However, I caught a preview for this which cracked me up:

Combining that with his appearance on Leno and the whole Sarah Silverman/Matt Damon (& Jimmy/Ben Affleck) thing a few years ago, I probably need to tune in more often.

By the way, he sure has great talent booking to get all those Hollywood-folk together for his skits.

I was excited to see that SMASH, now called Raygun, is selling the same shirts this year. However, they aren't the only ones. I was horrified tonight when I stopped into HyVee and saw this monstrosity:

Now, it's not so much that it's ugly (which is certainly is) or that it's Hawkeye (which actually makes me chuckle) but I was most disappointed in the fact that they blatantly copied the idea from SMASH/Raygun.

Or did they? I googled "Kiss me I'm Iowish" and found this lady in Southeast Iowa who claims to have invented (and trademarked) both the word "Iowish" and the phrase in question. Uh oh.

Apparently bands still make videos and this one is pretty cool. I wonder how many takes it took? Honda claims this was done in one (not pieced together from several takes):

Since I'm sure you're wondering what it is - I'll let you in. Check out this clip from Saturday Night Live a few months ago. 

We enjoyed it so we shared it at dinner one night. Several weeks later, my wife bought a vegan cookie at the coffee shop up the street...

...and informed the world on Facebook. We promptly jumped in...

 ...which made me laugh.

By the way, the last line is from a previous SNL sketch, a commercial for Jack Johnson's line of "shoes that look like feet" known as JJ Casuals.

Check it out:

McClanahan Studio from Dan McClanahan on Vimeo.

Michael Sheen image from Tsar Kasim on Flickr.com

Against my proper judgment, I watched a soccer movie. I had recently been wading through a bunch of old episodes of “At The Movies” on TiVo and caught the two critics praising The Damned United as a great sports movie. I was apprehensive, since I have no understanding nor care for soccer, but I went for it anyway since it starred Michael Sheen (pictured above) who I’ve enjoyed in past roles as famous Brits (Tony Blair in The Queen and David Frost in Frost/Nixon).

Leeds United jerseyI’m glad I went for it because the film was excellent. It’s a sports-themed movie but the plot is much more about Brian Clough, the man (Sheen’s character), than his sport. Clough was a soccer club manager who built his squad (Derby County) from a low level all the way up to champions of England. A few years later he took over the manager’s slot at his rival club (Leeds United), a dynastic champion, and lasted all of 44 days before being fired. He then went on to coach another underdog squad to the championship of both England and Europe, twice, which is an accomplishment never matched. The movie cites him as "the greatest manager never to manage the England [national] team."

The story is true but seems crazy when you put it in American sports parlance.

As ESPN’s Bill Simmons wrote about the movie:

“It's a famous English soccer saga that means nothing in America, but imagine [New England Patriots coach] Belichick taking over the Colts from Dungy this past summer and then getting fired in Week 6, and you have an idea of how loony this episode was.”

The English soccer system is completely foreign (pun intended) to American sports fans and I had to consult Wikipedia.com a couple times to research the importance of certain events but that didn’t take away from my enjoyment.

The actors are great, the characters interesting, the plot compelling, and story moves well. I watch a lot of movies and a lot of them are junk, however, this one is great. If you’re looking for a great sports movie you’ve never seen – this is probably it.

Young pastor followed path from law school to Falls

By Louise Continelli

TOWN of NIAGARA — Justin Lee Marple once planned to go to law school, then work as an attorney.

“People had always said I could do anything I wanted to do,” recently recalled the former history major, “but when I started asking, ‘What is it that God wants me to do?’ is when I was put on the trajectory that’s brought me here.

Read the full article

When he was a puppy we'd put him in a clothes basket in the car to attempt to keep him in one place. Several years and 60 some pounds later it appears he's taken to the idea.

When it comes stamped with a United States of America Seal of Authenticity.

Ah, junk mail.

Image from EclecticBlogs on Flickr

As I wrote in my last post, we’re heading to Washington DC next month. This trek is an annual event for us and part of the tradition includes a tour around the city on the famed trolleys of Old Town Trolley Tours. The “trolley tour” (as we simply call it) is one of our favorite parts of visiting Washington and we recommend it to friends, family, and pretty much anyone who mentions an upcoming visit that direction.

We took our first trolley tour in 2004 when a friend of my wife’s recommended it. Her advice was that since there is so much to see in Washington the only way to see it all is to take a guided trolley tour. She suggested we do it first so that we get an overview of all the sites as well as the opportunity to scout out the places that we wanted to visit in person later on the trip. We took her advice and enjoyed it so much that we took a second tour on that first trip, this time viewing the monuments in particular by moonlight.

To clarify, Old Town Trolley Tours has a “hop-on, hop-off” model so you can ride the trolley between locations as well. However, we prefer to do the entire loop all at once. It takes a little while but we love listening to the live tour guides who narrate the tour with historical fact and personal anecdotes. Many of them are quite amusing, to boot.

There are several tours in Washington so make sure you choose Old Town Trolley. Our experiences with them have inspired us to take tours in other cities we visit, as well. Specifically, we’ve done the tours in London and Bath in the UK, Dublin, Ireland, and Rome, Italy. Each was with a different tour company and Old Town Trolley in Washington was the best, though the Big Bus Company of London is a close second thanks to the dry humor of the Brit tour guides.

If you’re headed to Washington and ready to take my advice, here are a couple things to note: 

1. Buy your tickets online ahead of time. The tour is tremendously valuable but the tickets are not cheap. If you buy online you get a discount. Buy tickets here.
2. If you’re visiting friends who live in Washington, have them sign up for the Hometown Pass. Residents within 50 miles of Washington can register for a free tour pass! So long as they’re riding with a paid-tour guest (you, the visitor) they get to ride for free (brilliant marketing). Register here.

Enjoy your trip!