I make it a point to not be political on this site, but all of this birth control nonsense is just getting to be too damn much.  How is this a political conversation?  In 2012?  Fifty years after the pill was invented?  And with everything else going on in this country?

I know we have a Puritanical history, but are Americans really that uncomfortable with sex?

So let me see if I have this whole thing right: Certain people don’t want their tax dollars to be spent on something as sinful as birth control for others.  I just don’t understand the outrage there, especially since so many people depend on birth control.  To prevent pregnancy, sure, but for plenty of other health reasons.  It’s a pretty amazing invention, and people who want it should have access to it.  Saying they can’t have it, and they should just stop having so much sex anyway, is beyond preposterous.

But beyond that, would it really make a huge impact on the country’s bottom line?  We cut all government spending on the pill, and then… what exactly?  The recession ends?  Unemployment and foreclosures all become a thing of the past?

No?

Didn’t think so.

There’s certainly a place for American citizens to voice their concerns about the use and/or misuse of their tax dollars.  For example, some people think that the spending of billions of dollars to bailout the banks that caused the economy to collapse may not have been money well spent. Now that is something to debate; there are complicated pros and cons, and the consequences are far-reaching. Compare that to this other “debate:” Providing birth control helps countless people and hurts no one (though it does clearly annoy some loudmouths.) So… what’s the issue here?

The unfortunate fact of the matter is that not every person in this country will agree with how every tax dollar is spent.  And there are problems with our budget – big problems.  But people deserve to have access to healthcare.  And that includes birth control.

And the fact remains that we have bigger things to worry about right now.  Like, you know, the entire economy.  Massive unemployment.  Staggering wealth disparity. A lagging education system.  The goal of keeping our country safe while also maintaining a realistic military budget.

So what consenting adults do behind closed doors really should NOT be a focus right now.

By the same token, why is gay marriage still a debate?  They love each other, let them get married!  Again, I don’t see what the issue is here, but even if you do have an ethical issue with it, shouldn’t we be focused on some other more pressing matters (see above) before entering into grand philosophical debates on the nature of true love?

I also find it ironic that a lot of the people who are anti-birth control are also anti-gay.  Guess what?  Gay people need birth control the least!!

OK, I’m getting off of my soap box now.  Thanks for reading.

The wedding of a close friend can always be emotional, but seeing Ben and Concetta tie the knot this past Saturday had even more significance to it. Namely because eight and half years ago, it wasn’t a guarantee that Ben would ever see this day.

Ben’s accident was an incredibly difficult time, but the hours, days, weeks, months, and years that followed proved just how unbelievably tough Ben is, and how amazingly strong his family is.

During the wedding, Ben’s brother and best man Jordan said that Ben had never been happier than he is now, with Cetta in his life.  And that when you get right down to it, that’s the most important thing there is.  They are definitely two halves of one whole… hence their singular entity name, Benetta!

So Mazel Tov to Ben, Concetta, and their families!

And thank you guys for an insanely fun wedding weekend. An awful lot of our gang – myself most definitely included – ate and drank an abundance of delicious food and top-shelf liquor. Somewhat surprisingly, I left the wedding with lots of great memories from the affair, including:

• Watching Benetta enter their reception THROUGH THE FLOOR. Now that’s an entrance!
• Taking shots with the groom, his mom, and everyone else in attendance.
• Being lifted up piggyback style on Adam’s shoulders, and being pretty convinced I might be killed in the process.
• Listening to Aaron, who doesn’t know the words to ANY songs, singalong with every lyric of K-Ci & JoJo’s All My life.
• Hitching a ride back to the hotel in what I was pretty damn convinced at the time was a limo that was not ours to take.  Eh, we got back to the hotel safe, sound, and in style, and no one’s yelled at us yet, so I guess we’re in the clear.

I’m also proud to say that after sleeping in, pigging out at brunch, taking an insanely long nap, and then pigging out on Thai take-out, I think I’m back to 100%.  The only down side is that I am a bit disappointed with the knowledge that I’m likely never going to another wedding quite like Benetta’s!

I know this makes me sound like every other whiny nerd on the internet, but a Ghostbusters 3 without Peter Venkman? Thanks, but no thanks. I mean, I’d probably still see it, but watching a movie with Ray, Egon, and Winston, and a glaringly absent Venkman just doesn’t hold the same appeal.

It’s too bad that Bill Murray isn’t interested in the threequel, but in the end, it’s his call, and I respect that.  Hey, he made the right decision in staying the hell away from Caddyshack 2, right?

Happy Leap Day, everyone!

I’ve always had a fascination with February 29th.  I mean, how cool is it that there’s this one day that only comes around once every four years?

365 days a year?  Not this year!  February 29th brings the count to a record-tying 366!  C’mon – February 29th?  Even saying it is fun.  February is supposed to just have 28 days!  That’s like, February’s whole thing!  And then that totally changes every four years?  CRAZY!

And of course if they were going to add a day to any month, it had to be February.  You couldn’t have an October 32nd – that would totally ruin Halloween!

I always felt like Leap Day should be some kind of holiday, and apparently the brilliant minds over at 30 Rock agree.  In last week’s show, they treated February 29th as a real special occasion, with it’s own traditions, characters, sayings, even a hackneyed movie!  And when you think about it, why isn’t it a real holiday?  I’d totally be down for another excuse to buy unnecessary cards, candies, and presents.  And it seems like this year, more of a big deal is being finally paid to Leap Day.  There was last week’s 30 Rock.  On tonight’s Modern Family, we will learn that Cameron’s birthday is Leap Day.  Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom in Disney World will both be open – for the first time ever – for 24 hours today.  Verizon’s running a special deal on their 4G phones and tablets.  You can even get a free Sausage McMuffin or Big Mac at your local McDonald’s.  My dream of a national holiday on 2/29 is coming closer to reality!

My guess is the reason people are starting to take notice of Leap Day has something to do with this being a new century.  For the past 11 years, we’ve had one day with all the same numbers, like 3/3/03, or 7/7/07.  That’s a new novelty, so maybe that has made people appreciate days that are more rare.  Like Leap Day.

OK, maybe my obsession with Leap Day is a little bizarre.  I think it stems from the fact that I always thought it would be awesome to be like Modern Family’s Cameron, and have Leap Day as your birthday.  Wouldn’t that be the best birthday ever?  First of all, no one would ever forget it.  But cooler than that would be the fact that you would age one-fourth as fast as everyone else.  Just think about it – you’d be in college by the time you’re fifth birthday rolled around.  Take that, Doogie Howser!

Sure, it might kind of be a bummer that you don’t get to have a big birthday party every year like the other kids, but when your birthday did come around, it would certainly be an occasion more than four times as special!

(I suppose you could celebrate some sort of occasion on February 28th or March 1st, but it would have to be with a wink and an understanding that it wasn’t your real birthday.  Your real birthday has the year off.  You don’t need a birthday every single year, like those other “regular” kids.)

Whether or not you think today is as cool as I do, and whether or not Leap Day William is real, I’m going with the notion that it’s a pretty cool day.  Hey, I’ve been blogging for nearly four years (since March 25, 2008), and this is my first ever Leap Day post!

So do whatever you want today – Real Life is for March!

Of the nine (!) Best Picture nominees this year, Courtney and I only saw two, Midnight in Paris and The Descendants. Weirdly enough, those are the two movies that won in the Best Screenplay categories, for Original and Adapted respectively.

I didn’t think Midnight in Paris was amazing, but I did find it to be a well-written movie, with a great commentary on the perils of being overly nostalgic for the past at the expense of enjoying the present.

I really loved The Descendants, however. Not only was the story expertly crafted, but all of the roles were well-acted, the dark drama was balanced with just enough humor, and the feeling of desperation that Alexander Payne captures so well in his films once again shone through.

A few people I talked to found the movie to be too depressing, and while it certainly wasn’t a happy-go-lucky film, I still think it did a great job at evoking emotion, which is no small feat. And while I do generally tend to enjoy movies that are more uplifting, once in a while a good sad movie can be a nice change of pace.

Back to the Oscars… Woody Allen was once again a no-show to collect his award, but the Descendants screenwriter Jim Rash, better known as Community’s Dean Pelton, was able to turn his few moments on stage into a buzzed about bit by lampooning Angelina Jolie’s leggy pose. (Which really was just begging to be made fun of.)

So not only is this guy an Oscar-winning screenwriter who is also hysterical on a beloved sitcom, but he’s also able to take an otherwise uneventful Oscar category and make it into something memorable. Good job, Mr. Rash!

Other unrelated Oscar night thoughts:

• Billy Crystal was definitely an improvement from James Franco and Anne Hathaway, but how many jokes did he have to make about Jews and Kodak going out of business?
• How on earth did that feedback not get picked up by anyone in the audio department? Do those guys not wear headphones?
• JLo had a wardrobe malfunction while talking about how it is to wear classy, ladylike dresses?  Oh the irony!
• Of the nominated movies I didn’t see, I’m most looking forward to watching Moneyball.
• Why is Cirque du Soleil performing at every major live event all of a sudden? It’s pretty impressive I suppose, but what did that number have to do with the movies? I’d have much rather seen Jason Segel and Walter sing “Man or Muppet.”
• And yeah, it was pretty awesome that my favorite song from The Muppets won Bret McKenzie an Oscar, even if the competition was slim. Congratulations, Bret!

It’s time for an alannoah.com poll!

So the wife and I were talking the other day about names.  No, Courtney’s not pregnant.  The conversation came up when the missus mentioned that a coworker has a son named Quinn.  Without thinking about it, I asked if he was a Mighty Quinn.  It’s just instinct; if I hear the name Quinn, I want to start singing The Mighty Quinn (Quinn, the Eskimo).  Apparently, I’m not the only one, because Courtney mentioned that everyone says that to the guy.

It’s not that me and those other people are actively going out of our way to make fun of Quinn’s name, it’s just that the song pops into our minds without thinking about it.

That got Courtney and I talking about other names that people would have similar responses to.  Like for example, if you met a woman named Caroline, you’d probably start singing, at least to your self, the “bum bum bum,” from Sweet Caroline.  Or if someone introduced you to a friend named Roxanne, you’d want to inform her that she doesn’t have to put on the red light.

The more I thought about it, in order for this “trick” to work, the name needs to not only be closely associated with a song, but the name has to be rare enough where that association isn’t displaced simply by commonality.  For example, I love Tummy Tutone’s one hit as much as the next guy, but I’ve known enough Jenny’s over the years that simply hearing the name doesn’t make me want to start begging a real world Jenny to not change her number.

So what other names fit this bill?  Well as my friend Brandi will tell you, I can’t help but constantly remind her that all the sailors say what a fine girl she is.

And it doesn’t have to be just a name from a song.  If you ever met a fella names Homer, you’d be fighting the urge to scream out, “D’oh!”  Or if you encountered a Luke, despite the fact that you shared no familial relations with the guy, you’d certainly be inclined to tell him that you were his father.

Right?  Or is it just me?

Thinking back to when we were debating names for Eli, Courtney and I did take these things into consideration.  We kicked around the name Elliot, but we were afraid he’d be hearing people say his name in an E.T. voice his whole life, so we opted against it.

So that brings me to the poll.  Do you have a name that fits this bill?  Do you like your name’s association, or is it annoying when jackasses like me spout the same dumb catchphrase or song lyric you’ve been hearing for years?

And what other names would fit into this category?

Congratulations to The Simpsons, my all-time favorite show, on the unbelievable accomplishment of airing it’s 500th episode this past Sunday.

If you need any further proof that the show’s still got it so many episodes along, you should start with this milestone moment. (You should then follow it up with their recent send-up of The Social Network and all things Facebook, which was brilliant.)

If you need something to tide you over until you can get 22 minutes to watch the whole show, at least check out the very special opening, which included what I presume is every single couch gag in the show’s history.

I know I’m a sucker for sentimentality, but I love moments like this.  I distinctly remember watching the show’s 100th, 200th, and 300th episodes.  (Number 400 is a little fuzzy for some reason…)  And it’s great reading an article like this, with stories about the show’s staff was being thrilled to hit he 200 mark, little knowing that they’d go on to do so much more.

Long live The Simpsons!

Earlier in the week, I posited a question to my Facebook friends in honor of Valentine’s Day: What is the cheesiest love song ever? I got many good responses, but one really got me thinking… the epically cheesy monster ballad by Extreme, “More Than Words.” Remember that one? It went a little something like this:

Well, I think this song is in need of the Alan Noah over analysis treatment. (You know, like I did that one other time that was such a smash hit?)  Why? Because this song doesn’t just take a few grammatical liberties with it’s lyrics; it’s an affront to our language as a whole.

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

Saying I love you
Is not the words I want to hear from you.

Clearly, songwriters Gary Cherone and Nuno Bettencort forgot the basic tenants of the rules on when to use “is” and “are,” namely that if the subject is singular, you use “‘is,” and if it is plural, you use “are.”  There are three words in the phrase, “I love you,” therefore they are not the words he wants to hear from you.  Also it should be noted that the word “saying” is totally unnecessary.

Moving on.

It’s not that I want you
Not to say, but if you only knew
How easy it would be to show me how you feel.

So I guess when they were writing this song, Cherone and Bettencort couldn’t resist not using a double negative, huh? And the sentence isn’t a complete thought; the conjunction “if” never really transitions to a qualifier.

More than words is all you have to do to make it real
Then you wouldn’t have to say that you love me
‘Cause I’d already know.

Here we get into the song’s biggest issue – how they’re defining “more than words.”  They appear to be using it as a verb, indicating that it is all you have to “do.” Of course, this is a stretch, because how does one “do” more than words? According to the prior line, it is an easy thing to do, but I have never in my life heard someone say, “Hey Charlie, I’m going to be a little bit late to dinner, I have to more than words for half an hour before I leave the house.”

The implication seems to be that actions speak louder than words, and that is a nice (if clichéd) sentiment. But the songwriters fail to explain what it is that they are looking for their mate to do, and how it would be so easy. That’s not really a grammatical issue, I just think a little more clarity out of the gate would have been nice.

What would you do if my heart was torn in two?
More than words to show you feel
That your love for me is real.

Here again, “more than words” is being used as if it were a specific thing that someone could do, when it is in fact simply a vague description of some undefined action that would mean more than saying “I love you.”.

What would you say if I took those words away?
Then you couldn’t make things new
Just by saying I love you.

I suppose these lines are coherent sentences, but they don’t really make much sense. If Cherone and Bettencort removed the words “I love you” from our communal vocabulary, then of course no one would be able to say them at all, let alone to serve the specific purpose of making things new. Fortunately for us all, they have no such power over the English language.

More than words.

Yes, we know.

Now that I’ve tried to talk to you and make you understand
All you have to do is close your eyes
And just reach out your hands and touch me.
Hold me close, don’t ever let me go.

Ah, well there’s that clarification I was looking for! So it turns out that this entire song is about hugging with your eyes closed! Wait, that means more than the words “I love you?” Whatever you say, fellas. And though it may be slightly off topic, the platitude “don’t ever let me go” has always bothered me. I mean, you can’t ever let the other person go? Ever? What about when you have to go to the bathroom? Or want to play videogames? Or, you know, just want some time to yourself where you’re not being hugged tightly by another person with their eyes closed?

The song then goes on by repeating the same sentiments we’ve already gone over.

But since it’s awfully easy to criticize and harder to do something about it, I hereby offer my suggestions on how to fix the song’s lyrics to better convey what Cherone and Bettencort were really getting at. And I have done it without affecting the musical structure of the song. Enjoy.

“Baby, I love you,”
Are not the words I want to hear from you.
The words are nice and all,
But I just wish you knew
How easy it would be to show me how you feel.
A closed-eye hug is all you have to do to make it real
Then you wouldn’t have to say that you love me
‘Cause I’d already know.
What would you do if a lack of hugs had made me blue?
A closed-eye hug to show you feel
That your love for me is real.
What would you say if I took that hug away?
You’d futilely try to make things new
Just by saying I love you.

Now that I’ve tried to talk to you and make you understand
All you have to do is close your eyes
And just reach out your hands and touch me
Hold me close and periodically let me go.
A closed-eye hug is all I ever needed you to show
Then you wouldn’t have to say that you love me
‘Cause I’d already know.

Now, isn’t that better?

…for my wife… as expressed by baby Muppets. Which are, of course, not to be confused with the Muppet Babies, the animated series that was inspired by the below sequence from The Muppets Take Manhattan.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody!

Two tune in alerts in a single week?  This has to be some kind of record!

Well, get ready folks, because this Sunday, TLC will premiere a very special Extreme Couponing event:

Extreme Couponing: Black Friday Blitz!

This special takes four women that had been previously featured on Extreme Couponing and turns them loose on Black Friday.  If you thought that the people who camped out for deals on the day after Thanksgiving were nuts, you’ll gain a new found respect for these super savers after watching this special.

The show premieres this Sunday, February 12th, at 8pm on TLC. To tide you over until then, watch this preview of the show, featuring Extreme Couponer Katherine… and her Black Friday secret weapon!