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2015 New Fall Season – Tuesdays

old-tv-set1Continuing our look at the new fall season, here are the offerings that I may find myself interested in for Tuesdays.

7:00

The Muppets – ABC brings a new version of the Muppets to television, this time as a work place comedy.  Basically, The Office but with Kermit.

The Flash – A surprisingly fun adaptation of the DC superhero.  The first season was very satisfying and I hope for more of the same.

8:00

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Another new status quo, following the end of last season and the events of the latest Avengers movie, as we head in to season 3.

Scream Queens – Emma Roberts and Jamie Lee Curtis team for this horror comedy, hopefully in the vein of the Scream films, from FOX.  I’m certainly willing to give it a shot to impress.

iZombie – The zombie comedy, which was a midseason surprise last spring, returns for a full season.  I have a lot of faith in EP Rob Thomas, so I’m looking for good things. Continue reading →

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2015 New Fall Season – Mondays

old-tv-set1It is time once again to dive in to the new fall lineups for the television season that kicks into gear tonight. We start this year, thanks to last night’s Emmy Awards, with Monday night’s offerings, which features some returning favorites and a few new potentials.

7:00

The Big Bang Theory – For the second year in a row, The Big Bang Theory moves back to Mondays until late October to accommodate the NFL.  The show continues to be a ratings powerhouse, so I assume the move won’t shake things up too much.

Supergirl – Once The Big Bang Theory returns to its Thursday perch, the latest DC superhero show, from the fine folks who brought us Arrow and The Flash,  takes over, bringing Superman’s cousin to the small screen.  The early presentations that I saw look interesting, so I’m going to give this a shot.

Gotham – After a slow start, the first season kicked into a higher gear as the police and mob of Gotham faced off against one another.  I’m hoping for more improvement in season 2.

7:30

Life In Pieces – I’m not sure about this show, but the cast has a few people worth checking out, so I’ll give it a shot.

8:00

Jane The Virgin – One of the surprise hits of last season, I’m a little concerned about how they will continue the story now that the baby has arrived.  Similar to Ugly Betty, I fear that I will quickly tire of the show in its second season.

9:00 Continue reading →

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2015 Emmy Awards – Drama

Emmy_statueTonight’s the night for the Emmy Awards, so it’s time to finish off my predictions for the awards.  Today, we’re focusing on the awards for Dramas.  I most likely have seen most of these shows, so, unlike my annual Oscar predictions, I will not mostly be going on gut feel and word of mouth, but will have a somewhat informed decision.

Outstanding Drama

Better Call Saul

Downton Abbey

Game of Thrones

Homeland

House of Cards

Mad Men

Orange Is The New Black

Now that Breaking Bad has moved on, I’m assuming that Game of Thrones will take its place.

Outstanding Actress In A Drama

Taraji P. Henson, Empire

Tatiana Maslany, Orphan Black

Viola Davis, How To Get Away With Murder

Claire Danes, Homeland

Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men

Robin Wright, House of Cards

I was pleasantly surprised to see Tatiana Maslany finally recognized for her excellent work in Orphan Black, but I assume that Taraji P. Henson will take home the prize.

Outstanding Actor In A Drama

Kyle Chandler, Bloodline

Jeff Daniels, The Newsroom

Jon Hamm, Mad Men

Liev Schreiber, Ray Donovan

Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul

Kevin Spacey, House of Cards

With the final season of Mad Men in the books, I assume that Jon Hamm will take home the trophy for his overall work on the series.

Continue reading →

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#135 – Brian Daubach

daubach

Name: Brian Daubach

Rank: 135

Position: 1B

Year With White Sox: 2003

Brian Daubach joined the White Sox on January 27, 2003, signing as a free agent.  As Paul Konerko struggled in the first half, Daubach saw plenty of playing time.  But a second half surge from Konerko limited Daubach’s appearances, and his production suffered.  He finished the year with a .230 average and only 6 home runs in 95 games.

On December 10, Daubach was released, ending his time on the south side.

Daubach’s numbers in a White Sox uniform, both for games I attended and overall, were:

Continue reading →

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2015 Emmy Awards – Reality and Movies

Emmy_statueWith the Emmy Awards scheduled for Sunday night, here’s day two of my predictions for the awards, today focusing on reality shows and made for TV movies.  I likely have seen not seen most (any?) of these, so I will probably not have an informed decision, but when has that ever stopped me.

Outstanding Reality Show Host

Tom Bergeron, Dancing With the Stars

Anthony Bourdain, The Taste

Cat Deeley, So You Think You Can Dance

Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn, Project Runway

Jane Lynch, Hollywood Game Night

Jane Lynch already took home the prize for hosting NBC’s hit game show.

Outstanding Reality Show Competition

The Amazing Race

Dancing With the Stars

Project Runway

So You Think You Can Dance

Top Chef

The Voice

The Amazing Race took back the crown last year, and I’m betting that it keeps it again this year.

Outstanding Variety Talk Series

The Colbert Report

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Jimmy Kimmel Live

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver

The Late Show With David Letterman

The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon

What a tough category, as 3 of the shows wrapped up wildly successful runs earlier this year.  That said, I think John Oliver and his HBO show, Last Week Tonight, certainly deserves the award.

Outstanding Variety Sketch Series

Drunk History

Inside Amy Schumer

Key & Peele

Portlandia

Saturday Night Live

The sexy choice here would be to go with Amy Schumer, since she seems to be on top of the world, but I think the recently-wrapped up Key & Peele will win the prize.

Continue reading →

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Vacation Recap – Toronto

toronto-condoTwo weeks ago, I headed out early on a Friday morning for the long drive northeast to the Canadian city of Toronto.  I arrived in the early evening, with my allergies inflamed after an afternoon of driving through the wilds of Michigan.  After a quick trip to find a pharmacy, we settled in at the sports bar just around the corner from our condo for dinner before calling it an early night to recover from a day of travelling.

Saturday morning was spent walking around the lakefront, enjoying the views and trying to get a little lay of the land.  The afternoon was spent at Rogers Centre, where the Blue Jays easily handled the Orioles to keep their hold on first place in the AL East.  Eventually we ended up at the fancy Italian restaurant across the street for dinner and drinks.

Sunday was another day of exploring.  After a late breakfast, we ended up on a bus tour, which, due to street closures, was not following its normal path.  It managed to drop us off a few blocks away from the Royal Ontario Museum, where we headed to enjoy some culture, including a special exhibit on Pompeii.  Thankfully, the tour was back on its normal path afterwards, so we grabbed a ride back to the condo before heading out to the Molson Canadian Ampitheatre for the Oddball Comedy Fest, which I went into much detail here.  After the show, we eventually managed to catch a cab back to the condo.

niagaraMonday was time to bid a temporary farewell to Toronto, as we headed south to Niagara Falls, where we spent the afternoon.   Continue reading →

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2015 Emmy Awards – Comedy

Emmy_statueWith the Emmy Awards scheduled for Sunday night, here are my predictions for the awards for Comedy shows.  I most likely have seen most of these shows, so, unlike my annual Oscar predictions, I will not mostly be going on gut feel and word of mouth, but will have a somewhat informed decision.

Outstanding Comedy

Louie

Modern Family

Parks and Recreation

Silicon Valley

Transparent

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Veep

Modern Family won last year and would seem to be the obvious choice here, since the voters love it.  But Veep is certainly my dark horse candidate, so I’ll go with that.

Outstanding Actress In A Comedy

Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie

Lisa Kudrow, The Comeback

Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep

Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation

Amy Schumer, Inside Amy Schumer

Lily Tomlin, Grace and Frankie

Julia Louis-Dreyfus won this award the past two years, and I see no reason why she won’t repeat again this year.

Outstanding Actor In A Comedy

Anthony Anderson, Black-ish

Don Cheadle, House of Lies

Louis CK, Louie

Will Forte, The Last Man on Earth

Matt LeBlanc, Episodes

William H. Macy, Shameless

Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent

Jim Parsons brought home the award last year for his role as Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory, but managed to not be nominated this year.  My guess is that Jeffrey Tambor takes home the trophy for Amazon’s hit series.

Continue reading →

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Fitbit Week 32

Week32_FBThere’s something about being on vacation out of town that seems to get me moving, and last week was no different.  In fact, it was the most successful week I’ve had since I started tracking such things over 5 years ago, finishing with nearly 100,000 steps.  2 of the days have found themselves in my Top 5 step days.

Things got of to a tremendous start on Sunday, when I found myself doing more exploring of the greater Toronto metropolitan area, including the Royal Ontario Museum and, at night, the Molson Canadian Ampitheatre for the Oddball Comedy Fest.  The day’s total of 18,259 placed it as my 3rd most successful step day.  Monday we left Toronto behind and headed to Niagara Falls, where walking back and forth across the falls left me just shy of 14,000 steps.

Tuesday found me in Cooperstown, NY for a trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame, which left me with close to 11,000 steps.  Wednesday was the lowlight of the week, with much of the day spent driving back to Toronto.  Still, the day ended up at nearly 9000 steps, thanks to dinner at the CN Tower.  Thursday was back to nearly 11,000 steps, thanks to the AC/DC concert at Downsview Park.

Friday, my last day in Toronto, ended up being another huge success, with 17,889 steps, my 4th most successful day, thanks to trips to the Eaton Centre mall, the Hockey Hall of Fame, and a few other stops.  Saturday managed to just pass 10,000 steps, despite spending 8 hours in the car driving home, thanks to a trip to US Cellular Field to see the White Sox defeat the Twins.

Total steps: 90,702

Daily average: 12,957.4

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We Salute You

acdcThe whole starting point of this Toronto trip was the AC/DC concert Thursday night at Downsview Park.  I’d be lying if I said that seeing AC/DC was at the top of my to-do list musically speaking.  In fact, they are playing Wrigley Field this week and I had passed on the chance to get tickets.  But, as a wise man once said, you only live once, and, seeing as this is likely their last go-around, I guess you can say that I’m glad to have seen them.

Thanks to traffic, we completely missed the opening act, who I had never heard of.  It actually turned out pretty well, as we got in to the show just as AC/DC were starting.  The show itself was both good and bad.  The songs are what you expect, but there was no real flow to the show, probably due to the band’s conditioning, or lack thereof.  After each song, the lights went down and there was a brief break before the next song would begin.  The net result of this was a disjointed experience, where each song stood on its own without there being any coherence in the set.

Years from now, I’m sure I’ll be happy to say that I saw AC/DC at some point, even if it was near the end, so I guess it was worth it.  After 40 years of rock and roll that has been the soundtrack of a generation, they deserve to go out on their own terms.

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#136 – Darin Erstad

dAWe3KlB

Name: Darin Erstad

Rank: 136

Position: CF/1B

Year With White Sox: 2007

Darin Erstad signed with the White Sox as a free agent prior to the 2007 season.  His White Sox career started with a bang, as he hit a home run off C.C. Sabathia in his first at bat on Opening Day.  Sadly, things deteriorated from there for both Erstad and the White Sox.

He appeared in only 87 games for the White Sox as the team, only 2 years removed from their World Series championship, found themselves losing 90 games for the first time since 1989.  After the season, Erstad left as a free agent.

Erstad’s numbers in a White Sox uniform, both for games I attended and overall, were:

Continue reading →