Cup).


As you can imagine, I make fun of him a lot. (Except for when he wins the benjamins. That I am OK with.)

So last night during the Mets vs. Cardinals season opener this ad came on, and because I love the rock I immediately looked up from the issue of This Old House that I was reading. I thought, OK, this is a funny ad. Could have been done better, but there is a keytar so I can't complain. Then we reached the end of the ad, where it became the most awesome television advertisement since Domino's Pizza mocked my silly rules: Rush's Geddy Lee wails, "FANTASY BASEBALL IT'S FREE AND IT ROCKS!!!" Case, closed. Fucking socks, rocked off. And I don't even like Rush.

(The YouTube video of the ad unfortunately cuts off a split second too soon, so one can't appreciate the full sincerity of Geddy's exhortation. Sadly, I sort of suck at the Internet and can't find a better version.)

When the ad was over, Husband turned to me and said, "See, now you're going to want to do fantasy baseball." And instead of my normal response, which would have been something like, "I would never do fantasy baseball; no way it is for losers," I instead said, "I don't know enough about baseball to do fantasy baseball."

Because if I knew more, dear Geddy, you and I would be negotiating a trade RIGHT NOW.

Your apparent interest in campy metal gives me hope for the future of our world

Since I posted a few days ago about the heavy metal Domino's pizza commercial, several of you fine folks out there have stumbled across Sympathetic Weather through Web searches utilizing the following strings:

-"it mocks your silly rules"
-it mocks your silly rules
-Domino's "your silly rules"
-singer Dominos commercial silly rules
-Dominos pizza commercial metal
-dominos pizza+metal song
-metal new dominoes commercial
-dominoes pizza tenacious d comm
-"silly rules" dominoes
-dominos pizza metal song
-dominos pizza heavy metal commercial

I can't even tell you how excited I am to learn that such searching is going on out there. Not even because it leads you to this blog. But because it means that, dammit, you need to know, specifically, how it is that Domino's is going to mock of your silly rules.

Meanwhile, your interest in Joel McHale's sexual orientation continues. Which I find to be fascinating, because he is totally straight. And cute. Anyway. I tell you, I don't know what I did for entertainment before I could monitor traffic to this blog.

That's about right, part 2

From the "Listening Party Forum" on cleveland.com, the online home of The Plain Dealer (and, for the record, I have no idea why I am reading forums on cleveland.com):

Anyone out there know why the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website has been flagged by Google and StopBadware.org as a site that can harm your computer?

And the most excellent response:

well several reasons
there may be a bug/virus,.. not sure..
but i know another reason
rock and roll is bad for society and listened to bad citizens

(Also for the record, this anti-rock response was written by a different user than the one in the post below.)

Meanwhile, I would like to draw your attention to the outstanding new Domino's television ad that's being aired here in the Cleveland area. It features two red flying v-shaped electric guitars swooping in over a pepperoni-laden pizza, and the details of the special are displayed on screen in an awesome font not unlike this one. Apparently this deal is so great that it "breaks all the rules," and when those words appear on screen the heavy metal singer who's been wailing in the background articulates the following brilliant lyric about this phenomenal pizza opportunity: "It mocks your silly rules!" Best. Ad. Ever.

Tenacious D is right: you can't kill The Metal.