In a world that is dominated by our skills, if you show some of the basics, you can dominate.
In my Introduction to Design class, we were told to mess around with Photoshop. The picture that you see above is what my creation turned out to be. I’ve had a little Photoshop training, so I knew what I was doing for the most part. I didn’t come into it blind. The professor said to mess around and this idea is something I’ve always wanted to do.
I threw it on Facebook because I wanted to share it with my friends who are also in the photo, because that’s the easiest way of sharing pictures today. I put it up and it ran away in popularity. Easily the most liked thing I ever put on Facebook. So here’s the lesson…
If you want to be popular on a dying social network, learn Photoshop and put you and your best friends in front of an explosion. Your notifications will blow up.
A view of the football field at TCF Bank Stadium during Gopher football.
As a music geek, I love a good drum line. I find it pretty cool for a bunch of people with one type of instrument to make a whole song sound full. I’ll never love drumming more than I do than the fact that Drum Corps International has to move their annual date for their competition at TCF Bank Stadium on the campus of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Why? Per a press release, Drum Corps International was knocked off for ‘a major concert’.
The Strib points to Prince, Garth Brooks, Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, and Kenny Chesney as the potential headliners at the second major concert to happen at The Bank.
I’m going to power rank who I want it to be and you won’t be surprised, but the thought of one out of 50% of this group happening is amazing.
6. Pearl Jam – I’m not a Pearl Jam guy. I haven’t listened to a lot of Pearl Jam. There is no Pearl Jam in my music library. Sorry, Pearl Jam.
5. Kenny Chesney – Kenny is extremely popular in the country music world, I know because I live there. Kenny has been to Minnesota two years in a row at Target Field, he doesn’t need to come again. Plus, currently Chesney has no tour plans for this summer making him a so-so candidate in the first place. If Kenny has a fantastic opening act, I’ll go. I like Kenny just not enough to break the bank.
4. Prince – The Strib pointed out that Prince hasn’t done a major show in Minnesota in a long time and it would be cool if he was the guy. I don’t know if I would pay super bucks to see Prince, but it’s a for sure sellout. Prince puts on a hell of a show apparently, too.
3. Bruce Springsteen – You know it’s a good list when I put Springsteen at number three. I love Bruce and if it’s Bruce, Lord knows that I’ll put a lot of good money down to see him again. Bruce is the live king and he’ll be on tour in America later this summer. This might make the most sense on an already on-tour basis. The Boss and the E Street Band just slip because of who else is on the list.
2. Paul McCartney – Sir Paul is one of the performers on my bucket list and, to paraphrase something Springsteen said in a recent interview, you can start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. McCartney isn’t going to be around forever, no less touring forever, and I want to see him before one of us leaves the game. The ex-Beatle is still figuring out 2014 tour plans, so this would be a good thing to start the setting of his plans.
1. Garth Brooks – I’ve been a Garth Brooks fan my whole life. I’m young enough though that by the time I was of concert going age that Garth Brooks had taken his hiatus to spend time with his girls in Oklahoma. I’m ready to see Garth. It’s one thing I’ve been looking forward to in my music loving career since I can remember, the problem is that this probably won’t be the venue. Garth will come to town, I’m 110% positive of that, but this is before his big she-bang in Ireland. The Strib points out this would be a good tune-up, but when Garth does something, he does it big. Other than maybe a couple more Vegas dates, I’d expect Garth to fire it up in Ireland and keep it trucking until the big rig runs out of fuel. I hope I’m wrong.
Contrary to rumors elsewhere, Bruce Springsteen will not be the concert’s performer. Neither will beGarth Brooks. Baseball is still considering concert performers. The show is expected to include multiple acts.
If it truly is going to be multiple acts, that means there’ll be little to no big names. Have fun with that lovers of mediocre bands.
I don’t want to be a whistleblower, so forgive me J & J Snack Foods, but I have to call you out. J & J Snack Foods, you have an ice monopoly. I know this is some tough news to hear, but you’ll understand soon.
J & J is the owners behind the well-known ICEE brand that you see in every place that sells anything. You’ve had an ICEE, I’ve had an ICEE, we’ve all had an ICEE. You might be surprised to know that J & J also owns Slush Puppie and Luigi’s Italian Ice. That’s a lot ice, folks.
It’s an ice monopoly. It’s an open and close case. Name another flavored ice company. You can’t they’re all in the palm of J & J Snack Foods.
That’s not where this ends. No, J & J also owns SuperPretzel, those humongous microwavable pretzels that we’ve all been forced to scarf down at least once in our life.
Also on the list of things that J & J Snack Foods owns is Bavarian Pretzel Bakery, Mrs. Goodcookie, Pretzel Filler, Country Home Bakery, Tip Pepe’s churros, Wholefruit, Uptown Bakeries and Readi-Bake. I left the best one off of the list…
The Funnel Cake Factory. The Funnel Cake Factory is a brand name for microwavable funnel cakes which might just be the best creation ever. Product benefits? The first bullet point from their website for their product is the best one: “Add fun to your menu with a unique breakfast offering or create your own signature dessert”.
You want to know how much we love junk food in America? J & J Snack Foods made $744 million in revenue in 2011. $744 million off of frozen ice and microwavable pretzels. God bless capitalism.
The NBA is at a crossroads. Newly minted commissioner Adam Silver has a big decision to make on the All-Star Saturday Night activities, more specifically the Slam Dunk Competition because Saturday’s display was just dreadful.
First off, what the hell was Nick Cannon’s deal? Nick Cannon is kind of fun on America’s Got Talent, but it’s looked like someone killed his dog earlier on Saturday and Cannon didn’t have enough time to back out of the gig. The NBA brought on Cannon to be the on-court MC for the Saturday events and on its face it should work, but it didn’t. Cannon brought little to no energy to a job that the only job requirement is to have energy and pump up the crowd. It seemed through the television that the arena was dead, Cannon’s demeanor didn’t help.
The NBA pulled out their usual activities of Shooting Stars, Skills Competition, Three Point Contest and Slam Dunk, but they put a conference slant to the competition. That’s not a bad idea, it ties the whole night together and all the winnings are heading to charity, but the Slam Dunk was not a slam dunk. In fact it was the least entertaining of all of the competitions. Yes, even the Shooting Stars beat the Slam Dunk. It’s reached that level.
With the new conference alignment strategy the NBA introduced a ‘Freestyle Round’ where the three competitors dunk in conjunction with each other. This was kind of fun and has a lot of potential. The winning conference got to decide if they would go first or last in the ‘Battle Rounds’ where an Eastern Conference dunker would go against a Western Conference slammer, the first conference to three ‘Battle Round’ win would win the competition and the fans would voter for the individual dunker winner.
It was a total mess. The ‘Battle Rounds’ only featured three rounds because the Eastern Conference and only featured one good dunk. John Wall had the only memorable dunk and on his first attempt which is something that usually doesn’t happen. Many thought the competition still had more to go, it was just so anticlimactic.
The NBA needs to reinstitute the point system to the Slam Dunk or get rid of it. The Slam Dunk has gotten very tired, old, gimmicky and nobody is brining any new stuff to the table. If the NBA takes away the Slam Dunk for just a year or two, people will start clamoring for it back. The NBA needs to get people reinterested in what used to be the best part of All-Star Weekend at whatever costs necessary.
The Slam Dunk of my childhood is gone. Vince Carter and Jason Richardson aren’t coming back anytime soon.
Netflix released season two of their hit original House of Cards on Valentine’s Day and so far it’s amazing, as expected.
*There will be spoilers after this, so if you haven’t at least watched Chapter 14 (Season 2, Episode 1) I’d stop here*
A major part of Season 1 was the relationship between majority whip Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) and up-and-coming reporter Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara). They used each other for personal gains, had an affair, yadda yadda yadda. It was built up for Season 2 to see who would win between Zoe and Frank.
So the House of Cards team played this out over the whole season, right? Dead wrong. Dead wrong is dead right, actually.
Frank Underwood is no stranger to getting some blood on his hands. He had the same about of blood stains as rib stains in Season 1. Season 2 started with blood and major plot line blood.
It looked like Frank and Zoe were patching up their relationship which got a little shattered towards the end of Season 1. It looked like they would use each other once again to further themselves, with Frank now the Vice President of the United States. It looked like he was covering both of them when he had Zoe delete all of their texts and his contact info… Then he threw her in front of a train.
Yes! My reaction was a bunch of incoherent swear words and I figured House of Cards had instituted a dream sequence of some sorts, but nope. They killed off the second most important character from Season 1 in the first episode of Season 2.
That takes balls. That’s saying ‘we don’t give a damn what you think is going to happen, we’re going to do it our way’. I salute them for that.
I’m quite sadden it was Kate Mara because Kate Mara is a total cutie, but that’s beside the point.
The makers of House of Cards took the advice of their own main character and took matters into their own hands. They are nobody’s prisoner.
Collin Kottke: All-Around Swell Guy 