Kat Cornetta

Sports writer - Grant writer

Category: Non-Sports Posts (Page 2 of 4)

Ring in 2011 By Retiring the Lip Dub

26 December, 2010 /

As we prepare to ring in 2011, can we all agree to retire the lip dub genre? Please?

As one who spends her full-time career working in higher education, lip dubs (“A type of video that combines lip synching and audio dubbing to make a music video”) overtook my year. Late in 2009, the genre started picking up speed, and the school I work for made their first in response to the first one to reach mainstream popularity, am I Gotta Feeling cover by the University of Quebec at Montreal.

And then, as the Christmas church reading goes: BU begat Lehigh, Lehigh begat Suffolk, Suffolk begat another BU one, BU begat Northeastern, Northeastern begat Emerson. That may not be the exact descendant line, and there were many more schools nation-wide involved, and Northeastern’s wasn’t really a lip dub but a music video for Northeastern State of Mind, but you get the gist. The lip dub took the place of a bowl game for both colleges and high schools to compete for bragging rights and muster up school spirit. Continue reading

Taylor Swift for the Married Set

25 October, 2010 /
Taylor Swift's new album

Taylor Swift releases a new angst filled album today. (Photo: Amazon.com)

I don’t really enjoy Taylor Swift music much in the way I can’t stand Glee or get antsy during old The Wonder Years reruns. Adolescence wasn’t horrible, it’s just something I would rather not hark back to often.

That being said, I understand the young Swift’s appeal; it sounds like she stole the diaries of every 15 year old in America and turned them into country-pop songs. That boy you thought was cute called you an awkward geek? Let’s write a song about it. You have a crush on a friend in a seemingly bad relationship? Let’s write a song about it. You have a crush on an older student-athlete who is a giant jerk but you won’t realize it until he tries to get you in bed? Yet another song. (You know Swift’s songs are universal when hockey players admit to listening to them during their “get to know your team” segments on jumbotrons.)

But someday Taylor Swift is going to grow up, and she may very well get married. What is a young woman who has built her entire career writing about relationship angst going to write about then? The heck that is changing her name post-wedding?

I stood in line for too much time
Waiting this long should be a crime
Why do the license plates move faster
I just want to change my name to Lancaster

Or her new husband’s habit of hanging with the guys after work every single night?

You enjoy one dollar Narragansetts
I enjoy having money to buy presents
You like spending 5pm with your friends
I like not having to make amends
So I won’t bring up that habit
I’d rather you’re happy so I don’t get in trouble for buying that jacket

Or those ever fun questions from relatives about when you’re going to have a kid?

Aunt Gertrude wants to know when we’ll have a baby
I want to tell her she’s pretty crazy
She doesn’t understand our student loan debts
Which will keep us from never buying a bassinet

Someone sign me to a record contract – I can be Taylor Swift for the newly married set! (Never mind that my piano teacher once told my parents, “I never believed being tone-deaf was possible until I met your daughter.” That’s what auto-tune is for, right?) If you have any other topics or ideas of what a married Taylor Swift might sing about, add them to the comments. (Namely because I’d love to get some more non-spammer comments.)

Is Forever the new Rock and Roll Part 2?

18 April, 2010 /

In chatting with my childhood best friend Tricia about what song her and the other attendants should be introduced to at my recent wedding, we Googled for lists of entrance songs. One of the first songs listed on The Knot (that horrible, soul crushing website) for “ideal entrance songs” was Chris Brown’s Forever.

“Oh, absolutely not,” immediately commented Tricia.

I nodded in agreement. “Chris Brown ruined it for himself.” I began reading off the other options, and we ended up settling on my original choice.

Later that evening, I was thinking about our immediate dismissal of Forever. It has a home in my iPod, after a friend’s wedding played it mere weeks after it was released and I thought it was an ideal wedding reception song. Brown, however, became caught up in his domestic abuse scandal with fellow pop star Rhianna months later, and the song went from Fred The iPod’s “Most Played” list to the “Hey, You Remember You Paid 99 Cents For These Songs, Right?” list. Continue reading

Digital Cable Program Guide Fail: Adding a State, Giving BC a 3-Peat

13 April, 2010 /

This new series is a wedding present to my fiance. He said, “Why don’t you mention these in the blog?” And given that not only is he my soon-to-be-husband, he is also my legal counsel, I’m mandated to take his advice.

I was addicted to TV Guide when I was younger. My mother was charged with buying two copies at Wegmans every week – one for Grandpa, who kept it tucked in the cushions of his electric recliner or next to his pen collection (he collected pens from his route as a bread delivery man), and one for Great-Grandma (his mother, she of the fun stories. Her last name was Hooker. She knocks the flowers off her grave. She lived to be 94 and was the first person to tell me to my face that I sucked. She would take my mother’s hand, hit her on the cheek with it, and tell her to “stop hitting yourself, Kelly!” She was that kind of woman.)

On the car ride between Wegmans and the two TV Guide drop-offs, I would devour the magazine. First, I had to see what would happen on next week’s Full House. After getting that all-important information (“Mom, DJ is going on a date with a guy Danny doesn’t like, and Stephanie wants to get her ears pierced!”), I would flip to the front and read every morsel on every non-listing page that I could. This single-handily is why I was a speed-reader in school. I had 10 minutes to read the entirety of early 1990s TV Guide, which was much more substantial than today’s version. Continue reading

A SportsGirl Public Service Announcement

12 January, 2010 /

While attending college at Binghamton University, I was blessed to make friends with a whole host of students from various nations in the Caribbean, including Haiti. My Antiguan roommate, a member of the very influential Carribbean Students Association (a group with more power than even the Student Association because of sheer membership), was great friends with quite a few Haitians and their signifigant others (aka, “Haitians by Association”, as Marcia tended to call the non-Caribbean significant others.)

Thus it pains me that on my birthday, the country of Haiti was rocked by a devestating earthquake – one that has destroyed much of Port-au-Prince, their captial. I normally try to keep my non-sports appeals to a minimum on my site, but since I have crossed paths with several Haitians throughout my life, I thought I would share a quick word here about their plight, and share resources on how you can help.

The Haitian earthquake is only hours old, but already, two of the best ways to contribute is through UNICEF, who will ensure that needed funding will reach Haitian youth, and the Pan American Development Foundation, an outreach arm of the Organization of American States.

Even if you can’t afford to give anything right now, just keep the Haitian people in your thoughts. I know I will because of the wonderful Haitians I met throughout my college career.

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