i love the majors in tennis. going to the US open in person is extremely sweet (brad: want a visitor labor day weekend?), but NBC’s coverage of wimbledon plays what is probably my favorite sports theme music of all time.
a word of caution.. if i DVR a match that i plan on watching later and you so much as make a tiny allusion to the outcome, i will destroy you. my mom and i think even gilmore were notorious for giving matches away to me in middle and high school. living on my own it’s a bit easier to avoid spoilers, but sometimes i just don’t get broadcasters. what made jimmy roberts think that i wanted to know that serena williams wins her semi before NBC played the tape? serena is down 6-5 in the third right now on NBC’s replay, and it’s 95% less entertaining to watch given that i already know the outcome.
whatever, rant done. the opening theme music is still the best.
a week ago, jason sent me an article (“Gazprom seals $2.5bn Nigerian deal”) about a russian energy giant (gazprom) entering a joint venture with a nigerian state-run energy entity (NNPC). the second sentence reads:
The new firm, to be called Nigaz, is set to build refineries, pipelines and gas power stations in Nigeria.
adam sent me the above follow-up article from today, saying that nigerian newspapers haven’t picked up the story and that it’s likely to die down soon.
i dunno, i’d still call this a pretty big “whoops!” moment.
just 8 hours of wearing a tie stand between me and the 3-day weekend.
i get a lot of compliments on this tie, and i always tell the truth with a certain level of pride: my mom picked it out for me. yes, i’m 25 years old and my mom is still dressing me. she has good taste it seems—tino cosma makes some good looking stuff.
once the baby, always the baby?
it seems a lot of places in DC serve tater tots (the funniest being a japanese restaurant, sticky rice), and 20-something washingtonians get as unnecessarily excited about them as tumblrs do about bacon (note: i do love both tots and bacon). here’s me eating one. somewhere in the hazy stupor of saturday it got dubbed “matt’s first tater tot ever” (it was not).
you’re welcome for the most exciting picture you will see all day.
one of my first and favorite memories of michael jackson was his halftime performance at the 1993 super bowl. i was 9 years old and distinctly remember thinking it was so cool that the entire crowd had signs that they held up to form giant cartoon-ish images of kids while MJ sang “heal the world.”
this is a video of the entire performance. you should watch it in its entirety (it’s friday, you aren’t working anyway). in case you can’t, here’s how it goes:
in what can only be described as an eerie coincidence, last night my trivia team won tickets to “who’s bad: the ultimate michael jackson tribute band.” the show is tomorrow night at the 930 club and it’ll be the first time “tribute” takes on a bit of a stronger meaning.
i’m confident it’ll be a rocking time.
“oh god these are good!”
after hsm2 and what is becoming an obligatory weekend appearance at dc9, i made what has long been an obligatory night-ending trip to mcdonald’s. it was a particularly good one—i got a ride, my “extra pickles” specification was correctly fulfilled, and i got a free buffalo sauce as well as the (gasp) unwanted pickles off my driver’s big mac. as usual, i didn’t finish everything, and on sunday when an unnamed friend came over (it may or may not have been the same friend who watched hsm2 with me the previous night), he decided he’d have a go at eating the leftover fries.
i was immediately reminded of how funny this snl clip is.
before going out on saturday night, i watched a little (ok almost all) of the sing-along version of high school musical 2. it was all a lot catchier than i thought it’d be, this “bet on it” song especially. i was watching it with adam (DC adam, not obinger adam) and posted the video on his facebook wall with the message:
you can thank me later. i count infinite dance moves that rock, 4 distinct climate zones, and 0 tinsley mortimers.
points being… zach efron can bust some moves, the number of scenery changes in this video is a little ridiculous, and i’m not very good with pop culture (i was getting hsm star ashley tisdale confused with nyc socialite tinsley “the tinz” mortimer).
the NYT headline was too negative (“…to take Bailout Money and Issue Stock”) while the WSJ headline surprisingly left out the semi-major point (“…Plans to Raise $2.1 Billion”), so i made up my own summary statement.
i’m not sure my feelings on this anymore. the financial services industry as a whole fought hard in late september to get the emergency economic stabilization act passed, and (on the second try) we were pleased with that outcome. then the life insurance sector jumped through hoops to be able to apply to TARP’s CPP, and we were again successful. many months later, treasury came back and gave approval for the release of $22 billion in assistance to life insurers. success, right?
i don’t know. only one other company and my own are ultimately taking treasury’s offer. we’re “only” taking $950 million of the $2.5 billion we were approved for, whereas the other company is taking the entire $3.4 billion it was offered. and tons of other life insurance companies besides us are also raising capital, but that we’re raising some of ours via TARP is a bit of a scarlet letter within the industry (and especially working in government affairs). an ironic scarlet letter, perhaps, considering a few months ago almost all the companies were on their knees to be approved.
we’ll see. on a personal level, i frankly don’t care a ton because my job is very likely being eliminated in 2 1/2 months anyway. but we’ll save that super fun topic for another time.
