Back On My TV

Last night I was watching Comedy Central when I saw a promo for a new Norm MacDonald show. In it Norm came out of an office and told the New York Mets' mascot, conveniently named Mr. Met, to type something up for him. It's funny, you see, because Mr. Met has giant mascot hands, and those would make typing difficult. It wasn't clear from the spot, but I would guess MacDonald's new show is going to either be a sports sketch show, a comedy about making a sports show (think "Sports Night") or a "Daily Show"-like fake news show with a sports focus (because that idea hasn't already been done numerous times). In the end it probably doesn't really matter what format they go with because after watching the promo, if that is how they plan to sell the show I put the over/under of number of episodes it remains on the air at ten.

Now this assessment doesn't come from anything personal I have against Norm MacDonald. Sure, I have never understood the people that insist he was the best fake anchor in "Weekend Update" history because I happen to think he was just ok, but to each their own. Also, I actually believe MacDonald can be a good stand-up. Some of his bits are really funny. I just think history has shown that he isn't capable of carrying his own show. A quick check of his IMDB page reveals that this will be his fifth attempt at starring in his own show, with each show getting cancelled faster than the one before it. (One of his shows only made it six episodes, so perhaps my guess of ten will actually turn out to be generous.) At least after his first show lasted a couple of seasons you could justify giving him a second shot on a new network: I'm sure the each network thought that first show just wasn't the right fix and putting Norm with the right writers would solve that problem. But, MacDonald has now been with every major network, so I think it is time to let that ship sail and admit he works best as the grouchy neighbor of the trouble-making best friend, not as the guy the entire show revolves around.

The real reason this bothered me is because it seems like I keep seeing the same people get show after show after show and I would love for someone new to get a chance. At some point, don't people have to realise that not every comedian can deliver in the starring role? How many chances do these guys need? (No, really, I want an answer to that, because David Spade has to be close to reaching that point, right?) My other theory is that some of these comedians have acts which are so off the wall that while the executives at Comedy Central don't find them funny, they also don't want people to think they aren't cool enough to 'get' the humor. Thus they green-light the shows just to show how edgy and 'with-it' they are, but then it turns out no one gets the acts because they aren't edgy, just unfunny. (I need for this to be true, because there is no other logical explanation for Michael Ian Black to keep appearing on my TV.) So, yeah, I'll probably watch the first episode of Norm's new show. I just have this feeling that if you don't catch it the first time around you won't be able to see it at all.

Fish Out Of Water

There is a crazy story in the news right now about an Illinois woman who was on vacation with her family down in Florida, taking a sight-seeing cruise when a giant stingray leaped out of the water and landed on her. Apparently, it's mating season for the rays and showing off how good they are at leaping is supposed to be a sign to the opposite sex of how strong they are. (Crazy fish - buy an expensive car like the rest of the guys in Miami.) Anyway, the stinger missed the woman, but she was still being slowly crushed by the weight of over 200-pounds of stingray as it flopped around trying to get back into the water (I guess it didn't want to be in this boat any more than the woman). Fortunately, there was a second boat nearby carrying some wildlife officials who were able to come over, throw a rope around the ray and eventually pull it back into the water. The crazy part is that the woman is totally fine and doesn't have a scratch on her. (In a very technical and scientific interview, the captain of the boat described her as being, "slimy, but otherwise ok.") She even made her family continue on with the rest of the day's planned activities because she doesn't want her kids to be freaked out by the ocean.

Now, the reason this story caught my eye is that it comes on the heels of a report out of Texas earlier this week where some fisherman were disposing of the remnants of their bait when a 400-pound shark got a little impatient waiting for them to dump the rest of it and jumped into their boat, presumably to encourage them to hurry up. However, unlike with the stingray, in this case there were no animal control people around and the fishermen were not about to get close enough to get bitten, so the shark ended up dying on the deck. (Really, did you expect a fisherman to throw something like that back?) Personally, I think we should take these two stories as a warning sign. Do you know how they say that animals are always the first to know when something isn't right in their environment, like how dogs feel an earthquake before the rest of us? Clearly, something is going on in the world's oceans right now and the animals want to get away from it. This is why I stick to lakes.

-Keeping up with today's Animal Revolution theme, there is still no sign of the Egyptian Cobra which has been missing from the Bronx Zoo since last Friday. Zoo officials say they are confident that the cobra is still somewhere in the zoo, but consider me skeptical. I've seen enough nature shows to know that snakes have a way of getting through some tight spaces when they want to. If it were up to me they would stop labelling the cobra as 'missing' and start referring to it as 'escaped'. The bad part is that we're not going to know where this thing is until it pops up and most likely bites someone. Normally this wouldn't concern me but I'm a little worried because they haven't told us how fast a cobra can travel and with five full days behind it this thing could easily have made Massachusetts by now. I was all set to begin construction of a moat around my house, but stopped when I heard there have been reports of cobras swimming around in the Mediterranean. (Again, as if I needed another reason to stick to lakes...) Suddenly, I find myself rooting for this incoming Nor'easter.

Switch-A-Roo

Yesterday there was a story in the news concerning former major league slugger, Jose Canseco. Canseco has had a rough go since leaving professional baseball (none of which is his fault, just ask him) and has fallen through several careers and reality TV shows before landing in the world of celebrity boxing. Over the weekend Jose was scheduled to fight in Florida for the sum of $5,000. When he got there "Jose" began demanding the promoter pay him in cash or he wouldn't fight. It was at this point people in the crowd noticed something was not quite right about this (something even more obvious than the fact they had made the decision to pay money to see Jose Canseco fight). Through some quick detective work and checking pictures online, someone figured out that the person in the arena was not Jose Canseco but his twin brother, Ozzie, who might be the one person with less going on than Jose. Now, obviously the fight promoter was not happy about this turn of events and refused to pay the money. This led to all sorts of security problems and eventually Ozzie Canseco was given a police escort out of the building. Jose then took to Twitter (where all good defenses are offered) saying it was the fight promoter who was in the wrong for refusing to pay him (still not sure if the 'him' in that sentence referred to Jose or Ozzie).

I understand that Jose Canseco has become a running joke at this point and therefore nothing he does should be taken too seriously, but this seems to be a new low even for him. Using the word 'celebrity' was already pushing the limits, but to send his brother to fight in his place is just plain lazy. I'm sorry, did Jose have something better to do that day? Because if he did I would really like to know what that was. Apparently, this isn't the first time the brothers have done this because allegedly Ozzie has sat in for Jose at autograph shows. Now, I don't have a twin, although if I did I'm sure we would have tried to do all sorts of switching shenanigans when we were growing up. However, at some point that stops being cute and needs to stop; Jose and Ozzie passed that point a long time ago. Trying to pull the old switch-a-roo in your forties is just sad. There is a reason Hollywood kept re-making "The Parent Trap" versus trying to do a sequel. When you're 10 swapping places is cute, when you're 45 it's criminal. Charging people money and promising that they would get to see Jose Canseco or his autograph and then delivering Ozzie Canseco instead is outright fraud. Make all the jokes you want about fools and their money soon parting, but if people want to spend money on a Jose Canseco autograph they should at least get what they paid for. Now people have to question the value of every piece of Jose Canseco merchandise on the market. In one day Jose has managed to make his own name less valuable - and here I didn't think it could go any lower.

-It seems almost fitting that, one week after I was sick from a virus, my computer got infected by a nasty virus as well. This was one of those really annoying viruses that turns itself on right when the computer powers up, displays a fake 'virus scanning' page and then declares that your computer is infected with tons of problems that only one particular program can get rid of, when in reality that program is the only problem. The 'creating a problem and then asking to be paid to get rid of it' is a scam as old as time, so dealing with this virus wasn't really what made me mad. It was a pretty standard fix of turning my computer on in safe mode, removing the virus before it had a chance to start itself up and then running some viral removal software. No, what annoyed me even more about removing the virus was that after I did this, the virus software I already had on my computer was very proud of itself, telling me through pop-ups that it had removed all traces of the previous problem. Well, here's an idea, McAfee, why don't you try fighting the problems before they infect my computer? I believe that was the whole point. And they wonder why I haven't renewed my subscription yet.

Book It

I've always been a little slow to embrace new technology; I didn't get an iPod for years after they first came out and I am currently in no rush to secure an iPad. That being said, once I finally do take the plunge and get a new gadget I am pretty quick to throw the old technology to the curb (I couldn't tell you the last time I bought a CD). But, there is one thing I can't ever see myself fully embracing and that is the e-book. I've checked out various e-readers in the past and while I understand the appeal of being able to carry several hundred books on one piece of equipment, it is just not something I think I can ever fully get behind. I like to actually hold the book I'm reading (which is why I also prefer hard cover to paperback) and keep my place with an old-fashioned bookmark. Something about simply reading words on a screen, then pushing a button to go onto the next 'page' is unappealing. This is just one of those things I don't ever see changing - I'm too set in my ways.

Another reason I prefer to own a hard copy of a book is that I like having a bookcase that actually has books on it. I'm never going to have a library in my house, but the idea of filling shelves with books that I have read is something I have always aspired to. I understand it probably comes across as a little bit of an ego thing, but I imagine my wanting to show off how many books I have read is the same thing that makes hunters want to put stuffed animal heads on their walls (and my way no one gets shot). I know that reading a lot doesn't automatically make you smart, but it sure doesn't hurt. And, I'm not going to lie, if you don't have any books in your house I'm going to find that odd. Therefore, it really bothered me the other night when a friend of mine was telling me about the two books he had recently purchased. I asked him how they were and he told me he had no idea, because he hadn't read them yet. Also, he was in no rush to read them, because he had bought a few movies in that same online order and even though he has seen the movies before, he wanted to get to those first. Still, not having read the books didn't stop him from putting them on his bookshelf. Dude, not cool.

I really believe people shouldn't be putting books into their collection if they haven't read them. First off, it makes no sense: why would you even own a copy of a book you don't want to read? It isn't like a CD where you might have heard a couple of the songs, but not the entire album yet you still take the plunge. Nor is it like a movie where you might catch a clip on TV then one day see it in the bargain bin and figure it's worth a shot. Books are kind of an all-or-nothing proposition. Putting a book onto a shelf for everyone to see is like declaring that you have some knowledge about that subject, so when you display a book you have never read it is almost like you are lying to us all. Even if you plan to eventually get to the book (which we all know will never happen), keep it somewhere else until you do.

A Clearing Interlude

So, the cold/flu/sinus infection mess that I was dealing with at the end of last week and the beginning of this one has pretty much gone away, save for this lingering cough that has stuck with me. I feel like I am one good coughing fit away from losing half a lung, but feeling considerably better in the process. Alas, I can't seem to have that one good coughing fit and so I just hack away while trying not to see anything too funny, because laughing makes the cough worse. That is what led to this week's musical choice. Well, that and I loved this song in high school - still do, actually. If I'm in the car when this comes on it is one of the few songs I will insist every car around me listens to as well, when I see just how loud my speakers can go. Anyway, I hope you like it, as I'm going to spend my day trying to shake this cough loose.

Saturday Sporties

-Earlier in the week Orlando Magic head coach Stan Van Gundy (who strikes me as the type of person who isn't happy unless he has something to complain about) started chastising the media for what he perceives as the pre-ordaining of Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose as MVP instead of his player, center Dwight Howard. Van Gundy thinks the media has made their choice and it doesn't matter what anyone else does for the remained of the season. Now, normally I would agree with Van Gundy because I feel a lot of media members make their choice for MVP around the All-Star game and stick to that decision no matter what. However, I think Stan waited too long to make this an issue. I mean, the season is 70 games in. Most teams only have 10 games left. When did he want voters to decide? If you haven't made a decision by now, then what the hell are you waiting for? It's a regular season award and the season is done.

-Thursday night the Dallas Mavericks won their 50th game this season, marking the eleventh straight year the Mavericks have won 50 games in a season. This is tied with the Lakers of the 80s for the second-longest such winning streak behind the San Antonio Spurs, who streak is alive and well at twelve straight 50-win seasons. That is an incredible mark of consistency, especially when you consider how bad the Mavericks were for most of their existence. The difference is that the Lakers won five titles in that span and the Spurs won three. At some point we all expected the Mavericks to take that next step, but they never did. Also, there are no indications that this year is going to be their year either. I'm not saying it's not impressive, I'm just saying it's like holding the record for most silver medals. At some point, someone is going to point out you never took home the gold.

-Just a couple of days after agreeing to an extension to stay as the head basketball coach at the University of Missouri, Mike Anderson announced he was changing his mind and going to take the head job at Arkansas. Now, I can't really get mad at Anderson because he was an assistant at Arkansas when they won the National Title and has long said it was his dream job. But to agree to an extension at Missouri and then leave is very shady. Then again, Arkansas currently employs Bobby Petrino who famously quit the Falcons in the middle of the season, so what should you expect?

-Even though they are in a lockout, the NFL owners met this week to discuss several rules changes for the upcoming season (if there is one). There wasn't much in the way of excitement, save for one thing: the owners passed a rule stating that a team couldn't change the color of their turf unless it was approved by the league. Basically, this was to prevent someone from installing a Boise State-like blue field to try and make them stick out from the rest of the league. I guess the league figures they are above gimmicks, but best to put it in writing. The thing is, I can only imagine this rule was put into place because someone raised it as an actual issue. I'll give you 3-1 odds it was Al Davis who wanted to make his field black.

-On Thursday news broke that Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant was banned from a Dallas mall following an altercation with a mall cop. Apparently, Bryant and a group of friends were hanging out at the mall and their pants were saggy, so the security guard told them they had to pull up their pants. Bryant allegedly curse the guy out and was kicked out of the mall. Now, going into last year's draft there were all sorts of stories about Bryant's past, so some people are using this story as a way to prove Bryant is a bad kid. Personally, as a guy who can't stand bouncers and rent-a-cops who think they are the law, I am on Dez's side. Who the hell told this mall cop he was suddenly the fashion police? Dude, your job is to keep teens out of the fountain and help locate missing kids. Don't mistake your fake badge for actual authority.

It's Simple Math

Every now and again I will see a new product hit the market that is designed to make people's lives easier. While this is good in theory, too often I feel like rather than taking a tough task and make it simpler these inventions just take an already easy task and make it idiot-proof. Basically, they are selling to the lowest common denominator and rewarding people for being dumb. Infomercials are notorious for selling just this kind of product. I offer as an example the spatula that doubles as tongs - it is a spatula that comes equipped with a top piece of plastic to clamp down on your food, making flipping that food easier. I'm sorry, but if you can't handle all the physics that go into flipping a burger using a spatula then perhaps you shouldn't be allowed near a grill. (Please note I am saying this a person who has not only received this utensil as a gift, but used it before.) This is why I believe the US patent office should not only judge whether a product is unique, but also whether or not it is necessary. To make it even easier for them, I have come up with a very simple formula to determine a product's usefulness: time of production per unit made, divided by time saved using the product, times 1,000. So, let's just say it takes two hours to make 1,000 units of a product. By my math, using that product had better save the world two hundred thousand man hours a year. Anything less than that and it is declared unnecessary.

I, as I always do, have a reason for bringing this up. As a guy who gets emailed various links all day long, I'm all for shortening URLs. There is no need to have these long, drawn-out addresses to cut and paste when all I'm trying to do is forward some embarrassing video of a soccer player I have never met missing a wide-open net. Now, usually those web pages are embedded deep into another website and that is what makes for those long URLs, so while I understand their existence, any way to have make it easier to get directly to them is good with me. It's why I think URL-shortening sites are a great product, but it appears we have gone too far with them. Recently, I saw a commercial for Overstock.com, bragging that they have a new shortcut, O.co. Now you just have to type that and it will take you directly to the company homepage. I'm sorry if I missed it as I've been out of it for a couple of days, but was this a big problem facing the Internet world? Since when has 12 letters been too much of a burden for people to handle? It takes about five seconds to type Overstock.com and about two to type O.co. Even if Overstock.com hired the best programmer they could find, I bet him it still took a few hours to create the shortcut and register it. That means by my math a couple million people need to use that shortcut by the end of the year to make it worth it. I doubt they are going to hit that mark. Good try, Overstock.com, but your time would be better spent trying to find more deals for people to buy.

-Another place people need to use my formula of time spent in development versus time it will actually save the world is in the App Store. Since I don't have an iPhone, I don't have any apps. However, I have been around enough people that do to have seen them in action, which is why I know that many of them are unnecessary. The one that I keep seeing (and therefore is fresh in my mind) is the app which allows you to pay for coffee by simply registering your credit card and then scanning your phone at the register. Allegedly, it is much safer and faster for both the store and the consumer. First off, if you're financing your morning coffee, you're an idiot. Secondly, if you honestly think it is wildly faster to open an app and then scan your iPhone through the register versus taking out a debit card and swiping it, I really think you have lost touch with reality. Even if it was faster by a second or two, that is still not enough time saved to have made the hours the programmer used to come up with that formula worth it. Rather than using their time so the line at the coffee shop is ten seconds shorter, perhaps that guy should have developed an app which would allow me to call someone on an iPhone without them being dropped by their cell carrier four times in ten minutes. Now, that would be an app worth having.

Questioning Their Loyalty

The Barry Bonds trial started this week. For those of you not familiar with the case, Bonds is being brought to court not for using steroids, but for lying to Federal Investigators about it. (Numerous athletes confessed to using illegal steroids during the course of the investigation and no one really cared. Much like Richard Nixon, it's not the crime, but the cover-up that has gotten Bonds into trouble.) Now, most of the prosecutor's evidence comes from a man named Greg Anderson, who was Barry Bonds' close friend, personal trainer and private steroid supplier. However, Anderson has repeatedly refused to testify against Bonds and has already spent close to a year in jail for contempt of court. He's looking at even more jail time if he continues to refuse to take the stand. Personally, I don't care about Barry Bonds or whether or not he ends up in jail. Everyone knows he cheated and his legacy is already tarnished. Plus, I get the feeling people are only going after him so hard because Bonds is an admitted asshole and probably just pissed the prosecutors off. (Though, I will say that Anderson should ask himself if the roles were reversed would Bonds go to jail for him? Cause I bet he thinks he knows the answer and would be really surprised at the actual response.)

No, what keeps me amused here are all the sports radio talk show hosts who have decided that what Anderson is doing is the manly thing to do and have taken to the airways to repeatedly state they would gladly to jail for their buddies, because that is what bros do. "Loyalty above all else," they keep saying. Now, I have worked with more than a few of these guys during my time in radio and I can say, without pause, that this is bullshit. A couple of these guys have jumped stations and left their co-hosts to rot, so forgive me if I doubt their allegiances. They would roll over on their friends in a heartbeat and never think twice about it. Every person who ever took a journalism class has visions of being hauled off to jail rather than reveal their sources from some huge story they just broke, but the reality is that if you went into sports journalism it's because you want to work in the toy department of journalism, not the "I could get shot at or end up in jail" department of journalism. Ever notice how you never see the guy on the Dodgers beat suddenly get promoted to covering Iraq? That means, deep down, they're not really big on danger. I think the first time the jail door closed behind any of them they would turn around screaming for their lawyer because they were ready to confess everything. I get that it doesn't sound great on the radio, but at least it would be the truth.

-The big story of the day was that of the air traffic controller who was working the night shift at Reagan International Airport when he fell asleep. Luckily, it was a clear night and the two passenger jets who were inbound managed to communicate with each other to safely land on their own. Now, obviously that guy is going to be fired and rightfully so, but my bigger issue is the fact that he was the only person working. I understand it was a night shift and volume of flights is much lower that time of night, but I've had really stupid jobs in my life that wouldn't allow me to work alone and this guy was in charge of landing planes. What if it the guy wasn't an idiot, but instead had some kind of medical emergency? Shouldn't there be a backup ready to go? Besides, perhaps some stimulating conversation was just what this gentleman needed to stay awake. Still, I think the real reason this upsets me is that it calls into question every thing I saw in "Die Hard 2". If planes can land on their own, who cares if terrorists have taken over the tower?

Push The Blue Button

When I bought my Mountaineer in June of 2007, I did it with the understanding that it came with the bells and whistles which are standard in this kind of vehicle: sunroof, running boards, on-board navigation. You know, typical stuff to excite guys like me who don't really know much about cars but love accessories. Frankly, it was more than I needed coming from my old truck which, by this point, didn't even come with a guarantee to keep running as I was driving down the highway at 70 mph. When the dealer I was buying the car from handed me the keys they were attached to a remote with four buttons: lock, unlock, a red panic button and a blue button where the graphic had been worn away. I was told normally that button would be to remotely unlock the trunk, but since this was an SUV it obviously didn't have trunk and therefore the button didn't do anything. It sounded plausible enough and I went about my life not giving it a second thought.

Now, two summers ago the handle to open the back hatch broke, meaning the door wouldn't open. Again, I was able to roll with it because I could still get the glass open to get important things like my golf clubs in and out of the back half of the truck. I can't really move big things, but anything large that needs to be moved should be in my dad's pick-up anyways. So, between never really needing the hatch to open and not wanting to pay the hundreds of dollars I assume it would take to fix, the latch has remained inoperative. But, just because I don't need it to work that doesn't stop it from continuing to bother me. On numerous days when I had nothing better to do I found myself trying essentially to break into my own truck through the back door, thinking that if I could just somehow pry the door open I could take off the back panel, get a good look at the inside of the door, figure out what is broken and fix it myself. Then Friday night I was driving home and accidentally hit the blue button on the remote, which I have believed for the past four years to be useless. Behind me I heard a noise, which I interpreted as the sound of the back lock releasing (probably because that was what I wanted to hear). Now I was excited because I thought maybe the blue button actually did do something and, even better, that something was open the back door.

I didn't have a chance to explore this possibility that night because it was late and being under the weather delayed me even further. However late this morning I found myself with a schedule gap and was already out at my car, so it seemed like the perfect time to see if I was going to be able to finally fix my back door. I stood behind my truck and hit the blue button, ready and fully expecting my hatch to open. I heard the click again, only this time it sounded like the locks were engaging. Pressing the button a second time I heard the horn beep. The third time I decided to press and hold the button, at which point the doors locked, the horn beeped... and the engine roared to life. All I could think was, "you've got to be shitting me."

Would you believe I've had a remote starter on my car this entire time and never knew it? How did this not come up during the sale? That should have been a selling point, as getting a remote starter installed is a couple hundred bucks. Also, I'm amazed it still works after four years of not being used. I mean, I never use my emergency brake and that has had to be replaced twice. It is just so typical of me to discover something like this now, when winter is over. This would have come in handy on multiple occasions this year (or any of the past four years), like when my car doors were frozen shut. I guess the moral of the story is this: when you buy a used Mercury from a Subaru dealership you should take the time to press all the buttons, because clearly they don't always know what the hell they are selling you.

Twitter Catch-Up

Just catching up on a few days worth of notes that I didn't feel were important enough to get their own posts...

-I know going into any movie, I am expected to take certain leaps as a viewer. I don't need the crew of "MythBusters" to tell me a jump from a five story window would actually kill the hero no matter how many awning he fell through first and the result would not look cool in real life. Part of the fun of movies is to let go and simply accept some discrepancies. But, there are some reality leaps I just can't make anymore. For example, I am really tired of the "couple getting chased by 100 trained assassins with machines guns and never getting shot" theme I keep seeing. Hey, if it's a one-on-one thing I can believe they might be able to dodge for a while, but I'm not even a math major and I know the law of average says they are going down eventually. These people are supposedly professionals - if they couldn't shoot they would be doing something else and not have lasted this long as assassins. I mean, that's just basic business.

-I've been playing a lot of on-line Scrabble the past couple of days and thoroughly getting my hat handed to me as I do. But, here's the thing: as a result, I actually feel better about the computer revolution that is apparently coming. I feel this way because not only am I holding my own against the online computer before eventually losing, but the little bastard is practically cheating, using a ton of two-letter words that no self-respecting human would ever resort to playing in a real-life game. Computers might have an entire dictionary at their binary fingers, but they sure don't have the pride to forgo using a word like "AH" to instead try and make a word out of the letters H, Q, I, K, Z, V. That lack of hubris will eventually be their downfall.

-It's always sad when I sign on to Twitter in the morning and discover that I have fewer followers than I had the day before. I shouldn't be surprised as I'm only followed by about 10 people I actually know and the rest are just spam accounts to try and get me to follow them. Still, every time I lose one of these fake followers I get annoyed at them. I almost want to throw up a comment along the lines of, "You know, not all of you stuff is comedy gold either, Mr. Car Dealer that only decided to follow me because I used the word 'thrifty' in a Tweet!" The reason I don't, of course, is that seems like way more than 140 characters.

-There was a Super-Moon this weekend, which means the Moon was closer to Earth than it had been in decades (maybe longer, I wasn't exactly with the program on Saturday) and appeared larger than normal in the sky. That's all very interesting, but it concerns me because the way orbits work it stands to reason that means we're eventually going to get closer to the Sun than ever before. Tell me when that day is coming so I know to be inside. I'm much more interested in not stepping out into a 115 degree day than I am in getting a better look at the Moon's craters.

-A report surfaced late this afternoon that Charlie Sheen and CBS were talking about him coming back to "Two and a Half Men". If this turns out to be true, I am impressed. I've heard of people being able to rebuild burnt bridges, but never nuked ones. I always assumed the show made the network a lot of money, but for the studio heads to absorb all this public bashing and then take Sheen back? They must be rolling in cash. I should have gone into TV.

A Letter To My Immune System

Dear Immune System,

Dude, what the hell? We make it all the way through one of the worst winters on record without getting sick once and now, just as spring has arrived, you take off and let me get shellacked by some random virus. I don't even know what the hell it is because the symptoms keeps shifting - I just know it sucks. Also, you let it arrive with no warning so I had no time to prep myself. I felt slightly off on Thursday, but I assumed that was more from being tired after a couple of late nights/early mornings and not an indication I was going to wake up on Friday feeling like I was hit by a truck. (I mean, I was so sore my teeth hurt. That's not even an exaggeration. Who has ever even heard of such a thing?) And how did I manage to fall asleep just fine, yet wake up with a painful cough that would make a 20-year, pack-a-day smoker proud?

Plus, your timing couldn't have been worse. I actually had plans for Friday night. How many plan-less Fridays passed in perfect health? I would guess dozens. Sure, I still went out, but ended up out on the deck on a 60-degree night wearing a sweatshirt and standing next to a huge fire pit while still shivering like an asshole. Not to mention, it was the first 70-degree day we've had in about six months. I was going to finally go and hit golf balls, but instead I was stuck inside feeling miserable. And a bonus 'thanks a lot' for not clearing up enough for me to function until this morning, when it is forty degrees cooler and snowing. Way to work it out for the worst possible timing. I didn't even get to enjoy a day of laying on the couch watching basketball, which was the one thing that should have come from being sick on the third day of March Madness, because I spent the day drifting in and out of consciousness after being up all Friday night coughing, sneezing and trying not to drown in the fluids that were building up because I happen to like sleeping on my back.

Anyway, now that you are back at your post and we continue to rid me of what's left of whatever the hell this was, I have a few requests:
1. Could we perhaps pick a temperature and stick with it? There is nothing worse than shivering, making myself a hot beverage to counteract the cold and then sweating like I'm sitting in a sauna after two sips.
2. Enough with the nausea. Either make with the puke or don't. But this "starving, eat something, sit with a bucket between my legs while nothing happens" routine is so very old. I don't know how women do it for nine months.
3. At least give me one nostril to work with. Honestly, mouth-breathing is not a good look.
4. Since I'm doing all this coughing, could it actually have a positive effect? Really, I wouldn't mind all the hacking if at the end of it my lungs didn't sound like they were still full of TVs getting bad reception.

Now despite all that, Immune System, I'm going to give you a pass for letting this virus slip through. We've all had bad days at work. But, this was a one-time, get-out-jail-free card. This happens over the summer and I'm going to think about actually going to a doctor. You've been warned.

Hoops!

We're at day four of the NCAA Tournament and so far so good, as all of my Final Four and most of my Sweet Sixteen is still alive (though, we haven't play today's games yet so that is said as I simultaneously knock on wood). Anyway, today's musical interlude is a special basketball tribute, but also serves as a warning. Back in the early 1990s, G. Love and Special Sauce was a mildly popular musical act with a solid indy following. But then they recorded a cover of Coca-Cola's "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing". So now they had some commercial success, but pissed off a lot of their loyal fans in the process. Then all their new fans found out that the rest of their musical catalog wasn't particularly strong, so they stopped buying the band's albums. Basically, G. Love managed to alienate everyone. So, let that be a lesson to all the indy rock bands out there: if you're going to sell out, sell all the way out. Going halfway doesn't work out for anyone.

A Stop And A Show

Recently, I have begun to notice that the shorter the drive you are about to undertake, the more things the world is going to throw in your way on that drive. For example, if you have to drive to another state it will be smooth sailing almost the entire way. But, if you're driving to the store around the corner there is going to be a busted water main, a police detail and six school buses dropping kids off to make sure your five-minute excursion actually takes twenty. (It's probably karma for the fact that you felt the need to drive around the corner.)

This happened to me last night as I was driving to the house of a friend who lives in the same town. The journey normally would have taken about five minutes. But, as I came to the intersection about a half-mile from my house (one of only two traffic lights I have to get through to arrive at his house), I saw a man literally dancing through the cross walk. Now, I'm not sure if he was drunk, high or just special, but he was literally side-stepping his way across the crosswalk, making sure he was only stepping on the white lines. He would take a step sideways with his right foot, slide his left leg over in front, bring his right leg back to the front and then take a step back in the direction he came. Maybe in his mind he was acting out the famous piano scene from "Big", but either way he was having a grand old time shuffling his way through this intersection.

The problem was that he was only about halfway through his crossing when the signal changed from 'Walk' to 'Don't Walk'. Now, for whatever reason the SUV at the front of the line of cars was exceedingly patient as they didn't honk, yell out the window or anything. The guy just sat there, taking in the show. Personally, I would have been much more annoyed. So, the cars ended up missing about half their green light cycle before the man was finally out of the way enough that they could safely drive passed. This was when it got weird (as if it wasn't already). Apparently, Mr. Shuffles didn't appreciate the fact that the cars weren't waiting until he was on the sidewalk, because as the SUV drove passed he attempted to roundhouse kick the back panel. Fortunately he missed, but then he proceeded to flip off the next car and stick his tongue out at the third car. In his mind, they were the ones in the wrong. I don't know what he was so pissed about because like I said, they were a hell of a lot more patient that I would have been in that situation.

Anyway, now the cars were gone I figure the show was over, but this guy wasn't quite done with us yet. As he started to walk away from the intersection he stopped and pressed the crosswalk signal again. Then he walked away. Apparently, he felt as though everyone left at the intersection should pay for the fact he wasn't allowed to extend his performance. So, rather than getting to go I had to sit through the 'Walk' sign and then my light cycle was skipped as they let the other direction go again (my town's traffic lights are notorious for this). Awesome. Therefore I have come to the conclusion that the guy probably wasn't special needs, he was just a dick. At least I got some entertainment while I was waiting.

Friday Sporties

-A lot of people were crapping on President Obama earlier this week for taking some time to fill out an NCAA tournament bracket on ESPN. They think that between Libya, Japan, Egypt and a still-sluggish job market he should only be concentrating on work at all times. Personally, I don't have an issue with it. First off, taking out a bracket takes roughly ten minutes. I bet the guy only gets 5 hours of sleep a night, so why not let him have a mid-day breather. I don't mind a President who takes a moment to exhale, as long as he's not spending 70% of his term in office at one Presidential retreat or another. If anything, be uplifted that he picked only #1 seeds. I think that proves he hasn't been watching much hoops lately.

-So, Penguins owner Mario Lemieux has come out in favor of tougher penalties against guys who go head-hunting. He wants longer suspensions, bigger fines and he wants the teams themselves to start getting fined as well. Now, I'm not going to pretend I know enough about hockey to start spouting off as to whether or not this will forever change the game, but I do appreciate it when a guy who's own team has a history of thuggish behavior suggests that things need to change. It's one thing to call for tougher fines when you've got a team of choir-boys, it's another to demand changes that could affect your own wallet. Then again, Penguins star Sidney Crosby has been the most high-profile player to be done in by concussion, having already missed a large chunk of the season with no return in sight. I guess Mario knows where his bread is buttered and it ain't with the guys who rack up penalty minutes.

-Due to the NFL lockout, the Players Association has asked the player who are expected to be high draft picks to boycott the NFL draft ceremonies. They say they will attempt to re-create the experience for them in another location. Look, I'm all for unions, but this is a terrible idea. The simple fact is there is going to be football again (hopefully sooner than later) and at that point, these players are just going to be pissed they had to miss a moment they had worked their wholes lives for in a showy gesture that only hurt them and no one else. It reminds me of when some hick town responds to a girl wanting to bring another girl to the prom by cancelling the prom instead of just telling her no. In a few years everyone is going to look back and judge that to be a gross over-reaction and the kids are going to be pissed they never got their party. Don't ask kids who aren't even technically part of the union yet to sacrifice their moment (especially when the players' union is probably about to hit them with a rookie wage scale).

-In an interview this week, Randy Moss said that at this point in his career he just wants to be happy and he's happiest in New England playing with Tom Brady and being coached by Bill Belichick. Much like the song said, he didn't know what he had 'til it was gone. Even though his time here ended badly, I'm willing to bet that the Patriots would be happy to take Moss back after he issues an apology to offensive coordinator Bill O'Brien. They never found a deep threat to replace him and not being able to stretch the defense down the field came back to bite them. Unless a replacement can be found in the draft there could be a spot here for Randy. Oh, and Moss is going to have to take a severe pay cut. Happiness comes with a price.

-Speaking of diva wide receivers, Bengals wideout Chad OchoCinco was invited to come and try-out with the Sporting Kansas City of the MLS. Now, I have a history on this blog of crapping on athletes who assume that because they are really good in one sport this means they will be very good in every sport. How would Chad feel if some basketball player said they were confident they could dominate the NFL? I know that MLS is not the Premier League, but it's still a group of guys who have been playing the sport every day of their lives and are 1,000% better at it that Chad (who played soccer through high school) will ever be. I know that MLS thinks this will be good publicity, but it's not. It's basically just reinforcing the stereotype that just about anyone who can run can play soccer. Not exactly the way to build interest in your sport.

Calling Attention To Yourself

I have a friend who enjoys his pot. Now, I've never been one to partake, but I'm also not about to get noble and start preaching to him about the dangers of drug use. He's 28, he can do what he pleases. However, I am very concerned that he is going to be arrested due to the procedures he described to me for when he goes to buy his illegal materials. Apparently he and his dealer meet in a neutral location, he gets out of his car, goes into the dealer's car, pays, quickly exits the dealer's car, gets back into his own vehicle and drives away. The entire thing takes four minutes. On the surface, it sounds fairly straightforward. But, the other day I was pumping my gas when I saw two men do exactly this maneuver behind the station. Do you want to know what the first thing I thought was? "Hey, I bet that guy is buying drugs from the other guy. At the very least they are doing something illegal." And if I, a person who is usually oblivious to this kind of thing, noticed it then it is a safe bet any cops in the area noticed it as well. Basically, by trying to be slick all this duo actually managed to do was call more attention to themselves. They say the best place to hide is in plain sight. I don't know if that is true, but I'm willing to bet it works a hell of a lot better than acting like you're anticipating a raid from the DEA.

The reason this is fresh in my mind is because the other day I was waiting to take a train into Boston. While standing around the station, I took stock of the people I would be travelling with. (After all, we're at an Orange Alert. I think. We could be Yellow. Who knows?) Of the thirty people around me, I would estimate that twenty-seven of them had their heads down, scrolling through their phone or feverishly typing away at some text message. You know typical, anti-social traveller stuff. But there was one guy in the corner who caught my eye as he feverishly texted into his jacket. He obviously had a cell phone in there, but didn't want it to be seen. He would type a few words, then look up and around the room before returning to his phone, all the while keeping the phone hidden from prying eyes. But by trying very hard to not stick out and look nonchalant, the guy ended up doing the exact opposite. Now I couldn't take my eyes off him. Of course, all his self-security measures were completely unnecessary. First off, I highly doubt what he was typing was nearly that interesting. From the looks of him, he was most likely texting a co-worker about the lunch plans for an upcoming meeting versus some juicy gossip or secret plan for world domination. Not exactly the kind of stuff paparazzi would pay a bundle to get their hands on.

But more importantly, keeping your phone in your jacket is the worst way to discreetly text. Because now I just want to know either what the messages are or what makes your phone so damn special that you don't want the rest of us to see it. It can't just be an iPhone, because everyone has one of those now. They practically give them away, so hiding one just makes you an idiot. Was it a prototype of some new phone, or was it so old the guy was embarrassed to still be using it? Now I needed to know, so I started staring at him. Eventually it turned out to just be a normal Blackberry. Very anti-climactic. My point is the entire thing could have been avoided if he just acted like a normal human and not like the person on the other end of the line was Jason Bourne. (Although I will say this: it was strangely comforting that he was this bad at blending in. You'd have to think someone actually up to no good would have thought it through and gone unnoticed.) I think at the end of the day the best advice I can give you is this: if you have some business that you don't want a lot of people to see, you should probably do it in private.

I'll Risk It

As Jerry Seinfeld once said, there are warning labels all over the place which we ignore everyday. People routinely take more than the recommended dosage and then operate heavy machinery while ripping the tags off of mattresses and rebroadcasting football games without the expressed, written consent of the National Football League. Everyone thinks they know better than the experts. (The only exception, he pointed out, is 'Dry Clean Only' - everyone freaks out if you put 'Dry Clean Only' clothing in the washing machine.) Anyway, I started thinking about this the other day as I was driving down the highway and passed through a section where they are attempting to widen the road by a lane on each side. To do this they need to do some blasting of a rock wall and, as is always the case when this happens, there was an electronic sign offering a warning on the side of the highway. It basically said when the blasting would be happening, but the second page of the sign was a warning to turn off all cell phones and radio devices. You know what? No.

Look, I'm all for safety, but I simply refuse to believe this is still an issue. I get that back when cell phones were a new technology people got signals crossed all the time and you could pick up people's private calls through your radio. And maybe it would be the exact wrong frequency at the wrong time. However, I defy you to tell me the last time that actually happened. I would wager that it hasn't occurred in at least the last half-decade. We've advanced far enough with this technology that this should no longer be an issue. Also, if you are using a detonator which can accidentally be set off by someone simply driving through the area and talking on the phone then I'm blaming your ancient equipment before I'm going to fault the guy checking in at home. I'm not about to listen to some warning about a cell phone potentially setting off a bomb anymore than I believe they can take down an airplane. Besides, have you turned a cell phone off lately? There is at least 10 seconds of animation first. I'll be out of the blast zone before my phone even powers down.

-Since we're on the subject, do you know what are my favorite road-side signs? Distance signs, specifically the ones which list two destinations, one which is a town or two away and the other which is in another state. I don't know why but I find it very amusing to see things like: Burlington - 2 miles. Montreal - 318 miles. My, that is an awful lot of options to cover in-between. I just like the idea of a short-term goal and a ridiculous goal being on the same thing. Also, I would like to know how they choose the far-off location for the sign. Does it have to be on the same road, or can they just pick any random destination? The weirder part is that I hate this in almost any other aspect of life. For example: getting the statement for your car payments which lists the month amount due and then the total amount due totally sucks. You feel pretty good about the monthly balance, but immediately get discourage about how far you still have to go until the car is yours. Perhaps it is the fact you know you have to keep going on car payments. I assume I wouldn't find the distance signs so endearing if I was walking.

More Bracket Advice

Once again, we have come to that production-halting time of the year known as March Madness. Technically it starts tonight with the four 'First Round' games (which, let's be clear, are play-in games - I don't care what the NCAA would like you to call them), but for the majority of us the tournament doesn't get rolling until Thursday. Now, last year I offered some truly terrible advice in how you should fill out your brackets and, good news for you, I'm back to do it again. Let's get to it.

-Don't over-think. Last year the first thing I thought upon seeing the brackets was how easy Duke's road to the Final Four was going to be. But, then I got to thinking about how Duke wasn't a particularly good team and even though they had an alright season, I figured someone was bound to step up and take them down early. Then I started talking myself into all the upsets that could happen and filled out that region using that logic. This was obviously wrong, as Duke won the National Championship. My point is this: you should continue to expect high-seeded schools to be good, rather than think some mid-level team is suddenly going to get their act together after six months. If you think a team has an easy path, they probably do.

-Pay attention to how teams finished. I'm not talking conference tournaments, because those games are always a crapshoot, but the regular season. Stumbling to the finish can be a real warning sign. Every team has a bad couple of games, but you do not want those game coming in late-February. That's why teams like Villanova, Texas and Georgetown should be picked with extreme caution.

-Look at the regions individually. This way you end up with the teams you actually like, not teams based on their numbers. I always fill my brackets out one region at a time and don't worry about my Final Four until I get there. There is nothing worse than hearing from the person who doesn't like that they ended up with four #1 seeds and suddenly feels the need to go back and not be such a front-runner. Hey, if that's how you think it will end up than that's how you think it will end up. In a year like this seeding is pretty meaningless anyway.

-Don't be a homer. This rule only applies if you are playing for actual money and not just the fun of it. If you are just filling out a bracket to kill some time, enjoy putting Bucknell into the final game. If there is real cash on the line than it doesn't really matter where you went to school if that institution is about to get beat-down. Loyalty only gets you so far. Think about it like this: if you come out on top you can take part of your winnings and send the school you actually went to a nice donation this year.

-Don't be afraid of going with the crowd. I hate when someone asks for your Final Four picks and after you tell them they hit you with, "God, that's the match-up everyone has." Well, would you like to know why? Because those are the good teams. I shouldn't feel guilty about having eyes, watching a lot of hoops and therefore knowing the Pac-10 isn't very good this year. I'd love a little variety, but I can only pick from the teams I'm allowed to. So yes, my Final Four has two #1 seeds and two #2 seeds, but it's not like I'm the only one. I'll take being right over being unoriginal any day of the week.

So, that's the best advice I can give you before we get going. Now enjoy the games.

Choose Wisely

As the old saying goes, "All politics are local." I learned this lesson firsthand last year when I held a sign in the town square on two occasions for my aunt, who was running for the local planning board. Alas, we came up a bit short on votes, but I do not think it has anything to do with how we advertised. Everyone was very respectful as we stood there and didn't bring unwanted attention to ourselves, which is a something more candidates should consider. You see, much like I think businesses should put some serious thought into who they allow to drive their company cars because those people end up being the public face of the company (bad drivers reflect poorly on the company as a whole), political candidates should be extremely aware is who the people are that are out campaigning for them. You never know if people are going see the whack-job who has nothing better to do on a Saturday holding your sign and associate that person with your campaign. I know major political campaigns can't oversee everyone, but they should still make an effort to weed out the bad seeds. For example, when Obama was running for President in 2009, Lindsey Lohan came out and said she was a strong Obama supporter. Obama's campaign quickly told her thanks, but you're not really helping. That to me showed solid decision-making skills.

Being careful about who is campaigning for you is especially critical at the local level, because if someone is holding a sign for a local election the assumption is that not only are they a close friend and supporter of the candidate, they are most likely related to them. And apples, as we know, never fall too far from the tree. You may not be able to control who puts a sign for you in their front yard, but standing near them and shaking hands is a strong indication you are on board with their participation. The reason I bring this up is because we have a local election coming up next month and the local town square was flooded with sign-holders last weekend. And one particular candidate's crew (I won't say who on this blog, but if you ask me directly I'll tell you) were being particularly stupid. I'm talking walking into the middle of the intersection without waiting for the lights, pausing in the middle of their crossing to stop and yell back a Dunkin' Donuts order, causing people to miss lights and generally being oblivious to traffic and thus in the way.

Now, people being bad pedestrians happens to me all the time, just not usually three times in a one-block drive, so it was a glaring occurrence. Also, when it happens at any other point those people aren't holding a sign asking me to vote for someone, meaning this time I had a name to go with this unpleasant experience. Sure, it's not the name of the people who actually wandered into traffic like idiots, but at the very least the name of someone with whom I now associate not being able to cross the street correctly. As a result, that person will not be getting my vote. Honestly, if you can't pick qualified people to hold a sign for an hour how can I expect you to effectively run a town position? This is why you should always pick your friends carefully, but your sign holders with even more consideration.

Spring Forward

So, we've once again reached the point of the calendar where we roll our clocks forward an hour. Now, some people prefer the switch in winter when we set the clocks back an hour because it earns us an extra hour of sleep. However, while I do love my sleep, I actually think that springing forward an hour is the better way to go because we get the extra hour of daylight. I mean, what good is sleeping late when the sun goes down at four in the afternoon? If you sleep too long you might only get five or six hours of actual daylight. I much prefer being tired for a day and then being able to be outside until six or seven at night.

Hiking Ramblings

This morning my buddy Frank and I decided to go on a little hike around the local nature reservation. We did this last October and it was great fun, but that time we took a path which was almost a direct line up to the top of the hill with steep elevation changes. (Hill makes it sound like an easy go, but it's far from nothing. I'm not saying it's a mountain-level, but still an incline... You know, writing this defense, I now see why "The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill, But Came Down A Mountain" was based on a true story. That's an important distinction.) This time we figured we would do a longer hike, but with less elevation. However, about a mile in and after some steep turns, I noticed a sign telling us we were at nearly 1700 ft. So much for less elevation. Anyway, here are a few other things I noticed along the way:

-There was a lot more snow left than I anticipated. I know that we were at an elevation, but we haven't gotten any fresh amounts of the white stuff in almost a month. I would have thought it would have been gone by now. I was expecting all the mud I stepped in, but the fact that some places had four inches of snow still hanging around was an unpleasant surprise. It was a good thing I wore my boots.

-A word of advice: if you are ever hiking the back-half of Blue Hills and come to a triple split in the trail, don't take the path that looks downhill. It's not. It goes downhill for a short while and then goes back uphill until you end up higher than you were before. It was completely the wrong turn and a terrible decision. Speaking of continually making the wrong turn...

-You could buy a trail map for $2 (or just take one, as it is on the honor code). Frank actually paid for one, but if you get the opportunity, you should skip it. This thing was very difficult to understand, because all the trails overlap and, for $2 (which they are obviously prepared to lose) they clearly didn't go into great detail. We started on the easy trail and yet somehow we ended up on the 'moderate to hard' trail. (I am not a 'moderate' hiker.) Even that trail was hard to keep track of. At one point I went to some higher ground to try and get a picture and that was the only way I ever would have figured out which way we were supposed to be going. If I hadn't we would still be walking around in circles.

-A mile or so in, I was starting to get winded and felt rather out of shape. This point was driven home shortly as a man came literally running past us. I'm dying, he's out for a leisurely stroll on the mountain. That guy sucks.

-Then, as if I couldn't have felt any worse, a woman brought her dogs up the trail with her. These dogs were having a grand old time jumping over all the rocks. But, it did remind me of something: people say dogs choose their owners. This drove home the point that there was a reason Harry was my dog. He never even wanted me to take him for a walk; I think he would have killed me if I dragged him up a mountainside.

It's All For Show

Last night there was a pretty significant NBA regular-season game when the Heat played the Lakers. The Heat had lost five games in a row, which wasn't supposed to happen after they assembled a super-team in the off-season and their record against the upper-echelon NBA teams has been dreadful all year, so this was a critical game for them. The Lakers, who also haven't looked great against the best competition this season, could really have used the game to make the statement that they were all the way back from a mid-season slump. Plus, you had a ton of superstars both on the court and in the stands, so it was a big TV draw. The Heat ended up winning late, but that wasn't the thing that I wanted to talk about today. That incident that I am bothered by happened about an hour later when TNT cameras went back to a shot of a near-empty Miami arena to show Kobe Bryant by himself taking jumper after jumper from the spot he was at when he missed a crucial basket late in the game. As you can imagine, the basketball pundits are wetting themselves this afternoon talking about Kobe's drive, work ethic and just how much he cares about the game. I, on the other hand, thinks this is a perfect example of why I can't stand guys like Kobe Bryant and Alex Rodriguez.

I've stated many times on this blog that the thing which bothers me the most in this world are empty, dramatic gestures which are only done for show. I can't stand the people who do what appears to be a selfless act in front of the cameras, while deep down everyone knows they would never be doing anything like that if there was no media around. To me, that is all this is. Kobe Bryant knew damn well that this was going to get major play on TNT and milked it for all it was worth. It was a contrive, scripted, made-for-TV moment that will probably be a Nike commercial by the end of the day. And, if you require further proof that this was just a show, look no further than reports Kobe skipped today's practice because he was tired. How can you claim that you want to get better at basketball (a team sport, even if Bryant forgets that occasionally) and then skip practice? The Bryant defenders will say that I'm just hating on Kobe, because I don't know what was going on in his head and he was doing it because he hates losing. That's a fair point, I don't know what goes on in that head of his (after all, I have a strict "Don't sexually assault women" policy). However, I have enough evidence in his past to show that he likes to perform for the cameras instead of being himself. Seriously, ask anyone who used to be a teammate of Bryant's and they will tell you no one knows the actual Kobe.

The thing is, I'm not even bothered by him being an attention hog, because I assume all athletes are. He's been a basketball prodigy since he was 12, so of course he is going to have a warped sense of self-worth. I just wish that he would just pull a Charlie Sheen and admit he thinks he is amazing, rather than try and manipulate the environment around him into getting other people to say it for him. That was always the thing about guys like Alex Rodriguez and Kobe Bryant - people think I don't like them because they play for the Yankees and Lakers, but that isn't it at all; I don't like them because I don't think they are genuine. I think everything they do is scripted and rehearsed. I'll respect guys like Jeter because I think his public persona is who he actually is. But, I think guys like Bryant and Rodriguez are pricks who desperately want to be liked and will say anything in the moment to get you to like them, then turn around and bad-mouth you to the next person to get that person to like them. There is nothing about them that I believe to be true. It was sad when kids in high school would do things like this; it's downright pathetic from a couple of guys in their 30s. Say what you will about a guy like Barry Bonds, but at least he's consistent: he's an asshole, but he's just being himself and doesn't pretend to be something he's not just for the sake of being popular. I just find it sad when being an asshole is the more respectable stance.

Late-Week Sporties

-Yesterday there was a very controversial ending to a game in the Big East Tournament between Rutgers and St. John's. Down 1, Rutgers was attempting to bring the ball up court when their pass was stolen with just a few seconds remaining. The St. John's player started dribbling towards the sideline and then took a couple of steps out of bounds before throwing the ball into the air to celebrate the victory. The problem was that he did all this before the clock actually ran out. The ball should have been given back to Rutgers (and, if you want to nit-pick, a technical foul should have been called for throwing the ball into the stands). However, the refs never blew the whistle. So, rather than give the ball back to Rutgers with 1.7 seconds to play (plenty of time in a basketball game), the officials simply said the game was over. Now, there is instant replay in Big East play, but not in this situation - they are only allowed to review when calls are made. This is where my problem starts. If you are going to have replay, isn't this pretty much exactly the scenario is it designed for? If you're not going to break it out during the last few seconds of tournament play, then you may as well stop using it altogether.

-Speaking of college controversies, The Ohio State University's head football coach, Jim Tressel, is in hot water after reports have surfaced that he was aware of the NCAA violations which were reported in December way back in April. Now, Ohio State tried to cut off the NCAA from handing down further sanctions by suspending Tressel for two games next season. The problem is the two games they suspended him for are against Toledo and Akron, neither of which are exactly football powerhouses. This is like trying to stop your parents from grounding you by declaring that you are sending yourself to bed early. Nice try, but they're still gonna take your cell phone away. If the players were suspended for five games, I'm guessing Tressel is going to have his Saturdays available for a couple extra weekends this fall.

-Everyone is talking about how much of a public relations hit Dwayne Wade and LeBron James have taken ever since they got together in Miami. However, the guy I think has fallen the farthest is Chris Bosh. At least people aren't question whether James or Wade can play. When Bosh was in Toronto people never really thought about him enough to notice him. But now, he's in the spotlight and all his flaws are on display for the basketball fans of the world to see. The other night, Bosh complained about his role and the fact that he's not getting the ball where he would like it on the court. Well, Chris, if you want the ball first then you should go to a team where you aren't the third option. Perhaps actually going into the paint to try and grab a rebound would help. Also, stop routinely having nights when you shoot 3-15. You know, I always wondered if all the Raptor fans that said, "Thank God we can stop rooting for this guy and pretending he's better than he is" were just bitter. Now I realise that relief was genuine.

-Another guy who I was never a fan of was Tiki Barber. Tiki retired four years ago, while still in his playing prime, to pursue media opportunities. While I don't fault him for wanting to walk away from the game with his health or trying to jump-start a career in television, Tiki's mistake was trying to make his name by trashing his former team. I understand that media members need to be able to look a situation objectively, but I think Tiki went too far the other way in trying to do that. Not surprisingly, he's burned every bridge he had with the Giants, who want no part of his comeback. He might be able to hook on with some team in need of a third-down back, but at 36, having not played the game in four years and with a reputation as a guy who can't be trusted to keep locker room secrets, I don't expect a bidding war for him. [Sidebar: to those media members who pointed out that this resets his eligibility for the Hall of Fame, Tiki Barber is not now, nor will he ever be, a Hall of Famer. Reset it all you want, he doesn't belong in.]

-Because this was kind of a slow news week, people were making a big deal of the pictures that surfaced of Tom Brady at Carnival, where it appeared he had his hair in a ponytail held up with a scrunchie. My take on this is the same as it ever was: when you are the unanimous MVP of the league and take Gisele Bundchen home every night, you can wear your hair any damn way you want. Hell, make it to the Super Bowl and I don't care if you want to put it into a French Braid.

Was Anyone Really Watching?

Earlier this week, Charlie Sheen was officially fired from his show, "Two and a Half Men". No one was especially surprised at this news considering how Sheen had been torching the show's writers and the network. But here's what struck me about the situation: this is allegedly the most-watched comedy of television, yet I didn't here one single person come out and demand that Sheen be kept on or that the show be left alone. Instead people seemed very accepting of this decision, almost as if they don't care. This is stunning to me because we live in a world in which shows that are being cancelled for having terrible ratings can't be put down without some sort of online petition springing up, yet a show apparently watched by 10 million people a week can be shut down and no one becomes too upset about it. How is it that a show like "Terriers" gets a week-long eulogy from TV critics who are only too happy to tell us how stupid we are as a species because we weren't watching this magnificent show, yet TV's most-popular sitcom is about to be shelved and no one is up in arms? (This confirms to me that the whole 'most-watched' tag does not equal 'best'.) I'm just left wonder where all the "Two and a Half Men" supporters who are mad at CBS are?

Now, apparently, I'm jumping the gun in saying the show has been officially cancelled, because its fate hasn't been formally announced one way or another. I guess the network is still deciding whether to not to simply cut their losses or to try and retool the show with some major plot overhaul. There is talk of people like Jon Stamos and Rob Lowe coming on to take Sheen's place, but I'm not sure if it would be the same character played by a different actor or an entirely new character, at which point it isn't the same show. Allow me to just let CBS know that, either way, this a terrible idea. Look, this isn't the 1970s when you can switch a main character (a la "Bewitched" when they changed Darrens) and people have to roll with it because there are only three things to choose from. I remember when they changed daughters on "Roseanne" - people were confused by it and that was a character that had maybe two lines an episode. Besides, changing a character when the entire show revolves around them doesn't really work. Ironically, you can ask Charlie Sheen about this, because he was the guy brought in to replace Michael J. Fox on "Spin City" and that show was off the air not that long after. Look, CBS, this show had a nice run - it was on for 8 years, made you a ton of money and will continue to do so in reruns. Perhaps you've milked that cow dry.

-Speaking of a franchise that should be allowed to die quietly, Michael Bay has been making the rounds in anticipation of the new Transformers movie coming out this summer. During one interview, Bay actually admitted that the second Transformers movie was not very good and that they didn't do a great job. (As someone who paid to see it I agree with you, Michael.) Bay apologized for how it came out and promised this third one will be better. This is a really disturbing new trend among Hollywood filmmakers and actors. Just last year, Shia LeBeouf said that he was unhappy with the way the last Indiana Jones movie turned out and apologized to the franchise's fans. Here's a crazy idea, Hollywood, how about, instead of putting out crap and then simply apologizing for it after the fact, you take the time to work on a good script and don't rely heavily on explosions and generic action-movie dialog? What if you realised that what you made was terrible before you unleashed it on the general public for $10 a pop? If you wanted to know why movie sales are down, there is your answer. It has nothing to do with illegal downloading or the recession - it's because people can tell in a thirty second trailer that a movie is going to be stupid, which is apparently a full two years before Hollywood catches on. But, at least they said they were sorry.

This Shouldn't Keep Happening

When I used to work in radio doing traffic reports, there were certain spots I could just type in the delay without having to check if it was there. Much like I knew the sun would rise in the East, I knew Rt 24 North was going to be backed up into Avon by 9 o'clock. (Trust me, International readers, that joke killed with the Massachusetts, South Shore-driver demographic.) Now, I left that job before the infamous Big Dig was officially completed, but was under the impression that once it was done that would end most of the delays heading into the city. If you have driven around here in the last five years you are very aware that it has not. I can not tell you how much this annoys me. These planners had a decade of patience and billions of dollars at their disposal, yet somehow everything is the same as it ever was, only underground. So it might look better from the sky, but now every commute through the city also features long stretches with only static coming from the radio and a lung full of exhaust fumes.

The reason as to why these traffic delays keep happening finally dawned on me as I was driving out of Boston on Saturday afternoon. There were a couple of events going on in South Boston, but not enough to cause any major traffic issues and I figured I should have been fine leaving the city. For the most part I was, hitting only one spot of traffic. It was right after I merged onto the South-bound expressway. You see, coming out of the tunnel that brings you from South Boston you can go into the HOV (standing for high-occupancy vehicle, where high-occupancy = 2) lane. The idea behind the HOV lane is that you can are locked in for a length of time, skipping most exits and can avoid all the other people who might be in the third lane and suddenly feel the need to exit the highway immediately. It's like an express-train, but you need a friend to go along. The problem with this specific HOV lane is that you only get about 200 yards of 'express' driving, at which point you are not only flung back onto the highway, but directly into the high-speed, left lane on the road. As I had to slam on my breaks to avoid a car full of silver-haired drivers who have no business being associated with anything high-speed, I realised that these HOV lanes are the problem around here.

I appreciate what the HOV lane is meant to accomplish, but the ones around here come with a real design flaw. The entire point of the high-speed lane is that you can drive without dealing with cars who might need to slow down as they turn. After all, most drivers aren't skilled enough to successfully merge at 65 mph. But, by emptying the HOV lane into the high-speed lane, you're asking both sides to pull that off. What you've actually done is (rather effectively) rob the entire roadway of its ability to maintain a cruising speed, rather than just the two right lanes. What needs to happen around here is an HOV lane much like they have down in Washington, D.C., where you are literally taken to another road and then merge back on like a normal on-ramp. Honestly, all I'm asking to happen is that you keep the annoyance to one side of the road, rather than try and spread it evenly. So, get on it, Mass Highway. After the Big Dig I'm sure you would appreciate a second chance to prove you know what you are doing.

Winning Like Charlie Sheen

On Saturday I went in town to the Boston Golf Expo because while I don't enjoy crowds, I do enjoy trying new golf equipment without the hassle of a salesman sitting there watching me. There are far too many people who might actually buy something for them to concentrate on instead of the people like me, who they can tell have no intention of ever buying the product, and I am left alone to swing in peace. At this Expo you could buy clubs, balls, even clothes along with various health remedies for back or knee pain (golf is clearly not a young man's game). Also, I looked into how much it would cost to put a putting green in my basement and it isn't nearly as much as you imagine, so that dream lives on. There was a lot to look at, even if some of the booths are not very interesting. In the words of Mitch Hedberg, those are the booths when as the people are handing you their pamphlet it is really like they are saying, "Here, you throw this away."

The other big selling point of the Boston Golf Expo was trips. There were aisles and aisles of booths with information on just about every golf destination you can think of, all offering deals and the chance to win a free trip. I tried to win a get-away for almost all the destinations: Georgia, Myrtle Beach, Vegas, Florida and Western New York. (Hey, a free vacation is a free vacation.) Anyway, there was also a "Golf on Cape Cod" booth. The main reason I stopped at the booth was because they were giving away a map of the Cape with all the public golf courses marked down and I figured it would come in handy at the beach house. But, I got to talking to the woman working the booth and ended up entered my name into a raffle for a variety of 'Stay-and-Play' Cape Cod vacations. I don't need the free stay, but I'm always interested in free play. "You have to be here at 2 for the drawing," the woman reminded me. It was only 12:30 and I figured there was no way I would be still there in an hour and a half.

However, there were lines to try equipment, hold trophies, get my swing looked at and drink free scotch, so at 2 o'clock I found myself still in the building and back at the 'Golf Cape Cod' booth for the drawing. After spending a couple of minutes trying to convince us to play golf on the Cape (which was kind of unnecessary, as I would guess 95% of the people there already did and planned to again), the woman started giving away the prizes. She reached into the basket and pulled out a piece of paper to announce a winner:

"Tom... (heavy sigh)," [Sidebar: I have a long history of people not being able to either read my handwriting or pronounce my last name, so I immediately knew I won.] "Rak... Rasa... (sigh) Rah.... Rika... (sigh)." I figured I would put the poor woman out of her misery so I raised my hand and let her know it was me. "Are you from Norwood?" she asked, trying to get confirmation through something else on the paper. I told her yes. "I can't read your handwriting," she told me. I kind of declare bullshit on that, because I'm pretty sure I printed my name. I'll give you not being able to pronounce, but my handwriting isn't so bad that when I print it is still illegible. However, as I didn't have my prize yet, I wasn't about to say that part out loud.

Turns out I won a couple nights at the New Irish Village in South Yarmouth (no golf included). So on the one hand it's South Yarmouth, all of 30 miles from my beach house and no free golf. If I could have hand-picked my prize this would not have been it. On the other hand, I won and I never win anything. Therefore, I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. I'm giving it to my parents, who are more than happy to have a free weekend down the Cape. Besides, I got my map to plan out my summer golf course visits and that's all I need. However, if I found out later this week I also won a trip to someplace out of the state it wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen. Maybe next year. Winning!

A Retiring Interlude

On Friday, musician Phil Collins announced his retirement from music. And unlike most celebrity 'retirements' I actually take this one seriously. Apparently he's had some hearing issues for the last couple of years and I would imagine that makes music rather difficult. Now, say what you want about Phil personally (like how he divorced one wife via fax), but he was a very good musician. Phil Collins is another one of those musical acts everyone under the age of 50 pretends they can't stand... until someone start listing all his hits and people start losing their shit. "Oh my God, you guys, I love "One More Night". (...And "Take A Look at Me Now" and "Take Me Home" and "Another Day In Paradise" and "Land of Confusion" and of course, the song I used for this week.) So, here's to you Phil Collins, enjoy retirement.

Saturday Sporties

-You ever have that friend who is just a little too eager to please? You know, one time you mention that you enjoy a certain band and then the next time you see them they're wearing that band's shirt and suddenly own all the albums? I kind of feel that is what ESPN is doing with the NFL right now. They know the NFL games get huge ratings, so they lead SportsCenter with any NFL news, even if it really isn't news at all. Thursday it was announced that the two sides of the labor negotiations had decided to extend their completely arbitrary deadline another day. Then Friday another week-long extension was announced. All this amounts to is yet another arbitrary deadline, but you would have thought it was the Vatican announcing a new Pope the way ESPN was breaking in with details all day long. Here's the deal, ESPN: just tell us when they either A) come to an agreement or B) delay the start of the season. We don't care about anything in between.

-You'd never know the NFL is heading towards a lockout the way teams are still releasing and signing players. From the outside it looks to be business as usual, including the usual bad signing. Former Colts safety Bob Sanders signed with the Chargers the other day, which everyone agrees is a great deal, "as long as Bob Sanders can stay healthy." Well, I have news for you, San Diego fans - Bob Sanders never stays healthy. If the NFL season expands to 18 games then he'll just miss a higher number of games than usual. What I'm saying is, if you are going to base whether or not a deal is a good move by whether or not a player who is never healthy can stay healthy, then you just made a bad deal.

-Speaking of players getting dealt and not being healthy, when Kendrick Perkins was traded by the Celtics last week, it was with the understanding that he had a knee issue which would prevent him from playing for a couple of weeks. Oklahoma City knew this and was fine with still making the deal. However, the other player in the transaction, Nate Robinson, was supposed to be the healthy party and yesterday it was announced that he will miss the next month and a half because he needs knee surgery. Now, normally, this is where I would remind OKC of my strict, "no take-backs, no changies" rule. However, despite Nenad Kristic being a very nice rebounder and Jeff Green finally showing me something in last night's game, we still love Perk around here so if the Thunder want us to take Kendrick back, I think Boston fans would be more than happy to make an exception just this once.

-During football season, training camp fights are not uncommon. However, they are not something that usually takes place during Spring Training. Earlier this week a couple members of the Cubs got into a fight in the dugout, reportedly involving a pitcher who wasn't happy the defense behind him gave up three errors in the first inning. They're trying to downplay this in Chicago by saying it's good and shows the Cubs have passion going into this season. Well, you can try and tell yourself that if you want to, but I'm pretty sure it means that one pitcher is an asshole, the infield defense stinks and your team already hates each other. But hey, it's the Cubs - would you expect anything different?

Tremendous Timing

The majority of the time if someone in my family has a car problem we bring it to our family mechanic. He goes a great job, never tries to up-sell us and charges a fair rate for the work, which is really all you want from a mechanic. However, there are the rare times when Kurt doesn't have the equipment to fix what is broken. When that happens we usually end up going directly to the dealership because they are the most likely place to get the problem fixed correctly, even though they are probably going to charge more than a smaller garage. So, when my parents needed to get some work done on their Ford 500 at the local Ford dealership, they had braced themselves for it to cost a lot of money. Not surprisingly, after diagnosing the issue, it was not going to be a cheap fix. But, as my father likes to point out about car repairs, it is cheaper to fix a car than buy a new one.

But then the weirdest coincidence happened. I was checking my email late last night when I found I had an email from this same dealership. I've been getting them sporadically for years, even though I don't remember signing up for them. (I assume I get them because I used to drive an Explorer and might have brought it there to be repaired at one point.) Most of the time I ignore anything in my Junk folder, but given that my parents car was sitting in their lot I decided to open this one. I discovered it was a couple of coupons, including one for 20% off any service. On a whim I printed it out, fully convinced that they wouldn't honor the coupon for one reason or another. But, I gave it to my dad (who can be intimidating if you don't know him) and told him to give it a shot. Turns out they honored the coupon with no questions or gripes and my parents ended up saving over a hundred bucks. Let that be a lesson to us all: sometimes spam email isn't just someone trying to steal your identity.

-Speaking of Internet scams, there was a story in the news this week about a man in Illinois who recently wired $200,000 to various accounts all over the world which he thought belonged to people who had kidnapped the girl he had been dating over the Internet for the past two and a half years. Apparently he and the girl had never met, but he was convinced she was real after seeing her photo ID (which has since been discovered to be a generic sample of a Florida licence) and was told to pay her ransom. After he paid and she never showed up, he called police who did some digging and found the girl never existed. So far the cops have been unable to track down the people running this scam or get the man any of his money back. Alright, it's clearly wrong that this unfortunate and obviously lonely guy was scammed out of so much money, but I have to ask: how did he make that amount of money while being so gullible? They say a fool and his money are soon parted, but someone has to explain to me how a fool gets that much money to begin with.

Where's The Honor In That?

On Tuesday, it was announced by Brigham Young University that sophomore forward Brandon Davies was being removed from the basketball team for what was called a "violation of the school's honor code" discovered the day before. Now, since BYU is a Mormon university, this could have meant a wide variety of things: too much caffeine, drug use, smoking, not going to church or something much more nefarious. The reason this was so noteworthy is that BYU is currently ranked #3 in the country and on its way to a top seed in the NCAA tournament with Davies as the team's second-best player. For a school like BYU, this kind of athletic success doesn't happen every year and it's a big deal. By suspending Davies the school was dealing itself a very tough blow to their NCAA tournament chances, which was made even more apparent last night when the Cougars were thumped by New Mexico (not exactly a basketball powerhouse). Suddenly they went from a team that could be in the Final Four to a team that most experts weren't picking to make the Sweet Sixteen.

Now, ever since the news broke about Davies dismissal from the team, pundits have been all over TV congratulating the school for sticking to its honor code. "They may have hurt their athletic program, but at least they didn't hurt their principles. In this day and age, that's commendable," the talking heads all said. Almost no one had any sympathy for the kid. After all, Davies is from Provo and knew what he was getting into when he signed up to attend BYU (all students, Mormon or not, are expected to sign an honor code agreement) and he should have known the rules would apply to him just like any other student. And, for the first day of the story I was in that camp. I was especially proud of the University when they wouldn't divulge what it was that specifically caused the violation, coming out only to say that it was nothing criminal. I felt that as long as he didn't break a law, anything Davies did to warrant being removed from school was between him, his team and school officials. And, because I don't want them dating until they are at least 30, I was even thinking about pre-enrolling my imaginary daughters into BYU...

Right up until it was leaked yesterday afternoon that Davies was kicked out because he was found to have to have engaged in premarital sex with his girlfriend. Look, I get that it is a violation - it's not my issue. (Well, it kind of is: unless Davies and his girlfriend were having sex in the school library, the only way school officials could have heard about this was if someone tattled and where, exactly, is the honor in that?) Still, the real spot where I have a problem is with it becoming public knowledge. You want to kick the kid off the basketball team that's fine, but that doesn't give this institution the right to publicly embarrass him or his girlfriend. They should have kept it in-house. At any other school in the country what happens behind closed doors stays behind closed doors. Students get into trouble all the time without having it plastered all over the web. I get that student-athletes have a higher profile and almost anything they do is newsworthy, but that doesn't mean a 20 year-old kid's sex life should be talked about on ESPN.

It's that last part that bugs me the most. BYU is getting an awful lot of play out of how upstanding their university is... almost too much. My suspicion has not been eased by a lot of former BYU students coming out on various platforms today and saying something along the lines of, "95% of the student body commits some kind of honor code violation at some point during their time there. People are rarely kicked out and they certainly aren't kicked out the day after the violation is reported." It sure doesn't seem like the school did much investigating. This makes me wonder if BYU is using this kid as a scapegoat. It's become a big story and I'm sure the wealthy Mormon alumni are quite happy to see the school sticking to its guns. A healthy alumni donation surge can be just as lucrative as an NCAA tournament run. It's a tough time to get endowments and this wouldn't be the first time a college has been extra-strict with a student-athlete as a way to send a message. I'm just left to wonder if publicly humiliating someone as a way to make yourself look better is mentioned anywhere in the school's honor code.

Don't Believe This Guy Either

When the NFL first decided to re-emphasis its policy towards illegal hits, Pittsburgh linebacker James Harrison was repeatedly fined for dangerous tackles to the head. It got so bad that after being fined twice in one week Harrison said he would rather stop playing than keep giving the NFL fine money, then skipped a day of practice to "soul search" and contemplate retirement. At the time, I blasted him because I don't like showy and empty gestures. He was never going to retire and everyone knew that - the money is just too good and he doesn't have any other real skill. Basically, I thought he was just trying to drum up sympathy. (Not surprisingly, it turned out I was right. He didn't retire, the NFL kept on fining Harrison and yet he never missed another day.) Well, I still hate dramatic, empty gestures done for attention so today I'm turning my attention to Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer, who recently said he wants to be traded from the team and that he would retire from football if his demand is not met. He vowed to, "never play another game in Paul Brown Stadium." (Not that I blame him. The Bengals have flat-lined after looking like they were on the way up and have a reputation as a franchise reluctant to spend money on training facilities.) But, even though he may have his reasons, I just have to say: dude, shut up. You're not going anywhere - you know it and I know it.

Sources close to Palmer say this threat is very real. They point to the fact that Carson has $80 million in the bank and only keeps playing for the love of the game. He doesn't need to play football and the Bengals should take his demand for a trade seriously. First of all, if you love the game so much you don't walk away - at least, not while you can still play. Secondly, I'm not totally sure I believe that number. Palmer's rookie deal paid him well and his second deal also had a lot of guaranteed money, but unless he invested very well and didn't spend a penny of it, then I would assume that number is much lower. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure he isn't starving, I just think people could always use more money. Which brings me to my third point: I don't care if you have $80 million in the bank, if you are promised another $30 million just to keep showing up for two more years, then you are going to show up for two more years. $80 million is nice - $110 million is nicer. Plus, it's not just Carson's bank account he should be worrying about. Carson's younger brother, Jordan, is a back-up quarterback on the team, only he's terrible. I think it is a very safe bet that if Carson gets his way Jordan won't be in Cincinnati much longer either and I wouldn't be so sure about the younger Palmer hooking on with another NFL team. Carson can't just be thinking about himself here.

The Cincinnati Bengals owner has since said Palmer will not be traded; they have him under contract until 2014 and expect him to honor that agreement. In the past the Bengals have shown they will not cave in to trade demands and usually come out the winner in these situations. (Just look at Chad Johnson. He's asked to be released roughly 10 times and he's still there.) But, I have a bigger question - is Carson Palmer worth all this? Really, like the Bengals couldn't go 5-12 while paying someone substantially less? Palmer's career has been on a steady decline ever since he suffered a knee injury during the 2005 playoffs. If the Bengals can talk someone into taking him off their hands and get a nice draft pick in return, don't you have to do that? It's not like the Bengals are a player or two away - they need some major help on the defensive side of the ball. Why not get some cap space and additional assets while Palmer still has value around the league? Also, there are going to be some interesting names of quarterbacks out there in free agency. What about a flier on a guy like Vince Young? He could come cheap and might only be in need of a change of scenery, so I'm not totally sure Palmer is that much of an upgrade over him. (At the very least Young doesn't seem like the kind of guy to go around and flaunt his bank book in your face.) So, in conclusion, Carson, while I understand why you want to force your way out of a place you hate, the money is too good and in the end you're going to end up staying. The way the NFL works you're probably going to be released after next season anyway.