Returning to Action

Well back in June, I signed out of this blog with no regrets and no thoughts of returning to it.

Now it's 2012 and I've decided to return to blogging in general and take this pop culture blog out of retirement. But with some changes.

1st of all, there will be no TV show recaps. They take up too much time and honestly some weeks I just don't have time to watch shows on time. So that will be that.

What I will be doing is occasional thoughts and opinions on stuff, like say American Idol, The Voice, etc. Most of which will be closer to the end of the TV seasons.

#2, on the sports front, there will be no predicition thread where all I do is pick a team or a series. When I do write predictions, they will be detailed with full explaination.This will start with my soon to be written post about the the NFL Semifinals this weekend.

#3, no more random awards picks, I know they don't get read. But that doesn't mean that occasionally, depending on the award show, I won't do a detailed prediction blog, especially if it's something I'm passionate about.

I think that's it.

I hope you enjoy this like you did last year. I hope it gets the hits it did last year.

Thank you for reading.

---Blake

Future of This Blog: Open Letter

382 days and 303 posts ago I opened this blog with an idea. Inspired by the writers of Entertainment Weekly and other bloggers, I'd write my own pop culture blog. When it started, I was honsetly looking for something to do to kill time at work. It turned out to be alot of fun, and within a few months I started getting alot of hits. This success went to my head and I started to add more shows than ever. The problem ended up being that I'm one person, I'm a busy man with a wife and a son and I started to realize I can't handle doing this anymore.

After the spring television season ended, I had two choices.

#1, finishing keeping track of Tough Enough and The Voice and the hockey playoffs and take the summer off and recoop and refresh and come back in the fall when/if football season starts.

#2, finish up the playoffs, and then be done with this blog.

After much though, I am taking option #2. It's time to put this blog on the backburnner. It's time to enjoy TV as a viewer not a reviewer. It'll be nice to watch TV and not take notes on performances and whatnot.

So after the Calder Cup and Stanley Cup Finals are over, those will be my last posts.

If you are a regular reader, thank you. If you aren't, thank you anyway.

This has been alot of fun and a crazy last year. It's been a experience and a life lesson learned.

Thank you for taking time to read this. It means alot.

So for the last time (well just about),
I'm signing out.
---Blake

Random Stuff (Catching Up)

As I mentioned over the last couple of weeks, I've been pretty MIA on this blog updating, even though there's been alot going on. So I figured, in bulletpoint fashion, I'll catch up.

• NHL Winter Classic

I have to admit this was a fun experience to watch. The game itself was really good. The fact that it got moved to nighttime made it more intriging. The only gripe I had was the NBC coverage. While I enjoyed the coverage, and the different angles, at times it really felt like it was like playing an NHL game on the computer and you would switch the camera angles rapidly just to mess with your friend who you were playing against. I mean it was even hard to see one of the Washington goals. But overall, a fun time. I did get a laugh during the end of the game when the rain really started coming down and the puck started hydro-planing on the ice.

• HBO 24/7

I wanted to wait till the end of the series to truly talk about this show. This might have been the best hockey presentation I've ever seen. It showed people who don't know the sport what the game is about, inside and out, and it showed hardcore fans like myself everything we wanted to see, behind the scenes and on the ice. If you didn't get a chance to watch this series, I suggest you fight it on your HBO network or on demand and watch it straight through. It will definately change your opinion and prespective of the great game of hockey and give you some major respect for the NHL.

• World Juniors

What am I doing watching a World Juniors hockey tournament over the Christmas and New Years week? I watch because I know one day these kids will be in the NHL showing their stuff and I want to get to know them now. Plus any chance to root on USA hockey is good for me. To just recap the week, Canada beat the USA to advance to the Gold medal game against Russia, in turn USA went on to the bronze medal game against Sweden. The USA ended up winning the bronze in a come from behind victory which was awesome. Then on Wednesday night, Canada took a 3-0 lead into the third period against Russia, I then turned off the game and went out for the night. I should have at least DVRed it because Russia scored 5 straight goals to completely stun the Canadians and win the tournament. It was a complete surprise and actually really enjoyable to watch, especially watching the Russian kids just yelling and screaming into the camera excited. It was great to see kids actually like kids. It showed winning for their country meant everything to them.

• New Jersey Devils in December

What can I say? This is becoming painful. Normally I would make an entry with stats and everything that's gone on, but it's way too depressing. With a record of 10-28-2, a coaching change, a goalie controversy between Brodeur and Hedberg, the $100 millon man having his worse season as a pro and your other young buck, Parise, still being out, it has become really sad. There's not much else I can really.

• People's Choice Awards

Wednesday night was the People's Choice Awards. I honestly completely forgot about the show and didn't cover it in here for that very reason. The winners were really no surprise to me at all. Maybe next year I'll actually pay attention and not miss this show. I actually love these awards.

• WWE Tough Enough

This was a breaking wrestling story this week. For those who don't remember the original MTV Tough Enough, it basicly was a show where people trained to become the next big wrestling star. Keyword is TRAINED. This is not like NXT where you have "rookies" coming on tv, wrestling bad matches and no one seems to care unless it's presented correctly like Season 1 and 2 were. This is a reality show, at the time it was an original concept, nowadays I hope it's done right. I will be covering the show, really to no one's surprise, it should be fun, hopefully.

• Kevin Smith-My Boring Ass Life

Normally I don't review books but I have to mention this one. This is one of the best reads I've ever read. It's in diary form, like his online diary, and to some that might be a total turn off. There is cursing and sexual references and alot of wild stuff. But in it's core, it's a great read about filmmaking, dealing with drug abuse, family life, celebrities and just all out honesty. For anyone who wants an education, read this book or his website, even if you aren't a fan of his or his movies.

That's that. I think I'm all caught up for now. I'll get back on the ball soon with regular updates. This is a new year so that means more fun reads.

2011 Breakdown

Hello loyal readers (however many there are of you),

I'm well aware that over the last month this blog hasn't been updated a whole lot, aside from football picks. After Sing Off went off the air there seemed to be a lack of anything to talk about pop culture wise as far as TV is concerned. I've spent most of my time the last week watching year end music countdowns and just relaxing.

Now the winter season is upon us. This blog will alive and well again as the months go on. Here's a rundown on what will definately be covered in here during the upcoming months:

1. American Idol's Return
2. Glee
3. My thoughts on the new show Live to Dance
4. My thoughts on shows like HBO 24/7 and Oil Change
5. The NHL All Star Game
6. WWE Royal Rumble/Wrestlemania
7. NFL Playoffs/Super Bowl
8. Celebrity Apprentice

Plus award shows and much more.

Hope you enjoy the winter months into the spring.
Feel free to comment and give your thoughts like always.

In our defense... (A Rebutal by a Frontier Ramper)

Normally this blog is for stuff related to pop culture but I ran an article today that, at first I thought was funny, but now after letting it sink in, really bothers me, so I'm going to address it.


The article, from Smartmoney.com, is 10 Things Baggage Handlers Won't Say. After reading this again, it really insulted my line of work, especially since I've been a ramper for close to four and a half years now. The story to me seems like it was written by someone who used to do this job but lost it for one reason or another and decided to reveal "secrets". That being said, us rampers already feel like we are the lowest level as it is, this article makes us seem even worse than we already feel.

Let me go through this one by one, if you would like to follow along, here's the link.

1. “Don’t pack light—we need the money.”

There is alot of truth to what is written here. The airline business has been through some of the roughest times financially ever. Do I like the fact that we charge for bags and for itinerary changes when we never used to? Not at all. But honestly, give things time. I know our company is starting to make money again, once we start making money again, I hope that things get better.

2. “We’re losing fewer bags—because there are fewer to lose.”

This is a low blow. How can I even argue this? You're right, we have fewer bags. That means mishandle numbers are way down. Isn't that a good thing? Don't you want the number to be down? That just means we doing a great job with the bags that we are being given.

3. “Some of us have sticky fingers.”

Okay, I'm going to make this very clear. They talked about a one-time incident. This doesn't happen everyday. I've been doing this for over four years and not one person has ever stolen something from a bag or from a passenger at anytime. This just gives us a bad reputation. Maybe passengers should close their bags better, then stuff won't fall out and get lost.

4. “Sure, we can handle your pet—but can your pet handle us?”

Again, this is ridiculous. This is talking about certain airlines. I know for a fact that Frontier and Airtran both allow small animals outboard for their flights. As a matter of fact, Frontier allows celebrity dogs to have their own seats! As for loading animals in the bins, we have VERY strict rules on how to load animals to make sure they have a very safe flight like any other passenger. As for the story of the cat who was mad at her owner after he showed up at her destination late, are you sure it wasn't just the cat? Cats are just known to be mean anyway especially away from home. There was only one time that an animal got left behind overnight in Milwaukee and we had to send it the next day. It was a big dog and it was kept in our warm ramp room, with constant supervision by a ramper, or two, so much so that a ramper stayed overtime and slept next to the dog's cage to make sure he was safe and sound. That's what I call great customer service, especially when we make a mistake.

5. "We don't actually do that much."

When I first read that line, I chuckled, but just because we always joke about how much we actually do do at work on a daily basis. That being said, what they are talking about are the fact that SOME big airports has major advance that make their rampers' lives easier. Us at General Michtell don't have that kind of money or technology. My point being we actually do have to lift every bag in the bagroom when they get checked in, sometimes more than once. The rampers outside still have to load the planes by lifting bags and loading planes using raw strength. We do alot of work, just never get the real credit we deserve.

6. “Not all bags are created equal.”

Okay, this is vaild. Can't really argue with this portion at all.

7. “Stressing about baggage claim? You should.”

What does this have anything to do with being a baghandler or a ramper? What goes on at baggage claim has nothing to do with us at all. This is baggage service's resonsiblity not ours.

8. “Many of us don’t actually work for the airlines.”

Okay this part is true for some people. I for a long time worked for Skyway Airlines, a contracted employee that worked on Midwest planes. Now I officially work for Frontier. This part I can't argue with. BUT I will say that rampers, no matter who they get paid by, they still work hard to do their jobs. That's how it should be. No one ever slacked just because technically we were "Skyway contractors".

9. “We can’t handle unusual items.”

Antlers? Really? That's the big complaint here? Are you serious? This is the major problem? Because some Alaskian can't bring his antlers on board? Give me a break. The major stuf we can't travel with is chemical stuff. The obvious stuff. I've never heard a problem with anything else. Antlers? Wow.

10. “If you think we’re bad here, just wait till you go abroad.”

What does this even mean? Are the flight crews "worse than we are"? I don't get this at all. Again though, why would we worry about the flight crews as rampers? We barely have any communication with them as it is. If they don't treat passengers good, that's not my fault.

I think I've said my peace. This article just really frustrated me. Thank you for reading