15 years ago, in the summer of 1996 I moved to Kansas. I was 17, I had no car, I had no friends…all I had were Seinfeld reruns and the Pittsburgh Penguins ill-fated 1996 Stanley Cup Playoff run.
Tom Barrasso has been my favorite player since I started watching hockey, this cemented it. I will never forget Barrasso driving Krygier to the ice and continuing to slam his head down with his blocker. Krygier had been an immense pest already and I remember feeling relieved when Tommy let him have it.
This grainy, digital copy of a VHS copy of the game brings back so many good memories of watching Penguins games with regularity on ESPN. I still have a signed picture of Barrasso from that era and I remember wanting his Koho pads from that year. What a time to be alive.
This is Todd Krygier’s brain on Tom Barrasso. Boom.
I haven’t posted an entry since July 28th. The reason for that is quite simple. I’m ridiculously fucking busy. So busy, in fact, that I’m not even doing my beloved radio show this semester. It’s very sad, I know, but never fear loyal readers/listeners, I’ll be back next semester with a vengeance, better production, more music and, of course, more Bacon. Just because I’m not on air, however, doesn’t mean you can’t listen to the other awesome DJs here.
Now that the sort of housekeeping issues are taken care of, we can dive into the meat and potatoes of the blog.
The Pittsburgh Penguins are the reigning Stanley Cup champions. I never get tired of saying that.
They raised their Stanley Cup banner at what will be the final home opener at Pittsburgh Civic (Mellon) Arena. How unreal is Dennis Miller as a narrator?
If you’ve read this blog before you’re probably well aware that Camera Obscura is my favorite band in the whole world. They’re going to be playing some US dates later this year, one of which happens to be at Off Broadway in St. Louis on December 1st. I’m going, of course, and I’m so excited that sometimes I lose feeling in my extremities.
Camera Obscura have a blog on their website and they posted a video of some live acoustic performances they did while on tour in France. My favorite song from the new record, James, is included. Really amazing stuff. It looks like a beautiful day.
Fall has finally reached Kansas and I am loving it but I know it’s only fleeting. By the end of October it’ll be winter so I’m enjoying my month of autumn while I can. Yesterday, I hooked my MacBook up to my stereo, selected the Magnetic Fields, put the nine albums of theirs I have in iTunes on shuffle and opened my windows. I suggest you do that same (or do what I did today, which was the same thing except with Camera Obscura.)
Coming to you from Jeph Jaques of Questionable Content fame is a link to a very strange, yet quite cute website Asian Poses. There are probably people out there who enjoy sites like this a little too much. I’m not one of those people. I don’t have an Asian fetish or anything but the cute poses (such as the cat-inspired Nyan-nyan) are amusing and adorable enough to provide relief from boredom in much as the same way as my other guilty pleasure websites, Texts from Last Night, People of Wal-Mart and Stuff White People Like. Anyway, Asian Poses is weird but cute. Just don’t get too into it, know what I mean?
Speaking of weird but cute, Little Boots has a remix of Earthquake you can download here.
My beloved NPR has a first listen of British band Noah and the Whale which isn’t really my cup of Earl Grey but if you’re into that sort of thing you may dig it. NPR also has a Sunny Day Real Estate concert up as well as Death Cab For Cutie who were on World Cafe last week. (They also have an app for iPhone, incidentally, if you’re silly enough to sign up with AT&T whose 3G deployment is pathetic, but I digress…)
My wonderful friend Meglet knows an author she refers to as “Augie” but whom the rest of the world refers to as August Kleinzahler. His book, Cutty, One Rock is one of the most exposed, honest, beautiful books I have ever read. Meglet was nice enough to loan me her copy (I’m mailing it back next week, Meglet, I swear) and after I finished it I immediately bought my own copy. I urge everyone to read it. Now. Do it now.
Kleinzahler was featured in an episode of No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain. (Note: at about the 1:50 mark in that video, you can see Meglet listening intently. Love it!) But seriously, read Cutty, One Rock now or I will come to your home and set fire to your pets.
I saw Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut, Whip It last night and it was great. It was well cast, funny and heartwarming, which sounds like a vomit-inducing romantic comedy, however, I assure you, it was well worth the price of the ticket. Andrew Wilson was wonderful as the team’s coach, Razor.
If you’re interested at all in the recording industry, Tape Op magazine is a good read. In the US & UK you can get subscriptions free, because the magazine is heavily supported by advertisers and they have some good articles about the recording process some of which I find interesting and some of which are so full of technical jargon that I have no idea what is going on but they also have album reviews and interviews with artists. The Sept/Oct issue features a great article on Moby and an interesting interview with Snuff Garrett, who produced more number one hits than Phil Spector and, to my knowledge, hasn’t murdered anyone.
I’m going to try and cook more and post pictures of the things I cook and recipes and whatnot. This is a little ambitious, so we’ll see if I actually accomplish this. I guess I hope to be a less awesome version of Not That Anyone Cares with less talk about NIN and NASCAR.
Regardless, I have obtained a flat iron steak and, at the urging of the aforementioned Meglet, I shall be preparing it au poivre with a red wine reduction as a sauce. Meglet suggested I serve the steak with frites but I’ll probably go with mashing the potatoes I got from the farmer’s market recently. I do love good mashed potatoes.
My friend Elam suggests the following for a sauce, I figure I’ll follow his instructions to the letter because the man knows food and I rarely cook anything French.
“Basically, you want to pour about 1 cup of red wine into the hot skillet after removing the big hunk o’ meat, and reduce the liquid on high heat until the result is a thick, syrupy mixture. Gently stir everything so the fond (what’s left from the meat) combines evenly with the wine. You’ll probably end up with about 1/4 cup or a little less. You can even season it to taste with additional salt, pepper, and maybe a little garlic powder, but it’s not necessary. I should add that it’s really important not to let the meat burn, because your reduction will then be full of nasty charred bits.”
Mmmmm…charred bits.
This may be my longest blog post to date, I had a lot to catch up on. I hope to be doing this more often now so they won’t be as long or scattered in scope or subject. I leave you now with one of my favorite artist, Tori Amos.
This is your brain on Hogs.
P.S. – Holy shit, I can’t believe I forgot this in the original post.
My friend Jamie told me about a web program called Yacht Rock and it is bloody hilarious. Do yourself a favor and watch every episode now.
Step One: Ask Nicely
Step Two: Make Him An Irrelevant Joke
Step Three: Loggins
What a crazy night. I should have been studying for finals but my good friend Lindsey was in town so I went out, listened to most of the Penguins/Capitals game, caught the overtime period on Versus…they lost (which sucks because it means we have to go do Washington for Game 7…ugh) but Dallas won (Dirk Nowitzki, WOO!) and the Blackhawks and Canucks played an amazing game which ended in a 7-5 victory at home for the ‘Hawks, good for Chicago and their fans.
I’m sick of hearing about swine flu. Being of the bacon persuasion myself, I’d almost call that slander. What did pigs ever do to you, America, eh? Other than give their lives so you could eat delicious, delicious bacon. Every major news channel needs to quit scaring people. This is getting ridiculous.
Haven’t posted in a while as things are ramping up for finals week.
Badass interview with Tracyanne Campbell from Camera Obscura.
In NHL playoff news, the Devils managed to blow a lead at the very end of game 7 with Carolina, allowing the ‘Canes to score two goals and take the series. This means my beloved Pittsburgh Penguins will be playing the Washington Capitals in round two. This is going to get awesome.
Bacon Is My Anti-Drug 