It's New Year's Eve, which means that millions of eyes will watch Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve tonight, even though Dick Clark is no longer with us.
Young Richard Clark chose 'Dick' instead of 'Rick' for his nickname, as many are prone to do, but that doesn't mean I'll abandon him.
Happy New Year from Rick Show!
(FYI, if you're interested, here's a list of artists on tonight's show: Pitbull, Blondie, Capital Cities, Miley Cyrus, Daughtry, Jason Derulo, Fall Out Boy, Florida Georgia Line, Ariana Grande, Jennifer Hudson, Icona Pop, Enrique Iglesias, Billy Joel, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Robin Thicke and The Fray.)
Mike "Doc" Emrick is a sports commentator, mainly working with professional hockey (specifically, the NHL). He's been at the gig since 1973, and has won a number of awards for his work, including the Lester Patrick Award and was inducted into the US Hockey Hall of Fame in 2011. He currently works for NBC & NBCSports, but has worked for CBS, ABC, TNT, ESPN, Fox, CSTV, SportsChannel Philadelphia,PRISM, Fox Sports Net, and others in the past.
I'm not really an NHL fan, so I don't think I've heard his calls much outside of some Olympic coverage (he also called water polo in the 2012 Olympics, and I think I recall that as I watched a few games.), but apparently he has a penchant for finding different ways to indicate that a player passed the puck. Then "the internet" got an idea:
We met Rick Dale and Rick's Restorations a while back. They spend their time taking older items like jukeboxes and Coke machines and restoring them for new use. Let's see a couple examples of how it's done!
In some baseball news that's been pushed aside, the Chicago Cubs tabbed Rick Renteria to be their new manager, with a 3 year deal. Rick is 51 years old. He was drafted #20 in the 1980 MLB draft and had a playing career from 1986-94 in the majors. He has been in coaching since 1998, but this is his first gig as an MLB manager. He was most recently the bench coach for the San Diego Padres.
I was perusing my Spam mail folder in Gmail the other day, and noticed an email from "Rick." Imagine my joy; an email from Rick himself! Rick was trying sell me "HIGH-END-DESIGNER-JEWELRY-WATCH-AND-HANDBAG-REPLICA-WINTER-SALE" at a website that I'll not even bother to print here. Why share my good deals with all of you lazy bums?
It got me thinking. What other Ricks have been trying to contact me, only to be thwarted by my damn Spam filter?
Just a few emails down, Rica Feldpausch let me know that she could help me have much more girls. Things were really looking up.
My hopes were through the roof at this point. But, alas, I could find no more Ricks. Not even in my Yahoo! spam folder, and I pretty much only use that email for things online I expect to generate spam.
While my dreams were dashed, yours might not be. I ask you, readers (both of you...), check your spam folders! Join me in this adventure! What surprises await?!
Per this report, University of Minnesota leading WR Derrick Engel has a torn ACL and will miss the rest of the season.
Engel leads teh(sic) Gophers with 25 catches for 405 yards and five touchdowns this season. No other receiver on the Gophers has more than eight catches this season, and none have caught a touchdown.
Well, good thing it's November, and they were unlikely to try to throw much anyway. Poor Goophers.
I know it's not exactly baseball season anymore, but I wanted to get this post out there.
Rick Heller is the new head baseball coach at the University of Iowa as of July 2013. He is the 20th head coach in program history. An Iowa native, Rick Has been the head coach at three previous schools (Upper Iowa, Northern Iowa, Indiana State) and is looking to revitalize an Iowa program that has languished in the bottom of the Big Ten standings more often than not in recent years.
Here is a video with some snippets from his introductory press conference. He seems excited to get started, and here's to hoping that he can get the job done.
Ric Savage's "Jock Bio" indicates he has a show called "Ric Savage’s Rock & Roll Chokeslam Radio Show." I have no idea when or if it is on (doesn't show up on the on-air schedule on the website), but I'm intrigued. Very.
FYI, If you're wondering just what type of radio station would do this:
The WRGC Radio format is considered a variety mix. About 30% of the music is soft rock from the fifties through the eighties. The remaining 70 percent includes a mix of crossover country and adult contemporary but not the hot AC format.
The WRGC Radio slogan is, “From the Heart of Fraser Fir Country this is 540 A-M WRGC Radio”
There's been a lot of news in the last week or so about Miami Dolphins player Richie Incognito. None if it has been good.
To recap:
Richie Incognito played college football at the University of Nebraska (which is almost enough by itself to be villainous). He was a highly regarded recruit, and a good player.
- In the spring of 2003, he was suspended from the team and later reinstated prior to the 2003 season
- In Feb. 2004, he was involved in a fight that resulted in multiple assault charges. He was all set to again play the upcoming football season, but was suspended on Sept 1, and subsequently ended his college career at Nebraska.
- He transferred to the University of Oregon, hoping to find a new team. He lasted 1 week before being dismissed
-Once in the NFL:
On December 13, during the first half of a 47-7 loss to the Tennessee Titans, Incognito drew two 15-yard penalties for headbutting Titans players. Head coach Steve Spagnuolo benched him for the second half, and the two got into a heated confrontation on the sidelines. It was the second time Incognito had been benched for losing his composure; he'd been pulled from the season opener against Seattle for two personal fouls. However, the Titans incident was the last straw; the Rams waived him two days after the game
- In 2012, Richie was vote 2nd most dirty player in the NFL, only losing out to fellow Nebraska alum, Ndamukong Suh. In 2009, he was voted the dirtiest player.
- Multiple NFL players have reported that Incognito said or did unacceptable things to them, including Warren Sapp, saying Richie called him the "n-word"
- Now, in Nov 2013, Incognito has been suspended from his current team, the Miami Dolphins amid reports of harassment and bullying of teammate Jonathan Martin. They include the following voicemail:
"Hey, wassup, you half n----- piece of s---. I saw you on Twitter, you been training 10 weeks. [I want to] s--- in your f---ing mouth. [I'm going to] slap your f---ing mouth. [I'm going to] slap your real mother across the face [laughter]. F--- you, you're still a rookie. I'll kill you.
- Oh, and apparently he spends time drunk and in a topless(?!) sports bar
http://youtu.be/SW9C4qi5Y80
To summarize: Richie Incognito appears to be, by many accounts, a grade-a asshole and douchebag.
[Update:]
Over the weekend, Incognito spoke out, including the following:
"When words are put in a context, I understand why a lot of eyebrows get raised," Incognito told Fox Sports during the interview, which aired Sunday. "But people don't know how Jon and I communicate to one another. For instance, a week before this went down, Jonathan Martin texted me on my phone, 'I will murder your whole f------ family.' "Now, do I think Jonathan Martin was going to murder my family? Not one bit. He texted me that. I didn't think he was going to kill my family. I knew that was coming from a brother. I knew it was coming from a friend. I knew it was coming from a teammate."
I'm glad that my friends and I don't text each other that we'll kill each other's families. That seems odd.
Rick Baker is a Hollyood makeup artist. He got his start working on The Exorcist. He created Michael Jackson's werecat look in Thriller. He worked on Harry and The Hendersons. He has won multiple Academy Awards, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Take a look at his filmography.
Alan Rickman is an English actor, classically trained (a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company), and has won both an Emmy and Golden Globe. He is known for his performances as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies, and...other stuff that's not Harry Potter.
http://youtu.be/i16NigDQ2HA
After the jump, a video that is made like it's a obituary...but he's not dead.
*p.p.s I just found out that he's recording again. A reggae album, including Snoop Dogg, er, Lion. See this. The first single is actually not too shabby.
"Greetings from Beech Creek Studio, my name is Rick Heller."
That's what greets you, dear reader, at www.rickhellerflutes.com. Rick Heller makes Native American flutes in a 5-hole Lakota design. Cost is $85 and up, depending on design, custom flutes are obviously much more expensive. Feel free to browse the catalog on his site or on Ebay if you're interested.
Rick has been a woodworker since age 16 and has been making his flutes since the early 1990s. You can find more about his professional history on this page of his website
Since I'm sure you're wondering how they sound, let's hop on over to youtube and find user Allen Bruce Ray, who has a number of videos of himself playing Rick Heller flutes in a tunnel. He seems really good at it.
I mentioned in a prior Rick Pitino post that he'd been selected for the basketball Hall of Fame. Over the weekend the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame held its enshrinement ceremony, where Mr. Pitinoand Richard Guerin were both inducted.
I'd never heard of Mr. Guerin, so here's his bio from the Naismith website:
RICHARD GUERIN [Player] -- Guerin is widely known as one of best all-around players ever in the NBA, scoring over 14,676 points during his 13-year stint. The six-time NBA All-Star was a member of the New York Knicks from 1956-1963 and was the first Knick to score 2,000 points in a single season (1961-62). He averaged 20.1 points per game with the team and recorded 4,278 rebounds and 4,211 assists in his career. He finished as a player/coach for the St. Louis/Atlanta Hawks, compiling an NBA coaching record of 327-291 with the Hawks organization and was named NBA Coach of the Year in 1968. Rewriting the basketball record books as a collegiate player at Iona College, Guerin scored 1,375 points, including a career average of 19.6 points per game and graduated the leading scorer in Iona basketball history. The New York Knicks drafted him in the second round in 1956.
Likewise, here's Pitino's:
RICK PITINO [Coach] -- Pitino is the only coach in men’s history to lead three different schools to NCAA Final Four appearances as he did with Providence College, University of Kentucky and University of Louisville. He led Kentucky to the 1996 National Championship and then reached the title game again with the Wildcats the following year. He has won over 600 games in his collegiate career, reached the Final Four seven different times (1987, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2005, 2011 and 2013), led his teams to 21 postseason appearances and won nine conference tournament championships. He earned Coach of the Year honors from different sources three different years. Pitino also held two stints as an NBA head coach with the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics, leading the Knicks to two playoff appearances.
The Hall of Fame also posted the speeches on youtube today (after the jump)
The jumbotron at Kinnick today had that message at one point while the Hawkeyes were in the process of beating Missouri State. Now, I don't know who this Rick fellow is, but it's his anniversary soon. So, happy anniversary, Rick!
Since I know many of Rick Shows readers are in the same age bracket as me, I'm sure they are likely to remember Mr. Ricky Watters, NFL running back of the 1990s.
He played college ball at Notre Dame (bleh!) and was drafted by the 49ers (yay!) in the second round of the 1991 draft. After sitting out that first season due to injury, Ricky was the starting running back for the team for the next three seasons as the 49ers went to the NFC Championship game ('92,'93) or the Super Bowl ('94). He then joined the Philadelphia Eagles for the following three seasons, followed by four seasons with the Seattle Seahawks.
Ricky ended his professional career with 10,643 rushing yards and 4.1 yards per carry, with 78 TDs. He also had 4248 yards receiving and 13 TDs. Ricky Watters didn't go unrewarded, as he was a 5-time Pro Bowl member and a 3 time All-Pro selection. He has not, however, been inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame.
He is now active in charities and his foundation as well as coaching. Find out all about Ricky at his website, http://rickywatters.com/
Ricky set an NFL record with 5 touchdowns in a playoff game once. Here's part 1. You can also find them all easily on his website or via his official youtube channel
Did I forget to mention that he did a song with Method Man for the NFL Jams album?
Rick Ankiel is a professional baseball player, currently unemployed (a free agent, if you will). Rick also has a rather unique story among MLB players.
He was a pitcher, selected in the second round of the 1997 MLB draft by the St Louis Cardinals. In his first full season, 2000, he came in 2nd in NL Rookie of the Year voting and had 9.98 strikeouts and allowed 7.05 hits per 9 innings. In the postseason of that year, however, Rick started to have trouble controlling his pitches. The next season, his troubles continued and he was demoted from the Majors. After missing 2002 with injury, he played in the minor leagues in 2003 before another injury. In 2005, he announced that he was going to become an outfielder (local side note: his wikipedia page has a pic of him in 2005 playing in the Quad Cities). He tried out with the Cardinals in 2006, hoping to make it back to the major league, but was sidelined by another injury. After beginning 2007 back in the minors, he got called up to St Louis in Aug of 2007, where he played through the 2009 season, somewhat successfully.
Over the past 4 seasons he has played for 5 different teams (he was in Washington for '11/'12 and on two different teams in each '10 and '13) as his production has diminished, leading to his current status.
His career stats are here, and someone on youtube did us the favor of this career summary:
The members of the Ricketts family are the owners of the Chicago Cubs of Major League Baseball since 2009.
Tom Ricketts and his siblings, Pete, Laura and Todd grew up in Omaha, NE in the 60s where his father Joe founded TD Ameritrade. Tom Ricketts is the director of the company at present, and the family's wealth is estimated in the range of $1 billion.
If you're interested in meeting the Ricketts family, the Chicago Tribune is here to serve.
Finally we've gotten back to another female for the blog. Katie Couric. She's not just an obscure reference like a few of the Ricks I've pulled out; everyone knows who she is. Katie has worked for NBC (on the Today show), CBS (CBS Evening News) and ABC (ABC News and daytime show Katie).
She also notably got the first interview on TV with Manti Te'o after the world found out he had a fake girlfriend (what ever happened with that? We all got bored with that pretty quickly.)
If you're in the mood for something a little shorter and more interesting, here's Katie with Howard Stern.
If you're not watching Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee series, you should be. It's Jerry and various other comedians just hanging out and chatting.
Recently, the episode featured our friend Don Rickles:
Remember a long time ago when Rick Show brought you the story of Rickardsville, IA? Regardless, I've recently found out that there's another small town, Ricketts, IA, that I should make note of. It's in Crawford county, in the western part of the state. Population 145.
Ricketts was founded in 1899 as a result of the Boyer Railroad Company building a line in the county. It is believed that the town got its name from a Mr Ricks that had recently died. You can browse the rest of origins of the town here.
Seems like it's been a little while since I've went searching YouTube for other Rick Shows. Today we find something called "Uncle Rick Show." In fact, let's have the first TWO episodes as a bonus (there are a few. perhaps we'll come back to this later)
A loyal reader sent me a link recently to an article from LA Weekly entitled, Top 20 Worst Bands of All Time. First off, let me say that the list is a wrong. Just wrong. But as I was browsing, I noticed #15:
15. Pretty RickyEmerging with their mid-aughts hit "Grind With Me," Pretty Ricky somehow managed to lower the bar when it came to heartthrob groups with baby-oil-smeared chests. It's excellent that they've got great abs, and they certainly have the right to wear their shiny jackets wide open. But their musical sensibilities are questionable; someone in the group seems to have decided that New Jack Swing was too subtle. Pretty Ricky's rap-R&B hybrid is so tasteless and tacky, even, that it could make Mariah Carey blush. The point here is seduction, but it's hard to be seduced when you're nauseous. -Ben Westhoff
Now, I don't know anything about Pretty Ricky, so maybe they are that bad. But #15 worst all time seems harsh.
In an effort to determine if the ranking is accurate, I went to youtube and found the video of their highest rated single, "Grind With Me" from 2005.
(ed note: AMC had a Walking Dead marathon this past weekend, which allowed me to get in a lot of episodes, and decide on this post)
Rick Grimes (no relation to Frank Grimes) is the main character in The Walking Dead, a popular TV show on AMC as well as a graphic novel.
You can read more about him from the comics here or the TV show here. I've never read the comics, and I recently started watching the TV show last season (season 3). You should watch it as well.
Rick is played by actor Andrew Lincoln in the TV show, who appears to have little in the way of a rick-history prior to this role.
You want to know who Rick Grimes is? Luckily, AMC has a video that answers that exact question!
Well, this is interesting. I mean that. I stumbled upon this trailer from a 2009 French film, Ricky:
http://youtu.be/5y4LhXjrsbQ
I don't use Netflix and it's not at my local library. I haven't seen it, but I'm still going to recommend that someone out there does. (FYI, 60% on Rotten Tomatoes, 53 Metacritic)
Here we go again with the RIPs. Author and screenwriter Richard Matheson has died at age 87. He wrote some episodes of The Twilight Zone as well as I Am Legend (made into Will Smith movie) and What Dreams May Come, among others.
Here's a recap of his career, upon his death:
And here he is talking about the highlight of his career:
It's summertime, even if not yet officially. I happen to know that during the summer, more people put on swimwear in this part of the world than during other times of the year. I also know that people enjoy things Rick related. You know how we can combine the two? Lime Ricki
Per their "about us":
Lime Ricki Swimwear debuted in 2006 with a small collection of women’s swimsuits, offering conservative alternatives in swimwear. Four years later, they launched their first men’s line with a handful of trunks and boardies. Today, Lime Ricki includes a retail store and an ever-growing online shop.
So, if you are in Utah (USA) or Alberta (CAN) or you like to shop online and you're looking for some modest swimwear, maybe you should take a look at theirs.
The Iowa City Public Library's Facebook page just tipped me off that Richard Scarry's birthday is today. He would have been 94 had death not intervened. Happy Birthday to him.
Rick's Restorations is the business featured in the History Channel show American Restoration. Rick's is owned and run by Rick Dale. Rick has been doing this a long time, and does some pretty nice work. I'll admit that I've only seen a couple of episodes of the show, but if I had a bunch of cash to blow and lived in Vegas, I'd probably check their place out just based on some of the items for sale on their website. I think it's cool that these guys spend their lives taking these old items and giving them new life.
Here's a tour of their operation:
and of their "boneyard" with the items to be restored:
Last year, we saw Erik the Red practice eating tamales at home. If you're interested in seeing him eat something else, here he is eating the 12 Egg Omelet from Beth's Cafe in Seattle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N48Q1qJQGUo
On a related note, I had eggs for dinner last night. But only three of them.
Another kind of derrick is used around oil wells and other drilled holes. This is generally called an oil derrick and is a complex set of machines specifically designed for optimum efficiency, safety and low cost. This is used on some offshore oil and gas rigs.
The centerpiece is the archetypical derrick tower, used for lifting and positioning the drilling string and piping above the well bore, and containing the machinery for turning the drilling bit around in the hole. As the drill string goes deeper into the underlying soil or rock, new piping has to be added to the top of the drill to keep the connection between drill bit and turning machinery intact, to create a filler to keep the hole from caving in, and to create a conduit for the drilling mud. The drilling mud is used to cool the drilling bit and to blow rock debris clear from the drill bit and the bottom of the well. The piping joints sections—usually each about 10 meters (30 ft) long—have threaded ends, so they can be screwed together. The piping is hollow to allow for the mud to be pumped down into the drilling hole, where it flushes out at the drilling bit. The mud then proceeds upwards towards the surface on the outside of the piping, carrying the debris with it.
The derrick also controls the weight on the drilling bit, because the drill bit works at an optimum rate only when it is pushed with a precise degree of pressure relative to the rock beneath it. Too much weight can break the drilling bit, and not enough weight will prolong drilling time. At the start of drilling extra heavy piping collars are used to create enough weight to drill. Since the weight of the pipes above the drill bit will increase the pressure on it as it goes deeper, the derrick will apply less pressure as piping sections are added. It will eventually lift the nearly entire drill string-and-piping complex to prevent too much weight as the well goes deeper.
And this is how an oil derrick works, per youtube:
("Its really basic. It took my like 10 min to animate. dont judge it.")
Quick update from last week: Da'Rick Rogers signed a free agent contract with the Buffalo Bills after not getting drafted. Per the Bill's website, they really liked him going into the draft, and when he was still available afterwards, had to fight off half the NFL to get him as a free agent. Let's hope he sticks.
This draft profile video on him was too good to pass up. It's a Vikings podcast by David Erickson and his guest, RickBirmingham...talking about Da'Rick Rogers. Are you kidding me?!
Musician Rick Ross (or RICK RO$$) got into a bit of trouble a few weeks ago for some lyrics he uses in a new song by Rocko that seem to condone rape. Per Rolling Stone:
On the track, Ross refers to a form of the drug Ecstacy known as "molly" when he raps, "Put molly all in her champagne, she ain't even know it / I took her home and I enjoyed that, she ain't even know it"
Unsurprisingly, that didn't go over very well in some circles. Rick later said "It was misunderstanding with a lyric, a misinterpretation where the term 'rape' wasn't used. And I would never use the term 'rape' in my records." and also, per CNN, apologized via twitter:
"Ross took to Twitter in early April to seemingly apologize for the lyrics he used in his song. He tweeted: "I dont condone rape. Apologies for the #lyric interpreted as rape. #BOSS"
Two hours later he attempted to apologize again: "Apologies to my many business partners, who would never promote violence against women. @ReebokClassics @ultraviolet"
Unsurprisingly, neither apology did much to win over those who weren't happy with him. Reebok decided to cut ties with Rick, saying that they didn't believe he showed an appropriate level of remorse.
Rocko has stated that Rick's verse will be dropped from the song in the more radio-friendly version, due to the backlash. (side note: after listening to the song and reading the lyrics, I'm not sure how to make a radio friendly version)
Here's the song. Rick's verse starts at about the 2:00 mark, if you're interested.
Along the Rick in Peace front, folk singer Richie Havens died this week at age 72. He was apparently well known for his performance at Woodstock. Per the NPR article about his death,
Havens was the first performer to walk onto the stage at the festival; he sat on a stool and performed for nearly two hours — including an improvisation that incorporated the spiritual "Motherless Child," later called "Freedom." It became a highlight of the documentary about the festival and introduced him to audiences around the world.
I'd never heard of Richie until the other day when I read about his passing. I'm glad that Rick Show has given me a reason to start clicking on some of the headlines I come across. You never know what you'll learn.
I just found out that Richard LeParmentierdied last week at age 66. He is most well known for taunting Darth Vader is Episode IV. It did not work out so well. Rick in Peace.
Rick Porcello is a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. They play a game called "baseball" that is apparently somewhat popular during the non-winter months. I've heard it referred to as a pastime before.
He's been with the Tigers since he made his professional debut 2009, with a 48-44 record and a 4.67 ERA.
He also recently had a bad day. Below is his line from Detroit's recent game against the Angels. He was the starter. Ouch.
PITCHERS
IP
H
R
ER
BB
SO
HR
ERA
Rick Porcello (L,0-2)
0.2
9
9
9
1
0
1
11.08
If you're too lazy to click on his name above and read the wikipedia article, someone has taken care of the problem. Here's a computer reading it to you!
Oh...and he might not be the best of friends with Kevin Youkilis
Eric May just completed his senior season on the University of Iowa basketball team. He was a team captain and by all accounts a great leader. Eric had a tremendous freshman season, earning All-Big Ten Freshman team honors, had a solid second season, and was hampered by injuries his junior year, causing his play to suffer. His senior season was played with much of the intensity and athletic ability fans had hoped for after his freshman year, producing numerous dunks that ignited the crowd while seeing his shooting percentages rise, earning praise for his defensive performances, and just generally helping out everywhere. I believe Eric earned a lot of respect from Hawkeye fans because he played on two of the worst teams in Iowa Basketball history and stayed through a coaching change while some of his teammates left the program.
Here are some Eric May dunks:
Thanks for your dedication and effort, Eric!
Also, I want to note that the only other senior on this year's team was walk-on Chris Rickert. It must have been full-on ricksville on senior day.
