Weekly Sporties

-On Tuesday Jacoby Ellsbury broke a lot of hearts in Boston when he signed a 7-year deal with the New York Yankees. Now, anyone who has followed the Sox for the last couple of years knew that Ellsbury's days in Boston were numbered (for whatever reason the team only made a minimal efforts to re-sign him) so the fact that he left wasn't very surprising. It was where he decided to sign which was disappointing to fans in this area. Honestly, we don't care if you leave, just don't go to the Yankees. Still, the man was a part of two World Series-winning teams, which is more than most former Red Sox can say. Also, the Sox clearly weren't about to give him that kind of money and who am I to tell anyone they shouldn't make as much money as they can? Therefore, I wish Jacoby luck, just not the 20 games he plays against the Red Sox. To me the far more interesting aspect of this deal was how everyone immediately dismissed it as a really bad idea. Sure, the first couple of years don't look as bad but there are a lot of concerns about what kind of player Ellsbury will be in five or six years. After all, he's 30 years old which isn't the tail-end of a baseball career but you can certainly see it from there. Additionally, Jacoby has always had a history of getting injured and then being slow to recover but has made up for that when he is healthy by being able to rely on his speed. What happens when he is 35 or 36, still injury prone and loses a step? And that is the thing I have noticed happening in baseball the last couple of years - teams continue to hand out these ridiculously long contracts knowing full well that they will be not be good for the team by the time they expire. Just think back to two years ago when the Angels signed Albert Pujols to his 10-year deal and everyone said the last 4 years of it would be a waste (the first two haven't exactly been great either). Why are teams continuing to hand out these contracts? I understand that baseball has no salary cap, which means these hideous deals won't restrict them from spending money in the future and that sometimes you simply have to over-pay to get people to move. Still, you couldn't just increase the money and decrease the years? These are the Yankees we are talking about - money is clearly no object to them - but have they learned nothing from Alex Rodriguez's terrible deal which has several years left on it? It just makes me wonder how some of these GMs continue to stay employed even though they continue to make the same mistakes. The old baseball saying is that failing 7 out of every 10 times will get you into the Hall of Fame, but that should only apply to players. Failing that often as a GM should get you fired.

-Of course, giving all that money to Jacoby Ellsbury also signaled the end of the Robinson Cano era in pinstripes, a fact which became official on Friday when Cano agreed to a 10-year deal with the Seattle Mariners. I have to say, even though there had been rumors out there that the Mariners were in hot pursuit of Cano I never expected him to sign with Seattle. Don't get me wrong, I love the Seattle area but the simple fact is that it is not New York. Cano appeared to be well on his way to becoming an icon in the city and a man who loved being a Yankee and now he is going to a much smaller media market to play for a team which doesn't get 1/15th the attention of the Yankees even when they are competitive (which they haven't been for a while). Now, everyone knew Robinson was going to get well-compensated this offseason but what adds another layer to this story is the fact that Cano is the biggest baseball client in rapper Jay-Z's new sports management stable and Jay-Z had been quite vocal that he was going to turn Cano into his own cottage industry. To a lot of people (myself included) that automatically meant he would be staying in New York and I just can't help but wonder if the plans to make Cano the biggest star in the game were a little too grandiose. To be fair there is no way of knowing just how involved in the actual negotiations Jay-Z really was, but he was only too happy to tell anyone who would listen that he would get Cano a $300 million, 10 year deal. He may have gotten the years but I am not sure how happy Cano is going to be playing in Seattle and it appears his agent put his reputation before his client's best interest. Now, sure, in today's digital world you can be a global personality no matter where you currently reside and there is something to be said for the fact that Cano would never be the most famous Yankee as long as Derek Jeter was still around. Still, even though the Yankee offer was reportedly $60 million less than what he signed for (and who is to say that was their final offer) Cano would certainly have had more opportunities to make that money up with off-field endorsements in New York versus Seattle. All of this makes me wonder just how well a guy like Jay-Z is suited for the business of being an agent. I am sure he has surrounded himself with the right people but he is still the face of his sports organization in both the good and the bad times. All agents make mistakes but most of them are able to experience this learning curve without all the media attention. I questioned Cano's wisdom when he first signed with Jay-Z and this contract with the Mariners doesn't quite ease those concerns. Sure, Jay-Z got him the most money but even Jay would have to admit there aren't many people rapping about the Pacific Northwest.

-While we're on the subject of people who may be in over their heads, when Jason Kidd was hired as the new coach of the Brooklyn Nets I had some doubts, especially when you considered the fact that Kidd had retired just weeks before and didn't have any coaching experience at any level, not even as an assistant. The situation got even more complicated when the Nets made a series of trades and signings meant to signal their intentions to challenge the Miami Heat for the Eastern Conference. After all, there are few things which mix as poorly as expectations and inexperience - handing a kid with a learner's permit the keys to a Ferrari is not going to end well. The one thing many people though would save Kidd was the fact he hired Lawrence Frank to be his top assistant. Even though Frank still only looks 14 he has plenty of head coaching experience, leading Kidd and the Nets to consecutive NBA Finals in the early '00s. The Nets made him the highest-paid assistant in the league and most NBA pundits thought he would be able to guide Kidd through the growing pains. That clearly didn't turn out as expected, as this week Kidd essentially fired Frank - reassigning him to a scouting position which precludes him from being on the bench during games. From the outside this doesn't appear to be that big of a deal. The Nets are off to an extremely disappointing start and they can't very well fire the players, so this is similar to an NFL team trying to shake things up by firing their defensive coordinator. But digging a little deeper it could be a sign of a much bigger issue. Reportedly Kidd and Frank clashed over coaching style and personnel decisions. Normally this would be a cut-and-dry issue with the head coach getting his way but it becomes much more complicated when the assistant probably knows the coach's job better than he does. Additionally there is the complex relationship dynamic. As I said, Frank used to be Kidd's head coach so you have to wonder if he still thought he could tell Kidd what to do. Kidd has a long history of being difficult to coach and I doubt he suddenly changed that habit when he hung up his sneakers. Also, Frank coached several of these Nets before so it is entirely possible they were going to him with questions instead of Kidd. The main thing you need on a team is a clearly defined chain of command and this situation didn't appear to be all that well thought-out. Let's also not forget that Frank is still in the building, putting together scouting reports for Kidd to ignore. All of this adds up to a terrible (and expensive) basketball team. And, considering the Celtics own the Nets' first-round pick this year, I couldn't be happier about it.

-Over the the last couple of months the idea that there is a right and wrong time to fire a coach has been a reoccurring theme in the Sporties. First I thought the Philadelphia Flyers were too quick to fire coach Peter Laviolette three games into the season and then I wondered why USC felt the need to fire Lane Kiffin in the middle of the night. Well, today I am flabbergasted by the news the Houston Texans fired head coach Gary Kubiak on Friday, one day after losing to the equally woeful Jacksonville Jaguars. Now, don't get me wrong, unlike Laviolette I'm not saying the firing of Kubiak wasn't justified - the Texans were supposed to be a Super Bowl contender and they are 2-12 on the season - but the timing confuses me. There are two weeks left in their season, which means the team is too far gone to turn things around (in reality they probably hit that point two months ago) so it is not like this firing will spark a playoff push. I guess you could make the case that there was no point in delaying the inevitable but considering Kubiak had a "mini" stroke while coaching the team a few weeks ago and still rushed back to try and save the season you could make the case he had earned the right to go down with the ship. But mostly I wouldn't have made this move for one simple reason - the Texans need to keep losing. As I mentioned they are currently 2-14 and in prime position to have the first pick in next April's draft. The Texans aren't a particularly bad team - before this they had made the playoffs two years in a row - and adding a dominant player could put them right back into the hunt next season. The NFL is designed for teams to rebuild in a hurry and the Texans don't have very far to go. The only way they could screw this up is if the team rallies to win the last two games of the season. That wasn't going to happen under Kubiak, who everyone knew was gone (even Kubiak) and therefore he had lost the locker room. There is a chance the players could become inspired by their new interim coach (given that it is Wade Phillips that chance is admittedly pretty small, but there is still a chance) or suddenly remember they are not only playing for the Houston Texans, but auditioning for the rest of the NFL. NFL teams are more than happy to take guys from losing teams but they won't take guys from losing teams who are also on film giving half-hearted efforts. I know trying to lose goes against everything the NFL claims it stands for but some times it is the smarter course of action. Besides, it is not like this season is going to be salvaged for the Texans, so they may as well get something out of it, like a new franchise quarterback.

-As the NFL slowly marches towards the end of the regular season it is time to start thinking about next season, specifically the rules which could be changed before then. You see the NFL competition committee, the body in charge of this sort of thing, meets as soon as the Super Bowl ends and that means they have to start putting together the ideas they will discuss now so people have plenty of time to think about all the ramifications of a rule change before they actually vote on whether or not to ratify them. Most of the time these meetings pass without any huge revelations but on occasion they do something drastic, like two years ago when they mandated that all scoring plays and turnovers must be automatically reviewed. Well the other day an idea was floated which would drastically alter the way the game of football is played and coached as someone suggested the league may vote to narrow the goal posts. I know that sounds like a bad idea because it would lead to more missed field goals but the proposal doesn't have as much to do with a bias against kickers as it does against scared coaches. At this level pretty much any kick inside of 50 yards goes in. The thinking is that by narrowing the goal posts and decreasing the percentages of made field goals it would encourage more coaches to go for it and get their team even closer before settling for three points. There are just two problems with this theory: the first is that these committee members seem to forget we are dealing with NFL coaches, some of the most gutless people in history. Football coaches have a reputation of being gamblers but the reality is that most of them take the easy way out the majority of the time because they won't be blamed if they do the "smart" thing and it backfires on them, whereas risking it and failing is seen as being bad at their jobs. That means faced with a 4th and 3 from their own 35 most of them will not try and kick a 52 yard field goal or go for the first down, they will punt it away and try to down the ball inside the 10. In other words, this rule change which is supposed to encourage scoring will probably end up wiping more points of the board. The second problem is that while I may crap on kickers all the time I understand how tough they have it and don't feel like these coaches, many of whom have never kicked a field goal in their lives, so be allowed to vote on a proposal such as this. That is why I would like to propose my own rule for the competition committee to consider: all votes on kicking can only be taken after a member of the committee has made a 30 yarder. I bet that would teach them to appreciate how hard that is to do. Hell, it would probably get them to widen the goal posts, not narrow them.

-College football has entered that strange period of inactivity during of the year between the end of the regular season and the start of bowl games, which doubles as the time for coaches to get hired and fired. One of the biggest coaching vacancies was filled this week when the University of Southern California hired Washington coach Steve Sarkisian as its new head coach. I have to say I was kind of surprised at this one. I understand that Sarkisian has a history with USC - he was their offensive coordinator under Pete Carroll when they won the National Championship - and USC has probably always been his dream job. I'm never going to fault a guy for going back to a place he is familiar with but at the same time it is not like Washington is some kind of slouch program. They have won a National Championship there before and could do so again, only the job comes with much lower expectations (as evidenced by the fact that Sarkisian's Pac-12 record is worse than Lane Kiffin's and no one at UW was calling for him to get fired). But as surprised as I am that Sarkisian would want to leave UW, I am even more surprised that USC would want him. As I mentioned, Sarkisian was a member of Pete Carroll's coaching staff. And sure, that staff won multiple National Championships but they also managed to guide the program into some shady practices which ultimately landed them with NCAA sanctions. Athletic Director Pat Haden has maintained he wants to run a clean program but this hiring seems to counter that pledge. Additionally, the school already tried to go the route of hiring a Pete Carroll assistant and hoping they would be able to duplicate his success and it landed them with Lane Kiffin. (By the way, I would not have hired interim coach Ed Orgeron as the full-time coach either. It is one thing to right the ship after a coach the players clearly stopped listening to was fired, but in my mind that actually worked against him. Everyone loves the substitute teacher, probably because they know they can walk all over them. Orgeron couldn't build a program at Ole Miss, so there is no guarantee he would have been able to hand the USC job. Still, I appreciate that Oregeron quit in response, refusing to coach USC's bowl game even though the school offered to make him the highest-paid assistant in college. No point in staying where you aren't wanted.) Anyway, all of it just makes me wonder how thorough a coaching search was actually done and I can't help but think about the saying, "those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it." I'm not saying Sarkisian is Pete Carroll but if you hire him because you want to try and replicate Carroll's regime as much as possible, don't be surprised when the bad aspects from Carroll's time at the program happen again.

-Of course, the way this game of "Coaching Musical Chairs" works meant that Washington was left with an unexpected vacancy to fill and on Friday they shockingly filled it with Boise State coach Chris Petersen. At this point in my life there aren't many bit of sports news which honestly make me stop and stare but this news brought me to a halt. Now, if you just look at the two jobs from a pure football point of view the move would be a no-brainer for anyone else. As I stated before, Washington has already won a National Championship and could do again thanks to their affiliation with the Pac-12. Meanwhile, Boise State has had to scratch and claw to get any kind of national recognition, knowing that if they went undefeated they would still have to justify getting invited to play in a major bowl and if they lost just one game it would mean playing in the "Everyone Gets a Trophy Bowl". The need to join an automatic-qualifier almost forced the Broncos to join the Big East before ultimately opting to stay in the Mountain West Conference when the Big East collapsed. That kind conference jumping around will never happen to a program like UW. But the reason this move was so shocking is that Petersen has long been coveted by some of football's most elite programs and had turned them down every time, content to stay with the team he had help build from the ground up. (If you want a particularly ironic example, just last week he was reportedly in the running for the USC job but elected to stay in Boise.) Now, I have no allegiances to Boise State but always felt there was something very admirable about a coach who wasn't working with one eye on his next job. That is why I am confused as to why he decided to leave now and what program he decided to leave for. As I previously stated the Huskies are a good program, but they aren't exactly USC (as evidenced by the fact Sarkisian left them for the Trojans). I can only assume he was started to wonder if other schools would eventually stop pursuing him. After all, you can only say no so many times before people accept that you mean it. Also, I think this makes it clear that he isn't a big-city coach, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I appreciate guys who know themselves and clearly Chris Petersen isn't a flashy coach. Either way, I love this hire for the Huskies. Petersen has a winning percentage of about 88% and while I don't think he will be able to duplicate that in the Pac-12, the fact he was able to build a winning program in a place like Boise, Idaho (which couldn't have been easy to recruit) should make rebuilding Washington seem like a much easier task. I just hope he doesn't try to bring all aspects of Boise to Seattle (lot of Seattle news in this week's Sporties), because a purple field would be hard to watch.

Stranger In A Familiar Land

A few weeks ago I talked about my trip to the New England Aquarium and how I feel that on occasion it is a really good idea to play tourist in your hometown. People have a tendency to put down their city where they have lived for a long time as boring when the fault really lies with them. If you picked up a local guidebook you may be surprised to learn how many programs are going on all the time. And some of the stuff being done is really creative ideas that you never would have imagined you could take advantage of. But playing tourist doesn't necessarily have to mean hunting down a new adventure every weekend either, as sometimes going back to a place you have already been can be the best idea of all. There is a general feeling that you only need to experience some things once, which is why we tend to take amazing sites for granted as we pass by them every day, completely forgetting that there are people in there whose sole job responsibility is to change things around so people have reason to keep coming back. Going to a museum once and then expecting the exhibits to never change is a crazy way to think and yet most people ignore the museums in the city they live in for years at a time. That is why on occasion it is a good idea to stop in, check out the new stuff and remind yourself just how much fun your city can be. Just the other day I was reminded that you don't even need to go off and play tourist to experience a whole new world, as you can just do mundane tasks and have an adventure - it is just a matter of driving far enough.

The other afternoon I had to run up to the North Shore. Those who are from the South Shore of Massachusetts know why this is a big deal but for those who are not from the area, allow me to explain: Despite the fact Massachusetts is not a particularly big state it still manages to be made up by several poorly-defined areas. You have the rather generic "Downtown" which is obviously Boston but also can includes Brookline, Allston, Cambridge and Brighton depending on who you are talking to. Next there is the "South Shore" which starts as soon as you turn off the Expressway and ends when you hit the Cape. Then there is the "North Shore" which is pretty much everything from Everett until you hit Maine. The two "shores" also extend westward until you hit Rt 495, which conveniently forms a loop around the inner half of the state and we typically use the Mass Pike as the equator in this scenario. There is also this a nebulous area known as "MetroWest" which is filled with two kinds of people: the ones who tell people they are from Boston when they visit other states or the ones who really would rather live in New Hampshire but can't make the commute work. That starts at 495 and stops roughly when you hit the Pacific Ocean. What is even more fascinating is that people who live in one area see traveling to another one of these places as a gigantic hassle. Seriously, there are people who live in Dover that would rather visit Spain than Wakefield. I'm not quite that bad but I am will admit that I rarely see any reason to go to the North Shore. Even though I am quite fearful of becoming too insulated the practical part of my brain just sees it as a waste of gas. This quick trip certainly didn't do anything to change my mind.

Because I hit almost no traffic on my way up I got to my destination far earlier than expected. Since I didn't want to arrive too early this left me with a few minutes to kill. (The other reason I don't go to the North Shore? Given the quick nature of how I do things it isn't time effective. Why drive an hour and a half round trip to complete an errand that takes 20 minutes?) The good news for me was that right across from my intended destination was my favorite store, Marshall's. However, what should have been a familiar setting felt foreign. The thing about stores like this, where the merchandise and the layout can be very independent from one location to another, is that even though they all operate under the same store name they can be very different. It quickly became clear that the North Shore people have a very different set of priorities. For example, I don't know why but this location had a strange amount of t-shirts for teams which are not from this area. Honestly, for a couple of seconds I felt like I had been transported to an entirely different part of the country and I was only about 40 miles from my house. I wasn't about to ask if they still accepted American money but it was like when you were in high school and you went to another school for a track meet or other sporting event and had the chance to look around the other school. On the surface it was just another school and it shouldn't have been all that different from the one you attended every day, especially since you were all learning the same state-mandated curriculum. But all those small differences ended up combining into one unnerving experience.

At least I can take solace in knowing I am far from the only person who feels this way. When you are in a new place for the first time it is human nature to look for something that is familiar and then cling to it. I can not tell you the number of people who have talked about moving to a different city and the first thing they want to do is find a Dunkin Donuts because it reminds them of home, only to be crushed when they don't quite get the coffee right. There is a reason McDonald's has served over a billion people - the burgers taste the same in California as they do in New York. Don't get me wrong, it is not that I am saying I want uniformity in all areas of life... just the retail part of it. [Sidebar: It would obviously come in handy at this time of year. When I think about all the time I have spent driving from store to store looking for an item and being able to do nothing more than cross my fingers and hope before I walk through the doors, that certainly feels like a flawed system. There is something to be said for any store which can tell me not to waste my time and gas driving around because not only do they not have it, they are sure none of their stores do either since they all have the same stuff.] I know I started this post by advocating going back to places you have already been just to see what has changed but looking through racks of clothes is not exactly the same as get a first-hand view of a Monet. Then again, maybe the reason people don't go back to their local museums as frequently is because they are afraid of how much has changed. Expecting to see the same exhibits from when you were last there and having the entire place be different can almost be worse than no change at all. Still, I think people should suck it up and give it a try. Certainly couldn't be any more disorienting than standing in a Massachusetts store trying to sell you merchandise for the Green Bay Packers.

Do-Re-Don't

I feel like a have a pretty solid understanding of how network television works but someone is going to have to explain to me why most shows go into reruns in the middle of December. These shows have only been back since September and yet as soon as Thanksgiving hits they all take a month off and hit us with reruns. It's even more confusing when you remember that a majority of television shows are shot over the summer which means most of the episodes for this season are already done, so why they suddenly need a break has always confused me. Either way, it means that in place of these shows come random one-night events. Tonight is a perfect example of this as a little bit later this evening NBC will air a new, live version of "The Sounds Of Music" with country music star Carrie Underwood in the lead role. You may be wondering why NBC is doing this (I'm sure some at NBC are wondering as well). Honestly, I can't give you much an answer because I don't have one. Maybe they bought the rights to the movie years ago but lost their copy and figured this was the next best solution. Perhaps they wanted to promote the NFL more (they paid so much money for Sunday Night Football) and figured since Carrie Underwood sings the theme to that show this will give her some more screen time for people to remember that they have a game this Sunday. Or maybe this will all end up being an extremely elaborate prank and something else will air in its place. No matter how you slice it there is only one thing I can be sure of - everyone is going to hate it.

Look, this is nothing against Carrie Underwood. By all accounts she has a lovely voice (I'm only familiar with her biggest hits) and is a very nice person in real life but this show is going to get destroyed by reviewers. The problem for Underwood is that she simply isn't Julie Andrews, which means most people are going to dismiss her before the show even starts. This is the problem with trying to remake a beloved classic - ironically the audience who are most likely to tune in are also the ones who will hate it the most for no other reason than it is not the version they grew up with. We saw this last year when they remade "Les Miserables" - the more people had seen the stage production the less they liked the movie because they had already heard all those songs sung better than the actors. If anything the person who should really get hammered by critics is the one who authorized this show in the first place because there was literally nothing to be gained from doing this. Even if Underwood sang it better the simple fact is she didn't sing it first and therefore all anyone is going to want to hear in the future is the original version. Also, going back to the "Les Miserables" experience, why does this show need to be live? One of the reasons that movie didn't work for me was because everything had to be shot as a close-up to hear the voices singing in real time. When it comes to putting things on film, pre-recorded voices are your friend. The first version was all pre-recorded and that doesn't make it any less popular. Besides, it is not like the knowledge they were singing live is going to save this show from criticism anyway.

[Confession Time: I guess this is where I should admit I've never actually seen "The Sound of Music." Don't get me wrong, I've seen clips here and there (I didn't grow up under a rock) so I know the general premise and the big musical numbers but I never made it through an entire showing from start to finish. Seeing that it is a Disney Production I feel confident in assuming everything turns out fine in the end and even if it doesn't I don't really care. I don't have any moral stance against the film, I just feel like there are titles I would rather watch instead. Yet for some reason this knowledge shocks a lot of people, probably because of all the terrible movies I have seen multiple times. Admittedly, it is a little weird that I have never seen a movie which is supposed to be a classic like "The Sound of Music", but I've seen "Stealth" half a dozen times. The thing is, I don't want to see it because I also feel like everyone has that one movie they haven't seen which everyone else assumes the entire world owns a copy of. I am always fascinated to know what movie makes up the gigantic hole in a person's film library and the reaction most people have when they hear I have never seen "The Sound of Music" is worth not watching it. Plus, the more people tell me I have to see it the less likely it is that I will. I'm stubborn that way but at least I pay other people the same courtesy. Even when I feel like they are missing out on an amazing movie I would never try and force anyone to watch a certain title because, as I'm sure you well know, demanding a person enjoy something is the best way to ensure they will never like it. This is my particularly long-winded way of saying I will not be watching this show either.]

The only good news for Carrie Underwood and everyone else involved in the production is they will be able to take solace by remembering that most of the hate spewed about this show will be done on the internet, where everyone hates everything, which means the large majority of the reviews will be ignored. After all, some of these people have already declared it will be awful without giving it a chance and that automatically nulls any credibility they may have had. I may frequently use this blog to tell you why things are a bad idea but I always maintain I will wait and see the finished product before passing final judgement. (This stance is why I feel like I am a good dude but a terrible critic.) Besides, the internet's gut reaction is to put-down everything immediately, so after a while if they don't hate you it means they are ignoring you. Also, almost as a reward for listening to all this complaining, the cast and crew can expect the usual sympathy boomerang which happens anytime something is crushed before it even has a chance to prove itself, so tomorrow there are bound to be lot of people with reviews of "Better than expected!" It's not the highest of praise but it is better than nothing. The only way this ends badly is if anyone was expecting this to launch their career. This is a fine project for an established star to try out but you would not want a live remake of "The Sound of Music" to be your first introduction to the world because in a lot of people's mind it will forever brand you as a person who can only sing other people's music. Hey, I guess in that regard Carrie Underwood, who rose to fame on the glorified karaoke contest that is "American Idol", is the perfect person to take the lead here. Still, you would think she would throw some of the 95 winners from that show we never hear from any more some work. I assume they could use it.

Acting Like He Cares

The concept of a celebrity endorsement is a popular subject on this blog. My fascination with the subject doesn't have anything to do with the idea of using a celebrity to try and sell a product - that part makes sense - but because I am always interested in seeing which celebrities get paired with certain products. Whether it is Shaquille O'Neal and Tiger Woods trying to sell cars that they would never drive in real life or some broken-down reality star pitching an infomercial in a desperate attempt to keep their 15 minutes of fame from expiring, I would just love to know the thought process which these companies use when negotiating an endorsement contract. I feel pretty safe to assume that the smaller the budget the happier they are to just take anyone with name recognition, no matter how notorious. Let's be honest, when you only have a little money to spend on advertising you have to be pleased if anyone says yes. However, if you are about to film your first national commercial for a product you spent years developing I would imagine that you would want to be slightly picky. The last thing you want is your product forever associated with some actor that everyone now hates. Of course, all bets are off if you are a major product and give the advertising agency you hired an unlimited budget, because then it becomes about getting the biggest star possible. Plus the better the actor the better job they will do acting like the really love the product. I'm just wondering where exactly the concept of celebrity-endorsed TV shows fall in this hierarchy.

The idea of having a celebrity endorse a television show is nothing new. There have been dozens of television shows throughout history which only got on the air because a celebrity agreed to attach their name to the project and the entire marketing campaign was based around their involvement. (Do you think the "Bing Crosby Christmas Special" gets on the air if Crosby doesn't lend him name to it?) This is especially true in the case of science shows because often getting a celebrity involved is the only way to get some people to pay attention, even though they never do much more than narrate the series and leave the heavy science lifting to the people who are qualified to talk about these issues. Plus, there is no denying it makes for a catchier title. "Through the Wormhole With Some Guy You've Never Heard Of But Who Has A PhD" doesn't quite have the ring of the same show hosted by Morgan Freeman. (Also, you don't spend the first 20 minutes trying to figure out if that voice you hear is actually Morgan Freeman or just some actor paid to sound like him.) In some ways I am surprised it doesn't happen more often given the number of specials which air throughout the year but I can only assume that is a result of fame being more fleeting than ever. After all, why would you want to revolve a show around a person who could be forgotten by this time next year? Better to involve as many quasi-celebrities as possible and hope that at least one or two of them still have some name recognition by the time the program goes into reruns.

The reason I bring this up is because I keep seeing these ads on the Discovery Channel for a new show hosted by James Woods called, "Futurescape with James Woods." The idea behind the show is that every week Woods will look at a different issue facing mankind and the ways in which we are planning to deal with those issues. The show will also highlight recent technological breakthroughs and how they could alter our future. For example, what would happen if we actually got our act together and figured out how to travel to other solar systems? It's all very heavy stuff and could be a very interesting program to watch. The only thing is I am not quite sure what James Woods has to do with any of it. As far as I know he doesn't have a science background (according to Wikipedia he went to MIT but it was for political science and he intended to go into medicine) and he hasn't even done that many sci-fi movies, so this isn't like when James Cameron anointed himself an expert on all things related to the Titanic just because he made a movie about it. As near as I can tell they named the show after him because he is a famous actor and he happened to be available when they were filming. I'm not saying that is a bad thing for Woods - I once saw a stat that on any given day 80% of the Screen Actors Guild is unemployed, so you take whatever work you can get - I am just not sure why the Discovery Channel would be so eager to attach Woods's name to the project that he would get top billing and not simply credit as host.

I guess the problem is that this is just another example of the Discovery Channel, the one place on TV which is supposed to be above this kind of thing, falling back on that oldest of TV gimmicks - the celebrity guest spot during sweeps week. Normally this stunt is pulled by shows desperate to catch a few more eyes and stay on the air, but the Discovery Channel is taking the step of just giving them their own shows, which is worse. They are starting to become one of those networks which tries way too hard to shoe-horn celebrity guest appearances where there shouldn't be any. (The worst was when George Foreman showed up on "Fast & Loud". I still have no idea what the point of that was.) But even though I have slowly talked myself into the premise of this show, James Woods is an odd choice for the host. Even though I know the whole idea of using an actor is just to trick me into believing they care about a subject or a product, when it comes to stuff like this I want to at least have a faint glimmer of hope that they signed up for it because they are genuinely interested in the topic. But Woods is one of those old-school celebrities in that he's never being attacked by paparazzi and thus I don't know much about his hobbies or the subjects which interest him. Normally I would find that admirable but in this case it is working against him because I can't help but hear the show title and think, "Why do I care what James Woods thinks the future will look like?" Still, at least I can believe that James Woods has thoughts about the future more than I will ever believe Chuck Norris still uses the Total Gym.

Droning On And On

Even though we still have over three weeks before Christmas, if you have ever bought anything online in the recent past (read: most of the population), than you know time is of the essence. You see, even in this era of 1-day delivery, there are still a chance the item may not show up on time, no matter how much of a priority the shipping company claims they will give your packages. Plus if your online purchase history is anything like mine you know that you want to get those items in your hand sooner rather than later just to make sure that there are no issues with buying one thing and the company sending you a completely different item. That uncertainly make these next few days the height of tracking season. Tracking season are those days when no matter what else you may be working on with your computer, you always have one window open to the page for UPS, FedEx or the Postal Service so you can see exactly where your package is at that moment. Shipping companies have gotten much better at knowing where your items are at all times and have no problem letting you know either. That can be both a good thing and a bad thing. You see, when my items are still in Missouri it doesn't much matter. But I live a very short distance from a UPS center and it is super frustrating to wait all day for a package to be delivered when I know it is a 10 minute drive from my current location. I know the route is probably maxed out to be as efficient as possible, it just doesn't feel like it. If they would allow it, I would just drive there and pick it up but they discourage that sort of thing. (Before you say anything, I know this is how stores work. But if you know me you know I only buy an item online if I am certain I won't be able to get it from a nearby store.) The interesting thing is that in the future waiting for a delivery won't involve looking out at the street but up into the sky.

A couple days ago Amazon, the largest retailer on the internet, announced that they were going to experiment with drone deliveries. You can relax as these won't be the controversial, military-grade drones we so often see on the news. Instead they will be the much smaller drones which look and operate more like remote control helicopters than anything else. They have become quite popular in the last few years as one of the toys sold in high-end catalogs for people who already have everything. I'm not sure if these drones started out as toys or industrial machines, but either way they are being put to use all over the place. There have been examples of these drones being used for things such as television production, as sports networks such as CBS have talked about using drones instead of blimps at golf events. With that in mind it makes sense to explore other, more practical uses for them. But just in case you are worried about seeing drones carrying TVs through the skies, Amazon wants to start slow and just try using the drones to deliver small, light-weight packages. They have produced a very convincing video of how it would look and they contend it would be better for everyone involved as the drones don't use as much gas as large delivery trucks (but they would still need trucks for big items so no drivers would lose their jobs), they would be able to get your items to your house faster (which is really the only thing most people care about) and, frankly, it would look pretty cool.

As you would expect there are plenty of people who think this plan is fatally flawed and they may have a point. The first thing I would worry about is just who would be flying these things. The most obvious choice would be some 14 year-old kid addicted to video games but those guys have terrible impulse control. They'd probably have flashbacks to "Grand Theft Auto" and start dive-bombing people. I also wonder about just how this would work in the city with all the various power lines going down the street. It is not like the countryside would be much better. I can't help but think about someplace like my parents' house, which is surrounded by trees. Every one of those branches is another chance for a crash which would destroy any item on-board. (I don't care how quickly my new item gets here if it shows up in 10,000 pieces.) I'm not about to suggest you need to have a pilot's license to work as a delivery person but at the same time I wouldn't want just anyone flying drones over my house. The other big issue that I discovered while looking into these drones is that they don't appear to have a lot of flight time. The top-of-the-range model only appears to be able to fly for around 30 minutes. Even if Amazon was able to get a more robust model (and, who are we kidding, of course they can) I would question just how far they would be able to travel, especially with cargo. This idea loses a lot of its steam if they can only deliver things in a 5-mile radius. Even a big cargo van gets better gas mileage than that.

But the biggest reason this idea probably won't be taking flight in the near future is the fundamental question of just how badly do we need these items anyway? I mean, at some point isn't getting an item the very next day good enough? That question becomes even more rhetorical when you remember that we are talking about small, light items. I mean, how quickly do you need Season 4 of "Friends" to arrive? I understand that we all have different priorities, my point is just that these drones won't exactly be delivering life-saving medical technology (actually, using these drones to deliver medical supplies to areas that are tough for a typical delivery truck to get to would be a much better idea) so why not work on other things first? For example, this new delivery system wouldn't combat the biggest problem of all, which is when packages are stolen before the people come home from work. If anything I feel safe in assuming a hovering, whirling drone would only serve to attract more attention for any would-be thieves. So for all those reasons I don't expect drone delivery to be the wave of the future and I'm not sure Jeff Bezos does either. This idea is so crazy that I can't help but wonder if, like Elon Musk with the HyperLoop, Bezos is just throwing crazy ideas out there because he is a billionaire and people have to listen to him, so he wants to see just how crazy he can go before getting called out on it. Of course, when you recently spent $250 million to buy a newspaper even though you made most of your money via the very thing which killed newspapers (and did so without a hint of irony) it could be said revealing a plan for robots to deliver packages from the sky is the most sane thing you've done in a while.

Baby Steps

If you went to high school than you understand how big a deal "Fight Day" was. "Fight Day" was an unscheduled day of the year when you arrived at homeroom and were informed that after school two random people were going to have a fight. Most of the time you never knew what the fight was about (half the time the people in the fight had no idea why they were fighting either) and no one ever seemed all that concerned about who was about to fight, just that one was about to take place. As long as you weren't one of the people expected to fight it was all good for you. All day long the anticipation would build until it was finally time for the fight (this was the one day of the year when being in an after-school club was not worth being able to put it on college applications). Often the "fights" consisted of a lot of talk, swearing and the occasional shove before the two combatants came together for roughly 30 seconds of wild swinging before it was over and both parties returned to their normal lives like nothing happened. At that point it was up to the gossipers to decide who won while the rest of us were just happy that something different happened for a change. The only way this day would get ruined was if a) one of the fighters backed down or b) some goody two-shoes told a teacher before the fight could happen and the teachers were waiting in the parking lot for the students to arrive. Obviously as an adult I see this is the right way to handle a situation but as a testosterone filled teen it was rather disappointing. After this weekend I am starting to think many headline writers never made it past the 11th grade.

Last Friday was obviously "Black Friday" - the busiest, most notorious shopping day of the year. And while there were several fights spread across the nation, for the most part everyone seemed to be behaving themselves. (Admittedly, it could just be that the really bad stories were covered up to make it seem that way. I read one story about a man who shot a video of a brawl inside a Wal-Mart and the only person ejected from the store was the guy behind the camera.) But if the reports that people were behaving are real there are lots of ways to explain this relatively calm behavior. The most simple is that the violence has always been slightly over-blown and most members of society are in no hurry to fight someone over a TV. If you don't buy into that theory, you could try and explain it away by saying that times are still tough and there aren't as many people out to shop, no matter how good a deal may be. You could also argue the entire Black Friday concept is on the way out thanks to inventions like Cyber Monday. (I may hate the name but there is no denying that being able to stay home, sleep late, spend extra time with the family and still get a very good price on most items is a damn good deal). But maybe, just maybe, the reason the Black Friday was calmer than most is that people have realized there is no need to get into a fight over a stupid toy. They can probably find it at another store and if they can't their kid will learn to live without getting everything they want. It's a rather intellectualized way of looking at things but you'd never know that from all the headlines I saw, many of which seemed to be upset that the night didn't end with someone on the way to the hospital. Apparently they were expecting the worst from the shoppers and are mad they didn't get it.

That was actually just one of two example of restraint shown this weekend and if you think people being calm on Black Friday is rare, the other happened in an even more unlikely place - the internet. Normally the internet acts as though no event is above being made fun on. It doesn't matter how tragic a circumstance may be to a large group of people, there is always one person who feels it is their job to make the most cringe-worthy comment first so no one can beat them to the punch. They say comedy is just tragedy + time and the tricky part is figuring out how long to wait to make the first joke. Sadly, some internet users think 3 seconds is enough time. So when actor Paul Walker, best known for starring in the "Fast & Furious" movies, died in an horrific car crash on Saturday I braced for the worst. Given the way comments on the internet usually trend, I was expecting many people to make a crass comment about either Walker, his films or the way he died, followed by people going after the person who made the joke with insults which were far more distasteful than the first comment. Instead, everyone appeared to take the correct tone - paying their respects while sending thoughts of comfort to his friends and family - and that was about it. It was about as snark-free as I have ever seen sites like Twitter and I was very pleasantly surprised. It was almost as if people finally figured out that things which are said on the internet can be hurtful and realized that this man left behind a 15 year-old daughter who probably has internet access and doesn't need to know what you thought of her father's last movie right now.

Now, I know expecting people to behave like adult while showing a level of restraint that should be easily attained by anyone over the age of 10 is a disturbingly low bar. In the words of Chris Rock, we shouldn't be giving these people credit for doing something a normal person just does. However, I am choosing to take the opposite view and look on the positive side of things, which is to use news stories like this to accentuate the fact that people are not nearly as bad as the news media would like us to believe. Sure, there are always going to be jerks and idiots out there who make the rest of us look bad but we shouldn't give them such a high level of attention. Not only does it paint all of us in a bad light, it encourages this kind of behavior. And while I am trying not to go overboard or read too much into this but it makes me hopeful that maybe we have turned a corner. If you look through history it doesn't matter how popular a twisted mentality may be at the time, society has a knack for eventually getting our heads out of our asses and doing the right thing. Well, it may be we have finally reached the breaking point when it comes to things like fighting during Black Friday and trolling people on the internet in the face of tragedy. In the last couple of months I have talked about a few examples of companies who have stopped using anonymous commenting systems because they don't want people to be able to say whatever hate speech pops into their heads without some consequences. I'd like to think that has caused people to tone down their internet comments in general and it has spread to all their web presence. Also, I'm always saying self-awareness is the enemy of a brawl and you have to think people fighting on Black Friday don't enjoy being the laughingstock of the nation, so maybe all that public shaming has finally gotten them to think before they start punching in the name of that last Playstation 4. Let's keep the fighting in high school parking lots, where it belongs.

So Close Yet So Far

If you watched the news at all this week you know that Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel period of the year. There were so many local reporters doing live broadcasts from Logan that if you were at the airport this week chances are you probably got more screen time on the news than the weekend sports anchor. However, despite the fact that all anyone wanted to talk about was weather conditions on Wednesday, I contend that this afternoon is probably an even busier travel time because there are plenty of people I know who left Tuesday or even Monday, but it seems like everyone I knew who was going away for the holiday made plans to come home on Sunday. Beyond that, it is not like the stakes are any lower today. Sure, it would be awful if the weather impacted your flight and you were late getting home for Thanksgiving but that is more of a personal problem, plus you would still have a couple days with your family. If you can't get back this afternoon it is likely you will miss work tomorrow and then it starts to be your coworkers' problem. No one wants to be the guy everyone in the office hates. Also, let's not act as though the travel is going to be much better than it was earlier this week. Sure, there isn't as much wind or rain up and down the East Coast but there are still plenty of people crowding the planes and increasing the hassles which are already associated with air travel for the average traveler to get hung up on. And some of those problems aren't even the traveler's fault, such as when the plane lands at the wrong airport.

This story is a couple days old by now but that doesn't make it any less funny to me: last week a massive Boeing cargo plane - the biggest one they have, actually - landed at a small airport on the north side of Wichita, Kansas. The problem was they were supposed to land at a military base on the south side of Wichita, roughly 12 miles from where they were. The first question everyone had was how a mistake like this could me made, especially when you consider the airport they landed at didn't even have a tower and was not equipped to handle planes of this size. I know pilots say we all look the same from 30,000 feet but I wouldn't have suspected that saying would apply to airports as well. (I can only imagine how freaked out the people by that airport were since nothing that big had ever landed there before.) However, landing at the smaller airport wasn't just an 'oops' moment, it was a real problem. Due to its massive size this particular jet needs just under 9,200 feet of runway to take off when fully loaded. The airport the plan actually landed at only has about 6,200 feet of runway. For a full day they weren't quite sure if this plane was going to be able to take off. The good news is that someone did the math and figured out that if they didn't refuel the plane it would be lighter and need less space. Additionally they closed all the roads around the airport so that people would stop gawking and reduce the chance a car would get blown away by the jet engines. After that the plane took off and landed at the right airport without further incident. Still, I think we learned why these pilots were in charge of the plane which didn't have any passengers on it.