RANDOM THOUGHTS

The Royal Tavern in Philadephia had one of the best CD jukeboxes I've ever seen. I put in $10 and got 36 credits (I was expecting the digital juke prices, which are much higher) and off the top of my head we played songs by: Art Brut, AC/DC, Arctic Monkeys, Black Sabbath, Guided By Voices, The Stooges, New Order, Beastie Boys, Neil Young, The Cure, The Smiths, TV On The Radio, Girl Talk, Peter Bjorn & John, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Wilco, Tapes n Tapes, Johnny Cash, Band Of Horses. Okay, I'm exhausted, but you get the idea.

As golf gear goes, we all understand the allure of the $400 driver: people with loads of disposible income want to be able to think they can drive a ball 300 yards and will pay whatever it takes. But a Titleist Scotty Cameron putter that costs $299.99? For a club you don't even swing that's made up of about $7 worth of raw materials? Are you kidding?

The show "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is occasionally funny. But while watching a repeat the other night, I realized how ridiculous and unrealistic it can be. During a poker game at Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Brad Hall's house, Larry David calls another player a "cunt". Somehow this offends everyone so much they all go home. Come on! This is a word coming out of a comedian's mouth in front of a bunch of Hollywood types, and we're supposed to believe they're shocked an appalled by this? Sure they're playing it for laughs, but there's only so much neurotic bullshit that I will buy.

In Dodge's new commercials, they brag about their heated/cooled cupholders. No, they don't talk about advances in engine technology, or gas mileage: they want you to buy it for the CUPHOLDERS. Meanwhile, Toyota has passed GM as the #1 seller in the US, and everyone's wondering why. (Oh, and Mazda has to get rid of that creepy "zoom zoom" campaign while we're at it; they may have good cars, but the commercial makes me really hate them.)

BTW, I love this article about car salesmen from The Truth About Cars. Any article that starts with the following sentence is okay with me:

Sometime between the sale of the first Model T and now, the automobile business has come to represent all that is wrong with sales, marketing and advertising. According to the surveys that track respect for professions, automobile salesmen are bottom feeders, swimming just above the mud with politicians and marketing folk. Do new and used-car dealers deserve such scorn? Absolutely.

Bingo.

In closing, did you know that the Devils' American Hockey League team, the Lowell Devils, have three brothers of current players on their roster? Jordan Parise (starting goalie, 2.68 GAA in 32 G), Mike Pandolfo, and Stephen Gionta all played for the Massachusettes farm team this season. Wacky but true! Devils 2.0.