Love/Hate

So this year I've blossomed into a full blown fantasy football nerd. It's great. There is a massive amount of coverage on fantasy sports these days. The information that you have instant access to is just silly. ESPN has several columnists dedicated to covering fantasy sports. The most well known is Matthew Barry, who, every week writes a "Love/Hate" column. In it, he talks about players who will do better than predicted (the players he loves) and the players who won't live up to their statistical predictions (players he hates). So I'm going to do a little something similar, kind of. Things I'm loving and hating right now. I know hate is a strong word, I really don't, blah blah here's the list:

Love
-The rise (or return) of the "vocoder" effect in pop music. You know what I'm talking about; remember that Cher song "Believe"? It's in there a couple times. Most Daft Punk songs, Hellogoodbye uses it, and pretty much every song T Pain is involved in. I'm a sucker for that little effect.

-Winter weather. In St. Louis it has been getting chilly which always makes me feel festive. Although, we didn't get any snow like a lot of the country did this week.

-Although I said it above, Fantasy Football. It makes every game fun, because chances are you're rooting for a player on your team or against one of your opponents players.

-Favorite TV shows online. This amazes me. I don't have cable, so I can keep up with my favorite sports show everyday, for free!Also I have worship band rehearsal during The Office, so I can keep up with that as well. Although, more on this topic below.

-Family and friends in the coming weeks- 2 weddings, a fiance coming home, a visit with the family, and my Grandma's birthday party...at Red Lobster!

-Registry. What a great idea. "Alright guys, I'm gettin married, and I need some stuff. Here's a list for your convenience."

Hate
-The writers strike. I think it is kind of cool that the writers are stickin it to the man. That I salute. However, NBC and whoever else needs to get with it and pay these people. From what I can gather, the writers weren't getting revenues from newer sources of viewership like iTunes or online advertising. C'mon guys, buck up.

-As a subsequent "hate" item, I want to publicly denounce NBC for cutting ties with iTunes. I loved getting the Office episodes every week. NBC wanted more money per download (of course) but they also wanted to bundle TV shows with movies featuring actors from their shows (ex: you buy a season of the Office bundled with The 40 Year Old Virgin, and you have to pay more). This is lame. So NBC, you break even. But all I want to do is buy your show from iTunes, why won't you let me?

-Every single "carol of the bells" christmas time commercial parody. Guys, it's got to stop.

-Tailgaters. This could be a whole post in itself. Lets clear this up: if you are in a residential area, going the speed limit, tailgating is just rude. Most of the time the way stoplights work, you don't get ahead anyway. Now, if someone is on a major highway/interstate in the leftmost lane and is going the speed limit, they need to get over. But I've had way to many Suburbans and H2's creepin up on the Malibu lately, no respect. Also, I especially hate that my car is the perfect height to where my rear view mirror is at headlight level for said tailgaters.

I stayed away from several topics that really matter, but these are some of the things I've been appreciating and ruing lately.