Nothing says Colts football like...

...motor oil and fuel stabilizers? Lucas Oil has apparently bought the naming rights to the new Indianapolis Colts Stadium. They make fuel and oil additives and are based out of California. They have a history of sponsoring auto racing and are apparently the official Oil Products Supplier for the Indianapolis Colts. Whatever that means. According to the Indianapolis Star, the domain names www.lucasoilstadium.com and www.lucasstadium.com were registered Monday. Lucas Oil Stadium doesn't quite roll off the tongue. Let's hope they don't want to put a big oil can on the stadium like the ketchup bottle at Heinz Field.

Get The Roach Family Blog in Chinese!

For our international readers, you can now get instant translations of the Roach Family Blog through Altavista Babelfish translator. You can get translations to Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, French or Italian. Not that it'll ever be used, but just in case.

If you're curious, the Babelfish name comes from Douglas Adams' Hitchhickers Guide to the Galaxy book series. From Wikipedia, "When a Babel fish is inserted into the ear canal it allows the wearer to 'instantly understand anything said... in any form of language.'"

The babelfish itself is a reference to the biblical Tower of Babel, which was destroyed by God and the languages of the nations were confused and scattered to different parts of the Earth.

Mmmmmm....buffalo.....

BW-3 has four new suaces. Yum. Maybe I'll try one on my birthday, hint, hint, hint. The new ones are Parmesan Garlic, Honey BBQ, Asian Zing, and Mango Habanero.

New Golden Smog

Billboard announced yesturday that Lost Highway will release a new Golden Smog CD on July 18th. If you've never heard "The Smog", they're a kind of "alt-country" supergroup comprised of Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, Soul Asylum's Dan Murphy, Big Star's Jody Stephens and the Jayhawks' Gary Louris, Marc Perlman and Kraig Johnson. This is their third full length album. No word yet on any tour plans.

Of birds and briars

OK, sometimes I hate my job and sometimes I love it. Today was a good day. I've been working on a proposed medical park on 190 acres is the southwestern part of Bloomington. Almost 100 acres of the 190 is wooded. I got to spend most of the afternoon traipsing through the woods. The worst part was the Multiflora Rose, a thorny invasive species that has become the bane of my existence. The highlight of the trip though were birds. Yes, birds. Now, I'm not a bird watcher by any stretch of the imagination, but today I saw a gaggle of five Wild turkey and a pair of Eastern Bluebirds. I had never seen either of these before. Both of these species have made a comeback in recent years. Made me wish I had my camera. Doh!

New poll!

There's a new poll on the Roach Family Blog. Tell us, are you sick of only hearing from me? Would you like to read some posts from Cathy? Let your opinion be heard!

The results of our last poll are in. 29% of respondents feel like Parker should be called "Master P." Hummmm. I wasn't expecting that. Good thing this isn't a legally binding vote! We'll probably keep using our pet names for him until he's old enough to be embarrassed by them!

Parker's latest trick

Bring on the ribs!, Originally uploaded by jcroach.

Mmmmmmmm....cereal, Originally uploaded by jcroach.

Parker started eating real food last week! Just in time for his 5 month birthday today. He's just eating rice ceral now. Next week we're taking him to the BBQ joint for some ribs.

They Might Be Giants ringtones

They Might Be Giants have a couple of funny cell phone ringtone available for purchase on their web site. The best is "Call Connected Thru The NSA". Call connected through the NSA, Complete transmission through the NSA, Suspending your rights for the duration of the permanent war.

Jeff Tweedy and Loose Fur get "Born Again"

Loose Fur has a new album, Born Again in the USA, scheduled for release on March 21st. Loose Fur is the sometimes side project of Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche with one time member of Sonic Youth and frequent Wilco collaborator Jim O'Rourke. From what I've heard of it, this album will be much more melodic and listenable than their first release.

$14 Steadycam

Check this out. This guy from Carnegie Mellon University has built what looks like a plausible $14 Steadycam. I need to build one of these before Parker is walking!

God is in the slums

Wow, two U2 related post in two days. How lucky are you all? Bono spoke last Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. Parker and I got to watch the replay on C-Span on Monday. The breakfast was attended by the President and First Lady and many members of Congress. Bono spoke about poverty and charity for the least of society, Africa AIDS and the One Campaign. Here's some of my favorite parts of his remarks

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house…
God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives…
God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war…
God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and
God is with us if we are with them. “If you remove the yolk from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom with become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places”

It’s not a coincidence that in the Scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It’s not an accident. That’s a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions. [You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor.] ‘As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.’ (Matthew 25:40). As I say, good news to the poor.

Here's the complete transcript.

Hoagy Carmichael, David Lee Roth and Captain Janeway?

So, I was browsing Wikipedia today. If you've never used Wikipedia before, I suggest you check it out. It's a free web based encyclopedia where the content is written and edited by web users across the world. Anyway, I wanted to see how Bloomington, Indiana was described. It lists famous Bloomington residents such as Hoagy Carmichael and John Mellencamp but misses one time Bloomington resident "Diamond" David Lee Roth. The most surprising "person" listed is actually the fictional Capitan Kathryn Janeway, captain of the USS Voyager starship in TV show Star Trek: Voyager. She will be born in Bloomington in 2336. Hum, I wonder if our house will be historic by then?

U2 bombs the Grammys

U2 won five Grammys last night, sweeping every category in which they were nominated. They even won in the coveted Album of the Year category stealing the spotlight from Mariah Carey, Paul McCartney, Gwen Stefani and Kanye West. With these 5, U2 have won a total of 21 Grammys.

• Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own"


• Best Rock Song for "City of Blinding Lights"


• Best Rock Album for How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb


• Song of the Year for "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own"


• Album of the Year for How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

They also gave a rather lackluster performance of "Vertigo" and did a duet of "One" with Mary J. Blige. They also performed this song together for a Hurricane benefita benfit and I learned today that a studio version appears on Blige's latest album, The Breakthrough.

Parker Photo Update

102_1432 (web), Originally uploaded by jcroach.

Blizzard of 1978

This is a test movie of my recent 8mm film to video project. This is a film my parents took in 1978 of the big Indiana "Blizzard." Still dealing with flicker issues and color quality. The full sized video looks much better than this quicktime file.

Edited 12/13/07 with embeded video.

Happy Groundhog Day!

One of the strangest "holidays" in the country.

Close to Home

Have you seen the new CBS crime drama, Close to Home? It's on Fridays at 9:00. It may get lost in the sea of crime drama on TV (3 CSIs, 3 Law & Orders, NCIS, Crossing Jordan, Bones, Numb3rs, Criminal Minds, etc.) but this one is unique because it's set in Indianapolis! Of course, you'd never know this except for a few name drops of Indiana cities and some establishing shots of the circle and the City-County Building. In fact, all the court scenes take place in a quintessential turn of the century Indiana courthouse, unlike reality where the Indianapolis courts are also located in the nondescript City-County Building. Indianapolis tore down the beautiful Marion County Courthouse in 1962 to build a parking lot for the City-County Building!

This show got me thinking about other TV shows that were set "close to home." I came up with nine (and 1/2) shows set in Indiana, mostly with the help of the TV Acres web site.

• One Day at a Time: Indianapolis, featuring everyone's favorite Super, Schneider!


• The Jeff Foxworthy Show (Season 1 only): Bloomington, the show moved to Georgia after Season 1


• Eerie, Indiana: Eerie (fictional) (one season) Critically acclaimed kids' fantasy/mystery show


• The Five Mrs. Buchanans: Mercy (fictional suburb of Indianapolis) (one season)


• Men Behaving Badly: Indianapolis (one season, Thank God!)


• Breaking Away: Bloomington (only 8 episodes, following after the movie)


• Good Morning, Miss Bliss: JFK Junior High, Indianapolis (one season) This show was the precursor to Saved by the Bell and features Mr. Belding, Zack, Lisa and Screech.


• Hang Time: Deering High School, Deering (fictional) This was the show about the girl playing on the boys basketball team. I never understood how Deering was big enough to have a mall, but not have a girls basketball team.


• Maggie Winters: Shelbyville (one season)


• Home Improvement (final episode only): Jill gets a job at IU in Bloomington!

Can anyone think of others?

Suburbia, the t-shirt!

From Threadless T-Shirts comes Suburbia (the t-shirt).