This weekend, NASCAR will kick off it's 2011 season this weekend with the Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway, a non-points exhibition event where drivers earn an invitation to compete based on their past successes such as winning a championship, rookie of the year honors, or a number of others. Despite the name of the race, being able to polish off a pony keg by themselves will not earn a driver an invite to this event and there are no drinking games involved (there's one way to increase the ratings). There is, however, a high probability that at some point in the next few days one of the worst sports-related movies ever - which just so happens to involve the great sport of NASCAR - will be gracing the airwaves. That movie is none other than 1990's "Days of Thunder", directed by Tony Scott and starring Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, and Robert Duvall.
Like most sports movies, "Days of Thunder" takes every cliche about its subject matter and uses them for the context of the plot. In this case, you've got a movie which makes NASCAR drivers out to be just as interested in doing significant bodily harm to each other as they are in winning races, and who get out of their cars looking as if they've been sweeping chimneys all day. Perhaps the greatest line from the whole film is uttered by Harry Hogge (played by Robert Duvall) - "No, no, he didn't slam you, he didn't bump you, he didn't nudge you...He rubbed you. And rubbin, son, is racin'."
"Please explain to me how I went from 'The Godfather' to this crap?"
And so it is in honor of the 2011 NASCAR season that I leave you with this stunningly hilarious re-imagining of a conversation between Tom Cruise and Robert Duvall.
A few years ago, there was a point in time when I thought I would do something cool by purchasing a domain name and running my own website. I'd gotten into web development and enjoyed killing time by writing massive op-ed style pieces about things in which I was interested. My grandiose delusions had gotten so broad that I even reached out to a few people I knew who had similar interests to my own in an effort to get them to write columns for the site. This endeavor would wind up with me paying $20 a month in perpetuity for the hosting service and renewal of the domain with nothing much to actually show for it all - except a pretty cool looking site that yours beardly put together from scratch, obviously, and a whole bunch of email addresses.
This blog is something of an evolution of that effort. I've given up the domain and hosting package because there are enough freebie tools on the web now (not that there weren't then; Mr. Big Shot over here had to have something more) that trying to maintain a service plan of that nature is very much overboard for an average Joe like myself who primarily wants to use a chunk of e-space to rattle on about whatever randomness happens to be occupying my brain.
Speaking of my brain...It gets a little crowded in there. I find my thoughts wandering, not to the point of my needing medication or anything but definitely to a circumstance where letting things loose is beneficial. That said, here are my plans for this blog condensed into useful bullet-point format.
Embrace Brevity
When I write, I tend to get long-winded. What can I say, I enjoy detail and telling stories. Be that as it may, I'm going to make an effort to keep most of my comments herein to within a couple paragraphs, not only because I don't want to alienate readers but also because my own free time isn't what it used to be.
Increased Content Levels
Part of embracing brevity is the hope that doing so will also allow me to churn out content on a more frequent basis. With my old site, there were extended periods of time (as in almost a year) where I wouldn't touch it for a combination of reasons but usually because I didn't want to go through the hassle of updating it. This site doesn't have the encumbrances I had previously, which again brings into question why I bothered paying for the service for as long as I did.
Variety
I like professional wrestling, heavy metal, and movies and that's mostly what I have written about in the past when trying to make interesting commentary. Problem is, that's a pretty narrow set of topics in the grand scheme of things. I'm not saying I'm going to take on the biggest news of the day, however I do want to branch out beyond just my own interests and experiences.
That's about the long and short of it. I look forward to seeing where this goes and, hopefully, I can wind up making something that gets read and enjoyed by people other than just myself.
