The Blog

Spring training is finally upon us, which means Matthew is already asking about fantasy baseball (and has been for a few weeks now). It also means ESPN is worth watching at two in the afternoon. Yesterday, I had the Braves/Astros game on my office TV while I was grading some papers. Spring training bottom lines are usually full of fantasy figurations (a.k.a. the process of making the figure 8). This year, there seems to be a new feature – I've never seen it before. This year, the ESPN fantasy gurus will fill your bottom line with "Top 3 Outfielders [or whatever] On the Decline." Kind of a depressing feature, but I suppose it's useful information for fantasy players. The big surprise, though, was who was on the list for outfielders (the only list I actually caught all of):

1. Nick Swisher (no real surprise)
   
2. Gary Matthews, Jr. (another shocker)
   
3. Andruw Jones
   

Now here's where I have problems. There's no way Andruw should be #3 on this list. If he's on it at all, he should be #1. He's earned it. But, honestly, he shouldn't even be in contention. He's signed a minor league contract with the Rangers. Is he really going to see much daylight behind last year's #1 OF "On the Rise" Josh Hamilton?

So, I got this wild idea last night to try to determine which NCAA basketball conferences have the most teams with zero non-conference losses. I knew, when I made this plan, that the ACC has three: Clemson, Wake, and UNC. My goal was to make a worthwhile comparison between the ACC and the Big East, thereby evaluating the strength of the respective conferences in some meaningful way. I figured that this calculation would prove (in a small way) that the ACC is the stronger conference because they only lose to each other. So, anyhow, it turns out both Connecticut and Pittsburgh also have zero non-conference losses, and a 3-to-2 ratio doesn't really prove dominance. I suppose I could argue that 3 out of 12-to-2 out of 16 is a more meaningful comparison, but who really wants to do that? It might also be worth mentioning that ACC teams have an average 2.25 non-conference losses, while Big East teams average 2.75. But I don't know if you go in for that sort of thing.

Another interesting tidbit that came out of this process: Stanford is the only Pac-10 team with zero non-conference losses, but they still have 11 losses on the season (4-11 in conference play).

The fourth and final Futurama "movie" was released this week. It was less than spectacular, but none of the recent movie releases have come close to the show's original brilliance, which doesn't bode well for the upcoming Arrested Development movie that has evidently been confirmed.

QotD (submitted by m, not to be confused with M from MI-6):

What names should have "the" before them?

My take: The Batman is always good, but I'm going to have to go with the Austin because if you know the Austin, then you don't really need to know any others.

Aristotle was a dude

UNCW's network is just being silly today. Hopefully, I can post this blog without too much trouble. Probably won't have many (or any) links, though, if the network doesn't start working better. I've got no internets.

Fortunately, this is a blog for class, so my primary source will be a book (imagine that). For this week's class, we read Aristotle who, by the way, probably invented the Internet, considering he invented pretty much every other way that we think about things now. Or at least suggested them. Reading through his writings, a lot of his ideas seem pretty obvious, but that's probably because they've been generally accepted as true for a couple thousand years now. For example, he says:

"If a man was able and wished to do a thing, he must have done it; for all men do a thing, when they are able and resolve to do it, for nothing hinders them." (140)

And

"And if anything was on the point of being done, it most probably was done; for it is likely that one who was on the point of doing something has carried it out." (141)

Thanks, Aristotle. That's really helpful information. At times his writing reminds me of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood or the old "Grayson Moorhead Securities" SNL commercial parodies (the internet is back) where the leader of an investment bank explains how the bank works. He has to tell his employees to make a list of their clients and how much money they owe and to keep that list in a safe place, like in a safe. And then he tells them to not leave clients' money lying around, but keep it in a safe place, like in the safe where they keep the list. It's all very didactic with pretty obvious information. Of course, keeping in mind, that, at one point, people probably didn't know that men usually do things that they're on the verge of doing or that they should wear a sweater if it's cold out or that keeping cash investments in freezers isn't a good idea. So, keep the list in a safe.

But alongside this obvious and didactic material, Aristotle has some pretty deep ideas. Dr. Atkins, my (sort of) boss, observed my Lit class today. Before class started, he and I were chatting about Aristotle (as one often does), and he mentioned that the meaning of a lot of what Aristotle wrote is still intensely debated in composition circles. For example: What the hell is an enthymeme? What does Aristotle mean by topoi or topics? What's the difference between dialectic and rhetoric?

From reading George A. Kennedy's take on Aristotle, I learned that Aristotle wrote a lot of his works at completely different times and didn't necessarily go back and edit for consistency. For this reason, I don't think these composition debates will really ever be solved or should be for that matter. I don't see any reason to try to figure out what Aristotle was thinking while writing (an intentional fallacy, for any of my Lit students who are paying attention). I think it's more important to consider what we're thinking when we read Aristotle.

I suppose I'm suggesting a dialectic approach to rhetoric: we should be in conversation with the text to find truth between us and the text and not seek truth in the text.

Anyhow…

I didn't even realize Wake and Duke played yesterday until I saw the highlights on SportsCenter this morning. From what I saw, it didn't look like Wake realized it either until the second half. Even with the Duke win and UNC's loss to Maryland and General Greivis Vasquez, UNC will still win the ACC if they "win out," as the saying goes. There are only three games left on their schedule.

Kevin Garnett is sidelined for a few weeks here, which I guess makes Rajon Rondo the best player in Boston.

Well, I need to start grading. Sorry for the short sports news. I guess.

I also have a sudden urge to talk about the Oscars, but I didn't watch and my internets are acting up again.

QotD:

What word(s) need an "s" on the end?

My take: Internets, of course, and many others.

Golem's take: Preciouses.

Sal from Futurama: Insanes, whoas, and a bunch of others.

Salma Hayek in 30 Rock: Underwears.

Boater?

Lots of stuff to talk about today.

Firstly, I have a new blog up on the Star-News blog. It's about the new GTA content, The Lost and Damned. So check that out if you want.

Secondly, I watched Sunday's episode of Flight of the Conchords for the third time yesterday, but it was the first time that I noticed that it was directed by Michel Gondry of Eternal Sunshine and Dave Chappelle's Block Party fame. After I realized this, I could definitely see his influence. The Australian's apartment was full of the sort of detail that Gondry is known for. He's known for his attention to in-frame detail. And "Carol Brown" definitely reminded me of both Eternal Sunshine and Be Kind Rewind, another Gondry affair. Either way, this episode of Flight was by far the best of this young second season.

Thirdly, it appears Andy Samberg's The Lonely Island group has a CD out now. I only found out about this because I asked my students to write about and talk about music, and Jake brought up "I'm on a Boat," featuring T-Pain, which I'd never heard/seen. It's great. You should watch, but it's definitely NSFW, as they say. Ironically, I did deem it "safe for class," so I suppose it is safe for my work.

Fourthly, speaking of class and blogs, I asked my 110 class to blog in third-person. The results were often hilarious, so you might want to check some of those out.

Finally, the NBA trade deadline has passed us by. I agree with Jamaal Mashburn when he says that the Magic made the most important move in grabbing Rafer Alston. I know it's not flashy, but nothing at the deadline really was, especially considering the Tyson Chandler trade fell through. Rashad McCants moved to Sacramento, evidently because he hasn't been playing well. I wasn't aware. Of course, the biggest news of this deadline was economics, either the current American (or Canadian) economy or the 2010 free-agent talent surplus. Contracts that expire next year were the hottest commodity at this deadline.

And super-finally: QotD:

If you won a free boat ride for three, who would you take?

My take: Charles and Tina Fey.

UNC/NC State Gameblog

All right, so, time for a gameblog. For some reason, I like to call these blogs (as often as they are) "live blogs," even though they're not any more "live" than any of my other blogs. Anyhow, this is how it works: I'm going to watch the UNC/NC State game that starts here in a few minutes and blog my thoughts throughout. I asked my students to blog while watching TV (by Friday), so we'll see how they do it, but I like to put up time tabs along with my periodic comments. Time to get started.

8:00 p.m.

This is a local game, probably Ray-Comm, so we'll have to sit through some weird local color that focuses much more on ACC history than it does on current NCAA basketball.

8:01

First commercial break. Another great asset of local coverage: the tip time seems to be delayed from what a nationally-covered game would be. Maybe I just made that up though.

8:02

I hate the Sonic "confessional drive-thru" commercials. I don't know why they make me think of confessionals. They don't make me want to go to Sonic.

8:03

We have two TVs in my living room, so I've got the Providence/Louisville game on our second TV. It's already 36-35, and coverage started at 7:30. There's no way that would happen in a local game since tip won't be for another 10 or 15 minutes.

8:05

Just kidding. They just tipped the ball. State won it sloppily.

8:06

Hansbrough just air-balled a 15-footer, and Costner and McCauley both have a bucket already. I don't know that UNC wants to beat State inside, especially considering State's PG situation.

8:07

Mike Giminski just said almost exactly what I did. (And then Hansbrough got a dunk and a foul in transition, where most of his paint points may come tonight.)

8:09

Sidney Lowe's red jacket. Don't know what else to say.

8:10

UNC's biggest question is defense. They just had four guys in the paint; State had zero. Good spacing.

8:13

First commercial break (during the game). It started with Bryan's favorite Super Bowl commercial, where a guy gets kicked out of the window of a meeting for suggesting they stop buying Bud Light for each meeting. I still prefer the E*Trade baby.

8:15

Gov. Bev Purdue just got some TV time. Remember when John Edwards' presence was noteworthy? I'm sure he's still there, but I doubt he'll get on TV, unless it's on TMZ.

8:17

Bobby Frasor came in pretty early in this game.

Looks like we might have chippy fouls called in this game, hopefully not like LeBron/Granger.

8:18

(So far) unnamed announcer just announced that Tyler Zeller is expected to "make an appearance" in this game. That'd be good news for UNC's depth, especially with guys named "Ty."

8:21

Next commercial break. Can you believe the Pepsi Max commercial? The diet soda for men? Really?

8:22

And it's followed by a Hardee's commercial. Do men watch sports? Is that how that works?

8:24

Evidently, this game was tied in every (statistical) way, until Hansbrough hit two free throws.

8:26

I know I've only suggested this in my own home, but how has the nickname "Drew Two" not caught on for Larry Drew II? He should just spell out "two" on the back of his jersey.

8:27

Tim Brando. It's Tim Brando.

8:28

And here he comes… Tyler Zeller is now awkwardly running up and down the court. And he immediately gets beat on the defensive end.

8:29

The refs just called the third travel in about twelve minutes on an obvious hook by Danny Green. I prefer the travel over the personal foul.

8:31

Wow. UNC-W's score just flashed on the bottom screen. They're down 71-49. Ouch.

8:33

Zeller just scored his first points since November.

8:34

Giminski seems to like Green as much as I do, well not as much. But, to be fair, I actually went to school with him. (Though, I guess Giminski has probably actually met him.)

8:37

Fouls are still flowing fairly easily.

8:38

"Due to ACC basketball, Knight Rider moves to 2:05A-3:03A tonight only." Set your DVRs and/or KITTs.

8:40

Austin just showed up. Now I can stop bouncing my blog ideas off of Ozzie and get some actual human feedback.

8:45

The last few minutes have been pretty sloppy and hectic, which I think favors UNC in almost any game they play.

Hansbrough just shot a 3-pointer. And missed.

8:46

Halftime. I'll probably slow my comments for now, since I've been typing pretty non-stop since tipoff.

8:49

Austin: "I'm growing a ponytail."

8:55

Austin just switched the TV to American Idol. So, this blog will probably make sense to two people. I wrote last time about my audience and I having similar experiences when I wrote on MySpace. For this game, I don't even think my MySpace audience would have this experience.

8:57

Okay, so we're watching American Idol for real now. I didn't realize Robert Downey, Jr. was in the age range, or did they get rid of that? Plus, I though AI was on Tuesdays?

8:59

Evidently Anoop is done. Oh well.

9:00

Dwight from The Office, however, is still in the running.

9:02

I still look through crowd shots for people I know even though I only saw about four people I knew on camera when I went to UNC, and now I only know about 5 people who go there.

Second half started.

9:03

Giminski and Brando are comparing the effectiveness of home and road zone defenses.

9:04

UNC already looks more energetic than NC State. This is usually how the second half goes for UNC.

9:05

Vroom, vroom, varty starter.

9:07

Austin hates Alltel commercials as much as I hate Geico commercials.

9:08

Raycom always asks text-in fan poll questions that would theoretically split the viewing fan-base of the teams involved. But they never seem to consider the fact that somewhere between 12,00 (in Cameron) or up to maybe 20,000 fans for one of the two involved teams are actually at the game and can't answer the question. It's a flawed system.

9:10

UNC now has a 13-point lead, so I feel like I have the freedom to rant about silly poll questions.

9:11

15-point lead.

9:12

Hansbrough just did "the Hansbrough," the move where he does a half-hook over his guy from right outside the block.

Brando just made the first reference to Sid Lowe's "NBA influence." State doesn't play defense and plays one-on-one offense (for the most part), and the NBA influence is just now presenting itself.

9:17

Austin and I just had a five-minute conversation about Explorers and the new registration/inspection laws in NC. Yeah, it's that exciting of a game.

9:18

Ellington just threw the ball 20 feet in the air on a wide-open layup opportunity.

9:19

Giminski called that play a "huge break" for NC State. Ellington needs some of that LeBron chalk that we see so much of nowadays.

Zeller's back in.

9:21

I'm not sure what the value of a blog like this would be to anybody (especially anybody who hasn't watched the game). For my class, I'm hoping to explain it as an experiment in understanding how TV works as a communicative medium. I think the randomness/ADD factor of TV translates well to the internet and blogging, in particular.

9:25

It's now a single-digit game, but I don't think anybody believes that State has a chance.

9:26

Austin just announced Bryan's arrival. Usually, Ozzie has that honor.

Bryan entered with his typical "'Sup boys?"

9:27

UNC is definitely packing it in on the defensive end.

9:28

Austin is recapping his blog clowning to Bryan. Bryan says I can't clown a contributor.

Talk of Flight of the Conchords happened in the interim.

Bowie's in space.

9:30

The Louisville/Providence game just wrapped up. Providence had nothing for them.

OSU/Texas Tech is next.

9:32

What is G? The biggest sports marketing giant other than Nike and the Yankees (or maybe AC Milan).

9:35

I just saved this document for the first time tonight. Smart.

9:36

Bryan is making a pizza that probably cost 25¢. And the "cent" symbol is incredibly hard to find in Word.

9:37

77-59 and I'm ready to call this game.

9:38

And OSU takes an early 2-0 lead. (I have to create some excitement somewhere.)

Oh wait: Pat Knight's on TV. What else can we ask for?

9:40

Brando and Giminski are a 5-0 Carolina run away from talking about Lost and the 1972 Dolphins. I guess I'm no better.

9:41

Austin rescinds his "ponytail" comment.

9:42

Bryan hands out free bagels for everybody.

Except Ozzie.

9:43

Austin is going to heat up his bagel and put an egg on it.

This blog has really gone south. When does Justin Watts come in?

9:45

Evidently, I'm "taking up all the internet."

Bryan's "pizza" is done. I just want it on record that it only took nine minutes to cook.

9:46

Oh wait. He added three minutes to the timer.

9:49

Looks like Ken Griffey, Jr. is going back to the Mariners. Bryan was hoping he'd go to Atlanta. The Mariners could sneak back to .500 this year. That could be fun.

9:50

One minute. One minute remaining.

9:51

Another UNC win. Now it's time to watch Flight of the Conchords and Family Guy from Sunday.

I think I'll just post this now and hope it doesn't need edits. Here's hoping.

BREAK THEM ANKLES

The Slam Dunk Contest was about as exciting as I expected: mildly exciting. Based on his second-round performance (or, more specifically Dwight Howard's second-round performance), Nate Robinson actually deserved to win this time. Of course, the first round was completely screwed/much more better. Rudy Fernandez was incredibly shorted, in my opinion. His dunks weren't flashy or exciting, but they were damn difficult, which is why he took the full two minutes plus one of his two extra attempts to make his second dunk.

Either way, the formatting was really the loser in the competition. Even I could get a decent dunk going if I had two minutes and unlimited use of props (and then another two attempts). I feel like they should be given two attempts, and that's it. Nobody ever scores highly after multiple attempts anyhow.

Speaking of formatting, the Skills Challenge needs a freestyle segment or something. It would potentially have some of the same problems as the Dunk Contest, what with the judging and all, but it might work.

H-O-R-S-E, or G-E-I-C-O, as it were, looks like it might work too, but it looked like (from the limited clips I saw) most of the shots were just long jump shots. H-O-R-S-E could, theoretically allow for more creativity than the Dunk Contest, which, I think, is meant to be the "creative" portion of the weekend.

The All-Star Game, itself, was good for about a half, ironically the first half. I was surprised at how many of the players seemed to care during the first half of the game. After that, it was pretty clear that Kobe Bryant was significantly better than the rest of the players, at least for that night.

(Speaking of Kobe, the best NBA news of the weekend was probably this commercial. Bryan and I found it on Xbox Live, but you should be able to find it on that page. It's definitely worth the watching.)

Kobe deserved the MVP award, which he ended up splitting with Shaq. I feel the hand of David Stern behind this share. Despite Kobe's performance, Shaq was the much more marketable entity last night, first, as the Big JabbaWockee and, later, as an extremely active, but often out-of-place Jack-of-all-trades in the game. He was entertaining. But, the NBA clearly stands to benefit from the Shaq and Kobe reunion ending like that. David Stern is, I'm sure, actively aware of that fact.

My next blog may be a game blog that I write during Wednesday's NC State/UNC game because I want to ask my students to write a blog while watching TV. Admittedly, I don't do the game blogs as well as Bill Simmons, but they can still be fun.

By the way, Pittsburgh/Connecticut is tonight.

So, I've had this blog finished for about two hours now, but haven't posted it yet because I've been reading my old MySpace blog, which I still find hilarious. I mentioned last time that I don't know why that blog was funnier than this one tends to be. And Bryan and I talked about it a little over the weekend. He pointed out that my audience has changed, which is clearly true. My MySpace audience consisted of about 5 people. Now, theoretically, I'm read by more than that.

But that only halfway explains it. I think I've figured it out though: in the old blog, I would write about things without really explaining them at all, but it worked because I knew that everybody who read my blog knew what I was talking about – usually sports. Now, I have no idea if that's true, so I feel like (a) I spend more time explaining things and (b) I don't write about as many random things as I used to (because then I'd have to explain them). But maybe I'm wrong here.

Of course, one of the benefits of blogging is that I could use links to explain things, instead of explaining them myself. So, maybe the problem is that I'm not using links that effectively, ostensibly because I'm not as tapped in to the news as I was when I was in school for journalism. So, maybe that's involved too. Don't know.

QotD:

Ankle insurance or Zoom Kobe IV?

My take: Ankle insurance. I'm not always wearing shoes, and I need to know that my ankles will always be protected.

McDLT

Here's what I don't get about gravity: Earth's gravity is always talked about as a "constant," roughly 9.8 m/s². But, due to a number of factors, things very rarely fall with the same acceleration, either in comparison to each other or even over time (since one of those factors is altitude, and falling necessitates changes in altitude). So, why do we talk about Earth's gravitational pull as a "constant"?

I bring this up because the Demon Deacons are near nine-point-eight, if they haven't reached it already. They're falling hard. NC State? Really? Pretty soon they'll be behind Clemson in both the ACC standings and the polls. They're going to have to start winning if they don't want to end up playing on my birthday in Atlanta.

UNC, on the other hand, may have entered orbit. They looked like they were cruising against Duke on Wednesday. Lawson, who played exceptionally well in that game, has really turned it on since the two losses, which is good considering he's pretty much what drives the team. It seems like I have this conversation about Lawson every year around this time. I looked back through some MySpace blogs to see if I could verify that. I couldn't, but I learned two things: that blog was a long time ago, and it was a lot funnier than this one. I don't know what's happened to me.

There's been a lot of other important/interesting sports news lately, and a lot of it rhymed (A-Rod's "shame," Phelps' blame, some sort of game, Notre Dame). So, I thought about writing some sort of Dr. Seuss limerick, but I just now realized that I could rhyme Notre Dame, and three rhymes weren't enough. Now I feel the moment has passed. (I also thought, for some reason, that I could rhyme Todd McShayne, but it turns out his name is McShay, which doesn't rhyme, even approximately.)

Tomorrow's Valentine's Day, and we're getting a little slam dunk love from the NBA. Today is the first time that I saw who the participants are, and I'm considerably pissed off about Nate Robinson's return. His Spud Webb-aided theft of the '06 dunking crown from Andre Iguodala was one of the biggest shams in professional sports history. I don't care how short Robinson is, Iguodala put on the best show since Vince Carter. Dwight Howard put on a performance of similar quality last year, though I wasn't a big fan of the Superman dunk.

I've been having individual conferences with my students Wednesday and today. Most of my students came Wednesday, so it was busy as hell, which is why I didn't write a blog. Today's a little more relaxed, appropriate for a Friday.

Joss Whedon's Dollhouse starts tonight on FOX. It's definitely something I'll be checking out, though probably not tonight. You still can and should watch Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. That is, if you like things that are funny and entertaining.

QotD:

What do you like in your McFlurry (or ice cream)?

My take: I guess Oreos (or whatever Oreo substitute McDonald's uses) is pretty boring, but that's probably what I'd go with if I ever bought a McFlurry again.

WC

I asked my 101 class to blog about their most commonly used words last week. I think it went pretty well because they took it fairly seriously. It turns out we all use the word "awesome" way too much, which is funny because that word really works best on a scarcity principle. Anyhow, they're some interesting blogs, if you're bored.

The point was to get them to notice and focus on word choice. We read some (very) classical rhetoric for my class (Homer, Thucydides, Herodotus), and I noticed that all three are very aware of Rhetoric, even though their writings might be classified as literature or something else. So, I started thinking about how/if modern "art" pays such heed to the art of Rhetoric, and I decided that there is still a pretty large focus on word choice.

Specifically, I was thinking of Arrested Development, which I often do, and Gob and other character's constant misuse of words, and Michael's constant correction of them. The big one, of course, being "circumvent," which Gob pronounces "sirsumvent" and occasionally "sirsumvrent." The joke, in this case, is that Gob's use of words that he doesn't really know makes him look like an idiot.

There are also a couple of instances where Gob and Michael square off in speechifying, for one reason or another, much like what happens between the characters in the classics. Gob usually relies on his "illusions" as an often frustratingly effective rhetorical method to wow his audience, while Michael uses words and logic and stuff. Gob tends to win these showdowns, suggesting that the audience (usually the Bluth employees) is more interested in flash than Michael's sound business sense.

It's hard for me not to connect everything to Arrested.

Back to word choice: I had a brief conversation with my Lit class today about their use of the words "song" and "poem" in their first essay, which is an attempt to prove that a particular song is or is not poetry. They seemed fairly in tune with the difficulties of both adhering to the guidelines/suggestions laid down in the prompt and the benefits of toying with the two words. We decided there were really two paths to take: (1) use the words interchangeably, suggesting that there is little to no difference between the genres or (2) call the song a poem the whole time, suggesting that they actually believe that their particular song is poetry. I think either works, and the difference may seem slight, but there is definitely a difference. Admittedly, the whole class wasn't involved with the discussion, but my hope is that they all take such a deliberative approach to word choice in this and all their writings.

On another note, this whole "steroids era" of baseball is still fairly enigmatic for me. I don't understand why we, as a culture, are willing to dub it an "era" but are still surprised that major leaguers took steroids. There are two columns along with that first story that suggest that A-Rod is now "tainted" or "tarnished," but I disagree with the assumption behind those statements: that individual players should be individually affected by this. I think we've gotten past the point (or at least should be past the point) where we can just blame a couple people and get over it. It's not a couple people anymore. I think this personal accountability track can only end in the ultimate dismantling of MLB. Instead, I say let's blame the whole sport and sports culture and accept that everybody took steroids. Because (to quote Syndrome) if everybody's special, no one is, and we can get back to playing baseball.

QotD:

How will the "steroids era" end?

My take: Despite my hopefulness in the preceding paragraph, I imagine it will end in a number of arrests, an empty decade for the Hall of Fame, and a significant dip in both talent level and popularity for the League, proper. In fact, I feel like Roger Clemens, instead of fighting so hard to protect his "innocence," should have pushed harder to get into prison before W. left office because then he could have at least been pardoned. And anybody that thinks Barry Bonds won't be convicted is bonkers.

Cowabunga

I (finally) graded my students' blogs yesterday. A lot of them did well. Jessica, Cassie, Ricky, Hillary, Kirsten, and David wrote the best blogs from my 101 class (from my perspective). Chaffin, Laura, Erin, Kristen, Max, Rhett, Sydney, and Layne wrote the best blogs from my literature class.

Coincidently, the one class that I'm a student in this semester requires me to blog, and I'm hoping to just post those here. This just means that I'll be blogging (somewhat specifically) on rhetoric about once a week for a while. But I tend to do that in one way or another anyhow. Now, it'll just be more blatant.

For example, we've been reading some of (one-time Tar Heel) George A. Kennedy's Classical Rhetoric. Very early on, he states something that I try to convince all of my classes of:

All communication involves rhetoric. A speaker or writer has some kind of purpose, and rhetoric includes the ways of accomplishing, or attempting to accomplish, that purpose within a given culture. (1-2)

I tend to express this idea more colloquially, usually in the form of the title of a common composition textbook: Everything's an Argument. I try to impress this concept onto my students early and often, even in literature classes.

I've been paying more attention to the rhetoric of advertising, lately. I say "more" because I have always seen through the rhetorical screens of most advertising (not those Ninja Turtle toy commercials, though - they worked every time) and have been fairly successful at avoiding advertisers' sought-after impulse buying.

At any rate, appeals to the wallet have become much more prevalent these days, for obvious reasons. There is almost always some appeal to the wallet in advertisement, considering most ads do try to convince us to buy things. The interesting twist I've seen lately is that some companies are using the term "confidence," as in, "You can be confident in buying our product." I can't remember specifically which commercials use the word (wish I could), but it's implied in the Hyundai Assurance program, wherein they'll "let you return" your car if you lose your income within a year of purchase. I think the "confidence" routine suggests that these companies assume that you're not planning on spending much money at all, whereas I think most companies assume you do have a lot of money to spend. Obviously, the word "guarantee" has been used in this same sense for many years, but I think it has grown tired, hence the move to "confidence." It may seem like a minor change, but these are potentially million-dollar decisions.

Speaking of money, I tend to think many human actions are economically motivated. That's why, when I discovered ashleymadison.com, I assumed that it was a service for people who married into money, possibly those who signed prenups. I'd guess/hope that none of you have come across The Ashley Madison Agency, so it might need some explaining: it's basically a dating/hook up service for married people. The Agency evidently created a Super Bowl ad, but it was "banned in US. Ran in Texas," according to YouTube. Their tagline, at least from the commercial, is: "When divorce isn't an option," or more specifically, "When Divorce isn't an Option." My first assumption, based solely on the ad, was that it was directed towards people with religions that frown upon and/or explicitly deny the Option of Divorce. However, when I discovered the option over Divorce was, in fact, adultery, I assumed that the Agency wasn't aiming for the religious crowd. My only guess, then, is that Divorce isn't an Option because the divorced person would be too poor – post-divorce – to support some desired lifestyle. I suppose there may also be a concern for children's well-being? These are really the only reasons that I could imagine eliminating the Option of Divorce. I think the married-for-money crowd is probably the best target audience, though, considering they would, theoretically, have the money to spend on illicit affairs and illicit-affair creating devices like the Agency.

I've also recently been enthralled by local commercials for Powell Bail Bonding, one of which, though admittedly the least interesting of which, can be seen on their website. Local commercials often have an enhanced sense of bodily communication. You can see in that ad how Zack is particularly uncomfortable in his context. "Katt" seems a little more comfortable – bodily – but there is still an odd emphasis on what he's doing with his hands. Interesting tidbit: Katt was in the first two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, according to his bio. That explains his level of comfort in this ad.

Speaking of visual communication, I (regrettably) watched Hitman last night. I imagine this movie was greenlit specifically for its visual elements, namely the fairly constant nudity of model Olga Kurylenko (which can sell a lot of movie tickets) and shots like this:

These extremely common shots of action going on beyond Agent 47's head and trademark barcode tattoo mimic the feeling of the Hitman games, and I assume this was one of the major selling points for this movie. Beyond that, there wasn't much interesting about this poorly made movie. (By the way, it is nearly impossible to work with pictures on blogger.)

Question of the Day:

Which Ninja Turtle were/are you?

My take: Austin always claims that he was Donatello, which would theoretically make me the Raphael, but I remember more vividly my time as Donatello when playing with Matthew and his brother Nathan. Plus, Donatello resonates more with my own current sense of self, even though I was definitely a bit Raphael-esque at times in my childhood.

Shankopotamus.

So, the Super Bowl happened. And it was actually a really good game, which is always a nice touch. My favorite part about the Super Bowl, though, is that football is finally (sort of) over, and we can get to talking about the sports that actually matter, like tennis and swimming.

Or basketball. We could talk about basketball.

My dad suggested a QotD about Jay Bilas' and Bob Knight's comments about the recent Maryland controversy. I didn't hear the comments, though, so I couldn't really form a question; plus, I have a more important question, I guess. Anyhow, I'm not sure that Gary Williams will last much longer at Maryland, considering the circumstances. It's not like he's winning.

Carolina looked good Saturday in Raleigh. I was especially impressed by Ty Lawson, who seemed like he was finally willing to try to score a little more often (and in the half-court). Wake looked a little worse against GT. I think they might have had a case to move back to No. 1, if they could have won out. Instead, it looks like UCONN will move back there, for now.

I didn't realize how excited I was for that UCONN/Louisville game until just now. Plus, Chuck, Heroes, and One Way Out are on tonight. And I can watch last night's Flight. Should be a good night.

We're talking about songs as poetry in my literature class. I'm planning on playing some Flight for my class.

I'm also grading my students' blogs today, so potentially, in my next blog, I would commend those who are doing well (or getting As).

QotD:

Favorite Super Bowl commercial?

My take: I probably laughed the hardest at Carlos Boozer's use of the word "bling," but it wasn't a great commercial. But, obviously, my vote goes to the E*Trade baby.