Also, I think the town of Foxboro officials should get a little credit for allowing the show to go on. I know that rules like this exist for a reason, but every now and again you just have to forget the rules and do what feels right. Apparently, police in London don't feel that way, because Springsteen was playing in London this weekend and was just about to begin his encore with special guest Paul McCartney, when the clock struck 11 pm. Undaunted by the occasion, officials pulled the plug on the show. I'm willing to accept the logic that Springsteen doesn't have the cache in England he probably does in the States and as such he doesn't have the leeway other acts may have. Still, there is a time for every rule to be ignored. Now, just in case you ever find yourself in position of having to make a call like that and were wondering whether or not it is a moment for a rule to be ignored, ask yourself a very simple question: is rock icon Bruce Springsteen about to jam with a member of the Beatles? If the answer is yes, then this would be one of those times. So, it made this week's musical interlude choice fairly easy. And, unlike the London noise police, I'll let this one play all the way to the end.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Let Them Play
I'll openly admit to not being the biggest Springsteen guy growing up. I think a large part of it came from having everyone around me talk about how amazing he was/is, which leads to the natural inclination to go the other way for the sake of being different. However, those feelings only lasted until I saw him live. I was working at Gillette and Springsteen and the E-Street Band were supposed to play a show on Saturday night. However, due to thunderstorms in the area, Bruce couldn't fly in until very late and didn't end up going on stage until almost 10 pm. Like most concert venues, Gillette has an 11 pm noise curfew, so I thought Bruce was going to play for less than an hour and then be on his merry way. (I saw multiple acts come through that place who were only to happy to put on short shows while demanding full-price tickets... This is another reason why I don't go to concerts.) But, curfew be damned, Bruce was going to play his full set and give his fans their money's worth, telling the town to send him any fines. Not only did he put on a show which blew me away (even if I had to work way later than I wanted to that night and had an early day ahead of me), he certainly gained a new level of respect in my book.
Also, I think the town of Foxboro officials should get a little credit for allowing the show to go on. I know that rules like this exist for a reason, but every now and again you just have to forget the rules and do what feels right. Apparently, police in London don't feel that way, because Springsteen was playing in London this weekend and was just about to begin his encore with special guest Paul McCartney, when the clock struck 11 pm. Undaunted by the occasion, officials pulled the plug on the show. I'm willing to accept the logic that Springsteen doesn't have the cache in England he probably does in the States and as such he doesn't have the leeway other acts may have. Still, there is a time for every rule to be ignored. Now, just in case you ever find yourself in position of having to make a call like that and were wondering whether or not it is a moment for a rule to be ignored, ask yourself a very simple question: is rock icon Bruce Springsteen about to jam with a member of the Beatles? If the answer is yes, then this would be one of those times. So, it made this week's musical interlude choice fairly easy. And, unlike the London noise police, I'll let this one play all the way to the end.
Also, I think the town of Foxboro officials should get a little credit for allowing the show to go on. I know that rules like this exist for a reason, but every now and again you just have to forget the rules and do what feels right. Apparently, police in London don't feel that way, because Springsteen was playing in London this weekend and was just about to begin his encore with special guest Paul McCartney, when the clock struck 11 pm. Undaunted by the occasion, officials pulled the plug on the show. I'm willing to accept the logic that Springsteen doesn't have the cache in England he probably does in the States and as such he doesn't have the leeway other acts may have. Still, there is a time for every rule to be ignored. Now, just in case you ever find yourself in position of having to make a call like that and were wondering whether or not it is a moment for a rule to be ignored, ask yourself a very simple question: is rock icon Bruce Springsteen about to jam with a member of the Beatles? If the answer is yes, then this would be one of those times. So, it made this week's musical interlude choice fairly easy. And, unlike the London noise police, I'll let this one play all the way to the end.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Weekly Sporties
-Late in the week a document was released which reported the findings of Louis Freeh, a former head of the FBI, who had been hired by Penn State officials to look into their handling of the Jerry Sandusky affair. The Freeh Report was scathing, damning pretty much everyone involved at every level of Penn State for either incompetence or willful hiding of the truth. Naturally, this has led many people in the sports world to condemn not only the university but the culture of football, saying that none of this would have happened had the school not been involved with high-level athletics. Some journalists have gone so far as to say the school should halt its football program for a couple of years to try and distance itself from the scandal, trotting out such cliches as "sports aren't important at a time like this." I can't stand it when people whose job it is to write about sports for a living try and claim that sports aren't important just to try and look like they are somehow above the heathens who play it for a living. When you compare it to what happened of course sports aren't as important but that doesn't mean you just send them away like football was the one who made Jerry Sandusky abuse those kids. One of the reasons I like sports so much is that they also are a way to bring people back together after tragedies. I'm not saying Penn State is somehow the victim in all this, but at the same time you can't paint the entire school based on the actions of a few seriously flawed people who should (and will) spend a lot of time in prison. You wouldn't condemn an entire family based on one family member's actions, would you? Penn State is going to be forever tarnished by this scandal, but taking away the few hours a week when they may be able to forget about it doesn't do anyone any good.
-There is no easy transition to other sports stories, but here we go anyway: For the last couple of seasons, Major League Baseball has been trying to spice up the annual Home Run Derby by having a couple players pick the sides and splitting the contest up by league. Well, this year it backfired on them after Yankees' second baseman Robinson Cano had pledged to pick a Kansas City Royals player for the derby (the All-Star game was in Kansas City) and then didn't. The Royals fans in attendance booed Cano mercilessly every time he was shown on the JumboTron and they cheered with every failed swing as Cano went through the entire first round without hitting a single home run. Immediately after that Commissioner Bud Selig floated the idea of taking some pressure off the home run captains by designating one player from the host city as the 'hometown hero' and saving them a spot in the derby. Wait, this is what warrants immediate action in baseball? First off, it fails to answer the question of what happens if the host city has no real power hitters. Secondly, would that only apply to the derby team from the league of the host city? For example, next year the All-Star game is being played at the Mets stadium. Does that mean the National League captain can only pick two guys while the American League player gets three? Seriously, we can't get replay without years of discussion, but one guy gets booed in a hitting exhibition and the next day people start changing the rules? If that is all it takes someone tell Bud that blown calls hurt my feelings - we'll have replay by the playoffs.
-While we're on the subject of thin-skinned baseball players, last week Reggie Jackson gave an interview to Sports Illustrated in which he stated that while he considers Alex Rodriguez a friend, he does think Rodriguez's steroid admission makes him ineligible for the Hall of Fame and taints all his numbers. It was not exactly a ground-breaking article, but it was still enough to get Jackson in hot water. Currently, Reggie works for the Yankees in a ceremonial position. He shows up to special team events, signs autographs and gets paid pretty well for the opportunity. Well, his employers didn't take too kindly to Mr. October talking about their third baseman in that tone and told Jackson to stay away from the team until further notice. Even for the controlling Yankees, who have long had policies regarding length of hair and demanding players be clean-shaven, this seems like a bit of an over-reaction. On the one hand I will concede that Jackson works of the team and his job is essentially in promotions, which means he should be expected to only talk about the Yankees in a positive fashion. However, he's not a robot. Just because you work for someone doesn't mean you should be required to agree with them 100% of the time. I know the Yankees are probably freaking out because they had planned to make a lot of money as Rodriguez chased the homerun title and now those dreams are dashed because no one seems very enthusiastic about homeruns these days, but that isn't Reggie's fault. All he did was say the thing everyone was already thinking. You can't punish a man for that.
-There was a fun story out of training camp for USA Basketball this week when guard Kobe Bryant contended that the current team USA roster could beat the original 1992 Dream Team one. First off, Kobe should know better than anyone that comparisons should wait until this team actually wins a gold medal. I think they will, but let's not get cocky. (Ironically, thanks to the original Dream Team spurring basketball interest world-wide, the path will be harder than it used to be.) But with that caveat aside, I have to say I do enjoy these hypothetical sports arguments, even though they can never actually get settled. Everyone has their biases and they will stick with them, no matter what evidence is presented. Personally, I've got to side with the 1992 roster and not just because they have been built up so much through history. I'm looking at it from a pure basketball standpoint. This year's team has very little size: Tyson Chandler and Kevin Love are the only forwards who will go down and fight for rebounds. The 1992 team had David Robinson and Patrick Ewing at center and Charles Barkley and Karl Malone at power forward. That right there should give them enough of a rebounding edge to win the game, but also there is no one on the current roster who had the combination of size, dribbling and passing ability that Magic had (The closest this year's team has is LeBron and he's not nearly as good of a ball-handler in the open court). Not to mention, the '92 team had the best player on the planet in Michael Jordan. Still, it would have been a hell of a game. It is too bad we'll never have the chance to settle this one on the court.
-Even after a potential trade to his preferred destination of the Brooklyn Nets fell through and the Nets moved on by signing center Brook Lopez to a large extension, Orlando center Dwight Howard reaffirmed his position that Brooklyn was the only team he would sign with if he was traded. However, this declaration hasn't stopped the Houston Rockets from putting together a trade package to present to the Magic to try and essentially rent Howard for the upcoming year. The Rockets think that if Dwight comes in and sees what a solid organization they are he will change his mind about Brooklyn being the only place for him. But to get Howard to Houston the Rockets would essentially have to renounce all their good players, then agree to trade all their young talent to Orlando while taking back every bad contract the Magic have, swapping the majority of their rosters. It is a giant gamble by the Rockets, because if Howard leaves after one year they will have no young players to build around and no cap space to bring in any free agents (basically, they would be where the Magic are now, only without Howard). On top of that, you have to wonder how thrilled Howard will be to find himself in a new city with most of his teammates from Orlando, who he has repeatedly asked to be traded away from. Normally, if you are trying to recruit a guy to a new job, you don't do that by bringing in a bunch of his old co-workers that he wasn't really fond of. While I admire Houston's aggressiveness, I don't think they will be able to keep Howard beyond this season and therefore don't think this is a good idea for them. However, if it gets the Dwight Howard saga over sooner, I'm all for it.
-One contract dispute which was finally resolved was the one between the Saints and quarterback Drew Brees. They had been working on a new contract for months and never seemed all that far apart, but just couldn't work out the final details. Well on Friday the two sides finally reached a deal which reportedly will pay Brees a record $20 million dollars a season. (Of course, we know that it really won't. Anyone who follows sports is aware that NFL contracts aren't worth the paper they are printed on, as players can be cut whenever the organization feels like it. The only thing you should pay attention to is the guaranteed money, which is still a record amount for a player, but is not close to the total amount. Reporting a contract as the biggest possible number is just one of those things where we all agree to let both parties have their moment.) It's a good deal for both sides as Brees gets his money and, because the NFL is a weird place, the Saints somehow get more room under the salary cap. All of this begs the question: why did this take so long? The Saints essentially gave Brees everything he wanted, so what was the point of dragging this out for five months? In the wake of the pay-for-hits scandal the team had been facing, bringing back one of the best players in the league should have been a no-brainer. Sucks to have no leverage, but you take the bullet and move on. Instead the Saints spent the entire offseason annoying their fans and being publicly questioned by every NFL analyst with a camera and a microphone. Moral of the story: if you're going to cave you may as well get it over with, because dragging it out and then caving just makes you look worse.
-After a few years where it could rightfully tout itself as "America's fastest growing sport", NASCAR has hit a bit of a lull. The economic sluggishness of the past few years have been tough on everyone, but it appears to have hit the sponsor-driven sports the hardest. As such NASCAR has been trying anything to make their races more exciting, first by telling the drivers to be more aggressive and then by constantly tweaking the points system to try and wait to decide a champion until the very last race of the season. Recently, track promoter Bruton Smith came up with another idea: mandatory cautions. He thinks that long green-flag runs where one car can get out to a big lead is too boring and that fans would be more interested in races which have a sprint to the finish. For their part NASCAR officials have panned the idea, saying that idea would feel to much like staging and they preferred to keep their sport authentic (ironic, considering every time something good happens in NASCAR people start whispering that it is too good to be true and must have been staged). But, Mr. Smith's idea does bring up one question which I have always wondered about auto racing: why do the races have to be so long? It seems like no one really tries all that hard until their are only 100 miles to go, so why do we need the first 300? Everyone crushes baseball games for taking too long, but it is not like NASCAR is a quick thing to watch. I say if you want to keep fans interested you don't make the last 20 laps more bunched up, you eliminate the first 75 laps when nothing is happening. Considering the cost of gas is on its way back up I would think sponsors would find that a much more enjoyable solution.
-There is no easy transition to other sports stories, but here we go anyway: For the last couple of seasons, Major League Baseball has been trying to spice up the annual Home Run Derby by having a couple players pick the sides and splitting the contest up by league. Well, this year it backfired on them after Yankees' second baseman Robinson Cano had pledged to pick a Kansas City Royals player for the derby (the All-Star game was in Kansas City) and then didn't. The Royals fans in attendance booed Cano mercilessly every time he was shown on the JumboTron and they cheered with every failed swing as Cano went through the entire first round without hitting a single home run. Immediately after that Commissioner Bud Selig floated the idea of taking some pressure off the home run captains by designating one player from the host city as the 'hometown hero' and saving them a spot in the derby. Wait, this is what warrants immediate action in baseball? First off, it fails to answer the question of what happens if the host city has no real power hitters. Secondly, would that only apply to the derby team from the league of the host city? For example, next year the All-Star game is being played at the Mets stadium. Does that mean the National League captain can only pick two guys while the American League player gets three? Seriously, we can't get replay without years of discussion, but one guy gets booed in a hitting exhibition and the next day people start changing the rules? If that is all it takes someone tell Bud that blown calls hurt my feelings - we'll have replay by the playoffs.
-While we're on the subject of thin-skinned baseball players, last week Reggie Jackson gave an interview to Sports Illustrated in which he stated that while he considers Alex Rodriguez a friend, he does think Rodriguez's steroid admission makes him ineligible for the Hall of Fame and taints all his numbers. It was not exactly a ground-breaking article, but it was still enough to get Jackson in hot water. Currently, Reggie works for the Yankees in a ceremonial position. He shows up to special team events, signs autographs and gets paid pretty well for the opportunity. Well, his employers didn't take too kindly to Mr. October talking about their third baseman in that tone and told Jackson to stay away from the team until further notice. Even for the controlling Yankees, who have long had policies regarding length of hair and demanding players be clean-shaven, this seems like a bit of an over-reaction. On the one hand I will concede that Jackson works of the team and his job is essentially in promotions, which means he should be expected to only talk about the Yankees in a positive fashion. However, he's not a robot. Just because you work for someone doesn't mean you should be required to agree with them 100% of the time. I know the Yankees are probably freaking out because they had planned to make a lot of money as Rodriguez chased the homerun title and now those dreams are dashed because no one seems very enthusiastic about homeruns these days, but that isn't Reggie's fault. All he did was say the thing everyone was already thinking. You can't punish a man for that.
-There was a fun story out of training camp for USA Basketball this week when guard Kobe Bryant contended that the current team USA roster could beat the original 1992 Dream Team one. First off, Kobe should know better than anyone that comparisons should wait until this team actually wins a gold medal. I think they will, but let's not get cocky. (Ironically, thanks to the original Dream Team spurring basketball interest world-wide, the path will be harder than it used to be.) But with that caveat aside, I have to say I do enjoy these hypothetical sports arguments, even though they can never actually get settled. Everyone has their biases and they will stick with them, no matter what evidence is presented. Personally, I've got to side with the 1992 roster and not just because they have been built up so much through history. I'm looking at it from a pure basketball standpoint. This year's team has very little size: Tyson Chandler and Kevin Love are the only forwards who will go down and fight for rebounds. The 1992 team had David Robinson and Patrick Ewing at center and Charles Barkley and Karl Malone at power forward. That right there should give them enough of a rebounding edge to win the game, but also there is no one on the current roster who had the combination of size, dribbling and passing ability that Magic had (The closest this year's team has is LeBron and he's not nearly as good of a ball-handler in the open court). Not to mention, the '92 team had the best player on the planet in Michael Jordan. Still, it would have been a hell of a game. It is too bad we'll never have the chance to settle this one on the court.
-Even after a potential trade to his preferred destination of the Brooklyn Nets fell through and the Nets moved on by signing center Brook Lopez to a large extension, Orlando center Dwight Howard reaffirmed his position that Brooklyn was the only team he would sign with if he was traded. However, this declaration hasn't stopped the Houston Rockets from putting together a trade package to present to the Magic to try and essentially rent Howard for the upcoming year. The Rockets think that if Dwight comes in and sees what a solid organization they are he will change his mind about Brooklyn being the only place for him. But to get Howard to Houston the Rockets would essentially have to renounce all their good players, then agree to trade all their young talent to Orlando while taking back every bad contract the Magic have, swapping the majority of their rosters. It is a giant gamble by the Rockets, because if Howard leaves after one year they will have no young players to build around and no cap space to bring in any free agents (basically, they would be where the Magic are now, only without Howard). On top of that, you have to wonder how thrilled Howard will be to find himself in a new city with most of his teammates from Orlando, who he has repeatedly asked to be traded away from. Normally, if you are trying to recruit a guy to a new job, you don't do that by bringing in a bunch of his old co-workers that he wasn't really fond of. While I admire Houston's aggressiveness, I don't think they will be able to keep Howard beyond this season and therefore don't think this is a good idea for them. However, if it gets the Dwight Howard saga over sooner, I'm all for it.
-One contract dispute which was finally resolved was the one between the Saints and quarterback Drew Brees. They had been working on a new contract for months and never seemed all that far apart, but just couldn't work out the final details. Well on Friday the two sides finally reached a deal which reportedly will pay Brees a record $20 million dollars a season. (Of course, we know that it really won't. Anyone who follows sports is aware that NFL contracts aren't worth the paper they are printed on, as players can be cut whenever the organization feels like it. The only thing you should pay attention to is the guaranteed money, which is still a record amount for a player, but is not close to the total amount. Reporting a contract as the biggest possible number is just one of those things where we all agree to let both parties have their moment.) It's a good deal for both sides as Brees gets his money and, because the NFL is a weird place, the Saints somehow get more room under the salary cap. All of this begs the question: why did this take so long? The Saints essentially gave Brees everything he wanted, so what was the point of dragging this out for five months? In the wake of the pay-for-hits scandal the team had been facing, bringing back one of the best players in the league should have been a no-brainer. Sucks to have no leverage, but you take the bullet and move on. Instead the Saints spent the entire offseason annoying their fans and being publicly questioned by every NFL analyst with a camera and a microphone. Moral of the story: if you're going to cave you may as well get it over with, because dragging it out and then caving just makes you look worse.
-After a few years where it could rightfully tout itself as "America's fastest growing sport", NASCAR has hit a bit of a lull. The economic sluggishness of the past few years have been tough on everyone, but it appears to have hit the sponsor-driven sports the hardest. As such NASCAR has been trying anything to make their races more exciting, first by telling the drivers to be more aggressive and then by constantly tweaking the points system to try and wait to decide a champion until the very last race of the season. Recently, track promoter Bruton Smith came up with another idea: mandatory cautions. He thinks that long green-flag runs where one car can get out to a big lead is too boring and that fans would be more interested in races which have a sprint to the finish. For their part NASCAR officials have panned the idea, saying that idea would feel to much like staging and they preferred to keep their sport authentic (ironic, considering every time something good happens in NASCAR people start whispering that it is too good to be true and must have been staged). But, Mr. Smith's idea does bring up one question which I have always wondered about auto racing: why do the races have to be so long? It seems like no one really tries all that hard until their are only 100 miles to go, so why do we need the first 300? Everyone crushes baseball games for taking too long, but it is not like NASCAR is a quick thing to watch. I say if you want to keep fans interested you don't make the last 20 laps more bunched up, you eliminate the first 75 laps when nothing is happening. Considering the cost of gas is on its way back up I would think sponsors would find that a much more enjoyable solution.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Can You See Me?
The other afternoon I was driving through Westwood and a couple of car lengths in front of me was a Ferrari. Now, Westwood residents seem to mostly do very well for themselves and there is even a Ferrari dealership on Route 1 in Norwood (I would love to know how many they sell in a year and how many of those clients aren't members of the Patriots), so this was not a totally unusual sight. I wouldn't say it is a common thing to see but having a luxury car riding through town is not on the same level as a UFO landing. On a personal level, I have to say there are many reasons I would never think about buying a Ferrari. The two most obvious facts are I don't think they are built for people my size and I don't care how rich I get, I don't think I could ever justify spending that much money on a car which is going to lose half its value as soon as I drive off the lot. But, the third reason is that it just doesn't seem practical for the area where I live. Typically I travel on roads with lots of stoplights and when you are sitting behind the wheel of a what is essentially a road-legal race car I would imagine that gets incredibly frustrating.
Watching the guy behind the wheel rev his engine only to move approximately 100 yards before the light changed and he was forced to sit there again I was overcome with a very specific emotion. It is a German expression: shadenfreude. The word doesn't exist in any other language, but it roughly translates to "pleasure derived from the suffering of others." And honestly, suffering and public mocking is what this guy deserves for buying a Ferrari and then running errands. I get a lot of grief for owning an SUV with all-time 4-wheel drive and a huge engine capable of driving up the side of a mountain when the fact is I never go off-roading. However, at least the interior space comes in handy should I need to move things. There is nothing useful about a Ferrari. It is a giant engine with two seats attached. (Seriously, where would you even put your golf clubs?) If you want to go turn a few laps around a track or see how fast you can get moving on the highway it would be a fantastic option, but in any other setting it is a terribly impractical decision. Sitting at a traffic light, watching his gas gauge slowly sink as the jet engine behind him guzzled fuel while not going anywhere I assumed this guy was slowly coming to grips with his poor choice in transportation. With some perspective, I realize now I couldn't have been further from the truth.
In all this time I have neglected to mention the color of the Ferrari in question: yellow. You know, the kind of bright, canary yellow which is only found on sport cars and in the "Fast & The Furious" movies. (Think about it - you never see a canary yellow Taurus.) I have owned some cars of questionable coloring in my lifetime, but you could not pay me enough to drive a yellow car. I find that yellow cars make a very simple statement: LOOK AT ME!!! It was at this moment the entire puzzle came together in front of my eyes: canary yellow + completely impractical Ferrari + louder than necessary engine = a man desperate for attention. This man wasn't annoyed that all these red lights were preventing him from opening up his throttle and seeing how fast he could make this car go - hell, he had probably never taken it out of second gear before. Like a D-list celebrity who calls the paparazzi to let them know where they will be and then acts annoyed when those people start taking pictures, this guy simply wanted to be stared at and have people ooh and ah his car. I'm sitting back there smirking because I'm thinking this guy is pulling his hair out, frustrated that he is currently unable to do what the car makers intended this model of modern engineering to do and meanwhile the reality is probably closer to this guy purposely went down this street specifically because it had all these lights and offered the most chances to impress the high schoolers waiting for the bus.
I should probably commend this guy for having the money to afford a Ferrari to begin with because I certainly don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to blow on a car I would be afraid to drive. (Another reason I would never buy a Ferrari - there are lots of bad driver out there and you can't control how they are around your car.) However, I think we all know that just because a person has a lot of money that doesn't mean they make all the right decisions and people who are successful in the business world can still screw things up in their personal lives (as evidence, I think we all saw the Bob Kraft video this week). If I could get a hold of this guy I would just want him to know that spending a lot of money to impress random people on the street for 10 seconds at a time is a really bad way to go through life. He should be much more confident about the success he has clearly achieved and know that as long as he is happy with his life that should be more than enough in the long run. It's about self-worth, not the worth you get from others. But, if anyone out there thinks they know who this guy is, please don't direct him to this blog post, because the last thing I want is for him to find out I was writing about him, as the attention would pretty much defeat that message.
Watching the guy behind the wheel rev his engine only to move approximately 100 yards before the light changed and he was forced to sit there again I was overcome with a very specific emotion. It is a German expression: shadenfreude. The word doesn't exist in any other language, but it roughly translates to "pleasure derived from the suffering of others." And honestly, suffering and public mocking is what this guy deserves for buying a Ferrari and then running errands. I get a lot of grief for owning an SUV with all-time 4-wheel drive and a huge engine capable of driving up the side of a mountain when the fact is I never go off-roading. However, at least the interior space comes in handy should I need to move things. There is nothing useful about a Ferrari. It is a giant engine with two seats attached. (Seriously, where would you even put your golf clubs?) If you want to go turn a few laps around a track or see how fast you can get moving on the highway it would be a fantastic option, but in any other setting it is a terribly impractical decision. Sitting at a traffic light, watching his gas gauge slowly sink as the jet engine behind him guzzled fuel while not going anywhere I assumed this guy was slowly coming to grips with his poor choice in transportation. With some perspective, I realize now I couldn't have been further from the truth.
In all this time I have neglected to mention the color of the Ferrari in question: yellow. You know, the kind of bright, canary yellow which is only found on sport cars and in the "Fast & The Furious" movies. (Think about it - you never see a canary yellow Taurus.) I have owned some cars of questionable coloring in my lifetime, but you could not pay me enough to drive a yellow car. I find that yellow cars make a very simple statement: LOOK AT ME!!! It was at this moment the entire puzzle came together in front of my eyes: canary yellow + completely impractical Ferrari + louder than necessary engine = a man desperate for attention. This man wasn't annoyed that all these red lights were preventing him from opening up his throttle and seeing how fast he could make this car go - hell, he had probably never taken it out of second gear before. Like a D-list celebrity who calls the paparazzi to let them know where they will be and then acts annoyed when those people start taking pictures, this guy simply wanted to be stared at and have people ooh and ah his car. I'm sitting back there smirking because I'm thinking this guy is pulling his hair out, frustrated that he is currently unable to do what the car makers intended this model of modern engineering to do and meanwhile the reality is probably closer to this guy purposely went down this street specifically because it had all these lights and offered the most chances to impress the high schoolers waiting for the bus.
I should probably commend this guy for having the money to afford a Ferrari to begin with because I certainly don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to blow on a car I would be afraid to drive. (Another reason I would never buy a Ferrari - there are lots of bad driver out there and you can't control how they are around your car.) However, I think we all know that just because a person has a lot of money that doesn't mean they make all the right decisions and people who are successful in the business world can still screw things up in their personal lives (as evidence, I think we all saw the Bob Kraft video this week). If I could get a hold of this guy I would just want him to know that spending a lot of money to impress random people on the street for 10 seconds at a time is a really bad way to go through life. He should be much more confident about the success he has clearly achieved and know that as long as he is happy with his life that should be more than enough in the long run. It's about self-worth, not the worth you get from others. But, if anyone out there thinks they know who this guy is, please don't direct him to this blog post, because the last thing I want is for him to find out I was writing about him, as the attention would pretty much defeat that message.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Quick Decision
Since we are right in the middle of summer re-runs and even at night it is still too hot to be outside for too long, I often find myself looking for other ways to entertain myself. This means watching a lot of movies which I normally would have passed on (and have on numerous occasions). But, you can only see the same scenes from "Captain America" so many times before you just feel like trying something new. Anyway, while waiting for one of these terrible movies to start on one of the cable movie channels, I saw a promo for the upcoming season of some show the network has produced. Cable movie networks love to make these kinds of shows because not only are the cheap to put out and give people more room to color outside the lines due to lower FCC standards, they also blow the network shows out of the water when it comes to award season. However, in watching the previews for the upcoming season I couldn't help but realize that not only did I not watch any of the first season of this particular show, but I don't know anyone else who did either. It suddenly dawned on me that the reason they are promoting this show so heavily is because if they didn't there is a good chance no one would watch it.
Everyone knows that the standards to keep a show on cable versus on network are incredibly different. Because cable shows are paid for by subscribers instead of advertisers, they don't have to pull in nearly as high of ratings to be seen as successful. Meanwhile, the shows which are seen as ratings disasters for networks would be the highest-rated shows in the history of cable networks. Also, I'm sure the number of episodes which make up a season has something to do with which shows stick around. Network sitcom seasons typically consist of 23 episodes, where as one season of cable show is between 10 and 13 episodes. It is a lot easier to churn out quality stories when you only have to make half as many as the next guy. It cuts down on production costs as well, which I'm sure is the biggest factor. Really, when you get down to it, they are just completely different animals. However, just because the standards are different, that doesn't mean cable shows should be able to get away with being terrible. At the end of the day they should still be good shows and for some reason I feel like more poor-quality shows are given a chance to find their footing on channels like Showtime or HBO. While I wish that would happen more on networks, because often I think they are too quick to pull the plug, I do think sometimes the cable networks are a little too eager to renew shows for a second season even when the first one wasn't any good.
HBO is especially notorious for this practice. Often before a show has even put its first episode on the air the people at that network will put out a release announcing that show has already been renewed for a second season. People have gotten so use to them jumping the gun when it comes to announcing second or third seasons that when HBO waited until the after premiere episode for its new show "Newsroom" aired to put out a press release saying it would return for another run of episodes TV critics began to assume that either the show was terrible or HBO didn't really have any faith in it.When people have come to expect you to order a sequel before we know if the original is any good that may be a sign you have a tendency to be over-eager about your programming. I mean, I understand it if you are talking about an animated show, because those take forever to produce (unless you are "South Park") so they need as much time as they can get to work on the next season. But, if you are just shooting a normal drama, what is the rush to lock everyone down? Even though these shows usually have bigger-name actors that the network stuff they couldn't be that busy making movies, otherwise they couldn't have done a first season. I think if they show is getting enough buzz they will carve out some room in their schedule.
Like all things, the answer to the question of when to let these shows know they can have a second season lies somewhere in the middle. If you aren't worried about ratings or cost of production, than why not wait until you are sure that a show is worth renewing before you do so? Far too many of these cable shows have started out well and then by episode 5 they are down the tubes. By then not only are the chances slim that I will stick around to see how this season ends, they are extremely remote I will come back to see what problems the cast gets into next season. But, you've got to let them have enough time to work on the scripts, otherwise they will end up rushing and fall back into the typical sitcom cliches. When the whole reason most people watch these shows is to see something they won't get on NBC or CBS that would pretty much defeat the purpose. It can be a delicate balancing act, but let's not make it out to be rocket science either. I think you need at least six episodes to know whether a show can keep it going beyond its first run, so even if you 98% sure a show is coming back, wait at least that long to announce it. Remember, there is no point to having a second season to a show no one watched the first time around.
Everyone knows that the standards to keep a show on cable versus on network are incredibly different. Because cable shows are paid for by subscribers instead of advertisers, they don't have to pull in nearly as high of ratings to be seen as successful. Meanwhile, the shows which are seen as ratings disasters for networks would be the highest-rated shows in the history of cable networks. Also, I'm sure the number of episodes which make up a season has something to do with which shows stick around. Network sitcom seasons typically consist of 23 episodes, where as one season of cable show is between 10 and 13 episodes. It is a lot easier to churn out quality stories when you only have to make half as many as the next guy. It cuts down on production costs as well, which I'm sure is the biggest factor. Really, when you get down to it, they are just completely different animals. However, just because the standards are different, that doesn't mean cable shows should be able to get away with being terrible. At the end of the day they should still be good shows and for some reason I feel like more poor-quality shows are given a chance to find their footing on channels like Showtime or HBO. While I wish that would happen more on networks, because often I think they are too quick to pull the plug, I do think sometimes the cable networks are a little too eager to renew shows for a second season even when the first one wasn't any good.
HBO is especially notorious for this practice. Often before a show has even put its first episode on the air the people at that network will put out a release announcing that show has already been renewed for a second season. People have gotten so use to them jumping the gun when it comes to announcing second or third seasons that when HBO waited until the after premiere episode for its new show "Newsroom" aired to put out a press release saying it would return for another run of episodes TV critics began to assume that either the show was terrible or HBO didn't really have any faith in it.When people have come to expect you to order a sequel before we know if the original is any good that may be a sign you have a tendency to be over-eager about your programming. I mean, I understand it if you are talking about an animated show, because those take forever to produce (unless you are "South Park") so they need as much time as they can get to work on the next season. But, if you are just shooting a normal drama, what is the rush to lock everyone down? Even though these shows usually have bigger-name actors that the network stuff they couldn't be that busy making movies, otherwise they couldn't have done a first season. I think if they show is getting enough buzz they will carve out some room in their schedule.
Like all things, the answer to the question of when to let these shows know they can have a second season lies somewhere in the middle. If you aren't worried about ratings or cost of production, than why not wait until you are sure that a show is worth renewing before you do so? Far too many of these cable shows have started out well and then by episode 5 they are down the tubes. By then not only are the chances slim that I will stick around to see how this season ends, they are extremely remote I will come back to see what problems the cast gets into next season. But, you've got to let them have enough time to work on the scripts, otherwise they will end up rushing and fall back into the typical sitcom cliches. When the whole reason most people watch these shows is to see something they won't get on NBC or CBS that would pretty much defeat the purpose. It can be a delicate balancing act, but let's not make it out to be rocket science either. I think you need at least six episodes to know whether a show can keep it going beyond its first run, so even if you 98% sure a show is coming back, wait at least that long to announce it. Remember, there is no point to having a second season to a show no one watched the first time around.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Remain Calm
Ever since Ray Allen announced last Friday night that he had decided to sign with the champion Miami Heat instead of returning to the Celtics (even though the Celtics could offer him twice as much money), the inevitable back-and-forth which occurs when any two sides end a relationship had quietly been going on. First came the 'sources' saying Ray wasn't happy that he wasn't the Celtics' top priority this offseason, then that he was upset that he was constantly dangled in trade rumors during his last two years here and now there are rumblings that he and point guard Rajon Rondo were never as close as we all thought. The Celtics maintain they honestly tried to sign Ray and wish he would have stayed, even as they signed other players first. While this kind of he said/he said is not going to make either side come out looking very professional, it is not like the Celtics are some great free agency destination and this is going to derail their plans. (Besides this is the city where the Red Sox, the kings of burning bridges, operate. As long as there are no leaks from within the organization contending Ray had a drug problem than the Celtics will continues to look like the picture of restraint.) The other articles which have been coming out as part of the fall-out have been many sports writers telling Boston sports fans they shouldn't be calling Ray Allen a traitor. Well, I'm here to let them know that the problem has been solved, because we never were.
Honestly, in all the people I talked to, I never once heard anyone say a single bad word about Ray Allen or the way he ended his time here. He helped win the team a championship and we all wished that he would have re-signed or that if was intent on leaving he had signed with a team other than the one which has eliminated the Celtics from the playoffs for two straight seasons, but this is the nature of the business. Trades happen and professional athletes change teams all the time. Hell, if they didn't Ray Allen would never have landed here in the first place. Not to mention by the end of last season Ray was coming off the bench and didn't seem too happy about it, which is why the Celtics signed Jason Terry this offseason. Terry might not be as good a player as Allen, but certainly will fill that role better. On top of all that, the majority of Celtics fans overwhelmingly wanted the Celtics to make Kevin Garnett the priority in free agency, so if that upset Ray Allen I think we were willing to live with those consequences. Lastly, Allen is a shooter and those guys can lose it overnight, so watching him against the 76ers in the playoffs we were all secretly fearing he might not have much left. When you add all those things up most people were ready and expecting Allen to leave long before he actually agreed to take his talents to South Beach.
That is why these "you can't get mad at Allen" articles have been annoying me so much. First off, I can't stand it when sports writers think they have the right to tell sports fans who to cheer or boo. As long as they shut up during the National Anthem and keep families out of their heckling, fans have the right to get on any player they wish. But the main reason these articles have been particularly troubling to me is that they also combine a second, bigger pet peeve: I hate it when sports writers (or any commentators, really) do this maneuver of creating a controversy which isn't there and then scolds us for how we are reacting to it, even though 95% of the population isn't even doing it. It's internet trolling in newspaper form and, seriously, that crap is infuriating. I'd like to think the only reason it is happening is because at the moment we are in a sports dead-zone. Basketball free agency is pretty much already over, football doesn't start for another month, hockey is quiet until September and the Red Sox have another 80 games to go in what has been a pretty boring season (even by baseball standards). So, the Ray Allen news is pretty much all they have to work with and they need to milk it for all its worth. Plus, it's a simple column to write. When you make up a stupid issue it is quite easy to be on the correct side of it and the only people who are going to write in to tell you how wrong you are are the lunatic-fringe who should be ignored. But just because it is easy doesn't make it worth writing.
Now, I'm not going to sit here and say that the entire city of Boston was on its best behavior when the news broke. I didn't look online when the signing was first announced but I know how the internet works, so I'll readily concede that some people probably said some things online, shrouded behind internet anonymity, that they never should have said. But in every city with a passionate sports base you will get those crazy callers to the sports talk radio shows who say outrageous things and for some reason they tend to be seen as the voice of an entire fanbase, even though they usually only represent the fringes. Rest assured that they don't speak for the majority of us who are quite level-headed and understanding about a professional athlete deciding to play in a tax-free, warm-weather city with a good chance to play for a championship for only $3 million a year. We'd love for our rational opinions to be heard, we just don't have a spare 45 minutes to wait on hold to tell the guys on the Sports Hub that we wish Ray nothing but the best in every game he plays, minus the ones against the Celtics. So, I would advise all these talking heads on the sports networks to stop telling us to calm down when we're already calm because that is only going to serve to get people riled up and if we do, rest assured, Ray Allen won't be the target of our annoyance.
Honestly, in all the people I talked to, I never once heard anyone say a single bad word about Ray Allen or the way he ended his time here. He helped win the team a championship and we all wished that he would have re-signed or that if was intent on leaving he had signed with a team other than the one which has eliminated the Celtics from the playoffs for two straight seasons, but this is the nature of the business. Trades happen and professional athletes change teams all the time. Hell, if they didn't Ray Allen would never have landed here in the first place. Not to mention by the end of last season Ray was coming off the bench and didn't seem too happy about it, which is why the Celtics signed Jason Terry this offseason. Terry might not be as good a player as Allen, but certainly will fill that role better. On top of all that, the majority of Celtics fans overwhelmingly wanted the Celtics to make Kevin Garnett the priority in free agency, so if that upset Ray Allen I think we were willing to live with those consequences. Lastly, Allen is a shooter and those guys can lose it overnight, so watching him against the 76ers in the playoffs we were all secretly fearing he might not have much left. When you add all those things up most people were ready and expecting Allen to leave long before he actually agreed to take his talents to South Beach.
That is why these "you can't get mad at Allen" articles have been annoying me so much. First off, I can't stand it when sports writers think they have the right to tell sports fans who to cheer or boo. As long as they shut up during the National Anthem and keep families out of their heckling, fans have the right to get on any player they wish. But the main reason these articles have been particularly troubling to me is that they also combine a second, bigger pet peeve: I hate it when sports writers (or any commentators, really) do this maneuver of creating a controversy which isn't there and then scolds us for how we are reacting to it, even though 95% of the population isn't even doing it. It's internet trolling in newspaper form and, seriously, that crap is infuriating. I'd like to think the only reason it is happening is because at the moment we are in a sports dead-zone. Basketball free agency is pretty much already over, football doesn't start for another month, hockey is quiet until September and the Red Sox have another 80 games to go in what has been a pretty boring season (even by baseball standards). So, the Ray Allen news is pretty much all they have to work with and they need to milk it for all its worth. Plus, it's a simple column to write. When you make up a stupid issue it is quite easy to be on the correct side of it and the only people who are going to write in to tell you how wrong you are are the lunatic-fringe who should be ignored. But just because it is easy doesn't make it worth writing.
Now, I'm not going to sit here and say that the entire city of Boston was on its best behavior when the news broke. I didn't look online when the signing was first announced but I know how the internet works, so I'll readily concede that some people probably said some things online, shrouded behind internet anonymity, that they never should have said. But in every city with a passionate sports base you will get those crazy callers to the sports talk radio shows who say outrageous things and for some reason they tend to be seen as the voice of an entire fanbase, even though they usually only represent the fringes. Rest assured that they don't speak for the majority of us who are quite level-headed and understanding about a professional athlete deciding to play in a tax-free, warm-weather city with a good chance to play for a championship for only $3 million a year. We'd love for our rational opinions to be heard, we just don't have a spare 45 minutes to wait on hold to tell the guys on the Sports Hub that we wish Ray nothing but the best in every game he plays, minus the ones against the Celtics. So, I would advise all these talking heads on the sports networks to stop telling us to calm down when we're already calm because that is only going to serve to get people riled up and if we do, rest assured, Ray Allen won't be the target of our annoyance.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Check Yourself
I don't know if anyone else has been having this problem with Blogger in the last couple of days, but for some reason my spell-check button hasn't been working. At first, because I think rather highly of myself, I simply assumed that when the program didn't highlight any words it wanted me to look at it was because I had no spelling issues. However, I was writing something the other day and had to use a proper last name. Even though the name was spelled correctly, it still should have been highlighted, because there is no reason for it to be part of spell-check database of words. (As an aside, I am always fascinated to see which names make the cut versus which names the computer doesn't recognize. For example: Navratilova is in there, Francona is not. That has to be the real sign about the level of fame you've achieved fame in life. Either that or programmers are tennis fans.) Anyway, this sent my antenna up and I started combing through the rest of the post to see if there were other words where I wasn't aware I had screwed up as I had type them. I discovered several, which prompted me to cut and paste the document onto a different program to make sure I had gotten them all (and I hadn't). It was at this point that I came to realize a very sad truth - I might suck at spelling.
At first I was kind of happy to see the spell checker wasn't working because I like a challenge. My goal of every post is to have there be no spelling errors to correct so in some regards this was like getting the thrill of working without a net. But, then I couldn't figure out how to spell one word or another and began to get frustrated. I think we all have words which, for one reason or another, we never spell correctly on the first attempt. (My word is supposedly. I have no idea why that word troubles me so much, but it does.) On top of that, since I always find one or two things I want to change after I have hit 'Publish' anyway, I found myself wishing the program could just reassure me of the spelling so it would be one less thing to worry about. Also, without the knowledge that the spell-checker would have my back I started to doubt myself. I think every one of us has had the experience of writing something down and then telling ourselves that the word just looks wrong, but at the same time we can't figure out how else the word could possibly be spelled. Well, I was having that problem just about every paragraph. Suddenly I was no longer enjoying the challenge of working without any backup.
I can't totally be blamed for a deterioration in my spelling abilities, because technology has made it possible to be a really bad speller and still function in today's society. Between auto-correct on people's phones and spell-checkers on their computers (Google Chrome checks your spelling no matter what program you are running without you even having to ask it to), unless you are one of those kids who wants to be a spelling bee champion you don't need to be a great speller to fool people into thinking you are one. At this point, the only reason to have a lot of spelling errors in a document is out of pure laziness. (I think this is why people writing in text speak, i.e., just using the letter U instead of typing out the word you, drives me extra crazy. This is also why I avoid most websites' comment sections.) This is the same line of thinking which has made us all have a terrible sense of direction thanks to so many easily-available GPS systems. If you get lost in today's world you either wanted to get lost or need to upgrade your data plan. I can only assume it is just a matter of time before a grammar-check program becomes standard issue because, while they are out there, they aren't nearly as wide-spread as I would have expected them to be by now. As someone who types fast and doesn't always catch it when I type "form" in a place where I meant to type "from", it probably can't get here soon enough.
Now, as an editor I'm ten times harder on my own work than I am on anyone else's. Also, most of the stuff on the internet isn't exactly crucial to mankind, which is why I'm not going to kill anyone for having a few missed words here or there. Still, letting people go through life as terrible spellers who rely on technology to catch their mistakes probably isn't a good precedent going forward. Because while there are plenty of people like me out there who get annoyed when we make spelling errors and thus try to catch them before the computer does, there is most likely an entire generation of people out there who don't worry about getting the spelling of words correct on the first attempt, confident they can go back and let the spell-check feature take care of any mistakes they have made. That's fine most of the time, but what is going to happen to those people when they need to write something at the last minute and don't have time to spell-check their work? Or, as has been happening to me, what will happen when the spell-check program simply doesn't feel like working that day? It's a recipe for disaster. We'd better just hope they aren't working on anything important the day that happens. It would suck for a world peace treaty to fall apart because one intern couldn't remember how to spell nuclear.
At first I was kind of happy to see the spell checker wasn't working because I like a challenge. My goal of every post is to have there be no spelling errors to correct so in some regards this was like getting the thrill of working without a net. But, then I couldn't figure out how to spell one word or another and began to get frustrated. I think we all have words which, for one reason or another, we never spell correctly on the first attempt. (My word is supposedly. I have no idea why that word troubles me so much, but it does.) On top of that, since I always find one or two things I want to change after I have hit 'Publish' anyway, I found myself wishing the program could just reassure me of the spelling so it would be one less thing to worry about. Also, without the knowledge that the spell-checker would have my back I started to doubt myself. I think every one of us has had the experience of writing something down and then telling ourselves that the word just looks wrong, but at the same time we can't figure out how else the word could possibly be spelled. Well, I was having that problem just about every paragraph. Suddenly I was no longer enjoying the challenge of working without any backup.
I can't totally be blamed for a deterioration in my spelling abilities, because technology has made it possible to be a really bad speller and still function in today's society. Between auto-correct on people's phones and spell-checkers on their computers (Google Chrome checks your spelling no matter what program you are running without you even having to ask it to), unless you are one of those kids who wants to be a spelling bee champion you don't need to be a great speller to fool people into thinking you are one. At this point, the only reason to have a lot of spelling errors in a document is out of pure laziness. (I think this is why people writing in text speak, i.e., just using the letter U instead of typing out the word you, drives me extra crazy. This is also why I avoid most websites' comment sections.) This is the same line of thinking which has made us all have a terrible sense of direction thanks to so many easily-available GPS systems. If you get lost in today's world you either wanted to get lost or need to upgrade your data plan. I can only assume it is just a matter of time before a grammar-check program becomes standard issue because, while they are out there, they aren't nearly as wide-spread as I would have expected them to be by now. As someone who types fast and doesn't always catch it when I type "form" in a place where I meant to type "from", it probably can't get here soon enough.
Now, as an editor I'm ten times harder on my own work than I am on anyone else's. Also, most of the stuff on the internet isn't exactly crucial to mankind, which is why I'm not going to kill anyone for having a few missed words here or there. Still, letting people go through life as terrible spellers who rely on technology to catch their mistakes probably isn't a good precedent going forward. Because while there are plenty of people like me out there who get annoyed when we make spelling errors and thus try to catch them before the computer does, there is most likely an entire generation of people out there who don't worry about getting the spelling of words correct on the first attempt, confident they can go back and let the spell-check feature take care of any mistakes they have made. That's fine most of the time, but what is going to happen to those people when they need to write something at the last minute and don't have time to spell-check their work? Or, as has been happening to me, what will happen when the spell-check program simply doesn't feel like working that day? It's a recipe for disaster. We'd better just hope they aren't working on anything important the day that happens. It would suck for a world peace treaty to fall apart because one intern couldn't remember how to spell nuclear.
Monday, July 9, 2012
No Splashing!
On Saturday a group of us went kayaking. (This would be the third time I've gone kayaking this summer. I think this is officially becoming a "thing" I do. I guess the question is how many outings does it take before it stops being weird when you tell people that you are doing an activity?) Feeling adventurous, this outing we opted to try the Kendall Square location, which is located right near MIT and offers really stunning views of Boston. I would have taken some pictures to show you, but I'm still not at the point where I feel stable enough while paddling to try maneuvers as complicated as taking a sip out of a bottle of water, so digging my phone out of my pocket to take a picture is pretty much out of the question. You'll just have to take my word for it that Boston looks pretty nice from the vantage point of floating on the Charles. The downside to this location versus the Newton one is that since it is a lot more open there are a lot more boats to deal with. You've got multiple boathouses for the various universities in the area as well as places for people to rent sailboats. As you probably know, boats create waves and waves are not fun when you are already convinced you are going to topple over in totally calm water. And I was extra motivated not to fall in the water due to another problem I had to deal with - blue algae.
Even though a check of the website before I left that day showed no problems, apparently a test of the water that morning had revealed an elevated blue algae count and I guess blue algae is the worst kind of algae. As such, this branch was advising people to either skip boating or go to another location. Asking the kid behind the deck what the side effects of blue algae are, we were informed that it basically leads to a rash and that some woman who had been out that morning had begun to break out in hives by the time she had come back to the dock. Laying out all the things that could happen, the kid definitely had a "Seriously, I wouldn't get in this water if I were you" tone to his voice. But the fact that the place was fully staffed made me think it couldn't be that bad. You'd have to assume that if the algae was really a danger they would have just closed the location, saved some money by not paying workers for the day and not left it up to the boaters. For all I knew this guy just didn't feel like doing any work that day and was trying to scare people off so he could stay in the shade. On the other hand, a bout of poison ivy landed me in the emergency room a couple years ago, so I had a small concern that perhaps I'm extra-sensitive to these kinds of skin issues. It was enough to make me pause for a few seconds.
The weird part was that, looking in the faces of the other people in my group, I could tell no one else was even thinking about going to the other location or not boating. Honestly, I'm not sure what it says about the people I hang out with, but I could practically see the thought process going on in their heads: "Well, breaking out in hives sounds bad. But, what are the odds that will actually happen to me? That woman could have broken into hives over something else... How bad a rash are we talking? Besides, we're kayaking, not swimming and I'm going to take a shower right after this so I should be fine... It is the Charles River, so it's not like I was expecting the waters to be crystal-clear to begin with... Not to mention, we're already here and I parked in a garage. You just know they are going to charge me for the full hour even though if we left now we'd have been there for all of 10 minutes. Plus, we fought all that Red Sox traffic just to make it here and I am in no hurry to fight more of it... Screw it, this is why I pay for health insurance." It was either tremendous bravery, over-confidence in our immune systems or extreme laziness - I can't tell which. But, I obviously wasn't going to be the one who backed out (peer pressure sucks) and I was on the water in a few minutes.
When we got back to the docks after over an hour of boating I was very generous with the Purell they had provided on any spots which had been splashed even a little bit and until I took a shower that afternoon I was convinced that every itch I had was the first sign I was about to start breaking out in that spot. The good news is that it's been a couple days now and so far everyone is still in the clear - no signs of blue algae growing on anyone. So in the end we were right not to worry about it. Actually, it even worked out for us because we got a 20% discount off our kayak rentals. (I think the 20% discount is the part of this whole thing which amuses me the most. It's just works out to be such an odd figure. "Not only are we not stopping you from potentially exposing yourself to toxic water, we're giving you the means to make it even worse. With that in mind, I think $4 off your kayak rental should about make us even.") I'm not saying I would want to press my luck in every situation just to try and save a little money but it's nice to get a little something, you know, for the effort. After all, I've done plenty of unwise things without getting any kind of compensation, so it's nice to occasionally have my stupidity rewarded.
Even though a check of the website before I left that day showed no problems, apparently a test of the water that morning had revealed an elevated blue algae count and I guess blue algae is the worst kind of algae. As such, this branch was advising people to either skip boating or go to another location. Asking the kid behind the deck what the side effects of blue algae are, we were informed that it basically leads to a rash and that some woman who had been out that morning had begun to break out in hives by the time she had come back to the dock. Laying out all the things that could happen, the kid definitely had a "Seriously, I wouldn't get in this water if I were you" tone to his voice. But the fact that the place was fully staffed made me think it couldn't be that bad. You'd have to assume that if the algae was really a danger they would have just closed the location, saved some money by not paying workers for the day and not left it up to the boaters. For all I knew this guy just didn't feel like doing any work that day and was trying to scare people off so he could stay in the shade. On the other hand, a bout of poison ivy landed me in the emergency room a couple years ago, so I had a small concern that perhaps I'm extra-sensitive to these kinds of skin issues. It was enough to make me pause for a few seconds.
The weird part was that, looking in the faces of the other people in my group, I could tell no one else was even thinking about going to the other location or not boating. Honestly, I'm not sure what it says about the people I hang out with, but I could practically see the thought process going on in their heads: "Well, breaking out in hives sounds bad. But, what are the odds that will actually happen to me? That woman could have broken into hives over something else... How bad a rash are we talking? Besides, we're kayaking, not swimming and I'm going to take a shower right after this so I should be fine... It is the Charles River, so it's not like I was expecting the waters to be crystal-clear to begin with... Not to mention, we're already here and I parked in a garage. You just know they are going to charge me for the full hour even though if we left now we'd have been there for all of 10 minutes. Plus, we fought all that Red Sox traffic just to make it here and I am in no hurry to fight more of it... Screw it, this is why I pay for health insurance." It was either tremendous bravery, over-confidence in our immune systems or extreme laziness - I can't tell which. But, I obviously wasn't going to be the one who backed out (peer pressure sucks) and I was on the water in a few minutes.
When we got back to the docks after over an hour of boating I was very generous with the Purell they had provided on any spots which had been splashed even a little bit and until I took a shower that afternoon I was convinced that every itch I had was the first sign I was about to start breaking out in that spot. The good news is that it's been a couple days now and so far everyone is still in the clear - no signs of blue algae growing on anyone. So in the end we were right not to worry about it. Actually, it even worked out for us because we got a 20% discount off our kayak rentals. (I think the 20% discount is the part of this whole thing which amuses me the most. It's just works out to be such an odd figure. "Not only are we not stopping you from potentially exposing yourself to toxic water, we're giving you the means to make it even worse. With that in mind, I think $4 off your kayak rental should about make us even.") I'm not saying I would want to press my luck in every situation just to try and save a little money but it's nice to get a little something, you know, for the effort. After all, I've done plenty of unwise things without getting any kind of compensation, so it's nice to occasionally have my stupidity rewarded.
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