Wired Parish Blog

Confession of a Saints Fan

I rarely, if ever, talk about my love for the New Orleans Saints. I've learned 2 things about discussing such a thing. 1) People laugh--a lot. 2) It is a bittersweet enterprise--heavy on the bitter.

Unlike the Red Sox or the Cubs, the Saints don't just fail each year. They fail miserably. They're in the cellar . . . every year. They don't tease you with what-might-be. You know what will be from the first day of training camp--losing on a near-epic scale.

And yet I still love them. Nay, I still hope. Can you believe that? I hope. Despite 40 years of losing. Despite only a handful of playoff appearances and (before Saturday) ONE playoff win EVER.

When I say I love them, I mean 'I love them.' Not in a 'I've been following them since they signed Aaron Brooks' kind of way. Not in a 'I dig on Deuce McAllister and Joe Horn' kind of way. CERTAINLY not in a 'I love Reggie Bush so I love the Saints' kind of way.

No. No. No. No. No.

We're talking The Dome Patrol (Ricky Jackson, Pat Swilling, Sam Mills, and Vaughn Johnson). Bobby Hebert. Bum Phillips. Dalton Hilliard. Ironhead Heyward. Eric Martin. Hobie Brenner. Reuben Mayes. AND HOKIE FREAKING GAJAN.

Now the Saints stand 60 minutes away from a Super Bowl. Despite Reggie Bush fumbling when he had a chance to ice the game. (I can assure you EVERY Saints fan in the world thought, 'Here we go again,' when Bush dropped the pitch.) Despite doubling their franchise playoff wins on Saturday. Despite a New Orleans that is a looooong way from being rebuilt. Despite the fact that my prayer before the game was, 'God, please don't let us be embarrassed.'

Are we going to beat the Bears this weekend? I have no idea. But here's to hope.

UPDATE: I SWEAR I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. A mere 10 minutes after finishing this post, my 20 month old son THREW UP all over my Saints hat he had been playing with this morning. Despite the fact that he had not been the least bit sick, he wretched ALL OVER IT. He puked, looked over at me, and said, 'Uh oh.'

I have no idea what to say about that.

I Want to Be Sedated

'I Want to Be Sedated' by the Ramones came on the radio today. Great song, but as I listened, I had the sneaking suspicion that the Higglytown Heroes ripped off the song for their theme music. But I could be wrong . . .

A Twisted Sister Christmas

If you're looking for after-Christmas Christmas music, look no further than here. You may think that Dee Snider singing 'O Come All Ye Faithful' would be terrible. As it turns out, that's a VERY charitable position to take. But come on, don't you need this in your music library?

After watching the 'video on YouTube that I am NOT recommending you watch because you'll likely be offended, and even if you're not, you probably should be,' I must say that Dee looks almost identical to the way he did back in the 80s. Thank you makeup and plastic surgery.

The Spirit of Competition

I'm not quite sure what to say about this. The runner failed a gender test and lost the medal said runner won in a competition. I don't really have any commentary, but I have a couple of questions:

1. Did you not think you were going to get caught on this???
2. Did you have ANY satisfaction winning the medal if you knew you weren't racing against the same gender???

A Wired Parish Christmas List

My friends know me as an inveterate sneezer--in the Seth Godin sense. Not in the allergy sense. I'm always recommending things--music, books, podcasts, restaurants, surgical procedures, etc.  The good news is that I also get asked for recommendations; so apparently my taste isn't completely hopeless.

So in the interest of spreading a little Christmas cheer--or a few Christmas viruses, if you will--here are my Christmas Sneezes for 2006. To make it to the list, a recommendation had to fit two criteria:

• I dig it.
• There's a decent chance you've never heard of it.

Music:

Blue Merle - 'Burning in the Sun.' Think Coldplay meets Dave Matthews with a dash of the Counting Crows.

The New Pornographers - Anything they do, but 'Twin Cinema' is particularly wonderful. My favorite band of the last year BY FAR. 'The Bleeding Heart Show' from 'Twin Cinema' is simply spectacular. And in spite of the name, they're music is actually quite clean.

Tina Dico - 'In the Red.' Tina sings a couple of tracks for Zero 7, another of my favorite bands.

Derek Webb - 'Mockingbird .' Not only is this a tremendous cd, it's free!

Books:

How (Not) to Speak of God - Peter Rollins. My friend Tony Jones said the other day, 'I refuse to talk to any critics of the emerging church unless they read this book first.' Short, rich, GREAT.

Divine Nobodies - Jim Palmer. I'm sure he'll get sick of hearing it, but he's the next Don Miller. Or maybe Don Miller is the next Jim Palmer.

Getting Things Done - David Allen. Don't ask questions. Just go buy it. Then name your first child after me out of gratitude.

DVDs:

'Arrested Development' - The. Best. Sitcom. Ever. It's somewhere north of PG-13 in its content; so be forewarned.

No other DVDs will be recommended until you see 'Arrested Development.' No exceptions.

Enjoy!

Annie Dillard

'The way you spend your days is, of course, the way you spend your life.' - Annie Dillard

Beating a Dead Horse

Suppose you Googled 'bachelor rome update.' Guess who's at the top of the list? That would be wiredparish. One post. Two lines. Calling the first episode a train wreck. Season finale (according to Megan) occurs and we're getting HUNDREDS of hits on that one blog post. I've mentioned this before, but let me tell ya, come season finale time, there are a BUNCH of people Googling for updates.

So in the spirit of such searches, let me make a prediction: The Bachelor and whoever he chose will not stay together. Won't happen. I'm feeling secure in my prediction.

Now I'm going to sit back and wait to see if the title to this post shows up when someone searches for information on PETA.

I Am Not Making This Up

I played this game tonight. It's called the Lightning Xtreme Shock Game, and it's exactly what it sounds like. If you lose, you get shocked. It's straight out of the scene in 'Ghostbusters' when Bill Murray is doing the ESP study.

The problem was that I was laughing uncontrollably, and I was working on a second glass of wine; so the results were less than optimal.

How in the WORLD did this ever get approved in the U.S. as a toy??????

threadless.com update

thank you to all of you who voted this shirt out of retirement. i received an email a couple of days ago that it was being reprinted. i promptly ordered it. if you follow the link, you'll note that the large is already sold out again. it's a popular shirt, i tell ya. i really appreciate your help in voting it back into circulation!

one of my friends looked at the shirt and said, 'um, i don't get why it's funny. it doesn't make any sense.' to which i replied, 'exactly.'

search engine traffic

i find it quite humorous that the blog post that gets the most search engine-generated traffic is the one i did on the bachelor: rome a few weeks ago.