The Countdown To Nothing

There is nothing worse than a countdown where nothing happens as the clock reaches zeroes. All day ESPN has been counting down to midnight, because midnight on July 1st is the official start to the NBA free agency period. With lots of big names available, they are touting this as the most important off-season in NBA history; you know, even bigger than last year (though not as big as next year could be). While I get that ESPN dabbles almost exclusively in hyperbole at this point, I still have a problem with the countdown clock because nothing is actually going to happen at midnight. No free agents of consequence are going to sign right away. Everyone is waiting to first see what LeBron James is going to do and then they will react to that. He is the first domino to fall and he has given no indication he is in any hurry to pick his next destination. Because James went straight from high school to the NBA he was never really recruited by colleges and so far it seems as though he wants to make up for lost time. I would be really surprised if he signed within the first week of free agency, which means Wade, Bosh, Stoudemire and the rest of the free agent crop aren't going to sign before that. In the mean time I think ESPN can shelve the countdown clock, because tonight isn't going to be anything like New Year's Eve. (Scratch that: it's all countdown with minimal pay-off... it's just like New Year's Eve.)

-There was one NBA transaction of note today and that was Doc Rivers agreeing to come back to coach the Celtics for one last chance at the Championship. Six weeks ago I never would have seen this coming, so I can only assume that being six and half minutes and one Kendrick Perkins knee injury away from a title convinced him that they have one more run in them. Also (not that I expected him to leave), but I am pretty sure this will lock down a Paul Pierce return as well. If Doc had left I would have assumed Pierce would want to see who the next coach was going to be before signing on the dotted line. With Doc in place I expect Pierce to sign for less money than he would have made this year, but with more money down the line that he would not have been able to get under the new collective bargaining agreement. The question now is what to do with Ray Allen. Personally I would like him to come back, but it's a question of dollars. If he expects to make anywhere close to what he got this year then he is sorely mistaken. Offer him about half of what his last contract paid him and if he can make more than that on the open market than more power to him. In all honesty, I kind of want the Celtics to go after JJ Redick anyway, because he can shoot almost as well as Ray and would cost less. Then they just need to move Rasheed's contract for some big man insurance and they are all set to make another run at this. See, I went from "they're done" to "they should be the East favorites" in a week. I can talk myself into anything.

-So, this afternoon the Starz channel announced it would be cancelling the show Party Down. While I don't particularly care because I don't have that channel, this sent fans of the show into a frenzy, because that is what fans of shows do when shows get cancelled. I'm sure that a Facebook page has already been created in an effort to force Starz into one more season. Here's the thing about Party Down: much like Freaks & Geeks before it, everyone kept telling me how great it was, but I never met anyone who actually watched it. I always got the vibe that since it was one of those supposedly smart, well-written shows that get critical acclaim but terrible ratings, everyone wanted you to think they watched it but in reality they were skipping right over it so they could tune in to the Girls Next Door marathon. This is just like everyone who claims to recycle, but then tosses their pizza boxes into the trash cause they take up too much room. Perhaps rather than creating pages about how awful it is for the show to be cancelled, they should have been putting that energy into promoting the show through good word-of-mouth. Then again, it could be that everyone is just saying they're really sad to see the show get cancelled, but are actually counting down the days to the next episode of So You Think You Can Dance.

Someone Doesn't Take Criticism Well

Last week I discussed my uneasiness with all the new-to-the-sport soccer "experts" popping up during the first round of the World Cup and insisting that the sport must adopt instant replay, at least for goals. It's just not our game and as of Saturday afternoon most of America went back to ignoring the sport as a whole, so demanding that the rest of the world conform to us was rather off-putting. However, when a goal call was clearly blown in a game between England and Germany on Sunday and bad offsides call was made during the Mexico and Argentina match, the International calls for replay were ratcheted up a notch. The Mexico game was especially rough as the side judges had to avoid both rowdy fans and pissed-off Mexican players. However, rather than say that given the circumstance discussing replay wasn't the worst idea ever, FIFA decided to go the other way - announcing that they would just stop showing replays to the fans in the stadium. Yeah, because the best way to grow fans in this handheld technology age is to give them less information. When someone can watch a replay in high-definition from their phone, taking it off the big screen is less of a deterrent and more akin to saying your taking your ball and going home just because the other guy is winning.

To FIFA's credit, they have since backed off that statement and said they would at least think about it during the next round of meetings, but I wouldn't count on them adopting replay, even if it would just be for goals. I've always been a big believer that your initial gut reaction to a situation is what you really want to do and when their first reaction to replays showing they got something wrong is to take away more people seeing those replays, you have to figure that adding more technology to the sport is not something they are comfortable with. Going with the "any press is good press" philosophy, the head of FIFA has actually said thinks that all this controversy is good for the sport. Sure, because how could screwing over a team that won't have a chance to make it right for four more years just because you fear change possibly be bad? At least people are talking, even if they're talking about how much of an idiot you are. My guess is that they're saying they will open up to the possibility of replay while quietly hoping that everyone forgets about this for three and half years and by the time someone brings it up they can say they are too close to the World Cup for rules to be changed now. (I would like to point out this is the same philosophy lots of parents use with their children.) Now, because we have so many other things to catch our 15 second attention spans, that probably would have worked if it was just the United States, but the rest of the world is unlikely to let this slip their minds. Guess being the "world's most popular sport" has its drawbacks.

-Can you believe the story of 10 Russian spies being arrested over the weekend in Washington, DC? First off, I can hardly believe that Russia still has the money to pay spies. I thought all their free money was going into the next round of Winter Olympics. But, the more amusing thing I read was that these spies have been over here for 10 years. What exactly was their plan? Were they waiting for us to collapse on our own, or was this a deep, deep cover mission to have four or five kids while here with the hope that one of them would grow up to be President, then stage a communist coup from inside the White House? Hell, one of the spies had a Facebook page and a LinkedIn account. You could even be her friend, if you're one of these people who go around "Friending" people without seeing who they are first. Just remember, if a man in a long trench coach comes to your door, say nothing without a lawyer.

Bait And Switch TV

I've used this space before to talk about my displeasure with channels like Discovery and National Geographic when they air hour-long specials that do nothing but fail to deliver. Shows that suck me in because we're on the hunt for something awesome, but then the show just ends with the host saying, "Nope, we didn't find anything. Didn't even come close, actually. Sorry for wasting an hour of your life." [Sidebar: The science channels are the only ones with the guts to even attempt airing a show like this. Could you imagine an episode of Extreme Home Make-Over where they just didn't build anyone a new house?] Now, if we're hunting for the Loch Ness Monster or Big Foot then, yeah, I expect the hunters to come up empty. However, last night was an entire new low for the "tease documentary" genre. I was watching a show called Expedition Great White. Basically the premise is this: a few months ago National Geographic filmed a crew that went out to catch, tag and release Great White sharks, which is a Nation Geographic channel staple. What made this expedition different from all the others (other than the fact that actor Paul Walker was randomly among the crew) was a new system on this modified ship which literally lifted the entire shark out of the water on a platform. This would give the team easier access to the sharks, allowing them to use better tagging equipment, collect more data than normal and conduct multiple experiments in the 20 minutes they had before it was time to set the shark free. The special featured multiple shots of massive Great Whites thrashing around completely out of the water. It looked very cool.

That special led to this crew getting their own series. (Minus Paul Walker, though. Guess he had to film yet another Fast & Furious movie.) After months of collecting data from the tags they had placed on the sharks they had caught, the crew discovered the sharks seemed to be hanging out in this one section in the middle of the ocean, about halfway between San Diego and Hawaii. Using the logic that a few Great Whites probably were a harbinger of more Great Whites, the crew wanted to go out, catch and tag as many different sharks as possible and also see if they could re-catch a couple of sharks to track their growth. It sounded interesting enough and the ad for the show made it look pretty good (it featured a clip of the crew locked in a battle to pull a Great White on board), so I tuned in to the premiere episode last week. Turns out the entire first episode was spent documenting them just getting out to the patch of ocean and the problems that occurred along the way - dying bait, clogged toilets and spotty Internet service. As hard-hitting science went, this wasn't it. There wasn't a shark sighting the entire first episode. It was less "informative documentary" (which I like) and more "reality TV" (which I hate). But, I was willing to give it a pass, thinking that they just wanted to use the first episode to build drama for the rest of the series.

Therefore, I expected a little more action for last night's second episode. After all, they were finally in the area of the ocean they wanted to be, so now it was time to start catching sharks. Nope. They saw plenty of whales and squid, which in and of itself is nice, but the show isn't called Expedition Whales and Squid. After that they hit some bad weather, resulting in "rough seas" and the shark platform can only be used in calm waters. [Sidebar, Part 2: I've seen several episodes of Deadliest Catch with 20-foot waves so they had better plan to step up it up if they are trying to convince me 5-foot waves equal rough seas.] The hour ended with them deciding that the weather wasn't going to improve anytime soon, so they may as well turn back. That would be two episodes, zero sharks. Now, look, I could understand this taking a while if they were on the hunt for a rare animal or even one specific shark in the vast Pacific ocean. But, how hard is it to find any old Great White? Hell, one was discovered by accident off the coast of Massachusetts just last week and that shit is only supposed to happen in Jaws. So far the producers have lucked out in the fact that there is almost nothing else to watch on Sunday nights, but if the National Geographic Channel wants to keep viewers they need to start finding some sharks, fast. Think about it: how bad do you think Discovery Channel's ratings would be if they had "Shark Week" with no sharks? After all, the show is called Expedition Great White. Without any Great Whites you've just got a bunch of people on a ship and I believe that show already aired: it was called The Love Boat.

When Is The Next Really Cold Day?

I've never been one of those New Englanders who spends all winter getting interviewed by the local news whenever it snows and declares to the world that they are moving to Florida. First off, snow in January doesn't shock me. After living here my entire life, I kind of know that it's coming. Secondly, I don't want to have my face on the nightly news with this declaration, because I know would never actually go through with the move. I don't need people seeing me on the streets in July and reminding me that I said I was moving. (By the way, in my head I get recognized on the street all the time.) I'm very aware that I don't do well in heat. I've got thick blood. I'm fine as long the temperature stays somewhere between 70-80 and the humidity doesn't get too high. Anything beyond that and I start melting. But, I think the main reason I don't want to move somewhere more tropical is the insects. Think about it - you never hear about monster spiders in cold climates. There is a reason that the news in these parts freak out whenever some unlucky person finds a Black Widow spider in with their freshly-delivered-from-someplace-else fruit. It's because we don't usually have to deal with them - that's a warm climate problem, like wild fires.

Yet, every spring when it starts to warm up around here I begin to see various types of the little bastards come around and then I spend the next six months systematically squishing them in Kleenex while trying not to leave a mark on the ceiling. I can only imagine that in warm climates this is a year-long process. Say whatever you want about the New England area, but once we have that first freeze of the year any ant problems are over until next April. But for right now, with a week of temperatures near 90 degrees, I am squarely in the thick of the battle. I'm not sure where the spiders are coming from or hiding during the day, but they sure are busy at night. Every morning for the past couple of days, when I walk from one end of my room to the other, I find myself walking through a spider web. (And, as I am sure you have experienced, there is no graceful way to walk through a spider web. It's a lot of recoiling and swiping at something no one else can see. It is never anyone's finest moment.) The more annoying part is that I can find the big spiders without issues, but I don't think they are the web-making culprits. It's almost like they are a sacrificial diversion for the smaller spiders so I will think my hunt it over. They're not fooling me, though. I haven't found them all yet, but time is on my side: only two and half months until Fall.

-I'm having an internal debate over which retirement announcement was more unnecessary: Amanda Bynes or Joe Horn. Horn, a 38 year-old former NFL wide receiver, hasn't played in the league in two years, while Bynes is a 24 year-old actress who has done mostly work that I have never heard of (a quick IMDB search reveals I've pretty much only heard her, since she once did a voice over on Family Guy). Yet, both decided this week that they had to publicly announce they were retiring from their respective lines of work (Bynes, in oh-so-2010 fashion, did so over Twitter). Here's the thing in both cases: we kind of already knew. In Horn's case, 38 year-olds who haven't played in two years are clearly retired. As for Bynes, well, she's an actress, so Hollywood probably retired her before she could get to announcing it. In fact, her announcing her retirement was probably the most news she has made in a couple yeas. (Did Hillary Duff need to announce her retirement? No, one morning she just woke up to find she was.) Still, since Bynes was only 24, I'm going to say Horn's was more unnecessary, but only by a little.

Car Ramblings

One of my favorite (non-expletive filled) sayings is, "That's too much car for you." Though, like most people, I almost never use this expression for its intended purpose, which is to describe someone who is driving a car that is too big, too fast or too powerful for what they need. Instead I break it out whenever I see someone undertaking a task that is way over their heads. However, the other day I had a chance to use it for the intended purpose when I was in a parking lot and saw a woman attempting to back out of her parking spot. Even though she had about another 10 feet of space to work with, she was hesitant to press the brakes too hard because she clearly thought even a tap would send her careening into the row of cars behind her. What resulted was roughly a 45-point turn, because she was either afraid of her car's power or has the worst depth perception of any human alive. I could have gone into the store and done all my shopping in the time it took this woman just to pull out of her spot. Here's the kicker, though: she was driving a Honda Civic. When you are afraid of the power of Honda Civic then I would assume any car has too much power for you. Perhaps it's time to switch to a bike.

-The other night I stumbled upon a film on HBO called Dirty Driving: Thundercars of Indiana. It was a documentary that was supposed to show how hard middle America had been hit by this latest recession by focusing on how this small town in Indiana was coping with most of the businesses having closed. The only thing left for these people was a small race track in town and most of the racers had to debate paying bills or fixing their cars. I'm sure I was supposed to feel bad for these people, but instead all that happened was I found an answer to the question of whether or not there was a level that white-trash people could look down on. Even the people getting arrested on Cops would think these people could stand to put on a shirt and watch their language. Now, I'm not the kind of person who gets offended easily and certainly not by someone swearing, but this was nuts. It was just being vulgar for the sake of being vulgar. At one point there was just a stream of obscenities flowing for a couple of minutes straight, and that was from the grandmother. The best thing for this town might be the track closing, because I think they would all be better off inhaling fewer exhaust fumes.

-When you watch a lot of the Golf Channel, you see more luxury car commercials than normal. Therefore, I have seen this Lexus commercial a couple dozen times and I still don't get it. First off, I can only assume that they are banking on Americans going away from SUVs and instead trying to buy mini-racecars. Why else make a car with a V10 engine that is clearly a Lamborghini rip-off? This car appears to have a lot of features that will go unused by the average buyer. (How often do you think the "Lap Timer" feature will be turned on? Four, maybe five times in history, three of which will be by accident?) Still, I don't understand the appeal of this ad. It looks like they're either trying to prove that their car's engine is super loud or vibrates a lot. Trust me, as a man who has driven cars with loud engines and vibration problems, neither is a good sign. If the marketing people were smart they would have made it a point to emphasise the rear spoiler that appears to retract into the vehicle, because something tells me the geeks who buy this car in an attempt to act like they are car guys will really enjoy that feature more than whether or not the car has nice pitch.

Shopping In My Closet

Despite not being into fashion at all, I actually own a lot of clothes. I mostly have the women in my life to thank for this because they have worked really hard for the last few years to make sure I have enough of a wardrobe that don't look like such a slob when I leave the house, while I have fought them most of the way by preferring to wear t-shirts with team logos on them as much as possible. Still, I have more shirts than I would ever really need, considering I do laundry every couple of weeks and thus 10-15 shirts seem to just perpetually stay on top of the pile. However, for no real good reason, lately I have been looking further and further into the dark reaches of my closet and trying to add some more variety to my look. Which leads me to my point of the day - you ever find a shirt or another piece of clothing in the back of your closet or the bottom of the drawer you rarely open and then wonder why you don't wear it more? I was looking for a pair of shorts this afternoon when I came across an incredibly comfortable pair of cargo shorts that I had completely forgotten about. I wonder what else I'm going to find the deeper I search.

-You may remember a couple weeks ago I mentioned my theory that the more a movie is hyped prior to its opening, the more likely it is that the movie is terrible. This theory comes from a belief that the marketing people know word of mouth will not be good and thus the opening weekend is the only chance the movie has to make any money. I originally made this observation because I could not turn on my TV without seeing the cast of Grown Ups at every turn. However, after last night, I have to extend a similar judgement towards the movie Knight and Day. Watching the draft last night I saw roughly 400 commercials for the new Tom Cruise / Cameron Diaz flick. Given how quickly he was drafted, I do not think it would be a stretch to claim that I saw more of Tom Cruise than John Wall last night. This is the same movie that filmed partly in Boston and caused "The Wedding Strikes Back" to be delayed for almost 20 minutes. Given the hassle that caused Liz and the SJC, I would have at least hoped for a better finished product. But, considering I've seen 3 more commercials for the movie just in the short time I have been typing this, I am not hopeful.

-Let me go on record by saying that I loved what the Celtics ended up doing in last night's draft. Not just taking Harangody in the second round because, like I said yesterday, that was expected. Harangody will take Davis's minutes, who will take Rasheed's minutes, only those two will actually run the entire floor. But I really like the drafting of Avery Bradley. I think he'll be a great fit because he is a rarity in college basketball - a young player who prides himself on defense. Also, the Celtics have been in search of a true back-up point guard for years. They tried jamming undersized two guards in there (Eddie House, Nate Robinson), but it just never worked. Even though they showed flashes of their passing skills those two were always much better as spot-up shooters who could run off screens. This year's experiment of having Tony Allen run the point when Rondo was on the bench just showed how much this was an area of need. Whenever Allen was running the show the ball movement stopped and whatever lead the team had would vanish, thus Rondo played way more minutes than he should have during the regular season. TA should just have to worry about playing defense from here on out (oh, and worry about it on another team). If Danny can manage to keep Pierce and find another shooter to take Ray Allen's spot (I continue to think a team with a lot of money and no big-name free agents left to sign is going to throw Ray more money than he is worth), then this off-season could easily be considered a success.

NBA Draft Ramblings

So, the NBA Draft is tonight and I have to say, I didn't even really think about it until around yesterday afternoon. That'll happen when your team is in the NBA Finals and those don't wrap up until a week before the draft. Another reason for my lack of interest is because I have noticed that, unlike the NFL Draft where you can pick up a starter in almost any round, the later your team will be going on the clock in the NBA Draft the less you care about it. I mean, I used to be really into the NBA Draft, but then my team got good. This is because the later your team picks the less likely it is that they even finds a player to keep on their roster, let alone a starter. It's just the way the NBA Draft works because college players are so anxious to get to the pro level that they leave before they probably should. As a result, it's a steep and quick drop-off in talent. Every draft has one or two sure-fire good players, followed by a couple more kids who are really talented but projects, then come the talented kids with maturity issues, followed by the kids with talent but who very well could be head-cases. After that everyone is just guessing. Basically, if you don't pick in the top 10, you may as well trade the pick away and save some money. It's because of that I can honestly say I have no idea who the Celtics will be taking in the first round, if they even keep the pick to begin with.

If anything I'm more interested in the team's second round pick, because Danny Ainge has a much better track record of finding players that will contribute from that round than the first round. Ainge seems to hit the homeruns with the long shots, but then misses with the guys who should be contributors. Now, Danny uses a fairly simple formula to draft in the second round: four year college players who have been well coached and who played in big-time college basketball conferences. As finished products they are less likely to get any better, but at least you know what you are getting. So, while he might reach to take a great athlete who isn't a good basketball player with the hopes of turning him into one during the first round (Gerald Green), he's going to take a four-year starter in the second round to even it out (Ryan Gomes). Given that formula, plus the fact that we need a new guy to fill the Brian Scalabrine "Human Victory Cigar" role, I'm going to say the Celtics take Luke Harangody in the second round. And yes, that guess is mostly because that is what I want to happen.

-I think my favorite quote to come out of the pre-Draft interviews was from Minnesota Timberwolves GM David Kahn, who said, "I don't think I can really screw this one up." He said this because this draft is widely considered to only be about four players deep and the Wolves pick fourth. Thus, no matter who is selected before their turn, the Wolves should still end up getting a good player. It's a fine notion in theory, but Mr. Kahn is also the same guy who drafted point guards back-to-back last year, which scared the higher of the two picks (Ricky Rubio) to sign with a team in Spain for two more years. Kahn then spent the rest of last year trying to deal at least one, if not both, of his young, talented power forwards, which resulted in the fact that neither of them really want to be in Minnesota much longer. Oh, and during all this the Wolves won 15 games. In other words, David, I wouldn't put anything passed you at this point. I bet you could find a way to screw this up without really even trying all that hard.

Visitors Shouldn't Make The Rules

One of the things that always made me hesitant to undertake world travel is the fact that I am a very uncomfortable guest. I like to sleep in my own bed, have my food how I like it and my TV to have ESPN. Also, I really don't like people waiting on me. The last thing I would ever want to do is go into someone else's home and then expect them to alter their plans just because I decided that now would be a good time to stop in. This belief system is what makes me a much better host than guest. I try to go about my visits by causing as little disruption as possible. Even when I'm staying in hotels I practically want to leave the maid a note saying that she doesn't have to make the bed while I'm there and she can just wait until I've checked out. I admit that I am fairly set in my ways and I don't really see the need to change how I do things. However, at least I realise this about myself and therefore do not have the audacity to go to other countries and demand that they adapt to me instead of the other way around (you know, the stereotypical Ugly American). This is also why I typically like to do my travelling within the US, because you get to explore new cities and see new places, but you don't have to learn a new language or get screwed by the exchange rate.

It's because of the way that I am as a guest that I was very relieved to see the USA beat Algeria today and advance to the next round in the World Cup. I had a fear that, if the US was robbed of a second victory because of an iffy call, that the talking heads on TV would go on the rampage demanding that FIFA adopts instant replay and that this wrong be righted immediately. While that would be fine in a sport we invented like baseball or the NFL, soccer isn't our sport (as evidenced by the fact that we call it soccer). I understand that the way TV analysts make their money is by trying to out-crazy one another in louder and louder voices, but when you're being beamed across the world it just sends a bad message that might be how a lot of people feel when that actually isn't the case. Because here's the thing we as a country have to admit at the end of the day: whether we win or lose the World Cup is actually of very little consequence to a lot of Americans. If we win, great. If we don't, whatever, NFL training camp is like a month away. We care about this sport about three times in four years: during the Olympics, at the World Cup and any crucial qualifiers to make sure we get into the World Cup. Anything beyond that and the soccer stories are buried on page 5. When we so infrequently look up from our other sports to care about soccer it just doesn't seem like a good idea to start demanding that the rest of the world changes the rules they have been playing under for decades just because a couple calls went against us. We'd be better off learning to adapt to the way that the rest of the world plays... except for the facts that group ties can be decided by a random drawing and shootouts can win the whole tournament. That shit is whacked.

-Not that I was thinking of entering into a criminal enterprise anytime soon but, just in case I was, the universe sent me a reminder today that I am not the kind of person who gets away with things. My truck failed its yearly inspection... again. For the third time since I bought it, the emergency brake did not hold to the necessary RPMs that the State of Massachusetts feels it must. Whatever, I can get it adjusted or tightened or whatever it has to be. At this point I fully expect to fail my yearly inspections going into the bays. Still, it annoys me because there are people out there who know people and therefore can pull into inspection stations with no registrations (and occasionally no bumpers) and still drive out of there with a pass. Clearly, I am not one of those people. Just a cosmic reminder that if I ever even tried to pull off a criminal heist, I would wind up in jail before I even got started by being pulled over for a seat belt violation.

We'll Try And Stay Out Of Your Way

I had to go to Home Depot today, because the doors on our shed have literally started to disintegrate. The shed was built about 20 years ago, so I would say as doors go, they have had a pretty nice run. Anyway I was wandering around the store with my dad, gathering all the necessary lumber to build new doors. (These new doors will lead to us noticing how the rest of the shed doesn't look so good by comparison and thus we will just end up building a new shed within a year. Just giving you a heads up on some future postings.) It was at this point that I noticed something about being in a Home Depot in the middle of the day on a weekday - the contractors do not appreciate you being there. You know who the contractors are right away, because they pull up in those F-350s with every single accessory you can think of and a truck bed tool box that could hide a small family inside of it. Also, they park by the special "contractors entrance" which is twice the size of the normal doors because that's where all the lumber heads out. They know right where they want to go and have every aisle's layout memorized because they have to be there so much. Therefore, they do not appreciate the everyman who decided that today would be a good day to install a new ceiling fan and is slowly wandering the store in the middle of every aisle looking for the lighting section. They would much rather you wait until Saturday, at which point they will be nowhere near their local hardware store.

Now, you might be expecting me to lay into these guys, because assuming you have the right to look down on people in a store that is not named after you is kind of a dick move. However, I'm going the other way and saying that I get where they are coming from. When I worked in a football stadium I hated the people who only came in to work on game day. I had just spent six days getting the place set-up as I needed it and these people would just come in and cause havoc: take things without asking, go on break without saying anything and disappear for long stretches. This wasn't there job, this was what they did for a cool second job so they could tell people they worked for the Patriots (which they did not) and see the game for free (which they were not supposed to be doing). So, I can see why these contractors would not like people who mostly have no idea what they are doing wandering around, in the way, when they just want to grab their crap and get back to work. Not to mention, they probably assume that since you are in Home Depot on a Tuesday afternoon and not at work that you have the day off and no one who is at work likes anyone who has the day off, ever. So, I guess the moral of this story is that if you want to work on a home improvement project on a day off and you need to go to Home Depot, don't get annoyed when the contractors sigh heavily at you.

-In my continuing efforts to rebuff joining Facebook, I try to tell people I don't want to sign up because of security concerns. "But, they've done a lot of work on safety," the person will invariably reply. Yet, about four or five times a day I will open my email and be greeted with a message from "Facebook" that "Sarah" or "Jody" or "Mark" has sent me a Facebook message. I made the mistake of opening one of them, because one of the first times I got this email the person who designed the spam managed to luckily and randomly pick the name of a person I happen to know. It was actually an ad from some other website and I haven't opened one of these emails since. My point is this: if it is this easy to create an email account that says the spam mail you are sending out is from "Facebook" and these emails have been going out for months without anyone at the actual Facebook thinking that perhaps they should put a stop to them, then my guess is that security still isn't tight as a drum over at that operation.

Could You Repeat That?

As a man who enjoys a good brogue, yesterday was a fabulous day for thick accents on television. It started Sunday morning when I was watching the New Zealand/Italy World Cup match, where the color commentator was Scottish. I don't mean Craig Ferguson, Scotty from Star Trek Scottish; I'm talking deep woods Scottish. He had an incredibly thick accent that was indiscernible half of the time. To the credit of the guy calling the game he either did a much better job of understanding this guy than I did (or at least pretending that he did). To make matters worse, the match was tied at one, which was a fairly big upset in the making for New Zealand. As the game was getting later and later the Scotsman was getting more excited about the potential for a tie and thus was speaking faster, making his accent just that much thicker and harder to understand. Towards the end of the match it was way out there, sounding a little like this:

Play-by-Play announcer: A wonderful effort for the Kiwis.
Color Analyst: Yeah...weshsidie aidskw evuthusi metshc.
Me: I got 'Something, something, something, match.'
Color Analyst: Hheielkye aieddheu kisteenfy gieujbs uepshet.
Me: Nope, I got nothing on that pass.

Then later in the afternoon I was treated to Northern Ireland's Graeme McDowell pulling away to win the US Open. While McDowell has only the slightest of accents, his caddy did not. Once it became clear that it was McDowell's Open to lose the cameras started to get closer to hear the strategy going into each and every shot. One exchange sounded along these lines:

McDowell: What are you thinking here?
His Caddy: Fortehs sehesth harkin fhoths. Yeah.
McDowell: Alright, if you think that's the best plan.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not making fun, because I love a thick accent. All this really does is make me mad, because I had numerous teachers in college tell me I had to lose my Boston accent if I wanted a career in radio or TV. I had to spend a semester training myself to put a conscious effort into pronouncing my Rs. So, not only did I get screwed because the ladies love a good Boston accent (especially, for some reason, girls not from around here) but it turns out that it was rather unnecessary.

Happy Father's Day!

I want to wish a Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there, but especially Matt, Marshall and my dad.




Here's a story that pretty much sums up why my dad is awesome: the other day he comes home from work and just declares, "Well, I'm going to watch True Blood now." How many other fathers try and keep up with the vampire craze?

Who Are You Protecting?

For the past couple of years I have made it a habit to record important sporting events like banner raisings, championship games or Opening Days. I liked to record them just in case something really spectacular or historic occurs. Now, up until this year I just used VHS tapes, because I fear change. But, since it is 2010 and I have the technology, I decided to burn the last two games of this year's NBA Finals directly onto a DVD. This also came in handy because, when the outcome of those games did not go the way that I wanted them to, I was able to delete the games with relative ease instead of trying to find a show long enough to use to tape over the games. While I wasn't going to keep either game I decided that, since I had the set-up ready to go, this would be a good opportunity to condense three or four of my old VHS videos onto one DVD and save myself some space on my shelves. The first couple went onto a DVD without a hitch, but when I went to add a third program onto the DVD I got an error message that said the VHS had "Protected Content" and the recording automatically stopped.

Apparently there is something embedded in the video that prevents it from being copied. I spent the next couple of hours trying to find away to circumvent this safety measure, but so far I haven't been successful. An Internet search revealed that there are ways people have found around it, but none of them are the kind of thing than can be done easily. It's a lot of downloading programs and entering codes, which I'm a little hesitant to do because, let's be honest, you shouldn't just blindly follow direction you find on random websites. The whole process is really annoying because I don't know why this feature even exists. Why else would you buy a DVD recorder unless you were planning to copy some VHS videos? Shouldn't this have already been taken care of? The videos I want to copy are almost a decade old, which makes it even odder that they seemed to have stumped a DVD burner that was made within the last couple of years. I highly doubt the producers of the movies would even care if I copied them at this point. At the end of the day I don't really like any of these shows enough that I couldn't live without them, but I did buy these so I don't want to just ditch them. Who knew that safety measures to prevent video piracy in 2001 would still be effective in 2010? Thank God those same people weren't working with the music industry or else my iTunes library would be a lot smaller.

-I was kind of surprised at the mixed reaction that Manny Ramirez got in his return to Fenway Park last night (well, the announcers said it was mixed but it sounded like more boos than cheers to me). Given the way that most fans were willing to overlook pretty much whatever Manny did during his time in Boston I would have expected overwhelming cheers simply for the fact that the Sox won two World Series with him in the line-up. I mean, Dave Roberts was in town for about 10 minutes, but his ALCS steal has guaranteed him standing ovations every Fenway appearance. Also, for all the back-and-forth that happened between Ramirez and the organization Manny never crossed the line and said anything about the fans. While it was not the cleanest of breaks, he didn't sign with the Yankees like Johnny Damon or burn every bridge on his way out the door like Roger Clemens, so I honestly expected a warm reception for him. Apparently, time has not healed all wounds.

Game 7 Ramblings

I'm not going to bore you with all aspects of the nervous breakdown I was having as the Celtics' lead slipped away slowly like Chinese water-torture. Not to mention, most of the notes I was taking as the game was going on are pretty much illegible anyway. But, here are the ten most pressing thoughts I had while watching the game last night:

-I was very surprised that Christina Aguilera got the call to sing the National Anthem for a second straight game. They must not have had anyone booked, but this is LA. You have to think they have pop stars on-call. She toned back the outfit, but upped the over-singing. 'Wave' was now 15 syllables.

-It took all Finals, but I finally figured out who Derrick Fisher is: he's basketball's Jorge Posada. Yeah, he's a pretty good player, but where he plays suddenly makes every one want to ramp him up to a level he doesn't deserve. If he was still on Golden State he'd never be brought up in any conversations.

-At the very opening of the game ABC showed a somber Kendrick Perkins on the sideline, standing and imploring his teammates. In the background you could see the typical LA douche (over-tanned, over-jeweled) yelling at him to sit down. Sir, this is Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Perhaps you should stand your ass up.

-The TV feed kept showing us Jack Nicholson, as if anyone cares that much. One shot would have been enough. (I will not miss the constant updates about whether or not Jack approves of a ref's call.) Anyway, he had a kid with him wearing a Kobe #8 jersey. If you can afford courtside Laker tickets than you can afford to spend the $75 on a new jersey.

-Another thing I will not miss about this NBA playoffs? All the promos for Grown Ups. You know, I might have been inclined to give it a viewing, but now I'm annoyed with you all, so forget it. This is unfortunate, because they shot part of this movie in Wareham, so I really would have liked to see how Water Wizz looked on film.

-At one point Rasheed Wallace scored on back-to-back possessions down on the low post against Pau Gasol. Mike Breen, calling the game for ABC said something to the effect of, "He's so effective on the low block, it makes you wonder why he spends so much time shooting from the perimeter." (sigh) Welcome to my world, Mike. I've been asking that question for 9 months.

-The halftime show featured a discussion on what another championship would mean for Kobe's overall legacy. Let me save you the time: Great player, top-10 of all-time, not as good as Jordan, bad teammate and an asshole. Those were the facts going into last night and nothing that happened last night changed my opinion of him.

-At one point, when Kobe was something obscene like 3 for 18, Mark Jackson made a Jon Starks reference. I'm willing to bet that was not the comparison Kobe had in mind when this game started. But, again, that's why Mark Jackson is a great announcer.

-Speaking of that terrible shooting, when Kobe was at the line late in the game they showed his stats and he had shot 5 for 21 on the night (Jordan never would have been that bad in a Game 7). Yet the crowd was still chanting M-V-P. Really, LA? I thought you guys were supposed to be knowledgeable basketball fans. That is not an MVP performance. Good basketball fans know when they need to be realistic. Instead, they were just following like sheep. Between that and the rioting like this was their first championship ever, it was not a banner night for Laker fans.

-I think what made this loss extra frustrating was the knowledge in the back of my mind that this could be the end of the run. I don't expect Doc or Ray Allen back and even if Pierce re-signs with the team he's got a lot of miles on those legs. I don't expect much of anything from Wallace next year either. KG should be better another year removed from knee surgery and as long as we have Rondo we'll be competitive, but with no cap room and no young guys waiting in the wings it could be a long time before the Celtics are back in the Finals.

How Bad Is Your Breath?

The other day as I was picking up my dinner, another pair was heading out the door of the same establishment. Next to the register was a small dish with individually wrapped mints in it. I'm not surprised, as this was a fancy Italian eatery which can feature some garlic-heavy food. (Alright, fine, it was a Pizza Hut. But I stand by my garlic statement.) Anyway this woman not only grabbed one handful of mints, but went back with her other hand for a few more. While no one else even seemed to notice, this seemed excessive to me. I don't know what she had just eaten, but unless it was an onion that she had chomped into like the rest of us would eat an apple, I highly doubt it was going to take 15 mints to beat back the smell. I know the mints are free and complimentary, but I still feel like good manners would suggest there is a limit. Just like with the "Take a penny, leave a penny" tray at gas stations, if you have to ask yourself if you are being to liberal with "taking" side of things, then you are. [Sidebar: I think that the limit on taking pennies is three. When you are almost all the way to a nickle then you have taken too many.] From here on out I would like to suggest a four mint limit for any complimentary mint tray. If your breath is still bad after that more mints wouldn't help anyway, so just stop at a nearby drugstore for some mouthwash.

-As someone who has to spend a few seconds every day thinking up a headline catchy enough to pull readers in (and by "in" I actually mean over from Liz's blog, which is where I get roughly 85% of my readers from because she is so much more popular than me), I appreciate any headline that is smart enough to double as a quiz. Today I was checking the headlines on ESPN and it said, "New Jersey Devils' all-time leading goal scorer is new head coach." This immediately made me wonder, "Who is the Devil's all-time leading scorer?" I mean, if I knew that I wouldn't have to click through. Alas, I am not a Devils fan, so I couldn't really even offer an educated guess, but I like the fact that if I were a Devils fan I could know the answer and the rest of the story without having to click through. In this case, knowledge would save you some time. Instead I had to take the time to open up the link to report that it's John MacLean. But, at least when he gets fired in a couple years (because NHL teams go through coaches like the rest of the world goes through Kleenex) I will be ready with the answer when the headline reads, "Devils' all-time goal scorer gets fired."

-Regardless of what you may think of her or her music, you have to give Lady Gaga this - she is versatile. I was driving around the other day and within 15 minutes I heard her song "Alejandro" four times on four different radio stations which had four different formats (Top 40, hip-hop, adult contemporary and 'everything'). Clearly that weird lady reaches a lot of different people. Also, because of this that song has been stuck in my head for two days. If I promise to buy it on iTunes will Lady Gaga make it stop?

-I might have heard one of the stupidest things ever said on television this morning. Watching coverage leading up to the US Open, one of the commentators on the Golf Channel mentioned that Tiger Woods' round might over-lap with the first quarter of the NBA Finals game tonight. He then said, "I'll be interested to see how that [Tiger's round] effects the ratings [of the Finals]." Are you kidding me? Here's a hint: it won't. I assume that the Golf Channel has to pretend that whatever they're covering is the most important event in the history of ever, but let's not try to equate Tiger Woods playing on the first day of a four-day tournament to a do-or-die Game 7 for the NBA Championship between the sport's two flagship franchises. If his round is still going after the NBA game as tipped-off Tiger Woods could start naming all his mistresses in order while he was standing on the 17th tee and only about 4,000 people would notice. I love golf, but let's not get this twisted - they are not on equal footing with the NBA Finals.

Where Is My Wand?

Of all the yard work that one has to do over the course of a summer, mulching might be one of my favorites. I think it has to do with the fact that you get the instant gratification of seeing your work make an area look improved immediately. When you spend hours planting bulbs, the best you can do is stand back and say, "This will all look great in 6-8 months when everything blooms." I find that very unsatisfying. Anyway, I was doing some mulching this afternoon when, as I was trying to climb under a large shrub to make sure the mulch was evenly spread to, a stray branch sort of popped up and scraped me across the forehead. I immediately tried to convince myself it probably wasn't too bad, but when I went to wipe my brow I came away with blood on my sleeve. Still, I couldn't really tell how it truly looked until I got home when, even though I was a good 20 feet away from my mom, she looked in my direction and said, "What happened to your forehead?" Apparently it was noticeable.

A quick look in the mirror revealed an inch-long, vertical scratch pretty much dead center of my forehead. I suddenly wish I didn't keep my hair so short, because a Justin Bieber-like haircut with all my hair pushed to the front would come in handy right about now. The good news is that when you already have a dent in your forehead, a scratch doesn't make that much difference. I'm just going to have to be careful from here on out, because I'm not sure how much more damage I can take in this area. Hopefully the scratch will fade quickly over the next couple of days, but if it doesn't I'll have to make the best of it. Given my glasses and the fact that I'm closer to age with Daniel Radcliffe than he would want to admit, I'm well on my way to a Harry Potter costume for Halloween. Now who's the chosen one, Potter?

-Most of last night's Game 6 completely sucked, however there were two great moments: Christina Aguilera's boobs practically pouring out of her dress (even if she did take 3 minutes to sing the National Anthem by turning "free" into a 14 syllable word) and Mark Jackson commenting on how loud the Laker's crowd was by saying, "We're not accustomed to this much noise in here." That already has the lead for "Backhanded Compliment of the Year" and it's only mid-June.

-As for Game 7, the loss of Kendrick Perkins is going to have a huge impact. We needed him to shove Pau Gasol around and try to clog the lane when Kobe drove to the hoop. The only thing the Celtics have going for them is the fact that Andrew Bynum wasn't moving much better and might not be able to play more than a few minutes, so this may be closer to a wash than we all think. A scenario like this is the exact reason we signed Rasheed Wallace so now he, Glen Davis and even Brian Scalabrine are going to have to step up and try to fill the void on defense. I still think the Celtics can win in Los Angeles, but a hard job just got even harder.

Enough With Interleague

So, the Diamondbacks (and their roving protest) are in town to play the Red Sox this week. With a team like Arizona in town I feel like now is a good time to declare that I have had enough of interleague baseball. Yes, at first it was fun and cool to see all these teams that hadn't played in Fenway Park in my lifetime, if ever. When Barry Bonds played his first game in Boston just a couple years ago it was a game to remember and when the Sox played at Wrigley it was a cool moment. But by now everyone has faced everyone else a couple of times and the novelty has worn off. There is very little buzz this time around as the Sox get ready to face the Giants and Padres. Even a World Series rematch with the Rockies doesn't feel like a big deal this year and if Manny Ramirez wasn't going to be making his Fenway Park return with the Dodgers this week my guess is there would be very little excitement about that series as well. I think baseball fans should get together and let MLB know that while it was fun for a while, we've reached our limit.

I think what killed interleague baseball for me is the lack of the Red Sox having a "natural" National League rival. At first MLB tried to convince us it was the Braves since they used to play here. The problem with that is no one in Boston misses the Braves and it's not like they left under particularly nasty circumstances, so they don't have the making of a rival. More like a guy who used to work with you, but now works in another branch. ("Remember Phil? Oh, I hadn't thought about Phil in ages!") Instead we're now getting the Phillies for two series and as near as I can tell the only reason the Sox and Philles would be rivals is that they are within 300 miles of each other. These fan bases just don't think about each other enough to dislike one other. The most realistic "natural" rival for Boston would be the Mets, but that slot is obviously occupied by the team they share a city with, as it should be. See, that's the problem that MLB is facing - where interleague is good, it's great. Mets/Yankees is almost always entertaining. But where it's bad it really stinks. Those games against the teams that the Sox will only face every couple of years not only lack any real intensity, but due to that lack of urgency they almost feel more like exhibition games than anything else.

I'm sure MLB isn't going to do away with interleague baseball if for nothing other than to keep the Yankees/Mets and Cubs/White Sox series going. But, here's hoping that they at least think about cutting back on the amount of series. (...and games overall. I want to be clear - I am not advocating replacing interleague with another 12 mind-numbing games against the Orioles and Royals.) What about three series a year, one against the "natural rivals" (rotating playing at each other's parks every year) and then pretty much whoever else fits in the schedule for the other two? If nothing else it would put more time between when teams visited each other's parks and might bring some buzz back to the idea. I mean, if a team like the Cardinals only came to Boston twice a decade that would certainly peak some interest. (It should be noted that no amount of time between visits from a team like the Diamondbacks would generate any buzz in this city. Sorry Arizona, nothing personal.) I'm sure the seamheads out there will claim that unless every team from one division plays every team from the same division then there will not be a competitive balance. Well, I have news for those people - there is no competitive balance in baseball. Not as long as teams like the Mets, Yankee, Angels, Sox and Cardinals can simply out-spend everyone to keep their rosters intact. At least this way some games in mid-June would go back to feeling like they matter, not like baseball decided to go back to Spring Training for a couple weeks, which is what it feels like now.

Something Wrong With Your Feet?

Growing up there were some things I just got into the habit of doing and have done them ever since. While that's probably not a bad thing, the flipside is that I tend to be surprised when not everyone I encounter has the same habits as me. [Sidebar: I don't know why I'm surprised because my annoyance at these people makes up roughly 75% of this blog.] Today's example - when I go to pick people up at their house, I always intend to get out of my car and walk to the door to ring the bell or knock. (The best result is when the people see that I have arrived and head out the door before I even have a chance to turn my car off.) But because I always do this, I find the people who just pull up to the house and start honking to be very rude. This morning the guy across the street was apparently supposed to get a ride to work but for whatever reason wasn't ready right away. The person picking them up at first started out with a couple of quick beeps, eventually transitioning to the "shave and a haircut" ditty that we all enjoy, before finally giving up being cute and just leaning on the horn. I don't know what was my neighbor's problem because by that point even I was ready to go.

Now if leaning on the horn is how you want to play it, fine, but you should know it gets especially annoying to every else within earshot when the driver keeps honking after four or five minutes instead of getting out of their car and knocking on the door despite it being rather obvious that whoever is inside can't hear the horn. I think after a couple of quick beeps you have reached your limit. Anything beyond that is starting to push it. I get that when you are picking someone up you have already done them a favor, so for them to expect you to wait for them on top of already driving out of your way is even worse. However, that does not mean that I need to hear you leaning on your horn for five minutes because that is annoying to me and I didn't ask you for any favors. After a couple of minutes of waiting I think it's clear that the next move is getting out the car to knock on the door. While it is an additional duty on the driver at least they can be secure that the person they are picking up now owes them a little something extra for the inconvenience... and also that the person's neighbor isn't about to come out and cut the wires to their horn.

-I had gone back and forth on this story about Abby Sutherland, the 16 year-old girl who was attempting to be the youngest person to sail solo around the world but had to be rescued over the weekend when her ship was damaged after she got caught up in a severe storm. At first I was going to crap on her parents for allowing her to try this, because it seemed like a very high risk scenario for someone so young and you would expect parents to be the voice of reason in this situation. But then I read a very quote from an oceanographer who brought up a valid point - it was the storm that did her in, nothing else. She wasn't inexperienced and she didn't do anything wrong with her handling of the boat. The waves were going to be 40 feet whether she was 16 or 46. Also, the more I thought about it I realised that her brother set the record last year and so she probably grew up in a sailing family. I was coming around on this story. Then this morning I read a story that her family has a reality show lined up. Nope, back to thinking her parents are idiots. I now rope them in with the "Balloon Boy's" parents out in Colorado. Parents shouldn't be putting their kids in harm's way just so they can have 15 minutes of fame.

I'm Seeing Too Much Of You

I have a theory when it comes to movies and cross-promotions: the more of you I see, the more likely it is that your movie sucks. I understand that in this day and age of illegal downloading movie studios have to work harder to convince people to actually go to the theatres and that just drilling the trailers into our brains 100 times a day may not be enough. However, there is a limit to how much I need to see the stars out at other events. Now, I'm not talking about kids movies, because you expect those to be turned into toys and McDonald's Happy Meals. But when you keep seeing the stars a new comedy outside of the entertainment industry it is mostly likely because the people in charge of promoting the movie know deep in their hearts that opening weekend is the only shot they have to make a profit and that once the movie opens word of mouth is not going to be good. So, when I see Kevin James, David Spade, Chris Rock and Adam Sandler sitting courtside at the NBA Finals, comparing the cast to NBA teams on TNT commercials and as the Grand Marshalls of a NASCAR race, in my mind it does not bode well for Grown Ups.

-I understand that Nebraska is a fairly large school with a good athletic tradition. That being said, I don't get why their leaving the Big 12 conference means that the entire thing has to be shut down. As soon as Nebraska announced that it was going to be jumping to the Big 10, six of the remaining Big 12 schools indicated they would likely be joining the Pac-10 (Colorado has already confirmed their defection). This confuses me, because I would think that as long as the Big 12 has Texas they would be ok. I just don't get why they aren't be pro-active and trying to find a couple of schools to keep the conference at the magic number of 12 (which is how many you need to have a conference championship game). Nebraska is good, but they are not irreplaceable and certainly the Big 12 could survive the loss of Colorado. As I suggested a couple months ago, why not go after Arkansas from the SEC or Louisville from the Big East? Just because you lose one of your big schools doesn't mean you have to shut down the show. Hell, Boston College was one of the founding members of the Big East and the conference still trudged on after they jumped to the ACC (how well is up for debate, but still). Frankly, with so many schools based in Texas I would have expected the conference to go down with much more of a fight.

-There is a story out now that World Cup officials may start to prevent people from blowing on those vuvuzela horns for the length of the matches. I'm against this and here's why: those horns are the one thing that the entire world has been able to agree on, maybe in the history of mankind. Those stupid horns are universally reviled and have united countries in a common hatred. In two days of existence everyone has already decided that these horns suck. We are all in agreement. They've done what no amount of peace treaties ever could. And really, isn't that what the World Cup is supposed to do - make us closer as a planet?

World Cup Ramblings

Since the World Cup only comes around once every four years, I figured I should take the opportunity and watch some soccer played at the highest of levels. Plus, the US was playing against England and I love some me some International smack talking against countries that speak the same language. Here are a few thoughts I collected along the way:

-Before the match even started I was bother by the fact that for winning the World Cup you do not even get a cup. It's more of statue. Also, it's kind of small. As my father put it, "You get a bigger trophy for winning a bowling tournament."

-During the pre-game analysis, I have to admit I still didn't care too much who won or lost. But then the analyst from England said something along the lines of, "England expects to win, win easily and win by a good margin." And it was officially on. I wanted the Brits to go down and go down hard.

-Also someone has to explain the "exchanging of gifts between Captains" before the match gets underway. Is it like how grooms are expected to give their groomsmen a small token of their appreciation? The US gave England a flag and received a plaque in return (not sure who gets the better of that exchange).

-If you remember a couple of weeks ago I was commenting on how I've never understood the people who went to a sporting event wearing the jersey of a team not involved in current game. Well, that turns out to be an International thing, because there was a random guy holding up his Honduras scarf at the USA-England game.

-It took all of 2 minutes, but I've decided I don't like the stripe across the torso on the USA jersey. It looks like some kind of beauty pageant reject.

-Have you noticed that soccer goalies seem annoyed when they have to finally do their jobs? Every time either goalie had to step up and actually make a save they immediately got up and started screaming at their defense. Could you imagine a safety in football who got pissed every time they had to make a tackle? It would not last very long, I can tell you that much.

-That was such an easy goal given up by Robert Green that I would assume he owes somebody money. If that's not the case then he still may not want to go home for a while, cause I would also assume his house is presently under assault from hooligans.

-As I tweeted before the match, given the hype there was no way this match was ever going to end in anything but a tie. Really, soccer has a lot of things that American sports fans could get into: lack of commercials, a set time when you know the game is going to get over (the entire game was played in the same amount of time it would take for the Sox to get through 4 innings). However, we just can't get into anything that can end in ties. Even hockey realised they needed to go to shoot-outs in the regular season. We like our sports to have distinct winners and losers.

What Are YOU Doing Here?

After last night's great Celtic win [Sidebar: Doc, I get that you want to reward your bench for their energy and defense, but Tony Allen should never, ever, ever be playing in the final four minutes of an NBA Finals game], I was too wound up to get to sleep right away. Instead I found myself flipping around the dial and searching for entertainment when I landed on Showtime and a show entitled The Green Room with Paul Provenza. The premise of the show is that Provenza, a stand-up comedian, sits around with other comedians and they tell stories about their experiences on the road and the rest of their comedy careers. While I think sometimes comedians can take themselves too seriously when discussing their "craft", this show didn't seem to go too far in that direction. The episode I caught featured some British comic I was unfamiliar with, Eddie Izzard (who I think is great), Larry Miller (who can be funny if given good material) and Drew Carey. It was an interesting enough format, but I found myself wondering exactly why Provenza was the host, because other than the British comedian he was probably the least recognizable person there. In fact, after a quick check of his IMDB page, the only other thing that I would know him from was one episode of The West Wing and the fact that he directed the very good film, The Aristocrats.

This is the second of these comedian-roundtables type of shows I have found where the person hosting is probably the least-famous person there. The other one is called Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen. That show is always on and every time I am confused because I have no idea who the hell Byron Allen is or why he deserves his own show. Allegedly he's a stand-up comedian, but I've seen a lot of stand-ups and I had never heard of him before this show. Now, I get that you wouldn't want to hire an insanely famous comedian to host this type of show because the panel would just sit around, defer to the big star and listen to that one guy talk for a half-hour, but you would think a comedian who has at least done some work to have raised their profile would make a better choice. Instead I found myself wondering why Provenza was talking so much about his career doing gigs on cruise ships, because what exactly is he going to tell Izzard, who has sold out stadiums across the world? Basically, I think when it comes to hosting duties on any show type of talk show the criteria should be this: are you famous enough that you would be invited to be a guest on your own show? If the answer is no then you probably should hand the gig over to someone else.

-Yesterday there was a story making the rounds about the World Cup refs who will be working the England/USA game tomorrow taking English classes just so they know when they are being cursed at. Normally I think this would be ok, because how else are they going to know when it is time to hand out the little yellow cards? But, the problem is that the story doesn't mention them taking classes in any other languages that they could potentially encounter. While I'm sure England and the US will do their fair share of swearing, it comes across as having it out for those two specific teams. Are you trying to tell me that the French and Spanish teams aren't going to curse out the refs at any point? Add this on top of the chief security officer saying that they didn't want the US to make it to the round of 16 due to the security headaches a President Obama visit would cause and suddenly the US's chances for advancement, which seemed high after the group they were placed in, are looking a little in doubt. It almost feels like the fix is in. I guess we should be proud, because maybe this means we are officially a real soccer powerhouse. In years past the US team could be counted on to take itself out, but now World Cup officials are trying to fix the refs to card people up and openly pining for us to be eliminated. We've made it!

Running An OK Thing Into The Ground

When the movie Tropic Thunder came out a few years ago, everyone kept telling me I had to see the film, if for nothing else than the Tom Cruise cameo appearance. I was told his were the funniest scenes of the movie and that Cruise was a comedic genius in this role. Keep in mind this was also when the world started to wonder aloud if Tom Cruise had either gone crazy or had been crazy the whole time and we were just now noticing, so at the time Cruise could use all the good publicity he could get. It was probably the only reason he agreed to it in the first place. Like with the rest of Tropic Thunder, I was under-whelmed with Cruise's performance. At the time, I did not hold this against him; I felt this is mostly due to over-hype. I was told repeatedly how funny this movie was, so I was expecting a laugh a minute. While it was funny, it wasn't that funny. But, in fairness, I'm not sure any movie could have lived up to expectations under those circumstances. So, I moved on and mostly forgot about Cruise's character of Les Grossman.

But, when Cruise made an appearance as Grossman at the MTV Movie Awards (another thing that was hyped as "you won't believe what is going to happen" and then also under-whelmed everyone who watched), you had to know something was up. Tropic Thunder came out a couple years ago now, so why was this character being brought back up? Well, it turns out that the Les Grossman character will be getting his own movie. Cue the heavy sigh. Have these people learned nothing from the vast number of failed SNL character movies? Taking a character that has one dimension (in this case Grossman dances funny and swears a lot) and trying to stretch that in 90 minutes is not going to work. The shock of Cruise in a fat suit is over; now all you're going to have is a guy who swears a lot. Like that shtick won't get really old really fast? The thing is, the character was only a minor part of the story so if he wasn't played by Cruise there is no way they would ever even talk about making the Grossman character into his own movie. I get that Cruise's last couple of movies haven't done that well and his new one doesn't look much better, but trying to coax a feature-length movie out of a character that was on-screen for about 8 minutes is pushing it. Wouldn't a Top Gun sequel be more interesting? How about Days of Thunder in the present day NASCAR setting? C'mon, Cruise, you can do better.

-Count me among those who were bummed out to hear that ESPN was planning to close all but one of its ESPNZone restaurants across the country (the Anaheim location is the only one that will remain open). I had always hoped one would open in Boston, because the burger I got there had to be one of the better burgers I have ever had. Plus, I loved the arcade upstairs. But, I get that they probably weren't worth keeping because people aren't really interested in ESPN memorabilia. Basically, all sports fans want is a place to have good food and a clear line to the TV. There are 50,000 of those places nationwide and the food doesn't cost nearly as much at the majority of them. Still, I had points left on my ESPN Powercard. Now what am I supposed to do with it?

Jocks vs Nerds

For the first time I can remember an early June baseball game, involving two teams that do not even play in the city in which I live, was appointment viewing for me. The Nationals highly-touted prospect, Stephen Strasburg, was making his big-league debut a year after being drafted and thanks to the MLB Network I got to see all of it. After a year of hype I felt almost obligated to see how he would do, even if it would be against the lowly Pirates. He was, in a word, awesome. The game itself was really fun to watch - Strasburg was dealing, the fans were really into in and it was over quickly. [Sidebar: I had forgotten how much fun baseball can be to watch when there are a couple of mediocre, free-swinging teams going against good pitching. I'm used to Red Sox hitters grinding out 19 pitch at-bats, but Strasburg pitched 7 innings and was out of the game within two hours, so I was able to flip over to the start Celtics game before starting line-ups and I never missed one of his pitches. The timing was perfect.] I'm really happy for everyone who is a fan of the Nationals. The only complaint was the announcing team of Bob Costas, John Smoltz and Jim Kaat.

I don't have any problem with how they called the actual game (though Costas did jump to hyperbole on occasion), but more how they talked about the fact that Strasburg was on a pitch count. Both Kaat and Smoltz were pitchers and they spent most of the night complaining about how Strasburg is going to be limited in how many pitches he'll get per game and how many inning he will be allowed to pitch this season. They kept harping on scenarios such as 'what if he's got a no-hitter going' or 'what if the Nationals are in the wild-card hunt'? First off, neither scenario is very likely, so let's all calm down about it. It's along the same lines of 'what if a meteor is heading towards the stadium'? I say we can cross that bridge if we ever come to it. I know that Smoltz and Kaat are old-school players, but their open complaining about the new-school way players are coddled was annoying. It was all just a subtle dig that they think the stat nerds are in charge. Kaat even fell to the old athletes-know-best cliche and wondered if, "whoever is making up these pitch counts has ever toed the rubber."

Look, I get that the new generation of baseball executives can rely too heavily on statistics. And yeah, the analysts are probably right to a degree. A math formula can't tell you every thing there is to know about a guy. On statistics alone you would think Albert Belle is a Hall of Fame player, but if you ever interacted with the guy you know he was actually a clubhouse cancer who shouldn't be allowed near the building. But, the flipside is that having more information you can then use to make a better-informed decision is never a bad thing. With the amount of money the Nationals have invested in Strasburg perhaps it's best to air on the side of caution until they find out if his arm is made of Swiss cheese or titanium. When all these old players-turned-studio talkers just openly dismiss the new wave of statistical analysis it takes on a certain "Get off my lawn, you punk kids!" feel to it. It's the main reason I don't like Joe Morgan. He said he disagreed with everything in Michael Lewis' "MoneyBall" book, but then later admitted he has actually never read the book himself. Just like Tim McCarver was once ranting about how he disagreed with Bill James' idea of how you should treat a closer, only what he thought James said was completely inaccurate (showing he also clearly never read any of James' work) so he was ranting against the wrong position and made himself sound extremely ignorant. The answer, as always, lies somewhere in the gray area in between the extremes of the argument. While statistics can be a nice starting off point, a player should still have to pass the eye test. Also, I think baseball should have more new-school executives on the air and maybe we could have some balance in the discussion.

My Internal Clock Is Broken

Last Friday I was telling someone a story about a guy I used to work with at Gillette Stadium. During the telling of the story I said something along the lines of, "this happened a couple months ago." It was at that moment my friend who was with me pointed out that I haven't worked there for almost two years. I do this frequently, because I have come to realise I have no concept of time when it comes to storytelling. I don't know why this is, as I usually consider myself a stickler when it comes to telling stories accurately and also making sure that others do the same. In addition, I'm very good with being on time and I know how clocks and calendars work. My punctuality is actually a source of pride and so it really doesn't make sense that I am this bad about recounting exactly when something took place in my personal history. But, if it didn't happen within the last week and therefore I can't tell you the exact day, then it all may as well have been years ago. Anyway, I'm trying to be more conscious about it, but until I get to that point I've decided to make up this chart which will help guide you to when the event I'm about to tell you about actually took place versus when I say it did.

"The other day..." = It was probably a month ago.
"A couple weeks ago..." = This happened within the last six months.
"Within the last couple of months..." = This was at least a year back.
"A year or two ago..." = Try more like five years.
"A few years back..." = Right around when I turned 21.
"Five or six years ago..." = It was in the 1990s.
"Several years ago..." = When I was in junior high.
"A while back..." = I was probably 5 five when this happened.
"A long time ago..." = The Mesozoic Era.

There you go. Please print out a copy of this chart to keep with you in the event I have a story to tell.

-Dear Tom Izzo: I'm going to ask you not to take the Cavaliers job, at least not yet. First off, I don't know why you would ever want to leave a good situation at Michigan State to go to a player's league in the NBA. You won't have the power of scholarship over your players like you do now. There is a reason that it's much easier to fire a coach than trade a player at the NBA level. In addition, if you've never coached in the NBA before it makes no sense to take a job where it is title or bust. But, the main reason I don't think you should go to Cleveland is because you don't know what LeBron is going to do. If you want the job at the very least wait until you see what James plans to do this summer. No point in giving up the Michigan State job unless you are sure of who is going to be on the roster. If you don't believe me, ask Rick Pitino whether or not he would have taken the Boston Celtics job if he had known he wasn't getting Tim Duncan. (Allow me to answer that one for you - he wouldn't have.) Trust me, Izzo, the extra money isn't worth the aggravation.

Five From The Weekend

-This weekend was great showcase for sports that were last popular in the 1970s. There was a big horse race, a boxing match in new Yankee stadium and the finals of the French Open. I would rank them in the order of my interest, only I'm not quite sure how to rank negative numbers.

-Speaking of things I have negative interest in seeing, the new Karate Kid movie is opening this weekend. Not that I have a problem with Jackie Chan or Will Smith's kid, but I hope this movie bombs. Maybe then Hollywood will see that they should stop remaking movies that no one had a problem with. Really, there are plenty of terrible movies they could take another crack at before going back and messing with something that was fine the first time around.

-So, I get that Elton John wanted to make a big statement when he performed a duet with Eminem back in the day. Well, he made another statement when he sang at Rush Limbaugh's wedding this weekend for a one million dollars. That statement? Morals be damned - private jets, entourages and personal chefs are expensive.

-Remember a couple of weeks ago when I told you that a company wanted to start selling stock futures based on how they though movies would do on their opening weekends? I really wish that another company would do something similar to that with sports contracts. I could have made a boatload with some "The Brewers will come to regret the Jeff Suppan contract" stock.

-Can we ban together and just agree that the MTV Movie Awards are no longer necessary? I don't know anyone who watched the broadcast and furthermore I don't even know anyone who regrets that decision. At the very least, who wins awards should not be considered news.

It Feels Like Cheating

From what I can tell, HBO must be having a hell of a time getting people to sign up for their channels. This assumption comes from the fact that just about every time we call Verizon Fios, they give us three free months of HBO. We just ended a three month promotional period and yet a couple weeks later we were deemed eligible for another three months free. While there is still nothing on HBO that would make me want to pay for it (I enjoy The Ricky Gervais Show, but not that much), it is nice to have. Anyway, I was flipping through the channels the other night, hoping to catch a movie that hadn't already been shown 100 times, when I stumbled upon a special summary show for the HBO series, True Blood. It was showing everything that happened last season in anticipation of a new season that is beginning shortly. I feel like these kinds of recap shows are very wrong.

Now, I refuse to be sucked into the vampire craze that continues to sweep the nation. I do not want to read the Twilight books and I don't care about True Blood. However, I feel like if I were to start watching the show I would feel compelled by the honor system to go back and watch full episodes from the very beginning. These shows that catch you up on what you have missed to this point are almost a slap in the face to the loyal people who have been watching the show from the beginning. "Hey, I know you sat through the first 26 hours of this show, but I like the new people better. I deem their time as more valuable than yours, so rather than have them sit through the first 26 hours, I'm summing it all up in one. Hope you don't mind." It's almost like a TV version of Cliff's Notes and I was always taught that Cliff's Notes were wrong. I get that they are trying to lure in new viewers, but I've got news for HBO - you've gotten all you're going to get. Everyone knows about True Blood at this point and if they don't, they aren't the kind of people who are going to start watching now. You'd be better off rewarding the fans with a preview show of what they might get to see next season instead of trying to bring everyone who was too lazy to do their homework up to speed.

-Yesterday it was announced that Celtic's assistant Tom Thibodeau will be named as the new coach of the Chicago Bulls as soon as the playoffs are over. While Thibodeau seems like a nice enough guy, I'm really happy that it's already known he's going to be coaching elsewhere next season. With Doc Rivers future up in the air, there was going to be a push from the national media to make Thibodeau the new head coach if Rivers walked. I just don't think he's head coach material. I remember being at a game in January when Doc Rivers got ejected and Thibodeau slid over to take the reigns for the rest of the game. He never made a substitution in the second half and the Celtics lost on tired legs. I'm sure he's a great defensive mind, but we've seen great defensive coordinators make bad head coaches before. I wish him the best and hope he's successful in every game that he doesn't play the Celtics. That being said, I'm just glad he won't be running my team next year.

Maybe They Were Only Asking To Be Nice

Due to his experience filming and operating robots underwater, filmmaker James Cameron was recently asked by BP officials what he would do with the oil spill that is currently killing the Gulf Coast region of the United States. [Sidebar: You know things are bad when people are excited because the last measure has slowed down (not stopped, mind you, just slowed down) the amount of oil pouring into the Gulf every hour.] Well, whatever Cameron told them to do, they didn't want to try and Cameron was apparently very annoyed that they aren't listening to him. Hell, they gave Kevin Costner's idea a chance. Now, I know everyone hates BP right about now, but before we leap to Cameron's side of the issue, I want to know what his idea was. Maybe it was incredibly stupid. Did he just want to CGI some mermaids to attach a new pipe cap? After all, this is the same guy who can only make movies that cost a crapload of money and are all about sizzle, not about steak. (Avatar? Yeah, I enjoyed it the first time I saw it... when it was called FernGully.)

Cameron's annoyance at being ignored reminded me of a guy I used to work with named Joe, who was a miserable prick. I was doing morning-drive traffic reports at the time and this was when the state was finally starting to open the Big Dig, one segment at a time. While every new segment would cause a few days worth of problems as people adjusted to the new routes, there was one segment that when it opened was an especially big annoyance. After crossing the Zakim Bridge heading southbound the highway goes from five lanes to three lanes in about two miles and there are always delays there, even to this day. Anyways, the day it opened Joe was standing over my shoulder and bitching, because bitching was the only thing Joe ever did. Watching the traffic slowly start to back up on the highway, Joe turned to the newsroom and said aloud to no one in particular (we were all busy actually working, as it turned out), "I don't know why they didn't consult with me when they were drawing up the plans." After looking at him to double-check that he was serious (I don't know why I would have thought other-wise, Joe was always serious), I decided I just couldn't take Joe's self-importance anymore. "Maybe it's because you read traffic reports and aren't actually a civil engineer who knows what they are doing," I offered. Joe and I tried to avoid each other as much as possible from then on out.

The point I'm trying to make is this: I joke about various jobs I would like to have, but I'm actually very aware of what I am and what I am not qualified to undertake. Reading traffic reports didn't make any of us qualified to draw up street plans, just like operating an underwater camera doesn't make James Cameron a deep-sea specialist. Cameron is a film-maker, not a drilling expert. Just because he is successful in one business does not mean he should get pissed because people aren't listening to him in a completely unrelated field. A little self-awareness and a little less ego could go a long way for him.

The Perfect Imperfect Ending

A little quick background on this one: Wednesday night, the Detroit Tiger's Armando Galarraga was pitching a perfect game in the 9th inning. (If you don't know what a perfect game is, frankly, I don't know why you would be reading this blog. Just know this - they are rare. There have only been 20 in history.) With two outs, a slow rolling grounder was covered by the Tiger's first baseman, who threw to Galarraga and he tagged first. The runner was out... only he wasn't. First base umpire Jim Joyce called the man safe in what was clearly a bad call. The runner was out by a foot. Galarraga got the next guy out, game over - but no one went home happy. Joyce immediately went back into the clubhouse and saw his mistake, while the rest of the baseball world started calling for increased use of instant replay, the call to be reversed and Galarraga to be awarded a perfect game. Baseball has said since that they will not reverse the call, but they will start to look at expanding the use of replay. Now, I'm not usually a big fan of major league baseball's front office, but in this case I feel like they got it right in not reversing the call.

The problem about reversing the call and awarding a perfect game is that, no matter what the record books may say, it was not a perfect game and everyone with eyes knows it. There was a 28th batter and a man on base when the final out was recorded. Yeah, he shouldn't have been there, but he was. This is what happens when you're sport has to be dragged kicking and screaming into the technology age. Replay should have already been in place, but it wasn't and Armando Galarraga is the guy who has to pay for that. Sucks for him. And I feel worse for him because he handled it so well: he didn't yell and scream when the call was made; instead he half-laughed and smiled about it. He told Joyce it was ok because no one was perfect and Galarraga even threw his arm around Joyce when he brought the line-up card to home plate the next day. Hell, the fans even handled it well by giving Jim Joyce an ovation for how quick he was to admit his mistake. Everyone in the situation conducted themselves with class and dignity. That should be enough. I know that everyone wants everyone to take home a trophy these days, but this is the major leagues - stuff happens. I just hope this shows baseball that maybe it's time for them to enter the age of technology.

-I have to laugh at all the people who think that Tom Brady and the Patriots aren't going to get a contract extension done. The national sports talk show hosts are falling all over themselves to declare that Brady and the Patriots' relationship will soon be over and Brady will end his career in another uniform like Namath, Montana and Unitas before him. Let's all calm down. First off, it's June and Brady still has another year on his contract. There is time to get this done. Secondly, are these people new at this? Have the Patriots under Belichick ever gotten a contract extension done easily? They made Vince Wilfork fight for every last cent on his deal and Bill has said he's the best defensive lineman he's ever coached. It's just their way - they don't hand out money and contracts quickly or without a lot of back and forth. Now, a lot of guys out there hang on for a couple years too long and sign with other teams in a last ditch effort to stay in the league (Patrick Ewing with the Magic), so I'm not going to sit here and say Brady will never wear another uniform. But, I personally would be stunned if Brady didn't play at least a few more years in New England before that happened.