Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

If you”re the super-cool type who has Flickr slideshows running on your desktop through the Google Desktop Sidebar or - if you”re a extra-super-cool Mac user - Tickr for Flickr, it”s not a great idea to run the neworleans tag at work this time of year.

But at home … it”s quite fun.

I”m beginning to figure out that HDNet is largely a platform to show off hot chicks. Of course, Get Out! is a staple of the DVR and if you check out the HDNet schedule, you”ll notice a lot of things like “Bikini Destinations”, “Hawaiian Tropic Viva El Springbreak” and “A Caribbean Workout 2003″. I wholeheartedly endorse this approach to HD programming. There”s only so much fun to be had watching HD sharks and stuff on Discovery.

Another hottie-filled HDNet program is “Art Mann Presents”. The concept - some guy named Art Mann goes to a random city and shoots hotties in HD, pretending he”s doing a travel show. I”m not really a fan of the show since pretty much all the hotties are these dumb but beautiful look-alike Buckhead-type girls. Just not my thing.

But I decided to pick up an episode filmed in Austin figuring there”d be a good chance it might feature tattooed freak/hot Austin chicks. But no. It turns out for all its ultra-coolness, Austin is still chock-full of the aforementioned Buckhead-type girls, and apparently that”s all that attracts HD cameras. Here we see a bit of the lake segment, which featured the “young and beautiful” crowd getting stupid drunk on boats and shaking their asses as if they weren”t white kids with more money than sense.

Apart from a couple of normal chicks (read: real tits) and one really hot bimbo in a pink bikini and black cowboy hat, there wasn”t much of interest at the lake.

That segment went on for way too long, and it was followed by the “club scene” segment. No, they didn”t go to some dank place featuring live music. Just your typical “hot” club with over-dressed, over-decorated girls, stupid guys with gelled hair and black dress shirts and loud, bad music.

But somehow in the mess of Austin”s club scene, they managed to find one great, typical Austin dude. Click play on the video below to get his classic comment.

The wife and I sat down to watch Miss America last night - mostly so I could ogle the hot ones and we could both make fun of the horsey, cockeyed, big-foreheaded and otherwise less-than-perfect ones.

When the cut went from 10 to 5 (sadly eliminating Miss Florida, who we”d hoped to see in the talent portion since we figured her “talent” might involve her pet pig), I saw the writing on the wall.

Left in the pageant were two traditional big-haired girls (Oklahoma and D.C.), a little redneck girl from L.A. (Lower Alabama), a Greek girl from Virginia and my sure-fire winner: our own Miss Georgia.

Monica Pang. She of the Chinese father and blonde-haired, blue-eyed American mother. The perfect representation of modern America.

Here, just past the dawn of the 21st Century, Miss America would represent our future. Modern, smart, multi-cultural, and really smokin-hot. OK, so most of America is not modern, smart, multi-cultural or smokin-hot, but Miss America is supposed to represent our ideal, right?

This would be a defining moment for America. We would declare for the world to see that the U.S. is at its best when cultures come together to create that modern, smart - and smokin-hot - future. It”s our Manifest Destiny of the Technology Age.

When the final countdown began, it was all falling into place. Gone were the girls from D.C. (representing big government), Alabama (the agrarian South) and the Greek (a civilization millenia past its prime) girl from Virginia.

We were left with a stark contrast: Miss Oklahoma - the big-eyed, All-American buxom beauty from the oil patch - and Monica - the sleek, smart, pretty new-world Asian-American girl. It was Exxon/Texaco vs. Yahoo/Google. The past vs. the future. The old-boy network vs. the new economy.

America would declare, right there on that Las Vegas stage, what we”re all about in the 21st Century.

Oklahoman Crowned Miss America

Sure, I”m looking forward to watching the Rose Bowl in HD tonight; I”ve started to watch Letterman again because it”s somehow better in high-def; and just about everything on Discovery HD Theater is interesting because of all those pixels.

But nothing - nothing - currently being broadcast in HD is a better use of the technology than HDNet”s fabulous “travel” show Get Out!.

The concept is simple - hot chicks in HD. They travel to exotic locations, but thankfully the HD cameras don”t waste much time showing off the scenery, colorful wildlife or anything else that would distract from the reason I”m watching - hot chicks in HD.

Here”s a grab of a typical Get Out! scene, where the girls are watching monkeys at a wild animal park in Florida:

Of course, this image isn”t in HD, but you get the idea.

God bless technology.

Big news, Tiger fans and sports lovers of all ages: The LSU baseball team has named the members of the 2006 Bat Girls.

No, Bat Girl isn”t a euphemism. The gals fetch bats at chase foul balls at games and are basically the baseball version of cheerleaders. By “cheerleader”, of course, I mean cute girls to look at during boring parts of the game.

But for my money, Bat Girls carry more appeal than cheerleaders. For starters, most of them haven”t spent ten years of their lives trying to be Bat Girls; fixing their hair and makeup just like all the other Bat Girls they”ve seen on TV, etc. There”s just something a little robotic about a cheerleader.

Plus, Bat Girls have to be quick on their feet. Airhead Bat Girls are quickly thinned from the ranks by foul balls.

And there”s just something more girl-next-door about Bat Girls; even in the potluck sense. Bat Girls run the range from sweet to sexy; homely to hot.

Leave it to the mightly LSU baseball program, of course, to pull together a whopping 30-member squad. And we don”t call them “Diamond Darlings”, “Baseball Babes”, “Homer Honeys” or anything stupid like that. LSU Bat Girls. I dig it.

For your reference, here”s the 2005 squad:

Nothing raises a person”s profile like winning a national championship.

And this week, in the wake of LSU”s domination of Oklahoma to win the 2003 NCAA football national championship, LSU head coach Nick Saban has a very high profile, not just among NFL owners, but also by web searchers who end up here at CKHW.

Since the first of the year, folks have made it to the Wisdom by searching on the following Saban queries:

• nick saban arab background
• hey nick saban
• nick saban is sexy
• nick saban AND jewish
• nick saban jewish
• Nick Saban Jewish
• is nick saban jewish
• Nick Saban sexy

I don”t think Nick is arab; I”m not sure whether or not he”s Jewish - and I wonder just a bit why that seems to matter to a good number of people - but he is damned sexy. He”s the sexiest coach LSU has had since Paul Dietzel back in the 1958 season, in fact.

Here”s a particularly sexy picture of Nick from the 2001 SEC Championship game: