Pop Culture 101: Back To School

Two things I learned while watching VH1's One Hit Wonders this weekend. Number one is that Eddie Brickell is married to Paul Simon. Number two is that one of the two marketing executives responsible for that seventies tune "Convoy" went on to be Mannhiem Steamroller. I guess there are three things I learned. Number three would be my interest in pop trivia ends in the late 80's or early 90's.

Alaska 2

Lisa's mom flew back to Denver today. She had a great time, which I'm happy about. They got to do a lot of site seeing while I was at work. We also got to do a few things together. One night we went to the Alaskan Salmon Bake which was nice. Good food and a neat little outdoor feel to it. We went on the 18th of May. On the 22nd of May however, it turns into 100% grade A tourist trap. A salmon dinner, salad bar, drink & dessert included, was $11.00 On the 22nd it goes up to $28.00!!! I guess the little old blue hairs expect to get fleeced on a Princess tour but my God.

Fairbanks is an odd place. It tends to be dirty, especially during break up. There isn't really a spring, summer, winter, fall. Break up could be considered spring. It lasts about ten days to 2 weeks and all the rock and ash that has been put down on the road starts to show through as the snow melts. It's an ugly period. The following week the street sweepers have collected the rock and the trees have leaves. If you notice it can kind of make your senses reel, if you don't notice I think it messes with your internal clock on a subconscious level. So much of this part of Alaska does that. From the constant sunlight in the summer to the constant night in the winter. This isn't a place to come to on a tour bus, you'll hate it, but if you want an out of body experience live here for a year.

Pop Culture 101 Dropout

I spent some of the day watching the first year's episodes of the Sopranos on DVD. I'm kind of enjoying it. I've only seen a few episodes before this. It was always too big with everyone. I'm always suspicious of the next big thing. I didn't even like the Simpsons for the first 3 seasons. There was an A-10 pilot in our squadron who had the call sign Bartman. He was the epitome of the Top Gun cliché. He actually carried a little battery operated blender (for making margaritas) around with him. I figured anything this jackass thought was cool had to be suspect. It's funny what we use to define our tastes. For years I hated Neil Young just because of "Sweet Home Alabama". Today I hate him for a whole other list of reasons but that's beside the point.
I am currently ignoring the pop culture phenomenons, Desperate Housewives and Lost. I've actually seen a few episodes of Lost but I don't like to get attached to a series. I hate missing one show and being behind. Or worse yet, your favorite show gets cancelled. I loved Firefly.
So to sum up I have not seen this season's American Idol, didn't know it was pronounced Fiddy, don't care that Tom Cruise is dating Katie Holmes, and I'm not quite sure who Katie Holmes is. In other words I'm working on becoming an old curmudgeon.

Politics On The Web, Include Me Out...

...almost.

My brother, Bryce, is a big blogger and I've enjoyed reading his blog Soldierant for a while. It's actually what helped inspire me to try this. That and the fact that I felt bad for writing long rambling email rants to him on things he didn't really care about. I take issue with the claim that I was inspired by Rosie O'Donnell's blog, however. I guess in a roundabout way it's true. At first I wanted to post rants of a political bent, I'm a Libertarian with conservative leanings. I figured given what I know of Rosie I would have a month's worth of material. It turns out that the most objectional thing I could find in my brief viewing was the weird haiku style she writes in.

I've decided to down play politics, everyone does it and none of us know what we are talking about. The level of hyperbole going around these days is starting to get scary. I don't agree with many of George Bush's policies but I didn't agree with a lot of Clinton's either but this stuff is getting ridiculous. Here's what I mean by hyperbole, and of course the the other side. Who knows the truth? But it seems that everyone agrees that in Newsweeks rush to come up with the next Abu Ghraib the magazine jeopardized it's journalistic integrity.

Well so much for keeping the politics down. I plan on covering my travels next time, I promise.

More to come...

Landing The Big One: a test

Landing The Big One,
originally uploaded by briankeithglass.

I've gone and jumped in the deep end of the blogsphere with no knowledge of what I'm doing, so this is a test. This should be fun and the people who find this site should get a kick out of watching me flounder. Speaking of flounder, here is a picture of me fishing. It's a post to try out the neat features of Flikr.com, a handy photo site that seems to be making this photos on blog process a lot easier (so far, we have to see how this comes out first).

Alaska

I've been back to Fairbanks Alaska since April 1st. It's like stepping back in to a life I left a long time ago. I was giddy with excitement. For some reason a recurring dream I have is going back to Fairbanks after being away. I was stationed here from 1987 to 1993 at Eielson A.F.B. So this was literally a dream come true. In the dream it never looked like it actually does. I got here and found the place hadn't changed at all really. All things considered it's a lot like I left it. With a few glaring additions. One is the ever present Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe's trifecta. There was one store in town you could get a t.v. and that was Fred Meyer. They are still here but the charm isn't. Fairbanks was always a little on the rundown side but it felt like a frontier town before. Now it just feels like another rundown dump with a Walmart. I'm being a little hard on the town though. It's still one of my favorite places. It's sort of a magical place in the winter and the weather is perfect in the summer. All in all I'm happy I got the chance to come back. And in a strange little twist, while I've been here Eielson A.F.B. was placed on the base realignmentt list. It isn't closing but it will be turned over to the Alaska Air National Guard. I can't help but think of the affect on the local economy. And for obvious sentimental reasons I personally hate to see it close.

More to come...

My Opinions Are Based On...

nothing. I post a lot of nonsense here. My opinions are fluid. My views change from minute to minute like most peoples. I hope anyone that is offended by some silly statement I make here will keep in mind that the sum of people who will post something to the internet is more than the post. If that made any sense.

Basically you would probably be surprised if you met me in person. I'm a lot less paranoid, and a lot more happy than what usually comes through here. I'm also very tolerant of other's views. I don't like liberals more than I don't like conservatives but I still don't like conservatives. But that's the collective liberal or conservative mind set as a whole not individuals. I have good friends in both camps. And as for celebrities, I don't worry if I offend anyone because I think we can all agree, celebrities are stupid.

So, I hope you take all of this in the spirit it was intended, just me spouting goofy shit sometimes.

First Post

Just enough time to post a short one. I'm waiting on Lisa, my girlfriend. There's not enough time to cover what she means to me right now. I'm in Fairbanks Alaska, watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Lisa & her mom are on the way. More to come...