The Only Oscar I Cared About

In the interest of full disclosure, I didn't watch one second of last night's Oscar telecast. Like every other awards ceremony, I preferred to simply read the recap. In this day and age if anything newsworthy happened it would have been on the Internet within the hour and I don't care what people were wearing, so reading the post-mortem this morning I got all the facts while still saving hours of my life. (We'll have forgotten who won by June anyway.) Besides, this year seemed to be one of the least-suspenseful programs in a few years. Other than Best Picture, which was still just a two-horse race, all the major acting awards appeared to be predetermined. The only thing left was to see how bad these actors are at improvisation as they tried to convince us they never thought they could possibly win this award, even though they have been cleaning up at award shows for the better part of two months.

However, there was one Oscar where I was truly interested in the outcome - Best Adapted Screenplay. And I was extremely pleased to see Aaron Sorkin win for "The Social Network". I had feared that, given the way it had been piling up trophies throughout award season, people would have gotten sick of it winning time after time and given the Oscar to someone else, just for a little variety. But, thankfully, that wasn't the case. I know that some people look down on the Adapted Screenplay category, thinking of it only as glorified editing. "The story is already written, all you have to do is add stage directions," they say. Those people are stupid. (Do you like how I both created and dismissed characters in two sentences?) There is a lot more that goes into it than that, but that is not why I wanted Sorkin to win. I admire writing that A. makes me care about something I normally wouldn't and B. is produced under pressure.

Here's the thing about this movie: I hate Facebook and I still loved it. I don't have a Facebook page and loathe the people who look at me like I have three heads when I tell them I don't. But, the writing for this was so amazing I was willing to overlook all that. Whether you like it or not, that website is changing the world and this script managed to capture that fact. But the main reason I thought it was the best screenplay of the year is because I think people sometimes forget just how hard it is to write about something that is world-altering while it is still going on. It is easy to write a meaningful and thought-provoking piece about a subject when you have the perspective that comes with the passage of time. But to capture the importance of an event as it is happening and turn it into a good, well-written story is damned impressive.

When studios try to rush a script into production to capitalise on something in the news, it is like trying to catch a wave before it crashes; it's a delicate balancing act. Move too quickly and the script is going to be bad. (See: Almost every Lifetime television movie ever made). But wait too long and it doesn't matter how well-written the script is, people will have moved to the next news cycle. (See: "Fair Game". It was a good story, but by the time it came out Bush II was out of office. At that point the way this country works it may as well have been about Lincoln.) If you can do it, you would rather be ahead of the wave than after it. Think about it like this: what made the movie "Rounders" so great was that it was a good, carefully-crafted movie that just happened to be about Texas Hold 'em. Therefore, when the Texas Hold 'em craze hit a couple years later the movie had a second life because it was a good movie and not just because of its subject matter. On the other hand, all the movies that were rushed into production at the time specifically to cash in on the Texas Hold 'em craze were God-awful because they were hastily-written. Big difference.

With the screenplay for "The Social Network" Sorkin managed to do both. He put out a great script and did it in a timely fashion. All writing projects have some kind of deadline, be they self or client-imposed, but I imagine that writing this particular screenplay was like having a giant clock hanging over his head. If he took too long then Facebook could be just another footnote in history. (How many MySpace movie scripts do you think have been scrapped in the past two years? Something tells me the people adapting "Winter's Bone" didn't have that kind of pressure on them.) So, it needed to be done quickly but it also couldn't suck. And, oh yeah, it's not an action movie so there was going to be more dialog than 90% of the screenplays out there. Again, a lot to do and not a ton of time to do it in. Deadline writing can really only go one of two ways: either you carve a masterpiece under the pressure or it's eh (and eh = complete shit to most writers). If you saw "The Social Network" (and if anyone asks, I totally saw it in a theatre) then you know which way Sorkin went. I'm just glad the Oscar people agreed with me.

A Moving Interlude

This week was all about making moves. The NBA trading deadline was Wednesday, during which a bunch of trades were made, and many NHL teams made a trade this week in anticipation of that sport's trading deadline, which is tomorrow. Basically, it was either make a move or watch as someone you are in competition with did. If that's the case, then you know what to do...

A PSA PSA

Because college radio stations get their broadcasting signals and licences free from the FCC, they aren't allowed to play any commercials to make money. Instead, they are required to play a few minutes of public service announcements an hour. Back when I was in college, every couple of months a fresh CD of PSAs would arrive in the mail containing various celebrities talking about things like preventing wildfires and making sure you recycle. The problem was that some of these people really pushed the limits of the word 'celebrity.' It was never a pop star with a hit song or an actor with a new movie coming out. A lot of the time it was a former TV actor desperate to find an addition minute of fame or an aging rocker who still had a few hours of community service to fulfill.

Since the average age of the people doing these PSAs was pushing 90, on more than one occasion upper 'management' (another word I use very loosely) had to meet and decide what we would do with the PSAs of someone who had passed on. This became quite the pressing issue when a new CD arrived featuring five different PSAs by John Denver, who had passed away a year earlier. Normally it wouldn't have been an issue, but I remember reading the listing and he was the most recognizable name on the CD. Essentially, it came down to an issue of famous dead versus unknown living. Ultimately, it was decided that we wouldn't play PSAs of anyone who was dead because it was A. disrespectful B. creepy and C. very distracting. We figured that anyone listening would spend the entire 30 seconds saying to people around them, "Isn't that person dead?" instead of thinking about saving polar bears.

The thing is, if a group of idiot 19 year-olds who weren't even getting course credit could figure that out, I have to question the wisdom of the people in charge of the charity I came across the other night. It was about 1 AM when I looked up from whatever murder mystery show I was watching and saw the smiling face of former Designing Women star, Dixie Carter. Before I could even utter, "Isn't she dead?" a graphic showing 1939-2010 appeared on the small side of the screen. Now, you might think the acknowledgement would stop my mind from wandering and concentrating on the disease she was trying to raise money for, but it didn't. Instead, now I couldn't stop wondering why this charity needed to keep running this ad. Did they make it right before she died and therefore couldn't afford to not run it? Did she die of this disease? Is the charity doing so poorly they couldn't afford to produce another PSA?

Well, thanks to Wikipedia I managed to get some answers. Carter shot the ad in 2003 and the charity started to re-air it following her death. I actually think that may be worse. Frankly, I'd rather the charity be broke then trying to stir up interest in their fundraising by using a celebrity's recent death. However, I also hope that it serves as a warning to any celebrity who films a PSA thinking it will run for a couple of months and then disappear: choose your charity wisely, because that commercial just might end up lasting a lot longer than you will.

I Hope He Has A Plan

As a person who doesn't like change, I am never a fan when my teams make moves at the trading deadlines, regardless of the sport. There are a lot of moving parts and since the deadline comes during the middle of the season, by this point I have usually come to like the players involved. Therefore, when the Celtics made a flurry of moves before 3 o'clock yesterday, my initial instinct was to be unhappy. To recap: first they traded Nate Robinson and Kendrick Perkins to Oklahoma City for Jeff Green, Nenad Kristic and a draft pick. Then they shipped Luke Harangody and Semih Erden to Cleveland for a second round draft pick (meaning they gave them away) and ended the day by shipping Marquis Daniels to Sacramento for straight cash. When they were first announced I was not happy, but I decided to wait a few hours, take a step back and think the moves through. After doing all that... I still hate the trades.

To be fair, it is just one move I really, deeply hate. The Marquis Daniels move doesn't effect the team, because he wasn't playing again this season with an injury. And the shipping out of Semih and Luke only bothers me as a Notre Dame man, not for any basketball reasoning (and no, the potential signing of Troy Murphy does not soften the blow). Even if they had simply let Nate Robinson go I would have been ok, but the trading of Kendrick bothers the hell out of me. For the entire offseason, the mantra was that "Had Perk not blown out his knee, we would have won game 7. This group deserves the chance to see what they can do when everyone is healthy." I was totally on board with that logic, which is why getting rid of him makes no sense. This team won its Championship on the strength of rebounding and tough defense and trading Kendrick makes the Celtics weaker in both those areas. And I'm not alone in thinking this. Reports are members of the Bulls and Heat were thrilled to hear Perkins is now in the Western Conference, which should tell you all you need to know about how smart this deal is.

There were reports the team doubted they would be able to re-sign Perkins following this season, but frankly I think an 18th Championship would trump those concerns. Also, who knows how the NBA financial picture is going to look following the lockout (which is coming). Besides, Kendrick took a below-market deal last time and there are no indications he was going to demand a ludicrous deal, just closer to fair market value which, honestly, the team owed him. To trade him because of what might happen feels short-sighted. The Celtics biggest advantage going into the season was a glut of big men and in one day the Celtics shipped out their starting center, third center and third forward. There goes that advantage. Now they have to actively hope Shaquille and Jermaine O'Neal can come up big in June, two players who haven't been healthy at the same time yet this year. Awesome.

I'm also concerned about what this is going to do to team chemistry, which is crucial in basketball. It doesn't matter if two guys on a football team don't like each other, because that is two in a group of sixty. But, the small roster size makes it incredibly important in basketball and by all accounts this Celtics team really liked each other. Reports out of the locker room yesterday said Perk spent the day crying, the veterans were furious at the trade and Rajon Rondo (Perks best friend) was walking around in a zombie-like state all day. As such, it was no wonder they came out in a daze for last night's game in Denver, which they eventually lost. For a guy like Danny Ainge, who played a very long time in the league and should know how important chemistry is, to ignore something like that has me really concerned.

And that, I think, is the heart of why I don't like these moves: even though he put together a team that won a title, I still don't fully trust that Danny Ainge knows what he is doing. If you take a moment to think back through his tenure, it is a litany of bad drafts (Marcus Banks) and missed player signings. (Stephon Marbury, anyone?) Even the announcement that Ainge was taking over as President of the team was poorly-timed as he did it right before a critical playoff game where he announced major roster changes were coming (the Celtics lost that night). Basically, he's had the Allen trade (where he gave up the rights to Jeff Green) and the Garnett trade (which people still doubt he could have pulled off if a former teammate wasn't on the other end), and after those he was able to sit back and let the free agents come to him. I'll give him credit for acquiring all the young pieces needed to make those moves but much like I question how good Doc Rivers would be coaching a group of young players, I question if Danny would still be in the job without McHale to basically hand him KG.

Now, I'm not jumping ship and I'm sure the first time Green scores 25 point I'll be thrilled, but that doesn't mean I won't miss Perk as a player and a person. And if Dwight Howard scores 50 points on us after Shaq fouls out in 20 minutes during a big playoff game, Danny should expect to be flooded with 'I told you so' emails.

You Use It? Then I Won't

Back in the day, it was very common to see companies use a big celebrity to hawk their product. The thinking was that ordinary people want to be famous actors and musicians, but also probably know that using the same skin care products is as close as they are going to get. And, for a while, this worked. However, as actors and musicians began to see being a spokesperson as an affront to their credibility, they became more and more reluctant to appear in commercials (at least in this country). Because no one wants to give an Oscar to the person who was selling detergent just a couple months back, being in commercials was seen as a career liability. As a result, the only people who were still willing to appear in commercials were less talented (because they had nothing to lose) and they were less credible. This is why today we have people like the Kardashians, whose only talent appears to be being themselves, selling products on infomercials.

The byproduct of actual celebrities being hesitant to appear in commercials lead to the evolution of product placement in movies. Sure, Tom Cruise the actor might not want to film a commercial for Mountain Dew, but Tom Cruise as Cole Trickle was more than happy to have his character drive a race car with a Mountain Dew logo on the front. To the company this was just as good as Tom Cruise filming the ad himself and they didn't even have to spend a day filming it. Everyone came out ahead. And, you know what? I was fine with that. I definitely preferred a movie character talking about how much they liked Pepsi to the new trend I see in commercials, which is to use un-named actors and make them the biggest jerks on TV.

There have always been jerks in commercials, but most of the time they are the antagonist, used only as a means to show how much better the people who used the specific product were. However, at some point it changed. The first one that springs to mind is this commercial for SoBe LifeWater which came out last year:

It appears the message of this commercial is that people who drink SoBe are douchebags. (And also big fans of LSD.) Um, I'm sorry, but who told you that would make anyone want to drink your water? I don't want anything in common with that guy.

Then, over the holidays, I saw this ad roughly 4,000 times:

It reminded me of an old Bill Cosby bit about people who smoked pot saying it enlarged their personalities. Cosby then wondered "Well, what would happen if you were an asshole? Wouldn't that just make you a bigger asshole?" That's what this commercial makes me think - people who have Sprint are rude, only through Sprint's network they can let people know just how rude they are faster than on Verizon. Not exactly a selling point, if you ask me.

Then, there is this one:

I hate this ad. HATE IT. And, because I watch the Golf Channel a lot, I have to deal with it constantly. The obnoxious guy didn't even hit the drive, making him all that more annoying. I don't want to use your golf balls, in fact I don't want to use anything associated with this commercial, I just want to take that man and beat him to death with a 9-iron.

Advertisers of the world, I beg of you: stop doing this. I don't know who started this trend, but I assure you there is a better way to sell your various products. Look at beer advertisements, they haven't changed since the beginning of time: fun party, hot girl, beer, end with a joke. Done. And if you can't afford a real celebrity to be in your ad, there has to be some once-famous actor who needs the money. I would rather see a Hilton sister trying to sell me golf equipment than that guy.

More Mid-Week Sporties

-Just one day after I used this space to complain about the New York Knicks taking 8 months to finalise a deal we all knew was coming, their cross-river neighbors, the New Jersey Nets, pulled off a huge deal with almost no warning or fanfare. They traded their starting point guard and power forward along with a couple of first-round draft picks to Utah for point guard Deron Williams. (Gut-reaction analysis: New Jersey gave up too much. I know Williams is a great point guard, but he's only effective when he has people who can score to pass to and the Nets don't have anybody that fits that description. It would be like me using all my savings to put a home theatre down at the beach house.) So, while I don't love the deal, I do love that they got it done in a day.

-What makes this deal extra interesting is that just a couple weeks ago longtime Utah coach Jerry Sloan quit the Jazz, reportedly over a power struggle with Williams. At the time both parties tried to downplay the fight, but if Sloan suddenly decides to come out of retirement it will go a long way to letting us know just how bad that fight really was. At the very least it tells me that Utah had decided Williams was not going to re-sign when his deal expired after next season. If that is the case you have to respect their decision to cut ties now, rather than go through what the Nuggets just went through with Carmelo Anthony.

-There are reports that the Sacramento Kings are threatening to relocate to Anaheim. This is too bad, because the Kings are one of those teams I root for as long as they aren't playing the Celtics. I pull for those teams in NBA-only cities. Plus, I don't think Southern California really needs three NBA teams, so I'd rather they stay put. However, if the Kings are absolutely going to move I would like to see them either go back to the city they left (Kansas City) or one of the other places that previously had NBA teams but couldn't sustain them because of ownership (Seattle or Vancouver). Sure, the TV markets are nearly as big, but at least they wouldn't be the smallest fish in an increasingly crowded pond.

-Speaking of Kansas City, Royals reliever Joakim Soria would like people to stop referring to him as 'The Mexicutioner' because he thinks the name is in bad taste considering the sweeping violence in his native Mexico. Well, I have good news for Soria: the name should be pretty easy to shake, because I have heard exactly zero people ever call him that. Also, the Royals have a pretty small fanbase and it's not a short nickname, so something tells they will only have to convince 10-15 people to call him something else.

-Last night the Caltech basketball team won their first conference game in 311 tries or, if you're the kind of person who prefers dates for perspective, 26 years. 310 straight conference losses is an amazing number, so here's my question: Every day dozens of collegiate sports teams (most of them better than this one) are cancelled in a move to save the school some money, so how has this team survived? I'm sure that no one expects Caltech to make a deep NCAA tournament run every year, but it's not like they are in the ACC either. They should have been able to steal a win at some point in the past two decades. I know basketball costs less than most sports, but you have to think the money used to send the Beavers to play other nerd-centric institutions would have been better spent on a particle accelerator or extra slide-rules.

I'm Just Happy It's Done

Everyone has a breaking point when it comes to hearing about the same thing over and over again. Of course, the first time you hear something new you are interested and want to learn more. But, I don't care how sympathetic you are to the person or their plight, there comes a time where you just can't listen to it anymore. Whether it's a person whining about their mean boss or bragging about how much money they made last year, at some point you just want them to either shut up or find a second topic. Now, the exact amount of time before someone snaps can vary from one individual to another but I think it averages out to around two months, depending on how much you talk to a particular person. Therefore, seeing as how the speculation about whether or not Denver Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony would end up with the New York Knicks has been dragging on since August, it is no surprise that America had enough of this story weeks ago. Because of this, when news came down late last night a trade was finally done and Anthony was a Knick people weren't particularly happy, sad or excited. Instead, they seemed just be relieved that there was finally something else to talk about.

The main reason this story annoyed sports fans so much was that we always knew it would end this way. There are few things in life more annoying than knowing the ending to a story by page 100 yet having to read through another 600 pages to get there. Anthony said months ago his preference was to be traded to New York, hinting that he wouldn't sign an extension with anyone else and effectively killing any leverage the Nuggets had. No one would offer an acceptable package of players and draft picks knowing Anthony might just be a rental, so the Nuggets were going to have to take what the Knicks were offering or watch as Carmelo walked away this summer and they ended up with nothing. Sure, there were a couple of moments where it looked like the Nuggets were going to find a third team to get involved, but ultimately we all knew how this was going to turn out. To drag it out this long was just cruel and annoying. All that has happened with these prolonged talks was that people who weren't fans of either team have begun to hate the Nuggets for stalling, Carmelo for being passive-aggressive about privately demanding a trade while not being man enough to publicly come out and say 'I will only go to the Knicks' which would have ended all the speculation, his wife for allegedly being the driving force behind his desire to go to New York (she's a former MTV VJ and reality TV star) and the Knicks for not being willing to simply pay the going rate for a top-15 NBA player. Everybody went down a few notches when they didn't have to.

-Since we're here, I guess we should talk about whether or not this trade makes the Knicks any better. Eh, kinda. They now have two very-good-to-great players and in today's NBA that should easily get you into the playoffs, if not the second round, and that is better than people expected. However they also have no depth and a real size deficiency. They also play no defense and I'm not a huge fan of their coach's style of running-and-gunning. Basically they could pose a match-up problem against the right team (like the Celtics) but, much like Oklahoma City against the Lakers last year, they would only be annoying enough to extend a series to five or six game, not eliminate a good team. So, they're better, but not Championship-caliber. In the long term they could still improve, though I wonder if they will be able to afford anybody else. They pretty much mortgaged their future by trading any young, cheap players they had in this deal, so the only people they can get now are unproven guys or old, expensive veterans another team is looking to offload. Basically, if they can get a third star to team with Stoudemire and Anthony they could be good, but if they can't they may be in trouble. Anthony has already shown he couldn't even get to the Finals with a Denver team had a better supporting cast than he has now and I still wonder if the Knicks will regret giving Stoudemire a long-term deal considering his knees are questionable. I'm sure this trade will sell a lot of jerseys and fill a lot of seats, but I'm just not sure this moves makes the Knicks much better. One thing I do know? It certainly wasn't worth this much discussion.

Making It Up As They Go

For the past two days Massachusetts had been warned that a storm was a-comin'. It wasn't going to be bad, you see, just 5 or 6 inches and therefore no one around here seemed particularly concerned about it. We hadn't had snow in a couple of weeks and the time away from our shovels had served as a nice opportunity for people to recharge their winter batteries. Plus, we had just come off a week of temperatures in the mid-50s and bright sun so there had been a lot of melting, which meant we finally had a place to put any additional snow. Not to mention, this storm was even coming on a holiday so it wouldn't mess up too many people's commutes. Therefore, while none of us were happy at the thought of snow re-covering our finally-back-to-pavement driveways, it was about as good a scenario as we could get. But then I awoke this morning to find it could actually get better. There was only an inch of snow on my driveway and the sun was fighting to get through the clouds. I thought maybe the big snow was coming later in the day, but it's not - we missed it. We basically got enough to cover all the dirty snow in a fresh coating of white and that's about it. As I type this most of the snow on pavement has melted away, my driveway is simply wet and I didn't even have to lace up my boots.

The funny thing about this was that while no one was mad the weathermen were wrong, they still felt the need to spend the morning trying to cover their collective asses; talking about shifting winds late at night and warm fronts coming out of nowhere. Frankly, it sounds like they are just throwing out any excuse they could think of. It reminded me of a story from Johnny Most's memoir about a colleague who was calling a football game on radio (even before TV) in which the team had two stud running backs, one wearing #32 and the other wearing #33. Late in the game one of them broke through for a long run and the announcer couldn't see the number, so he guessed it was number #33. About thirty yards later he finally saw that it was actually #32. Rather than apologize and just admit to the listening audience he couldn't see the number at the start of the run, but knowing anyone checking the boxscore later would see the other guy's name, the announcer told the people listening that #33 stopped and lateraled the ball to #32, who then took it in for the touchdown. Even though it wouldn't have really matter which player scored the announcer still felt a need to cover his ass with a made-up story. (This is also why drinking is no longer allowed in press boxes.)

Since radio-only sports broadcasts are officially dead, it got me to thinking about how weathermen are one of the few professions in which people can make up excuses after the fact that the rest of us aren't in a position to question. I certainly don't know enough about weather patterns to question what they say and shifting winds sound real enough to me. In fact, I think the only people who can get away with this besides weathermen are science fiction writers. Think about it: you point out a huge hole in their story's plot and they can just make something out of thin air to fill that hole and, because they are writing about a make-believe world, it doesn't even have to make sense:

"So at the end of your story the main characters are surrounded by lava? How are they getting home?"
"Uh... Eagles? Yeah. Giant, plane-sized eagles are gonna come by and pick them up."
"Alright, sounds a little bizarre to me. But I guess it's just as plausible as winds shifting overnight and a warm front coming out of nowhere."

Hail To The Chiefs

So, tomorrow is President's Day, where I believe you are supposed to take a day off to shop for cars and mattresses. Anyway, I was going to use a song by the band The Presidents of the United States of America but in looking up their old videos I was struck by just how God-awful they were. I had remembered them more fondly. In retrospect it is amazing they ever had success. Honestly, listen to the songs "Peaches" now and it sounds like something that would appear on a children's show. And they were Grammy nominees. Clearly we, as a nation, had horrible taste in 1996.

Instead, we're going with a song about the line of actual Presidents of the United States of America. Obviously I picked it because when you think of this blog, education is what comes to mind. Now, it ends at Clinton, so you can tell it is a few years old, but if you would like I'm sure you could come up with your own lyrics for Bush II and Obama.

What Took So Long?

It is often said that the best inventions are the most obvious. While these products never seem to be the kind that fix big problems, they are the ones that make life just a little more convenient. They are also the ones that make you take a step back and think either, "Why didn't I think of that?" or "How come no one thought of that before?" After all, most of us couldn't dream of a way to improve a medical procedure, but we could have come up with a blanket with sleeves if we sat down and put our mind to it. Well, that can also be said about some simple technological advances that don't even require a new product. You find a website or a computer program that includes a tweaked feature you would have been using for years and you think, "How come this is just getting to me now?" This week I had that thought twice in the span of about ten seconds.

As you know, I love a good podcast. Well, a couple days ago I was listening to one based in Washington, D.C. and they were discussing the new NCAA TV deal. The old system just had one channel showing the games and left it up to the director's discretion to decide what game to focus on before bouncing between games as they get close/interesting (the director also got to decide what constituted 'interesting'). But the new deal will allow all the games to be broadcast over four stations and space the games better so there will be less over-lapping of early games ending and others beginning. The idea was that this way every single game can be seen in its entirety and those smaller schools that will probably not make it out the first round will still have their moment in the spotlight for all the alumni to see. The main question is, why is this just becoming possible in 2011? We've had cable, satellite dishes and systems with thousands of channels to work with for years now and the broadcasters are just figuring out that people might want to watch every single game of the NCAA tournament and do so without handing over control of the remote to some anonymous control room person in New York, who never seems to focus on the one game we really want to watch? This was a long time in coming.

In that same discussion they were talking about one of the channels that will show games, TruTV. The host of the podcast wasn't sure if he even got that channel and even if he did, he had no idea where it was on his guide. The co-host mentioned that he probably got it and then gave a list of channel numbers depending on various cable provider. He mentioned where it would be if you had Verizon Fios (which is what I have), but I figured that since they were based in D.C. it wouldn't be the same for me. But, on a whim I checked it out and sure enough, it was the same number. Apparently, if you have Verizon Fios, the channels are the same no matter where you live in the US. This is another thing that was a long time coming. It was always irritating to go and visit someone who lived just one town over, yet had completely different channel numbers. I always hated having to hunt for ESPN. I'm glad someone finally figured out that if you can have one cable provider all over the world, you can have the same cable channels in the same spots. Like I said, it's just one of those stupid little conveniences that make life easier. It's also why I refuse to be friends with people who have Comcast.

An Act Of Tree-son

A couple of weeks ago, a man called into an Alabama sports talk radio station claiming that following the Iron Bowl (the annual meeting between the University of Auburn and Alabama, won this season by Auburn), he went to the campus of Auburn University and poisoned the famous 130 year-old oak trees at Toomer's Corner. Then, just in case you were wondering why someone would do such a thing, he ended his call with "Roll damn Tide." Horticulturists at Auburn conducted tests on the soil and found that the trees had, in fact, been poisoned. They say that the trees will most likely die within a couple of months and even if they don't die, they will still be severely damaged. After the tests were concluded, police managed to go back and trace the call to the radio station, ultimately arresting a 62 year-old man. According to this guy's Facebook page (really, if you're going to commit a crime, erase your page first) he used to work for the Texas State Police, has a daughter named Crimson and a son named Bear. Clearly, he's a little obsessed with the Crimson Tide. What is not apparent from the page is whether or not he actually went to the University of Alabama, but I would bet against it.

I don't know why this story bothers me so much, but it does. I guess it has to do with the fact that one whack job has decided to mess with an entire group of people's tradition and as a man who both has his own traditions and respects other people's, it really gets to me when someone doesn't. And while I'm all for a little hazing of a rival, this is more than just causing some property damage by stealing a statue or mascot costume - these things are going to be gone forever. You see, Toomer's Corner is where students gather after big victories. It's part celebration, part bonding. I used to know a girl who went to Auburn and she always talked about how special a place it was, saying once that she wanted to have her wedding pictures taken under the trees. Clearly, if you went to Auburn this is about a lot more than just a couple of oak trees. (Although, ESPN, you're starting to press your luck with this story. Let's not make this into a national tragedy on par with the death of a human.) Another reason this seems ridiculous is that I've always been a guy who believes in measured responses. Reportedly what angered this man so much was an Auburn fan placing a Cam Newton jersey on the statue of Bear Bryant. Feels like he went way overboard with the retaliation. If someone does something to you which ranks as a one on the hazing scale, your response does not need to be a twelve.

So far the man has only been charged with a few minor crimes, though he could face more should the trees actually die. And, with an on-air confession on tape, it could be tough to prove he is innocent. (Though you have to question if he would even want to plead not guilty, as from the audio clip I head he seemed pretty pleased with himself.) Oh, and this afternoon his road to freedom got a little harder when his public defender asked to be removed from the case. You see, the lawyer has a slight conflict of interest - he happens to be a part-time professor at Auburn. I guess removing yourself is a better than the alternative of just giving the man sub-par legal advice or pleading guilty to a bunch of crimes he didn't even commit. That would be some world-class rival hazing.

It Won't Be Back

For the past three nights, a super computer name "Watson" had been competing on Jeopardy against two of the game's most successful former contestants. Not surprisingly, the computer was kicked ass. This lead to a few million people jumping to jokes about computers becoming self-aware like in Terminator and a rise of machines that will soon take over the planet. However, watching a clip of the show later revealed it wasn't that the computer was so much smarter than the two humans, just faster on the clicker. So basically, computers only know as much information as the people in charge of programming decide to share with them, but they are more than happy to spit that information back at us quickly and act like they are smarter than us. They're kind of like first-year Philosophy majors that way.

Oh, and it should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway: don't listen to this clip at work.

Mid-Week Sporties

-Just one day after the conspiracy theory concerning NASCAR allegedly rigging qualifying so that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. would win the pole went world-wide (meaning ESPN even mentioned it), Junior goes out and wrecks his car in practice, meaning he'll start from the back of the pack. While you and I might assume that means it is now a dead issue, crazy has a way of powering through logic in certain people. Now those same people are saying he intentionally wrecked the car because too many people caught on to the conspiracy. Sure, because slamming a car into a cement wall at 250 mph is a much better alternative to being caught cheating.

-Speaking of cheating, I'm not sure how to digest the news that both basketball star Diana Taurasi and cyclist Alberto Contador were cleared of their failed tests for performance enhancing drugs in two separate incidents this week. Either they both ate tainted food, meaning I should never eat anything from Europe, or those lab technicians are idiots. If it's the second one, athletes can just start taking whatever substance they want because now they can point to those two and blame the lab should they ever pop positive. The idea that guys have a built-in excuse to start blatantly doping again concerns me. But, on the plus side, we're back to seasons with 70+ homeruns and chicks dig the long ball.

-Yesterday, Celtic great Bill Russell was awarded the Congressional Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama, the highest achievement a civilian can receive. During the speech, Obama mentioned he hoped the city of Boston would build a statue to Russell. Let me just say I am on board. Seriously, 11 Championships and he's got nothing around here -it's bullshit. Ted Williams didn't win jack and he got a tunnel.

-Albert Pujols picked an arbitrary cut off date of noon today to end negotiations with the Cardinals and the deadline passed without the two sides reaching an agreement. His agent says that he will not talk to the Cardinals again until November when Albert hits free agency. Now, I get why Albert wouldn't want to keep talking, because it would distract him from playing baseball, but what the hell else does the agent have to do? Is he really that busy for the next 9 months? So, this agent pretty much tried for three weeks to hammer out a new deal, now he's taking most of the year off and after that he'll sit back and wait for the offers to roll in (still not doing any real work) and for the combined month of work, he'll get 10% of the $300 million deal Pujols will eventually sign. I should have been an agent.

-Last night Hickory, a Scottish deerhound, won Best In Show at the Westminster. (Alright, most people don't consider dog shows a sport, but I needed a fifth.) Judging from pictures, I would assume she has a great personality. Now, I'm sure she is very well-bred and a lovely dog. However, normally there is a big run on the breed of dog that wins this event and all I'm saying is I don't expect to see people rushing out to bring one of these home. Give me an English bulldog any day of the week.

A Conspiracy Busted

I always like conspiracy theories, because I love a good laugh. This week people are convinced that NASCAR rigged the qualifying for the Daytona 500 so that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. would be on the pole for the race marking the 10th Anniversary of his father Dale's death. Now, NASCAR has a history littered with examples of allegedly rigged storylines that, if true, would make professional wrestling proud, so this is not the most far-fetched idea you're ever going to find on the Internet. Plus, if you were going to rig something, this would be the event and the place to do it - it would be pretty easy to give Junior a funky restrictor plate so his car had more horsepower and then simply have the race official look the other way. Also, qualifying means very little in the grand scheme of a race this long and no points are awarded for winning the pole so no one really gets hurt in the season-long championship run. Basically, this would be a PR move more than anything else, which makes it slightly more possible. Even some of the driver's remarked that this seems to have all fallen into place really conveniently.

However, here's why I think everything about this is on the up-and-up: if NASCAR was going to rig something, wouldn't they go all out and rig it for their most popular driver to win the race, not just the pole? Also, if they were willing to sacrifice their very integrity of their sport for some good publicity and a nice TV rating, wouldn't they have done it well before now? Junior hasn't won a race in ages and ratings have been in a steady decline for a couple of seasons now. Really, waiting until now feels like the opportunity has passed them by. Plus, rigging qualifying for the only race that is a guaranteed rating boost would be like the NFL rigging the playoffs for a Jets/Giants Super Bowl. Yeah, it would be an historic number but you already get a good rating, so it comes across more like overkill. You're more likely to do it at an event no one is watching. Lastly, it is not like Junior needs any help. He always qualifies well at this track and he's got access to the best cars in the business (this is the second straight year Hendrick MotorSports has captured both spots on the front row for the Daytona 500). I'm not saying it is impossible to envision, but I just don't think NASCAR has it in them. Mostly, all this talk just makes me feel bad for Junior. If he wins everyone says he must have had help and if he doesn't it's because he'll never be as good as his father. That, above anything else, confirms my feelings that the qualifying wasn't rigged - there is no upside for him.

-Late last week the Cleveland Cavaliers won for the first time in 2011, snapping a streak of 26 straight losses . It was the longest losing streak of any kind for a professional (and, wow, do I use that term loosely) team in American sports history. Personally, I congratulate them for breaking the mark. Anyone can be bad, but only a select few can be historically bad. You have to really want it to lose that many games in a row. What struck me was that it took until loss 25 for coach Byron Scott to finally have a closed-door meeting to scream at his team for their lack of effort. Now, I know the Cavaliers have had some major injuries and lost the best player of the decade to free agency last summer and no one expect much of them this year, but it took 25 games for Scott to get mad? Look, I love the NBA, but the simple fact of the matter is that no team brings it every night, especially not in January. There is no reason that the Cavs shouldn't have been able to steal a win at some point during the month unless they were dogging it way before loss #25. This just proves that Scott is too much of a player's coach. I remember in 2007 when the Celtics lost 18 games in a row and Doc Rivers never got ejected, threw a chair or changed the line-up. At the time I thought he should have been fired, but now I realise that Doc is just more of a laid-back guy who should only coach veterans. Same goes for Scott. The problem for Cleveland is that I don't see them getting guys like KG and Allen in a trade. But, hey, the Browns look like they are headed in the right direction.

West-SIDE

Since it's Valentine's Day, I thought I should write about love. Specifically, how I fall in and out of love with television shows. In the past, I've had love affairs with documentary series like The First 48 and Deep Sea Detectives. Well, now I have moved on to a new show, Gangland. It airs on Spike TV and it pretty much is exactly what you would expect: they spend an hour telling the story of one gang, from its origins to how it operates today. (This is the part I'm most interested in. Are they in Massachusetts and do they have a reason dislike anyone wearing Celtics colors? I would hate to get jumped because they mistook me for a rival gang member just because it's the playoffs.) Frequently, Spike will airs this show in a four or five hour marathon and when that happens it pretty much takes over my day. I think the most stunning aspect of this series is just how many gangs there are in the United States. Before I started watching this show I could probably only name three or four gangs. But, I've seen almost a dozen episodes of Gangland with no repeats - they're coming up with groups I've never heard of. Admittedly, I'm not from the roughest part of the world so my gang knowledge is limited and you don't know how loose the producers are with the 'gang' label, but I had no idea there were so many.

However despite the vast range of the gangs, from where they are located to the ethnicity of most of their members, you might find be surprised (though probably not) to learn every gang has pretty much the same story: group of people decided that robbing and selling drugs is much easier than getting a real job, so they start to do that. Everyone is having a wonderful time, making lots of money and convinced that the other people in the gang would do anything for them. Then the gang starts to get too greedy and too large, they get into fights with another gang over territory and money, someone either gets severely injured or killed, people get arrested and they proceed to flip on all those gang members they were promising to take a bullet for just before the commercial break. The people who are subsequently arrested (who are always the ones willing to talk on camera) are shocked at the disloyalty, realise that gang members are not the most reliable people and thus they leave the gang. I know how this is going to go every time and yet I still can't turn away.

If this show has done nothing else, it has made me realise why I was never asked to be in a gang (besides the obvious). It's all the little things that gang members have to do. For example, every picture you see of these gangsters, they are folding their fingers to represent various letters, animals or symbols. That's my problem - my fingers are not good for throwing up and holding gang signs. I tried a couple and, yeah, my fingers just don't bend that way. I would be the guy in the corner, saying things like, "Hey, fellows, I know we're the Crazy Sharks, but rather than the elaborate 'shark's mouth' hand sign we're doing now, couldn't our hand signal just be something simple, like 'We're #1?'" I doubt that would go over well. Also, it appears gang members have to be very good with spray paint and tagging their turf while I'm more of an accent wall kind of guy. But, just because I'm not in a gang doesn't mean I can't enjoy Gangland. I might even keep watching it for a couple of months before I move on to another TV series. That may seem harsh, but I told you - there is no loyalty in gangs.

Getting Closer

Tomorrow is the day pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training. This song always makes me think about baseball, but that's not why I'm using it this week. As I have said many times on this blog, other than Opening Day I don't care about baseball until the Celtics are eliminated from the playoffs, which hopefully won't be until late June this year. However, I do enjoy the start of Spring Training, mostly because it signals we're getting closer to that first word - spring. It tells me we are one day closer to shorts, tee-shirts, weekends on the Cape and golf. That is what I am excited about. This winter has kicked my butt and I want it to be over. Pitcher and catchers reporting tell me we're almost there.

Please Drive Around

Just the other day I was able to buy lunch and mail a letter, all without getting out of my truck, and both transactions took a combined total of three minutes. This is, of course, awesome. (Lazy, I admit, but awesome.) The drive-through window is a wonderful invention, because it allows us to save enormous amounts of time. (Not to mention, with my automotive history the fewer times I have to turn off and then start my car, the better.) I always pick the drive-through when given the option. In fact, when I actually see people inside of a Burger King or any other fast-food restaurant, I find myself wondering what is wrong with their cars. They obviously aren't going in there for the ambiance. Thus, it is no surprise that some business (specifically Dunkin Donuts) have turned some of their locations into exclusively drive-throughs. They have enough room to make the donuts, a window and a register - that's it. I'm willing to bet those locations make the company a ton of money, because since the employees don't have to spend any of their time cleaning up what customers have left behind they only have to worry about serving the person in front of them and can get to more people, thus making more profit.

Ironically, the pioneer of this idea, the Photo Hut, is no longer with us. But I don't blame their business plan, I blame the product. If people still used film in their cameras I'm willing to bet those little huts would still be everywhere. The proof is in how many other services you can do without unfastening your seat belt - it's not just food. You can do drive-though oil changes and prescription pick-ups. Now obviously, with drive-through liquor stores and weddings a real option, some people have taken drive-through availability to an extreme it didn't need to be at. However, that doesn't mean more business shouldn't explore a drive-through option. Because I often know exactly what I am shopping for, I would love it if I could call my order in ahead of time and then swing by to pick things up without hunting for a parking space. (I can obviously have things sent directly to me now, but those come with obscene shipping costs, so I like this idea better.) Going into the holiday season some people claim that their goal is to find presents for everyone without having to fight traffic or set foot inside of a mall. I say within the next five years my goal is getting all my holiday shopping done without having to get out of my truck.

-While we're on the subject of vehicles: I may not like having to get out of my truck to buy things, but that doesn't mean I need my truck to do everything for me. The other day I saw a commercial for a mini-van than featured, among other fancy new options, an air scrubber (which the woman turned on because her dog had bad breath). Now, in a previous post I talked about how sometimes it feels like we're run out of good uses for technology and we add features to items like cars because we can, not because we should. (I believe what got me riled up that day was my new toothbrush feeling the need to be ergonomic for my hand.) This is another example of that. You don't need an air scrubber for your car. Open your windows and drive. That will do a fine job of getting the air circulating and the stink out. And if it doesn't, you don't need an air scrubber, you need to get your dog to the vet.

I Would Be The Villain

There are people in the world who can watch a movie once. They sit there, take in a film and then say, "That was good/bad/indifferent. Now I am done with it, and see no need to sit through it again." I am not one of these people. I watch movies (even movies I don't particularly enjoy), multiple times. That will happen when you have so many movie channels, because they show everything on a four or five hour loop, so you can't but help to catch a movie a second time. Occasionally it is helpful; for instance, if you you missed a section the first go-round. Other times a movie is better the second time because the viewer has gained a better idea of just what the hell they were watching the first time around and as a result the plot makes more sense. (Apparently, with Inception it is more like 12 or 13 viewings.) In my opinion the best kinds of movie to watch a second time are ones you first saw many years ago and haven't seen in years. Whenever I watch a movie that I haven't seen since I was a teenager, I find that I get more of the jokes and subtleties. It's almost like an entirely new movie. However, there is another thing that happens when I re-watch an older movie and I'm not sure it's a good thing: I find myself taking the bad guy's side.

The other night, With Honors was on TV. I loved this movie as a teenager. But, when I watched it the other day, I found myself sympathising more with the uptight roommate. When Brendan Fraser's character first brings Joe Pesci to their home, the other two roommates are like, "Of course you can have the homeless person you just met live in our yard. I'm sure he's fine." Because everyone else is cool with it, when the third roommate isn't on board the audience is appalled. 15 year-old me was especially aghast. "Why don't you want him there? He's a human being too, you know!" But, in my latest viewing, 31 year-old me was much more on that guy's side. The thing is, I know me. In that situation I would totally be the one saying things like, "I don't know about this" or "Perhaps we should call someone" before bringing up the fact that the landlord was probably going to be pissed and this could jeopardise our lease. 31 year-old me has dealt with a few homeless people and I have found they are never well-read gentlemen. (Sometime I'll tell you about the one that swung a crutch at the back of my head when I was feeding my meter.)

Another movie that has changed with my older perspective is Swingers. The first time I saw the movie, 17 year-old me thought Vince Vaughn's character was really cool. 31 year-old me thinks that he's kind of sad. (Which is apparently how he was supposed to come across, but again, 17 year-old me wasn't much for picking up subtleties). I've spent much of my adult life trying to distance myself from the people who are too loud in that 'look at me, dammit' way. I just know that if I ran into that guy at a party I am making small talk for a few minutes and then desperately looking for a way to politely excuse myself.

Romantic teen movies are full of 'villains' that do exactly what I would do in that situation. How many movie dads are portrayed as the bad guy because they would rather see their daughters date the 'stuffy' kid who is going to the Ivy League school instead of the tough kid from the bad neighborhood? As a movie goer you're supposed to be on that tough kid's side, but as an adult I find myself sitting there thinking, "Why is that wrong?" In the real world, of course I would rather see my nieces date the kid who is going to Yale versus the kid who got arrested for vandalism at the start of the movie, I don't care how good his dance moves are.

Still, despite my new, crustier way of looking at things, I think I'm ok as long as I haven't gotten to the point where I start rooting for people like Jason and Freddy Kreuger. If I ever pop in a copy of Jaws and start rooting for the shark, it might be time to stop watching movies.

The Search Is Over

Have you ever seen an item in a store that you would like to buy, but for whatever reason you don't pick it up that day and then, when you finally go back to get it, it's gone? Isn't that the most annoying thing ever? Well, a couple of months ago I spotted a sweet Nike putter. A little heavier than my current Titleist, it was the new IC model, which is designed to help you concentrate on the putt by being a dark green - the thinking being that with a putter head which is the same color as grass your brain will more easily focus on nothing but the ball and your putting line. While that logic might work for the science nerds and those among us who will try anything to be better putters, I'm actually great on the putting surface, so I mostly wanted it because I love the color green, especially when it comes to my golf equipment. My shoes are green, my bag is green, my grips are green, my driver is green, my tees are green and my headcover is green. When I hit the course I am one question-mark cane away from being the Riddler, so obviously I needed the green putter.

When I first found this putter I was in a local Dick's Sporting Goods in mid-October and thought it would make for a good addition to my Christmas list. I figured I was safe waiting a couple months to get it, because the putting surface inside the store was literally surrounded by these things and I assumed they weren't going anywhere. Hell, it might even go on sale closer to Christmas. I was wrong. By early December these putters had vanished from the surface of the Earth. I couldn't even find one online. It was as if Nike not only halted production, but went around and removed them from stores in a massive and covert product recall. Because I am relentless and only want things I can't have, I've been on the hunt for one since. I'd even gone so far as to set up products alerts on numerous golf equipment websites to let me know the second one was available for purchase. Then yesterday I was randomly in Golfer's Warehouse, looking at other putters, when I turned around and there one was. Just one. I must have been in this store five times since October and every time they told me they didn't carry them anymore, so seeing one was a surprise. So much of a surprise, in fact, that I let out an audible gasp (not my coolest moment, I admit). And, I have to admit, after using it on my practice putting surface at home, the green putter head does make lining up the putt much easier. But mostly, it just looks sweet in the bag.

-When I was buying my new putter yesterday it also allowed me to do one of my favorite things. The girl working the register asked me if I wanted to join their rewards program. I said sure and as she was entering my information in, she asked for my last name. I told her what it is, adding, "It's spelled just like it sounds." She got this very confused look on her face as if she wasn't even sure where to begin. I love doing this to people who ask me to be on their mailing lists. I figure if they can get it right I deserve their junk mail.

Lesson #31

So, last year I hit you with 30 Things I've Learn At 30. Now, I could go back and re-post the entire thing for you, simply adding on another lesson for another year passed, but honestly, that is what links are for. Plus, this blog only gets 15 readers and I assume 14 of you read it last year. Now, I've learned a lot in the past year, like always lock your doors... even in the middle of a day on a holiday. But, that's more a safety tip and not a life lesson. Let's just get on with this year's pearl of wisdom.

31. Every now and again, you should force yourself to do something you don't want to do. I'm annoyed by travelling and all that it entails. I'm annoyed by planning. I'm annoyed by packing. I'm annoyed at the cost of airline tickets. I'm annoyed when I don't sleeping well the night before my flight - not because I'm excited but because I'm paranoid about sleeping through my alarm and missing my expensive flight. I'm annoyed at getting up early and fighting traffic to the airport. I'm annoyed at standing in line for the right to wait in uncomfortable seats for the flight to board. I'm annoyed by delays. I'm annoyed with the people who rush to get onto a plane with assigned seating. I'm annoyed with being crammed into a seat made for someone 5 inches shorter and 25 pounds lighter. I'm annoyed that I have to be stuck in this cramped space, breathing recycled air, for 2 to 16 hours. I'm annoyed when watching a terrible movie is the only option because I can't sleep on planes. I'm annoyed when we land and then we're still stuck on the plane for another thirty minutes. I'm annoyed fighting the crowds at baggage claim. I'm annoyed during the drive to the hotel and the hassle of checking in. I'm annoyed because no matter how nice the hotel is, the room always feels dirty. And I'm annoyed that I'm so tired from this long-ass day of being unhappy, yet I still can't I fall asleep because my internal clock is all screwed up. Knowing all this about myself, it is not surprising that my first impulse when someone asks me if I want to go on vacation is to say no.

However... when I do actually go, the next morning I wake up to find all the previous day's annoyance has faded away. It is amazing how just a few hours of sleep can cleanse the mind. It's like hitting some kind of pissed-off reset button. Suddenly, I'm excited to be someplace different and to see something I've never seen before. Maybe we're going to go to a museum or a zoo or an aquarium (I do love me an aquarium). The point is that we're on an adventure and from the moment my feet touch the floor, I'm really happy I made the choice to go through a day of annoyance for a few days of something new. That's the feeling I get when I say yes to something I normally would have said no to and it works out well. The trick is remembering that feeling and not the being dissuaded by the knowledge that part of it might suck, and that is something I've actively tried to do more of during the past year. [Sidebar: it should be noted that 'more' is a relative term. We are still talking about me, after all.] When I kick myself out of my comfort zone, more often than not I enjoy those experiences immensely. Is every new experience going to be good? Of course not, but even if it stinks, at least you get a story out of it. The point is that sometimes the best thing you can do is the one makes you a little uneasy.

Song for the day: Note to the morning jocks on the radio in Boston - shut up and play music. I went through the dial three times listening for a song to be my birthday anthem and even though I gave you plenty of time most of you were still talking when I came back around. No wonder stations with DJ-free formatting are so popular. Ultimately I ended up just hitting shuffle on my iPod.

License To Drive

I have once again come to that time in my life when I needed to renew my license. Taking my cue from Liz, I decided to go during the middle of the week and fairly early in the day to try and avoid a long wait. I appreciate that in this day and age not only you can do 98% of the transaction online, but you can also see how long the wait is at the various locations. Armed with the knowledge that the wait was currently "Less than 5 minutes", I decided to go to the Attleboro branch of the RMV. Now, for those of you who have never been, the Attleboro branch could best be described as 'out of the way.' I've heard of illegal raves that would be easier to find. Not only is it several miles away from the nearest major roadway, but the entrance is at the back of a large building, down a flight of stairs and through two doors. Like the door to the platform for the train to Hogwart's, you have to believe it is there before it appears. It is fortunate I have access to a GPS, because otherwise I might still be wandering around the streets of Attleboro looking for this place.

However, once I got in, it was everything you could hope a business transaction with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts would be. There was no one else around, so no sooner had I pressed the button to take my ticket (B-14) than an electronic voice let me know they were now serving ticket B-14. (In hindsight, making me go through the motions of taking a ticket was actually a waste of time, but I figure they like procedure.) Anyway, I walked up to the only woman working and because I had filled out all of my paperwork before getting there I took my eye test and on my way in under 4 minutes. Glorious. Now, you may be wondering, other than the eye test what that last 2% I had to get done was - it was taking a new picture. Technically, I had a new license picture taken at 26 and could have rolled it over for another five years, but I like having a fresh picture for each new license. After all, I don't look the exact same as I did five years ago and with my luck if I ever get pulled over I'm likely to get the one cop who demands accuracy. I would hate to end up in handcuffs because I no longer rock the chin-strap beard.

However, it was a risk, because my last picture was a good one. Still, with a fresh haircut and shave I felt confident I was ready to take another good picture. What I didn't know going in is that in the past five years the state has changed their policy and no longer allow any eyewear to be worn in license pictures. I assume it has to do with either the majority of people who need corrective lenses wearing contacts, so rather than cops having to ask if people are wearing them they can just assume they are, or more people wearing those self-darkening lenses, which aren't good for pictures with a flash. Whatever the reasoning, it made for a very weird picture for me, because I'm never not wearing my glasses. They are on first thing in the morning and don't come off until I'm going to bed. Honestly, most of my friends can't even imagine me without them. As a result, my eyes were clearly not ready for this much light and my new license picture has taken on a deer-in-the-headlights look. Guess I should have stuck with the old one. But, the good news is that in a short five years I can try again.

Super Bowl Ramblings

In the 15 months that I've had Twitter, I've become quite fond of the social service. However, I do think there is a limit on how much tweeting people should be doing. I just don't need that many updates. I feel like around five per day is a good number, so when I had four tweets in the first ten minutes of the Super Bowl, it occurred to me that I needed to stop myself or it was going to get out of hand. As such, I took the rest of my random thoughts to here.

-As I wrote yesterday, I expected the Packers to throw, throw and then throw some more. But, even I didn't expect them to only run the ball nine times in the first three-and-a-half quarters. I thought they should have sprinkled in a few more runs, if for no other reason than to keep the Steelers defense honest. It nearly came back to bite them, because they couldn't run out the clock and giving the Steelers two minutes and a timeout to drive for the winning score is normally not a smart idea. That's the scary part for the rest of the NFC: imagine if Ryan Grant is healthy next season. The Packers could be even better next year.

-I am an admitted National Anthem snob and a tough grader. Therefore, due to her propensity to over-sing things, I was not expecting Christina Aguilera to meet my high standards. I did, however, expect her to be able to get the words to the National Anthem right. Perhaps if she wasn't thinking ahead to how she was going to turn 'brave' into a 15-syllable word she would have been thinking about singing the correct lyrics. But, if it is any consolation to Ms. Aguilera, she did just become the answer to a trivia question: name the last performer allowed to sing the National Anthem live at a Super Bowl. They will all be pre-recorded from here on out.

-Just a decade ago, any musician seen in a commercial would have been killed among their peers for destroying their credibility in the name of making a quick buck. I remember various musical acts (but especially rappers) crushing MC Hammer for appearing in Pepsi ads, saying he had sold out. However, when one of the 'hardest' rappers in the music industry can appear in two commercials, first for luxury cars and then in claymation form for iced tea, it is very evident to me that times have changed. Perhaps Eminem should send Mr. Hammer a check in gratitude. (Plus, I think MC could use the money.)

-For the second year in a row the podium at the end of the game was used as a reminder that I should never be given a national stage, because I hold grudges way too long. Just like last year when Drew Brees refrained from reminding San Diego that they were wrong to get rid of him, Aaron Rodgers was very gracious in not asking the world what Brett Favre was doing right now. (If he had done it with the wrestling championship belt slung over his shoulder that would have been a nice touch, giving it a heel-turn feel.) I can not guarantee I would have been able to control myself in that situation. It would have been an airing of the grievances for all to see.

-The halftime show was a little too elaborate for my tastes, but I assume if you are a fan of the Black Eyed Peas it was right in your wheelhouse. (You know my take on elaborate stage shows - artists do it when they know they don't have the musical talent to pull off anything more stripped-down.) The people I feel the worst for are Packers fans, because when your team win a Super Bowl you always feel a special connection to the artist that played the halftime show and that is who they got stuck with. Patriots fans got U2 and "Beautiful Day" as our anthem, Packers fan now have to pretend to like "I Gotta Feeling" for the rest of time. You'd almost rather lose (I said almost).

My Super Bowl Preview

Well, it is finally Super Bowl Sunday. With two of the NFL's most popular teams playing each other, this year's game is expected to be the most-watch television program ever. That is not surprising since football is America's game and with a potential lockout looming we might not get football until October, so people need to get their fix while the getting is good. Even if people don't like either team they will still watch for the commercials so they aren't left out of the water cooler talk at work on Monday. Now, since every on TV seems to have an opinion, here's mine.

The Packers will win if... Aaron Rodgers can stay upright. Like every quarterback in the world, Rodgers plays much better when he can set his feet and look through his progressions. Therefore, even though he's played this season at a very high level, he can be beaten like every other quarterback in the history of ever by getting in his face and making him uncomfortable. The Packers line needs to keep him healthy and give him some time (Rodgers could help them out by trying to fake-audible and get as much information as he can from his pre-snap reads). The last time these teams played the Packers had success when they spread out the Steelers by going five-wide and then running quick pass routes. The Patriots showed earlier this year that the formula still works, so expect to see that formation a lot. I'm not saying that the Packers should abandon the running game altogether, but any big runs that get broken off should be considered a bonus. They are only going as far as Rodgers and his receivers on that fast track can take them. That's not to say the defense won't be a factor, because they have a very under-rated secondary. If the Packers linebackers can get to Roethlisberger and actually bring him to the ground (easier said than done), then that secondary can try and make a play for the ball, because Ben is good for one ill-advised throw a game. Turnovers are going to be huge in this game.

The Steelers will win if... They can run the ball and keep Aaron Rodgers on the sidelines. The best way to win a game against a hot quarterback is to burn as much clock as you can and limit the number of possession the offense has. Now, with their starting center missing and facing a beast of a defensive tackle, the Steelers could have some trouble getting the running game going, but that isn't a problem as long as they have a quarterback like Roethlisberger who has a history of converting third-and-longs. I think that running game will be there late when they need it to salt the game away. And you know, with two weeks to game plan, the Steelers' defensive coaching have cooked up some exotic blitz packages to confuse Aaron Rodgers. Plus, they are going against an undrafted free-agent running back so it is safe to assume those Pittsburgh linebackers are going to fight to strip the ball out on every run. Like I said, turnovers are going to be huge in this game and I expect the Steelers to force more of them.

My Prediction is... With two weeks to form an opinion on the game, I have reached the following conclusion - I have no idea what is going to happen. This are two extremely evenly-matched teams and I wouldn't be surprised to see either team win. Ultimately, I'm picking the Steelers based on the fact that they were in the tougher conference and face better competition the entire season. (This is the same logic I use in the World Series, where I usually expect the American League team to win.) Plus, I feel like the Steelers have the better running game and the more active defense so I wouldn't be surprised if there were a couple of defensive scores. And while I'm not usually a big fan of reasoning like "they've been here before," for many Steelers this is their third Super Bowl, so they are very comfortable. All week we've heard reports of Steelers going to strip clubs and piano bars while the Packers are reportedly sitting in their rooms watching extra tape. That makes me wonder if the Packers are approaching the "thinking too much" area. Lastly, I looked at the coaching match-up and I have a confidence in Mike Tomlin that just isn't there with Mike McCarthy. With all that in mind I'm picking the Steelers to win, 27-17.

A Day Early

So, we're doing the weekly musical interlude a day early because tomorrow I'll be posting my Super Bowl predictions. (I know you're all on pins and needles waiting for that.)

I'm noticing that water is becoming a familiar theme with my musical interludes, whether it was over the summer when a couple of water mains burst or just a couple months back when we tried installing a new dishwasher and flooded the kitchen. I almost didn't want to go back to the water theme another time, but when one section of the kitchen ceiling started to leak like it was raining inside while a window on the other side of the house started randomly dripping water as well, I figure I shouldn't ignore the obvious.

What An Uplifting Phone Call

Since we are on the national Do-Not-Call list, we don't nearly as many unsolicited phone calls as we used to. Pretty much the only ones that slip through now are charities and chimney sweeps. (I get why the first are allowed to keep calling, but don't ask me why the second keep ringing us up without hesitation.) But every now and again, we get a call from a company that I have never done business with and can't figure out how they got our number. While most of them are harmless, some of them blow my mind and last night there was a call from "TEXAS" featuring a very long recorded message that did just that. Here it is, with limited embellishment:

Hello. You may have seen our commercial featuring a senior citizen who has fallen in her home and can not reach the phone. If you are over the age of 60, someday this will happen to you. Especially if you live alone. It is only a matter of time before it does. There is a 100% chance that you will suffer either a fall or stroke in your home. You heard me - a 100% chance. It is going to happen. And, it will probably happen when you are alone. Your family can't be around all the time and screaming won't help - your neighbors won't hear you. (I swear to you, those last four lines are direct quotes.) You could be there for hours or even days. Once that happens your family is going to take your freedom away and send you to a nursing home. Unless you want to end up in a nursing home you need to buy our product today. Press 1 to buy our service. Press 1 now. 1. Press it. Or you can press 9 to hear this message again. But you should press 1. Oryoucanpress2toneverhearfromusagain. Press 1 now.

That was the short version of a fairly long message, but you get the idea. After a while I was just staring at the phone, shocked; not only that someone set up this auto-dial, but that someone sat in a room and recorded this message. I listened to it all the way through - partly because I was hoping for a number to press to be taken off this phone list, but also because I wanted to hear what other kind of crazy claim they might make. You know, you always hear about senior citizens being scammed on the phone by people who try and play on their fear, but actually hearing one last night was stunning. This kind of call can not be legal. Now, because they never actually said a brand name I'll give the good people of Life Alert the benefit of the doubt that this was not one of their representatives and instead some company trying to piggy-back their established brand. Someone needs to let them know what kind of message these people are using, because I found the entire thing disturbing. I would much rather talk to the chimney sweep.

Taking On Water

As I've mention on this blog before, despite having nearly a thousand channels at my fingertips I only watch about 11 of them: the big four of ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX plus ESPN, The Golf Channel, USA, Discovery, History, FX and whichever channel is carrying the Celtics game that night. Anyway because I watch a lot of the History Channel, I have seen my fair share of specials on World War II submarines. I vividly remember watching one of them in which a former submariner said that the noise they feared hearing the most wasn't the alarm letting them know a German submarine was near them, but the faint hissing of water escaping through a tiny crack. That meant the pressure of the ocean had cause a leak and they were taking on water. When you're already a hundred feet under the surface, the last thing you want is a leak. He then talked about the way they were always checking for water, because springing even a small leak could be the end of you. You had to be vigilant because the ocean pressure was always testing how well a ship was built, looking for a weak spot. However, the line that really stuck with me was when he looked right into the camera and said, "But, if water wants to come in there is nothing you can do about it - it's coming in. Water will always find a way to go where it wants."

I found myself thinking about that line yesterday when water began leaking from one of the light fixtures in the downstairs hallway. There is a balcony off the master bedroom and when the snow and ice that has built up on that balcony starts to melt that water can get under the siding and into the house. I'm sad to report that this is not the first time this has happened. We slid the fixture out of its place to put a bucket underneath the leak and during the course of the night it stopped. However this morning revealed that while water was no longer coming out of that fixture, it was now leaking from another light fifteen feet away as well as another spot on the wall between the two lights. The issue is that everything outside is still frozen, so we're not really sure where all this water is coming from. The only thing to do was wipe up as much of the water as we could, poke a couple holes in that part of the ceiling to try and guide the water a specific route out so the damage is as localised as possible and then stick a couple buckets under the drips. We figured that all things considered this wasn't too bad, because it was just this one section of the house under the balcony and at least the main roof was still holding up well. (I think you know what's coming...)

An hour or so later I am sitting at my computer upstairs, typing away when I feel something on my arm. A look down reveals it to be water. Assuming the worst, my eyes shoot to the ceiling, but I can't see a drip. However, a second later I can hear one. I pulled up my blinds to discover that water was leaking through a small crack running along the piece of wood at the top of my window. Great. I removed my blinds and jammed a towel in the top of the window, then went around and made sure that this was the only one that had sprung a leak. So far, it is. A look from outside doesn't tell me much, because it looks like the entire gutter is frozen, but my guess is the snow on the roof has begun to thaw and since the water can't get out through the gutters it has begun to back up under the shingles. I tried to check out the situation in the attic, but there are some tight spaces up there and I just can't get close enough to give anything a thorough inspection.

The worst part is that there really isn't much we can do to stop it, short of going up on the roof and shovelling all the snow off and I'm not comfortable with ladders or heights in good weather. We're expecting it be a little warmer the next couple of days, but I'm not sure if melting snow is going to make the leaks better or worse. While the leak by my window appears to have been slowed after spending the afternoon in the sun, the one downstairs dripped constantly all day long and actually got worse late in the afternoon, forcing us to cut a hole into the ceiling to try and figure out a better way to contain the water. I guess the only consolation is that if it continues like this I can start to train my hands for speed, like Jim Caviezel in The Count of Monte Cristo and if it keeps going after that I can use my sword skills to cut neater holes in the ceiling.

Another Storm-Adjacent Issue

So, the second part of this two-day storm has come through and I think, except for one more quick burst of snow late tonight, we're done with snow... until Saturday (we'll cross that bridge when we get there). We actually got a lot less snow in the second wave than originally thought, ending up with three inches instead of the rumored four to eight. However, this was three inches of solid and heavy snow, which was immediately followed by sleet. This gave the snow on the ground a crunchy top and is why it is still sitting on my driveway. I know that sounds bad, but leaving it on the ground is the smart plan because the snow gives you some traction and that beats the alternative of shovelling it away only to have the paper-thin snow coating remaining, as just turns into a skating rink. Also, I left it on the driveway because this kind of snow has the density of a dying sun. Honestly, I worked up more of sweat just clearing my steps than I did getting rid of an entire driveway worth of the seven inches of fluffy snow that we got during the first wave.

The bigger issue is that the frozen snow has also left my truck with a sort of icy-shell covering it, like Mother Nature has turned my vehicle into a large M&M. Rather than have to deal with it first thing in the morning, I decided to go out and clear it off tonight, then keep my fingers crossed that it doesn't just re-ice itself overnight. Anyway, I was out there to turn on my truck and crank the heat while I scraped the windows, when I could not for the life of me get any of my doors open. They had all frozen shut. I scraped at them as best I could and eventually got the passenger door open so I could get the car running, but it was no go on the driver's side door. I figured a couple minutes of heat would do the trick and went about the task of getting the other windows defrosted. After a couple of minutes I went back, sure that I had given it enough time. I still couldn't get the door open. I chipped every bit of ice that I could see out from around the door and then, I tugged. I pulled. I tried two hands on the handle. I tried one hand on the handle and the other in the thin space between the top of the door and the car. I pulled so hard I was convinced the handle was going to break off in my hand. Nothing.

Not being a small man I was not looking forward to going in through the passenger door and climbing over the center console, but I didn't think I had any other way. I figured if I could at least get into the seat I could slam my body into the door until either it or my shoulder popped. It was in mid-climb I noticed my main problem: the door was locked. I think it was either so cold or so icy that the mechanism inside the door didn't unlock when I first hit the button and since the windows were iced over I couldn't see inside the truck to notice that the lock was still engaged. As such, I had spent the last twenty minutes or so standing in sub-freezing temperatures essentially trying to break into my own car. (In hindsight it is actually a miracle I didn't break the door handle.) So, on the one hand I felt like an idiot for not checking to see if the door was still locked when I got the passenger door open about fifteen minutes earlier. But on the other hand, at least I know the locks on my truck are rock-solid. If you want to get in and steal my parking meter money, you are going to have to work for it.

Should I Hop?

So, it appears my letter to Mother Nature last week was not strongly-worded enough, as we are getting two storms back-to-back today and tomorrow which will give us another couple of treacherous driving days and a fresh foot of snow on the ground. That is all I'm going to say on the matter because, frankly, I'm getting tired of complaining about the snow. We've been getting snow once a week and the topic has been played out. There is almost nothing left to say at this point. Besides, the first round is already over and, to be honest, it wasn't too bad. We've already shoveled it away and it was so light and fluffy it felt like shovelling sugar. The entire driveway was done in less than an hour. Instead I'm going to turn my attention to an issue that is snowstorm-adjacent: cold toes.

It was a bitterly cold morning and no matter how thick the pair of socks I put on, I couldn't shake the chill from my toes. So, before I went out to do the shovelling I grabbed a packet of toe warmers, which are a small bag that will stick to the bottom of your socks and contain some kind of chemical mixture which reacts when air hits it and gets hot, but not so hot as to burn your feet. I don't know what is in them; I assume it is just magic. Anyway, they are a staple in Christmas stockings around these parts, so I've got a bunch and have used them many times in the past. But, it wasn't until I was downstairs getting ready to put my boots on that I noticed that one particular brand of toe warmers come one per packet, while the other comes in a pair. Who is the brand with just one warmer for? I can not think of any situation in which I would only need to warm one foot at a time. (Well, except for right now, as I was in such of a hurry to get the shovelling over with that I didn't go upstairs and grab another toe warmer, so my left foot just had to tough it out.)

Are there enough one-footed citizens out there that the manufacturers felt too many of the second packets were going to waste? Could you imagine if socks, gloves or sneakers were sold individually? There would be complaints like you couldn't imagine. You would assume they are sold this way to make you buy them in a set and spend more, but here's the weird part of the whole thing (even weirder than the fact that I sat down and thought all this through): buying two of the single warmers costs less than buying the brand which gives you a pair. That doesn't make any business sense to me: double the manufacturing and shipping costs and they still charge less? Why not just put two in one bag, charge double and save on packaging costs? As long as the company still charges less than the other guy, people are going to buy it. Hell, you might even make more money. After all, this is not a long-term item which requires a lot of consumer research and consideration: you stick them under your feet for an hour and then throw them away. People are simply going to buy whichever is cheaper, so just start selling the toe warmers in pairs. It would make things easier: a lot easier than trying to shovel without putting your left boot into a snowbank, I know that.