Survey Time

There is an election coming up in November and some primaries before that, so that means we are back into political phone survey time. The last couple of days my phone has been ringing with people who want to obviously read from scripts and disjointedly mispronounce names as they get my opinion on hot-button issues. As a registered Independent and someone with their phone number on the "Do Not Call" list I'm not sure how they got a hold of my number. But, beyond the annoyance of the phone ringing, I'm mostly worried about the precedent this sets, because I don't think the primary is until September and I hope this doesn't mean I have four months of these phone calls coming. The other side, though, is that I like to give opinions to these people because I have this vision of someone going over my answers, saying to themselves, "I want to hear more about what this man has to say," which would then lead to a very successful and lucrative career as a political consultant. The problem, of course, is that I'm a rational person who lands somewhere in the middle on most issues, which makes me just like everyone else.

The woman that called today first wanted to ask me a series of questions, starting with if I had heard of the following people:
Senator John Kerry. Yes, I have actually heard of the guy who's represented my state for 30 years or so and ran for President a while back.
Governor Deval Patrick. First off, she couldn't pronounce Deval, which did not bode well for her. Clearly she is either not from this state or never got this far into her script before talking to me. Still, you should pre-read a script before and ask about names you aren't familiar with. That's broadcasting 101.
The United States Congress. Have I heard of Congress? I actually had her repeat it, because it was such a strange question. If I hadn't heard of Congress, what makes you think I would have heard of a Senator?

Then she wanted to know if I was for or against a couple of hot-button political issues:
Do you want to roll the sales tax back to 5% (sure)
Are you in favor of term limits? (no)
Are you in favor of casinos in Massachusetts? (yes)
Do you think illegal immigrants should be given access to state health benefits and resident rates to state colleges? Wow, we jumped up a notch there, didn't we? Not to mention, there is kind of a lot there and it's not really a yes or no question, is it? You can't just give an up or down answer on that, which was all she wanted from me.

The problem with all of this was that it took so long I ended up having another phone call that I needed to take call beep into my survey and I was forced to hang up on the woman before I even got through all of her questions. I hope that she at least takes the answers I did give into consideration, otherwise I just wasted 10 minutes of my life and didn't further my consulting career one bit.

My Poison Ivy Adventure

So, last Saturday I talked about how I managed to clear a section of my yard of thorn vines to plant some new trees and I felt very productive for the effort. Well, by Saturday night I had started to develop a small rash on both of my forearms just above my wrists. At first it wasn't that big a deal as I get some poison ivy almost every single summer. I just threw on a long-sleeve tee-shirt and went about my night. However, Sunday morning I awoke to find that my lips had just about doubled in size and were now very red and tender. If it was a botox treatment it would have taken me a lot of money to get them this big. Still, I was not too concerned about it, I just figured it would go away if I ignored it (this is the same medical tact I take with all my aliments). The real problem began on Monday morning when I awoke very early to find that half my face was red and puffy, to the point that my right eye was practically swollen shut. Honestly, it looked as though I had been punched in the eye by Andre the Giant. Now, for all the times that I have been attacked by poison ivy it has never spread to my face, so for the first time I was actually concerned. Oh, in addition it had also spread overnight to my stomach, back, up my entire forearms, in between most of my fingers (which had now swollen to about twice their normal size) and a couple patches had sprung up on my legs. I'll admit, I did not look my best.

My mother thought I should go to the hospital but, as a veteran of the poison ivy problem, I started instead to do my normal regiment of taking baths with baking soda (more on that in a second) and taking Benadryl. I thought as long as the swelling went down in my face I could deal with the rest. It was not a very good night, as I kept waking up because of the extreme discomfort. Also, I was sleeping in long sleeves and pajama pants, which I'm not a fan of, because I'm already a furnace at night. I think the kicker was when I noticed the left side of my face was starting to swell up as well, though that went back down overnight. I decided that if the facial swelling wasn't cleared up by Tuesday afternoon I would give in and go to the hospital. In the mean time I started going online looking for home remedies I should try, which leads me to this point: when you are in a severe amount of discomfort, you will begin to listen to anything that sounds remotely plausible. Thus, after reading on some guy's blog that direct heat would kill the itch, I found myself with a hair dryer, blowing hot air directly into my face. I want you to know that not only does that not help, you almost immediately feel stupid for even trying.

I was really resisting going to the hospital because I had this vision of being in the emergency room, finding myself sitting between one guy who had cut off his finger and another who was having a heart attack, them turning to me asking what was wrong and all I would have in response was, "Um, I'm itchy." You can imagine my testosterone-fuel hesitation. However, I think I was slightly vindicated when the first nurse I saw asked me how bad the poison ivy was and as I lifted my shirt to show her the patch on my stomach she visibly recoiled and immediately whisked me away to the back room and away from any other patients. At this point the doctor came in and he too did not seem very impressed with my puffy face until he saw how bad the patch on my stomach was, at which point he also backed away. I feel like if you can make an ER doctor recoil then you were right to come in. They initially talked about giving me an IV of steroids, but since I wasn't having any vision or breathing problems I was deemed ok for just pills. The doctor prescribed a concoction of steroids pills and cream and then sprinted out of the room before I could make the "Guess I won't be competing in the Olympics this year" joke that the poor man probably has to hear every time he prescribes anyone steroids. [Sidebar: a couple months ago I talked about how, since I am not a drug taker, simple medicine like cough syrup can throw me for one hell of a loop and I have really vivid dreams. Well, those were nothing compared to what I have been experiencing on steroids. We're talking major productions going on in my head: a cast of hundreds, car chases, explosions - it's all very exciting. Honestly, if I talked in my sleep you would be getting quite the movie script out of this. Last night I dreamed an entire Christmas episode of The Office.]

The other thing I tried was an oatmeal bath because that is supposed to help with the itch. Here is what I learned about myself through all of this: I'm not a bath guy. First off, I've essentially out-grown my tub. Trying to submerge my body underwater would have resulted in the flooding of my bathroom. Secondly, I don't like the fact that the water goes cold fairly quickly, at which point you are just sitting in cold water like the world's loneliest pool party. Thirdly, both the baking soda and the oatmeal bath (both are about equally effective, which is to say not that much) leave a ring around the tub that you have to go back and clean later. I really prefer showers, which is where the Fels-Naptha soap comes in handy. Fels-Naptha is a cleaning agent that is supposed to be used as a detergent, but has had a second life as a poison ivy remedy even though it clearly states on the package that you should avoid prolonged exposure to skin. Whatever, it works.

So after a week of keeping myself away from other human beings as much as possible, it appears I've finally got this outbreak on the run. I have a small patch on my stomach remaining, but it is just discolored, not swollen or itchy at all and other than a couple small areas on my arms I am pretty much back to normal. This should not deter me from going on any hikes this summer but, with all due respect to Robert Frost, screw the path less travelled - I'm staying on the ones that have been cleared for people to walk on. Also, I'm out-sourcing any more yard work that comes up this year.

Sports Writers Are Slow Learners

I can not get over how many sports writers are trying to add to the tidal wave of stories today where the main premise is that Phil Mickelson is a good guy who won for his family and Tiger Woods is the adulterer who got what he deserved by struggling to a disappointing 4th place finish at the Masters. Instead of talking about Mickelson's gutsy play on the 13th hole, hitting out of the trees to within 4 feet for an eagle try, writers across America are talking about how this was more than a golf tournament, but more like a morality play. Did we learn absolutely nothing from the last 4 months of revelations? We don't know these guys at all. We don't know what the Mickelson home life is like or what they act like behind closed doors. Do they have a loving, typical all-American marriage? Of course we want to hope and think that, and the Mickelsons have never given us a reason to think otherwise. But, at the same time, how many people would have guessed all the pies that Tiger had his fingers in? Just because athletes and their families put on the happy face in public it doesn't mean that is the way their life actually is.

This is the problem with all these sports writers who can so easily be duped into thinking that just because they interview a guy for 10 minutes after a round of golf that they know who the person is deep down. For all the crap that newspaper writers want to give bloggers or people like Bill Simmons, who write from the fan's perspective without going into locker room or conducting interviews, at least those kinds of writers don't let personal bias get in the way. They mostly stick to what happens during the actual event and are not going to overlook one thing or another because they are getting access to the players. And, frankly, I think that is a much better system. Why don't we all agree to go back to the day where we only praised or condemn athletes based on what we know to be true (their performances on the field) and stop trying to fill in the blanks just to make a deadline.

-I'm not sure what to do with the news that Conan O'Brien will be getting a new show Monday - Thursday at 11 PM on TBS, because that's prime Daily Show watching time. This is hard, cause it's a battle of two of my favorite comedians/nerds. Honestly, there are like 5 good shows on all of television, how hard would it be for people to coordinate it so that they aren't on at the same time?

People Will Pay For Anything

So, the other day Dallas Stadium, home to the NFL's Dallas Cowboys for a number of years, was demolished after the team moved to a new facility. What's weird is that 20,000 people paid for the right to tailgate and celebrate the demolition. Now, I'm all for spending money on sporting events or even sports memorabilia, but what exactly are you getting when you pay to watch a demolition? Honestly, they're not going to let you take a piece of the stadium home with you. I'll be curious as to what the Cowboys actually charged to be there, because the ceremony amounted to about 30 seconds of actual action. And, jokes on them, cause you can watch the same thing for free right here.

-I take issue with Domino's newest line of TV ads in which they try and win back all the people who talked badly about their pizzas in supposedly 'secret' marketing meetings. They show up at their houses with free pizzas and personal attention. Well, what about me, Domino's? I've been eating your apparently sub-standard pizza for years without a peep. I thought it was just fine the way it was and I'm willing to bet it was a lot more cost-effective than the new ingredients will turn out to be. How about some reward for customer loyalty? Where is my free pizza?

-Charlie Sheen is apparently willing to walk away from his hit TV show, Two and a Half Men over a contract dispute. Now, Charlie, I'm sure you are anxious to get back to films so you can make more fine movies like Scary Movie 4 and Good Advice, but I want you to take a step back and think about David Caruso. He walked away from a good TV gig to make crappy movies and he barely had a career left when he went back to TV. As it stands you make almost a million dollars an episode doing your show. There is no way you can make that kind of money in movies, cause you're not that big of a movie actor and you have a... colorful... private life. Honestly, no one is clamoring for another Major League movie to come out any time soon. The grass isn't always greener.

Tom Thinks You're An Idiot

There is a long tradition of athletes talking about themselves in the third person. Ricky Henderson was the one who really pioneered the craze ("This is Rickey calling on behalf of Rickey. Rickey wants to play baseball.") and Deion Sanders took it to an entire other level when he occasionally referred to himself by his self-given nickname of "Prime Time", making him the first athlete to refer to himself in the fourth person. While I don't think this is a practice that should ever have caught on, I think it's ok as long as you have the resume or personality to pull it off. Henderson was one of the greatest baseball players of all time while Sanders was bombastic enough that people could just shrug and play it off as part of his charm. They could make it work for them.

However, this morning I was reading the paper and saw this quote from Michael Campbell following him finishing tied for DFL at this year's Masters, "I just need to get myself sorted out mentally because it's just not working and Michael Campbell should not be shooting these scores, simple as that." Alright, there are two thing wrong with that statement: 1. Michael Campbell is a golfer. I love golf, but it is not a sport that lends itself to referring to oneself in the third person. 2. He's pretty much only known for winning the U.S. Open in 2005, which was his only PGA Tour win and a victory that is now widely considered to be a fluke. He hasn't won another tournament since that year and hasn't even had a top-20 finish in any major since his 2005 win. So, as it turns out, those are exactly the kind of scores he should be shooting. Perhaps Michael Campbell should just be happy that he got to play in this year's Masters, because his exemptions run out after this year and he is unlikely to be back anytime soon.

-So, Butler University, the darlings of this year's NCAA tournament after a deep run to the championship game, rewarded Brad Stevens, their fresh-faced coach, with a new 12-year contract extension. This is a nothing new. Colleges and universities give coaches big extensions following good seasons all the time and I understand that Butler is just trying to send the message to other universities that may be in need of a coach to back off, because Stevens isn't going anywhere. But, a 12-year contract seems excessive because, let's be honest, all it really means is that Stevens isn't going anywhere for next season. Anything beyond that is up for grabs. Let's just say following the 2011 season Bill Self decides he wants to try his hand at the NBA and the University of Kansas sets their sights (and considerable athletic budget) on Brad Stevens. Do you honestly think he would stay at Butler? Of course not. I'm sure Butler is a great school, but they are not the Jayhawks. That 12-year extension isn't really worth the paper it's printed on. All this will really do is make Stevens pay more money if he ever wants to buy out his contract. The NCAA spends most of their time coming up with rules that don't help anyone, perhaps a limit on how long a coach's extension should be are in order.

Why Not Just Film In Boston?

There is a long tradition of television shows being based in the great city of Boston, MA. But, here's the thing that drives me crazy about most of them: they were filmed no where near the city of Boston, the state of Massachusetts or even the Eastern Time Zone. Instead, most of them are filmed on lots in California with the occasional between scene cut-away shots of the Prudential Center or Fenway Park just to remind you where you should pretend this is all taking place. Any scenes taking place inside will have the occasional Red Sox poster in the background or some guy in a Patriots hat named Sully (and you do not want to get me started on Hollywood's pathetic attempts at Boston accents) because that's what everyone who is not from here thinks about when it comes to Boston. The problem really gets noticeable whenever the characters are on the streets because you can tell that it is clearly California by either the weather or the architecture. It never looks like Boston. There is a certain grittiness to the city that can't be replicated.

Now, I know that the funding ran out on the large movie studio that was supposed to be built in Plymouth (saved a very nice golf course in the process, if that's any consolation), but that doesn't mean the area doesn't have any place to film a show. I'm sure we could find the space if a production company was interested. I would imagine that a movie is a much larger undertaking and those are filmed in the area all the time, so why not a TV show? Clearly people want to base shows in the city, so why not actually film in the area, use the actual familiar landmarks (not just a picture of one) and use actors from the area so that the accents don't make it sound like everyone from here is related to the Kennedys? Honestly, I bet you end up with a better show in the process.

-So, yesterday half of the Kentucky Wildcats declared themselves eligible for this year's NBA Draft. This was not unexpected, because most people felt that if the NBA didn't have an age limit these kids would have tried to go straight from high school to the NBA. Now, personally I don't care one way or another what happens at the University of Kentucky, but I would have to think that this is a dangerous path to go down for the basketball team. First off, with the exception of Carmello Anthony at Syracuse, there is not a great tradition of one-and-doners being able to capture an NCAA Championship. Teams need a couple seasons to really gel and learn to win together. But, the other issue is that it puts a ton of pressure on the coaching staff to recruit well every single year. You can't afford to have a bad recruiting class when you turn over half your roster every year and the half that remained was the benchwarmers who never played. It's a very thin margin for error. If Calipari can't pull in three or four McDonald's All-Americans to fill the void made by all the guys leaving early then Kentucky is going to go from a highly ranked team to one that will struggle to make the tournament.

A Testament To Not Getting Fired

Last night Don Nelson won his 1,333 game as a Head Coach, the most in NBA history. But, I have to say, I've never thought of Don Nelson as a great NBA coach. Sure, he pioneered the revolutionary point-foward position and brought Run TMC into our lives, but he's never made an NBA Finals, his winning percentage is only .565 and he was the coach who introduced the fan-killing Hack-A-Shaq during the NBA playoffs. Also, I think it speaks volumes that he was never considered for the Celtics head coaching job during the early 90's, even though you know Red would have preferred to stay in the family. Nellie's coaching career could best be summed up in one word: eh. He always had a descent enough record to be retained, but never did a spectacular enough job to lead his teams to the promised land. He was paid just enough money that it would not have made sense to fire him, meaning teams would still have to pay his salary, and also he was never bad enough to warrant getting fired mid-season. Basically, I feel like he got this record not by having the best teams or being the best coach, but by continually tricking people into giving him job after job. I guess this is what happens when NBA owners accept mediocrity.

-Yesterday I was watching the annual Par 3 Challenge at the Masters. It's a fun event that no one takes very seriously, because no one who has won the Par 3 Challenge has ever won the Masters. Basically any player with a legitimate shot at the big tournament half-asses their way around the Par 3 course on superstition alone. Mostly it's a chance for players to bring their kids or wives out with them on the course, have them caddy as well as putt for them and the fans get a lot of autographs from players. It's that last thing I want to comment on. Several players would sign golf balls and then fire them into the crowd, where normally dignified men would dive on the ground like idiots for them. There is something very disturbing about seeing guys in their mid-40's running over children to catch golf balls. Masters tickets are not cheap, so you have to figure these guys have some money in their bank accounts. Seriously, if want a signed golf ball that much hit up eBay and save some pride.

-Dear David Ortiz,
Look, buddy, I love you. Well, not really you (I don't know you that well), but I do love what you did for the Red Sox from 2003-2007. However, you were compensated pretty handsomely for your work. Not to mention, the Red Sox gave you a job when no one else in baseball was all that interested in you. Now, you had a really bad opening half to last season and the team stuck by you, despite your prolonged slump. Complaining about not getting your options picked up during Spring Training was not a good move by you. Throw in the slow start again this season and the steroid allegations that came out last year and I have to say you are really not in any position to throw temper-tantrums at the media. You lose the media, Papi, and they can/will slowly turn the fans against you (ask Manny Ramirez how that worked out). Dude, you just need to bear down and let your bat do the talking for you. That's the best way to silence all your critics - not yelling expletives at the beat writers during a pre-game interview.