Completely Conspicuous 429: Keeping It Real

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss the difficulties of avoiding cynicism. Listen to the episode below or download directly.
 

Show notes:
- Check out Matt's new book Like a Comet: The Indestructibles Book 4
- People are desperate for fame
- Matt auditioned for season 2 of The Real World
- The savvy of Boston Rob
- Chewbacca Mom is pushing it
- Trump tapped into a vein of discontent
- He's got a way with nicknames
- We've got issues
- Fat, but not happy
- It's not a bad thing to be cynical
- Changing your Twitter icon or FB profile pic is pointless
- David Cameron and the pig's head
- Sinking to meme level
- The Internet never forgets
- Power + opportunity = Bad life choices
- We're going to remain cynical

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 428: Absolutely Cynical

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss the difficulties of avoiding cynicism. Listen to the episode below or download directly.
 

Show notes:
- Check out Matt's new book Like a Comet: The Indestructibles Book 4
- It's hard not to be cynical these days
- Politics are infuriating in general
- Soccer hooligans can spread joy, too
- Getting cynicism drummed into you as a young reporter
- Kids, don't go into journalism
- NIMBY remains a strong force
- Matt made the mistake of going to back to newspapers a few years ago
- Facts, schmacts
- Saying something stupid won't tank your campaign anymore
- Tapping into frustrated and angry voters
- Blindly loyal political supporters
- Stupid can win
- People are tired of hearing from so-called experts
- Jay: Reality TV makes me cynical
- The Duggars had a show because they had 19 kids
- Some people find The Bachelor fascinating
- So many kids these days have the drive to become famous
- The abnormal lives of huge celebrities
- Tom Cruise can't relate to normal people
- To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Great Expectations

Ah, these are heady, historic times. Barack Obama is sworn in as president tomorrow and all weekend, it's been all inauguration, all the time on the cable news networks. Which is cool, but I'm approaching this with a tempered attitude. I am certainly glad Dubya is history, but I also don't think Obama going to come in, snap his fingers and make everything magically better. He's picked a tough time to be president, inheriting a massive pile of crap from his predecessor. I think he knows that and seems to be pretty level-headed about preparing for it. I just hope people don't expect everything to suddenly change at 12:01 p.m. on January 20. Our economy's still on life support. The Middle East is still very unstable. There are many crises to deal with. Here's hoping Obama makes the right moves to get us back on the right path.

So I wimped out on Saturday and ran my 15-miler inside on a treadmill. I just couldn't get myself to run outside; it was about 8 degrees out. I broke up the run into 5-mile segments and it wasn't too bad. But next weekend's 17-miler is definitely going to be on the road. Of course, we've gotten so much snow in the past few days, there's even less room for runners out there. It's going to be a tough couple of months of training.

Here's the latest running column, which came out last Thursday.

I played hockey last week for the first time in a month and of course, there were no subs. Which meant I was out there for 90 straight minutes. I was really dragging ass at times, but managed to get a second or third wind at the end of the night and popped in a couple of late goals. I was seriously hurting the next day or two, just really sore. This week shouldn't be so rough.

Yesterday, other than shoveling snow, I did not go anywhere. Instead, I took on some projects that I've been delaying for quite a while. The recent cold snap finally got me to weatherproof our windows, which let in a lot of drafty air. And I finally went through all my t-shirts to organize and cull the herd, if you will. I wear t-shirts every damn day. I've got shirts from my college days, old concert shirts, and tons of race shirts. I had to get cold and junk a lot of old shirts that were just getting nasty, as well as a bunch that I just never wear. I ended up filling a big trash bag, which I'll drop off at a Goodwill box. I still have a boatload of shirts, but at least I know where everything is now.