Weekly Sporties

-So, the NBA draft was on Thursday night and it reminded me that something happens every year which continues to confuse me: draft promises. You see if a team really likes a player and the players wants to play for that specific organization, what they will do is have the player cancel any individual workouts with other teams and the organization promises to draft that player. Now, I can understand it from the player's side because it is the closest they will get to picking where they play - being drafted a few spots lower is a small price to pay for not having to play for a team like the Pistons. But, I don't know why the organizations do this. It seems like the teams at the top of the draft are the same every year, because they are poorly-run. So why would you lock in to one player when you could wait, let the teams which have a history of making odd draft choices make another one and luck into potentially getting a better player you never expected to still be available? Locking yourself in with a promise seems like a bad idea. Of course, it only works if another team doesn't just draft the guy anyway. (They do have scouts too, you know. Unless the guy plays for some obscure European team there is a pretty good chance other teams know about his skill level.) This year the Celtics reportedly made a promise to draft Royce White, only the Houston Rockets took him well before the Celtics ever had a chance. Considering the last couple of guys the Celtics had promised to draft were legendary flops Kedrick Brown and Gerald Green I think the Celtics might have lucked out having someone else break that promise for them.

-A lot of people think White is going to be very good, but I was never sold on him. White has a fear of flying (kind of a problem when you have to travel to 29 other cities during the year) and I never heard of him before the draft process started (always an issue with me), so I wanted the Celtics to draft former Ohio State forward Jared Sullinger with the 21st pick, which is exactly what happened. Had he come out last year a lot of people had Sullinger as a top-5 draft choice. Even after a sub-par sophomore season many people expected him to be long gone by the time the Celtics were on the clock. But then a few doctors had some concerns about Sullinger's back and his stock started plummeting, which I totally understand. You can't spend a top-10 pick on a guy who might have health issues. However, that gamble gets a lot easier to make when you are picking in the 20s and won't be relying on him to play major minutes. He could be a very good rotation guy and, much like the Spurs could confidently gamble taking a guy like DeJuan Blair and his knee issues (which has worked out very well for both parties), the Celtics have the luxury of not needing Sullinger to be great. I also loved the drafting of Syracuse center Fab Melo. Some people think Melo doesn't have the work ethic to make it in the NBA, but as long as the Celtics can get Kevin Garnett to come back that shouldn't be a problem. Also, Melo is a defensive presence which the Celtics were missing down the stretch. Normally I go into the Celtics' draft with high hopes and come out disappointed. This time I wasn't expecting much and came away quite pleased with the results. Given my track record of forecasting NBA careers, I'm not sure if that is a good or a bad thing...

-At this point screaming about how much baseball needs instant replay is like screaming Congress needs to get its act together - everyone except the party who could actually do something about it already knows that. This week we had another example of just how horrendous baseball has gotten when Yankee outfielder DeWayne Wise jump into the stands to try and make a catch to end the inning. He didn't come up with the ball as a fan nearby did. However, that small detail didn't stop third base umpire Mike DiMuro from calling the batter out and ending the inning. Now, I don't blame Wise for this trickery at all - his job is to try to win, not teach the kids the value of sportsmanship. To me this all falls on DiMuro, who later admitted he should have asked to see the ball but didn't. (It's nice that he could own up to it later, but in the moment DiMuro also ejected the Cleveland player who told him to watch the replay, because he clearly got it wrong. So, not only did DiMuro screw up what should have been a pretty easy call, he also was defiant about it.) Pundits keep saying that you can't put in replay because baseball needs to speed up the game because kids today just don't have the attention spans for 4 hour baseball games (yet while this argument is being made, baseball has done exactly zero things to make the games faster). While I agree, I don't think anyone is going to mind if the game takes 2 extra minutes, which is about how long this review would have taken. If you're going to waste that much of my time the least you could do is then get the calls right.

-Switching to leagues who actually get things right most of the time, this week the NFL announced they intend to push back the start of their late-afternoon games by 10 minutes starting next season. (To answer the non-NFL fans out there, nope, "60 Minutes" will never start on time ever again.) This is being done because the NFL's TV contracts demand that stations cut away from whatever game they are showing if a local team's game is about to begin. So, if you live on the West Coast there is a good chance that once or twice in the last few years you've had to miss the end of a close and exciting game so you can watch the kickoff, timeout and first three-and-out series of your local team. I know how frustrating that can be, which is why I kind of like this concession by the the league, because it seems like they are looking out for the fans. However, my only concern is the low number of times this would actually come into play. I feel like most of the time this is going to lead to extra time for the studio shows to kill and I think we would all agree that is kind of unnecessary. I think the better plan would be to tweak the contracts and allow the networks to stick with games until their conclusions, regardless of whether or not the local team is about to kickoff. Not to mention, the way fantasy sports have taken over most of us are just as interested in the teams outside our local market as the team closest to us. Besides, if you asked football fans would they rather miss the start of their own game or have to listen to Shannon Sharpe for 10 extra minutes, I think we would all vote for missing a few drives.

-There has been a lot of talk that the NHL might be heading for another lockout before the start of next season. I have to say that if that is going to be the case, the teams certainly don't appear to be all that worried about it, because some big contracts have been handed out recently. First, the Los Angeles Kings gave goalie Jonathan Quick a 10-year deal and not long after the Pittsburgh Penguins signed Sidney Crosby to a 12 year, $104 million extension. It's the Crosby deal which has me the most puzzled. There is no doubting that, when healthy, Crosby is one of the best players on the planet. Also, unlike some of these extremely-long deals that guys sign when they are in their late-30 which are more about making it fit under the salary cap than actual hockey, Crosby is only 24 and might actually still be playing the game when he is 36. The problem is the last couple of years Crosby hasn't been healthy, as he has played only about half of the Penguins' games while battling various injuries, the most concerning of which has been a series of concussions. Given all the emphasis on player safety and especially head trauma if he takes any more hits to the head it could be a long time before doctors clear him to return. So, on the surface you have to set very long odds that he will make it all the way to the end of that contract. More likely this is one of those deals designed to assure he is always associated with the Penguins and easily transitions him to a front-office role. Must be nice to have a retirement strategy in place at the age of 24.

-This week the PGA is in Washington, DC for the AT&T National Tournament. After having to relocate for a couple years while the club got ready for last year's US Open, the tournament is back at Congressional Country Club. It's a great place for golf, but there is one small problem: the mid-Atlantic is a sauna at the moment. Yesterday afternoon temperatures on the course were around 100, with a heat index closer to 110 degrees. It was hardly a shock to see many players and caddies wearing icey towels and pouring ice water down their shirts all afternoon. Now, the PGA Tour has a rule in place that when it gets that hot caddies don't have to wear their normal sponsor bibs, but most caddies kept them on yesterday because when it is that hot, what's the point? It would be like trying to keep your shorts dry while scuba-diving. Now, even though they leave the heavy lifting to their caddies, I still feel bad for the pros because they are not allowed to wear shorts, no matter what the weather is. This is another one of those golf rules which I just don't understand. Caddies can wear shorts, why not the players? I mean, it's not like we don't know they have calves under there. Recently the Tour came to its senses and changed the rule which stated if the wind moved your ball it was not a penalty. Well, it's time for another common-sense rules change: if it is that damn hot out, players should be able wear shorts. There is no limit to the amount they can wear when it is cold, so why limit them going the other way? Some people will probably want to know where the line is. Since we all enjoy round numbers, how about a nice, even 100 degrees? Some old timers might contend that it makes the players look less professional, but I would counter by saying that having your work force dropping like flies doesn't exactly make you look as though you are running a tight ship either.

-There was a weird story out of Olympic qualifying last week. While trying to qualify for the 100M, runners Allyson Felix and Jeneba Tarmoh tied for third, and I do mean tied. No amount of slow-motion replay could help race officials determine a winner. Since only three runners go to the Olympics, they needed to figure out who came in third. That was when it got weird. You see, the Olympics have a measure in place for this kind of scenario and it is exactly as well-thought-out as you would expect from a measure which could only happen every 4 years and has probably never come up before. The simple solution is to have a run-off. However, that is not the first option. If both runners agree to it, the first plan is to flip a coin to see who wins. If they don't agree to a coin-flip, then they have a run-off. However if neither athlete makes a decision it goes back to being a coin flip. That might be the silliest thing I have ever heard. What athlete in their right mind, who has spent their entire life training for this moment, is going to agree that a random coin is going to decide whether they fulfill their Olympic dream or not? Honestly, it shouldn't even be an option. Now, the Olympic committee might luck out because the ladies are both training partners, good friends and entered in other events. If they both qualify for the team at other distances they may just let the coin decide. Either way, it looks to me like the US Olympic committee has four years to figure out a better way to decide ties, because even though the odds in a coin flip are supposed to be 50/50, it doesn't seem fair to any athlete.

Speed Kills

So, the big news of the last 24 hours was the Supreme Court's ruling concerning the constitutionality of President Obama's health care law. Now, I would love to write a summary of the ruling and the subsequent ramifications for most of us, but considering I don't actually know what those are I'll avoid making myself look silly on my own blog. (Besides, I live in Massachusetts. Basically the law was already in place here and wasn't going anywhere no matter what the ruling was, so why should I spend any time worrying about it?) Instead, I want to talk about how stupid most of the news outlets made themselves look yesterday. In the rush to report the ruling first many reporters didn't read beyond the first page, which made it appear as if the law was unconstitutional. Well, it turns out that this was kind of a complicated ruling and couldn't be summed up very quickly. It was only after those same reporters flipped to page 2 that they found out the Supreme Court had actually upheld the law, just clarified how it should be classified. That premature declaration of unconstitutionality left a lot of people with egg on their faces. As with most things these days, I blame the internet.

Even after blogs started to break actual news, the cable news networks continued to look down their nose at them, as if you couldn't be a real journalist unless you were on TV. But, eventually they broke enough large news stories it got to be where blogs had to be taken more seriously. While that development pleased me, because I happen to think good journalism is good journalism no matter who you are working for when you report it, the problem was the cable news networks were still behind the times. They just weren't going to give any websites credit until they absolutely had to. Then, as often happens when someone is late to the trend, they then tried to over-compensate to make up for lost time. Now I fear it has gone too far the other extreme as every blog that rights about politics is automatically given the same sweeping credibility, no matter how much actual reporting they do. Rather than taking a few minutes to see if it is just a guy making stuff up because he doesn't like the person involved, these networks can't wait to shove random people on TV with the "Expert" title under their names. Obviously, the balance is somewhere in between and hopefully they will find it soon.

Still, there is no denying that the internet has changed the news media forever. When people can read things online for themselves there is almost no need to wait for the nightly news to sum up the day's events for you. This realization has put even more emphasis on speed when it comes to breaking news. However, that doesn't mean those news outlets have to be in such a rush to be first that they forget about being right. (I have this vision of the people in these newsrooms being the same kind of people who leave the comment "FIRST" on internet news items. Nothing informative to add to the conversation, just have to let people know they were there.) Being wrong, even if you are first, doesn't exactly inspire people to trust you going forward. It was especially stupid to be in such a hurry about this kind of breaking news, which wasn't really "breaking" at all. To me "breaking" news is when you are trying to cover an event as it is happening that no one knew was coming. Everyone knew the ruling was being announced at 10:15 on Thursday and could set their watches. News is rarely that specific. Even when people say they will be holding a press conference it never starts on time. Covering this as though it was a breaking news story would be like standing outside a restaurant and then treating them opening the doors like a major shock.

When everyone will be getting the news at exactly the same time the main way to set yourself apart (as it always has been) is by getting it right, which a lot of people failed to do. In the end, it makes me kind of sad that journalism has become such a joke. I'm not saying all those people screaming about the ramifications of this Supreme Court ruling without actually knowing what the ruling was need to be fired. (Well, maybe a few of them...) My point is that it would be nice if there was at least one outlet that was more interested in having a calm, rational discussion instead of what we've got now - multiple channels full of people who attempt to compensate for lack of brains by force of volume. Not to mention, when you look at the ratings for the channels which cater to the two extreme side of the issues it is not like they are pulling in amazing ratings. Honestly, on any given day they are coming in well behind re-runs of shows like "The Big Bang Theory". If these news anchors were on network TV they would have been cancelled long ago, so why not try something new to distinguish yourself from the pack? They may not be the first to give their analysts, but considering most of those are wrong anyway a little time to think their opinions over might not be the worst thing in the world. Sometimes giving your opinion first means you're just the first person who looks like an idiot.

The Ticket Master

You probably won't be surprised to learn that I am on a lot of comedian's mailing lists. Mostly these lists exist just to let fans know about upcoming show dates or when TV specials will be airing. However, the other day I got a very long email from comedian Louis CK. The main point of the email was to inform me that Louie was going on tour this fall, but also to let me know that if I wanted tickets things would be a little different from the normal procedure of buying them because for this tour CK would be selling tickets through his site and his site alone. This was being done to try and cut down on the fees that ticket websites charge, some of which can total up to be almost as much as the tickets themselves. Also, every seat was going to be the same price - $45. Frankly, for a comedy show this is a really good deal. Now, this is not the first innovation CK has come up with, as last year he released a comedy special exclusively through his website for one flat fee, cutting out the cable and distribution companies. That idea was very well-received, made him a lot of money and with almost all of his shows for the upcoming tour already sold out this idea is looking pretty smart for CK as well.

What this basically comes down to is the fact that Louie wants as much control over his operation as possible, which is something I think we can all understand. If you are doing all the work than why should a barely-connected company make millions of dollars off you? (CK clearly has some control-freak in him. After all, what other explanation can there be for why he writes, directs and edits every episode of his TV show himself?) The only compromise CK had to make was finding venues which wouldn't mind pissing these companies off, which means he'll be playing smaller, obscure venues and had to skip some cities altogether. But when you consider the fact comedy shows are worse the bigger the venue, Louie isn't actually giving up all that much. Also, the sting of not being able to perform in Madison Square Garden is probably lessened by the fact that he will create even more loyal fans by doing this. Because not only does it genuinely seem like he is trying to make the whole process easier and cheaper for his fans, there also aren't going to be a ton of people feeling sympathy for companies like StubHub and TicketMaster just because they won't be getting their cut of the pie. I think we have bought tickets to something and looked at the fees, wondering why the hell we have to pay shipping and handling fees when we bought the tickets online and are now printing them from a home computer. In a lot of people's minds it is about time a performer did something with their fans in mind.

As near as I can see there is only one flaw in the plan and that is how they intend to go after ticket scalpers. The comedy special he put out was sold for one low price in an effort to keep people from illegally downloading it. CK thought $5 was cheap enough that people wouldn't feel the need to get it for free and for the most part he was right. The problem is tickets kind of work the opposite way, in that scalpers love to buy all the cheap seats first because they can make the most money by selling them closer to the show's date. It is one thing to get $300 for a $200 ticket. It is entirely another to get $300 for a $45 one. To combat scalpers from selling the tickets at astronomical mark-ups CK has hired people to look for tickets being sold online and if anyone sells their seats for above the printed value he reserves the right to deactivate the ticket and refund your money. While this might deter most people from risking it, if you really want to see his show and were unaware of the policy you might be tempted to pay more than the advertised price. Now that fan shows up and discovers the ticket they bought in good faith doesn't work. I get what he's going for, but at that point the scalper already has the person's money. Since scalpers don't offer refunds the only person getting screwed is the Louie CK fan who spent $75 for a $45 ticket and doesn't get to see the show. If they could figure a way around that than this becomes the perfect idea.

As you would expect people are taking this to the extreme, claiming it could revolutionize the way tickets to shows are sold, but I'm not so sure. Yes, guys like Louie could pull this off, but there are many more acts who couldn't. To stand up to people like TicketMaster you need to have extremely loyal fans who are going to want to come see you where ever you are playing and a career which is on solid footing to know they won't be able to freeze you out going forward. Plus, you have to strike quickly, because the window to pull off a move like this closes pretty quickly. CK is currently the most popular stand-up in the world, but even he couldn't have attempted this kind of thing when he was just starting out and, considering how cyclical the entertainment world is, he probably won't be able to do this kind of thing in a couple years. Thinking it over, I can only come up with around 10 acts who have the right mix to pull this off. So, this probably won't change the way the ticket world works. But, it is still nice to see someone with some power fire some high heat at these companies every now and again to remind them that people would prefer to do business without them.

Keeping It Real...

At this point, I don't think there are many people left who think reality TV actually represents real-life. When the concept first hit it felt as though most people were treating the shows as being fairly close to genuine. But through the years reality TV has started to go so far over-the-top that people can't help but see how absurd is to label these shows as "real" any more. That self-awareness on both sides, much like in professional wrestling, has allowed the producers to really let every thing fly free and drop most of the pretense. As such, shows like the "Real Housewives" in which people are throwing drinks in each other's faces at the drop of a hat, have a "wink, wink" feel about them. It's like the producers are saying, "Look, we both know this isn't real, so we'll at least make it entertaining." So it took a few years, but at this point it feels to me like we're all in on the joke together. Still, there are some shows out there where I am still surprised to find out they have gone beyond the usual tricks of clever editing and well-timed commercial breaks to add drama where there actually wasn't any in an effort to make the show more interesting.

As I was searching for something to watch last night I landed on a program which purported to be a documentary-style show, following around a crew of people who repossess cars and tells the story of the crazy characters they meet along the way and the out-of-control conflicts which happen during those encounters. The problem was when they got to one house, I immediately recognized the woman whose car they came to repossess. It took me a second to figure out where I knew her from, but then it dawned on me that I had seen her on TV before doing a few commercials. Now, she wouldn't have been the first actor to have their car towed, but these commercials weren't from that long ago so I doubt she had fallen onto hard times that fast. On top of that she went way beyond the typical level of upset you would expect from a normal human being and was clearly over-reacting to an almost obscene level. All of that led me to believe the "real" encounter had to be staged. Since I was only about 90% positive this was the same woman I did some Googling and I quickly found her Twitter feed, where her timeline was filled with people joking about her appearance on this show. At that point she wasn't even trying to hide it anymore.

For some reason this bugged me, and I don't know why. I guess it is because it seems like some shows carry a level of credibility and you expect them to be above something like hiring an actor to go crazy and take the show up a notch. Then again, a couple weeks ago I wrote about the biker gang at the center of the new Discovery Channel show "The Devil's Ride" and now there are rumors flying around which contends that almost the entire show is done by actors. If the Discovery Channel can't keep their shows authentic than I guess I can't realistically expect anyone to. The other time I am surprised to learn a show is faked is when it feels unnecessary. For example, I've always wondered about "Auction Hunters" and whether or not those lockers are filled with interesting items by the producers. (It does seem convenient that there is always a gun to be found.) I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt but then a couple weeks ago I was forwarded an article in which a woman who appeared on the show "House Hunters" claimed that the entire show was staged. Basically, they were asked to look at a second and third house long after they had bought their new place and then act as thought it was an agonizing decision. If they are faking a show where the end prize is people buy a house with their own money than why should I believe a single thing I ever see on TV?

Still, after thinking it over, I'm actually happy to have the curtain pulled back on this last part of my TV experience, because it restores my faith in humanity. I never wanted to believe that there were people out in the world who would really be that anxious to start brawling in a public place at the drop of a hat. Now I can rest easy knowing those characters aren't any more real than the people you meet on a typical scripted show - the only difference is they don't have an actual script to work off. With that burden off my mind now I am free to sit back and simply watch these shows, treating them like I would any sitcom. I just have one final piece of advice for the producers: if you are going to hire actors to make your show more interesting, at least hire unknown ones. Honestly there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people out there just looking for their 15 minutes of fame and it is not like you need them to pull of Shakespeare in the park. Hiring an actress to play a person going crazy because their car is about to get repossessed when two minutes later I will see her on my screen trying to get me to upgrade to an iPhone is just plain lazy. I'm willing to treat the show as semi-serious, but you have to keep up your end of the bargain.

Page Not Found

Once again, I found myself spending the day fighting with my computer. While trying to simply read my emails, my browser instead continued to either show me nothing or asked me to kill the page and try to load it again. Those times where I did opt to kill the page and reload, I would get a frowny face on my screen. Error messages annoy me to begin with, but when you get as many error messages as I got today, it takes that level of annoyance to an entirely different level. As most of you probably know by now, the more I see something in every day life the more likely I am to start to notice new details and thus begin to slice that particular thing to shreds. So you can imagine how viscous I can get when that item is already on my bad side and I keep seeing it. In this instance, around the 15th time I saw this frowny face I noticed that it had changed since last time I had this problem. For the last couple of months the frowny face had a scarf around its neck and a few snowflakes floating around. This morning the scarf and snowflakes were gone. I assume this happened because it is officially summer and the programmers wanted to be accurate with the seasons. But, rather than enjoying this little attention to detail, it just made me hate that stupid frowny face even more.

I can't stand it when companies try and use cute little things to try and distract you from the fact that their product is a piece of crap. In the last year it has become more common for businesses, especially when it concerns their websites, to not just give you an error message when something doesn't work correctly. Instead they try and soften the blow by showing you a cute picture or a witty phrase to let you know your file has been corrupted. Now, if you are working on something for personal use, not only will it probably bother you less, you might even have a chuckle if it is particularly clever. But if it is a work-related issue than that is really not the time for humor. Honestly, I don't care how cute a picture of a cat hanging on a branch is, it will not do anything to soften lessen the impact of an important document being lost forever. In that moment you become very aware that this clever error message is probably how someone in tech support spent an entire afternoon and it suddenly seems like a giant waste of time. You want to send them an email asking if they really thought taking 20 minutes to brainstorm on what would make for the cutest error message versus fixing the problem so you only have to see it once every few weeks instead of 10 times a day was the best use of their time.

Also, I don't think we should be celebrating the websites which do have funny messages when something goes wrong. This is the same reason I immediately become wary when a doctor's office has an extremely comfortable waiting room. On the surface it seems like a good idea to have comfortable chairs, lots of new magazines and classy artwork on the walls because it puts the patient as ease. Plus, we all expect to wait a little bit at the doctor's office, so a comfortable waiting room shows the doctor is sympathetic to our plight. However, what actually happens when the waiting room is too comfortable is the doctor no longer feels the urge to get to his patients on time because he knows they won't complain about being in the waiting room for so long. I certainly don't want my doctor rushing through his appointments to set some kind of speed record, but I also would rather he not think he can make me wait for an hour because I can keep myself occupied. Give me the doctor whose waiting room consists of three folding chairs, a TV which only gets one channel and a year-old "Highlights" magazine in which all the puzzles have been filled in over the guy with the over-stuffed couches and flat-screens on his wall any day of the week.

Clearly, I am all for creativity on the internet. But at the same time I would rather not have to see these snappy comebacks all the time. Rest assured, no one will mind an error message that is bland as hell if they only have to see it twice a year, because I know one of the things I appreciate even more than a clever error message is no error message at all. This policy is not exclusive to company websites, either. I don't want employees spending a lot of time picking out the the most kick-ass "Hold Music" playlist, because that is time which would be better served getting me off the phone. A customer asking to be put back on hold because the music is so great only happens in commercials. The rest of us want to get our issue straightened out as quickly as possible, so leave coming up with a soundtrack for our day to us. Only when they have all the other problems solved can these companies go back and get all their "failed SNL-writer" angst out by making their "Page Not Found" icon extremely clever and their hold music feature nothing but Grammy-winning musicians. Hopefully this message will get through to the right people, because I swear if the next time I see that frowny face it is wearing sunglasses, I'm going to give the person who does the programming something to really frown about.

More Rowing Ramblings

After telling a friend about last month's successful kayaking trip on the Charles River, he insisted he wanted to try it. So, on Sunday I pressed my luck and went out again, convinced that I would capsize this time. Fortunately I successfully survived rowing the Charles a second time without falling in. But, just because I had already done it once before, that doesn't mean I don't have a few new observations for the second time around...

-Somehow this escaped my notice last time, but I finally caught on that everything on the dock is color-coded by size. For example, if you need the extra large life vest you grab a red one and if you are over 6 feet tall you grab the yellow oar. This system makes it very easy to size people up as you approach them in your boat. (Again, it doesn't matter what side they pass you on, just don't hit them and you will be fine.) For example, if you see someone with a blue life jacket (XXL) and a yellow oar (over 6') that's a big dude who probably shouldn't be messed with. But someone wearing a yellow vest (small) and a red paddle (5'-5'3" tall), then you can probably take them in a fight. Honestly, if we had policies like this on the roads I bet we would have a lot fewer road-rage incidents.

-Since Sunday was such a beautiful day, the place was rather crowded with a lot of kayaks and canoes in the water. I think that made the people in the fishing boat with the huge engine all that more conspicuous. Last time there were people in fishing boats, but they were puttering along with their trolling motor at 1-2 miles per hour. This particular group apparently had someplace to be, because they were going much faster and leaving a much larger wake. (Going through their aftermath was the closest we came all day to tipping over.) Honestly, if you have a boat and engine that big, why are you wasting your time on a river? Go on the ocean already. The situation had the feel of a charity bike ride where a couple people show up on Harleys. I think you missed the spirit of the event.

-This one is only marginally connected to rowing, but I'm including it anyway: Last time around I wore sneakers. Since wet socks pretty much ruin my day, this trip I went for mesh water shoes. Besides not worrying about getting them wet, they also had the advantage of being easy to get on and off. Rather than laces it was just one piece of bungee cord which you pulled tight and then slid down a holder. This convenience made me wonder: why did we as a society give in to using laces? In thinking about it, my favorite pairs of sneakers are the ones which are loose enough that I can slide them off and on without ever having to tie or untie them. When I was at Reebok their big innovation was self-inflating shoes which never had to be tied and they were awesome. Laces suck. My nieces are getting close to the age of having to learn to tie their shoes. I'm thinking about telling them to forget it and just stick with Velcro.

-The first time I went out kayaking I was amazed at how little training I got. They pretty much showed me how to get in and out and sent me on my merry way. The second time? Even less advice. The guy asked if we had been there before and I said I had, but only in a kayak. I'm pretty sure that after he heard I had been there before he stopped listening. He just pulled the boat around and held it for us to get in. Apparently in his mind after one trip I'm already an expert. (Please note that this did not insult me - just served to inflate my ego. In my mind this just meant my reputation as a fast learner had clearly proceeded me. I now assume they must use me as an example for the other first-time boaters.) Hopefully that same guy wasn't watching when we got back, because while I got into the boat with no issues my exit was just as grace-less as last time. That move must take three trips to master.

-The only problem I have with this kind of boating is that I am nosy by nature. We started upstream this trip, which meant I was seeing most things for the first time. It was also a winding stretch of water and as such I always wanted to know what was around the next corner. Well, on this stretch of river you can pretty much keep going until you hit a dam, which is about three miles down-river. I might have been enjoying myself, but I was also aware that we had to paddle back to the boathouse and I didn't want to canoe six miles on my second trip out. However, in checking the map after we got back, I am now convinced that the coolest things to see were further down river, right beyond where we eventually turned around. What I need to find is a route that goes in a circle. That way I will have seen everything, but still ended up back where I started so I don't have to waste all my energy getting to the end of the line.

-The only slightly harrowing part of the trip was when we came upon a bridge which was under construction. Because of the work being done, a temporary structure was next to the bridge to allow the workers access to the underside. I'm sure that is how all bridge work is done, but I'm not sure all bridge work is done over waterways which are popular with recreational boaters. In passing under what amounted to heavy-duty scaffolding, our heads had about two feet of clearance. I have no idea how the people in the powerboat made it through, but they were already on the other side of the bridge. Also, I noticed that on the side of this temporary structure were a couple of life-preservers. I'm not sure if they are there in case one of the guys working falls in or in case someone crashes their boat into the bridge. Either way, I think helmets would be the wiser safety precaution.

-Last time I went out I was in a kayak, but this trip we opted for a canoe. I have to say that I think I prefer using the canoe, because it feels a lot more stable. For example, I could adjust my legs without being convinced I was about to fall into the Charles. However, after kayaking I felt fine but after canoeing my shoulder was/is absolutely killing me. Therefore, what I think I'd like to do in the future is split the difference and try canoeing with a kayak paddle. That would give me the stability as well as save my shoulder. The question I now face is whether suggesting this to someone will immediately out me as a boating novice, sort of like showing up to play a softball game in football cleats. I may know that I don't know anything about a subject, but there is no need to let everyone in on that secret.

-As I previously mentioned, the dock was very busy when we were heading out. But, I have to say it was even busier when we were coming back. To try and make it easier on the kid handling returns, we tried to get kind of close to dock without just ramming our way in. Here's a fun fact: it's really hard to make a canoe come to a complete stop and then not move at all. There isn't much of a current at this part of the Charles River, but there is enough of one that you won't stay in the same spot for very long. However, to try and create just enough forward thrust to get back to where you were results in going way further than you intended because, much like it is impossible to drive a car at less than 5 mph, it is impossible to canoe at 1 mph. What we ended up doing instead was making circles around and around until we finally had an opening to get in. Think of it like doing donuts in a car, only a lot less cool. These are the kind of things we do to not be seen as pushy.

-Fortunately, we got a show while we were waiting to dock. When we were first heading out, there was a gaggle of geese across the water as well as a few swans mixed in. Despite being outnumbered, one of the swans was splashing a couple of the geese and the geese were just taking it. When we got back to the dock the geese and swans were still there, only now the swans were leading out some baby swans, who were bigger than most of the geese, but still gray so they couldn't have been that old. They formed a straight line with one swan in back and one in front. Most of the geese got out of their way, but apparently one goose wasn't moving fast enough and started to get chased by the lead swan. Normally I am on the side of any parent looking to protect their young, but this particular swan seemed to be a little over-the-top. Even after the goose was out of the way the swan continued to follow it, well beyond the necessary range until the goose was almost in the middle of the river. Eventually, the goose had to take off because the swan was gaining on it so fast. I think the moral of this little nature show is fairly simple: swans are assholes.

It's Not The Heat...

Lately, it seems like the entire country has been in the grips of a massive heatwave. All week the national maps on the weather channel were practically glowing with reds and oranges as every corner of the country dealt with the heat before we finally got some much-need rain in the last couple of days. While 90 degree temperatures won't cause people to bat an eyelash in Texas or Arizona, they cause a major ruckus here in the Northeast. Let's be honest, we're thick-blooded around these parts, so heat tends to not agree with us. When my dashboard thermometer hit 98 on Thursday I thought it had to be a mistake... right up until I got out of my car, at which point I felt like it was probably a little low with that total. (Weird part about it was that I almost wished we had just made it to 100. I mean, if you're going to be that uncomfortable, you may as well be triple-digits hot. It's like being the second-worst team ever.) However, this does once again prove my theory that air conditioning is among the top-five all-time for inventions, right up there with the wheel and the Red Zone channel.

There is another side effect of this heatwave and that is that I am much more efficient in this kind of heat. When it's a beautiful day outside I look for excuses to take a couple extra trips outside. But when it is 94 degrees with 110% humidity I need a damn good reason to leave the comfort of my central A/C. Also, if I do have to go outside I am doing everything in one swoop and as fast as I can. There is no running back and forth or assuring myself that I'll remember what I needed from the store while I am on my way. Nope, on those days you will find me making lists, double and triple checking them, then mapping out the quickest route with the least amount of time to let my car turn itself back into a sauna. Also, I may not have needed to use my remote starter during the winter that much, but you can be damn sure it comes in just as handy for cooling a car down as it does for heating one up. Look, it's only June and I'm not saying that I'm already looking forward to breaking out the shovels, but I just want to be clear about the fact I will not be looking at property in El Paso any time soon.

Weekly Sporties

-Late in the week Roger Clemens was acquitted in his Federal perjury trial where he was accused of lying to Congress. Once the verdict was announced, people began to wonder what this would mean for Clemens in terms of his eventual Hall of Fame chances. While Clemens has always been widely assumed to be part of the steroid era and has fallen short of the needed votes before, unlike admitted steroid users such as Mark McGwire or Alex Rodriguez, Clemens can stand up and say that he has always maintained his innocence and was found not guilty by a jury so some people think that could sway more than a few opinions. Despite that, I don't think this verdict changes a single thing. If you thought Roger Clemens took steroids before this whole thing started there was nothing revealed during the trial that would change your mind, just like if you believed Clemens was innocent before this you probably still believe him today. Clemens entire defense was based on not fighting the steroid allegations, it was just intended to discredit Brian McNamee as a witness (which wasn't very hard to do). On top of that the jury which found him guilty consisted of no sports fans whatsoever, so they probably didn't view Clemens with the same suspicious eyes that people who had a front-row seat for his entire career did. It was a great job by Roger's legal team, but they won't have a chance to defend him in front of the people who vote on the Hall of Fame. Roger Clemens might not be going to prison, but I am also pretty sure he isn't going to Cooperstown either.

-While we're on the subject of cheating in baseball, a few days ago the Washington Nationals were playing the Tampa Bay Rays when Nationals manager Davey Johnson asked the home plate umpire to check the glove of relief pitcher Joel Peralta as he was warming up. The umps checked the glove and found that it had pine tar inside. Since it is illegal for pitcher to put any substance on the ball, Peralta was ejected from the game and subsequently suspended 8 games. But, here is the messed up part: due to baseball and it's insane "unwritten rules" it is Johnson and the Nationals who have come under fire. Rays manager Joe Maddon thinks that it was totally out of line for the Nationals to have the ump check Peralta for pine tar considering he pitched for them last year, meaning they knew he most likely had the substance hidden somewhere. Now, I will concede that it is a dick move for a team to look the other way when a guy is cheating for them and then calling him out when he is cheating against them. However, that doesn't mean Maddon and the Rays get to claim the moral high ground here - cheating is still cheating. Also, Maddon's contention that pitchers should be allowed to use pine tar because most of them already do is equally stupid. Lots of people used steroids in the early '00s, you didn't hear a big cry to make those a permanent part of the game. Now, I really like Joe Maddon and wish he was managing the Red Sox, but he is totally wrong on this one. Your man got caught, don't try to justify his actions. Take your punishment and move along, because crying about how this kind of cheating shouldn't really count is just going to make everyone start looking at the rest of your team and wondering what other tactics they don't consider to be 'serious' cheating.

-Even though Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas continues to maintain that he wants to take a year sabbatical away from hockey, there was some interesting news concerning him which came out yesterday. Apparently, Thomas has waived his no-trade clause and would allow the Bruins to move him to another team, making him someone else's problem next season. Now, you may be wondering why any teams would be interested in acquiring a player who will count for $5 million against the cap and doesn't plan on playing. Well, the way the NHL salary structure works is that it not only has a cap which teams can't go over, it also has a salary floor which teams are not allowed to go under. So, some particularly cheap organization could acquire Thomas and have him count against the cap, get them above the salary floor but not have to worry about messing with their roster. Admittedly, it would not be the best move for the fans of that franchise but, honestly, that is their problem. Hey, for all we know Thomas could have a change of heart around training camp and want to come back to stick it to the Bruins for trading him and suddenly you got a very good goalie without it costing you very much. Reportedly the New York Islanders are interested, but considering how the team has been playing for the last couple of seasons I don't know if they want to risk pissing off a fanbase which is already teetering on a revolution against ownership. But, even if it is not the Islanders, all it takes is one team to make this happen. If you believe the saying, there is a sucker born every minute. The Bruins just need one of those suckers to own a hockey team.

-At the start of the week running back LaDainian Tomlinson signed a one-day contract with his former team, the San Diego Chargers, and announced his retirement. As is so often the case when a great player retires, people began to debate his place in the game's history. No one denies that Tomlinson had an amazing career - he finishes in the top-5 in all-time touchdowns and top-5 in total yards gained from scrimmage. He'll go into the Hall of Fame on his first year of eligibility with a large percentage of the votes. However, I was thinking about it and I could not come up with one moment from his career which really defined him. He put up a lot of stats and won a lot of regular season games, but there was never that iconic moment that all the great players seem to have. Honestly, the first thing I think about when hearing his name is his great fantasy numbers (he won me at least two fantasy football titles) and then him sitting on the bench against New England in the playoffs with his helmet on, not encouraging his teammates. Not exactly the images associated with Hall of Fame football players. Also, Tomlinson's legacy is hurt by the fact that he never played in a Super Bowl. Since this is football you can very easily defend that by pointing out that the man can't play defense as well and all his teams failures shouldn't land squarely on one man's shoulders. While true, it still doesn't change the fact that there is one giant hole in his resume. He is, without a doubt, a Hall of Famer, but if you were drafting a team based on players already in the Hall, Tomlinson would be waiting a while to hear his name get called.

-When the Knicks fired their coach midway through the season, everyone assumed it was only a matter of time before they handed the job over to Phil Jackson. After all, not only is Jackson the kind of big-name that the Knicks normally seem to love, he also has the resume to back it up. On top of that he played for the Knicks and has always maintained the organization holds a special place in his heart. Even when the Knicks started to play better under interim coach Mike Woodson, everyone assumed the job was still Jackson's if he wanted it. However, shortly after the season ended Woodson was given the job full-time as reports started to surface that Knicks owner James Dolan was never thrilled with the idea of having a coach who is more famous than he is. (Sure, Dolan is mostly famous for being a terrible owner, but much like there is no such thing as bad press, to some people there is no such thing as bad fame.) Well, this week Jackson was on HBO's "Real Sports" where he called the Knicks 'clumsy' and said he never would have taken the job if offered. This might have been the saddest thing I have ever seen. Jackson has won more titles than any coach in history and here he was, saying he never wanted the job he was never offered. It was the equivalent of the crazy person in your office saying they quit once they realize they are about to get fired and a level of insecurity I didn't think the Zen-master was capable of. Maybe it is time someone gave him a book about self-confidence.

-About three weeks ago I'm sure Jackson was counting on the Miami Heat job being available for him to swoop in and grab another title. But, since the Heat won the title Thursday night coach Erik Spoelstra won't be going anywhere for at least a couple more seasons. Now, I obviously wasn't rooting for the Heat, because where is the fun in that? Still, it was fascinating to watch the after-glow, in which everyone declared that this one title somehow made LeBron James a top-ten all-time great in the game. I'm sorry, but this title has done nothing to change my opinion of the man or his career to this point. Much like Peyton Manning, LeBron James was supposed to deliver heaps of titles, not just one. He now has as many rings as guys like Brian Scalabrine and Eddie House and fewer titles than guys like Adam Morrison or Robert Horry. Anyone not named Charles Barkley or Patrick Ewing can win one. Much like with golf majors, what makes you enter the pantheon is when you have multiple championships on your resume and LeBron still doesn't have that. Sure, it is entirely possible that since he has won his first all the pressure could be off of him and he will play free and loose, leading to another three or four championships. All I know is that if he walks away from this game with only the 2012 title to show for his career, considering the hype he enter the league with, LeBron's career will mostly have to be viewed as a disappointment. His fans may find that unfair, but this is the standard you set when you have "Chosen One" tattooed on your back.

-Well, our long national nightmare is over as college football has announced that it is doing away with the BCS and will finally have a playoff to decide the National Champions. No more computers deciding the fate of teams behind closed doors using some kind of secret formula. Starting in 2014, four teams will play for the Championship during three bowl games. However, because this is being done by the NCAA, even in giving the people everything they want it still feels like they are screwing us. First off, they haven't yet disclosed how the four teams will be picked - it could be four conference champions, three conference champions and a wild-card or four teams based on nothing but rankings (my preference). No matter what system is picked, expect Boise State to get the short end of the straw in some fashion. Also, the have announced that the games will be played in the city with the highest bid. (You can pretty much pencil in Dallas and Jerry Jones' monstrous stadium to win that bid for the next 10 years.) At least that part is kind of refreshing. After years of hiding behind phrases like "student-athletes" and saying a playoff would keep kids out of too many classes, these administrators have come out and essentially admitted that the entire thing is being done for money. We've all known that for years, but it is nice to see these university presidents finally admit it. They didn't give us a new playoff format because the fans have been asking for it for a decade - they did it because they finally figured out how to make the most money off it. But, if they really want to keep pretending this was done in the best interest of students, they can always count the entire thing as one big economics lesson and give the players one credit each.

Bomb Or Brilliant?

Summer is here, which means it is time for a lot of really good movies to come out. Movie studios like to save the movies they think will make them the most money for the time of the year when the most people can get to the theaters and they can maximize their profits, which means holding release dates back to hot days when kids are out of school and there no chance that people in colder areas of the country might get whacked by a big winter storm and be forced to stay home. It is also a great time to slide out the occasional stinker of a film, because it will largely go unnoticed. (Failure always stings a little less when you are part of a group.) For example, if you had a movie which you knew was not going to be well-received and would embarrass the studio if released during the dead of winter you might think about holding onto it until the summer, then putting it out the same weekend as, say, "The Avengers". Now it's not an obvious box-office bomb, it is just another movie which was swallowed by the biggest money-maker of the summer. That is why most summer movies turn out to be really good or really bad with no in-between. The trick is figuring out which movie belongs in which category. I have to be honest, one of these summer movies is giving me a real hard time deciding.

On the surface "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" (based on a book of the same name) looks as though it should be squarely in the 'bomb they are trying to hide' category. After all, everyone who hears the title for the first time has the exact same reaction, "That's not a real movie, right? It has to be a comedy spoof, like the "Scary Movie" franchise." But not only is the movie real and coming out today, the premise is just as absurd as the title makes you to think it is: the 16th President of the United States was a secret vampire hunter his entire life and the emancipation proclamation wasn't done to free the slaves, but to cut off Southern vampires' food supply. That means that not only does the movie have a fairly insane premise it expects you to swallow from the very start, it also feels kind of racist. Add into that the fact that it seem as though the entire 'vampires are hip' resurgence we have been dealing with for a couple of years is just about over (I won't declare it dead until the next "Twilight" movie is the giant flop it rightfully deserves to be) and the movie feels like it is coming out six months too late. When you put all of that together, it is actually could be a little crazy that I think this movie has even a glimmer of hope to be anything but an unqualified failure.

But, here is the one thing which makes me hesitant to simply dismiss this movie outright. At least it is different. How many times have we celebrated a movie that might not have been that good, but at least it tried to be original? I remember seeing "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" for the first time and while I didn't think it was a life-altering movie by any stretch, at least it wasn't the same teenage-angst movie we'd already seen half a dozen times that year alone. Everyone is making fun of this movie based on nothing but the title, but who is to say that once they get in and actually see it they won't be impressed by it? (The books were pretty well-reviewed.) Historians are annoyed that an entire generation of people might get the wrong impression about President Lincoln, but to me that says more about the education system than anything else. Plus "Inglourious Basterds" was far from historically accurate and that went on to win Oscars. (I'm not saying the movie are comparable, only that people shouldn't dismiss the latest movie just for playing with history.) So, before everyone goes and trashes the film they should at least ask themselves if they would rather have the movie studio make another romantic comedy starring Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore or Katherine Heigl against some brown-hair nondescript actor in which everyone ends up together, happily ever after, that we have already seen countless times. That flick would make a little bit of money, disappear from the theater after a week and be gone from our memories almost as fast. It may be for all the wrong reasons, but at least "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" looks as though it will be memorable.

Another reason I find myself wondering if the movie isn't all that bad is because if the studio was really trying to hide this movie by releasing it among all the big-budget blockbusters they would probably be doing so quietly. Instead, I'm seeing promos for this thing around every corner. (Half the reason it's getting so much bad press is that so many people are aware of it.) In the end, though, I guess the debate of whether to view "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" as a sleeper or a bomb comes down to one simple question - do I have any desire to see this movie? After all, I can admire the people behind it for being original and trying something new, but the best way to show support for any movie is to go to the theater and buy a ticket. (This is Hollywood - originality isn't nearly as admired as box-office receipts.) Thinking about it, I don't even have a slight desire to see this movie in the theater. Also given that movie tickets keep going up in price I'm probably not the only person who feels this way. People are willing to give bad movies a chance when they are spending $1 at RedBox, not when a trip to the movies can cost you $30. So, all in all there isn't much chance I'm going to see "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter", but at least they get points for trying.

Coming Non-Attractions

On of my favorite parts of any movie-watching experience has always been the previews. I think it has to do with the half-second after it is done when we all get to play movie critic and declare how stupid or great a movie looks from the 2 minutes of clips we just viewed. But, I also like old trailers. Even now I get amused when I put in an older movie and see the 'previews' for a movie which came out a decade ago and I have since seen half a dozen times. I also like to guess on how many there are going to be for any given movie and when it comes time to watch a movie on DVD I use them as an indicator of the quality of the film I am about to see. After all, since the studios know you are interested in one of their action/adventure movies the odds are in their favor you will watch another one as long is it is close in quality. The only time I don't like trailers is when they are totally different from the movie which you are about to watch. Only about 2.5% of the audience in a superhero movie are going to want to see a costumed period piece about a writer from 19th century England, so putting a trailer for it in front of them wastes time which should be spent showing them a movie they might actually spend money to go and see. Today I had another reminder that some people need to do a better job of matching the previews with the people who are about to watch the movie.

I was with two of my nieces and my nephew watching "Madagascar 3". Now, I had my first inkling that I might be in trouble early because we had to sit through the Jimmy Fund commercial and the manager going around collecting money after that. I'm not complaining about the asking for money because the Jimmy Fund is a fantastic cause and who is going to be more willing to give money to a place looking to find a cure for childhood cancer than a captive group of parents? I just think they should have done it a little sooner. Most kids have DVD players and as such the movie starts as soon as they sit down. Every minute you make them wait may as well be five. As such the 3 year-old drill sergeant who had been bouncing through the lobby 20 minutes earlier was already wondering why the movie hadn't started and losing enthusiasm with every passing second. Then the previews started. The first one was some movie about Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny teaming up and while it looked a little intense I'm sure it was fairly harmless. Then came a preview for a Katy Perry documentary that I believe was called, "Hey, Look At My Boobs." (Admittedly, this was probably just my thinking and the movie was a lot more innocent-looking to a little kid.) Then came the big problem.

The third movie was from the makers of "Nightmare Before Christmas" which meant five seconds in I was not excited to see this preview. Done in that same kind of motion-capture animation, the movie was about a little kid who only has one friend and is picked on at school all the time for being a little weird. He is so weird, you see, because he can see dead people. Every time he turned the corner there is another ghost looking to talk to him and soon some even scarier ghost comes to get him and people start raising from the dead to chase him and his friend. (Not only was the preview not suitable for most of the children in the audience, it is also an obvious rip-off of "The Sixth Sense". Don't be inappropriate and unoriginal.) Also, it was rated PG. I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but there is a big jump from G to PG. Not that I want to sounds like Tipper Gore here, but these ratings were invented for a reason. I have no problem with the ratings on a sliding scale down (showing PG or PG-13 previews before an R-rated movie), but they shouldn't go the other way. There were a lot of kids in the audience who were probably freaked out by this preview. Judging from the look on my niece's face, she certainly won't be begging to go see that movie.

Look, I am the first one to tell parents to shut up when they get hyper-sensitive and complain about their kid seeing something they deem inappropriate on television, because most of the time they are being idiots. (I would refer you to the parent who complained about the disappearing vampires commercial during the Super Bowl.) Also, most of the time people get enough warning about what is coming and advertisers are pretty good about matching the spots to the content. Every show comes with ratings now and if you are letting your kid watch "Sons of Anarchy" (no matter how amazing that show is) you have no right to ask for an apology. Still, sometimes the concern is justified. I think parents have a right to get upset when a beer commercial finds its way onto the Disney Channel because it just shows a certain lack of common sense and this was along those lines. After all, it is not like they didn't have any other previews they could have shown instead. This is prime kid-going-to-the-movie time of the year and new movies are coming out every week. Walking in we passed four or five movie posters featuring flicks that would have been much better to have previews for than what we ended up with. Movie tickets already cost enough money, don't start adding therapy costs on top of that.

You Can Keep That

I love free things. Honestly, who doesn't? People are so enamored with the idea of getting an item without having to pay for it they will enter into contests without even really wanting the grand prize (which doesn't bother me unless they win). This basic human want to get something without it costing anything is also constantly exploited by advertisers. That is why every commercial on television today tries to throw in something for free, even if it is just the shipping costs. We all know shipping costs are way too high to begin with, so getting those waived almost makes the deal worth it because half the time when the deal features the manufacturer including some other product they happen to make, the free item being offered as a bonus stinks. No where is this more evident than with cars. I've been watching the last couple of days as my parents have been dealing with buying a new car. Every dealership they go to can't wait to include some free perk if the salesperson thinks that will be the thing which gets my parents to sign on the dotted line. The only problem is that even if you are getting something for free it can still sometimes be a rip-off.

Car dealers are notorious for this. Every single one of them offers you the chance to come in and buy a car for little to no money down and they will. It isn't until you've fallen in love with one of their cars they inform you that the advertised deal is only good if you come in between 1 and 1:05 on every third Tuesday, with perfect credit, a brand-new car to trade-in, are willing to finance through the dealership at 10.8% and have recently slayed a dragon which includes the stipulation that you still have the head on a spike to prove it. (Only one of those is made up.) But that isn't the disappointing part - by now I am ready for a deal to never be as good when you get to the store as it appears on paper. After all, there is a reason every ad includes 10 lines of fine-print that you can't read without a magnifying glass and 20/20 vision. So, if it was just that I could live with it. What annoys me more is how they then try to offset your obvious anger at their sales tactics by turning around and offering to give you something you didn't want but they think will calm you down just because it's free.

A lot of times they offer you some kind of extended warranty or membership into their service plan which offers free oil changes for as long as you own the car. The first time this happens it will rope you in because that sounds like big savings over the life of a car you intend to drive for a decade, right up until the first time you go in for your free oil change and discover that only applies for cars which run on one quart of oil and since your particular vehicle requires more than that, you have to pay for the other three quarts which ends up totally more than if you had gone to your normal oil-change station. On top of that the mechanic was looking under your car and, wouldn't you know it, you need some new brakes. In an amazing coincidence the dealership is having a deal on brakes that afternoon. Aren't you lucky? It is at this point that your realize you have been duped, because all you have done is given the dealership the chance to squeeze you for more money every three months or so. Now you never want to go back but you almost feel as though you are obligated to, because otherwise you paid more for the car than you would have if you they hadn't thrown in these "free" services. Not exactly the deal of a lifetime.

In short - stop giving me things I don't want and then trying to convince me that it is some amazing deal which I was lucky to wrangle out of you. What I want salespeople to know is this: I don't want you to give me a free service plan which isn't really free and I don't want six free car washes that it turns out all have to be used by the end of the year. All I really want is to spend less money on a car and if I want any accessories after that I'll pay for them myself once we're done. So, how about you take a couple hundred bucks off the total and keep the oil changes for yourself? (In my experience, car salesmen never seem excited about this counter-offer.) This all just proves the point that there is no such thing as free anymore. If you buy a big-ticket item you are going to be paying for something along the way that would seem ridiculous under any other circumstances. All you can really do is hope to talk them down as much as possible before they start sticking these things onto your bill and jacking the total right back up. Perhaps it has something to do with being such a poor negotiator myself that leads to the weird phenomenon where I love car shopping, but hate car buying. Seriously, I just don't know how Jay Leno does it. 

Internet Ying and Yang

The farther along I get in life, the more important I find balance to be. Not "standing on one foot" balance, because I certainly don't have that. I meant more like the "making sure every side gets heard from" kind of balance. I find that it is almost impossible to make the right decision until you have considered all the facts and you aren't going to get all the facts unless there is at least one voice telling you all the things you may not want to hear. (Frankly, this is another in the many reasons I don't watch the 24-hour cable channels.) But, balance is important in all facets of life, not just helping to make the right choices. You need at least one person in your life who isn't just going to tell you the things you already know just to reassure you or stay on your good side. Having that one friend who calls you on your crap, while annoying in the moment, is really a good thing in the long run. It also comes in handy when you have balance on the internet. There is a lot of really bad information available and if you don't look in a few places to gather a view different answers than there is a good chance you're acting on bad advice.

I've had this very weird condition lately where, basically, I'm burping more than normal. Other than being rather inconvenient there are no other side effects. Still, burping is not the most attractive thing to do, especially in social situations, so I thought I would do some digging online to see if I could find a cause and a solution. (Considering just yesterday I told you about how the internet had me looking in the wrong place to find the computer on my truck not once but twice, I'm not really sure why I expected an easy solution to come from the world wide web.) Turns out that this search would end up giving me advice from every angle.The first website I landed on told me that this is very normal and not at all alarming. Most likely I'm swallowing too much air because my allergies are clogging up my nose and making me breath through my mouth more than normal. Once my allergies get under control the condition should go away. In the mean time I should try to cut back on certain foods and watch my soda intake (unlikely). All of that explanation seemed to make perfect sense to me and I probably should have cut my loses right there. But, I'm a glutton for punishment, so I wanted to double-check through WebMD.

Now, I've previously talked about WebMD on this site. That occasion was when it dawned on me that WebMD is like that one hypochondriac friend who immediately jumps to the worst possible conclusion based on all the symptoms prevented. I know that many doctors feel this is the best way to diagnose patients because not only do they want to rule out the most serious problem first or attack them as quickly as possible if that is what is wrong, they also want people to have the time to mentally prepare themselves for all that comes with a devastating diagnosis. The problem is that WebMD automatically jumps to that place without seeming to take into account the extremely low odds of someone in the year 2012 actually having polio. It just seems as though the site should also list the problems in the order of how likely they are, not just every disease that comes with specific symptoms. With that in mind, I really shouldn't have been surprised when I entered in my symptom and WebMD told me that I either had an ulcer, hiatal hernia or gastroesophageal reflux disease. At least with those I wouldn't have to watch how many carbonated drinks I have.

Despite that cheery outlook, I appreciate having both sides of the diagnosis rainbow at my fingertips. While most of the time I just want reassurance that not every little problem is a harbinger of something larger hiding beneath the surface, every now and again you need to know what the worst-case scenario is. And no place is better for hearing every possible outcome, both positive and negative, than the world wide web. Seriously, it doesn't matter what the issue is, someone on the web loves it while another person hates it and both are writing about it right now. As you can see, one simple internet search can give you a wide range of answers and, as is so often the case with everything else in life, the answer will probably end up being somewhere in the middle of all of them. This is what you get when it is so simple for everyone and their brother to put up a website - it is up to you to figure out who is credible and who is not. But in the end the most credible person you can see is a human doctor because nothing can take the place of people who actually know what they are looking at and not just blindly guessing at symptoms. I'm all for balance, but nothing carries more weight to tilt the scales than an actual informed opinion. It really is too bad there aren't more of those on the internet.

More Surprises

Like every other golf fan in the world, I spent much of yesterday afternoon waiting for the final round of the US Open to start. (I'm all for having sports in prime time, but even I thought not having the final twosome tee off until 6 pm on the East Coast was a tad late.) The only good part was that with all day to kill I was able to scratch a few small projects off my to-do list. Near the top of that list was resetting the code for my car door. Like most cars made in this century, my Mountaineer comes equipped with a keypad on the driver's side door which will unlock the car should you ever accidentally lock your keys inside. Now, even though I have owned this truck for five years, I never got around to finding out what the code was. But, after a member of my family had an issue with this very thing a couple months ago I figured it was time to correct that and put in a code of my choosing. According to the owner's manual all I had to do was punch in the the factory-installed code, push a few more buttons and I could then put in whatever combination I wished. The first issue was that the factory code was supposed to be inside the glove compartment on the owner's card, but since I bought the truck used the card was long gone by the time I got my hands on the keys. On top of that, I bought the car from a Subaru dealership and since they didn't even tell me the car had a remote starter installed, expecting them to know the door code was probably asking way too much. If I wanted to find the code, I was going to have to do it on my own.

After checking the owner's manual I learned that 5-digit combination was also in another location - taped to the computer module. Of course, that meant my first step was finding the computer module. (The book just tells you it exists, it doesn't tell you where it is. It's like Middle Earth in that regard.) So, I took to the internet and found a website claiming the computer module was under the hood near the engine on the passenger's side. I popped the hood but, factoring in all the things I knew about car engines, I was unable to find it. I didn't find anything which even looked like what I needed. So, I went back online to see if anyone had a diagram of what I was looking for and discovered that in some years the computer module wasn't under the hood, but located in the car, under the second row of seats by the seat belt mechanism. I dutifully went back to the truck to look in that location but once again found nothing. Turns out, the internet is full of bad information. (I know, I'm as shocked as you are.) A very specific search for where the computer module is on a 2001 Mercury Mountaineer revealed that this whole time it was in the back of the truck, hiding in the left panel where the tire iron is. (And, to any Mercury Mountaineer owners who are on this post right now trying to find the code to unlock their door, I just saved you at least 30 minutes of your life. You're welcome.)

Of course, now I had the issue of trying to actually read the code. Since the back hatch of my truck remains broken (I swear, fixing that is on my list of projects), I had to come at it through the folded-down back seats. It was clearly the wrong angle and I couldn't read anything. I was going to run inside to grab a flashlight when out of the corner of my eye I spied a small tag on the back of the panel which had hidden the module. It was a five-digit code, but I couldn't read the last two numbers because they had faded. It seemed far too convenient to be what I was looking for but I thought it could just be my lucky day and I would try a couple different numbers, just guessing at the code. After two or three failed attempts and one fleeting thought of going online to look up the best way to bring faded ink back (because going online for information had worked out so well thus far), I decided to just go back with a flashlight and see if the code was perhaps written in larger ink somewhere else. Sure enough, under the bright light I saw the code written in large, bold letters and I could easily read it even at the bad angle. [Sidebar: Everyone said the code was taped to the module. Well, to me that implies it is loosely attached and can just be pulled off. That is why I thought the small tag could be the code. In actuality, the code was on a label covering almost the entire side of the computer and wasn't going anywhere unless I took out the entire thing. This is just another example of why the people who write instruction manuals need to choose their words carefully.]

Now I had the code and it was so simple and memorable that I didn't feel like I had to input a personal one. That should have been the end of it, but the day had one more surprise for me. As I was pulling the flashlight out of the panel a small flash of purple caught my eye. Curious, I put the flashlight back in and saw the purple light was from the beam catching the back of a CD. My truck has a couple places where you can store CDs (after all, it is the best of the best from 2001), but believe me when I tell you that the same place where you keep the jack and tire iron is not one of those places. So, finding a CD here was pretty random. (Even more random? The CD was titled "Salsa & Meringue #3 & #4." Not exactly the kind of music my stereo has been playing for the last few years.) My best guess is that somehow the CD slid between the wafer-thin opening between the panel and the window and the previous owners couldn't reach it. That, or they just wanted to randomly leave a CD and wonder if anyone ever found it. If they ever randomly find this blog post I want to let them know that I did and even though it is now 5 years later, I appreciate the effort. Because of them if I ever do get locked out of my car not only will I be able to let myself back in, but I'll have some upbeat music to celebrate. Scratch another item off the to-do list.

Happy Father's Day!

I don't know when it happened, but at some point the greeting card companies gave up. It used to be that if you put in enough time reading through your options eventually you could find a card which summed up (well enough, anyway), all the things which you wanted to say to a person. I don't know if all the e-card companies have hired away the talented and clever writers or if the traditional card companies just don't pay enough to keep them, but I have notice a severe downturn in the quality of cards over the last couple of years. Looking for a Father's Day card I checked every one I could find over the last couple of days and none of them were what I was looking for. They all seemed to play off the idea that all dads are either lazy slobs who make their kids do all the chores or a drill sergeant who yells all the time. Well, my dad was neither so I'm just going to cut to the chase and make my own:

Happy Father's Day!

To all the dads out there,
have a great day.

To my Dad,
You're Awesome!

Love you!

Weekly Sporties

-After a particularly tough series against the Washington Nationals which saw them get swept at home while being on what they thought was the wrong end of some ball and strike calls, Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine came out and said that it is just about time Major League Baseball came up with some kind of system that would call the balls and strikes consistently and remove the human element from behind the plate. He thinks that too many umpires have their own strike zones (as well as their own agendas) and it is impossible for teams to keep track of them all. By going to some kind of automated system (similar to what the broadcast teams have with the 'pitch zone' graphics) it would at least make everything consistent. Now, on the surface I kind of agree with Bobby - it insane that what is supposed to be a uniform strike zone from every umpire can clearly be altered depending on who is calling the balls and strikes. Also, science has proven the human eye can barely even see a 90 mph fastball for the last few feet before it reaches the plate, so most umps are guessing anyway. That being said, the timing of his idea sucks. By waiting until his team just lost this argument, no matter how valid, feels like a poor attempt to deflect attention away from the fact that the Sox had just gotten beaten badly for three straight games. Not to mention, the Sox might have gotten squeeze once or twice, but not that badly. On the whole I feel like this particular Red Sox team complains about the umpires too much as it is. At least now I know where they are getting it from.

-One guy where no umpire has a hard time seeing his pitches is Mets' knucklballer R.A. Dickey. Now, early in the week Dickey was pitching against the Rays in Tampa when he gave up a first-inning hit. Turns out that was the only hit he gave up all game. While that might be enough for most teams, the Mets are flying high after getting the franchise's first no-hitter last week so they appealed to MLB saying the hit really should have been ruled an error. The ball did seem to eat up Mets' third baseman David Wright, but not that much. If the Mets were at home it might have been called that way because home scoring always favors the pitcher, but under any other circumstances it wouldn't even have been an issue. Frankly, this just makes the Mets look greedy. I mean, they are currently selling anything that isn't nailed down and is remotely associated with Santana's no-hitter (you'll do that when your owner lost a lot of money to Bernie Madoff) and this looks as though they just want another opportunity to cash in. Considering Santana's no-hitter included a clearly-blown call of what should have been a double but was ruled a foul ball that would quickly have been overturned had the Cardinals felt like raising a stink about it, I suggest the Mets not press their luck with this one. Not to mention I doubt R.A. Dickey wants to get a no-hitter this way. Fortunately late Friday MLB upheld the ruling and the game remains a 1-hitter. Given that prior to this year R.A. Dickey's career high for wins was 11 and the one-hitter was his 10th win of the season, I think he already has enough good fortune to celebrate.

-There was a mini scandal this week when the New England Patriots claimed tight end Jake Ballard off waivers from the New York Giants. Ballard is considered by many to be a rising talent in the game, but he was hurt during the Super Bowl and won't be healthy enough to play for the entire upcoming season. The Giants had hoped that he would clear waivers so they could sign him to a new deal and then place him on the Injured Reserves list, keeping him with their organization. That won't be happening as the Patriots put in a claim and got Ballard's rights. Publicly the Giants are saying that everything is fine and that the Patriots simply did something which the rules allow them to do. However, there are reports that privately the Giants are pissed, claiming the Patriots broke some kind of unwritten rule between squads concerning injured players. The sources point to the fact that the Patriots already seem to have an abundance of amazing young tight ends and don't really need Ballard, so this seems like nothing more than trying to tweak the team which beat them in the Super Bowl. First off, I don't doubt for a second that is exactly what the Patriots are doing. But, secondly, the Giants need to stop crying about it. If they don't like what the Patriots did they should go to the league and try to force some of these unwritten rules onto paper. Of course, if the Giants go to the press and complain about the Patriots going against some secret agreement teams have about injured players and their ability to move between teams on the waiver wire that would pretty much be like admitting collusion. The NFL might have gotten away with that once this offseason, but I don't think they want to try it again.

-This week is the NFL's rookie symposium. For those of you who aren't football fans, think of it like freshman orientation for college. It's a few days of former and current players and coaches talking to the incoming rookies about being smart on and off the field, being careful with their money and the fact that all groupies are crazy. This year Commissioner Roger Goodell has also decided to bring in Bengals cornerback Adam "Pac-Man" Jones to speak to the kids. On the surface this seems like a pretty good idea. Jones has had multiple run-ins with the law off the field including a shooting at a strip club which left a security guard paralyzed, was suspended for an entire season because of that incident and after a promising start his career plateaued, causing him to bounced between a few teams after that, so he can speak from personal experience about how what you do between games can impact your career more than you probably think. It would be the NFL's version of "Scared Straight." The only problem with the idea is that it only works if the guy doing the talking is actually sorry about his actions and I have never gotten that vibe from Jones. The entire time he was suspended Jones never seemed to take any responsibility for the strip club shooting or its aftermath, saying it was all the fault of the people he was around and publicly claimed he wasn't getting fair treatment from the NFL (who, shockingly, didn't want to reduce his suspension). Maybe not the guy you want the next crop of NFL stars to learn from. All I'm saying is that while the message might be the right one, they might want a different messenger.

-Moving from one disgraced athlete to another: early this week lawyers for Floyd Mayweather sent an appeal to the courts, asking that the boxing champ be allowed to serve the rest of his three-month sentence for domestic battery under house arrest. The motion contends that irreparable harm is being done to Floyd's career because his fame has forced prison officials to place him in solitary confinement which has limited the boxer's ability to workout. Also, because of the poor quality of prison food Mayweather hasn't been consuming enough calories and is losing muscle. According to his lawyers, if Floyd is forced to finish his sentence under these conditions it could end his career, which normally might last another two or three years. Considering Mayweather has been ducking a fight with Manny Pacquiao (which is the only Floyd Mayweather fight people really want to see), I don't think we'll miss much if it turns out the ruling ends his career. Basically, the appeal says that Floyd wants out because prison kind of sucks. (Who knew?) I say if Mayweather wants out of solitary he can join the general population and we'll find out just how good a fighter he really is (also, if the movies are to be believed the warden can stage one hell of a prison pay-per-view). Of course, he could have avoided this entire mess by, you know, not assaulting his girlfriend in front of their kids. Thankfully, the judge heard this case and quickly dismissed the motion, meaning Mayweather stays put until his sentence has been fulfilled. Considering how many bad judges' rulings there are in boxing it was just refreshing to see someone finally get one right.

-A couple days ago the Washington Post broke the story that the United States Anti-Doping Agency intends to bring new charges of using performance-enhancing drugs against 7-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong. They claim to have proof he took performance enhancers while he was winning all those races, based on blood samples taken in 2009 and 2010. (Two years, the cynic in me feels compelled to point out, in which he did not win.) Obviously, this is not the first time we have heard this claim. Armstrong has vowed to fight the charges and clear his name once and for all. Honestly, I'm not even sure I care anymore. First of all, Armstrong hasn't raced as much more than a ceremonial figure since his last win in 2005, so way to be speedy with that investigation, USADA. Secondly, at this point the sport of cycling is so tainted with these kinds of allegations that it is assumed everyone has doped, which means awarding all those Tour de France titles to the various runners-up won't exactly return the sport to glory, just shift the investigation to those new winners. Still, I think the penalties are what make me not care about this story the most. Seriously, stripping titles is one of the most toothless penalties imaginable because it doesn't actually do anything. Life doesn't come with do-over's. You can't go back and undo the memories, the endorsement or the other accolades and, going back to our earlier talk about R.A. Dickey, who wants to get a victory on a technicality? Short of re-running the event stripping the winner of the title is nothing more than a show. Lastly, these allegations have come up without being proven so many times that at this point it has begun to feel like a witch hunt against Armstrong and short of a confession most people aren't going to believe the USADA's finding anyway. So, unless that happens, this will pretty much be the last time we talk about cycling on this blog.

-For the last few years the NCAA has been fighting an uphill battle against coaches texting and calling potential recruits. They have put limits on how many texts coaches are allowed to send to athletes and recruits per week, but a lot of coaches have pushed those boundaries. (Repeated violations of this rule is essentially is what got Kelvin Sampson fired from Indiana.) So, coaches asked the NCAA rules committee to take another look at the practice, saying that it needed to be changed to keep up with the times. "Kids only want to communicate by texting," they argued. So, what did the NCAA do in response? Why, they simply erased the rule from the books. That's right - they completely deregulated the number of text messages coaches could send to recruits. Go nuts, fellas - call and text until your fingers bleed. Seriously, this might be the moment which perfectly sums up the NCAA rule committee. Only they could make up a rule, enforce it to the point that violators are suspended and hit with a show-cause penalty (making it much harder for them to get another job) and then decide a couple years later that the rule is silly and just do away with it. As a result my hope is that some high-ranking recruit out there has a mindset which is similar to mine (I don't like it when my phone just rings and rings all day long) and goes the other way, deciding that any coach who texts him too much will be the first one eliminated from his list of potential schools. Also, I hope when he makes this decision he texts it to them.

Wait For The Beep

Like every other person on the planet, I have those things which are so small they shouldn't bother me at all, yet they bother me more than the things which most people would consider far more important. I think it has to do with the mindset that insignificant things shouldn't be causing problems at all, which makes the problems they do cause feel extra annoying. This is the same thing that makes me not get mad when my iPod starts acting up, but really pissed when the attached headphones I bought at the Dollar Store do. Another example is that one my biggest peeves is when my various appliances are displaying some type of odd message. I make no secret that I like things the way I like them and I can't stand it when there is suddenly a red light, a blinking 12:00 or worse, nothing, where there used to be a simple display. (As you probably could have guessed, power outages totally ruin my day.) That is why you can imagine how much it was bothering me that for an entire week the phone connected to my landline was displaying a message which insisted I had a voicemail waiting for me. No matter what button I pressed I could not get this message to change. Only adding only to my frustration is the fact that as far as I knew, I didn't even have voicemail on that phone.

See, I still have an answering machine for the landline. I like being able to see if I have a message from across the room. [Confession time: it is also because I have visions of coming in, pressing play on the machine while I go to the fridge to get a drink and while the first two messages are some mindless reminders (probably a video store and a telemarketer) third message will be from a long-lost friend who needs my help getting out of a dangerous situation and I am the only one they can turn to. This shocking message will lead me to dropping a container of milk, which I will obviously be drinking directly from... I watched a LOT of movies during the 80s.] My answering machine is also cool because, in the ultimate lazy-man concession, the message will play on any of the connected phones, so I don't even have to go downstairs to hear them. Also, I like that it is just the one step to hear my messages. There is no dialing of a third number and entering a passcode. When the message are as silly as the ones I usually get there is really no need to make it complicated to retrieve them. This made all the digging I was doing to figure out my voicemail issue seem like homework.

It took a fair amount of investigating but I eventually discovered that, even if you don't ask for it, voicemail is part of the cable/internet/phone package. I still don't know exactly how someone would get to leave a message there instead of on the machine, but I assume is has to do with me not answering my call-waiting. According to someone who has the same cable bundle, I should have known what was going on by the way my phone had three quick pauses in the dial-tone when I first picked it up. (Silly me, I just assumed it had something to do with bad service.) I finally managed to track down a number to call to get to my voicemail inbox, but my confusion only deepened as the first thing I had to do before I would be allowed to hear my messages was complete five steps to set up my voicemail, including recording a greeting and whether I wanted a personal message or the generic recording to play. Now I want to know what the people who left me these messages heard when they called. I'd like to think it was a pre-recorded message, but for all I know it was silence followed by a beep. Also, you're probably curious as to what these messages were and whether the effort was worth it. Of course it wasn't.

The first message was an automated recording about an event which happened over a week ago and the second message was a person trying to sell me something (hope it wasn't a limited time offer). Not exactly the shocking or life-changing message I was hoping for. The only good part of it was that after I was done and I had hung up the phone the "New Voicemail" display finally went away and my phone went back to telling me what time it is. I guess in the grand scheme of things, that is all the victory I can hope for because I certainly won't be ditching my new-found voicemail in exchange for my usual answering machine. Now I just need to find a way to make sure anyone who calls when I am not around gets routed to there and not to the voicemail. (Considering I rarely miss a call I shouldn't be losing sleep over it.) Either way, the good news for you is that you don't have to worry about it. If I don't answer just wait for the tone and do your thing - I'll take it from there. The real purpose of this post is to let you know that if you've called my house and left a voicemail in the past and I didn't called you back it wasn't because I was ignoring you, it's because I didn't know the message was there. At least, that's the excuse I'm going with.