Should Have Gotten A Dog

Growing up my family had the typical collection of pets - a couple dogs (RIP Harry), some goldfish, a turtle, a hamster and a couple of parakeets. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary and certainly not noteworthy when you compare it to some of the other animals I have read about people deciding make for great pets, such as alligators they keep in a bathtub or snakes the owner releases into the wild when they get too big. Still, I want it noted on the official record that the parakeets were my sisters', not mine. You see, I have always thought birds were kind of a silly thing to keep as a pet because in my mind a pet is something you can interact with and that is not the case with birds. They just stay in the cage all day and then you get to clean up their crap-covered newspapers every couple of days. I know all pets require some clean-up but at least with a dog you can play with it to make those clean-up times a little more tolerable. Allegedly some people let their birds out to fly around their house but that just sounds like insanity, especially because I remember the couple of times my sisters' birds got out of their cages and it sent my house into DEFCON-1. Anything which causes that much chaos simply by not being where it is supposed to be does not sound like a fun family pet to me. So, unless you are the kind of person who wants to randomly find bird crap on your kitchen counter in reality all birds do is make noise when you are trying to watch TV and live in a cage which takes up space, which makes them more like a decoration than anything. Oh, and this week I learned they can also get you arrested.

The other day I read a news item about a man in Mexico who was driving down the road when he came upon a sobriety checkpoint. The police were looking around the car when a voice from inside the vehicle cried out that the driver was drunk. It turned out that it wasn't one of the driver's friends trying to be cute - it was the man'a parrot. Normally that is where the story should end but the cops took the bird's word for it, gave the driver a field sobriety test and it turns out the parrot was right - he was drunk - and the owner was arrested. Now, considering I just told you that I think normal birds are a strange pet it is not a stretch to figure out my feelings on the ones which learn to communicate. I feel a little bad about this because I should be impressed by them because it is a talking animal. I mean, if a dog learns to bark a noise which sounds even slightly like a word it gets two million views on YouTube, so a bird being capable of independent thoughts and having the ability to express them should be amazing to me, yet I find them annoying. The problem is that parrots have the vocal abilities but no social ones - meaning they don't know how to control the volume of their voices or wait for a break in the conversation to let their opinions be known. They just squawk out whatever comes into their minds the second it happens. If they were humans they would be the people you avoided at parties and the fact that they are animals do not excuse bad behavior. I guess it is possible that the bird was just doing what most parrots do which is repeat things they hear most often which means this guy was not only driving drunk his family thinks he has a drinking problem and was doing Mexico a public service by getting him off the road. Still, if you've got a parrot and you are trying to teach it to talk do us all a favor and teach it some etiquette while you are at it.

Weekly Sporties

-I know it seems like baseball season just ended a couple weeks ago, but the reality is that we are only about a month away from pitchers and catchers reporting for Spring Training. Now, what is notable about the upcoming baseball season is that it will be the last for Commissioner Bud Selig, who has announced he will retire after the 2014 World Series. But before he does that there is a rumor going around that he wants to go on a League-wide retirement tour, stopping at every stadium along the way to say good-bye to the fans. I'm not sure there are enough words in the English language to explain how bad of an idea this is. I'm assuming the Commissioner was inspired by the farewell tour that Yankee closer Mariano Rivera went on in which he was showered by applause and gifts. If that is what Selig is expecting to get on his retirement tour he is in for a rude awakening. The big difference is that while Rivera may have occasionally been a thorn in the side of opponents, he was never seen as the baseball's biggest problem - a title which has been bestowed on Selig at various times during his tenure. Since Selig took over in 1992 (admittedly he did not want the job and was only supposed to be an interim commissioner) the game has seen it's popularity steadily decrease and lose younger fans to sports which move at a faster pace due to its refusal to embrace technological advances like replay, a problem which lands directly at Selig's feet. Also, he turned a blind eye to a fairly obvious steroid problem, instead being content to use the massive homerun numbers to bring fans back after losing many casual fans when the season was cancelled in 1994 (that may not have been his fault, but it happened on his watch) and is now hypocritically trying to clean up the game by going after steroid users by using tactics which are themselves rather shady. Now, this is not to say Selig is a bad guy or that he was a failure. I mean, expanding the playoffs has worked out well and it is not like the sport sank to niche level. Still, I don't think Selig is as popular as he thinks he is and I simply don't see any reason to burst his bubble now. Plus, someone should pull him aside and remind him that even popular commissioners get booed in public. It is one of the unwritten rules of sports - any authority figure from the League Office must be booed simply for showing up. Those boos are only going to get louder when fans think it is their last chance to voice their displeasure at someone so I would advise Bud to stay home and have a party there. Trust me, the teams will still send gifts.

-It is slightly ironic that in Selig's final season the one thing I have been most critical about - his reluctance to expand replay - is about to be taken care of. The other day the League approved expanded replay on just about everything short of balls and strikes. While the expanded use of replay is a good idea, I am still not sure they picked the right system for how to implement it. Going forward each manager will be given one challenge for the first six innings. If they win that challenge they will get a second challenge. This will apply to the first six innings and anything from the seventh inning on will have to be taken care of by the umpires. This is clearly lifted from the NFL's version of replay challenges but the main problem is that I have never thought the NFL's system was all that great. You see, it works off the very flawed premise that a referee will only get one call wrong per half and if you have been watching baseball lately it is pretty obvious that baseball umpires are capable of having very bad days. Teams shouldn't be penalized for that. I guess you could argue that this adds another layer of strategy to the game because now managers will have to decide whether or not they want to challenge something which happens early in the game but that fails to address the very simple issue that they shouldn't have to make that kind of call. The reason you have replay is to make sure that every call is right and whether or not a manager already challenged two questionable calls in the first 4 innings of a game shouldn't come into play. That is why I would much rather seem them adopt a system a little closer to the college football one, which is that everything is reviewed by an independent set of eyes and if they see anything worth taking a further look at they buzz down to the crew working the game. It takes the issue totally out of the hands of the managers and the umpires and makes sure that every call is correct even if the manager is out of challengers. Now, opponents of that plan would point out that if a manager didn't like a call and wanted replay to take a look at it a second time they would simply order their guy to take his time between pitches, thus slowing the game down even more. There is some validity to that but anyone who watched the World Series could see that even a guy taking extra long to adjust his equipment before entering the batter's box would still be faster than a manager coming out to argue an obvious blown call, the umpires gathering to fix that obviously blown call and then the other team's manager coming out to argue the fact they reversed that obvious blown call. Besides, do you know what is worse than a 4-hour baseball game? A 4-hour baseball game in which your team got screwed.

-Because baseball's season now stretches into November and bleeds directly into football season there is only so much a sport fan can watch at one time, which means the NBA gets squeezed out until after the Super Bowl. Most years that isn't the worst thing in the world because there are entirely too many NBA regular season games to begin with and there is no need to burn yourself out on an early season tilt between the Bobcats and the Bucks. I will at least give credit to the NBA for having caught on to this fact and back-loading the schedule so that most interesting games which only happen once or twice a year don't happen until after football has gone into its offseason. However, this year the NBA's willingness to take a backseat is really too bad because it means casual fans are missing out on what has been an historic run by Oklahoma City Thunder superstar Kevin Durant. Durant has been unstoppable this season and has a long string on games in which he has scored at least 30 points. His great play has catapulted the Thunder near the top of the Western Conference standings and has put Durant in prime position to win his first MVP. The thing is that not everyone is as impressed with his play as of late, specifically LeBron James who this week made an offhanded comment about how jealous he is that Durant gets to take so many shots in the course of a game. James says he was just trying to be complimentary but you'd have to be an idiot not to see that he has an ulterior motive, which is to accuse Durant of being a ball-hog without actually saying the words. I don't think James has any particular grudge against Durant (they are teammates on Team USA and no reports of them hating each other have emerged) but at the same time James is in no great hurry to see Durant run away with what he considers to be his MVP trophy. You see, if James were to win the MVP this season it would make him the first player to win four MVPs in six seasons and this smear campaign makes it pretty clear that is an honor he wants. It is not like James is crazy to think he deserves consideration - by some standards it is the best all-around season he has ever compiled - but it is just not as good as what Durant is doing, especially when you remember the Thunder are missing their second best player. But, more than coming off as petty James is also quite wrong in that Durant takes exactly three more shots than him per game, which is almost nothing. If he wants to make a case for why he should remain MVP over Durant he is going to have to do better than that. But, if he really is jealous of one guy being tasked with carrying an entire franchise on his back and doing it all himself, LeBron could always go back to Cleveland.

-When the NFL announced that they had reached a $765 million settlement with a group of about 4,500 former NFL players who alleged the league knew about concussions and their lingering effects my first reaction was that it was a bargain at any price. The NFL wants concussions out of the news and they would have paid any amount to make it happen, which is why the figure actually seemed low to me. Sure, they had some leverage in that the people suing need money for medical bills and they need it now but I still thought the amount would have been higher. Turns out I am not the only one who may think that as this week a judge has put a freeze on the settlement. Now, the judge's halt is based on concerns that the NFL will not be able to make all the payments as necessary (which is absurd because they make $9 billion annually) but there are rumblings that with the extra time and a further look at the books some of the parties who settled may want to back out and re-open the suit because they didn't get enough money the first time around. Considering the cost of medical bills and basic inflation, $170,000 per person seems a little low, especially when you remember that is just an average and some of the players won't even be getting that much (it's based on when they played and how their medical history has been since retiring). I'm sure the specter of having this back in the news would be worth another couple hundred million to the NFL, especially with the Super Bowl coming up which is why I say they should go for it. Here's the thing: I am not one of these people who thinks the NFL is evil - just dickish. They run a sport which is based on violence which would be fine because it is played by willing participants but at the same time they can not act like they had no idea this was going on and pretend they give a crap about player safety when they clearly do not. One of the fundamental tenets of polite society is that we won't remain mad at you for trying to get away with something provided that when you fail at that attempt you act like you are sorry and don't try it again. Even though the number was lower than I thought it should be that is essentially what the NFL was doing with this settlement which by itself was fine but then they had to start acting like they were being generous. That is was too much for me which is why I would like to see that number go up a few million. Every now and again the NFL needs to be poked and reminded that they are not above reproach and the best way to do this is to hit them in the wallet. Sadly I don't think that will happen because there are too many players who need the money too badly to go through more litigation so the NFL will get away with it this time. Still, there are new players retiring every year and many of those guy are going to need medical attention down the line so I hope the NFL keeps their lawyers on speed dial because one of these years they are going to have a group who isn't quite as desperate for money. I guess then we'll finally get to know what the going rate of silence really is.

-This weekend the AFC and NFC Championship games will be taking place. Now, this has been one of the most unpredictable NFL seasons in recent memory which is why it is rather ironic that we still ended up with the two match-ups most experts predicted, New England versus Denver and San Francisco at Seattle. Now, most of the time the NFL is forced to hype up these games and act as if the two teams are traditional rivalries when the reality is that they have only played each other once or twice in recent years but in this case the games feature two teams which could actually be considered rivals of one another. This is especially true in the game between the Seahawks and the 49ers because not only do these teams share a division they really do not like one another. It starts with their head coaches,who have been sniping at each other since Pete Carroll was at USC and Jim Harbaugh was at Stanford. It only got worse as the two teams started playing better the last two seasons and then stockpiled enough talent in the offseason to make them the odds-on favorites to make it to the Super Bow. Add in two contentious games during the regular season and you've got a recipe for actual animosity. For the most part this rivalry has stayed between the teams but now the Seahawks are taking things to the next level and trying to stick it to 49er fans as they are putting a ban on people from California buying tickets to this weekend's game. You see, Seattle prides itself on having one of the loudest stadiums in all of sports and tries to make it as loud as possible when the opposing team has the ball. I guess they figure an entire section of 49er fans would cut into that noise. Personally I have two issues with this policy. The first is that it seems rather short-sighted and underestimates how popular your own franchise could be. How do they know that there aren't any Seattle fans in California? Both states are big in the tech industry so a person could very easily have lived in both places. But the other reason I don't like this policy is because it seems rather bush league. I happen to believe crowd noise is over-rated as a factor anyway. (Think about all the times you really concentrated on something. Do you remember hearing anything? Of course you don't because that is the first thing your mind shuts out.) But even if it weren't trying to keep opposing fans out of you stadium makes you seem petty and thin-skinned, as if the very idea that someone in your stadium would not root for your team is too much for them to handle. The Seahawks aren't the first team to pull this kind of stunt but usually it is done by teams who are afraid another team is going to take over 90% of their stadium. Unless the entire idea of the 12th Man in a myth, that seems like something the Seahawks shouldn't have to worry about anymore.

-Last week I told you that San Diego Chargers offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt was the leading candidate for all four open head coaching jobs in the NFL and until he picked which team he wanted to coach there would be no movement on any of those jobs. Well, after the Chargers lost to the Broncos Whisenhunt wasted no time in deciding to take the job with the Tennessee Titans. (Not the one I would have picked, by the way. I would have gone with Minnesota. Detroit has the most talent but I feel like Minnesota is the more stable organization.) Anyway, once Whisenhunt was off the market two of the three remaining teams quickly filled their voids with Mike Zimmer going to the Vikings and Jim Caldwell taking over the Lions. That just leaves the Cleveland Browns without a coach and while it is not the worst thing in the world to be the only team in need of a new coach it is probably not a good sign that to this point the team doesn't even have a favorite lined up. Normally by this time you would hear something about a leading candidate but according to various reports the Browns are still trying to lock down interviews with a few of the coordinators who are still coaching in the playoffs. This can't be a good sign. (Browns owner Jim Haslem is calling for fans to be patient. It is rather ironic that the guy who fired a head coach after just one season is now calling on people to stay the course and trust that he has a plan in place.) I find myself wondering if the fact the team is having such a hard time lining up interviews has something to do with the quick hook they gave to Rob Chudzinski. Reportedly a few of the coaches the Browns had called about potential interviews also gave Chudzinski a call to ask him what working for the organization was like and you would have to imagine he did not give Cleveland a glowing recommendation. I don't care how specialized a job coaching in the NFL may be, it is still like every other job in the world in that a short stint with a company is going to raise a lot of questions, so it is not inconceivable that some coaches would view the Browns job as a risk not worth taking as it could do them more harm than good down the road. Now, it is not like the team will never hire a coach - it is one of only 32 NFL jobs and it pays extremely well so eventually they will find someone to take the reins. I just can't imagine a high-profile coaching taking over this team now and, frankly, after this long of a wait that would be the only thing which will satisfy the Browns fans who are anxiously awaiting a new coach. Considering the team has only had two winning seasons since they came back to Cleveland I would say they have waited long enough.

-Of course, if the Browns would like to hire a coach this afternoon they could hire Saints defensive coordinator Rob Ryan, who would undoubtedly take the job. If you compared resumes to some of the coaches who the Browns are allegedly waiting to talk to it wouldn't even be that much of a stretch as he has a solid reputation as a coach who gets the most out of his players and comes from a family of coaches who have achieved at least some level of success in the NFL. Hell, he even has ties to Cleveland, serving as defensive coordinator under Eric Mangini. (Ok, maybe no one in Cleveland needs to be reminded of the Eric Mangini regime.) The point is, if you needed to hire a coach and brought Rob Ryan in for an interview it would not be the most far-fetched notion in the world. However, Rob Ryan has yet to get so much as an interview for a head coaching position and this week it was speculated on ESPN that it has less to do with his coaching credentials and more to do with his appearance. You see, Rob Ryan is a big guy with a lot of long hair and this apparently impacts his ability to coach a football team. I know that sounds like a stupid reason not to hire a guy who could help you win but, sadly, when it comes to the professional coaching ranks many people think that is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why a coach can't even be brought in for an interview. If you don't believe me, just ask yourself why coaches like Rex Ryan and Charlie Weis got gastric bypass surgery shortly before they got their head coaching jobs. Apparently you can't be fat and a good football coach. Now, there is something to be said for the argument that coaching at the professional level requires a coach to look professional. However, that argument can easily be shot down by pointing out that football coaches are allowed to wander the sidelines dressed like hobos. How professional does Bill Belichick look in his cut-off sweatshirt? What about Jim Harbaugh in his $8 Wal-Mart khakis? Also, I think Andy Reid is just as big a guy as Rob Ryan but for some reason he hasn't been held back from getting a couple of head coaching opportunities. That means it has to be the long hair, which is idiotic. The simple fact is that it doesn't matter what your coach looks like as long as they will win your football games and the fact NFL owners use this as a reason to overlook a guy for a head coaching job is another reason I am amazed they made enough money to buy a team in the first place. The good new for Rob Ryan is that the Raiders are bound to need a new coach any month now and his long hair would fit right in over there.

Speak Up

I'm well aware that there are a couple of things which make me an anomaly in today's society. The first is that I prefer to pay for things with cash. I know it is probably not the most efficient way to go about my day but I take comfort in knowing that every place I go will take cash, which is not always the case with debit cards. Also, given all the security breaches which can happen when you pay electronically (I'm looking at you, Target), the case could be made that cash is the safest way to proceed with a transaction. The other thing which makes me look as though I am the last guy advocating for the 8-track is that I still have a landline in my house and use it as my preferred way to make phone calls. Currently most people have become overly attached to their cellphones and figure they will save themselves some money by eliminating their landlines, to the point still having a landline in your house is seen as so last-century. I guess that would work for a lot of people but I have never been that fond of talking on a cellphone. Not only have I never had a phone which fits comfortably to my large noggin, I am chatty, which quickly makes battery life an issue. But more than that is the fact that my cellphones get notoriously bad service in my house... or any house for that matter. It is one thing to not be able to get a signal when you are out and about because that is the vault of whatever store you happen to be in at that moment. Not getting a signal in your own home is a much bigger problem because not only does it make you look like you didn't research the company's coverage area before buying, it is a problem that will keep happening. Besides, I like the peace of mind that comes with a landline. Call me paranoid, but if I am on an important phone call I want to be sure that all my words are coming through clearly. It would be a shame to lose out something important because my call got dropped halfway through a sentence and I kept on blabbering like an idiot.

Now, I've had to come around on the "paying by card" thing mostly because my bank has incredibly inconvenient ATM locations. (I may like paying with cash but not enough to drive 20 minutes in the opposite direction of where I want to end up just to do so.) I've also started to come around on using my cellphone more because of an equally important innovation - standard-issue caller ID. Now, my landline offers caller ID services but you have to be using a phone which comes equipped with it and not every phone in my house is quite as fancy as some others. The one phone which has caller ID will loudly announce who is calling but this means that sometimes I will be in another room, have a phone in my hand and still have to wait until the one phone with caller ID tells me who is calling before I can answer it. Frankly, it makes me feel kind of dumb. However, that is not an issue with my cellphone because every call which comes through that line gets displayed on the screen, at which point I am given the option to take the call, silence it or decline it, which is so much faster. It used to be that I would give most people who asked my home line and only a select few were given my cellphone number. Thanks to the convenience of my cellphone this policy has now flipped and my cellphone is the number given to businesses. However, it has also brought to my attention just how many companies have bought or sold my cellphone number through the years because my cellphone is getting more random calls than ever before. The other day it also became clear that some of the people who bought my number off another company's list must have paid a lot of money for it and as such they had no money left for the actual call.

I immediately knew something was up when I didn't recognize the number because anyone that I would want to talk to on my cellphone should already be in there as a contact. Suspicions were further raised when the number started with an 888. I know cellphone companies have started to get a little creative with the area codes in heavily populated areas but I don't think they have gone that far down the list just yet. Now, whenever a number comes up that I do not recognize I have a half-second internal struggle with whether or not to answer the call. On the one hand, I am roughly 90% sure the person on the other end of the line will try and sell me a product I never wanted to buy. On the other, I occasionally give out my cellphone for business and having to call clients back 20 seconds after they leave you a message looks unprofessional. (It scream, "I was screening my phone calls" and why would a reputable person ever do that?) On this one occasion I decided to throw caution to the wind and answer the phone - something I immediately came to regret. After that half-second telltale pause which lets you know the pre-recorded message is about to start I was straining to hear a sales pitch which was either trying to sell me solar panels or my own Doppler radar, I couldn't tell. Even stranger was the fact that I could hear noises in the background, as if they were coming from between the phone and person talking. It is a sound that any child of the 80s knows all to well as it was the same kind of echo you would hear when your friend tried to play a song they had recorded for you through the phone. This leads me to assume the phone call was taking place at a busy call center and the person was simply holding the phone up to a tape recorder. I don't care how bad the caller's English may have been, this method was worse. As you probably guessed, I hung up rather quickly.

I've always thought the random, automated cold-call was a terrible way to get new business but at least there was something admirable about a group of employees gathering together in a room to call a list of total strangers in the hope of drumming up some business, knowing full well that they would be hung up on by about 95% of the people they called and the other 5% would scream at them and then hang up. I hate calling strangers on the phone even when they are expecting me, so the concept that these people called 500 random numbers every day without knowing who is on the other end of the line is downright heroic to me. (Though, not heroic enough to buy anything from them.) By contrast this new method of calling with a recorded message is not only just as ineffective, it feels much lazier. Also, I would contend it is actually a worse way to do business as most people are polite enough to let a real human speak for a few seconds before hanging up but will hang up on a recording immediately. Those few seconds may not mean a lot to you or me but it is more than enough time to get your company name out there. It probably isn't my place to tell these other companies how to run their businesses but if they want the slightest chance to success they either need to hire people who are willing to read the script or spend a little money on the production value for the message because there is no way I would buy anything over the phone from what sounds like a robot at the bottom of a well. Oh, and they should try and focus on calling people without caller ID because even though I occasionally take the plunge most people are too smart to answer the phone when it is a number they don't recognize.

Timing It Out

I used to really enjoy the show "Inside the Actor's Studio." Sure, at the height of its popularity critics may have accused the show of being pretentious but that is only because it was. But, honestly, how could it not be a little full of itself? Acting is one of those luxury activities (like writing) which isn't actually necessary to advance society. As such the people who make a living doing it need to toe the line when talking about it between showing that they are passionate about the craft without taking themselves too seriously (such as referring to it as "the craft". Now I want to kick my own ass), because then they look as though they have no perspective. Too often this show allowed its guest to ramble on about their jobs as if they were important even though at the end of the day all an actor is really doing is playing pretend and reading words that another person wrote. There is no need to put actors up on a pedestal or give their words any weight yet this show often allowed them to start believing their own hype. Despite that, it was nice to occasionally see actors in a longer-form interview in which they weren't trying to plug a movie or escape without saying anything too controversial. Often it was the most open any of them had ever been in public and since they were talking about their favorite subjects (themselves), all the actors were willing to go into great details about how they got to where they are now. In the end, like all popular TV shows "Inside the Actor's Studio" eventually started to lag in the ratings, mostly because the last few episodes appeared to be scraping the bottom of the barrel. (I mean, P. Diddy? You want to have him be on a show about music I would be all for that but acting? I'll pass.) I admit I haven't watched the show in years to the point I am not even sure it is on anymore.

Clearly I can't miss it too much if I am not willing to go looking for it on my TV dial and that is because the only episodes of "Inside the Actor's Studio" I truly wanted to watch were the ones which featured comedians since I obviously find comedy fascinating. The reason I no longer need the Actor's studio is that the show's lengthy interview style has been copied by many podcasts (if comedy is your thing there are dozens of free comedy podcasts to pick from) and most of the famed questions are asked in one form or another. One of the questions I am always interested to get a perspective on is whether comedy can be learned of if you have to be born with it. Personally I think you have to be born with it because I have certainly seen evidence that nurture isn't that important when nature doesn't produce even results. I'll explain - I once worked with two brothers and even though they grew up in the same house with the same parents they had vastly different comedy skills. One of the brothers routinely had us rolling in the aisles with a hilarious story while the other could bring any joke session to a screeching halt with his awful attempt at a humor. If there is such a thing as a comedy gene it clearly skipped a family member. The only thing I will about say in the argument of whether or not comedy can be taught is that it helps to grow up in an area where you are allowed to develop your natural abilities because the timing of telling a joke is a skill which needs refinement. And this week I was reminded it certainly can't be anticipated.

The other day I fell down the wormhole which is the internet, searching for entertainment. I eventually landed on YouTube, watching clip after clip from one comedian or another. I was slightly annoyed at the commercials which came before about every third video, some of which were almost as long as the entire bit I wanted to watch but the good news is that most of them allowed me to skip to the end after I had put in my required 15 seconds. Everything was going fine until I came upon an entire comedy special which someone had uploaded. The entire hour was there for my amusement and since there was nothing better on to watch I sat down and prepared myself to laugh. Almost immediately I notice that there were little yellow markers on the video's timeline, indicating commercial breaks. This often happens when you watch shows online so I guess it was inevitable that it would eventually find its way to YouTube. Also it seemed fair since this clip was nearly an hour long and I wasn't paying for it, so the least I could do was sit through a few commercials. The problem is that very quickly it became obvious that YouTube has a software program which just inserts commercial breaks at a pre-determined interval with no regard to where the show may be in that time. Sometimes it was just off, such as when the ad started right after the clip faded up from black on what was a TV break on the original broadcast. But the rest of the time it was blatantly bad with the clip cutting to an ad in the middle of sentences or during punchlines. It was very annoying and even though the clip was free it still made me feel like I was getting ripped off.

Look, I am not saying YouTube shouldn't have ads. They don't maintain this site for their health - they are in this to make money and running ads during popular clips is the best way to do it. Also four, thirty-second commercials aren't too high of a price when you remember the average person sit through 8 minutes of commercials for every half-hour of regular TV they watch and that most of the online ads allow you to skip to the end about halfway through. But even with that YouTube needs to be more careful about when they place these breaks. I mean, blindly throwing ads up at a set time regardless of what is coming on screen shows a lack of professionalism because it looks like you take no pride in the details of your work. After all, there is a reason that radio stations hire people to figure out what time commercials should run and which commercials should go in each break. There is a science to it. I know YouTube has thousands of videos uploaded on it every day and hiring a team of programmers who are require to sit through every single one of them and figure out where they breaks should go would be a waste of everyone's time and skill. I'm not asking them to do that because there is no need to spend that much time editing a clip which is only going to get watched by the uploader and nine of his friends. What I do want is for them to take a little more care when applying ads to the clips which they know are going to be popular (and I am sure they have an algorithm which lets them know exactly that). This video had a couple hundred thousand views so I think it would be worth a little extra attention. Trust me, it would work out better for them because comedy nerds like me will be much more open to sharing a clip which isn't ruined by poor timing. For example, I was going to post that video on this blog but decided against it when I saw how annoying the ad breaks were. I may not have a ton of followers but I know how internet commerce works - every pageview is worth it so YouTube should go back and fix this issue as soon as possible. They say the key to a good joke is timing and right now YouTube's timing sucks.

Tag, You're It

Adult life is chock full of social etiquette - those little traditions which no one tells you about but heaven forbid you accidentally break one of them, or else you will be branded as unworthy for future social interactions. The only thing more annoying than how many of these social rules there are is the fact that many came into existence without much explanation and yet are now considered iron-clad. Normally I like a little bit of reason behind my rules, which is why there are many social traditions which I will never fully understand. But the one I want to focus on with this post is the one which states you must always take the price tag off any gift you are giving someone. Why? I mean, we're all adults here - we all know gifts cost money. (Unless you are giving the gift to a child who is too young to have any concept of money in which case they won't care how much the gift was anyway, only if it is loud and bright.) I assume this tradition comes from the days when letting people know how much (or, really, how little) you spent on them was considered rude but aren't we passed this little charade now? I mean, as a thrifty shopper I appreciate a bargain hunter as much as the next person so I would almost rather you tell me how good a deal you got because I'm the kind of person who isn't going to enjoy something if I think the person spent too much money on it anyway. Leave the price tag on, let me know you got it used and on sale and rather than thinking you view me as a person who isn't worth the money for a new one I will most likely applaud you for getting me such a cool gift at such a good price rather.

I say all this and yet I am as guilty of it as the next person because between Christmas and family birthdays I have spent a lot of time in the last couple of months picking at the corner of a price tag, trying to catch enough of a corner to that I can pull the tag off and then spending another few minutes looking at the item from every angle to make sure I didn't miss any. (Perhaps this is why the issue is so fresh on my mind.) I mean, if we're all going to keep up with this asinine tradition the least the store owners could do is come up with a better system, whether it is changing where they put the tags or the adhesive they use to secure them in place. Because right now they certainly aren't doing me any favors. I want to ask you a very simple question - is there any better feeling in the world than the satisfaction which comes from catching the price tag at just the right angle and having the entire thing come off in one piece? (I have found Barnes & Nobles is the best for this and the fact that I even have an opinion on the matter shows you how seriously I take it.) When that happens I am more pleased with myself than a doctor who cured a deadly disease. Conversely, is there anything more annoying that a price tag which refuses to come off? I was fighting with a tag the other afternoon which would only come off in small strips. It must have taken me 5 minutes just to get enough of the tag ripped away enough so that the price was no longer visible, at which point I declared victory and called it a day, only to come back 5 minutes later to take another crack at it because my brain simply doesn't allow jobs like that to go on half-finished.

Now, you may be saying to yourself that this wouldn't be a problem if I just bought items which had the normal, non-sticky tag on them which hangs from a thin piece of plastic. This is mostly true - that is the vastly superior system if you are sure the item you are about to buy is going to remain in your possession for the foreseeable future. However, they pretty much only use this kind of tag when they are selling clothes and I tend not to buy people clothing because I never get the size right. Beside, it isn't like this method is foolproof. In fact, it is actually worse when you are talking about returning items as trying to do that with a tag missing is a whole other set of problems. The other day I went to return a shirt that I had given my father as a gift. (See?) When I was wrapping it I was very confidence it would fit - so confident, in fact, that I had ripped the tag off. Well, it turned out to not be long enough, which meant my confidence had been misplaced. Again, the store was only too happy to take it back but before they would do that the woman behind the counter would need to make an entirely new tag and attach it to the shirt to replace the one I had thrown away. (The reason why this had to be done at that exact second were never properly explained to me. Perhaps they wanted to be ready just in case the person behind me in line was looking for a sweater in that exact size at that exact moment.) Seeing as how the woman handling my return was roughly 80 and on a bad hip it probably took her about 10 times as long as it should have if I hadn't had to take the tag off. So, this system may be a little better but clearly not perfect.

Making this entire process all the more frustrating is the fact that we have already come up with the perfect system, only many store choose not to use it - the normal tags with a smaller, removable piece attached to the bottom with only the price on it. These kinds of tags allow the gift-giver bow to social etiquette and tear away the price without also getting rid of the bar code the person at the register needs in case the gift has to be returned. Hell, I have even seen stick-on price tags with this technology and yet, for some reason, many stores stick with the old-school price tag in which the price is at the top and the code is on the bottom, making it impossible to keep unless you want the person to know exactly how much you value their friendship. I am sure this is done for the same reason all things are done in the retail world - money. I mean, it can't be a surprise that the most common place to see this two-piece tags are places like Pier 1, which is the kind of store in which $80 for bookends seems reasonable. But, really, how much more can these tags cost in comparison to regular kind, especially when you would be buying them in the bulk quantities of your typical chain store? I would contend the price would be more than made up with more efficient workers, especially when Ethel from register 3 isn't being asked to work a complicated printer and the gun which shoots the tags through clothing. I was terrified she was going to hurt herself while re-tagging my item and then I would feel compelled to get her a gift. But I can assure you of this much, if I had I would have been damn sure to leave the price tag on.

Don't Shoot The Messenger

Normally I am a big fan of movies which promise a lot of action but so far I haven't found myself in any great hurry to see the new movie, "Lone Survivor." This is for a variety of reasons, the biggest of which is that going to the movies isn't particularly fun anymore. I used to enjoy seeing a film up on the big screen as the filmmaker intended but these days there are so many people who spend the entire movie texting, talking on their phones or bring small children to R-rated movies that it ruins the experience and with the advances in home theater systems you probably only need to see very specific movies (like "Gravity") on the big screen. Another reason that I haven't made plans to go see this movie as of right now is that I kind of feel it will be depressing. For those of you who don't know this movie is based on a book of the same name about a SEAL team which went in with the mission of capturing a high-ranking terrorist and found themselves severely out-numbered. Their plan was to try and escape but they could not so they instead were forced to stand their ground and fight. As you may have guessed from the title, it didn't work out for three of the four of them. Everyone I have talked to who has seen the movie has said the entire theater walked out with this shell-shocked look on their faces and I like my movies to be more upbeat than that. I don't always need a super-fun happy ending but I don't want to walk out feeling sad. Still, I'm sure I will eventually see this movie because from all accounts it is great. However, this week we all learned once again that not all movie reviews are created equally.

If you have seen a commercial for this movie than you probably heard it advertised along with a review which dubbed it, "The greatest war movie since "Saving Private Ryan"." Now, movie reviewers have a habit of going for hyperbole so this is not the most outrageous claim ever but the issue is apparently in who said it. You see, it came from Grantland's Bill Simmons who is primarily a sportswriter. He is also Grantland's editor-in-chief which is why he was there when the studio screen the movie for the site's entertainment writers. Apparently he was very enthusiastic when talking to director Peter Berg after the show was over and Berg asked if they could use the quote for the advertisement. Simmons agreed, never knowing the studio would make his quote the center of the entire campaign. Now there are people out there wondering just who the hell Bill Simmons is to make this kind of statement while I am left wondering what the big deal is. I have never made my feelings towards movie critics (or critics of any kind, for that matter) a secret - I don't like them for the very simple reason of I don't think their opinion matters more than mine and the fact that they think it should is insane. Not only have the majority of them never made a film of their own, which means they have no experience to dwell on, but most of them were working in another department about two weeks ago and only found their way into this position because of layoffs or the regular reviewer going on maternity leave. It is not like you can train for this kind of thing - you just watch a free movie and tell people what you think - so what makes their opinion on a movie any more of less valid than Simmons's? If anything I would say as a producer of the "30 for 30" series he has more experience working with directors than the people who are so angry about his review being granted such exposure.

I guess if you wanted to take the other side of the argument you could point out that Simmons shouldn't be making such a claim because he obviously hasn't seen every war movie since "Saving Private Ryan" and thus couldn't make an accurate determination on "Lone Survivor"'s place in that hierarchy. Admittedly, that is the one area in which Simmons is lacking - he doesn't spend all day, every day going to screeners and there is something to be said for having that kind of mental catalog at your disposal. However, I would argue that his is the kind of fresh perspective the movie industry has been lacking. Far too often I see movie reviewers on TV and they hate everything. Not that I blame them because the simple fact of the matter is that even if your job is as sweet as going see all the new movies eventually you will start to resent the very idea of films. It's the nature of the world - no matter how cool your job may be eventually it will become like any other job on the planet, which is to say there will be days you hate it (I assume those are the days you screen the new Adam Sandler movie). As I mentioned at the top I don't really like going to theaters anymore and I only do it once in a while. I would have to imagine it is hard to do that every day and then try to leave that bias at the door and go into a movie without with an open mind. It is not a stretch to think that a few of these movie reviewers made up their mind about hating a movie before they ever got to the theater. When you think about it like that the idea of a guy who normally watches basketball for hours on end and is truly excited to see a new movie becomes exactly the kind of person I want reviewing my movies for me.

Also, I want to point out that if you have ever taken the time to read the affiliations some of these reviewers have the idea of a well-respected sportswriter giving a positive review to a movie seems downright logical. It is no secret that the worse a movie turns out the deeper they have to dig to find a positive quote to put in the advertisement and on more than one occasion a really bad movie has been accused of inventing a person and title just to make the review look authentic. Compared to that you can see why "Lone Survivor" would be happy to use Simmons' endorsement. I mean, Grantland is a large website and its staff has some major credentials. I would much rather hear what someone from that site has to say if the alternative is some guy from a 40-watt ABC affiliate in Wyoming, especially when you discover he may not even exists. And that is to say nothing of the trend of using Twitter reviews as if they carry real weight. (Comedy Central is notorious for doing this.) Look, I love Twitter but even I would be hard-pressed to take anything I saw on that medium seriously due to it's sarcastic nature and the fact that a third of the people on Twitter are high and another third of accounts are run by spam robots. I am happy to go there for the jokes but I would never be influenced by any review of a movie I ever saw there, I don't care how positive or negative it may be. Look, I'm not saying I want ESPN to add a movie review corner to "SportsCenter" but I would certainly rather hear Jalen Rose's thoughts on this year's Oscar races than hear a movie reviewer try and break down the NBA Eastern Conference.

Drilling The Point Home

On Friday I got a call from my niece with a two part question: would I take her to basketball practice the next day and would I wear my Rajon Rondo shirt when I did? Now, even though I could not do the second half of that request because I do not own a Rajon Rondo jersey (it goes against my policy of owning jerseys of players who are younger than me, which is why I have not bought a new jersey in years (though I thought about doing it in this case)), I was more than happy to do the second part. Not only was it a little one-on-one time with my niece which is always good, I also enjoy these little portals into parenthood because I like to find out what the deal is without having to actually have the life-long commitment of raising another human being. I was especially interested in this particular event because I figure sports (especially basketball) would be right up my alley and I wanted to see if this league would be as full of parents gone wild as I had been lead to believe. My niece is just starting to play organized (and I do use that term loosely) sports but if any number of documentaries or disturbing news clips are to be believed first-grade intramural basketball is more than organized enough to be filled with parents who are screaming at coaches for not having their kids working on the right drills as well as at the kids for not being attentive enough during those poorly-chosen drills. Watching ESPN I have been lead to think every parent is banking on a scholarship for free college tuition and figure the only way they are getting that is if their kid dominates from the very start, so I was ready for anything. Turns out I didn't have anything to worry about.

First off, any illusions that this was for kids who were serious about getting good at basketball were quickly dashed when I saw just how many little girls were in this league. There were 5 teams divided by color and roughly 12 girls on every team, which meant there was no chance for individual coaching. What happened was each team went to one drill area, worked on that one drill for 8 minutes and then the buzzer sounded and they all ran to the next drill area. [Sidebar: "Run to the next drill" may have been the thing my niece was best at, because she was always first in line at the next station.] Also, it was like most organized events I have been to regarding small children in the last few years, which is to say that only about 30 of the girls actually wanted to be there and were paying close enough attention to learn anything. The rest of the girls were clearly just signed up by a parent and would rather being doing anything else, which meant they were killing time by playing with each other's hair, dancing in place, staring off into the distance or covering their ears because the buzzer was scheduled to go off in just under three minutes and they didn't want to be caught off-guard. Getting these girls into lines and getting them to go through the drill was so time-consuming every girl only got one or two turns at each station, which isn't exactly going to turn them into the next Diana Taurasi. Also, it is hard to really know how good a person is at basketball when little things like dribbling, travelling and only playing with one ball at a time never come in to the equation.

So it was pretty clear that even if a parent started off the season thinking this was going to be hardcore training by the time I showed up they knew not to expect this to be a well-oiled machine, which is how it should be. That being said, in some ways the behavior of the parents was disappointing. Don't get me wrong - I was happy that there weren't any helicopter parents trying to take over the show (the biggest douche of the day was the one dad who seemed to want credit for repeatedly dunking an under-inflated ball on an eight-foot rim) but it seemed like most of them went too far the other way and didn't care at all. I swear, the fastest some of them moved all day was to rush to grab a seat in the line of folding chairs on the sideline, immediately take out their phone and never look up again until practice was over, totally content to let the coaches do whatever they wanted as long as their kid didn't lose a limb in the next hour. I was one of the few people who moved every time my niece changed stations so that I could keep an eye on her and she could see that I was actually interested in how she was doing, which surprised me. I was expecting more enthusiasm. I don't want any parent to be the one who challenges the other parents to a fistfight because their kids fouled one another but I don't think this extremely laid-back approach is the answer either because kids at that age aren't going to give a crap about something if you don't at least show a little interest and at six they are certainly old enough to remember if mommy or daddy spent their entire practice playing Candy Crush. If there is a line to be found between over-enthusiastic sports parents and indifference these people haven't quite mastered it yet.

There is a part of me that wonders if a few of these parents were just keeping their emotions under wraps because they are painfully aware of the stigma attached to overzealous parents in youth sports and they don't want to become one of "those" people that all the other parents stare at and judge. I could tell that the impulse to yell out additional instruction was definitely bubbling below the surface of a couple people, especially this one guy who was one of the few people to switch drills along with me. He keep telling his daughter to keep her head up and pay attention and I could totally see him getting more intense if his daughter showed even the slightest bit of interest. (Ironically she have been the most spaced-out kid of them all, so it is also possible that he was just getting frustrated because he spends his entire life trying to get her to pay attention.) Of course it needs to be pointed out I was standing at attention the entire hour so it is just as likely he was thinking the same thing about me. Still, even though he had a few moments where it looked like he cared a bit too much they were very brief. And even if his tempered enthusiasm was all an act, I am happy to report that for all the reports that you can't go to a child's sporting event without a brawl breaking out between parents, most of parents in this particular league appear to have a healthy grasp on reality and know that pushing a kid too hard at this age is more likely to cause them to forever quit a sport than master it. Of course, this was just practice - the games could be a totally different story.

Keep It In The Family

It's been a while since we've had to use the weekly musical interlude as the "Dead Musician" post but I guess that just means we were over-due and this week we have a big one. Just after the new year musician Phil Everly died. As you probably guessed from the last name, he made up one half of the famous singing due the Everly Brothers and, along with his brother Don, Phil Everly was one of the most influential musicians in history. Every musical act that followed them - from The Beatles to Simon & Garfunkel - have claimed to have tried to sing like the Everly Brothers but their ability to harmonize is the kind of thing which you just can't manufacture and only comes from being in the same family. However, despite the fact that they were family, the Everly Brothers were not immune to the typical squabbles which come from being on tour with each other day after day and year after year. (Little know rule of music for any band which has been together for more than five years - you have to spend at least one year of your time as a band hating one another.) According to accounts which have come out in the last few days the two brothers would fight constantly and experimented with drugs which would make the conflicts even worse. This culminated with Phil quitting in the middle of a show and walking off stage, after which he and his brother went for almost a decade without speaking to one another, only saying a few words at their father's funeral. It is the kind of story that almost couldn't happen today because the tabloids would be all over it but at the same time I feel like it is probably one of the most tame stories from that era. Frankly, that is why I am kind of surprised we don't see more groups like the Everly Brothers today.

I was thinking about it and looking around the musical landscape I couldn't help but notice we are currently devoid of musical acts which are made up of siblings. Sure, there are the occasional groups like Hanson and the Jonas Brothers but for the most part the popular musical groups are just a collection of strangers, brought together by some random talent agency who does this sort of thing all the time. It is not like there haven't been ample opportunities within families that have produced multiple solo artists. For example, why wasn't Mark Wahlberg a member of New Kids on the Block or Solange Knowles in Destiny's Child? I'm left wondering if this is on purpose as parents saw what happened to groups like the Everly Brothers and told themselves that that wasn't going to happen in their family. Personally, I think those fears are unfounded. I mean, sure, they would probably still get into the same arguments that any musical group would get into during a long tour but in this era of pimped-out tour buses, huge dressing rooms and private planes, how mad can any musician really get? I feel like half the problem for bands like the Everly Brothers is that they were mostly mad about their travelling conditions and figured they shouldn't take it out on some random roadie, so instead they turned on each other, assuming it would be easier to smooth things over with family. (Evidently they got that one wrong.) So, the blow-ups with modern bands are probably not as bad as they were back then but the money to be made from a family musical act is much greater. Sure, putting your kids out on the road like that wouldn't make you parent of the year material but I would say those chances ended when you allowed your kids to become musicians in the first place.

Weekly Sporties

-Ever since Daniel Snyder bought the Washington Redskins the team has had a litany of high-profile coaches - the kind of names you would expect from a person who wants to make a splashy hire. However, for as impressive as the resumes have been of the men who have taken the job, they have all failed to win many games in DC. It just goes to show you that in the NFL circumstances have to be damn near perfect if you want to win consistently and there is no guarantee a coach will be able to repeat previous success. Still, despite the long line of failed coaches everyone expected the Redskins to keep trying this plan of attack and go after a big-name coach with a Super Bowl Championship next to his name. Specifically, there was one name many people thought would pursue aggressively - Jon Gruden. Now, even though Gruden has maintained he is enjoying his time in the Monday Night Football booth and wants to continue being their lead analyst you would have to imagine the chance to coach the Redskins would be intriguing to him. The Redskins have some talent, are about to have a bunch of cap space thanks to getting out from underneath penalties from spending too much during the NFL's uncapped season (still not sure how that worked) and if he wanted the job there was no doubt Snyder would compensate him handsomely. On top of that he had a previous working relationship with Washington GM Bruce Allen in both Oakland and Tampa Bay. That is why no one was surprised this week when the Redskins finally named a Gruden as their new head coach, only it was Jon's brother Jay who got the job, which was a surprise. Don't get me wrong, it is not like Jay was working as a paint salesman when he interviewed - he was the Cincinnati Bengals' offensive coordinator and a hot coaching prospect himself, but I can't help but shake the feeling he was at best the team's second choice in his own family. Also, if I were a Washington fan I would be nervous simply because the NFL's history shows that coaching acumen is not evenly distributed among family members. You would think the Redskins would know this better than anyone after the last four years in which their offensive coordinator's ability was a point of serious debate but he was unfireable because he was also the head coach's son. A new coaching hire is supposed to get everyone excited about the upcoming season but when you hire the sibling of the guy you really want it really puts a damper on things immediately. Additionally it is not like Synder has a track record of coaching hires which would get him the benefit of the doubt from fans. You know, Snyder has always maintained he will never change the team nickname, no matter how many people find it offensive. Well, maybe he should think about changing the name now because it will distract everyone from how poor a start to the offseason his franchise is off to.

-With Gruden taking the job in Washington there are now four head coaching openings in the NFL (Minnesota, Tennessee, Detroit, Cleveland) and somehow Chargers' offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt is the favorite for all of them. I can see why teams would be interested in him. After all he took the Arizona Cardinals to the Super Bowl, which is astounding when you consider the history of that particular franchise. Anyone who can win in Arizona must know what they are doing and in just one season he has appeared to reignite the arm of Phillip Rivers, who career was heading in the wrong direction this time last year. As such, reports are that Whisenhunt has his choice of which job he wants and that all four franchises are in a holding pattern until he picks where he wants to coach. Still, Whisenhunt knows how this works and doesn't want to wait too long to make his decision, which is why he went out and had three interviews this week. Normally this wouldn't be newsworthy except the Chargers have kind of an important game this weekend against the Denver Broncos for the right to play in the AFC Championship. This has caused some in the media (and I would imagine more than a few people in San Diego) to question just how prepared Whisenhunt will be come Sunday. After all, NFL head coaching interviews are not like your typical hour-long conversation with a person in HR that you and I would go through if we wanted a new job. These things take hours and have been know to last well into the night, often culminating with dinner with the owner. Missing one day of work wouldn't be quite so bad but missing three? That seems excessive. Now, people in the Whisenhunt camp would point out that since the Broncos are a division opponent and the Chargers have already faced them twice there really can't be too many new wrinkles which need to be added to the game plan and that at the NFL level coaches are more like CEOs anyway, meaning the coordinators just tell the position coaches what they want to change and let them handle most of the actual tweaking. While that may be true, I would argue that Whisenhunt going on all these interviews sends a far worse message to the team which is "win or lose I'm gone and I'm already thinking about next season". Coaches are always telling players to just focus on what they are doing in the moment and not worry about next week. Well, when your offensive coordinator is househunting in other cities that message gets kind of diluted and makes the players wonder if he has lost faith in them. Besides, if Whisenhunt thinks he can do all the same things as the last two games against the Broncos he is in for a shock and it would make me question just how qualified to be a head coach he really is. Whisenhunt had just better hope the Chargers don't get blown out this weekend or else he is looking at a whole lot of scrutiny. The only good news for him is that no matter what happens in the game he will probably be too far away to hear it.

-This week was contained one of my least-favorite events of the year, which is the unveiling of Baseball's Hall of Fame class. Now, I have nothing against the idea of the Baseball Hall of Fame and I actually like all the players who were inducted this year (Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Frank Thomas). My problem is that with the announcement of the inductees comes a statement from the Baseball Writers Association of America, who I find to be self-righteous and loathsome. You see, somewhere along the way the members of the BWAA got it in their collective heads that what they do is so important that no one else could do it, even though we all know that is not the case. Also, they stick to all kinds of traditions that only they find important such as not voting for a certain player because they don't want him to be a "First Ballot Hall of Famer" (which no one remembers after a year) and making sure no one gets in with 100% of the vote because Babe Ruth didn't get in with a perfect ballot, which apparently means no one should. Well, this year a monkey wrench was thrown into the voting when Dan LeBatard of ESPN sold his vote to the website Deadspin. LeBatard has said the act of selling his vote was his form of civil protest because he finds the voting system to be flawed (and as you may have guessed, I agree with him) and he thinks the fans can do just as good a job as the professionals. Deadspin opened up the voting to their readers and as it turns out, LeBatard was right as the Deadspin ballot was not any more or less outrageous than most of the people who do this kind of thing for a living. LeBatard's second point was that he shouldn't have a vote to begin with because he doesn't cover baseball full-time anymore and hasn't for years, meanwhile a guy like Vin Scully, who has watched and called more baseball than almost any human alive, does not have a vote. (This problem was quickly solved as the BWAA stripped LeBatard of his vote indefinitely as soon as they learned he had sold it to Deadspin.) Now, you can question how sincere LeBatard's motive really were because it is just as possible he did this to call attention to himself, which as a radio and TV personality he is supposed to do. But there is no denying that the system of voting for Major League Baseball's ultimate honor is messed up. Fans are allowed to vote for All-Star appearances, which is a major way we judge a player's career and yet they are not allowed to vote for a Hall of Fame? There is something wrong with that especially when you remember that the fans never voted Jacque Jones to an All-Star Game and yet one baseball writer gave him a vote for the Hall of Fame. I mean, even the worst baseball fan in the world wouldn't make that kind of mistake.

-As expected, early this morning an arbitrator made a ruling in Yankee thirdbaseman Alex Rodriguez's appeal of his 218 game suspension from Major League Baseball for his role in the Biogenesis scancal his suspected steroid use. The randomness of that number was because it was supposed to be for the remaining games of last year and all 162 games of the 2014 season. The good news for Rodriguez is that he won, as his suspension was reduced. The bad news? It was reduced to 162 games, so he really didn't gain anything from his appeal. Now, he can't be shocked by this decision as evidenced by the fact he stormed out of the arbitration hearing a few weeks back - a sure sign he knew it wasn't going well. As a result he had a statement about his failed appeal ready to go and in it he wasted no time in laying waste to a everyone involved in the process and promised to continue legal action going forward. I have to say, I remain conflicted about this story because obviously I know Rodriguez is a lying cheater, despite the fact he never failed a drug test. I mean, what are the odds that every other person named in the Biogenesis clinic was taking steroids except for Rodriguez? Plus this was not the first time he had been mentioned and after a while where there is smoke there has to be fire. However, it is not like the Yankees didn't know his history when they signed him (at least the second time around), so the fact they won't have to pay him for this season seems to be allowing them off the hook. But the main reason I find myself with a hint of sympathy for Rodriguez is because of the way MLB officials went about building the case against him by paying off his former dealer Anthony Bosch. I just can't help but see the hypocrisy of calling Bosch a seedy drug-dealer when he was refusing to reveal evidence against Rodriguez but as soon as he starts giving up all the secrets he has on Rodriguez (which only happened because MLB offered to pay off legal fees and Rodriguez refused) he is an upstanding citizen who word should be treated as gold? It all just feels like a witchhunt, which is laughable when you remember that the only reason guys like Rodriguez were allowed to take steroids is because baseball turned a blind eye to drug used and reaped the rewards of all those gaudy homerun numbers. They were perfectly happy to ignore the obvious warning signs when it was leading to huge television numbers and I simply find it disingenuous for them to try and claim the moral high ground now. Rodriguez may deserve to miss all of next season but he certainly isn't the only one who should have to sit out for a few months.

-One of the more amusing aspects of professional sports is how most members of the national media have absolutely no qualms about reversing the opinions on an issue and then acting as if it was how they felt the entire time, as though the rest of us recently suffered a head wound. For example, over the summer many in the media claimed the Knicks had to do everything in their power to re-sign shooter JR Smith who was coming off a bad playoff run but a season which had won him he 6th Man of the Year award. This despite the fact that Smith had worn out his welcome with George Karl in Denver, who is usually the kind of coach players love playing for. Smith certainly wouldn't be the first player to raise his effort level heading into free agency but the difference is that smart teams don't fall for that kind of false improvement, opting to sign players with a longer history of sustained play. However, since we are talking about the Knicks, not only did the team sign JR Smith to a three year deal for roughly $18 million, they also signed his brother to the squad as part of the package, despite the fact that most scouts don't think that Smith should even be in the league. In addition to that there was the small issue that Smith has had more than a few run-ins with other players off the court. Now, it was all minor stuff and the kind of antics you can put up with on a winning team but they are the same kind of things which immediately become obnoxious when a team is struggling like the Knicks have been. Well, the other night JR Smith was standing in the lane waiting to rebound a free-throw attempt. Since he was clearly bored with the game, Smith reached down and tried to untie the sneakers of Mavericks forward Shawn Marion. It was a stupid thing to do and Knicks coach Mike Woodson said he would talk to Smith about it assuring people it would never happen again. Well, not only did it happen again, it happened just a few hours after Woodson and Smith supposedly had this conversation meaning Smith either didn't get the message or heard the message from his coach and is choosing to ignore it. Now the Knicks are trying to get rid of Smith but, shockingly, having no takers. Meanwhile those same media members who pleaded with the Knicks to keep Smith around around now condemning them for spending the money on him. While they are not wrong, they look like just as big of fools as the Knicks do and, sadly for them, most people watching are better at remembering things they heard recently than JR Smith. I know when you get paid to give opinions on TV you're not going to right 100% of the time but the least you can do is own them. The Knicks apparently are stuck with their mistake and so should the people who cover them.

-Last week I told you that Louisville head coach Charlie Strong was looking like the favorite to replace departing coach Mack Brown at Texas and sure enough, Strong took the job a day later. Of course, this left Louisville with an opening and they quickly filled it with a very familiar name - Bobby Petrino. Petrino was the coach before Strong and is arguably the most successful coach in Louisville history. When he left the Cardinals for a job in the NFL with the Atlanta Falcons no one could blame him but his reputation took a serious hit when he resigned from that job after less than one full season without so much as talking to his players to take over at Arkansas. It made him look like a quitter and a mercenary and his reputation only got worse a couple of years later when he was fired from Arkansas following a motorcycle accident with a young woman passenger who, as it was later revealed, Petrino had hired for a high-paying job within the athletic department (since Arkansas is a state school it meant he was paying her with taxpayer money) despite the fact she was not qualified for the position. College coaches are not expected to have any loyalties, but what they can't do is publicly embarrass the school with a scandal. Faced with the public shame and no school wanting to touch him Petrino took the only job available to him with Western Kentucky. However, despite all the off-field issues there is one thing which has never wavered about Bobby Petrino - he is a hell of a football coach. He led Western Kentucky to 8 wins last season which was enough to get him back on the national radar and a return ticket to his old job at Louisville. Now, I know what some of you are thinking - he left Louisville once he will leave them again as soon as he gets a better offer. This is probably true. However, there are two reasons his tenure with the Cardinals will be different this time. The first is that there is always the (slim) chance Petrino realized how good he had it before and will not be in such a hurry to leave again. But the second and much more financially significant reason is that Louisville knows what he is about by now, which is why this time his contract includes a $10 million buyout. A school is going to have to really want Petrino to pay that kind of money and I can't think of a school which would want to hire him that badly. That means Petrino is probably locked in at Louisville for at least the first 3 years of his 5-year deal. I just hope that Louisville doesn't come to regret making that contract so iron-clad because the only thing worse than making the same mistake twice is being forced to stick with it longer than you have to.

-There was a news story which appeared to slip through the cracks this week and I personally thought it should have been a bigger deal. A couple days ago it was revealed that Steve Latarte, Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crew chief, will be leaving that job to take a position as an analyst with NBC. Now, hiring an experienced crew chief makes a ton of sense for NBC because having worked with two of the biggest names in motorsports (Letarte was with Jeff Gordon prior to his time with Junior), Letarte will be able to bring a wealth of knowledge to the broadcast. I am just not sure why Letarte would want to make this switch at this time. I mean, he's on 34 and working with one of the best organizations in NASCAR plus he will still be on the road every week, so it is not like he wanted to retire and spend more time with the family. That is why I can only assume Letarte's departure is tied more to who he was working with, not where he was working. The job of Dale Earnhardt Jr's crew chief is among the most scrutinized in all of NASCAR and, fairly or unfairly, it comes with the most pressure as well. Because Junior has some of the most rabid and loyal fans in the industry anything that goes wrong will never be his fault. Think of it kind of like managing the New York Yankees - if they win great, they did the thing they were supposed to do and you didn't screw it up. Meanwhile if they lose it must be because of some decision you personally made. I would imagine it was kind of thankless position but at the same time Letarte had to know that going in. But the bigger question I have is just who is going to want this job now? Over on my golf blog I once wondered if being the caddy for Tiger Woods was worth all the extra aggravation when you could make a very nice living caddying for some other highly-ranked player who wouldn't also need you to double as his personal security at all times. I can't help but wonder if it is the same scenario here. I mean, once you got to be a crew chief at this level I wouldn't imagine there is a huge difference in pay so why not work with a driver who isn't expected to win every week even though he has only won once in four season? I think it is very telling that Hendricks Motorsports didn't have a replacement ready to go which tells me either the Letarte resignation caught them totally by surprise or they are having trouble hiring someone - either way it is a bad sign. I think whomever eventually interviews for the job should remember one thing: the worst part about going after a job with higher expectations is that often those expectations are even higher than you realized.

Putting Cable In A Headlock

Ever since it was invented, television has been a world full of idea thieves. No sooner does one network have a good idea than you see many, not-very-different versions of that same idea pop up on other channels. This is always done with a wink and nod because there is a certain honor among the thieves (not to mention the knowledge that whatever network they are copying today will turn around and do the same thing to them tomorrow). Of course, credit is never given for who came up with the idea first, normally because of money issues. You see, the way copyrights work if you started each show by saying "this is based on an idea some other guy had" you would then have to pay that person every single time that show aired. Given the way programs are syndicated across the Globe these days that would add up pretty quickly and eventually it would cost the networks more than any lawsuit ever could. So, I would like to think money is the main reason people steal ideas and don't tip a cap to the originator of the concept, but I know that just as often it has to do with who the idea is being stolen from. The people with the higher profile steal from the people underneath them, as has happened in all walks of life since the beginning of time. For example, when the WWE launched the ill-fated XFL they had too many gimmicks which did not work. However, they did have one great idea - the pulley cam over the middle of the field. That concept was quickly "borrowed" by the NFL and since then that view has given us some iconic images in the last couple of years, all without any acknowledgement of where the idea of putting a camera over the middle of the field came from. I am convinced that is because the NFL looks down on pro wrestling and doesn't think there is anything they can do about it. Unfortunately they have so far been proven right. But, something happened this week in the WWE that could shake up the future of television and if it does there will be no debating where it came from.

The other day the WWE announced that they will be launching their own channel next month. Now, that idea in and of itself is not particularly special because having channels dedicated to just one sport are quite common. On my cable guide I have the Golf Channel, NFL Network, NBA Network, MLB Network, NHL Network, a soccer channel, a hunting channel, a fishing channel, a tennis channel and even a horse-riding channel, so a pro-wrestling channel almost seems overdue. But, here's the difference - the WWE channel is going to completely bypass traditional cable and only stream online through tablets, gaming systems (thus giving you the ability to still watch it on your TV) and smart TVs which come equipped with internet connections. Additionally it will be subscription channel. You would pay $10 a month (six months at a time), which would grant you access to 24-hours worth of classic matches, old pay-per-views and even some new original programming, such as career retrospectives and reality shows about what wrestlers do in their spare time. Think of it kind of like NetFlix, but all the movies are about wrestling. I know $10 for one channel sounds like a lot but it suddenly seems like a much better deal when you learn your subscription also allows you to watch all the pay-per-views at no additional cost. Considering ordering one of those is like $40 and there is one a month, this service basically pays for itself within a couple of weeks. I have to say, even though I haven't watched wrestling in years I love this concept.

Admittedly my admiration of this idea has less to do with the WWE than what it represents - freedom. Everyone knows the cable TV system in this country is extremely flawed. These cable companies just keep raising rates and lowering customer service standards and there is nothing anyone can really do about it because, really, who has hours to spend on the phone fighting with these people? Even worse, I'm not even sure the cable people know how broken their system is. For example, remember last paragraph when I told you about all those sports networks I have? I don't want about half of them. I have never watched the fishing network or the hunting network or the tennis network and I don't intend to start now but I had to buy them because I wanted the Golf Channel and it was part of a package deal which the woman on the phone seemed to actually think was a good deal. I didn't have the heart to tell her that wanting to buy 1 additional channel outside of my normal package which should only cost about $2 extra per month and being forced to pay $15 but getting 10 channels I don't want and will never watch is not actually a bargain. With the WWE channel you pay for what you want and only get what you pay for, which is how it should be. There is no going through a third party for bundling or delivery services, which means there is also no going through a cable company who can suddenly deprive you of a channel because they don't like the deal they signed with that channel, like what happens when Time Warner decides they don't want to carry the Comcast Sports anymore and it disappeared without warning. (As if to prove my point, DirectTV is now threatening to not carry WWE pay-per-views.) If you are just buying the channel directly from the company than there should be nothing to get in the way of your service. Imagine a system where you only have to pay for the channels you want - wouldn't that be something?

Now, I am not saying this will take the world by storm and we will all be streaming our channels through the internet by the end of the year. The WWE's channel hasn't even launched yet and there are bound to be some issues when it does, as always happens when a new product launches. Not to mention, anytime a new channel launches you have to worry if they will have enough content to keep people viewing, which makes the idea of paying for it right now slightly similar to committing to eat a cake before it even goes in the oven. Plus, the elephant in the room which has to be address is the idea of streaming all programming is going to scare a lot of people (read: octogenarians) away. There are going to be a lot of citizens who won't want to switch simply because they are comfortable with the system they have, don't know how streaming works, aren't interested in learning because they assume it will be too complicated and fear change. So, I wouldn't call this imminent. However, I think the wheels have been put into motion and this is not nearly as futuristic a concept as people who work in TV may think. I would just caution them that they had better recognize what is going on and start to think of ways to adapt, specifically how to broadcast shows live on the internet at the same time as they broadcast through network television. If they don't they could very easily find themselves going the way of the newspaper - still around but rendered largely irrelevant as people have found faster ways to get their news. Better to get ahead of it because otherwise they could be as stunned as someone getting hit in the face with a folding chair.

Endure The Cure

I've written this before but it bears repeating - chronic back pain sucks. There is nothing worse than hurting your back because even if the pain goes away the knowledge that you are never more than the simple act of turning too quickly away from being in even more pain is never far from your mind. Some people say you never really truly recover from a bad back, you just learn to live with it. However since a life sentence seems kind of harsh, back-pain sufferers such as myself are always looking for anything which promises it will relieve back pain. Even if you don't have back issues you probably noticed there are no shortages of things which claim to be the cure such as different levels of aspirin, stretches, diets, specially-designed chairs, shoes, lotions and natural remedies. Personally I don't like to listen to advice from anyone who hasn't themselves had back pain because how would they know whether or not their answer really worked? That is why the only positive thing about back pain is that it is so common and so many people go through it (it's like the worst, most inclusive club ever. We should have jackets made), which means you can always find another opinion to try. Everywhere you look there is another person telling you about all the failed methods they tried until they finally found the one that worked for them. In some ways it is discouraging that there is not one surefire way to fix this problem but on the other it is a little bit better knowing that there are so many different techniques to try because you are never out of hope. I mean, if you tried the one method which was supposed to work and still had back trouble than you would just be out of luck but with back pain you are just one internet search away from finding something else to try and a renewed sense of optimism that maybe this will be the one which finally works. I can guarantee you this - you're never going to find relief if you never try.

Now, sure there are proven ways to relieve back pain - strength building exercises and such - and I am doing those - but they take time. It's a patience issue and, frankly, I want to feel better now. That is why when I heard of a very simple method which had been getting good results I was interested to try it. According to this long-time back pain sufferer, all you had to do was take the smallest pillow in your house (a rolled-up towel would work in a pinch) and then put it under your ankles before you went to bed. It was important to make sure it was just under your ankles because that would raise your lower spine only slightly, but still enough to cause your alignment to shift. Allegedly this works like a charm and what I liked about it is that it was very simple. Most of these remedies involve rigging up some sort of elaborate pulley system around your bedroom which involves several expensive trips to a sporting goods store for all the right ropes but who doesn't have an extra towel laying around? Now I would love to tell you that I tried this method and woke up the next day feeling better than I had in years but I don't like to lie on my own blog. Yes, I did wake up and found that my back didn't hurt as much as normal but I certainly wasn't pain-free. However, I can't say it was a failure on the part of proposed back pain remedy. The problem was that I didn't take into account the one variable in this whole operation - me. It sounds hard to have operator error when the entire process is two steps - 1. put towel under ankles 2. go to bed - but I managed it.

The issue is that no matter how hard I try I just can't fall asleep while laying on my back. (Ironic, isn't it?) Typically I fall asleep on my side or my stomach and this has been going on long before my back started to hurt, which means it is not the kind of habit which can be easily broken. Even worse is that I already have trouble falling asleep as it is. You know how annoying it is when you are really tired, crawl to bed and suddenly you're wide awake again because your brain has decided this exact moment is the perfect time to think about things which happened in the third grade, even though weren't important at the time and are completely irrelevant now? Yeah, that's how my brain is every night. Anyway think about how obnoxious it is when that happens and then remember on how well it works when you lay in bed and order yourself to sleep. Now, on top of that add trying to lay perfectly still so as to not ruin this supposedly idiot-proof cure-all, which immediately means that all you want to do is roll to one side or the other because all humans ever want to do is the one thing you just told them they couldn't. It doesn't make for a very peaceful way to go to bed. Lastly, let's also remember that once you finally do fall asleep you lose all control of your body so there is virtually no chance anyone would wake up in the position required for this remedy to work unless they had been strapped into bed. (Let's also not gloss over the fact that if you know how to strap yourself down you probably have a set of issues way worse than a sore back.)

Making this whole thing even more annoying is that it is not as though I am trying to find a cure so I can go right back out and do something insane. Basically, I just want to be able to fold my laundry without my back seizing up on me. I'm always saying that the more tedious the job the less obstacles the universe should throw in your way but apparently the universe doesn't feel the same way. Now normally I would just give up on this particular exercise because it is not like there aren't about a thousand other ones I could try instead. However, the fact that the hour I spent laying in bed on my back before finally giving up and rolling onto my side so I could get some sleep seemed to help even a little has me thinking this solution could really work if I could just find a way to fall asleep on my back. It would appear the best chance is for me to either try and take short naps so I can get the relief a little bit at a time (unlikely since I am not a particularly good napper either) or wait until one night when I am super-tired about to pass out and essentially spring a trap on myself. I know this sounds like the ramblings of a crazy person but just know that if you had chronic back pain it would all make perfect sense. The people spending their hard-earned money on a what casual observers can obviously tell is a scam may seem desperate but I would just remind you that desperate times for desperate measures and that can lead to the occasional lapse in judgement. Besides just the idea that a remedy could be in the mail is sometimes enough to make you feel better. I would say hope springs eternal but back pain doesn't exactly put a spring in your step.

Form-Fitting

Even though it is only about three years old, I am aware that every time I take out my flip phone I am opening myself up to ridicule. While people older than me usually don't notice or don't care enough to say anything about, people my own age and younger act as though I just broke out a Morse code machine when I want to send a text. Yet despite this constant scrutiny I am in no hurry to upgrade my phone, for a couple of reasons. The first is that because my phone takes FOREVER to open up something as simple as Twitter I am not constantly looking down at it to check out the latest goings on and I want to keep it that way. Not to get all old-school on you but I really don't like the fact that all people do these days is look at their phones. Don't get me wrong, I am not judging the people who are always on their phones - I can see how seductive they can be - I would just rather not become one of them and figure my best chance to stop that from happening is to not have that power in the first place because knowing my personality I am just as likely as anyone to constantly be online. But the main reason I don't want to upgrade my phone is because of its full keyboard. I can't stand typing on a touch-screen because my fingers were not made to use those things. A lot of people tell me they are fine because even if you screw up the word you were trying to type auto-correct will catch it and correct it, which would be ok is auto-correct always correctly guessed the word people were trying to type, but they only get it right about 70% of the time. Honestly I would rather have my old phone than send an angry text telling a person to "duck off".

However, I have to admit that there is one auto-feature which I do not think gets nearly enough praise - auto-fill. This is the program which records all the information you had previously entered when in a similar situation and keeps the answers around for the next form you have to fill out. This means that rather than having to enter your mailing address in three different spots all you have to do is press the first number of your street address and the rest of the spots get filled in automatically. It is a huge time saver but, more importantly to a guy like me who hates repetition, it stops the monotony. (And yes, it aids the companies because people are more likely to join contests and give out their personal information if the form takes 20 seconds to fill out instead of 20 minutes. I can live with that.) The bigger problem is that not every form has a place for you to fill them out online, because some people still want hard copies of things. I have been acutely aware of this lately because it feels as though I have been on a form-fill spree. Part of it has to do with Christmas having just occurred because the new thing is to register all your devices for a warranty, which means filling out a form. The other reason is that my health insurance just got upgraded (thanks, Obama!) and I had to decide which new features I wanted to add on my plan. Lastly, I am getting a new passport for an upcoming trip, which means filling out government forms. All of it amounts to writing my name a few dozen times which is enough to make me suddenly turn into one of those people wondering why these companies won't join this century and are stuck in an era where people still use pens.

Look, I am not expecting filling out a long form to be exciting, I just don't know why some of these particular questions are necessary. For example, on my passport application it asked for the name of a contact I would not be travelling with. Now, I provided it but who is to say I won't be travelling with them next time, at which point your data become useless. That question feels more gossipy than helpful. There is a line between relevant information and just being nosy and most of the time it feels like these forms can't tell the different. Also, exactly how many different ways am I expect to answer the same question? On my health insurance form it asked me if I was pregnant roughly 200 times and I had to check no every time. Shouldn't once be enough? (Hell, I'll even grant you two for a "You sure?" follow-up.) The problem is that if you thought I was impatient about forms before, you should see me now that I have become accustomed to auto-fill. The simple act of repeatedly writing out my name and address has become quite torturous, the consequence of which is that I want to get through the rest of the form as possible, which has resulted in more than a few occasions where I couldn't be bothered to read things all the way through, assuming I knew what answers were supposed to go on which line or space. As it turns out, I have a very different opinion about that from the people who design forms for a living. Normally I pride myself on accuracy but on at least three forms in the past week I have written my name on the part of the form which says "To be filled out by official". That's an obvious whoops but if you think I am started an entire form over simply because I wrote my full name where it just asked for my last name you are crazy.

Now, I am hardly the first person to do this and I won't be the last so I am not really expecting any major fall-out from my ill-placed signature (although I would be the guy whose passport gets rejected because he signed his name in the wrong spot) but at the same time it is kind of embarrassing because it makes me look as though I am incapable of following direction. Admittedly, that is exactly what is happening in this situation but that is not how it normally works and I don't want the people who ultimately receive these forms to think less of me. (It doesn't matter that we will never meet - it's the principle of the thing.) That is why going forward I need to make sure I nip this particular problem in the bud. That's not just because I value my reputation as an editor but because it is a really bad idea to sign something without thoroughly reading everything through and knowing exactly what you are putting your signature on. Still, the people whose job it is to create these forms could help me out a little by not making them quite so long and tedious. How about breaking up the format a little? Nothing radical - just not asking for things in the exact same order as you have since the dawn of time. Sure, there would be plenty of people out there who don't like change for change's sake and the first few are going to be riddled with errors but after word about the new look gets out I bet most people would bear down, concentrate a lot more and that would cut down on the mistakes in the long run. Anything has to be better than the current system, which everyone would agree is ducking annoying.