I'm back!

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I moved to Missouri for grad school a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't get back in the habit of posting. Well now I am getting back in habit. To mark my return, here's a link -

A website with the number one song for each date in history. Apparently the number one song on the day I was born was "Like a Virgin".

No, I don't have any jokes about that, thank you very much.

Something Old

I've been meaning for a while to post some of the pieces I wrote as a commentator for college radio. This one was written in April of 2007. It has some references to it being April of 2007, but don't let that distract you. Anyway, it's pretty silly.

T-Ball? More like Commie Ball

Well, it’s April (once again, that's 2007 - author), and spring is here, and that can only mean one thing – yes, TV shows are new again until the end of the season! Lost, The Office, Gilmore Girls, a bunch of shows I don’t watch – all back until the middle of May. I can’t wait to see what happens on the island, at Dunder-Mifflin, in Stars Hollow. However, this piece doesn’t have anything to do with that, because spring is also baseball season. The MLB is in full swing, my friends. I’m sure Moises Alou, Reggie Jackson, Ted Williams and the whole gang are having a swell time hitting balls, shagging flies and running bases.

However, I’m not here to talk about them either, or even about the MLB. At a lower level, kids all across the country are getting ready for summer baseball, which should start up shortly after the season finale of Lost. There’s an organization for boys of every age – Legion for high schoolers, named after a team of DC Comics superheroes; Babe Ruth for junior high boys, named after that guy Benny Rodriguez dreams about in The Sandlot; and Little League for upper elementary kids, named after Little Luth, the mascot of the National Lutheran Youth Convention.

Well, based on the fact that I’m turning their names into terrible pop-culture references, it’s probably obvious by now that I’m not actually too interested in any of these levels of baseball. What I am interested in, however, is the lowest level of organized baseball play – Tee ball, for ages 6 through 8. T-ball isn’t regular baseball, of course, as it modifies the game in a number of ways, theoretically to make it easier for young children to play. Unfortunately, it has a much more negative effect in practice. Easier? Maybe, but certainly far more Soviet-esque.

Yes, friends – tee ball mirrors the threat of international communism in a number of ways, starting with the title figure – the “tee” itself. Similar to a golf tee, but much larger, it allows every player to hit the ball with little or no effort. Much like Stalin’s infamous Five-Year-Plan, this gives the appearance that everyone is skilled and productive. Even the bad kids can hit the ball nearly every time. This, of course, gives them a sense of false confidence, allowing them to think they’ll be able to beat the US to the moon. When they find out later in life that this isn’t true, they’ll only be disappointed.

This spread-the-wealth mentality continues in the structure of every inning. Rather than having three outs per team per inning (or four, or seven or any other number), tee ball allows every player on both teams to bat every single inning. On the surface, of course, this also appears to give everyone an equal chance. Each boy gets a chance and everyone is happy. In reality, of course, it just puts the teams at the mercy of the governmental structure. Like the Berlin Wall, the much-bally-hooed “Laaaaast Batterrrrr!” signals a split between innings that can not be moved.

Finally, at the end of every tee ball game, both teams are always told that they won, and well. In the history of the sport, no team has ever scored less than 30 runs and no opponent has scored more than 5. Just as Stalin told the people of Russia that they were leading the world in every conceivable area, these kids are told that they are unstoppable. This serves no purpose other than to tear them down when they lose at life, but this doesn’t matter to short-sighted Bolshevik coaches. They have only their immediate concerns in mind.

All I really mean to say is this – tee ball might seem like innocent fun, but every kid who plays it is going to grow up someday. They’ll remember the lessons they learned in tee ball, much better than the baseball skills. They’ll grow up to idolize Vladimir Lenin, not Vladimir Guerrero.

Wild College Fun

Today, while packing for my upcoming move, I found a bunch of notebooks from college. In between taking notes, I would often turn to the back on a notebook and start writing random things. Often, this took the form of a list. I had apparently forgotten just how geeky these lists were. Today, I found all 43 recurring or regular characters on Buffy, all 13 Beatles albums, all 16 Martin Scorsese movies I had seen at the time, and (then) all 38 members of the Justice Society of America. Each of those lists, and dozens of similar ones, were ranked in order of my personal preference.

So that was what I did for fun in college. Currently, I'm making a note reminding myself to not do the same thing in graduate school.

No Posts this weekend

I posted twice today, and I shall post twice again on Monday. I can't post tomorrow or Sunday because I have familial obligations. Sorry about that, large and adoring audience.

The Anthony Strand Substitute Video Guide

This past spring, I worked as a substitute teacher in the Fargo Public Schools and in the Fargo Catholic Schools Network. For those who don’t recall, substitute teachers don’t actually teach. Their job consists mostly of making sure none of the students (none of whom is paying any attention to anything going on in the classroom) gets injured. No sane educator would let a sub actually teach. Often, the sub will supervise a test or hand out a worksheet to be completed by the end of class. Just as often, the sub will show a video.

These videos might be educational, but are they entertaining? I’m going to look back at all of the videos I showed this spring (at least those I can remember) and rank them on a scale of 1 to 10. Now, of course none of these videos would be my first choice for Saturday night viewing, but it goes without saying that some are more tolerable than others. When you’re showing the same video as many as five times in a single school day, having one you can stand is better than gold. So here they are: the productions that pass for substitute education in Fargo, North Dakota.

Bill Nye: Energy (9th Physical Science, Fargo North High) – 1990s TV science man Bill Nye talks about various forms of energy and how they can be harnessed and used. Just like on the TV, Nye’s enthusiasm rubs off. The show is full of good information, presented in an off-beat way. It’s dry sometimes, of course, but it’s a video about energy. It could be so much worse. 7/10

Biography: Neiman Marcus (Marketing, Fargo North High) – Again, this is just an episode of the old A&E TV series Biography. This particular one is about the founders of Neiman-Marcus clothing stores. Did you know Neiman and Marcus were brothers-in-law? Did you know that Mrs. Neiman (sister of Mr. Marcus) worked on the floor of the original store? Did you know that heir Stanley Marcus lived to be 96 years old and worked almost until his death? Neither did I. Good program. 9/10

Parent/Child Communication: Making Things Better (9th Health, Fargo South Campus II) – Oh my sweet Nord. Amazing. We all saw videos like this as kids – ones with awkward conversation-inducing setup that doesn’t ring true in any way. They’re ever more bizarre and amusing in adulthood. In this case, it’s a group of students and a teacher meeting during lunch hour to discuss how to improve communication with their parents. You get students saying things to each other like “You need to act like the adult. You made a contract with your father and now you need to honor it,” as well as hilariously introspective voiceovers where one group member tries to reason out how to apply the lessons he’s learned to his negotiations with his father. It’s from about 1986, and the generic 80s music and fashion just add to the fun. I saw this video four times, and I awaited each new class period like I was going to Disneyland. 10/10

Planet Earth: Deep Oceans (7th Science, Sullivan Middle School) – This is part of the acclaimed Planet Earth series that aired on the Discovery Channel. Narrator Sigourney Weaver (sweet!) takes us underwater for a look at some fish and various other sea creatures. It’s tremendously well-done, if that’s your thing. It isn’t mine. I can’t fault the production, but I can only look at so many fish on a TV screen before my eyes start to glaze over. I did have a student mutter "I wish it was Oceanic flight 815," which led to a nice discussion of Lost, though. 5/10

Roofing (Tech Ed, Fargo North High) – Here, an astoundingly chipper man and woman tell us how to get started on our own roofing project at home. I kicked a kid out of class for being foul-mouthed during this video once. That was by far the most exciting part of my day. 3/10

Selling Parts IV & V (Marketing, Fargo South High) – Some guy who works for Ben & Jerry’s walks the audience through a typical sale, from initial meeting to final agreement. That’s what happened in part IV, I think. Part V was something else, about following up sales and making sure the customer is happy. I don’t know. I had mostly seniors in this class, and it was right at the end of the year, and I read Ultimate Spider-Man all day anyway. 4/10

Ser and Estar (8th Spanish, Carl Ben Eielson Middle School) I actually read during this day, too, (the first three A Series of Unfortunate Events novels) because the room had a student teacher and he did everything (in fact, we had a nice talk about our mutual disdain of student teaching). But I stopped reading for these fourteen minutes each period. A heavily accented narrator explains the proper usage of the Spanish verb forms ser and estar in rhymes such as:

“Do you know ser? And Estar, his brother?

When to use one, when to use the other?

It’s easy, man. Just like kissing your mother!”

Meanwhile, the cartoon images on the screen are completely hideous. They look like they were drawn by an eight-year-old using Microsoft Paint, and they aren’t actually animated. The camera just moves over the static image, in the style of a Random House Read-Along video. The whole thing is like an insane fever dream. I have no idea how to use ser or estar properly, but I won’t soon forget the experience of watching this amazing motion picture. 10/10

Sport Science: Reaction Time (9th Physical Science, Fargo South Campus II) – This is an episode of a series on FOX Sports Net which I hadn’t heard of. I’ve since noticed my brothers watching it, though. It looks as the science behind various things in sports. Here, as you may have guessed, the subject is reaction time. It looks at quarterbacks trying not to get hit, basketball players changing directions quickly, and a variety of other topics. I’m no sports fan, but I was fascinated. Also a plus: the announcer’s tendency to act like the sports guests are Amazing Humans (“One of the best quarterbacks of all time: Big Ben Roethlisberger!) 8/10

T3: Witness (8th Religion, Sullivan Middle School) – This is a pretty typical Christian “pastor talks to an audience of teenagers about some aspect of faith, and the camera frequently cuts to audience members who are clearly having a good time” video. I saw a bunch of these in confirmation. It’s a well-done example of the genre. A young pastor (who clearly thinks he’s a lot hipper than he really is, but seems like a nice fellow) talks about standing up for your faith when others mock you. It moved well, got its points across in an entertaining and occasionally genuinely amusing fashion, and wasn’t condescending, as these videos can often be. 7/10

Working with Acrylic (Tech Ed, Fargo North High) – I showed this the same day as Roofing. It’s a thousand times worse. Some guy who looks kind of Norm MacDonald as Burt Reynolds talks about acrylics and how his products are the best and you can use acrylics and your work will look just like this if you follow his step-by-step instructions that you can get if you call this number. It was only eleven minutes long, which was nice. I’ll give it one point for brevity. 1/10

Y SOVAIN

Personalized license plates have always bothered me. Without fail, they don’t make sense to anyone who isn’t a friend or relative of the car owner. Still, in theory the purpose is for the driver to express his or her personality. With that I mind, I started recording personalized license plates that I saw on the streets of Fargo. I’m going to make an honest attempt to figure out what they mean and/or what they say about the people who paid money to get them attached to their cars.

Before we go on, I must assure you that every one of these is a real license plate. I wrote down about one hundred and fifty. If you don’t think these are funny, I have a whole bunch more I can show you.

20MAX – But he or she usually only takes sixteen or seventeen.
3HOLSN1 – This person obviously has a three-hole punch that he or she uses to commit a variety of sins.
ALTIMTE – When this person plays football, he or she is always “All Time Tight End”.
APESCAR – This person stole his or her car from a gorilla.
BIG FOFO – This person was a big Follow That Bird fan as a kid, but got confused about Big Bird’s adopted name, having not seen the movie in some years.
BUD79 – Bud couldn’t remember how old he was, so he put it on his license plate.
CME4HMS – Actually, this sounds like a church ad. But it was on a personal vehicle, as far as I could tell.
DAJAVOO – I know I’ve seen that misspelling on a license plate somewhere before . . .
DR WILD – After earning his Doctorate degree, Tarzan got a vanity plate.
ERS – This person is well known for saying “Er . . err . . . err . . .” all the time.
FAB4EVR – This person wants to be fabulous forever.
GIGI RN – This person constantly runs to the video store to rent the Leslie Caron movie Gigi.
HIJUMPA – Hi yourself, but my name’s not “Jumpa”.
ILPETER – This person is named Peter, and gets sick quite often. Hence the nickname.
ITLDO – This is James Cromwell’s car.
ITLNSUB – This person really, really loves Italian subs. That’s funny enough, I think.
KRACKRZ – I lay awake at night wishing this plate was my own.
LUVYAH – This person loves me.
MDYBLUZ – In high school, this fellow had a crush on a girl named “Mandy Blutz”, and he hopes she’ll notice his shout out to her on his vanity plate.
MJ PI – This person is a private investigator who only serves clients with the initials “MJ”.
MNTROLR – This car is owned by a cyborg named “Mantroller”.
MOHRPWR – This person still can’t believe FOX cancelled Action starring Jay Mohr, so he or she is trying to devise ways to bring it back, using everything in his or her power.
MRS3577 – This woman loves the number 3577 so much, she married it!
OUTBUGN – While driving, this VW owner listens to Bugs Bunny’s rap song from the Space Jam soundtrack.
PRA4SUN – This person wishes he or she didn’t live in North Dakota for eight months out of the year.
R3BOYS – These boys love Robocop 3.
SHARMAS – Sharmas MacPherson recently emigrated from Silly Stereotypeland
SKOOL – This person usually skipped.
SNAVELY – Sharmas’s brother, Snavely MacPherson
TMUP – This person really loves The Muppet Show.
TOMIGRL – This person wanted to dedicate his plate “To My Girl,” but he can’t spell very well.
TRI E2 – This person is asking “You too?” in Latin three times.
WANKER – I swear to you I am not making this up.
WN2BCEO – This person is a serious tool, I guarantee it.
WORDS – False. That is only one word.
WRKN4YA – I am this person’s boss.

Convenience Road Trip 2008

Yesterday, as my friend Justin and I traveled from Fargo to our hometown of Hatton, ND, we stopped at eight convenience stores. If you’ve never been to more than one gas station in the Midwest, you might assume they’re all the same. You’d be wrong. Here’s a summary of our trip:

Stop ‘N Go – Fargo, ND (71 miles from home): I bought some iced tea here, as well as gas (currently priced at one soul per gallon). Like every other convenience store in Fargo, there is absolutely nothing remarkable about this one. Everything is where you’d expect it to be, and it’s all very boring.

Cenex – Harwood, ND (64 miles from home): Harwood Cenex is the most perfectly designed convenience ever in the history of Earth. It has every food item you might expect to find in a gas station, and more. When you walk in, the bottled drinks are directly to your right. Keep walking, and you hit the fountain drinks and then the coffee and cappuccino. These curve around, until you find yourself unexpectedly walking past the onion rings, cheese sticks, rotisserie chicken, and other fresh-cooked fatty things. A slight left, and you’re right at the counter. This is only a sample, of course. The whole store is full of food, in well-stocked, well-spaced aisles. If there are convenience stores in heaven, they are exactly like Harwood Cenex.

Stop & Shop – Grandin, ND (45 miles from home): Stop & Shop is, in many ways, the opposite of Harwood Cenex. It’s on the other side of Interstate from the town, and the outside looks creepy and sketchy and not friendly at all, covered in words like “Food” and “Fuel” and “Groceries”. But inside, it’s like entering a new, crazy universe just bursting with character. The walls are adorned with things an old-fashioned, light-up Pabst Blue Ribbon clock and a North Dakota Centennial Flag from 1989. They’ll sell you a rake there, or a garden hoe. And, best of all, cappuccino is only $1.09 for 20 ounces. You can’t beat that!

Tesoro – Hillsboro, ND (33 miles from home): Hillsboro Tesoro used to pretty much wall-to-wall booze. Now, apparently, they keep it all hidden somewhere. As anyone who knows me could tell you, I’m no drinker, but at least it used to be interesting. Now it’s just nothing.

Cenex – Hillsboro, ND (33 miles from home): Directly across the street from Tesoro, Hillsboro Cenex is most notable for two things. 1) New release rentals are only $2 each if you get two of them, which is nice if you happen to live in Hillsboro. 2) It has a Burger King attached to it, which is even nicer if you happen to live in Hillsboro. I grew up in Hatton and went to college in Mayville. Neither of them has a Burger King. I used to dream about living in Hillsboro for that reason alone.

Cenex – Mayville, ND (16 miles from home): Mayville Cenex is *the* convenience store in my college town, so I spent a lot of time there for several years. It’s easy, then, to think of Cenex as an average gas station. It isn’t. It has a rack of inspirational Christian books in it, which is pretty awesome. Also, it has a cream dispenser instead of cups, which is pretty kooky.

Tesoro – Mayville, ND (15 miles from home): Mayville Tesoro is Cenex’s weird little brother, and it has the worst layout I’ve ever seen. It’s a tiny little box of a store, with the cashier enclosed in the center. As soon as you enter the store, you’re standing in line to check out. The aisles are extremely close together, and it’s impossible to find what you’re looking for. It’s the anti-Harwood-Cenex.

Cenex – Portland, ND (13 miles from home): Portland Cenex is huge, and is full of empty space. The shelves it does have are filled mostly with motor oil and spare tires. Also, it closes at 6 PM. What a weird, pointless inconvenience store.

Ampride – Hatton, ND (Home!): Being at Ampride is actually very much like being at my parents’ house. I can’t begin to be objective about it. In fact, they recently replaced Piccadilly Circus Pizza & Subs with Hot Stuff Pizza and SmashHits Subs. At the same time, my parents remodeled their kitchen. It doesn’t matter. Both of those places are still home.

In August, I’m heading off to Missouri for graduate school. I’m not really looking forward to the actual process of moving, except that I’ll probably get to stop at a bunch of interesting convenience stores on the way.

Is Anyone Still There?

You may have noticed that I’ve had this blog for nearly a year now, and I’ve only posted a handful of times. I always mean to post. I get ideas all the time, but when it comes time to type them up, I just don’t. Instead of typing up my thoughts about comics and TV and movies and music, I decide I’d rather spend my time watching or reading or listening to them. Or, frequently, reading blogs where other people write about them.

Well, no more. Starting today – June 24th, 2008, I’m going to update this blog every single day for the next year. It will continue to be a grab bag – most of the posts will be about comics, TV, movies and music, but I’ll also talk about other things if they happen to catch my fancy. Some of the posts will be serious thoughts, some of them will be satirical pieces, such as the Simpsons entry a few posts down. I trust my readers will be able to tell the difference.

I can’t promise that each day’s post(s) will set the world on fire, but there will be always be something new. You see, the blog is called “Zeppo Marxism” because Zeppo was the Marx Brother who provided a point-of-view for the audience. He was our window into the world of his crazier brothers. With this blog, I hope to provide a window to the world from my point of view. For the geeks out there, some of it should prove to be interesting.

Starting tomorrow, I’m going to introduce a new semi-regular feature and soon, I’m going to embark on a large project that I’ve been working on for some time. But come back tonight, for my thoughts on an actress who hasn’t been allowed to live up to her full potential.