Leap Day Playlist

So, today is the very rare date of February 29th. Growing up the fact that we simply invented a day out of thin air every four years confused me, but it was one of those things everyone else seemed to have no trouble rolling with, so I didn't want to ask too many questions. (This is the same approach I took concerning the career of Cyndi Lauper.) For those of you who may have wondered but never asked, this date exists because it actually takes the Earth 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 16 seconds to complete one rotation around the sun and somewhere along the way the people in charge of things basically all agreed to ignore that extra time until it got close enough to make up a day. Now, pay no attention to the fact that over-run still doesn't actually add up to enough time to make an entire day, because apparently neither did they. (I guess they were really married to that 365 number.) What this means is that this planet is exactly where it is supposed to be only about every 400 years or so. Seriously, if Earth was a watch we would have thrown it away by now. It also means our entire system of time is essentially nonsense. Most people complain about never having enough of time and here we are ignoring nearly 6 hours every single year. Seems rather wasteful.

All that being said I'm willing to concede that the concept of a leap year makes sense. However, the idea of February 29th does not. The date we have chosen to cash in this time we've built up in credit was poorly picked. Our internal clocks have all been off by a day for the last two months for no real good reason. What would have made the most sense would have been to simply tack another day on the end of last December, but you know damn well they invented February 29th just because February is the shortest month. I imagine the people who make calendars to have wicked OCD and the fact that February is the only month which doesn't have at least 30 days drives them crazy. My position is that if we're going to be this arbitrary with it, why not use it when it would do the most good, like June? Wouldn't we all appreciate an extra nice, sunny summer day more than another cold winter afternoon?

You know what? Let's not think about it too much and just listen to music instead. These are all songs about leaping or, because leaping is not exactly a commonly-used word in the music industry (I imagine because it is hard to rhyme), jumping.

Slowing It Down

The other night I settled in to read Mike Birbiglia's book, "Sleepwalk With Me". (That's right kids, I spent my Saturday night staying in and reading. Welcome to life in your 30s.) Now, I'd been trying to secure a copy of this book for a while. At first I held off buying it myself because I had asked for it for Christmas and then my birthday. Once those dates passed I would have run out to get it, but by that time my enthusiasm had kind of drained away. (Hey, it happens. We're not talking about some kick-ass video game, it's a book.) That meant while I still wanted to read it, I wasn't going to make a special trip just to get it and thus it kind of slipped my mind, with the memory that I wanted it only coming back when I was in a bookstore and that doesn't happen nearly as much as it should, because there aren't that many book stores left. Even when I did remember to look for it, the place was usually sold out. Good for Birbiglia, bad for me. I ended up securing a copy from the library. (For my younger readers, the library is that old building near the center of town you've never been in. The way it works is anyone can borrow a book from them to read, then just bring it back when they are done. It doesn't cost anything as long as they bring it back within a certain amount of time, but even then the penalty isn't very severe. Hell, you can keep it for like a year and it's only going to cost you around $3 in late fees. The place is pretty wild.)

Anyway, I settled in to start reading around 8 and finished the book by midnight. Now, the book itself was very amusing and even though there were a couple parts where I found myself thinking, "Why would you tell people this?", there were other parts which had me literally laughing so hard I had to put the book down. If you are looking for a light, fun read for the beach this summer, I think you would really enjoy this book. But, I also got the feeling that I didn't really get to enjoy the full experience because I started and finished the book in one sitting. Before I go any further you should know that it is not as though this book was "War & Peace" nor was it Shakespeare, so I don't want it to seem like I'm bragging about how quickly I read it. It was about 180 pages and written by a comedian, which means large sections of it were just his bits written out. Also, since I'm a big fan of Birbiglia, that means I have seen him performing almost all of these comedy bits at one time or another, thus reading those passages did not require my full and resolute attention as I already knew the punch-line. Still, even on the pages where I wasn't familiar with the material and thus had to slow down to make sure I understood what I just read, I flew through this book.

Now, I've always been a fast reader. Some of that is based on being super-competitive and wanting to make the best time in just about everything I do, which is why I'm also a fast (yet still safe) driver. You give me a task that doesn't involve making this asthmatic kid run and I'll get it handled faster than most.You put a prize at the end and I'll take it up another notch. I may have used this example before, but back in the day my 6th grade class had a contest to see which person could read the most books and that person was going to be given a prize at the end of the school year. I read over 100 books. I smoked the rest of the class. Seriously, it wasn't even funny. (Also, it is suddenly becoming clearer why I wasn't more popular in 6th grade.) Obviously, had I known the prize was a stupid little card with the meaning of my name on it I might not have been as motivated. (However, it should also be noted that card is still in my parent's living room. The prize might have sucked, but it was still a first-place prize, so I'll be damned if it was getting thrown away.)

Still, that was then. In this case no one was timing me, no one was racing me and I didn't get anything for finishing first. I wasn't even up against a deadline, as the book had just arrived from the library. The point is I'm not totally sure things I do for enjoyment are things I should be in such a hurry to finish. Not every task needs to be taken on with the same, "Get it done and get it done now" mindset. That is probably why speed reading is not a skill I was ever interested in acquiring. Seriously, what am I in such a hurry to get to the end of good book for? Given the number of nights I am desperately searching for something to entertain me, I should be savoring the experience when something finally does come along. Clearly, what I need to do from here on out is change my mindset, take my time and maybe make sure that I really appreciate the experience. In fact, I bet I can change my way of thinking faster than most other people.... Then again, it may just be easier to start finding longer books to read.

Going With The Crowd

So, the Oscars were last night. I didn't watch the telecast which I felt was for the best, considering I hadn't seen the majority of the movies up for awards. (Whatever else you want to say, at least I'm consistent.) From the sounds of it I didn't miss much, even if I do feel like there was no way Billy Crystal could have been as bad as the internet is making it out to be. I'll all for being snarky, but there is a line where it just starts to be mean. Honestly, I don't know what people are expecting to see from these award show hosts. They are working in a room full of people who are trying to act nonchalant while on the inside they are fighting hard not to puke. Hollywood people love to pretend that they don't care whether or not they win, but you know they really do. That uneasiness does not exactly create a crowd which is in a laughing mood. Also, I would love to see some of the people who are killing Crystal today try to host a show watched by millions of people and see how well they do.

But, back to the topic at hand: I certainly wasn't about to let a little thing like not having any clue what I was talking about stop me from offering up my Oscar predictions when the list of nominees was released last month. I'll save you the trouble of going back and checking my predictions to let you know it turns out I'm pretty good at guessing Oscar winners, because I got 7 of my 9 guesses turned out to be correct. The only ones I missed were "Midnight In Paris" winning for Best Original Screenplay instead of "Bridesmaids" (travesty) and "Rango" winning for Best Animated Feature.

[Sidebar: Can all agree that it is time to do away with Best Animated Feature? This was only put in place because the Academy didn't know what to do with animated movies like "Toy Story". They felt like they should get an award because they were really good movies, but since they were animated they didn't want to give them the same credit as a regular film. However, now they have to keep presenting this category even when the crop of animated movies isn't that strong. It's like when the "Comeback Player Of The Year" award was created because people wanted to celebrate Frank Gifford's comeback from a brutal hit by Chuck Bednarik, captured in what became one of the most famous sports photographs ever taken. [Sidebar within a Sidebar: If you own a sports bar and that photo isn't on the wall, your bar sucks.] Gifford missed 18 months of his career recovering and professional football thought he should get something for the effort. That was all well and good at the time, but now the NFL is forced to scramble every year just to find a worthy candidate. At this point they end up giving it to a guy who simply played below expectations the year before because he was going through a divorce and his head wasn't in the game. Doesn't exactly hold the same heroic feel.]

Anyway, there is a very simple reason I was able to get so many predictions right: I was pretty much told who was going to win. Every movie critic said that "The Artist" was going to clean up at this show and who am I to doubt the experts? No need to over-think this. I picked "The Artist" in almost every category and it worked out well for me. (If only the guys advising my March Madness Brackets were this accurate.) The problem with this is that I have this sinking suspicion I am not the only one who made my picks this way. Every year it seems as though one movie starts to get momentum and becomes such a critical darling that it takes on the feel of a runaway freight train. (Ironically, for all the movies which get made about runaway freight trains, none of them ever win Best Picture.) Naturally, this makes me wonder if there are a few Academy voters who simply concede the Best Picture Oscar to the movie with all the momentum and don't even bother to see the rest of the options.

Now, if this were the case, the Motion Picture Academy would hardly be the first group of people who voted for something just because it seems like a waste of a vote to cast your lot with someone else. It is human nature to want to be on the winning side, so when it becomes obvious that one side has a clear advantage it is not uncommon for people to no longer feel like fighting about it anymore and get behind the front-runner. It is happening right now with the Republican Party, where it appears that no one really wants to vote for Mitt Romney, but he'll probably win the party nomination because enough people have said he will win and there are no better options for people to check out as an alternative. (In a strange twist of fate, much like the Republican Party, the Oscar voting committee is 94% white, 77% male and 86% age 50 or older. As golf writer Jason Sobel tweeted, "Even the Augusta National membership thinks it's too homogeneous.") It's not that he's the best, it's that he's got the enough people behind him to telling you he is.

The reason this is even an issue for me is that I hate when people vote for a person without doing any research into their stand on various issues and blindly follow the mob. Now, obviously, I'm not trying to equate the Oscars with the process which helps to decide the President of the United States (even though, sadly, most of the country would say the Oscars are more interesting), I'm simply saying that from here on out what I want is some kind of assurance that these people have actually seen every movie. I might have offered up predictions on movies I have never seen, but there is the little matter of my vote not actually counting. If the people whose votes do count legitimately feel as though "The Artist" was the best picture, then I am fine with that. I just don't like the suspicion that something won as a result of people being too lazy to be bothered to do the proper research. Think about it like this: if a movie has such little appeal to you that you can't even be bothered to sit through it for voting purposes and take another person's word for how good it is, than that probably tells you all you need to know about how entertaining it really is. It certainly doesn't sound like Oscar material to me.

A Big Mistake

It feels strangely appropriate that in the week leading up to tonight's Oscars, one of the movie channel has been repeatedly showing "Predators" starring Adrian Brody. Seriously, it has been on a near-constant loop for the last couple of days. It is almost as though the Oscar Academy is making a concerted effort to put him back in the spotlight and I think they have a very serious and real reason for doing this - it is meant to serve as a warning to everyone up for an award tonight: don't let this happen to you.

In retrospect, you can argue that no Oscar win is as surprising or random as Adrian Brody's for "The Pianist". Sure, Marisa Tomei wasn't doing great work for a while there, but she has rebounded nicely the last couple of years. And even though Mira Sorvino appears to have fallen off the face of the Earth (I couldn't even tell you the last movie she was in), I would contend retirement was a better career choice than signing on as one of Gillette's "Masters of Style" with facial hair that make you look like the mask from "V for Vendetta." It makes me wonder if the people voting in the Oscar race should start considering an actor's long-term prospects as well as their current resume when voting. After all, they don't want their award to become like the Heisman Trophy, where winning it is almost seen as a curse for the rest of your career.

I'm not even going to crush Brody for doing a movie like "Predators", because plenty of Oscar winners have put out clunkers after getting the award. It must be very hard to pick the next couple of roles because I'm sure that after you've won an Oscar the studios just start throwing so much money at you that it becomes hard to say no even if the script is terrible. Never forget, Jamie Foxx's first release following "Ray" was the highly forgettable "Steath" in which he wasn't even the lead. But the thing is that Brody hasn't even come close to recapturing the form that won him the award for Best Actor. Honestly, it doesn't feel like he's even trying at this point - he's too busy doing creepy Heineken commercials. (Plenty of big actors do commercials, but they have the good sense to make sure they only air in other countries.) Brody is taking on the feel of Hollywood's version of an "American Idol" contestant who seems content to spend the rest of his days living off his one hit while touring the casino circuit. So, let this be a warning to anyone who wins an Oscar tonight - it doesn't mean your career is set. Also, for the love of God, read the script all the way through before agree to being in the movie. Don't make us come and take the Oscar back.

Weekly Sporties

-On Thursday Milwaukee Brewers slugger Ryan Braun, the reigning NL MVP, had his 50-game suspension for failing a drug test overturned on appeal. Braun is the first player to win an appeal of a positive drug test in MLB history. Now, he didn't win because his sample was incorrectly tested, he won because there were questions about the chain of evidence. Apparently, the guy who collected Braun's sample didn't follow normal procedures. I'm gonna quote directly from the ESPN story, because I couldn't make this stuff up: "According to one of the sources, the collector, after getting Braun's sample, was supposed to take the sample to FedEx/Kinkos for shipping but thought it was closed because it was late on a Saturday. As has occurred in some other instances, the collector took the sample home and kept it refrigerated. Policy states that the sample is supposed to get to FedEx as soon as possible." Braun's contention is that anything could have happened to that sample while it was at that guy's house, creating enough reasonable doubt to get his positive test overturned. Since then reports have also surfaced that the collector drove pasted six or seven FedEx sites on his way home, making it all the stranger that he decided to hang on to the sample for an extra 44 hours and raising more questions than answers. As if being the guy who goes around collecting another grown man's urine wasn't a strange enough job, now this collector willing chooses to keep it in his fridge all weekend? Why do I get the feeling this guy's house is the one all the parents make their kids skip at Halloween?

-The other question is what this means in the long-term for Braun? After all, he wasn't exonerated - he was simply let off due to some procedural questions. And as we all know, that won't clear you in the court of public opinion. When it comes to people like the guys who think the Hall of Fame is more sacred than the Vatican, sometimes all it takes it the perception of guilt and you aren't getting passed them. You have to look no further than a guy like Jeff Bagwell, who never failed a drug test his entire career, but had enough enough people questioning him that he probably won't make it into the Hall of Fame on his first few attempts. The only saving grace for Braun is he is young enough to have the majority of his career ahead of him. However, he has to be completely clean from here on out because when it comes to stuff like this once can be excused as an accident, but twice is as good as a conviction. Even so much as a whisper the he has been using a performance-enhancing drug again and people are going to assume it is true. He doesn't face the uphill battle of someone like Alex Rodriguez who failed a test and only admitted it under duress, but Braun shouldn't start preparing his induction speech just yet either.

-There was a small controversy in the NBA this week. The San Antonio Spurs were riding an 11-game win streak when they arrived in Portland to play the Trailblazers on the second night of a back-to-back. Citing his desire to make sure they didn't burn out during the regular season, Spurs coach Greg Popovich decided not to play 3 of his starters and watched the win streak end as the Blazers won by 40. Now, some people wondered just how fair this was to Blazers fans, because they paid good money to see a regular season game and basically, only 1 team showed up. Personally, because the Blazers won I don't think many of them were too upset. There is talk the league wants to fine Popovich or the Spurs, but before they do that I would simply remind them that his job is to make sure the Spurs are healthy enough to make a run in the playoffs, not make sure fans of the opponent get their money's worth. Remember, it was Popovich and the Spurs who won the title the last time the league had a compacted season, so he clearly knows what he is doing. Also, I'll say this to the League Offices: this is what you get when you leave coaches out of the decision making process and cram 66 games into the space where you would normally play 50, just to make sure you make the most money. You sacrificed the quality of play for a money grab and now you're simply reaping what you sowed.

-Staying in the NBA, the New Jersey Nets have made no secret of the fact that they want Dwight Howard to sign with them as a free agent this summer. Frankly, they kind of need him to, because if he goes elsewhere point guard Deron Williams (the Nets best player) is unlikely to stick with the team when he becomes a free agent this summer. Thus, when Howard and the Magic were in town this week, the team went all out to show Howard what kind of classy organization they are: there were pre-game fireworks (which they hadn't done since opening day), a collage of photos of the new arena they are building was placed outside the Magic locker room and the fans even got into the act, chanting "We Want Dwight" at various points of the game. I have to say the entire thing was... pathetic. It is one thing to roll out the red carpet when a player is there as a free agent and touring the place on his own. It is entirely another to try and  woo the guy while he is kicking your ass. The entire thing stunk of desperation. Also, I wonder how effective it is because you know organizations like Dallas and the Lakers (the two teams Howard is more likely to wind up with) would never do this kind of thing. First rule of recruiting: if you want to be a top-tier franchise, act like you already are.

-One more NBA story. Late in the week the Basketball Hall of Fame announced its finalists for this year's class. Now, other than a strong feeling that Rick Pitino should not get in yet, the main thing which caught my eye was the news that Phil Knight, founder of Nike, would be inducted as a contributor to the game. Now, I am not going to fight you that Nike is synonymous with basketball, but I feel like that has a lot more to do with Jordan and his Jumpman Brand than anything Knight did. Sure, you could say that he was very smart to essentially hitch his wagon to the biggest star in basketball, but I don't know if making the same decision that every other shoe company in the world tried to do at one time or another is Hall of Fame worthy. I mean, when I think of basketball sneakers the original Chuck Taylors are what come to my mind way before any Nike sneakers, so does that make Knight any more worthy than the founders of Reebok or Adidas, who have been making the league uniforms for the last decade? I'm not saying Knight doesn't deserve some kind of mention, but just because a guy has been selling you sneakers for 30 years that doesn't put him on the same level as the guy who invented the shot clock.

-A couple weeks ago I told you about some dysfunction in the Pittsburgh Steelers locker room, specifically that Ben Roethlisberger was unhappy his offensive coordinator was fired in favor of Todd Haley. Well, a couple days ago a news report came out which said Roethlisberger and Haley still hadn't gotten together or talked at all since the hiring, but Haley had met with the Steelers back-up quarterback. The sources (probably Ben or at least someone close to him) went on to say that Roethlisberger didn't feel it was his responsibility to talk to Haley and thus would not be making the first move. This led to all sorts of hang-wringing about whether this partnership was doomed to fail before it ever started. However, just two days later another report leaked out that Haley had called Ben and the two had talked on the phone. In other words, Roethlisberger used the media to send a message to Haley and got his wish without having to be the one who caved. You know, every now and again it is comforting to know that no matter how old I get, the rules of high school will always apply.

-There are lots of things about soccer I do not understand, but I think the biggest thing I don't get is the tradition of team captains exchanging gifts before each game. I do not know why one team would want the other team's pennant before playing, but that is what it looks like they give each other. Apparently, it is tradition to exchange presents after the game as well, because in a game last weekend Barcelona's Lionel Messi, considered by some to be the best player in the world, went to give his jersey to one of the players from Bayer Leverkusen - the team they had just beaten. Now, you might see this in the states for exhibition games like All-Star games, but not for a game which counts. The problem arose when another teammate from Bayer stepped in and claimed the shirt first, leading to what I hope is an extremely rare occurrence - a fight between teammates for an opponent's shirt. Messi settled the dispute by giving shirts to both players, as you would expect a pushover uncle to do. The manager for Bayer then stepped in like any good parent would and said that based on how they acted neither player would be keeping their Messi shirts and instead both players would be auctioning the jerseys off for charity. The way this story is going I can pretty much guarantee those players are going to pay whatever it takes to win those auctions and get those shirts back. Soccer players are weird.

Movie Reviews

So, we've reach movie review time once again. For those of you who may have missed my previous attempts at channeling my inner Roger Ebert, you should know I don't have enough ego to tell you what you should be watching based on my own preferences so my reviews usually have very little to do with the movie itself and focus on something completely unrelated.

Paul I thoroughly enjoyed this comedic take on the typical "first contact" movie. It is sort of an homage to every science fiction story which has come before it and was quite enjoyable. The thing is I don't know why I was all that surprised I liked it considering I find all the people who were in it (Seth Rogan, Kristen Wiig, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) to be quite funny. Also, I have enjoyed most of the things Pegg and Frost have teamed up in before, such as "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz". This was just a light, fun movie. I guess that just goes to show you sometimes you can actually trust people to deliver a quality movie based on their previous efforts, not trick you into seeing a crappy movie based on another filmed of theirs you enjoyed. (Looking at you, Sylvester Stallone in "Demolition Man".)

Win, Win Every now and again I like to shake myself out of my normal action movie routine of car chases, explosions, catch phrases and even more explosions and see how the other half lives, as it were. This was my latest non-explosion, non car-chase attempt and based on this I think I'm good for a little while. "Win, Win" is another one of those movie where the protagonist (played by Paul Giamatti) is just a guy trying to do the right thing and make everyone happy as he goes trudging through his life. The thing I found hard to watch about this movie is that he doesn't really do the right thing. I don't want to give away the plot or too much of the ending, but Giamatti's character makes some questionable decision early in the movie which makes him kind of hard to root for later on. All I know is this: when you write a movie where the audience isn't going to be sure if they like the main character or not you had better keep them interested by blowing some stuff up every once in a while.

The Conspirator Not bad for what it is, basically a courtroom drama set in the 1860s. The movie recounts the trial of the only woman accused in the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln. Besides being a little too long, I think my main problem is that the star of the movie is James McAvoy, who happens to be Scottish. Now, I know the ladies love them some McAvoy but he has been on my shit list ever since being in  "Wanted" (seriously, it was that bad). Also, it leads to a question I have always wondered: why is it that whenever people make a movie about 1800 America, they fill it with European actors who are then forced to speak without their native accents? Wouldn't it just be easier to find American actors? This isn't like trying to make a sports movie and having to decide whether it would be simpler to teach actors to play sports or athletes to act. It just seems like finding these actors a dialect coach is an unnecessary task to add on to what I imagine would be the already-long-enough list of things which have to be done to make a movie. Why make any job harder than it has to be?

The Dilemma The only dilemma I have about this movie is whether I should describe it as awful or god-awful. Seriously, I don't know who keeps giving Kevin James and Vince Vaughn major roles to begin with, but I really have no idea who in their right mind thought they would be able to pull off a movie where they shared the spotlight. I think by now they have proven they should only be playing the best friend or quirky co-worker at best. The only likable person in this film is Jennifer Connolly and even she can't save it. I try really hard not to be 'that guy' from the internet who takes to his blog to slam other people's work, but I did not enjoy one minute of this film. I caught it for free on my cable channel and I still thought about trying to get a refund from someone. Avoid it at all costs.

Unknown At this point, Liam Neeson seems to have settled nicely into a career of playing the same role - a professional bad-ass who is attempting to solve a mystery while killing everyone in his path. Now, I don't want you to think I am picking on Neeson - he isn't the first actor to keep playing the same part and he does it better than most. Also, this movie isn't bad. My concern is that if he keeps going down this path there will come a time when all his parts are going to blend together. Even in this movie it felt as though he was playing the same person he was in "Taken", as if it was some kind of prequel. Dude, throw a comedy in there somewhere, just to break up the monotony. It will even be funnier because people won't be expecting it.

Problem Solving

If you have ever watched an infomercial, you know the usual script is to create problem that no one really has and then attempt to sell you a product which is designed to solve that suddenly-pressing problem. For example, have you ever wanted to be able to see your pasta cook horizontally in a glass tube? No, of course you haven't. No one in the history of ever has had that desire. But, just in case you had, someone made the Pasta Express so you could finally achieve that dream. (And, in case you were wondering - yes, you can have a second Pasta Express for free as long as you call within the next 10 minutes, just pay shipping and handling.) You might not expect this practice to work because you are hoping that people were a little too smart to fall for it, but a couple millions Snuggies sold should probably tell you otherwise. It is a very annoying tactic which really destroys the already shaky credibility of the infomercial. But you can't get all that upset about it, because at the end of the day it's just one step above a carnival barker and what are you expecting from these people? The problem is that this same "create a problem just to solve it" principle has begun to spread and now we have started to see it seep into the world of 24-hour cable news.

I understand that when you have an entire day's worth of airtime to fill you occasionally have to do a few fluff pieces to try and just make it to the next commercial break, but there is a difference between making marginal stories into major news (hello, every story concerning a Kardashian) and flat-out creating news from thin air. Yet, here is how most news cycles appear to work these days: report on an actual, interesting news story, run every angle of that story into the ground, start to make up even more angles once the normal and obvious ones have been exhausted, turn over every rock and go to the fringes of society to try and find a fresh voice to give their opinion on one of these angles, put that fresh voice on air only to have them say something crazy, act shocked that a person you found under a rock and are paying to say something crazy has said something crazy and then begin a panel discussion about the responsibility of journalism and whether or not we should all stop saying such crazy stuff on TV as everyone involved nods grimly to try and look stoic. That should get you through a slow Tuesday. It is like a self-fulfilling prophecy on steroids. Honestly, it seems as though this happens so much you would think it was a carnival ride and everyone has to take a turn as the person saying the craziest thing as part of their contracts.

The person in the ringer this week is Nancy Grace. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I will admit I can't stand Nancy Grace. I find her to be grating on every level and look forward to the day when she finally goes the way of Glenn Beck, having a show on a network only available in 3% of homes. But, I get that she has carved out a pretty profitable spot as the crazy legal analyst who has made a career out of saying outlandish things on TV with no proof to back it up. Up until now no one has called her on it. But last week she was on TV discussing the death of Whitney Houston when during one particular TV spot she said she was very interested to see Houston's autopsy results, because she wanted to know if Whitney had been held under water and drowned on purpose. Despite the fact that no one investigating the crime had brought that up, even as a remote possibility, out of nowhere we had a murder on our hands. Even for Nancy Grace, this was out there. When the anchor (lightly) challenged her on just where they hell this speculation could be coming from, she got pissy and played the, "I was a lawyer!" card, as if having a law degree automatically made you incapable of saying stupid things. Grace, not exactly owning a ton of credibility to begin with, was suddenly burning through it at an alarming rate.

Now, I've done some live radio and TV, which means I know that sometimes these "experts" are just trying to make it from point A to point B without saying something which gets them fired and that every once in a while they screw that task up. It is why I am a lot more forgiving of people who say stupid things versus the people who write stupid things. But, Grace has a history of this kind of insane theorizing, so she might be out of "oops" cards. Still, with all that being said and as much as I am not a fan of Nancy Grace, I find the mock outrage by the other pundits on the cable news networks just as laughable. Frankly, if it wasn't her saying something stupid it was just a matter of time before one of them said it, so they should probably be sending her a fruit basket as a thank you. Instead they are showing all the outrage of Dr. Frankenstein being shocked when he couldn't control his monster. They are the ones who gave the crazy person a platform and made it appears as though she was a legitimate expert, all the while quietly rooting for her to say something controversial. You can't get everything you want and then be fake-mad about it.

It used to be that you had to work really hard and build up some credibility before you would be put on television with the word 'expert' under your name. But now, much like anyone on VH1 can call themselves a comedian, anyone who can promise to fill four minutes of airtime without swearing gets invited on TV to weigh in on the latest hot-button issues. Normal people might recognize that some of these 'experts' are not to be believed, but unfortunately, a lot of people who aren't normal watch a lot of television, which means they might take some of these morons as the Gospel truth. You know, it's all going to be fun and games until someone says something that is so inflammatory it gets someone hurt. So, here is what I want to happen: let's see if the producers of these shows can work a little harder on finding people a little less insane to put on television. I know it might take some more time and since all the money in television is for the people in front of the cameras or up in the offices, they probably aren't be paid enough to give their best effort, but how about they do it out of a sense of pride, or at least the idea that what they are putting on TV is important to someone? (Of course, I asked this before doing a Wikipedia search which revealed that Nancy Grace has had three shows of her own. Never mind - we're screwed.)

They Say It Better

I make no attempts to hide my love of "The Daily Show". Seriously, I don't think you guys know how hard it is for me to not post a video from them at least once a week. But, I don't because I know it is kind of a cop-out and it sort of defeats the purpose of this blog. (Honestly, if all I'm going to do is put up content which was created by someone else day, after day, after day, I should just call myself the Huffington Post and get it over with.) But occasionally they simply say something that I was thinking so perfectly I feel like it can't be helped. Not to mention, when the issue is of a sensitive nature, that is when it is best left in the hands of a professional.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Beaning For Jesus

Two years ago I gave up chocolate for Lent. I'm not talking about not eating a certain type of candy bar, either. I gave up all chocolate, in all forms. It kind of sucked. Even with as much chocolate gorging as I got to do on Easter, it was still not worth it. Last year I decided not to do that again and went the other way, committing to doing something every day. Eventually I settled on biking, at first going for time and then a specific distance. Turns out I kind of liked biking and just kept on doing it, only missing about 10 days in the year it has been going on. So, as Lent was approaching I figured I should pick something new to start doing, since I appear to take to that a lot more than when I have to give something up. (By the way, if you are wondering where this devotion for giving up something for Lent comes from, especially considering how much of a lapsed Catholic I am in the other aspects of my life (chances I eat meat on Friday are about 95%), your guess is as good as mine. I can only assume it comes from the deadline aspect of Lent and the fact that I am super competitive. If the Pope came out and gave me an exact date as to when God was arriving I think I would be a much more attentive Catholic.) Anyway, after some consideration, I think I finally came up with a good activity: Beaning for Jesus.

For those of you who may not watch a lot of late-night television infomercials, the Bean is essentially a one-person, curved air mattress which you inflate and it allegedly helps you do crunches and other stomach-reducing exercises. It was quite the fad in the late '00s, so much so that at one time my parents' house had three of these Beans in it. Well, now I've got my hands on one and I'm committing to using it for the next 40 days. I haven't totally figured out how this is going to work, but I'm planning to start out doing a certain number of crunches a day and see if I pull an ab muscle, which would be a clear sign that God is displeased with my plan. If that happens I will adjust on the fly and go find something else to do. (I'm kind of keeping it vague in the hopes that will lower expectations and make it easier to keep going all the way through Lent.) Not to mention, I think that by allowing myself to switch around what exercises I do that will keep me interested. I hardly think this experiment is going to wind up with me having six-pack abs in the next 40 days, but it couldn't really hurt to try.

However, there is another thing which concerns me about my plan beyond the actual crunches and that is the fact that the Bean website is no longer up and running. The bean I got from my dad has a web address printed on it, but when I attempted to go to that website to see what kind of exercises may be available one of those generic "for sale" screens popped up. Normally this kind of thing only happens when you assume a company's website is one address and it turns out to be another, but by putting in the right address and getting one of those screens it means the company no longer owns that domain name and that can't be a good sign. You can still find Beans on places like Amazon and Overstock, but in this day and age of being able maintain websites for cheap money, the fact that this company decided it was no longer worth it to hold on to the domain name for their product can only mean they didn't have any money. Like I said, this was not some exercise fad from the 1980s which I was hoping to bring back. There are so many abandoned websites for products which aren't for sale anymore out there that are still up and running it is kind of rare to see a company which actually bothered to take their site down. They must have been hurting financially. It makes me question just how effective a product this thing really is. Face it - if you are trying to sell something these days and you don't have a website it would be like attempting to get a record contract by mailing all the major labels an 8-track. I mean, Chia Pets still have a working website but not the Bean?

Now, I don't like to think of myself as overly-snobby about my stuff. I don't feel like the things I buy have to be the latest and the greatest, but that doesn't mean I want to be using old, faulty equipment. There is something unnerving about planning to use a product and discovering they don't even make anymore. You certainly wouldn't eat food from a store that went out of business the next day. That may seem like a bit of an extreme, so I'll give you another example: in high school I used to drive around a hand-me-down Dodge Ram van. As much as I liked this vehicle, I knew it was time to start looking for a new car when the auto parts store no longer got the parts catalog and when I needed to order something to keep the engine running they had to look up the correct part numbers on microfiche. This is kind of that same principle. If something breaks, there isn't much I can do about it and the fact they've closed up shop makes me wonder if that happened a lot. Let's just say I am suddenly not brimming with confidence that my Bean will survive to Easter.

You Lost. Move On.

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed that at the tail end of last week I tweeted a couple of random things to Taylormade Golf. The purpose behind those tweets was to try and win a contest where the prize was a new R11S Driver. Now, I just got a new driver a couple of years ago which still works well (actually, it doesn't work that well, but I blame that more on the operator than the equipment) so I don't really need a new driver. However, the latest drivers are adjustable, very scientific and super-expensive, so when I can win a $400 golf club just by pushing a button I figure the least I can do is try. After all, I can use all the help I can get and since my golf budget for the entire year is probably less than the cost of that club, I'm certainly not about to go out and buy one on my own. I also liked that the contest was very straightforward: watch the telecast of the tournament and when a certain graphic appeared on the screen, tweet the code - the first 11 people to get it in won the club. (Didn't even have to join the cult that is Facebook.) Now, even though I had pre-typed the code on my phone and was very quick to send it in, I was unsuccessful. I was disappointed, but I certainly wasn't about to go around complaining about it. Instead I deleted the tweets (only because I don't like having a clogged Twitter feed) and went on with my life. I just wish I could say that for everyone involved.

I was checking the TaylorMade feed later to see if my name was among the winners (I knew it wasn't, but checked anyway just to make sure), when I saw that TaylorMade had told a couple people they should contact them directly about any concerns they had about the contest. Since I am nosy by nature (runs in the family), I went to those people's feeds to see what their complaints were. Well, as near as I can tell, they were mostly just pissed they lost. One guy was contending that it was impossible for anyone to have tweeted faster than him, another guy said it wasn't his fault because his feed timed out and a third guy said that one of the winners had been tweeting the code all day, which should have disqualified him. One of the men who complained even tweeted something to the effect of, "I'm never going to use a TaylorMade product again unless they contact me in person!" This is where it once again becomes obvious that I should never work in customer service any more, because my reaction would have been something along the lines of, "Ok. Bye." Seriously, who is this guy and why should we care what clubs he uses? It's not exactly like Tiger Woods switching brands. Overall, they just came across as whiners and complainers.

I think what was really bothering me is that their complaints were just so petty. Of course it is possible for people to have tweeted faster than that guy. This is the internet, where hundreds of thousands of people can perform the same action nearly simultaneously, not some radio station which only has a couple of available lines. I'm sure hundreds of people tried to win this contest so trying to sort through all the tweets which showed up, all most likely within tenths of seconds of one another, was probably not easy. If they overlooked somebody, so be it - I'm sure it wasn't intentional. As for the guy whose feed timed out, I would say that was an issue with his internet and nothing that had to do with the contest. I certainly didn't have any problem getting through and it looked like no one else did either. And while I don't doubt there were people who tweeted the code multiple times, which according to the rules was supposed to disqualify you, I can only imagine the chaos that went into this contest. Drawings are hard enough when the group is small - you put it on the internet and it's like the Wild West come to life. I would guess the person in charge of the TaylorMade Twitter account (who is probably just some poor intern) focused on the first people to tweet in and didn't pay attention to the multiple tweeters. It could have easily happened and that doesn't make it part of some huge conspiracy or mean that the contest was rigged. On the whole it appears that those guys are confusing '"getting cheated" with "losing".

I have this sinking suspicion some of these people were complaining just because they lost and hoped that by raising a stink they would get paid off with some kind of consolation prize. I really hope that TaylorMade didn't cave and send these guys something just to get them to shut up, because I have a fundamental problem with the assholes who complain only until they get something for free. However, I have this really bad feeling that is what happened. I know that these whiners probably represent a very small percentage of the people who entered, but I still just think it makes us all look bad. I also don't like people who complain about free stuff in general and especially can't stand the people who complain about free contests. If you had to pay money to enter and you see something which you think is fishy than sure, complain away. But it didn't actually cost you anything to play so losing is a 'no harm, no foul' situation. You got what you paid for. These companies are under no obligation to ever give things away and if people start complaining about everything than they won't bother to have these kinds of contests in the future. As a guy who has won something through Twitter before I would like to have the chance to do it again. If that opportunity gets taken away because of these kinds of complainers it would really annoy me. And you really don't want to make me annoyed enough to start complaining, because in case you haven't noticed I have a lot more than 140 characters at my disposal.

Knuckling Under

On Friday Tim Wakefield announced his retirement from professional baseball. I have to say, I am a little surprised that the 45 year-old knuckleballer decided to hang up his cleats now when he had made it clear at the end of last season he still wanted to pitch, is seven wins away from owning the team record for most victories by a starting pitcher and the Red Sox don't have a set 5th starter for the rotation. Plus, as a knuckleballer, he can pitch until he's 60. I know the organization had indicated they didn't want him back, but you would think he would have come to Spring Training anyway, just playing off the "you never know" nature of baseball. Think about it: how many times through the years has Wakefield been given a roster spot just because there was no one else available? I'm pretty sure this was how he got half of his victories. It feels like the Red Sox have been trying to replace Tim Wakefield for at least 10 of the 17 years he has played here. Is it really all that crazy to think someone will get hurt in the next couple of weeks and suddenly the team is going to be scrambling to find a starter? But mostly, I'm left wondering who will be my new personal pitcher now that Wakefield is gone.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, the personal pitcher is the guy who it seems is always pitching when you go to a baseball game. Doesn't matter how infrequently you go to the stadium, it is always the same guy on the mound. I haven't gone to many baseball games in the last couple of years, but when I have it seems as though Wakefield was always pitching. Despite the revolving door of  quality Sox pitchers through the years - Pedro, Schilling, Beckett, Lester or even Dice-K - I always got Wakefield. If he was hurt, he came off the disabled list just in time for the game I was going to and if a week out it looked like I would finally get to see someone else pitch there was always a rain-out to push everyone back a day. Not that Tim isn't a nice guy, but he certainly wasn't a sexy pitcher. I saw more solo homers go over the wall in left than any one person should be subjected to.

Weekly Sporties

As I mentioned on Thursday, we're in a bit of a sports dead zone - there isn't a ton happening. Normally this would cause a bit of a problem for the "Weekly Sporties" but I lucked out, because this was the week everyone picked to say stupid things at the same time. So, consider this the Weekly Sporties:
Insane Proclamation Edition.

-First up, we have Randy Moss declaring he is ready for an NFL comeback on his 35th birthday. (It appears this was also the week for guys who didn't play last year to announce their intentions for a return because Clinton Portis also said he plans to play next seasons after taking 2011 off. Considering I didn't even realize Portis didn't play this year, we'll stick with talking about Moss.) Now, I'm not going to focus on the fact that I didn't believe Moss when he said he was done with the NFL in August because no one believed him, so I can't exactly gloat about that. Instead we're going to look at a few possible landing sites for him. Last year he said it was the Patriots or nobody. Well, after a year of nobody he appears to have soften on that stance, which is probably for the best, because I don't see New England in a hurry to welcome him back. Even though he still has the height, they need to get younger at wide-out. To me, this has the Washington Redskins all over it. They love to sign guys who are about two years past their prime and since I don't see them getting Peyton Manning (we'll get to him in a second), Moss is a nice alternative. Plus, they have a strong-armed quarterback in Rex Grossman and are desperate enough to think that combination might work. I could also see the Buccaneers, because they could use all the help they can get. In other words, I don't see contenders lining up to give Moss a call.

-This Peyton Manning situation has been full of insane proclamations. The problem is that Manning and Colts owner Jim Irsay aren't sure how this divorce is going to get finalized, but they both are desperate to make the other side look like the bad guy in the eyes of Colts fans. First Peyton had his team leak a statement saying that he is cleared to resume football activities and is good to go (which is most likely a lie). Irsay quickly fired back that Peyton hadn't been cleared by team doctors, so pay no attention to what Manning is saying, because he was just being a politician by leaking statements. Irsay than said that all of this talk should remain in-house and within the Colts family. He then followed that up by saying he would love to keep Manning if he's really healthy, but he would need to redo his contract to protect the franchise in case he gets hurt (apparently, "inside the family" is a relative term). The bottom line is that Irsay is eventually going to have to come to grips with the fact that he is going to end up as the bad guy here. The owner is almost always the bad guy in situations like this, especially the first time Peyton plays against the Colts. I know Irsay is sensitive to that since his dad is still hated in Baltimore for moving the Colts in the middle of the night, but the good news for him is that Indianapolis fans will eventually get over it, especially if Andrew Luck is as ready as advertised. Plus, Irsay has all the time in the world to win back Colts fans while Peyton will be playing another two years, maybe. Better to get it over with and release Manning to start the healing process. Stop delaying the inevitable and stop trying to fight your quarterback in the press.

-There were multiple reports this week that Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow was in Los Angeles, working out with UCLA quarterback coaches. Apparently, they are working on his mechanics to attempt to make him more accurate. For the moment we will ignore how strange it is that he went to UCLA instead of staying in Denver and working with John Elway, who happens to be one of the best passers in NFL history. This proclamation is insane to me because shouldn't he have already done this work? I mean, he was in college for four years, what the hell were they doing all that time? I know that he was winning and there is a feeling that you don't mess with a winner, but didn't the University of Florida have some kind of obligation to get him ready for his post-college career? Seriously, isn't that pretty much the exact job description of college? The thing is Tebow is hardly the first guy to come out of college only to have to re-learn his position by working on mechanics to try and become a better passer. The NFL quarterback might be the only job in the world where you go to school for four years and only once you have a job, then do you start to learn your chosen craft.

-However, just in case you think I'm picking on the NFL, there was plenty of crazy to go around in the NBA too. We'll start in a similar place as the NFL, with Allen Iverson putting out a statement saying he wants to return to the NBA. Iverson, who was probably the biggest star in the game for a couple of years at the start of the century, has said he is willing to take on any role, even playing overseas or in the NBA's Developmental League to prove how serious he is about this. He said he wants to return because he wasn't happy with how he went out last time and wants to end his NBA career in a better place, which is to say he most likely needs money. If you thought the market for Randy Moss was going to be slim, I can't see more than two or three teams even considering signing Allen Iverson, who hasn't played in the NBA in almost two years. No contender is going to sign him and even a bottom-dweller might be hesitant, worried he could be a bad influence on any young, promising players they may have (if you wonder how, look no further than the fact that he made $160 million during his career and is apparently broke). A really bad team might take a flier on him to sell some jerseys, but I don't think even that would be worth the headaches. (This is the part where he signs with the Celtics.)

-Speaking of former NBA MVPs, Shaquille O'Neal was in the news this week for weighing in on the Dwight Howard situation in Orlando. O'Neal said he doesn't think Howard should leave the Magic, especially not for the Lakers, adding it would be a "travesty" is Dwight left Florida just because he wanted to do things like movies or get more more endorsements. Or, you know, the exact things Shaq did when he left the Magic in 1996. Now, for those non-NBA fans out there, you should know O'Neal and Howard do not like each other. Shaq feels as though Howard is infringing on his "Superman" nickname and basically just copying Shaq's career, move by move. (I kind of agree with Shaq on that, though copying him right down to being a terrible free-throw shooter is a bit much.) Still, for Shaq to tell someone not to leave their original team to move to a more glamorous franchise would be like Madonna telling a young musician not to make a career out of being controversial. O'Neal claims he never would have left if the Magic could have offered him the most money like they can do for Howard, but no one believes that. I think the truth is closer to the fact that Shaq just doesn't want Howard, a guy he clearly doesn't respect, to be the next in the line of great Lakers' centers. The weirdest part of all this? Shaq could probably just come out and say that and no one would care, because Howard isn't all that respected around the game. But by trying to justify his stance O'Neal is coming across as disingenuous and a little petty.

-Still, the craziest proclamation of all this week came from LeBron James. James was getting ready for his second game back in Cleveland since leaving as a free agent and while doing an interview with a local reporter, said that he could very easily see himself coming back to play for the Cavaliers someday. James was very magnanimous in the interview, admitting he probably didn't handle his exit from Cleveland very well and was even gracious towards Cavs owner Dan Gilbert, who has been bashing James at every opportunity since he left. It was a sign of maturity. Of course, there is the little matter of James only being in year two of a six-year contract with the Miami Heat. Now, he can opt out after four seasons, but that makes it hard to fulfill all those promises to win "Not 5, not 6, not 7" championships. Also, there is a question of whether or not the Cleveland fans would even want James back after he left the way he did. I feel like they might take him back if LeBron never wins in Miami, but coming back after a Championship with the Heat would feel a little like a guy trying to get back with his high school sweetheart after dumping her to marry some girl whose father owned the company he wanted to work for. It would never be as good the second go-round. But, mostly this feels like Miami fans should be on notice: you are only renting James and it may be a shorter lease than you were expecting.

-Even cities are getting in on the crazy proclamations this week. A couple days ago officials for the city of Seattle announced that they have a 'mystery investor' lined up who would be willing to provide funding for a new area and they can begin construction on a new NHL/NBA arena as soon as they get confirmation a team is coming. Being so close to Vancouver I don't think they will get an NHL team, but they absolutely need a new NBA team - they were always supportive of the Sonics. Hell, the way some franchises are currently drawing, they might have a couple of options to pick from. Now, Seattle is one of my favorite cities in America and I am happy that they are in line for a new basketball team, even if I can't seem to have a rational conversation with any Seattle sports fan (they tend to ratchet the argument up very quickly). I just want everyone to appreciate the irony of a fanbase which had its team ripped away from them now trying to do the same to another city. I get that all is fair in love and professional sports, but you have to admit it is kind of funny. I just hope they have the common decency to change the name of whichever team they end up pilfering. "Seattle Hornets" just doesn't have a good ring to it.

Faking Sincerity

This afternoon I was making a quick stop at my local deli when I paused to grab something out of the cooler next to the door. However, there was another guy in front of me who had the same thought, which caused me to have to wait for a few seconds in front of the exit while he made his selection. This didn't bother me, but it clearly bothered the old woman trying to leave the deli, because she shot me one of those, "Excuse me"s where the words do not match the tone. She might have said, "Excuse me", but the sentiment behind those words was purely, "Get the hell out of my way." Now, I can't totally blame her because I am not a small man so when I block a doorway I block a doorway - there was no option for her to squeeze by. Still, her tone bothered the hell out of me. It wasn't like I was blocking her exit on purpose, it had been about 5 seconds and while I get that when you are as old as she is time is not on your side, it still seemed to have a little more vitriol behind it than was necessary. I have to say I'm getting a little tired of people saying the polite thing, but doing so in an impolite way.

This is not to say I have never done this same thing, because of course I have. Everyone of us has said the polite thing when the thoughts behind it are far from civil. It's a social contract thing. But the second part of that contract is you have to at least act like you are sincere. I'm a huge fan of sarcasm (this blog consists mostly of sarcasm), but I will also admit it is not the most endearing of traits when talking to strangers. If you are going to put some attitude into your words or say the polite phrase in such a way as to let the other person know you don't really mean it, than I feel like there is simply no point in pretending. If that is your plan I would rather you just tell me to get the hell out of your way. Sure, our mothers would like it if we were actually really nice to those who didn't deserve it, turned the other cheek and so on, but that might be an unrealistic goal. Instead they should be happy they raised people who are honest, even to a fault. I've said it before: if you know you are an asshole, than just be an asshole. I may not like you but at least that way I can respect you.

The truly skilled people are the ones who can sound as though they mean it when they don't and some of us are better at it than others. Now, perhaps I appreciate the skill behind sounding one way while feeling another because I have seen some real pros in action. As I pursued my radio career and was tasked with losing a Boston accent I never knew I had, I was required to take numerous voice and diction classes in college to get that "newscaster" voice which makes everyone sound the same, no matter where they are from or what news they may be delivering. One of the first lessons we learned in this class was, "As long as you say it like you mean it, no one else has to know if you really do." Basically, even if you want to tell a person to screw, as along as you don't say it like that than their feelings won't get hurt. (We can debate how wise it is to essentially teach college students the most effective ways to lie another time.) Ironically, it takes a lot of hard work to fake this kind of stuff. One exercise was to improvise a newscast. You could tell who was going to have a solid career by the people who made you believe that what they were saying were facts, even as they were making it up on the spot.

I'm not saying that we all need to take acting classes to pretend to be sincerely polite in social situations. I'm simply saying that people should either say what they are really feeling or not say anything at all. Polite is either one of those things which you are or you aren't. If you aren't that's fine, but don't make your lack of social graces more evident by taking a tone which appears to mock the people who genuinely are. I know that we all have a fear of coming across as pushy to total strangers, but it is not like our brief interaction was going to lead to a life-long friendship anyway (seriously, if I had something else to write about this afternoon this might not have even come up), so if this woman simply wanted to tell me to move that would have been fine. In some ways it is admirable to be so comfortable about yourself that you don't even worry about what people think of you. Besides, they say that the way people act towards you is a reflection of how you act to the world, so in some ways dropping the false sincerity may be the best way to learn what people really think. Then again, maybe that lady was just rude and I'm way over-thinking this.

Anatomy Of A Fad

For the last couple of days the sports world has been dominated by the story of New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin. For those of you who may not follow professional basketball, Lin is the sensation who came out of nowhere and is currently taking the league by storm. After being undrafted out of Harvard (yep, that Harvard) two years ago, Lin played with the Mavericks in the summer league and was eventually signed as a free agent by the Golden State Warriors. However they really didn't have a spot for him, he barely played during his first year and was released after the season. He was with the Houston Rockets at the start of this season before being released again and catching on with the Knicks. After a brief demotion down to the developmental league, Lin was pressed into service due to injuries. But, he made the most of his opportunity and scored more points in his first five starts than anyone else in the history of the league. (Go ahead, read that last part again.) As you can imagine, this had led to a flood of news coverage. Lin has been the lead story on "SportsCenter" for a few days and people can't seem to stop talking about it. Even the President weighed in on Lin the other day. He is officially a fad. Now, some people can't seem to figure out what the big deal is or why Lin is such a major news phenomenon, but I say it is because he is a perfect combination of all the things you need to make a really good fad. We'll take them one at a time.

-Have A Good Story. America loves a good underdog story and Lin has that in spades. First off, he is Taiwanese-American, which means he has probably been fighting against Asian-athlete stereotypes his entire life. This isn't like Yao Ming where people focused on the fact that he is 7'6" - Lin is a normal-sized human and probably overlooked most of his athletic career, which is why he played his college ball where he did. Also, he's coming from the Ivy League, which isn't exactly a hotbed of basketball talent. That means he's also fighting the nerd stereotype. Ivy League athletes are supposed to go into owning NBA teams, not playing for them. You've also got the undrafted thing, meaning he has everyone who was ever told they were too slow, short or uncoordinated to make a team pulling for him. Lastly, on a team of millionaires, Lin is making the league minimum. Until about three days ago he was sleeping on a teammate's couch because he didn't know if he was going to be on the Knicks all season. He's even got a last name you can easily turn into a play on a bunch of other words so as to dominate the headlines. The entire thing seems almost like it was written by Hollywood.

-Be Unexpected. When a big-budget movie with a lot of backing from the studio makes a ton of money, no one is shocked. It is when the little, independent movies like "The Blair Witch" project are box-office gold that people take notice. Basketball is the most predictable of all the professional sports leagues. Commissioner David Stern even admitted as much saying, "Normally you know who is going to be playing in the league by the McDonald's High School All-American Game." That is why an undrafted kid out of Harvard having the hottest selling jersey in the NBA (currently back-ordered for two months) is such a cool event - no one saw this coming. In a league where we all have a pretty good idea of which teams are going to be good and which teams are headed for the lottery before the season even starts, a little surprise is a good thing. 

-Location. Being in a big-market isn't as much of a necessity as it used to be in creating a fad. I mean, Tim Tebow was the biggest thing in the NFL and it is not like Denver is a major media center. That being said, it probably doesn't hurt that Lin is playing in New York for one of the NBA's flagship franchises. Everything that happens on the Knicks is immediately made more important just because it is New York. I would like to think that we would be paying attention to someone playing this well if they were in a city like Milwaukee, but I can't say that with a ton of conviction.

-Timing. Post-Super Bowl, February is kind of a dead zone for sports. The NCAA basketball season is slowly making it's way to the end of the regular season, but most people people won't pay attention until March Madness. Pitchers and catchers are just starting to report, the NHL season still had a third of the regular season to play, golf doesn't get interesting until the Masters and even in NASCAR the Daytona 500 is scheduled late this year. Jeremy Lin filled in what would normally be a vacuum of news. If he was doing this at the start of November, I do not think we would all be fighting a case of Linsanity.

-Winning. Bottom line, however, is that Lin is getting all this attention because he deserves it. Before he was put in as a starter the Knicks were middling along, desperate for leadership in an offense which puts more emphasis on the point guard than almost any other team in the league. Since he became a starter, they have transformed into an exciting, winning team. Admittedly, they have not beaten any championship contenders or even particularly strong teams, but at least they are interesting. At this point, I think that is all Knicks fans are looking for.

Now, as often happens with any fad, the backlash has already started. Boxer Floyd Mayweather tweeted that Lin is only getting this attention because he is Asian, adding that black players do the same things all the time with none of the attention. (Yes, because LeBron James is such an unknown figure.) While no one particularly likes Mayweather, I have no doubt he is not the only person who feels this way. On top of that comes the threat of over-saturation. Like I said before, Lin has been the top story on ESPN for a few days now so, much like a passenger in your car hitting 'repeat' on a song dozens of time, you can only hear the same notes for so long before you get sick of it. Also, it is doubtful Lin can keep this pace up. With a condensed NBA schedule and Lin playing 40 minutes a night, there is an above-average chance he'll start to fade. And as coaches start to pick apart his game the weaknesses will become apparent and good teams will learn how to shut him down. Once his play slips people will move on to the next fad. You get the feeling the kid is a shooting star and not someone who will be doing this for years, but I say just enjoy it while it lasts. Seriously, what else do the Knicks have going for them right now?

Cold Ramblings

So, I've been fighting a cold for the last few days and, sadly, the cold appears to be winning. I won't gross you out with details, just know it's one of those really fun ones. Now, you may be thinking that this is my own fault for golfing in 40-degree weather last Thursday, but I want you to know I woke up that morning already feeling the beginnings of a cold. Sure, I went golfing anyway, which probably didn't help, but my point is you can't blame this on my winter golf. Anyway, my cold medication has produced some really interesting thoughts over the last few days and I thought I would share them with you now.

-It is a long-held belief by conspiracy theorists that most diseases are the result of drug companies putting more money into treatment instead of looking for cures. The thinking is that if these researchers find a cure for something that would be the end of it, but by focusing on treating the symptoms instead of the disease people have to keep buying their medicine. Like most conspiracy theories, it works because everyone views the central figure behind it (in this case drug companies) as evil. But, to me the companies which shouldn't be let off as easily are the people who make cold-adjacent products. There are certain companies who are very happy that cold and flu season exist. Think about it like this: do healthy people ever drink Ginger Ale? Of course not. When you see someone buying Ginger Ale you immediately go to a different register because you don't want their germs infesting your cart. If colds didn't exist they would sell about half the product they do now. Don't think you can fly under my radar, Canada Dry!

-While we're on the subject of cold-adjacent products, it is amazing to me that more people don't use handkerchiefs. As I was literally blowing my way through a box of Kleenex, I couldn't help but think about how much trash I was creating. In this age of recycling and going green, you would think that a reusable product such as handkerchiefs would be all the rage among the Whole Foods crowd. Yet, handkerchiefs are actually less prevalent now than at any point in history. It used to be a sign of sophistication, but somewhere along the line that changed. Now people have handkerchiefs which match their shirt and tie, but if you tried to blow your nose on them you'd get punched in the face. I can only guess this is because people can't get over the idea of carrying around a snot-filled rag in their pocket. Certainly wouldn't want to put that in the same place as your car keys. They make a lot of sense in theory, but in reality they far fall short.

-I was out getting some stronger medication when I came across a product which made so much sense I was stunned it hadn't been developed before now: Nyquil and Dayquil in the same box. Rather than making me buy multiple weeks' worth of one or the other in separate containers, you got one box containing about a week's worth of each in one package. Considering that if you are fighting a cold for more than a week you probably need something stronger than Day/Nyquil, it is the rare product which seems like it would save a person some money. When I saw this at my local CVS I had to fight the urge to run up and down the aisles, shouting, "Congratulations, human race, we did it!" We have officially reached our apex as a society. Unfortunately, it is all downhill from here.

-Since we are talking about Nyquil, how is this stuff legal and yet marijuana is not? I've never been a drug taker, so I admit that my system might be a little more affected by medications, but I have met enough potheads in my life to know for certain they can still move around after they smoke. I took some Nyquil the other night and barely made it to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Once I was finally in bed I was dead to the work for a solid 10 hours and awoke the next morning feeling like I had gone 15 round with Mike Tyson. You ever see one of those stories on the news about a moose which wandered into someone's backyard and had to be tranquilized? Fun fact: I'm pretty sure they shoot the moose with Nyquil. The last couple of mornings I have been very relieved to wake up in my bed and not find myself in the woods, having been 'relocated' back into the wild.

-I currently can't taste anything - it's like nature has turned off my taste buds for the last couple of days. Honestly, this was the week to get me to eat onion and curry-heavy foods, because I would be none the wiser. Which leads to one last free tip for you guys: if your significant other has ever been pestering you to try a new type of food which you really don't want to do because you think it will taste awful, volunteer to do it during cold and flu season. You can just sit there, smile and nod while they tell you how awesome the food is. They finally get to try a new restaurant and you get the brownie points without even having to subject yourself to eating ingredients you can't pronounce. Hell, you might even get bonus points for going out when you are sick. At least something good can come out of having a cold.

Feel The Love

Some of you may have notice that there are two subjects I never write about on this site: my love life and my work life. I don't write about work for a very obvious reason - no story which has begun, "So, I was blogging about my job the other day..." has ever ended well. I don't write about my love life for just as simple of a reason - it's none of your business. Those readers who are in my close circle know what the deal is and if I haven't told you anything about that subject it's because I don't want you to know. It is called a 'private life' for a reason. Seriously, if I ever want to become one of those people who feels compelled to use the internet to try and convince people they are only tangentially connected to that everything in their life is perfect, I'll join Facebook like everyone else. However, I am aware that today is Valentine's Day and as such I should probably write about some form of love. With that in mind, we're taking a page out of last year's notebook and writing about a thing I love. This year's object of my affection? TV shows which immediately make the latest episodes available On-Demand.

A few days ago I was offered Celtics tickets at the last minute. Now, I happen to be in a spot where things like this do not yet require checking in about other commitments before deciding whether or not I can accept these kinds of offers. I do not have to worry about helping with homework, PTA meetings or making sure I can get a babysitter. In fact, the only scheduling conflict was that I was going to miss "Justified", which is one of my favorite shows on television. (Clearly, I live a very tough life.) However, my love of the Celtics outweighs any other entertainment options, so I took the tickets and simply hoped to catch a rerun before the next week, because "Justified" is not one of those shows where you can skip a couple episodes at a time without becoming totally lost. (For those of you wondering why I simply didn't set up my DVR to record it, that would be because I don't have one anymore. DVR is one of those things which I never use when I have access to it and therefore they seem like a waste of money, but the second the service no longer available is I suddenly need one like nobody's business. But, I'll save the list of other such products for an anti-Valentine's Day post.) Then, imagine my surprise when I was checking the On-Demand menu the very next day and discovered that not only was there suddenly an option for FX, but they already had the new episode of "Justified" available for ordering. Awesome.

In this day and age of instant gratification and downloading, it amazes me that some shows hold off on putting their programs on the On-Demand menu as soon as possible. It seems like a total waste of the technology. We have this great thing, so why not use it? But not only do some shows wait for a week to put the new episodes up, others don't put their shows up at all. To me that seems like a wasted opportunity, especially when you think about the number of shows where you can't afford to miss an episode or risk losing the entire plot-line because people get killed off every week. Don't these producers realize that people have lives and things come up from time to time, meaning they might not always be home to watch a show or set some kind of recorder up? If they simply factored that in and allowed a couple of these brand new episodes to go up right away they will retain more viewers in the long run, versus the people who decide that it is simply not worth it to try and jump back in and instead wait for the DVD to come out. Not to mention, I'm sure the cable companies keep track of how many people order which episodes, so it is probably a better measure of a show's actual popularity than the outdated Nielsen ratings.

The simple reality is that if you don't make it easier for people to consume your program, they will find another source of entertainment. We have too many options for networks to act all high and mighty, so just give us the shows as soon as you can. Hell, I don't even really care if you want to include commercials in the On-Demand shows. I know this drives some people crazy, but I simply look at it as the cost of doing business. I mean, I made a decision which meant I had to rely on someone else putting the show somewhere I could see it on my own schedule, I'm not such a selfish jerk that I think I should also get it without commercial interruptions. That would be like asking someone to deliver food to your house, then demanding they stay and cut it up for you. (The only thing I ask is that you please don't disable the "pause" function, because that is super-annoying.) If you simply set it up so that I don't have to worry about the rest of the season not making sense, I am totally willing to watch a few commercials in the meantime. So, let this post serve as a piece of advice for all the producers and networks out there: the sooner you make your shows available to the public after they originally air the better it is going to be for everyone involved. Trust me, your fans will love you for it.

Salt Of The Earth

If you have ever worked in an office, no doubt you have gone to one of those "production seminars" designed to inspire everyone to work more efficiently. (These are especially annoying when the place you are working wants you to think of what you are doing as a career and you just think of it as a job.) These things typically follow the same pattern: some 'expert' is brought in for a couple of hours and they basically give a PowerPoint presentation filled with slogans such as "Work Smarter, Not Harder" and "Try Your Best and You'll Be Your Best." They last way too long, but at the end of the day at least they get you away from your desk for a couple of hours and give the writers of "The Office" the majority of their material. I have sat through a couple of these at my various former places of employment, so several of these slogans are burned into my subconscious. The one which has been on my mind for the last couple of days is the classic, "Be Proactive, Not Reactive." The premise behind this is that if you can take care of many aspects of a problem as soon as possible, than it won't actually become a problem. Well, someone needs to remind the State of Massachusetts that when it comes to certain problems, being proactive can also be a waste of time and money.

You see, we were in line for some snow this weekend but, as it has happened all winter, Massachusetts dodged the snow bullet. Of course, while we all thought that might happen no one could have known it for sure, so we all went out and checked off the usual snow prep - making sure the shovels are near the door, there is gas for the snowblower and so on. While I am a firm believer that doing this kind of stuff is the best way to prevent snow from ever falling, I can at least remain comforted with the knowledge that the preparations aren't totally useless, because they don't lose me any money. The shovels will get used at some point and even if I don't need any gas for the snowblower this season I can eventually use it in the lawnmower, because it is not like gas goes bad in a week. Well, apparently no one told the state about the premise of not wasting money on pre-storm preparations because as I was driving by an MBTA lot I saw that the entire parking lot was covered in salt. There was so much of the snow-melting mix on the ground that it had turned the ground white, making it look as though it had already snowed. This was beyond being prepared, this was overkill.

I am willing to grant you that the state has to be concerned about making sure that the parking lots for its trains are cleared in time for any morning commuters. God knows all it will take is one slip and fall before a local news station starts a six-part investigatory series about how the State is dropping the ball on it's MBTA maintenance. I'll also concede that they have a lot of ground to cover, so going a a little heavier with the stuff on the first pass saves time with not having to come back around as often. However, when you are dumping pounds of salt on top of the pounds of salt which remain from the last time it was supposed to snow and didn't, perhaps that is a sign you could best use this time towards another activity. Especially since by Friday night it had become apparent that we were not getting the half a foot originally feared. If the rest of us could find that out you have to figure the guys in charge could turn on their TVs and learn it just as easily. I know they are probably worried that the one time they assume the forecast was wrong will be the one time it turns out the storm got stronger than anticipated, but even the worst weathermen are pretty good about telling you what is going to happen in the next 12 hours.

They had to know how stupid this was as they were doing it. But perhaps I should be happy that the guys who do the salting are so enthusiastic and thorough about their line of work. They haven't had many opportunities to show what they can do this season, so when they finally got their chance, maybe they simply want to make the most of it? (Sadly, I think the reality is that they get paid by the State based off of how much salt they drop.) But I think the main reason this bothered me so much is that it just seems like such a waste. First off, it's not like you can go back, vacuum this stuff up and use it when it finally does snow. Most of it will wash away with the next heavy rain we get, so it is like pouring money down the drain (and not that I want to go all "Captain Planet" on you, but all those salt and chemicals draining into the sewers can't be a good thing). So, how about next time we all take a step back, realize that we just got lucky with a light winter and dial back the snow prep? I mean, that will obviously result in a blizzard no one saw coming but at least we'd all get a snow day out of it.

I Guess It's True

The internet has been on a murder spree lately. At least, it sure seems that way on Twitter, because every time I have signed on over the last few weeks RIP (fill in the blank with a random celebrity) has been trending. Now, the person is never actually dead, but that is beside the point. I'm not positive, but I think the game is to get the most random celebrity's fake-death as a trending topic. For all I know some of these celebrities are orchestrating it themselves in an effort to boost sales until they come out as not-dead. It may not be the most ethical way to get your name back on everyone's lips, but it certainly is effective. Honestly, if you haven't been fake-killed by Twitter in the last year your publicist should probably be fired. With that in mind you can imagine my skepticism upon seeing the internet reports of Whitney Houston's death last night. But, what I have discovered as the best way to tell if a person is really dead is to see if any of the people whom I follow mention it, because I don't follow the kind of people who would fake-kill someone on the internet. When several trustworthy people Tweeted that Whitney had died, I figured the internet was finally telling me the truth.

Now, today's original musical interlude was going to be some Paul McCartney, in honor of him getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame - something I would have anticipated happening years ago. (The Beatles have one, just not Paul alone.) But, given the breaking news, we're calling an audible. Once again I would remind you that when a recording artist dies you can't just go with the biggest hit of their career for a musical interlude, as it is lazy. You have to go a little deeper into the catalog to pick a proper send-off. Since it is already my favorite Whitney Houston song and I'm a sucker for any slow-motion montage of sports played over a ballad from the 80s, we're going with the song Houston recorded for the Olympics, "One Moment in Time." Now go and do a slow motion run around the room one time for Whitney.

Weekly Sporties

-When it comes to smack talk between either athletes, fans or any combination of the two, I have a fairly simple rule: leave wives, children and parents out of it. They didn't choose this life in the public spotlight, their family member did. That rule even extends to include the ones who occasionally decide to inject themselves into the story, such as Tom Brady's wife, supermodel Gisele Bundchen, did after the Patriots' Super Bowl loss when she was overheard complaining about all the drops the Patriots had down the stretch. Giants running back Brandon Jacobs was later quoted as saying Gisele needed to shut up. While I agree that her throwing her husband's teammates under the bus like that was not good and also unnecessary, I was more annoyed at Jacobs for firing back at her. Honestly, who asked him? She wasn't talking about him or his team, so why does he even have an opinion on it? There is an unwritten understanding that athletes shouldn't comment about other athletes so if Wes Welker doesn't have something to say about it, than I'm pretty sure no one needs to hear from Brandon Jacobs. Take care of your own house and let the Patriots worry about theirs.

-As a fan there are two kinds of owners you never want to own your franchise. The first are the guys who don't really care about the sport, only own the team as a status symbol and plan to run it like a regular business (it's a fact - sports teams can't win and be worried about the bottom line). But, the other guys you don't want in the owners box are the guys who are a little too invested in the sport and suddenly think they know more than the people they employ. In Pittsburgh, president Art Rooney II has stated that he wants the team to go back to more of a ground-and-pound approach on offense and replaced offensive coordinator Bruce Arians with former Chiefs coach Todd Haley. First off, this doesn't make a ton of sense because the Steelers' personnel is built to play one way and that ain't it, so it could be like trying to cut down a tree with a hammer. But, the more disturbing news are the reports that both Ben Roethlisberger and head coach Mike Tomlin wanted to bring Arians back. Now I know as the president/owner the buck ultimately stops at Rooney, but just because he grew up around the Steelers doesn't mean he knows more about football than the head coach. Seriously, as a Patriots fan who is slightly terrified of what is going to happen when Jonathan Kraft is ultimately in charge, I'll be very curious to see how this little power-struggle works out.

-Late in the week Forbes Magazine released its list of the most hated athletes. First on the list was Michael Vick and the second was Tiger Woods. Also appearing in the top ten were athletes like Kris Humphries (the former Mr. Kardashian), Ndamukong Suh and Terrell Owens. This, of course, makes me wonder just who the hell they surveyed to make up this list, because I really doubt the people were serious sports fans. The Tiger Woods hate faded about a year ago, no sports fan thinks about Kris Humphries enough to not like him and at this point Terrell Owens is irrelevant. Also, I feel like serious sports fans respect Suh for his intensity while the only people who would hate him are the people who only know him from the Thanksgiving Day game, where he was ejected for stomping on a guy. (Admittedly, if that was your first and only interaction with Suh, he did not come off looking too good.) As such this list feels takes on the feel of being conducted among a group of people who only watch a few games a years and even then it is with one eye only. Basically, they just pulled names out of thin air based on hearing bad things from other people: "Hey, Michael Vick is a bad guy, right? Put him on the list. Yeah, totally hate that guy." Honestly, if you are going to put someone at the top of a list, have a reason and don't just do it based on a reputation you heard from other people. What do you think this is, the NCAA men's basketball preseason poll?

-Recently the NCAA adopted a new policy which says that if a team doesn't meet certain academic standards then they will not be allowed to participate in any postseason tournaments. It is called the Academic Progress Rate (APR) and it is a point system based on a two-year scale of how student-athletes are moving towards graduation. And while I doubt the NCAA really has the toughest of standards, somehow the UConn men's basketball program somehow still managed to fall short of them, which means they will not be eligible to play in the NCAA tournament in 2013. As usually happens when a program finds itself in the NCAA's crosshairs, UConn has appealed and offered instead to impose several penalties against itself, such as limits on recruiting and fewer pre-season invitational tournaments. So, basically, their plan to get mercy from the NCAA is to do less work? You don't think some of these kids would find the idea of not having to fly to Indianapolis for three games in November which don't even count in the standings like a bonus? Penalties don't really work like that, UConn. The entire thing has the feel of a kid who is failing a class but still wants to go to prom so they suggest their parents make them quit their after-school job. Something tells me we don't need to save a spot in the tournament for them.

-Early in the week former Tour de France winner Alberto Contador was stripped of his 2010 victory and banned from the sport for two years after his appeal of a failed drug test was denied. Previously, Contador had claimed the drugs in his system, which increased heart rate and blood flow, were the result of eating tainted meat. Apparently, cycling's governing body didn't believe this totally reasonable claim, which never seems to happen to anyone but people who cycle for a living. Now, at this point it barely news when a Tour de France winner fails a drug test (in fact I would say the news would be if a winner ever passed a test anymore). But, what I really want to know is this: why do we still do the Tour de France? Clearly it is a feat of human endurance which can not be accomplished without the aid of some chemicals coursing through your system. If you can't win without cheating, maybe it's time to find a new sport. I mean, we have moved on and invented other things, like cars. Those can cover the distance in a matter of days, not weeks and you don't even have to pump your body full of hormones to drive. Sounds like everyone wins in that scenario.

-While we're on the subject of failed drug tests, running back Ricky Williams announced he plans to retire from the NFL this week. For those of you who may not know, Williams is the former Heisman Trophy winner who famously fought social anxiety disorder, failed several drug tests for marijuana while playing in the NFL and briefly quit the game to study holistic medicine. I never know what to make of Ricky Williams. On the one hand, it is very admirable to do what makes you happy in the face of what must have been enormous pressure to stay with where you are, making very good money. I'm sure many people told him he was crazy to quit a job that paid him millions of dollars every year to go and live in a tent in the South Pacific. Ultimately, that time away taught Williams how best to manage football and life and he had some of his most productive years after the sabbatical. But, on the other I saw a lot of Ricky Williams career since he played against the Patriots twice a year and I can not remember one memorable thing he did on the field. I've been racking my brain and there isn't a long run or big catch anywhere in my memory banks. As often happens after a guy retires people want to debate whether or not he is a Hall of Famer and I have to say that if I had a vote, Ricky Williams would not be getting one from me.

-When it was announced that golf was going to be in the Olympics starting in 2016, people immediately began to ask one question: where are they going to play? After all, Rio isn't exactly a golf destination. It was decided that entirely new course would have to be built just for the Olympics and shortly after that the IOC began accepting proposals from design teams. Some of the biggest names in golf course design came out and submitted bids to be the lucky team who would be in charge of building the course. At first the winning entry was going to be revealed last month, but it was pushed back to this month. Then right before it was to be announced this week they pushed the decision back again. Now, I don't have a horse in this race, so I don't really care who ultimately ends up building this track, but I do think they should get on it. I mean, we're four years away from the games and this isn't like you are simply renovating an old course - it's being built from the sod up. That takes some time. But, given that this decision is being left in the totally ethical hands of the IOC, I'm sure they have legitimate reasons for the delay... like waiting for the bribery check to clear.