Just A Glimpse

As some of you probably know, I'm firmly against the theory which states that if a movie becomes a cult classic or makes over a certain amount of money than a sequel must automatically be made. Some movies are just perfect enough they don't require any more details - no one is left wondering what happened to the characters or what happened next. However, movie studios rarely care about the actual movie, they just want to make more money and they want to make it now. As such, that sequel is getting made no matter what. If the original writer wants to work on something else they will find another writer to carve out a script and if the original star doesn't want to be involved they will find someone that looks enough like them to make it work or get someone younger and call it a prequel. Even though these moves usually scare a fair amount of people away they still make enough money to cover production costs. The profits won't be as great as the original, but they will still be profits. What I think those movie studios really need is a window into the future to see how these movies are going to turn out. A sample size, if you will. For the first time ever, we actually had that last week.

A few days ago a video clip surfaced on the internet. In the clip an amused-looking Matthew Broderick throws open the curtains and asks, "How could I possibly be expected to concentrate on work on a day like this?" Of course, that is an adaptation of his famous line from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" so naturally this got people buzzing that this clip might just be a teaser for a sequel to the 1986 hit. It wasn't until a few hours later that we learned it was just a snippet from a Honda commercial which will air during Sunday's Super Bowl. [Sidebar: Seriously, we're teasing the commercials now? As if every angle of this game hasn't already been examined enough.]  Since then the entire three-minute commercial has become available online and having watched it, it's fine. It's not the best Super Bowl commercial in history, but it hits enough of the nostalgic moments from the movie to do the job. Normally I would be railing against one of my favorite movies in history being bastardized to sell a car I would probably never fit into, but not this time. Because what this commercial did, besides attempt to sell me a car, was show the whole world that there is absolutely no reason to make a Ferris Bueller, Part 2.

I've heard rumors about a script for a "Ferris" sequel floating around for years. It was going to take place a few years down the line and instead of high school Ferris was going to be ditching out of a day of work and then spending the day going on various adventures while simultaneously trying to avoid his boss. Not exactly "The Godfather II", but it might have been amusing if the script was well-written. For whatever reason it never got made and I think this commercial showed us that the time for a Ferris sequel has gone by. I'm not saying Matthew Broderick is a thousand years old, but he is officially too old to be ditching out of work to go on adventures. I mean, wouldn't a guy like Ferris Bueller be an executive by now? They don't need to make excuses to not show up for work - they just call in from the golf course. And you can't do a Ferris Bueller movie without Broderick, so getting someone else to play the part just wouldn't work (this is why the TV show based on the movie failed). What that leaves us with is a plot that would more likely involved Ferris Bueller, Jr's day off and the movie would end with a cameo from Broderick where he would deliver his lines with all the gusto of someone reading them off cue cards and appearing as if he only showed up because they promised to pay him in cash. (This is how we ended up with the dreck that was "Dumb & Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd.") There might have been a window to make a "Ferris Bueller" sequel, but that window closed about a decade ago.

I understand that I probably care more about some of these films than the people who were in them, because by this time they are so jaded by Hollywood that they don't even care. But the history of movies is littered with ill-advised sequels and I would really (maybe foolishly) like to think that if the people involved could have seen how they would turn out than they would have thought twice about putting the movies into production. (Honestly, was anyone proud of the way "Roadhouse 2" looked when it was finished? Because I certainly wasn't proud of myself for watching it.) My biggest fear is that this commercial will actually inspire someone to revisit the idea of a Ferris sequel. After all, it was a Super Bowl commercial which launched Betty White into a career resurgence at the age of 88. Ferris Bueller was trending on Twitter for a couple of days, mostly about how much people loved that movie. Well, I'm going to take it upon myself to let anyone who is thinking about it know that while the original is pretty much universally loved, I highly doubt people would be as enthralled by a sequel. They got it right the first time and if the commercial is an idea of what going back for seconds would look like then here's hoping they decide against it.

Not Very Subtle

Whenever I find myself babysitting, I am comforted by the knowledge that my nieces are not yet old enough to be slick when it comes to scheming. Sure, they will try to deny that they were the ones who threw the food on the floor but it's pretty hard to stick to that story when you are the only one in the living room and the empty plate is still in your hand. The good news is that if my recent interactions with teenagers are any indication, I have another decade of being smarter than them to look forward to. You see, the mild winter has led to one unforeseen downside: a lot more teenagers hanging around outside all the time. You expect to deal with this when it is summer and they have no school to worry about, but usually you get a couple months off during the winter. However, it has been so warm lately that every Friday night I have to wade through them as they hang outside local stores. They are there because they want someone, anyone, to buy them something they aren't old enough to legally purchase themselves and what better way to get something you aren't supposed to have than by asking a total stranger to do you an illegal favor? (Like I said, not the brightest.) Not only was I not this kid in high school, I also avoided hanging out with this kid. But, that doesn't mean they don't amuse me.

I was heading into a gas station convenience store on Friday when I saw a pack of them hanging around the side of the store, in a group just large enough to attract attention. I mean, what could possibly be suspicious about 6 teenagers milling around in a tight circle, each one periodically whipping their head around to make sure no cops were coming? That is a look that screams, "everything over here is on the up-and-up!" If the acoustics in that parking lot had been better I would have sworn they were simply a choir in need of practice space. They looked to be around 14 or 15, which is typically the age for this kind of activity. You aren't old enough to drive around, so you walk to one place and stay there for the rest of the night, plus you haven't been in high school long enough to make friends with the seniors who have friends in college who will buy you beer, so you are forced to beg from strangers. Previously, we've also talked about how if you are trying to do something illegal the key is to not do it in an area that looks like the kind of place illegal activity takes place and specifically not the back of a gas station. Those kids are clearly not loyal readers of the blog.

Now, because just this kind of activity resulted in the death of a kid I went to school with when I was still in junior high I'm a little sensitive to this kind of thing and had they been trying to purchase beer I would have said something. But what this group wanted was cigars. (Again, doesn't feel like these criminal masterminds thought this all the way through. I would be fascinated to know what they planned to tell their parents at the end of the night, as cigars make you stink down to your bones.) They had already talked/bribed some older kid into doing the purchasing for them and by the time I had reached the counter the kid was in line right in front of me. After asking the clerk behind the counter for half a dozen cigars (as you do, because gas station cigars are obviously such high quality that you buy them in bulk), the kid was very proud to produce his ID, which led me to believe he was about 18 years and one day old. Given the level of scrutiny usually seen at gas stations I was impressed that the clerk even asked for an ID. That being said, I highly doubt he would have cared that these cigars were about to be handed to kids who were not old enough to buy them, which just makes the fact that these kids were trying to "hide" off on one side of the building all that more laughable.

But wait, I haven't gotten to the best part yet...

As I was pumping my gas I could see the kids off to the side, clearly very proud of what they had just pulled off. Honestly, I don't think the crew at the end of "Ocean's 11" was this pumped about their heist. As such, they were being really loud, as they were apparently unaware that sounds travels or that they could very easily still get in trouble for being underage. (I've stated many times that I would never want to be a cop because it must be a thankless job, but in that moment I would have given anything to have a badge. I think if I had gone over and told them I was a cop half the crew would have wet themselves.) However, I didn't need to do anything because as I was thinking about that, I heard the greatest thing ever: "Hey, does anyone have a lighter?" followed by 10 seconds of dead silence. Yeah, apparently none of them remembered that it takes fire to light up a cigar. The joyous mood was immediately snuffed out. I almost laughed until I remembered a sobering thought: the kids of today are the leaders of tomorrow. We might be screwed.

Storms Above The Clouds

Late in the week the planet was hit with a few solar storms. Apparently, these are just the first in a long line of storms that are expected to come Earth's way, as our solar system experiences what I can only assume is an El Nino-esque pattern in space. The storms don't do any damage to the planet - just create some very vibrate Northern Lights. Since I don't live where the Northern Lights can easily be viewed, I'll have to take the scientists word for it. I think this lack of obvious result is why our space and science programs are losing their momentum. Kids are raised on comic books where stuff falling from space grants super powers or have some other cool consequence. The reality is that things either burn up before they get here or they don't do anything cool once they arrive. It's a little bit of a let-down. I'm not saying that I want these solar storms to create a super-villain who tries to conquer the world - I'm just saying that if that were to happen I think next year's science fair would be much more well-attended.

Weekly Sporties

-Apparently, this was the week for hockey players to throw little one-man protests. On Monday we had Tim Thomas and his White House boycott and just a day later we had Alexander Ovechkin saying that because he was suspended three games for an illegal hit in a game against Pittsburgh, he would be skipping the All-Star game. Now, I get that Ovechkin is annoyed with being suspended, especially since he wasn't even called for a penalty in the moment, so if he wanted to beg out of the game citing a mystery illness or injury with a wink and a nudge, no one would have said anything while at the same time acknowledging what was really going on. Instead he was quoted as saying, "My heart is not there. I got suspended, so why I have to go there [sic]?" I like how he started by saying it was because he just didn't feel like he would be putting out enough effort (you know, for the fans), but that lasted all of one second before he admitted it was because he got suspended. This kind of pouting is the hockey equivalent of taking your puck and going home. For the last couple of years hockey experts have been saying that the Capitals are the favorites to win the Stanley Cup, but the team keeps underachieved in the playoffs. Considering Ovechkin is supposed to be their best player and leader, I think we just got our answer as to why.

-Honestly, though, I'm thankful for hockey players throwing temper tantrums, because otherwise I don't know if I would have enough for the sporties. The Super Bowl isn't for another week, professional basketball players are dropping like flies due to the compressed scheduled and the NHL is at its All-Star break - it's a bit of a dead zone. Fortunately, the NFL is so tightly scripted I knew I would have some NFL coaching hires to talk about, because you know damn well the Commissioner's office wasn't going to let anyone get hired next week to distract from the game. I always like it when coaches get hired in the NFL because then we can play the game of guessing how many season they will last until they get fired. I have to be honest, with this crop I would take the under, no matter what the number is. It makes me laugh when NFL owners try to out-smart the competition, because all they end up doing is over-thinking and making the wrong choice. Most of the coaches hired this week are defensive guys who have never been head coaches before, because every owner is trying to find the next diamond in the rough while also bucking the current NFL trend of offenses running the show. It's not going to work. The simple truth is that these guys have never been head coaches at any level for a reason and a couple of them have only been coordinators for a year. It is one thing to try and find a hidden jewel, it is entirely different to try and pass a lump of coal off as a diamond. I'm going as record as saying at least 4 of the jobs which were open this year will be open again by 2014.

-I did forget to mention one thing that was going on during this lull period, but that was for a good reason. The Pro Bowl is on Sunday, but no one cares. At this point the Pro Bowl is a waste of everyone's time. The only players who play hard are the first-timers and even then "hard" is a relative term. Showing just how seriously they take it the NFL is going to set up a computer on the sidelines and allow players to Tweet during the game, which they are not allowed to do during regular games. While I appreciate what the NFL is trying to do, I think they are missing the point. No one follows an NFL player (or any professional athlete, for that matter) because they want their insight into the game. People follow them on the off chance they will screw up and Tweet out what was supposed to be a personal message (usually to a woman who is not their wife) to all their followers, then quickly follow that with the ever-popular "my account was hacked" excuse. Having players Tweet from the sidelines, most likely with an official from the League Office sitting over their shoulder checking what they are writing, defeats the purpose. The only things the players are going to Tweeting will be the basic, count-the-cliches statements we get in press conference. It takes on a feeling similar to throwing a party with chaperons - it removes all the danger and thus all the fun. The NFL does a lot right, but not everything and certainly not this.

-Personally I can't wait to get to the Super Bowl and not just because I think it is going to be a very good game. I just can't take the same stories over and over again. With so much time to kill between games every aspect has already been looked over a dozen times and will be looked over a dozen more by next Sunday. A perfect example are the daily updates on Patriots' tight end Rob Gronkowski's ankle. Now, Gronkowski will play in the Super Bowl: I know that, you know that, the Patriots know that and the Giants know that. But, because he was injured in the last game he will be on the injury report. The Patriots injury report has always been kind of tongue-in-cheek because Belichick obviously doesn't want his opponent to know if a guy is really hurt, so he just messes with people. Since the league forces him to put out a report, he'll do things like list everyone on the team as questionable just to be kind of a dick. And this week he had to put out an injury report even when the team had the day off. So Gronkowski was listed on the projected injury report. Meaning, "We didn't practice, but if we had, we don't think he would have been out there. You know, hypothetically." Alright, when you as a guy like Bill Belichick to make up a projected injury report you are just asking for trouble. Can we get to the game already? Please?

-The Winter X-Games kicked off this week, which means this is a fantastic time to remind people that I don't get the X-Games during any season. I can't even go all old-man-river on you because I never got the X-Games, even when I was in their target demographic. I think the problem is that I can't see the difference between the guy who comes in first and the guy who comes in fifth. Yes, the guy who wipes out loses, I get that. But what makes one guy so much better than the guy who came after him when they do all the same stuff? Now, because this is an ESPN creation they have to pretend it matters and have been giving it equal time as sports like basketball and hockey. They even included the scores on the crawl at the top of ESPN.com. While this was most likely intended to get people more interested, it just added to my confusion. For example, one guy won with a 95.33 next to his name. The next guy was at 82.66. I don't know what either of those numbers mean. Are they points? Judges totals? Times? You could tell me any of those answers and I would have to take your word for it, because I don't know. And, in what might be a sadder statement about my aging habits, I don't care enough to learn.

-While we're on the subject of sports that ESPN has invested so much time and money in to that they will never let them fade away, the Australian Open Tennis Tournament has been going on. Now, I will say this for the tournament: at least it is on in the middle of the night, so as to not block any good games from appearing on TV. There was also one other strange news item which happened during a Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal match. They were playing on Australia Day, which means midway through it a scheduled 10-minute firework display started going off near the stadium. The match was stopped while the celebration went on, but when it came back the fireworks had clearly rattled Federer, who lost the next 11 points in a row. Now, I'm always saying that it is impossible to defend golf as a real sport because they want total silence while they hit. Well, tennis wants that as well, but at least I've never heard of a golfer getting rattled because of some fireworks and a pause in the action. Hell, I remember a tournament in Florida a couple years ago where a golfer was in the middle of swinging as the space shuttle was landing nearby and the sonic boom went off. He held off on the swing, but completed it a minute later with no issues. That means I can officially call it: in the sports hierarchy, golfers are tougher than tennis players.

-Last weekend British adventurer Felicity Aston became the first woman to ski alone across Antarctica, making the journey is 59 days. She is also the first person to do it using all her own power, as the previous people used either kites or some machines to aid their journey. It is an amazing accomplishment of the human spirit. With that out of the way, this is the part where I get kind of snarky. First off, is this one of those world records which was only set because no one else thought it was necessary? For all we know it's not even all that hard, people just think it is too stupid to try. I mean, is this getting put into that same world record category as the guy who put the most snakes in his mouth? Secondly, she was the one who Tweeted out, "!!!Congratulations to the 1st female to traverse Antarctica SOLO. V proud." Apparently, grammar is optional when you are that cold. Also, I think most of you know how I feel about people who promote themselves this way. This Tweet feels a lot like the people who wish themselves Happy Birthday just so that people will Tweet it back to them. If you have to call attention to the fact that you just set a World Record, than I would say it probably wasn't worth doing in the first place.

Memory Mix-Up

A few years ago I got a sweet G.I. Joe t-shirt for Christmas. Those of you who know me know how much I love G.I. Joe because it takes me back to my youth, when I had enough of the toys to invade a small country. As such, you can imagine my dismay when after wearing the shirt just a few times I noticed a small hole in it. The hole occurred where all the holes in my shirts seem to form: under the armpit where the sleeve meets the shirt on the right side. Always the right side. I assume this is because I am right-handed, but that might be the dumbest reason for a shirt to wear out ever. Now, this certainly wasn't enough for me to get rid of it but I decided I had to be careful about when I was going to wear it and the shirt was subsequently buried at the back of one of my drawers. (Looking back this logic is rather stupid, as it is a G.I. Joe t-shirt. What formal occasion would it be ok to wear a G.I. Joe t-shirt, but only as long as it was hole-free? It is not like I could wear it to a job interview, hole or not. I should have been wearing it this entire time, but simply conscious to not reach for high things (which would have been the case anyway as the shirt is not long enough.))

During the last couple of months I have gotten rather proficient about sewing these kinds of holes shut. Like I said, a number of my shirts seem to develop this problem, so it was either get better at fixing them or go on a shopping spree. Since I don't want to replace a chunk of my wardrobe, repair seemed like the better alternative. My sewing work might not look the best, but it gets the job done. Besides, the only way people notice is if they are right up next to me and close enough to get a good look and I don't know why anyone needs to be that close to my armpit. So, I was repairing another shirt the other night when I finally remembered that I had been planning to fix this G.I. Joe shirt for years and it just had a habit of slipping my mind. But, I was finally at the point where I had the tools in my hand and idea in my mind at the same time, so I pulled the shirt out, ready to get to work at sewing the hole closed. There was just one small problem with my plan: there was no hole in the shirt.

At first I thought that I must have just gotten the location wrong. But, I went over this shirt from top to bottom and didn't find a single rip or fray. In fact, because of how infrequently I have worn it for the last couple of years, it is actually in better shape than the majority of the t-shirts I wear on a regular basis. The only place this short looks worn out is the logo, which is supposed to look worn out to give it that "vintage without actually being vintage, because why would a 10 year-old own a shirt this size?" look. I have no idea how it happened, but I must have been wearing another shirt and simply gotten the two mixed up in my head. I can only assume that I have a shirt which looks very similar and mentally switched them. Either that or I have had this problem with so many of my shirts that I started to assume every one of my shirts needed to get repaired. (I realize this makes me sound like I'm walking around wearing nothing but shredded t-shirts, but I assure you that is not the case. It's like one out of every 20 and only the ones I have had for years, but like too much to get rid of.) The point is that I had been avoiding wearing this shirt for no good reason.

The comforting part is that this kind of mental mix-up is hardly exclusive to me. It is actually very common for people to become convinced in their mind that a wrong is totally right and once that happens there is no changing their thinking. The famous sports example happened when Danny Ainge got into a fight with Tree Rollins during a game and Tree bit Ainge. But, because Danny had a reputation as an annoying defender and was the one who got ejected from the game, over time the narrative switch in enough people's minds to the point history became convinced the roles were reversed and it was Danny who bit Tree. However, this kind of switch can happen in every walk of life. I mean, how many people in this world mess up song lyrics and then over time become convinced they are 100% correct about how the song goes? (There are some people who will go to their graves singing "I see a radio and I want to paint it black." At least I am not that bad.) Instead I'm going to look at this like I just got a new shirt all over again. All's well that ends well. Except for one thing: I obviously have another shirt with a hole in it, but now have no idea which one.

The Celebrity Protest

You can tell that a sports story has taken that next leap to "actual" news story when it last for more than three days. You see, sports stories never hang around that long because there is always another game to play, another coach getting fired or another player switching teams to distract the media. Nothing stays important for very long when it comes to sports, so the fact that it is Thursday and people still want to talk about Tim Thomas shows that this particular story seems to have moved to that next level. For those of you unfamiliar, on Monday the Boston Bruins made the traditional champions trip to the White House. The only player still on the Bruins who opted out was Thomas, one of only two Americans on the team and the MVP of the Finals. At the time the Bruins tried to act as though it was no big deal and said they would address it later. Thomas later released a statement through his Facebook page saying that it was nothing personal and had nothing to do with party lines, but he feels as though government as a whole is getting out of hand and this was just him standing up for what he believes in. It's his right, but I gotta tell you, he didn't handle this particularly well.

Now, I don't care about Thomas's politics, because I don't care about any celebrity's political leanings. In fact, I hate when celebrities involve themselves in politics. If you plan to vote for someone because a celebrity told you to then, frankly, I would rather you stay home on election day. Honestly, musicians and actors are usually some of the least-educated people on the planet. They have a lot of other talents, but most of them barely finished high school while pursuing that career, so if it is all the same to you I'd rather do my own research and form my own opinion. (I'll just say this - I do find it rather convenient that the people who often seem to be the most politically active are also the ones who have the most well-off financially. It's really easy to be political when you have nothing to do most days.) Look, the bottom line is that the rest of the world is just too busy trying to make money and pay the bills to kick off for the day to make signs and go to a rally. I would love to care, but I have an actual life to lead.

All that being said, I don't believe Thomas for a second when he says he doesn't lean either way politically. He once said his favorite show is Glenn Beck, so something tells me if a Republican was in office he would be there. I think it is a very sad state of affairs when people don't even feel as though they can stand to be in the same room as people they don't agree with, but I'll still respect you more if you just come right out and are at least honest about your reasons. The unfortunate part is I think Thomas was the only one who really got hurt, because how often does he think he's going to get this chance? Even if you don't like the guy, I bet it would be really cool to meet the President of the United States. I mean, it is not like President Obama was asking Thomas to sign any kind of legal document saying he would vote for him in the next election, he just wanted to celebrate the Bruins victory. It should also be noted that my feelings aren't exclusive to Thomas in this case - that is how I would feel if someone who was a Democrat didn't want to visit the White House because a Republican was in office. It's a stupid, dickish, empty gesture, but one everyone is entitled to make.

What makes me happy is that it seems like most people in Boston agree with me. Sure, the talking heads on local sports talk radio are up in arms, but they get paid to be up in arms and it's a slow news cycle with the Super Bowl not for another week and a half - they will jump on any controversy they can find. And of course other politicians are going to be annoyed, because they have such an inflated ego they think people give a crap if they get stood-up. After all, I believe it was former President Clinton who famously compared sports and politics by saying, "in both you have to be smart enough to know the rules and dumb enough to think they matter." Not to mention, Thomas is hardly the only Boston athlete to skip a White House visit. Manny Ramirez didn't go after the Red Sox won in 2007 and Larry Bird famously skipped a visit when the Celtics won the title years ago. Therefore, the rest of the city seems perfectly content to let Thomas go on his little one-man protest.

Where Thomas messed up in a lot of people's eyes was in releasing his statement. Allegedly the Bruins asked Thomas to hold off until after their visit to release his reasons so they wouldn't be asked about it all day long. What Thomas did instead was release a statement saying he would be releasing a statement, meaning that everyone now wanted to know if the team knew what the statement was going to be. Reports are that this really bothered a lot of his teammates, who wanted this day to be about one last hurrah for their Stanley Cup run and instead had to talk about Thomas's political leanings. Considering half of them weren't born here and probably can't vote, I can imagine how annoying that would be. Now, most hockey players that I have interacted with seem very non-political so I doubt this will divide the Bruins locker room, but it won't help. And with Thomas about to be a free agent, getting up there in age and the Bruins already looking to the future with 24 year-old Tuukka Rask, this could be just the kind of thing that makes transitioning Thomas out the door that much easier.

I always say that when it comes to athletes, at some point any off-field distractions will start to out-weigh the on-field contributions. You have to wonder if Thomas just sped up his own exit from the team. I mean, we're already getting "anonymous sources" saying how annoying his actions on Monday were to the team. Thomas had already begun the beginning of his end with the Bruins, but I have to say if pissing off your teammates by refusing to go to a party leads him out the door, it will be one of the stranger exits in sports history. Still, there is no quicker way to alienate yourself from a crowd than to bring politics into a non-political environment. It's not like it was an effective protest, either. Considering what I'm sure the President normally deals with this was probably the least-insulting that that happened to him that day. All Thomas did was hijack what was supposed to be a day about what he and his teammates accomplished and made it about himself. To me, that was far more damaging than any political statement he could have made.

Commercial Break-Down

Welcome back to the commercial break-down. For those of you who might be new, this is where I take a commercial and pick it apart. Now, more likely than not I found this commercial amusing the first time I saw it. But because I primarily like to watch sports and sports tend to have more commercial breaks than anticipated towards the end, thereby necessitating playing the same commercials more often, at this point I have officially seen it too many times. And because familiarity breeds contempt, now I'm starting to see details which annoy me. As such, the only thing left to do is break the commercial down, "Mystery Science Theater" style. Before we begin, the commercial in question: it is one of those DirecTV ads which takes mundane circumstances to ridiculous conclusions. You'll see what I mean.

Now, onto the breakdown:

:02 That is clearly not his kid, let's get that out of the way early. I get that you want probably don't want to kill yourself doing a lot of casting for a two-second shot, but it does show a lack of commitment to the details. Also, kids hit stuff whether they watch their parents do it or not. Commercial premise busted already, but we'll continue.

:08 I think at this point in time the only way to get expelled from school is to bring a weapon in. Even then parents and lawyers would be up in arms about how this is the failing of the system and not the child's fault (I've seen "Lean on Me" many times), so it is unlikely she would actually get expelled. Also, I know nothing about being a teacher, but I've been led to believe it pretty much sucks from sun up to sun down until the day you retire. If you are pushing to expel a kid from school just for knocking your lunch down on purpose you are probably too sensitive to have that job.

:10 Who the hell still hangs out at the arcade? And a leather jacket with studs? What year was this commercial made, 1982? If you are hanging out in an arcade or have hair that poofy you aren't tough, you have read all the "Twilight" books. Twice. And you cried.

:14 Wouldn't think a couple of crazy Goth kids would be into marriage, instead raging against it being part of the 'establishment'. Also, the "undesirable" is wearing skinny tights. Again, he is officially not tough. Plus, everyone looks very well-dressed in this shot. Shouldn't his side of the family be more leathered?

:19 A dog collar? Really? Again, was this commercial based off biker gangs from the "Police Academy" movies? Also, grandparents have a way of influencing their kids on how to dress their grandkids without actually being there to put clothes on the kid (it's like watching a Jedi mind trick in real life), so I'm sure this guy will figure it out before the kid's first birthday.

:22 Ok, this commercial clearly was meant to take place over a period of about 16 years. Yet, everything in the house, including the television on the wall, is exactly the same. (Again, showing a real lack of attention to details.) You haven't gotten a new TV or even painted the kitchen in all that time? No wonder the daughter turned out messed up, because she obviously has super-lazy parents.

:24 I'm sure this is the point where my father would point out that even though she was expelled from school and married what I can only assume is the lead singer of a WhiteSnake cover band, at least she got the sequence correct. He is always saying how it should be married, then children. Her parents might not have gotten much right, but at least that lesson slipped through.

:26 Yes, satellite TV is much cheaper than cable. It also cuts out when it so much as rains. That has nothing to do with the rest of the commercial I just thought you might want to know that. You're welcome.

My Oscar Predictions

Sure, the award ceremony isn't for a another month but I'm likely to forget about doing this if I don't get to it now. Better to get my predictions out of the way than think of it that Sunday morning. Besides, when it comes to awards show predictions (as with Hall of Fame voting) your first instincts are usually the right ones - no need to agonize over the decision. Much like the people voting, I won't let a little thing like not having seen all the movies get in the way of my offering up opinions about them. Also, keep in mind this is not who I would pick, just who I think will win.

WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
"The Descendants," Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
"Hugo," John Logan
"The Ides of March," George Clooney & Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon
"Moneyball," Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. Story by Stan Chervin
"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," Screenplay by Bridget O'Connor & Peter Straughan

Winner: "The Descendants"
Almost went with "Moneyball" given how much people love movies adapted from Michael Lewis books and screenplays written by Aaron Sorkin. That combo feels almost unbeatable. However, I feel like this is one of those years where "The Descendants" would clean up if it wasn't for "The Artist". They aren't going to give it best picture, so they'll give it every award that doesn't have the other movie in the running.

WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
"The Artist," Michel Hazanavicius
"Bridesmaids," Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig
"Margin Call," J.C. Chandor
"Midnight in Paris," Woody Allen
"A Separation," Asghar Farhadi

Winner: "Bridesmaids"
Look, I refuse to think people are so silly as to give a silent movie an award for writing. Hollywood is dumb, but they aren't that dumb. Besides, this gives the voters a chance to pat themselves on the back for giving an award to women. Nothing makes Hollywood happier than having a chance to act as though they should be praised for being progressive, even though their tone about it makes the entire thing seem rather condescending. Yes, you actually gave it to the most deserving person regardless of gender or race. If this was the 1950s you could all be very proud of yourself.

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
"A Cat in Paris," Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli
"Chico & Rita," Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal
"Kung Fu Panda 2," Jennifer Yuh Nelson
"Puss in Boots," Chris Miller
"Rango," Gore Verbinski

Winner: "Puss in Boots"
Oof, this category sucks. I've never even heard of two of these movies. Let's just move on.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Bérénice Bejo, "The Artist"
Jessica Chastain, "The Help"
Melissa McCarthy, "Bridesmaids"
Janet McTeer, "Albert Nobbs"
Octavia Spencer, "The Help"

Winner: Octavia Spencer
See? Here we go again. "We gave an award to a black woman. We've only done that five times in history. Everyone, look how liberal we are!" This will lead to many stories about how this is an historic night for women in film as if women making movies is somehow a novelty. At least I can watch with amusement as all the women in my life heads collectively explode.

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Kenneth Branagh, "My Week with Marilyn"
Jonah Hill, "Moneyball"
Nick Nolte, "Warrior"
Christopher Plummer, "Beginners"
Max von Sydow, "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"

Winner: Jonah Hill
Ok, just kidding. That pick is more just what I really want to happen. I just want the kid who we all first saw as an angry EBay customer in "40 Year-Old Virgin" to be an Oscar winner. I always knew he was bound for greatness. But, I'm sure it will go to Christopher Plummer for a movie 8 people saw, because he is playing the role of a dying gay man. If you play a dying gay man, you should start clearing a spot on your mantle for the Oscar.

LEAD ACTRESS
Glenn Close, "Albert Nobbs"
Viola Davis, "The Help"
Rooney Mara, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"
Meryl Streep, "The Iron Lady"
Michelle Williams, "My Week With Marilyn"

Winner: Meryl Streep
I mean, why do they even pretend this is an actual category anymore? If Meryl Streep puts out anything in the calendar year she is getting nominated for an Oscar, regardless of the project. You put her in a biopic about a controversial figure? That race is over before it started. The only way this goes to another actress is if people thinks she gets nominated too much (this is her 17th nomination) to vote for her, like when Karl Malone won NBA MVP over Jordan.

LEAD ACTOR
Demián Bichir, "A Better Life"
George Clooney, "The Descendants"
Jean Dujardin, "The Artist"
Gary Oldman, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy "
Brad Pitt, "Moneyball"

Winner: Jean Dujardin
I'm not planning to see "The Artist" but everyone keeps saying it is pretty good. And, if you can carry an entire movie without saying a word, you have to be very good at what you do.

BEST DIRECTOR
Michel Hazanavicius, "The Artist"
Alexander Payne, "The Descendants"
Martin Scorsese, "Hugo"
Woody Allen, "Midnight in Paris"
Terrence Malick, "The Tree of Life"

Winner: Michel Hazanavicius
Again, "The Artist" is winning the night. But, at least you can justify this one because it's a very delicate balancing act to get people to act in a silent movie without over-acting. I figure that takes talent. Besides, like I'm not going to pick the half-Lithuanian guy?

BEST PICTURE
"The Artist," Thomas Langmann, producer
"The Descendants," Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, producers
"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close," Scott Rudin, producer
"The Help," Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan, producers
"Hugo," Graham King and Martin Scorsese, producers
"Midnight in Paris," Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, producers
"Moneyball," Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz and Brad Pitt, producers
"The Tree of Life," Nominees to be determined
"War Horse," Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, producers

Winner: "The Artist"
Some years there is just a critical juggernaut that everyone else is powerless to stop. And while award shows never seem to want to reward the popcorn-blockbusters that everyone likes and which make a ton of money, they are very quick to give statues to the movies which are seen as plucky, critically-acclaimed underdogs. I guess that telling themselves it is about the best product and not about which movie made the most money is how they can sleep at night after going to a show where the women wear dresses worth thousands of dollars and the gift basket has more electronics in it than most people could afford to buy with a month's salary. Also, let's be honest, it is not like this is a very strong field. Years like this make you wonder why they felt the need to expand to 10 movies for this category, when they could only come up with 9 movies to nominate. Frankly, not a good year for movies. They should go back and retroactively give the Oscar to "Saving Private Ryan" to right the wrong.

So, those are my best guesses. The show is at the end of February if you feel like checking back to see how I did. I'll be honest, I'll likely forget to watch the show that night, as there is a Celtics game at the same time. (It's against the Raptors. They might actually win.) Just another reason I had to get these done now.

Guess Who Died!

Someday, someone is going to have to explain to me why people love to tell their friends which celebrity just died. I don't know why it is, but people can not wait to shoot you a text that someone famous has passed away. I mean, it's not like they knew that person or their family. Half the time people don't even actually care, because it is not like this news will effect their life in any way - they just want you to know. (Before we go any further please don't think I'm writing this from the moral high ground. I am just as guilty of this as the next person. But, they say the first step to conquering a bad habit is admitting that you have it.) At first I thought this was just an Irish trait, because they seem to read the obituaries like a racing form and have the unofficial motto of "he who goes to the most wakes wins". However, as I have gotten older I have discovered it is pretty much universal. Wanting to spread the news about someone famous dying is apparently as common as breathing. I guess this is the reason fake celebrity death rumors are always so popular on the internet. I'm not saying people want it to be true but, just in case it is, they want to make sure you heard it from them.

I was reminded of this over the weekend with the passing of Penn State coach Joe Paterno. People practically had a countdown going as soon as news came out late Saturday night that he was in failing health. A couple stations even jumped the gun and said he was dead before he had actually passed. So when the family did finally confirm that he had died it was like releasing the hounds. News crews were out in force on campus as everyone fought for the best camera angle in front of the Paterno statue by the stadium. Twitter was exploding with people sending out condolences to the family and other people getting on their high horse about how this was the moment we should be thinking about the victims of the sex scandal. [Sidebar: What caught my eye was that no one seemed to be mentioning the fact that Joe Paterno pretty much predicted this exact thing was going to happen. He said years ago that he was afraid to retire because he wouldn't know what else to do with his life and he'd just die. Much like those couple that are married for 65 years and pass away within a couple weeks of one another, he just wasn't sure what he was going to do when he wasn't the head coach at Penn State anymore.] Even with two conference championships that afternoon, it was all anyone on ESPN was talking about Sunday morning.

The news stations really are the worst at this kind of event. Half the time they are practically giddy when a celebrity passes away. I have to admit, I can sort of understand it from the newscaster's point of view. I mean, this is their moment. Every journalism student worth their salt has seen that famous clip of Walter Cronkite stoically delivering the news that President Kennedy had been killed and wondered if they would have been able to handle such big news as professionally. Believe me when I tell you, no one in television worries about delivering a story about a bag of kittens being successfully rescued from a tree with the correct tone, but everyone who has ever taken a television class has practiced their "somber" voice on many occasions. It can be hard to get it just right and it can be a big moment in a career. The simple truth is that the clips about bad news are always the ones that live in history. And from a producing standpoint celebrity deaths are appreciated (especially the anticipated ones) because they essentially translate to a day off, as producers can just roll out the montage about the person's life that has been in the can for months on end. 

I wish I could say that people's morbid fascination with spreading the word about death was just their way to remind the rest of us that life is short and we should be living the time we have to the fullest. I just don't think that's the reason. I think it goes more to the more raw human condition that gets joy out of telling your friends, "I know something you don't know!" People love to let other people know how informed they are, even when it is about something like this. I mean, the entire pub trivia industry is based around the enjoyment people get from letting a group of total strangers see just how much useless trivia they have retained in their lives. That's why I know it's unrealistic to ask people to back away from the habit of letting other people know who died, so instead I'm just going to suggest we all try to do it with a little less glee in our voices. 

A Sunday Kind Of Interlude

Any time music loses a legend, it's a pretty easy guess who the musical interlude is going to be. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that we're going with a little Etta James this week. However, that doesn't mean I'm going to make it easy for you and pick her biggest hit. Anyone could use "At Last" - the trick is digging a little deeper into the catalog. Besides, sometimes I feel like artists like Etta James who were big before MTV can get swallowed up by the one hit they are best known for by later generations and that is too bad. I mean, just listen to this track. No one does this kind of singing anymore. Not that I want to go all old-man on you, but these days it's remixes and auto-tunes. Even when someone has a great voice you question whether it is actually them or the work of some guy in a studio making it sound much better than it really is. I appreciate a great, natural voice and that is what Etta James had. Enjoy.

Weekly Sporties

-It is not uncommon to find out that baseball players who have been drafted out of a poor country have false information in their background. These guys come from such bad situations that they are willing to lie about their age to make sure they get signed. After all, an 18 year-old with a 100 mph fastball but who can't hit the corners is seen as a diamond in the rough. A 23 year-old with the same attributes is seen as someone who probably has control issues that make him not worth the effort of trying to fix his mechanics. Still, it is rare that they take it the additional step of changing information beyond their date of birth. But, this week we learned that is the situation surrounding the Cleveland Indians' pitcher Fausto Carmona. Turns out his real name is apparently Roberto Hernandez Heredia and he's 31, three years older than everyone thought he was. Now, whatever you think of him changing his age, I wonder why he changed his name. Roberto is so much easier than Fausto. I get sick of spelling Rakauskas for people, can you imagine if every time you fill out a form you have to tell the person on the other end of the line how to spell your first and last names when they aren't even your real names? That would drive me crazy. You had to think after a couple years he wished he had given himself an easier fake name. And how did he not accidentally call himself by his correct name even once? When I was working in radio I used to do traffic reports under a fake name because I was on two stations in the same area, and I would slip up at least once a week (shocker my radio career didn't last). I'm sure the Indians are pissed that he lied to them, but at least they know he can keep a secret.

-Speaking of guys where it will probably turn out they are older than we currently think, this week the Texas Rangers signed Japanese pitching sensation Yu Darvish to a 6-year contract. Between his contract and the negotiation fee the Rangers now owe Darvish's Japanese league team, it is the richest MLB contract ever signed by a Japanese pitcher. Now, the Rangers and Darvish's agents had 30 days to work this deal out and they got it done on the very last day possible, just before the deadline. Here's my thing about baseball negotiations: they always get it done on the very last day possible. Draft picks never sign until the day they are about to go back into the draft pool and guys on the trading block never move until last day they can be traded. So, here's my suggestion to Major League Baseball (and really, all professional sports) - move up the deadlines. I know that contracts are complicated legal agreements and I'm not saying it is going to get done in an hour, but I don't think these guys even start talking until there is only a week left. What do you need 30 days for? It's not the amount of time, it's being up against a deadline that motivates them to get back to the bargaining table. From now on, tell them they have a week to get deals signed. My guess is just as many contracts still get done, only now people aren't left twisting in the wind for a month.

-While we're on the subject of never-ending negotiations, the Red Sox and Cubs still haven't agreed on compensation for general manager Theo Epstein. When Theo left three months ago both sides said they wanted to get this over with, but the deal needed to be fair. Well, this week they turned to Commissioner Bud Selig to determine what constitutes fair, saying they were at an impasse. Complicating this is that Epstein is negotiating for the Cubs, which means he knows just what the Red Sox want and since he left on not-great terms he appears to want to squeeze them to make sure they don't get it. Since both sides appear to have dug in their heels, the teams are going to leave it up to the Commissioner to figure out a deal and hope to have it done by the end of next week. I don't know what the Sox are going to end up with (and I'm pretty sure I don't care), but I'll just be glad to have this whole thing over with once and for all. Also, if I were the Cubs and I needed to find a third team to make a deal work I would not call the Red Sox, because it certainly doesn't appear like they are going to make things easier for Theo in his new job. Way to keep it civil, boys.

-I have stated many times that I do not get the NFL's obsession with trying to make Europe embrace American football. They tried to have an entire developmental league over there and it was soundly rejected by the masses, but the NFL continues on undeterred (not unlike a stalker). First they added a yearly game in London. While the game is well-attended it does seem the crowd only shows up for the experience and not the actual game, as pretty much every NFL team is represented by a few fans in the crowd. Well, the new plan to force football down their throats is to give them the same team for a few years in a row and try to make the crowd root for them as the "home" squad. It might have been a good idea if they picked a quality team but the NFL went with the St. Louis Rams, who have won 10 games in three years. Yeah, that'll convert people. They were picked mostly because their owner, Stan Kroenke also owns the Arsenal football team. Apparently, no one told the NFL that the only thing all Premier League fans can agree on is that they hate Americans owning their clubs. Not to mention this just angers St. Louis fans who are losing one home game a year for the next three years (the good news, though, is they still get to pay full-price for two preseason games!). Seriously, they don't want our football and we don't want their soccer. Someone needs to tell Roger Goodell that friends don't always have to like all the same stuff. Let's just agree on this and move on.

-In one of the most expected stories ever, it was revealed that during the Broncos loss to the Patriots Tim Tebow played almost the entire second half with torn cartilage around his ribs, a bruised lung and a build-up of fluid in his chest. Tebow has been a media darling for a while, so a report about him playing hurt (thus creating an excuse as to why he played to poorly) was bound to surface sooner rather than later. The people who support Tim view this as proof of what a tough player and leader he is. That is certainly one way to look at it. But, for the realists in the crowd, it is seen as the first of what could be several issues. You see, Tebow plays like a battering ram. While that is admirable and everything you could want in a running back, it's not a great thing for quarterbacks to be putting their body through. Just ask Philadelphia how great it was when Michael Vick was knocked out for several weeks this season due to his style as a running quarterback. If anything, this could show the Broncos how necessary it is to make sure they have a more traditional player at the position. Heart is great, but heart doesn't do the team much good when it lands the starting quarterback on the sidelines with his arm in a sling.

-If anyone saw the value of keeping a competent backup on the roster this year, it was the Indianapolis Colts. Once Peyton Manning went down that team suffered a collapse of epic proportions. Unfortunately for Colts fans it appears that Manning could be done for good, as actor Ron Lowe tweeted out that he has heard Manning's neck injury will force him to retire. Now, I know it sounds random, but the former "West Wing" actor and Manning share an agency group and Lowe and the Colts owner do know each other, so there could be some credibility to this. Of course, that didn't stop the certified members of the "football insiders" from dismissing the report out of hand, even going so far as to take a couple of pot shots at the actor. This, of course, makes me want this report to be true. I can't stand it when media people somehow act as though what they do takes years of training and a skill set that normal people simply couldn't handle. All these 'insiders' really are the same people who talked about everyone behind their backs in high school. They hear rumors about one person and then tell other people that rumor in exchange for another rumor. It's a bad habit that they have somehow turned it into a career. Please stop acting as though your job couldn't be done by a group of 15 year-old girls with a cell phone and an unlimited texting plan.

-Of course I have to admit the football reporters may be right to dismiss Lowe's Tweet, because it is not like celebrity reporting has been great as of late. Just a couple of months ago music producer Jurmaine Dupri said on his Twitter feed that Dwight Howard was being traded to the Nets within 48 hours. Since Dupri has worked with Jay-Z, who owns a small part of the Nets, people took this report seriously. As anyone who follows basketball knows, those 48 hours have long since passed and Howard remains as a member of the Orlando Magic. The thing is no one knows for how much longer, as this week it was reported Howard expanded the list of teams he would be willing to accept going to in a trade to include the Los Angeles Clippers. Shocking, considering last year Howard wouldn't have gone to the Clippers if they offered him ownership of the team in exchange. (It's amazing what getting a second All-Star on your roster can do for your image.) Dwight Howard drives me crazy, because he is the poster child for everything I don't like about the current NBA stars. He wants to be traded and abandon his current organization, but also demands to be in control of where he lands, essentially killing the Magic's chances of getting the best deal. He wants to go somewhere that he would have several good players around him so he doesn't have to do everything himself, but also wants to be paid like a player who could win a championship by himself (even though he has proven that he can't). He shouldn't be able to get everything he wants, because he is not that special of a player. Again, wasn't the point of the lockout to keep this from happening?

An Open Letter

So, for the first time this winter (I'm not counting the freak Halloween storm) the Boston area got some actual snowfall. Previously all we had been hit with was the light kind of snow that only stuck on grassy surfaces or if it did stick to the pavement it would quickly turn to slush and melt away by the afternoon. But, this morning I was woken up by my neighbor's snowblower going off at a stupidly early hour because we had three whole inches of fluffy snow on the ground. Normally three inches of snow isn't even worth shoveling (that's why I didn't), but this guy was chomping at the bit to get out and clear it away. He was not the only annoying person this weather brought out. Additionally it brought out a group of people who we (fortunately) only have to deal with for a couple of months: the people who have lived here for years and yet still complain about snow. Every year they come out of the woodwork after the first snow to talk about how much they hate this weather and want to move to Florida. As you can imagine, the fact that we are allegedly getting more snow this weekend is really bad news to them. So, I thought I would write them an open letter.

Dear Snow Complainers:

Shut up. Seriously. Shut the hell up.

Do you people not realize how easy we have had it this year? Have you already forgotten about last year, when we got a fresh foot of snow every week? This winter has been a breeze and all you are doing is jinxing us by complaining about the small amount of snow we are getting this weekend. If we had been offered this winter last January we would have signed off on it in a heartbeat, so don't get greedy now. Just be happy that it is January 20th and we are just getting around to pulling out the shovels. You've had more than enough time to get your Christmas lights in and winterize your house. If you haven't done it by now than you were never getting around to it, so stop pretending like you were planning to take care of all this stuff Saturday morning and the snow is suddenly throwing a wrench into your carefully thought-out agenda. Also, quit acting as though you are the only one who is dealing with the snow. In case you hadn't noticed, we are all walking in the same stuff. I know I certainly don't have boots that allow me to magically avoid it. We're all in this together and you don't have it any better or worse than the people around you.

I heard some of you complaining because you, "were really hoping to make it through the winter without any snow." Well, I would like to date any one of a dozen famous actresses. But I have accepted that none of those are going to happen and neither is making it through a winter without getting at least a small amount of snow because I live in the real world. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it even occasionally snows in your precious Florida. So unless you pack up and move to Brazil, you are never going to have a completely snow-free winter. Just be happy when it is a light season like we have this year. We are currently on pace for the 7th lowest snow total in history. If that isn't going to be good enough for you that you must be one of those Tiger Moms everyone was flipping out about last year. And let's not forget, this is New England, where a few businesses rely on snow to make money. Sure, you could question the wisdom of owning a business which revolves around something you will never have control over but that doesn't mean you should be wishing ill will upon them. That's just asking for a karmic kick in the pants.

Look, I get where you are coming from. There are plenty of things you can find annoying about snow. Once Christmas has come and gone it can feel a little bit redundant. Plus, it's not fun to walk around with wet socks, deal with parking spaces which have been made narrower by snow piles or constantly having to clean road salt off your vehicle. Not to mention it is not like adults get snow days like kids do. But, that comes with the territory. You never appreciate a truly great summer day until you have suffered through a really cold winter morning. It is all about keeping those sunny afternoons in your mind as you step into a snowbank that is higher than the top of your boot and you feel the cold water slide down the back of your leg. That can be hard to do, but it will make it easier to survive the rest of the season. So, I get that you're bummed out. However, it doesn't mean I want to hear about it. Seriously, your negativity is bringing the entire room down, so knock it off.

Sincerely,

The Editorial Staff of Rakauskas's Ramblings.

Fill In The Gap

It's perfectly normal for people to have information gaps in their lives. I firmly believe there are legitimate reasons for some people to not know about certain subject matters and that's just fine. Honestly, unless you are a history major or studying to be on a game show, why would you need to retain details concerning a battle from nearly one thousand years ago? The answer is that you wouldn't. People have enough on their minds without retaining useless facts. As long as you know about the things that come in to play in your everyday life than you will be just fine. Sure, it would be better for society as a whole if we all knew a lot of information about a lot of diverse subjects, but that is hardly realistic. I think we can do just fine with people only knowing about a specific topic, so long as they know it cold. That's why you are never going to see me complain about people not knowing about stuff only I care about. However, there are two kinds of people associated with information gaps that I can not stand.

The first are the people who want to make fun of other people for their gaps. "What do you mean you don't know who fought in the battle of Hastings?" they will say in that so-condescending-the-police-would-probably-not-arrest-you-for-assault-if-you-punched-them-and-the-cops-heard-it tone. Actually, I don't know much about it because it turns out that doesn't up too often in normal life. I think the reason this annoys me so much is because you know those condescending jerks have their gaps just like everyone else, but you don't see the rest of us being dicks about it to them. It's common courtesy. I would love to ask some of these people if they could do something outside their comfort zone, but for some reason no one ever calls them on it. I would probably wet myself laughing if I ever saw some history buff trying to belittle another person for not being able to name the Presidents and their Vice Presidents in order, only to be asked to build a cabinet from IKEA without ending up with spare parts. Let's see how useful your memorization skills are in that situation.

But, the people who annoy me even more are the people who are actually proud of their gaps when they really shouldn't be. "Oh, I don't know anything about that kind of stuff!" they tell you gleefully. Well, occasionally additional responsibilities are added to people's lives and it turns out it's suddenly your job to know about this kind of thing, so having that gap is actually really bad. In sports the two most famous examples of people who are proud of their lack of knowledge about certain subjects are Tim McCarver and Joe Morgan. When "Moneyball" first came out and was a best seller, people thought it was going to change the way baseball teams were put together. Well, old-schoolers like McCarver were having none of it, saying baseball was just fine the way it was and they didn't need Billy Beane's book. While he might not agree with what was in the book, McCarver should have at least known the book was written by Michael Lewis and not Billy Beane. Of course, he couldn't even bother to know that because he didn't need to read the book to know it was stupid. And when Bill James released his book about using modern statistics to redefine how baseball teams were managed, Joe Morgan slammed the book while proudly saying he would never read it. That's alright, Joe, it's just your job to be up on this kind of thing. Why should you be expected to do preparation work, especially when it involves reading, something only the nerds do? (There is a reason everyone was thrilled when Morgan was fired from Sunday Night Baseball by ESPN.)

I couldn't help but think about those two morons last night as I watched this clip from The Daily Show. In it Congressmen are discussing SOPA and laughing about how much they really don't know about technology. Yeah, well, you're the people in charge of passing stuff like this, so maybe it's time you sat down and read a book. Also, they keep saying how they need to hold a hearing to bring in the "nerds" to explain it to them. As Jon Stewart quickly points out, in this case the word these people should be using is "experts". You can't be ignorant of a topic and ask for help while simultaneously making fun of the very people you are calling to help you. Doesn't work like that. The fact that these are the people who were in charge of drawing up a bill like SOPA should be reason enough to kill it, but I doubt it. I'm left to wonder just how such people ended up on such an important position to begin with. If anyone could tell me I would appreciate it. I promise I won't call you a nerd for knowing the answer.

It's A SOPA Opera

Today marked a very interesting new-wave kind of protest, as several popular sites like Wikipedia and Reddit purposely took themselves offline to call attention to the Stop Online Piracy Act (or SOPA) bill that is before Congress. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, allow me to sum it up: SOPA's intent is to curb people from illegally downloading movie and music from the Internet. On the surface, it sounds pretty good and fairly straightforward. It is not. Since most data-sharing sites are based outside the U.S. what the bill intends to do is block those sites from appearing on search engine. As if that didn't sound shady enough, the problem is that like most things Congress does it is far too reactionary and is very-ambiguously written, leading to all sorts of loopholes which could be taken advantage of by people who are looking to do just that sort of thing. For example, one of the provisions in the bill states that social media sites are responsible for what the people on their sites post and movie and music companies could sue sites like Facebook if people are posting illegal videos and Facebook refuses to edit that person's page. If this bill passes it would essentially allow and encourage censorship of social media. I know taking certain things off peoples' Facebook page sounds like a good idea, but even stupid people have the right to show people how stupid they are.

Also, the bill includes heavier lines such as companies being able to sue any site that even so much as links to copyrighted material. In addition the bill would allow companies to sue any advertisers associated with the site. Since we all know what strong moral standing advertisers usually show in the face of a lawsuit, it would take about four seconds for them to pull advertising from that site. If you can't make any money you can't stay in business, meaning this bill also basically makes it legal for companies to sue each other out of business for just linking to an unauthorized video. Put it to you like this: because I like to post a song every Sunday this blog could be sued if I used a video that was not officially licensed to use from the company that owns the rights. Since I obviously don't have the money to hire a team of lawyers to fight a giant corporation, I would be taken off the internet without much of a fight, all because I just wanted to come up with a gimmick which would allow me to do my weekend posting by Friday. People swear it would only be enforced in extreme cases, but where is the line? It certainly isn't clear in the bill, so what's to stop one company from suing a start-up it sees as competition under false pretenses just to drive them out of business? Answer: the moral compass of studio executives. Awesome. And people wonder why the entire internet thinks everything about this bill kind of sucks.

Some people think that laws like SOPA are necessary. To some degree they are. It is absolutely the right of anyone who creates something to protect that creation from being distorted and also making sure they can make some money off it. It would suck to work really hard to make something you are proud of, only to have people take it from you and pass it out without giving you the proper credit. The thing is we already have anti-piracy laws on the books. They were created so that entertainment companies could go after the major file sharing websites like Napster and Kazaa and sue them out of business. What happened instead is that these same people decided to start going after individuals to make an example out of them, which is how we ended up with 12 year-olds getting sued for millions of dollars and videos of babies playing having to be taken off of YouTube because there was a copy-protected song playing in the background. The point is that if these companies are going to twist laws like that to go after a few individuals there is no telling what they would do if given the opportunity with a bill like SOPA. If they can stop one website from showing up on a search engine, what is going to stop them from blocking hundreds? And keeping information from people is a dangerous and slippery slope, one that the lawmakers in this country should never make easier for people to go down.

Which leads us to today's online protest, designed to show the kinds of websites which could be affected if this bill passed. Other than all the funny posts made up from the Tweets of students complaining about how they are going to unable to do their homework tonight without Wikipedia (the scarier posts were the ones made up of all the teachers who didn't know how they were going to do their lesson plans), I actually think this was a fairly effective protest. It wasn't over-bearing or over-dramatic, it just made its point and will be done within a certain amount of time. That's what makes for a good protest: it makes people aware of an issue it thinks is wrong, but doesn't get in your face about it. It may have inconvenienced some people, but that inconvenience was minor and if those people really needed answers from the internet I'm sure they could be found using another route. And, unlike the Occupy movement, today's actions actually included a clear message as to what the protesters wanted. Most sites replaced their usual content with information about SOPA, why they were against it and contact information for your local Congressperson to voice your opinion if you agreed. If nothing else, it got people talking, which is almost all you could ask for. I for one hope it works.

Wrecked References

For the last couple of days my TV and news feeds have been clogged with reports about the cruise liner that ran aground off the coast of Italy. I'm not surprised - people have gotten some amazing pictures of the wreck and nothing takes a news story to that next level quite like a great visual aid. Now, before you get all worried because you know the smart-ass voice that this blog usually takes, I'm not about to make fun of an accident that resulted in 11 deaths and where over a dozen people are still missing. I think it is absolutely correct that the Captain of the ship be charged with manslaughter as well as abandoning his ship, although I'm not sure why every seems to be focusing on the abandoning of the ship part of it - you would think manslaughter would be the headline-catcher. However, there is one thing about this story which continues to bother the hell out of me and that is how everyone keeps saying it is like a real-life version of the movie "Titanic". Not only is that factually wrong (which we'll get to in a second), but what offends me is that it's not even the right movie reference.

As my friends and family can tell you, one of my biggest pet peeves is when people quote movies incorrectly. I'm a stickler for getting the line exactly as it was said in the movie, otherwise I think you just shouldn't say it at all. (I was near someone the other day who was misquoting "Anchorman". Seriously, that movie has been out for nearly a decade and runs once a week on basic cable. If you're getting a quote from "Anchorman" wrong you're just lazy.) However, even worse than that is when people reference an entire movie incorrectly. So when I see a ship which has nearly capsized to one side my brain immediately goes to one boat movie above all the others: "Poseidon Adventure." To bypass what is clearly the obvious choice for a more popular movie is just annoying. Let's say you found yourself in a car chase up and down the hills of San Francisco. Are you going to say, "Hey this is just like "The Rock"!" because it is the more recent movie? No, you are going to go with "Bullitt" because it was the first and better movie.

Of course, this all stems from one interview that was done with one of the people rescued off the ship, who immediately said the crash was like experiencing "Titanic" for real. Now, if this woman was a little younger I would have forgiven her for going right to "Titanic", because no one saw the "Poseidon Adventure" remake that came out a few years ago (nor should they have). But, this particular woman was old enough that she had to be aware of the original. Her poorly-chosen movie reference slip of the tongue sent the media into a "Titanic"-theme frenzy and they attempted to make parallels between the two incidents, even going so far as to say that survivors had to jump into "frigid" waters to swim to safety. (For now we'll let it go that the very fact the ship was 100 yards from shore disqualifies it from being like "Titanic". And if you can't swim 100 yards I have to question why you took a cruise to begin with.) Honestly, you could almost feel some of these segment producers fighting with the urge to call James Cameron to get his thoughts on the crash.

I know that you want to keep going with the theme, but you can't disregard facts for the sake of a predetermined narrative (unless you work in 24-hour cable news, where that practice is actually encouraged). I did four seconds of research and discovered that the average temperature of the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Italy this time of year is about 55 degrees. You'll be lucky if the waters off Massachusetts get that warm by June. Clearly, this was not the same level of peril. But I think what drove me the craziest was that I never heard a single person say, "Hey, doesn't this look a lot more like "Poseidon Adventure" than "Titanic"?" I mean, have any of the people who work in news seen a movie that came out before 1990? (Especially ironic considering these same people act as though music stopped being made around 1995.) Look, I get that in this age where people have so many places to get information news programs need to make everything seem more dramatic to get people to watch the news and that movies are always going to be more dramatic than real life thanks to special effects and a powerful score. But if you're going to distort reality, I'm begging you to distort it around the correct film. Or, at least one with a less-annoying theme song - I've had Celine Dion in my head for two days.

Holiday Ramblings

I often think of easy access to the internet as both the best and the worst thing that has happened to humanity. Sure, it's really nice to have the answers at our fingertips, but because we can access information so easily, no one ever bothers to commit things to memory. I'm fairly convinced that 90% of all questions these days are answered with the ever-popular, "I don't know, just Google it." I really do worry that someday game shows which used to reward people for being smart like "Jeopardy" will be decided by who can can find answers on the internet faster than their competition. (You'll note that we already tried this with "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" and its 'phone a friend' feature. That lifeline may as well have been called, "Let's just cut out the middle man - you have 30 seconds to Google it yourself.") Now, admittedly, for the most part this lack of information retention isn't that big a deal. I mean, no one needs to store random facts like whether or not Tony Randall is still with us inside their brains at all times (for the record, he's not). The problem is it's starting to seep into everyday life and we're forgetting stuff that we should know, like what constitutes a holiday.

This came up last night because I was having dinner with the family and my sisters and I were trying to figure out what would be open today. This used to be a very simple. Question: What was closed on a holiday? Answer: Everything. But, between companies offering floating holidays which people can use at any time, retail stores seeing the chance to have a weekend-type crowd in their stores on a weekday and businesses simply deciding that, screw it, we're going to be open because you people just had a week off between Christmas and New Year's, some stuff is open and other stuff isn't. Suddenly it is a hard question to answer. You can't even makes plans with people for the holiday because you can never tell if they will have to work or if they will be available to do something. I only wish we would be more consistent with it. The best guesses are that banks, schools, the post office and trash pickup isn't going to happen. You are on your own for the rest. Basically, the best thing you can do now is head to the Internet and check it out company by company, which I have to tell you is a real waste of time. (Though, admittedly, it does work out better than driving all the way to a place and finding out it's closed.)

It's the floating holidays that I really don't get. Just who decided this was a thing? What HR person was sitting in their office one afternoon and said, "You know what? I really think the government dropped the ball by having President's Day in February. I feel like things are much more Presidential in the summer, so that's when I want this company to celebrate it." Isn't the whole purpose of a holiday to celebrate something specific at a meaningful time to that event? I have always felt as though that was part of the deal - we'll give you a day off, but you have to take at least 30 seconds at some point during that day to think about why it is you got to sleep nice and late this morning. I really doubt you will remember the point of a holiday when your are using your floating holidays from the fall to take extra time in the summer. But, it does seem to lend some weight to my other theory, which is that floating holidays were invented by someone who was really bad at budgeting their vacation time and sick days for the year and always ended up using them all up by March.

Of course, some people will counter with the argument that we have entirely too many holidays to begin with. This is, of course, crazy talk. Not only should people never argue against more holidays, but when you stop and think about all the random groups that make up this country of ours, I'm really surprised there aren't more of them. If you are actually one of those people who are against holidays just be thankful the really obscure groups don't have the time or influence to make any real political pushes, otherwise we'd be celebrating any number of random days away from work. Think about it: if some eccentric billionaire with money to burn decided that we should really go back to holidays on the pagan calendar, I'm willing to bet it wouldn't be too long before some Congressman who is up for re-election and needs to do some campaigning would be on the floor of the house, offering up a resolution to create a holiday for Zeus. But whether we ever get to that point or not, how about we all work on using holidays when they are supposed to be celebrated? It might go a long way in actually remembering what the holiday was intended to be celebrating in the first place.

A Mid-Western Interlude

This week's interlude kills two birds with one stone...

First issue I want to talk about was brought up because last night was the Miss America pageant. Let me just say that I'm stunned that beauty pageants are still around. I would have thought reality shows would have been the death of these kinds of events because I feel like the woman who want to be Miss America are the same woman who want to be on the "Bachelor" and training for both seems like it would be exhausting. Also, I would have thought shows like "Toddlers & Tiaras" would have shamed some people into dropping out the pageant life. Guess not because not only are they still around, we actually have two of them. I don't know the difference between Miss USA and Miss America, but I'm sure it's a technical difference like between Song of the Year and Record of the Year at the Grammys (actually, I know what the difference is there). Either way, Miss Wisconsin won and is the new Miss America, meaning she has a wonderful year full of appearing at Badger football games ahead of her and why Bon Iver's "Wisconsin" is the musical interlude of the week.

Now, "Wisconsin" is a hidden track on Bon Iver's album "For Emma, Forever Ago." Hidden tracks are the other thing I wanted to talk about, because I don't understand them. First of all, now that we all have iPods and can see how much time is left on a track, 'stumbling' onto a hidden bonus song is impossible. The second the song ends and we can see there is still 10 minutes left on the track countdown the jig is up. Secondly, I'm not sure what to do with hidden tracks. I never can tell  if they are meant to be some kind of message to the hardcore fans because only they are supposed to know they exist, a reward for people who are too lazy to get up and switch CDs once they think the album is over or just a song that the band finished too late to include on the original track list when the album artwork was sent to the printers. Either way, I end up feeling like these are the 'deleted scenes' of the music world and too often you can tell why those scenes were deleted. If you don't like a song enough to put it smack in the middle of the album than maybe just keep working on it until you are happy with it. Don't put things out there half-finished.

Weekly Sporties

-It is not at all uncommon to see professional athletes get traded during the season. At this point it is almost a tradition on baseball's trade deadline to have a camera focused solely on the guy who was held out of the lineup because he was the subject of trade rumors, just to be positive that someone will eventually get a picture of him going around hugging his teammates goodbye when he officially gets traded in the 5th inning. But as awkward as that day may be, at least that guy isn't playing. After all, teams don't want to risk someone getting hurt and voiding the trade before it even takes place. That is what made Mike Cammalleri situation so unique. Just one day after speaking up about the poor attitude in the Montreal Canadiens's locker room, saying that people around the organization had a "losing mentality", the team traded him in the middle of a game against the Bruins. After playing the first period they tossed Cammalleri in a cab and sent him back to the team hotel to grab his stuff because he was now a member of the Calgary Flames. I understand that Cammalleri's comments probably didn't make him any friends in the organization, but if you're a Montreal fan you have to question whether or not this was the best decision. It's one thing to get rid of a guy, it's another to be so anxious to get it over with that you do it before you've made sure you got the best offer. And 24 hours certainly doesn't sound like enough time to do much in the way of negotiating. Also, not that I want to agree with Cammalleri because I don't know much about the current state of the Canadiens, but I gotta say kicking a guy out just because he offered some criticism sounds an awful lot like loser mentality.

-There is a rumor going around that Red Sox captain Jason Varitek is planning to come to Spring Training as a non-roster invitee, which basically means that he is back to trying out for the squad and has no guarantees of being with the team in any capacity. Reportedly the Sox want him to retire but 'Tek wants to keep playing. However, he also doesn't want to play for another organization, which really forces his hand. With Kelly Shoppach and Jared Saltalamacchia on the roster, Jason doesn't really have much of a chance to break into the lineup, so in my mind this is extra cruel by the Red Sox. They would be better off being honest, telling him that he doesn't have a shot and keeping him at home. All inviting him to camp is going to do is paint new manager Bobby Valentine into the corner of being the guy who had to cut the Captain and start him off on the wrong foot with fans. Frankly, I can practically see the depressing new conference in Florida. Given the way the Red Sox front office has already handled this offseason, they can't afford many more PR gaffes. Thank him for his years of service and great memories, offer to have "Jason Varitek Day" at some point this season and send him on his way. I know it sounds cold, but it may be the best thing for everyone involved.

-With Bill O'Brien headed to Penn State to take over as head coach once the season is over, the Patriots appeared as if they were going to have a job to fill this offseason. Well, they didn't have to look too hard because the guy that O'Brien replaced, Josh McDaniels, agreed to come back and be the team's offensive coordinator before the job ever officially became available. Admittedly, it is a little weird. McDaniels was fired Monday along with the rest of the St. Louis Rams staff, hired by the Patriots on Sunday and will be on the sidelines tonight as an offensive coach before taking the OC job back next season. Of course, since the Patriots are playing the Denver Broncos and Tim Tebow, the team that McDaniels used to coach, people around the league are crying foul, thinking that this gives the Patriots some kind of inside information. Now there is talk about implementing some kind of rule to prevent this kind of thing in the future. First off, it is not like the Broncos are still running McDaniels' offense (I'd love to see Tebow even attempt to pull off what Brady does). Secondly, it is not like teams don't do this with players all the time. Players are signed right before their new team plays their former team, pumped for information about schemes and released as soon as the game is over. Hell, the Broncos signed someone yesterday and he'll be in the lineup tonight, which to me makes a hell of a lot more impact than any coach could. Why do I feel like this is only an issue because the Patriots did it?

-I am usually the first guy in line to credit someone when they play hurt. I admire the toughness that it takes to go out when you are already in pain, knowing that it is only going to get worse. All I want in return is that you don't milk it. For the last few weeks Ben Roethlisberger has been playing with a severely hurt ankle. Initially thought to be broken, it turned out to just be a very painful high-ankle sprain. While he did miss one week with the injury, Roethlisberger came back to play the final game of the regular season as well as the Steeler's first round matchup against Denver. Again, admirable and tough as hell. But, at the same time I was really bothered by the fact that Ben was wearing two-different colored shoes. You see, because of the brace on his ankle, Roethlisberger had to wear two different size cleats. That part I get. But one cleat was black while the other was yellow. Am I supposed to believe that these were the only cleats Ben could find? Having worked for an athletic shoe company before I know damn well that when it comes to the professional athletes, shipping miracles can happen. Stuff that would take weeks to get to you or me arrives the next day. The only reason he would have had two different cleats is would be that he wanted to wear two different color shoes to remind everyone, "Hey, this is the ankle I hurt! Everyone, look how tough I'm being!" This is officially where you lose me. Look, you're already going to be praised all day for playing through pain, don't look for extra sympathy by feeling like you have to remind us that you're playing through pain. I've heard people say that Ben has been known exaggerate to how much pain he is in to try and look tougher, but I never believed it until he did everything short of attach a Post-It note with an arrow to his sock.

-This week the NBA Champion Dallas Mavericks made their celebratory trip to the White House to meet the President. It was a mostly routine affair and they even got Mavs owner Mark Cuban to wear a suit, which happens about once every three years. But, all was not totally well as Mavericks player (and D.C. native) Delonte West was denied admission, allegedly because he has a felony arrest on his record. At first, West seemed to take his denial in stride, saying "That's what happens when you make bad decisions in your life. You can't go to the White House." Of course, that was before someone pointed out that if that was really the case than a great number of athletes through the years (as well as a few politicians) shouldn't have been allowed in. West then decided this was just another in a line of examples of people holding his past against him and went a little crazy on Twitter, airing his grievances. I have a much simpler explanation about why West, whom I like very much and wanted the Celtics to re-sign, wasn't brought to the White House: He wasn't on the Mavericks last year and wasn't part of their Championship. Dude, you don't get to celebrate when you join after the games are over. That's not holding your past against you, that's just common sense. Everything doesn't have to be part of a larger plot.

-Just one event into the year and already people on the PGA are complaining about the pace of play. (For those of you who may not be into golf, allow me to explain: slow play on the golf course is one of those subjects that golfers can always pull out to get a debate going when they can't come up with anything else to talk about. Think of it like weather at a boring cocktail party - it's always there when you need it.) Along with the complaints about how long it takes to play a round of golf always come a few suggestions. For example, Luke Donald suggested that players should be lining up putts at the same time so that they can putt right after each other, saving about 30 seconds per player, per hole which would speed the entire affair by about a half an hour. It sounds all well and good, right up until the time when someone complains about another playing lining up their putt in the first guy's field of vision. When stuff like that happens etiquette will always trump speed. The other problem with slow players is that often they refuse to acknowledge how slow they are. That's why I want to see the Tour threaten to put something ridiculous put into place, like posting times next to scores. Guys that take over a set amount time to play a round will get a penalty. Since most of these guys are independent contractors the only place you can hurt them is their wallet. But, hey, if they start fining guys for taking too long, the upside is that players like Kevin Na will finally be able to say they lead the Tour in at least one stat.

-When it comes to sports, time passes in dog years. What was a major controversy at the time feels like it happened in a passed life just one year later. For example, by now most people have forgotten that at about this time last year Cam Newton was in a lot of hot water with the NCAA because it certainly looked like his father tried to get some money from boosters in exchange for guarantees that Cam would go to one school over another. (A Rookie of the Year season in the NFL will go a long way to erase such memories.) Still, to make sure they never have another situation like that ever again, this week the NCAA passed what is unofficially known as the "Cecil Newton Rule." Basically it states that in addition to players being unable to take improper benefits, they will also be ruled ineligible if any relatives, close friend or other acquaintances are found to have taken improper benefits from a booster in exchange for influence with the player. It's a good rule, one that prompted the same reaction throughout most of the land: "Wait, why wasn't that already illegal?" The NCAA, ladies and gentlemen - Better late than never!

Ch-Ch-Changes

You may remember that right before Christmas I wrote about about how much I dislike it when technology forces an upgrade on me. This occurs when companies stop making the parts and accessories for a product for no other reason than they made another version of the same thing and want you to have no other option but to buy the newer version with all its parts, accessories and service plans. From a purely business standpoint I can understand their desires, even if I think their methods are pure evil. However, more and more I am coming across an even worse kind of upgrade that I am continually forced to deal with: the unwilling upgrade. This is where you turn on a program or visit a website to discover that things have changed. You didn't ask for these changes, you didn't agree to them and you certainly didn't want them, but you have no other choice but to deal with them. **Before we go any further I want you to know I am well aware that this entire post reads like a giant #RichPeopleProblems feed on Twitter. I've made my peace with that and before you read another sentence you should as well.**

I've never had a problem with any boss I have ever had. I have always gotten along very well with the people I report to on a day-to-day basis. The people who seem to continually rub me the wrong way tend to be my boss's bosses. These are the people who parachute in every couple of weeks, make comments about how you could be doing your job better even though they aren't totally sure what your job (or your name) is and then disappear back up to their office to pretend to be busy working, completely unaware of the chaos left in their wake. This 20 minutes of annoyance only gets worse because visits like this invariably lead to memos coming down a couple weeks later letting everyone know that some system upgrades are on the way. On the surface that sounds good and for a half-second you are actually foolish enough to believe that these changes will make your job easier. The problem is that often these upgrades don't really make things any better or worse, they just make them different. It is change for the sake of change.

First off, the people who actually work with these systems are never consulted on what would make for a good upgrade. No one ever comes along with a pen and paper to say, "Hey, you deal with this every day. What changes would you like to see?" and then begins to furiously jot down all your brilliant ideas. No, instead what happens is somebody who has never been in your department creates some new programs on their own. It has all the latest code in it, making it look sleek and stylist. But because the guy who wrote the program has no idea which parts of it get the most use or should be streamlined, the new design causes the procedure which usually takes 4 steps to now take 6 and the annoying long one that took 10 steps continues to take those same annoying 10 steps. Oh, and the one thing you liked from the old program has been removed completely. But, hey, at least the thing you have to do once every three months can be accomplished with the push of just one button. [Sidebar: I'm not faulting the system designers, who probably aren't thrilled about this stuff either. It's just the way offices work. Those designers probably worked really hard on the last program and were in no hurry to write another one. I'm guessing they are just regular people who are only writing new code to look busy and not get fired.]

I'm not saying the occasional forced upgrade isn't a good thing. Humans are creatures of habit by nature and hate change, so if technology didn't pressure us to upgrade we'd all probably still be walking around with cellphones the size of bricks, listening to walk-mans and surfing with dial-up speed internet access. When you think about it like that, occasionally being pushed against your wishes isn't so bad. But even in that circumstance you still have some control over the situation, as you are the one making the decision as to when you will ultimately cave in to the technology pressure and buy a copy of "Master of Puppets" for the fourth time. I'm simply saying there is a difference between "pressuring" and "not giving a choice". When upgrades are just done without even asking you to click an "I Agree" box, that is an entirely different case. I feel that if you are going to make changes that people have no choice but to accept, you had better make sure they are changes that people want or are at least so helpful that people will begrudgingly have to admit that this is better than the old version. In short, allow me to sum this post up another way:

Dear Verizon Fios - I hate the new channel guide.
Is there any way I can go back to the old one?