So desu ka

Magnet #1083 - Kawaii girl

I picked this Japanese Kawaii girl at the AnimeFest portion of Comic-Con last year. I just thought she was adorable, and figured I needed her as part of my collection.

She reminds me of all the Japanese classes I had to take at Carolina to appease my mother. I blogged about it before, she was totally convinced that Japan was poised to take over corporate America and that I should be ready. But man, those classes were seriously the bane of my existence my first two years at college.

I loved, loved, loved writing the characters, but I was absolutely terrible at comprehension and spoken Japanese. It definitely wasn't the prof, because I have a friend who started out with me in JAPN101 and he's totally fluent and loves the culture and its people. Puts me to shame every time we get together, he does.

Because I didn't want to finish out the final JAPN course, for fear of tanking my grades further, I ended up taking a crib class - Spanish. Flew through that class with flying colors. The Filipino language is somewhat based on Spanish, so there are many common words and even accents that Filipinos use. So I just pretended my parents were speaking Spanish to me in my head, and I mimic'd the Filipino accent. It's how I got my A for SPAN101, and funny praise for my terrific Spanish accent.

I picked this magnet for today, because I never really notice my Asian-ness as much when I'm walking through the streets of my small hometown. In a Southern town of about 28,000, with only about 200 Asian people living here, that's probably not surprising.

Cutesy Carolina

Magnet #1067 - Cutesy Carolina

How much do I love this magnet? No really. Adorable. Carolina and navy blue is one of my all-time fave color combinations, and all done up with little sweet polka dots and cutesy stripes? Love.

It's the kind of magnet you'd expect to find in a cute local drugstore on Main Street, the kind with an old soda fountain counter manned by local high schoolers aiming for the nearest highway out of town. Which is of course, where I found it.

Using it for today, because to this day, it still kills me that they picked Duke to be Joey Potter's Worthington campus. I'm sure it was easier to work with the private Duke folks, versus the bureaucratic state-run UNC, but still!

And, yes, I will grant you that Duke has a beautiful campus, but I really, really, really hate that all the college years promo shots on my Dawson's Creek DVDs have Duke in it, rather than Carolina.

What? I've been finishing up their college years, and all I keep seeing is Duke, Duke, Duke! Grrr. Argh!

Oops. Wrong show.

I've been to the year 2000

Magnet #866 - OpSail 2000

C'mon. No one has that Year 3000 Jonas Brothers song in their head now? Just me? Ok, then.

I've magnetblogged on the wonders of OpSail 2000 before, so I picked this for today's magnet for a couple of reasons...besides trying to get it out of my Photobucket "Not Used" album.

First, it's so darned hot outside that I could even relent on my No Sailing rule today. Might be nice to be out on the water. If only I could drag along a hospital on a barge behind me.

Second, because it's an old magnet. People always make fun of me for refusing to get rid of things. But lesson learned today. I had to go back into the archives to something we did back in 2003. Not only did I find the missing ad, but I found all the back-up for it. Which I guess is not any worse than when I had to pull stuff from the last century. But still. Keep it or need it, people!

Finally, because shoot, it's an old magnet! Which declares that I have apparently been collecting magnets for at least 10 years now. Now that's just crazy. Maybe I just happened to keep this magnet? I dunno.

Ok, ok. I'll admit to being a bit of a packrat.

After all, I'm still wearing T-shirts from whatever years those cute boys sold me T-shirts out of the bottoms of their duffel bags in the early 1990s at Carolina.

And I do still wear that one holey shirt from when Big River played in Charlotte.

In 1990.

Whoa.

The tiger stands defender*

Magnet #554 - Princeton Tigers

There was a time I knew the mascot of every single NCAA men's basketball team between the ACC, Big East, Pac-10, SEC, Big 10, and the Big Eight. Yes, it was that long ago.

Seriously. A boy's dream girlfriend - I could list inane stats of the top 10 Div I ballers. After all, it's only expected of a Carolina Girl.

Well, not really. Really, it was because I had the best summer internship - ever. Editorial intern at the publishing house that put out the college basketball previews for most of the conferences listed above. Had to read behind everyone as a last check - on the stories, the players, the stats.

So. Much. Fun. And, they also put out those fabulous commemorative hardcovers for the NCAA basketball champions every year, and they had this terrific library - read, skids of boxes - of past books.

I managed to score the Carolina '93 book, as well as the Carolina '82 book. And of course, I gave them both away to the wrong boy. Man, those would be collectors' items now. Sigh.

Anyway. My friend went out to Princeton for an event, and picked up this Princeton Tiger for me. Supercute! Whiiiiiich is probably not what they were going for in terms of fighting tigers. He looks like he could kill me with his little smirky smirk going on there. Hah.

Actually, years ago, UNC redesigned their mascot, for almost the same reason. The old ram was too lovable looking and meek. And so they changed him to be all mean and unhappy, and quite frankly, scary.

I picked this guy for today because a couple of nights ago, I was talking with some friends about the mascots they had over the years. Interestingly, my sampling of a dozen people yielded several Eagles and Mustangs, Cardinals and Bulldogs. Some of the odder ones were the Wallabies, the Maroons, the Blue and the Aztecs.

Though, my all-time favorite? The Hot Rods. Yeah. Good thing that was an elementary school. Any older and we'd be making jokes all the way through the last buzzer!

*From one of the Tiger fight songs. What? I just got done saying I'm a Carolina Girl, I'm not going around spouting off other people's fight songs!

We are Carolina

Magnet #410 - Michigan state, with a little Tar Heels on top

Talk about leaving your mark...

Carolina 89 - Michigan State 72.

And, here's the video of Franklin Street, because you know they've gone insane down there, closing off the street, crowded as hell, bonfires and all. See?

What?

It's what we do. It's who we are. We are Carolina.

The funny thing is how much we underestimate or take Carolina for granted, both the school, and the basketball.

To wit: Before going, I never thought of UNC as a particularly great school. But apparently, it is. It's a state school. Practically half my high school went there, so it never dawned on me that Carolina was a hard place to get into. It was the only school I even applied to. (It was that, or join the Air Force, but that's a whole other story - let's just blame Algebra, shall we?)

It's also never dawned on me that basketball wouldn't be a big part of someone's college years. I have never understood people who don't have a huge attachment to their college sports teams as we do. But, then I remember, ah, it's because we grew up on Tobacco Road.

Finally - and I swear this will sound cockier than I actually mean - but, we tend to take it for granted that our team will be awesome. I mean it. When we aren't good, we're actually surprised.

But, there's a reason we're good. Great kids, great coaches. It's our history we compete with the hardest - the great coach and great kids who came before.

As my sister (a Carolina alum, but unabashed Dook fan, don't hold it against her...really) put it: "You just forget. You just forget how good it is. You just assume that every other school is just as good."

No truer words.

By the way, no, that's not photoshop work up there on that magnet - I always keep a stash of Carolina stickers. You never know when you need them.

Well done, boys. Well done. No practice tomorrow.

eta:
Back in '93 (yes, showing my age), before I was allowed to head over to Franklin Street with a bunch of my friends, the boys made me go back to my dorm room and pull out my favorite sweatshirt - a very sacrilegious, but so damn cute, Dook sweatshirt. And, as I watched, the boys literally tore it to shreds and used it as fodder for the bonfires. Bonfires, like the ones in this slideshow from the Daily Tar Heel.

Methinks it was a worthwhile cause.

Wildcats not so wild

Magnet #408 - Meow Mix

Yeah, this magnet might be one of the biggest stretches ever - but seriously, how many Carolina magnets do you guys think I can own?

Can I help it if my alma mater totally kicks ass and I have to keep mentioning the milestones with my magnets?

Of course, if I had my druthers, I'd be in Chapel Hill right now, with the hundreds of folks that have closed down Franklin Street with the bonfires and the booze and the happy, fun times. Instead, I'm magnetblogging about it. With a cat magnet.

Anyway, a cat-loving friend of mine gave me this magnet - a free bit of swag at at Meow Mix Acatemy experience that they did down in Union Square a few years ago. Seriously - they did this whole big experience, where people could bring their cats and learn all about their habits - catnapping or cat-isthenics, or making a new toy for your cat. I'm not a cat person, but I still am sad that I missed out on this.

However, I'm glad for the magnet, because the Villanova Wildcats were tamed by the Carolina Tar Heels last night - 83-69.

As usual, I didn't watch...well, that's not entirely accurate. Though I was keeping up with the live updates online, I did think that when we were up by 18 toward the end that I'd be able to watch. Then I turned it on. Then we were only up by 12. So I turned it off.

See what I do for you boys? I totally took one for the team again.

Yay, Tar Heels! Don't go crazy excited, we've still got one more game to play, and maybe, just maybe, ya'll might be back out on Franklin Street on Monday night, too.

In the meantime, ready, Carolina Band?

There'll be a Carolina Victory,
When cross the field our foe has fled.
Cheer our team to victory,
For we are Tar Heels born and bred (Rah! Rah! Rah!)
Glory, Glory UNC,
Our hearts will live with thee.
Fight! Fight! Fight! for the blue and white
Are rolling to victory!

It all seems so unfair! Just when I found you, I lost you!*

Magnet #371 - Sports Museum of America

Noooooooooo! They closed the Sports Museum of America! Nooooooooo, say it ain't so!

I'm so freakin' devastated by this news, you have no idea.

To be fair, I have to admit that when I first saw the advertising for it last year (what little there was of it), I wasn't all that interested in going. Then I saw that the asking price was $27, and I was totally not interested.

While I love going to games and watching boys play sports, or staying at home and watching boys watch boys play sports, I'm just a Carolina basketball fan. The rest of sportsdom (outside of the Summer Olympics, and [shirtless] Karch Kiraly and his volleyball playing/judging/commentating), I'm just not a huge sportsfan.

But, upon watching their sizzle reel (I swear, who thinks sizzle reels don't work?) my sister insisted on going, and they had dropped their prices down to $16, and it was in the Standard Oil building (which I love), so we went.

And (second to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex) the SMA became one of my favorite museums in Manhattan. I freakin' loved this museum. We went on a Thursday, and we were the only ones there - which should have been our first sign. We literally saw maybe ten people during our three hours there.

But what fun did we have. Seriously. We got to:

• hog the Heisman Trophy all to ourselves.
• watch their opening video of the greatest moments in sports history twice. And alone. Great video, but Jenny was mad that they didn't include the stupid 2.1-seconds left historical shot that Christian Laettner made to win that Kentucky game, which I saw at the Carolina student union, booing the whole way through. I mean, even Ashley Judd (who, by the way has a great quote about being an obnoxious UK fan under the UK exhibit), has to admit, it was a sweet shot.
  
• play the interactive soccer game. Twice.
• hold ARod's bat. Now we understand why the steroids. I hadn't a clue bats were so heavy.
  
• pretend to be a hockey player on the ice.
• compete in an interactive round of sports trivia.
  
• see a ton of Olympic medals and memorabilia.
• see a ton of just superdupercool general sports memorabilia.
  
• timed ourselves on a balance board, to pretend we were skiing.
• touch basketballs in rapid succession to test our reaction times. I'm awesome, in case you ever want to play one-on-one.
  
• practice our balance beam routines, just like when we did them across the folded blanket and/or sofa for the 84, 88 and probably 92 Olympics.

But the best thing we got to do (made even better because no one was around) - we got to put on the headsets, roll the videotape, and call one of the greatest games in history - Joe Starkey's Call of the 1982 Cal/Stanford Big Game:

Alright here we go with the kick-off. Harmon will probably try to squib it and he does. Ball comes loose and the Bears have to get out of bounds. Rogers along the sideline, another one...they're still in deep trouble at midfield, they tried to do a couple of....the ball is still loose as they get it to Rogers. They get it back to the 30, they're down to the 20...Oh the band is out on the field!! He's gonna go into the endzone!!! He got into the endzone!! Will it count? The Bears have scored but the bands are out on the field.

...The Bears, believe it or not, took it all the way into the endzone. If the penalty is against Stanford, California would win the game. If it is not, the game is over and Stanford has won. We've heard no decision yet. Everybody is milling around on the FIELD!!! AND THE BEARS!!! THE BEARS HAVE WON!!! THE BEARS HAVE WON!!! Oh my God, the most amazing, sensational, traumatic, heart rending... exciting thrilling finish in the history of college football! California has won...the Big Game...over Stanford. Oh excuse me for my voice, but I have never, never seen anything like it in the history of I have ever seen any game in my life! The Bears have won it!

I have never had so much fun at a museum in my entire life. Seriously.

Which is why I'm taking the news about its demise so badly. Do you know that the very next day, I went to work and told at least a handful of boys to go visit it. And now they're closed!

I know it's expensive - it had to be, they spent $93 million to build it! I know it's a crap location, I know there was no advertising (heh, the founder said their crack ad campaign resulted in 95% of NYC residents not knowing about it), but people! Come on!

This is a museum devoted to most of America's national pasttimes!!! Without regard for collegiate or pro, bowling or soccer, NASCAR or Tobacco Road basketball, male or female. How can you not visit - it's practically unAmerican!

Or course, I'm not going to lie, there are things that I would change.

• The cost. It was good they brought it down to $16. It's still a little steep.
  
• The location. Even though I love the wonderfully designed Standard Oil building (curved at the base, but with a tower that was designed to be in line with the Broadway skyline in order not to mess up the sightlines), its location at the tip of Manhattan across from the Charging Bull, is just not the best location ever.
• The signage. Because you're in that gorgeous Standard Oil building, you can't mess it up with supercool signage. No one knows you're there! SMA's the most undercover museum I've ever seen.
  
• The displays. They need to run in there and actually look into some of the displays - some of the wallpaper was falling down.
• The swag. Ok, that's unfair. They have some great swag. I was just sad that this wasn't a real magnet.
• The marketing. I'm a NYC resident and I just happened to find out because a taxi drove by me while I was on a bus. The boys I mentioned it to - boys, mind you - didn't even know of such a museum. Come back, I'll work on your ad campaign for free.
  

Please, oh, please, I just hope some private investor (like I dunno, any ten of the people whose medals and memorabilia are actually featured in the museum) comes to save the day. It's such a fantastic museum, it's a shame to see it go the way of Yankee Stadium, Shea Stadium the dodo bird.

*Kudos to those who actually get this obscure reference to one of my favorite movies of all time. Shut it. I write a blog on magnets. Really? You're judging me for what's behind this link? C'mon. (6:04 for the beginning of this song, but 8:10 for the actual reference to the title. And yes, as soon as I find an appropriate magnet, there will be bloggage on that movie.)

There'll be another Carolina victory

Magnet #346 - Basketball Hall of Fame Joy

So I tried to look up who had more folks in the Basketball Hall of Fame - Carolina or Duke.

Then I saw this headline from SI.com, and thought, eh, who cares. Hehehehe. In the words of one of my guys at work, good win.

Of course, it's that same guy who faithfully reports the Carolina scores to me after every game. I always feel bad, because I'm a big Tar Heel fan, but I rarely watch the games.

Here's why: When I started watching the game, the score started to plummet, and Dook was up at the half. Then I skipped the rest of the game, and we won 101-87.

See how much power I have? I know! So, that's me, takin' one for the team.

If you have a chance, definitely head up to Springfield, MA, for the Hall of Fame. It's a terrific building, but also, a really great set up. It's kinda like the Guggenheim - you just take the elevator up to the top, and the work your way down the chronological order of the inductees. I love looking at the memorabilia from the players and coaches. Make sure you go with enough time to spend, and with no kiddie distractions.

A bit pricey, but worth going if you're at all a basketball fan.

Oh! And since you're in the neighborhood, definitely check out the nearby Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden and the museums surrounding it.

Some red-headed chick

Magnet #341 - Red-Headed Chick from Corbis

Yay, swag magnet!

So almost 18 years ago, I walked down Skipper Bowles Road, down the giant hill toward Carolina's Dean Dome for the first time ever.

I was an incoming freshman, and our incredibly hot (seriously, you'd have to have seen him to believe it) RA (of course, named Tucker, but because don't all hot guys have the coolest names) said we had to go. Something about Convocation being the first of only two times you'd ever be sitting with all of your own college class.

Dutifully, I went.

And behold the wonder, the Dean Dome. If Yankee Stadium is the church of baseball, then for us, the Dean Dome is surely the Cathedral of college basketball.

I walked into the stands, a little dazed and taking in the view, and I sat down next to this red-headed chick.

We started to make the standard freshmen small talk. But our conversation went something like this:

Her: Where you are from?
Me: Salisbury? (cuz no one's ever heard of it)
Her: You're kidding!!! Where'd you go to school?
Me: East Rowan? (cuz really, who knows the ERHS Mustangs?)
Her: What? I went to North Rowan! Where do you live?
Me: Down Bringle Ferry, just past Dan Nicholas.
Her: What??? I live on Providence Church!
Me: OMG, I drove by you every single day on the way to school!

Dudes. Seriously?

One could argue that North Carolina's a small state with even smaller towns. But, honestly? It's a state school, so our incoming class must have had at least a couple thousand kids. It's my firm belief that only The Powers That Be could have intervened and sat me beside this red-headed chick in a dome that seats 22,000.

Years and lots of memories later...we're still friends.

All because of that one fateful meeting down at the Dome.

Happy birthday, Annette!