A New Hope?

Yesterday it was announced that the Walt Disney Corporation had agreed to buy LucasFilm for $4.05 billion. For those of you who may be unfamiliar, LucasFilm was started by George Lucas and has the ownership rights of the "Star Wars" franchise, as well as the character of Indiana Jones and several other films which have become cult classics, including "Howard the Duck" and "Willow." Disney had been trying to get their hands on these money-making machines for years, so I don't know what ultimately prompted Lucas to cave, but either way it's theirs now. Keen to start making money back on their investment, Disney also announced they had already completed the first rough draft of a 7th "Star Wars" movie which will be out in 2015 and will be followed by Episodes VIII and IX in relatively short order. (I believe the lines are already starting to form outside select theaters.) So far no word on whether or not they will give Indiana Jones another try after the last movie was a bomb, but I wouldn't be surprised. Disney certainly didn't buy this company to sit on their hands.

You would think the idea of another "Star Wars" trilogy would be considered amazing news for fans of the franchise who gobble up any thing with the "Star Wars" label on it, but surprisingly the announcement was met with skepticism. I don't need to tell you that "Star Wars" is a beloved franchise and it appears its rabid fans are nervous about the Mouse being in charge. I can understand why, as Disney doesn't have the best record when it comes to sci-fi. The other fear is they may attempt to make the next round of movies appeal to a wider audience, which would mean more of the stuff the hardcore fanatics didn't like about the first two trilogies, specifically characters like the Ewoks and Jar-Jar Binks. Also "The Return of the Jedi" appeared to have tied everything up in a neat little bow the new writers could go in almost any direction they want and there is an above-average chance the new direction will be underwhelming. It would hardly be the first movie franchise that saw a reboot which underwhelmed the audience and turned away a legion of previously-adoring fans. Considering "Star Wars" fans are notoriously hard to please to begin with (they pretty much hate everything new the first time they see it and then find it brilliant after a few views), Disney may be taking on more responsibility than they bargained for.

But, all is not lost for those who love these movies. First off all they should be comforted by the knowledge that money is clearly no object to Disney. When they want something they will get it. Since everyone in Hollywood has a price that means they will get pretty much whomever they want in their movies. Harrison Ford may have spent the last 30 years trying to distance himself from the franchise, but I think he'll be all to happy to put the Han Solo vest back on if they offer him $20 million to fly the Millennium Falcon one more time. And what if they turned the franchise over to Peter Jackson? I'm pretty sure that would ease everyone's fears. On top of that, no one pimps a movie better than Disney. "Star Wars" fans love their toys and with Mickey and crew in charge they can expect an entire new armada of things to buy with every new movie, to say nothing of the cross-promotion of new rides, t-shirts and video games. If you thought "Star Wars" was on every conceivable kind of item before, you ain't seen nothing yet. Lastly, you would assume Lucas won't be completely hands-off. After all, he was the one who built this little empire up out of practically nothing, so hopefully he wouldn't let any one else take ownership until he was absolutely sure they would continue to guide it on a path he was comfortable with. I'm sure there were times when he would liked to have been thought of as more than the guy who created "Star Wars" but I don't think those moments would be enough for him to kill his own creation.

It's perfectly natural to be apprehensive when there is change at the top of an operation which is doing just fine. You know the new guy will want to put their own stamp on things, but it seems foolish to mess with a successful formula. It's like when an amazing player retires after winning a championship - will you be the Denver Broncos, who still haven't recovered from John Elway's retirement or will you be the San Antonio Spurs, who never missed a beat after David Robinson hung up his sneakers? The fear is that Disney will change everything that made the trilogies (at least the first one, anyway), so amazing and ruin the memories of seeing those movies as a kid. (Personally, I'm worried they will limit access to people like "Family Guy" or "Robot Chicken", both of whom did great parody episodes.) It may seem irrational but I understand their fear because over time I think it has become far more apparent that the fans have started to care more about the legacy of movies than the people who make them. Seeing a set of mouse ears on R2-D2 would just be too much. In that case I can only offer one solution - don't see the new movies when they come out. I'm sure it would be hard for the hardcore fans to ignore it, but it might be the only way to leave the memories alone. Because as far as I know we're still years away from being able to wipe people's memories with a Jedi mind trick. "These aren't the movies you're looking for..."

Not Worth Sharing

Yesterday I was mentioning that I couldn't find many updates on the Swift Beach area from my local news and was searching all over the web for an alternative. As so often happens, I eventually found my way over to Twitter. My logic seemed sound because if the guy living next to Osama Bin Laden could live-Tweet the SEAL mission than I thought my odds were pretty high of finding one person to give me an update from a fairly-populated section of Massachusetts. While I did find a couple people who mentioned what was going on in the area, my best source of information continued to be the local news site. (We drove down to the area this afternoon to have a look for ourselves and it appears we were very lucky to escape the damage. The debris from the storm had left a clear line of just how close the water was to the house and we were about two feet away from having problems. Remind me to mark down how big the storm surge was for future references, because any more than that and we would have been in trouble.) The main thing I found on Twitter was a reminder that people need to be a lot more careful about how they portray themselves on the internet.

At first I was willing to overlook the large number of kids whining about wanting school to be cancelled the next day. I'm sure if I had access to Twitter when I was in high school I would have been doing the same thing. However, I'm not sure I would have been doing quite so early in the day, because when I was in high school I was well aware school was almost never cancelled until the last minute. (I have noticed that while people may have no idea what it might take for you to stay home from work during a natural disaster, when it gets to that point they are extremely aware of exactly what it will take for them to be able to sleep in tomorrow. You would think these kids would know that.) However, I am positive my complaints back in the day would not have had that many spelling errors. I've spoken a few times about my dislike of 'text-speak' on Twitter, but that would have been an upgrade on a couple of these. With one particular tweet I was mildly concerned the person was in the middle of a stroke and trying to text for help. (Seriously, why is it the kids calling for a day off from school always seem to be the ones who would be best served by a few more hours in the classroom?) I'm not sure if it is worse getting no information or information written in a code I'm not familiar with. But it was a few of the other messages I read around the tweets I was looking for which really had me concerned for the American Education System.

For the most part I'm sure that these kids don't care that one guy who was looking for one specific piece of information looked at their Twitter feed for 30 seconds and will never go back again. Nor should they, because I'm just a guy with a blog. But, if I can find your profile by accident and begin to draw conclusions about you (no matter how wrong they may be) than there is nothing stopping any teacher, parent or potential employer from doing the same and that could have some real consequences. I think a lot of people start out their Facebook or Twitter feeds with the dream that someone will stumble across their pages and be so impressed with their observations they will be given a 7-figure book, TV and movie deal. Hey, it has happened before, so why can't it happen again? This promise of eventual fame leads to everyone being on their best behavior for their first couple of weeks on social media. The problem is that after a while people get tired of not being discovered and give up in their dream, which leads their social media presence into a downward spiral or poor grammar and embarrassing choices.

I'm not trying to single out those one or two specific people, because I'm sure they are far from the only people who have embarrassing Twitter feeds. I'm just not sure I would want a record of all the stupid things I thought when I was 17 available for all the world to read. My main worry is that people have started to be lulled into a false sense of security just because their Twitter feed doesn't have a million followers. Unless your account is private someone doesn't need to be a follower to read everything you write. Every now and again they should be reminded that while all it takes for internet fame is for the right person to like what your wrote, all it takes to achieve all the wrong kinds of internet notoriety is for the wrong person to stumble upon your Twitter feed while Googling an unrelated subject and decide to make you their cause. (If you don't believe me, just ask the guy from Reddit I was telling you about last week who Gawker decided to unmask.) Just because you can tell the world what you are thinking the second you the thought enters your mind, it doesn't mean you have to. All I'm saying is that sometimes it's ok to keep things to yourself.

Coming Into Focus

As Hurricane Sandy's impact is finally starting to be felt around Massachusetts I, like most people, have spent the day with my television set on in the background giving me constant weather updates. While things around these parts have been alright so far especially when compared to other parts of the country, I can't help but continue to worry about my house down the beach. Frankly, the local news is not doing a very good job to calm my fears, because they have not been providing many updates for that area of the Cape. Now, knowing the news business the way I do I should probably be happy about this, because they send crews where it will be the worst so they can get the most dramatic pictures. (Before you feel bad for reporters standing out in the wind and rain, just know 90% of them love this stuff. They think it makes them look rugged and tough and they immediately put in on the resume tape.) So, no news is really good news - if they aren't reporting from that area it is because there is nothing to report. You'd rather hear silence than see Al Roker on your front lawn. Still, I would prefer just one update from some sort of official confirming my theory rather that just have to assume it on my own. A video is worth a thousand words and all I wanted all day was one shot on Swift's Beach to let me know how high the water is.

With that in mind I started searching all over the world wide web, hoping to find one resident of the area who had set up a webcam that would give me a brief glimpse of the beach. Not only could I not find what I was looking for, I started to become rather annoyed at the lack of options for any place near the beach. The closest camera I found to let me know the weather on the Cape was several miles away, looking at an mostly-empty rotary from across a totally-empty IHOP parking lot. That doesn't help me on any level. We're always being told that there is no such thing as privacy anymore because between traffic cameras, ATM cameras and in-store security cameras every human gets their picture taken dozens of times every day. Well, here is the one time all those cameras would actually serve a purpose. But if Big Brother is really watching he sure has a crappy view because I never got an angle of anything interesting. Even worse than the fact that the webcams I did have access to weren't showing me anything useful was the fact that the lenses were full of drops of water and the camera had zoomed out so that the drops were in focus and the background was fuzzy. Even if you aren't going to show me a helpful picture, the least you could do is have it be in focus. Not that the professionals' pictures were any better.

At one point one of the local newscasts went to a reporter on the street to show us a tree which had fallen on a house and then caught fire. At least, that is what they said we were looking at, because all I saw were different colored blobs. There was so much rain on the lens that everything had become smudged. This bothered me for a couple of reasons, the first of which was that the cameraman knew when the studio would be throwing to them, which means he could have wiped the lens right before they went live. I'm not going to begrudge a picture that gets worse when you are broadcasting from the middle of a rainstorm (even if most camera crews are above a mid-report cleaning), but there is no reason to start out this way. [Sidebar: All storm long I have seen shots of cameras being wiped with what appears to be the camera operator's handkerchief. These cameras cost thousands of dollars and they're using a napkin to clean the only part that really matters. Meanwhile my glasses were less than $100 and if I do that the smudges get worse.] The fact that we haven't come up with a way to keep rain off camera lenses is rather annoying. NASCAR has a system in which the camera appears to be behind a rotating piece of plexiglass so any debris which flys up will quickly move over and won't ruin the picture. If they can do that on a car travelling at 200 mph you would like to think it is possible on a stationary camera.

So, between the webcams and the news teams I not getting much help. This is exactly why my father and I talked about setting up a webcam for the house. It would be nice to be able to click it on, do a quick scan to make sure the street isn't now a river, and turn it back off. Not only would it do wonders for my peace of mind, it would free me up from checking out the TV every couple of minutes and I would stop criticizing the news. However, since we turn off the internet and the electricity as soon as the season is over there is the small issue of how we would power such a webcam as well as get the feed. A better idea may be to convince the town they need to put one up and say it will help with tourism. But, those feel like logistical issues and once we figure them out it will be smooth sailing. At least this way we'd be looking at something useful to us, which is in stark contrast to the official webcams. I'm sure there is a time when people will desperately want to know how long the wait will be for their breakfast at IHOP but now is not one of those times.

A Scheduling Conflict

This coming Wednesday is Halloween. Now, many of you already know my policy when it comes to holiday music but for those that don't, I think you can play as much as you want before the actual day arrives but the second the holiday is over so is the opportunity to listen to that music. That is why we're doing our Halloween musical interlude a few days early. Still, the fact that Halloween in on a Wednesday to begin with kind of annoys me. As loyal readers know, I have been on a crusade for the last couple of years to get people to start celebrating Halloween on the last Saturday in October, regardless of the date. Halloween is just better when it falls on a weekend. The majority of people don't have to work so they aren't nearly as crazed to get the kids home from school, fed, out trick-or-treating, then back home and tucked in at a normal hour all while they are hopped up on sugar and the general kid adrenaline that comes with Halloween. Everything happens at a more leisurely pace and people enjoy the experience. And for the Catholics who have a problem with moving it because of All Saints' Day, I would just like to point out that if Easter isn't anchored to a specific date than nothing should be. But, as logical as this idea may be, as you can tell I'm not making much progress. However, the last couple of years it appears that I have a powerful new ally on my side - God.

This is the second year in a row that Halloween is being threatened by a freak storm. Last year we had the most significant snowfall of the season right before Halloween and it caused so much havoc that numerous towns were forced to tell kids to stay home. This year it appears Sandy will either still be here on Wednesday or have just passed through and many people will be without power after she stops by, threatening Halloween for the second year in a row. Yesterday was literally the calm before the storm and I think we should have taken advantage of it. If people went trick-or-treating last tonight not only would they have gotten through it without the threat of weather, they would come home with non-perishable food to get them through the next couple of days. I'll tell you, sitting around waiting for the power to come back on is a lot more fun when you have a lap full of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I just don't understand why, in a day when almost anything can be moved in the name of safety and convenience, Halloween should ever be celebrated in the middle of the week. It just makes too much sense.

Weekly Sporties

-You may remember that in a previous "Sporties" post I mentioned I didn't understand the Red Sox fascination with Toronto manager John Farrell. They wanted him last year but couldn't convince Toronto to trade him to them so they settled on Bobby Valentine while Farrell guided the Blue Jays to their second-straight 4th-place finish, four whole games better than the Red Sox. Still, the Red Sox have a habit of locking on to certain people and after the disaster of this season they were not going to be denied a second time. So, even though his team wasn't much better than Valentine's, last Sunday the Red Sox traded shortstop Mike Aviles for Farrell (technically the Blue Jays included a player, but he's a long-shot to make the majors). While I clearly still don't see what the Red Sox do about Farrell, especially when you factor in he was Terry Francona's pitching coach and the front office was so terrible to Francona after he left, I can at least be at ease with what they had to give up to get him. Last year the Blue Jays had outrageously high demands like pitcher Clay Buchholz, but they obviously came back to reality this year. While he wasn't in the Red Sox long-term plans, I actually like Aviles as a player and think he could do some good things for the Blue Jays, so I believe Toronto should come out of this pretty satisfied. Plus, I don't understand why you would want to keep a guy who is making googly eyes at another team in the division anyway. And the Red Sox finally have their man, so it appears this is one of those deals in which both sides can walk away happy. Also, they did it much faster than last year's managerial search so now the Red Sox can concentrate on fixing a few other minor issues like first base... and outfield... and the back of their rotation. Actually, when you put it like that you have to wonder why Farrell was also so hung up on this job and not the other way around.

-But, lest you think the hiring of John Farrell was going to allow Boston to put the Bobby Valentine era in its review mirror, Valentine finally broke his silence this week and gave an interview about his time as Sox manager to Bob Costas. Most people didn't think Valentine was going to say anything of note and would instead use the interview as a platform to let the world know if he either wanted to manage again or if he would rather return to TV. But Valentine, never one to let a good microphone go to waste, decided to use the opportunity to say that slugger David Ortiz quit on the Red Sox after the mega-trade which shipped out Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett and Carl Crawford. Ortiz had just come back from the DL and went right back on after the trade which signaled the end of the Sox season. GM Ben Cherington quickly began to defend Ortiz and pointed out that if the Red Sox had any questions about Ortiz's commitment they wouldn't be trying to sign him to an extension. Here's my question: can't both sides be right? Look, David Ortiz has done some great things during his time in Boston, but he has also proven to have a selfish streak. It isn't a stretch to think he decided not to risk further injury for a lost season. He was heading into free agency, made no secret of the fact he was sick of taking one-year deals and has said on numerous occasions he felt no great loyalty to the Sox because they obviously felt none towards him. None of that makes him a bad guy, it just makes him a professional baseball player. So what Valentine said could be true, but Cherington's stance it doesn't make the organization worry could also be the truth. The only one who comes out looking bad here is Valentine, who isn't exactly making himself look attractive to any potential employers. He was already going to have a tough road back if he wanted to manage again and throwing former players under the bus isn't the way to prove how professional you are. Actually, I guess in a roundabout way he just declared he wanted to go back to TV.

-One place that has an opening is the Miami Marlins, who early this week fired manager Ozzie Guillen, also after just one year on the job. I have to say this one surprised me a lot more than the Valentine firing because for all the big-name players the Marlins signed during last offseason's spending spree, Guillen was the real centerpiece of their rebuilding effort. Not only was he a Latin manager in a very Latin community, he had a World Series pedigree and was supposed to give the re-booted Marlins credibility as they moved into their new stadium. Admittedly, Ozzie didn't get off to the best start in Miami when he gave an interview in which he said he admired Fidel Castro, but once he got through that rough patch I figured he was on his way. The problem for him is that the team couldn't seem to get their act together and winning is always going to be the best way to cover up any type of controversy. With his team ending the season on a dreadful streak even a manager without his colorful past was going to have a hard time defending his job. I thought when they traded closer Heath Bell, who had butted heads with Ozzie all season long, that was a sign the organization was backing their manager. Instead Guillen's hire is just another in a long string of high-profile moves which didn't work out for the Marlins. However, I will say this in Ozzie's defense - a couple months ago he pointed out that he was the 4th manager the team has had since 2006. Constant turnover is not the way to build a winning organization. At some point the executives down in Miami need to look in the mirror, because it is starting to look like if the Marlins ever want to be competitive again the real place they need to make a change is in the owner's box.

-A couple week ago I mentioned that the players suspended for 'Bounty-Gate' had asked Commissioner Roger Goodell to recuse himself from the appeal, arguing that since he was the one who handed down the suspensions, he was too invested to be unbiased in the ruling. At the time I thought it was a good idea, but also didn't think Goodell would go for it because it could be seen as a sign of weakness. Turns out I was (kind of) wrong and Goodell asked former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue to oversee the appeals. I'm not sure if asking your former boss really counts as recusing yourself and the NFL Players' Association agrees with me. The NFLPA didn't see this as much of an improvement and has asked that Tagliabue prove that he will be independent. Now Tagliabue retired as a fairly well-liked Commissioner who would probably be able to separate himself from Goodell and focus on the issue but I'm not sure he will be able to convince the players of that, because at this point I think if Roger Goodell said that the sky was blue the NFLPA would run to a window to check, then point out that clouds aren't blue and accuse Goodell of being a liar. I think the only way this moves forward now is Goodell asks the NFLPA who they want as an arbitrator and give in to that demand because he needs to get this out of the news. I know Goodell works for the owners and is only doing what they want him to, but the sharp level of distrust between him and the players is rather staggering. The NFL likes to have Commissioners in place for long stretches, but I'm not totally sure how long Goodell is going to last if he can't oversee something as simple as this.

-Speaking of Commissioners, after NBA head honcho David Stern rejected a trade which would have sent Chris Paul to the Lakers in favor of another deal for the league-controlled Hornets, people began to publicly question if Stern had gotten a little too comfortable to the power which came with his office. He has been in office for longer than most of the current NBA players have been alive and has led the league through unprecedented growth and some wondered if it hadn't all gone to his head. Well, it appear that will no longer be a concern, as this week Stern announced he will retire in February of 2014 and Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver will take his place. This is smart because by announcing it himself, Stern essentially ends any discussion of being removed. (If you are wondering why he's waiting 15 months to step down, that will be the 30th anniversary of Stern becoming Commissioner while also making him the longest-tenured Commissioner in the history of professional sports. I don't know why people are worried about his ego.) Now, you can question some of the moves Stern has pulled lately, such as the Chris Paul veto and allowing the Sonics to leave Seattle, but overall you have to credit Stern with making the NBA what it is today. He may have had the good fortune of taking over when Larry and Magic were coming in to their own, but there are plenty of people who could have fumbled that away. Sometimes success can be harder to manage than failure. Stern not only knew what to do with his stars, he took the game to levels no one else could have dreamed of. He made not have made friends with everyone along the way, but sometimes that is the best way to tell if you are doing a good job or not and David Stern did his job better than most.

-There was a strange story out of college football this week. It appears USC coach Lane Kiffin had one of his players switch jerseys in the middle of a game against lowly Colorado. Now, as you would imagine this is against the rules of college football because often numbers are the only way to tell the players apart and the NCAA doesn't want teams deceiving their opponents by hiding their best players in another man's jersey. Kiffin claims that he wasn't trying to trick the Buffaloes, he was trying to deceive future opponents who may be watching film of the game. Here is why this story probably annoys me more than it should: it's the University of Southern California, not some lowly mid-major attempting to pull off an upset of a high-ranking opponent for the first time in program history. USC has an amazing tradition, is able to have top-five recruiting classes every year and plays on a beautiful campus - they don't need any more advantages. Honestly, this would be like the Yankees trying to sneak a player back into a game after he was pinch-hit and USC should be above the petty tricks. Also, this was a bad idea because it just creates another question about Lane Kiffin. More than a few people have questioned if Kiffin, who didn't win at the Raiders and wasn't at Tennessee long enough for anyone to figure out if he is a good coach or not, is unqualified for such a lofty college job. He may very well be a good coach, but stuff like this isn't going to help his reputation. And unless he plans to finally start beating Stanford Kiffin is going to need his reputation intact, because I'm pretty sure he isn't going to be able to fail-upwards into a better job again.

-I often wonder what Olympians do for the two years between when their Games end and they have to start training for the next installment of the Olympics. After all, it is not like a majority of these athletes play sports which have leagues for them to play in the rest of the time. I'm sure some of them are able to just take time off while the rest get jobs loosely related to their sports so they can still train. But apparently, some Olympians decide to simply take up another sport entirely. Current US sprinter Lolo Jones was recently invited to try out for the US bobsled team. If you ever saw the movie "Cool Runnings" you can see why - bobsledding is allegedly all about the start and no one will give your sled a better push than some sprinters with thighs of steel. Well, here's the funny part: Jones made the team after taking up the sport three weeks ago. At first blush you might think this was a good thing for the US bobsled team - despite coming up short in her races and not winning any individual medals, Lolo was still the media darling of the London games this summer. Since the Winter Games are never the draw the Summer Games are they can finally have a star they can market. However, I'm not sure if you want to promote your Games with the tagline: our most famous athlete has been doing this for almost a month! I know Jones is a world-class athlete and just because she can master a sport the first time she tries it that does mean every can, but that isn't how a lot of people are going to see it - they will just assume bobsledding is really easy. When you are already having a hard time convincing fans that things like curling are a sport I'm not sure this is the storyline you should go with.

Spying On Sandy

So, you may have heard that a hurricane is heading up the East Coast. Normally a Category-1 storm which will probably have been downgraded to a tropical depression by the time it reaches New England isn't a big deal. However, this particular storm's path has it arriving at the roughly same time as a big storm coming from the west which is bringing a cold front with it. If the timing is just wrong they will collide and, if reports are to be believed, combine to form a giant storm which will effectively end life in the Northeast corridor. As you can imagine, I'm not pleased about this development. I know hurricane season doesn't actually end for another couple of weeks, but I had hoped we'd be done with this by now. Since the news stations are as sick of covering the Presidential elections as the rest of us are of paying attention to them, they have been all too happy to turn the studio over to the weathermen, who are breaking out all their latest graphics and computer models. This is their time to shine and they are making the most of it. Unfortunately they can't actually tell us what is going to happen, but they want us to know we should take steps to be prepared for the worst.

These warnings have been echoed by several emergency service outlets and I even got a robo-call from the power company telling me that while they will do their best to make sure service doesn't get interrupted, I should probably learn to operate a generator just to be safe. [Sidebar: I appreciate all these pre-emergency calls, but when there was an earthquake last week I didn't get so much as an alert on my TV. It is not helping to put me at ease. All these pre-warnings are giving me this sneaking suspicion that these companies are hoping we take care of as much as possible because they are grossly unprepared to handle wide-spread problems.] These calls for preparedness have led to the normal rational responses of people buying every bottle of water, loaf of bread and can of tuna in every store while topping off their gas tanks because even when hurricanes don't do much damage they cause already-high gas prices to shoot even higher. (The gas station near me was insane this afternoon.) Everyone is doing their best to follow orders and get as ready as they can, but deep down they know it is out of their hands. Sometimes Mother Nature just wants to mess with us and when she does we are powerless to stop it.

It's that helplessness which really drives me crazy. You desperately want to be doing something to get yourself ready for the storm, but even when you do everything you can it still doesn't feel like enough. For example, with the cottage on the Cape - I feel like I should drive down on Sunday and do something to make sure it will make it through. But, since we closed it for the winter a couple of weeks ago the power is off, the water is off, the deck has literally been cleared and the windows all closed and securely locked. Hell, thanks to earlier threats of hurricanes I even have fairly recent pictures for insurance purposes. It's as ready as it's ever going to be. (It's not even the storm I'm worried about so much as the storm surge. Between that and moon tide the house could be underwater. This is what sucks about living so close to the ocean.) So, even though I have this strong feeling I should be doing something there isn't actually anything I can do - a trip down wouldn't accomplish much more than wasting gas. I'm just going to watch weather reports and hope it's still there when I go check on it next week. It's not a fun feeling.

This is one of those times I hate living in an age where we have so much information and yet still no idea what to do with it all. For example, because of the internet I can currently check literally hundreds of websites, all of which will tell me the same thing about where the center of the storm is currently located and then all give me different answers about where the storm will be 24 hours from now. Weathermen, who are rarely correct even though they have all the best information, are just guessing so what chance do the rest of us have at predicting what is going to happen? It's Friday and the storm isn't expected to reach this area until Sunday night. Do you know how much can change in 48 hours? Instead of giving us answers they just give us more time to worry. That is why I have no confidence in any of these predictions and why every now and again I wish we could go back to the days of only getting 24 hours worth of weather at one time. Sure, it would cause more hysteria in the stores when big storms were actually coming, but it'll even out those other times when we worry about a storm for three days and then it turns before it ever gets here. Knowledge doesn't always equal power, is all I'm saying.

Of course, we can always hold out hope this storm will take a dramatic turn out to sea and all we'll get is some big waves for the 10 people in Massachusetts who surf. If you recall Hurricane Irene from this time last year you probably remember that was much ado about nothing for this part of the state. That storm was supposed to destroy us and while the western part of Massachusetts was damaged, we never had the 15 feet of water which was threatened. On top of all that we should never forget that weathermen are, at their core, reporters. That means that while they want to get the facts right, their biggest goal is to rope in as many viewers as they can and since people pay closer attention when they think something bad is going to happen, it would be in their interest to hype the storm up as much as possible. I'm kind of hoping this latest "Franken-storm" is just a big conspiracy between the weathermen, grocery stores and hardware suppliers to get a little cut of people's early Christmas shopping money. I know I would much rather have a generator I never have to use versus a summer house which needs to be rebuilt.

Movie Reviews

So, I've finally caught enough movies on the cable channels that it is time to give you guys some more movie reviews. For those of you who may have missed my previous movie reviews they very rarely have anything to do with the actual movie, almost never tell you whether you should see it or not and instead focus on some random part of the film....

Jeff, Who Lives At Home This is one of those movies in which a lot of very funny people attempt to make a serious movie which has a couple of light parts and then pass it off as a comedy. When it is done very well, such as with Will Ferrell in "Stranger Than Fiction", you get truly amazing movies. When it is done poorly it is especially cringe-worthy because everyone is out of their element and no one walks away happy. The good news for this movie is that it does not fall into the second category. However, it doesn't even come close to the first one. Instead it lands in some kind of in-between space where not only are you unsure if parts are supposed to be funny or not, but I'm not sure the director knew either. Watching this movie I came away neither very moved nor very entertained. Jason Segel has proven he can do more than comedy in short bursts, but if he was planning to use this movie to start working on more serious roles he picked the wrong one.

50/50 It is entirely possible that I was not as enthusiastic about the last movie because I has just seen this one, which was really good while managing to toe that line between sad and funny extremely well. It tells the true story of a friend of Seth Rogan (played in this instance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who found out he had cancer. Not normally the kind of thing which would be at the center of a comedy, Rogan encouraged him to write about his experience and this was what they came up with. I have to say, I thought it was great. Rogan managed to tone himself down and Gordon-Levitt is fantastic without trying to over-act. Honestly, "50/50" was everything "Jeff" was trying to be but never pulled off.

Contraband Normally I'm all for a good action movie that also has some plot behind it. The problem is that this movie spends way too much time trying to be a caper movie instead of giving in to its true calling and adds a few too many twist and turns for its own good. After a while the ending just becomes bogged down with complications, as if they had two movies, didn't think they would get a sequel and just trying mashing them into the same space. I may have to watch it a second time just to figure out how a few of the things were pulled off, which, honestly, I'm not inclined to do since I barely enjoyed it the first time around. Also, I have a seriously hard time taking Mark Wahlberg seriously when he threatens people in movies because I know in reality he's like 5'4".

Mr. Popper's Penguins Just kidding. I wouldn't watch this with someone else's eyes.

That Guy... Who Was In That Thing Every know and again I enjoy a solid documentary and this one follows around 16 character actors who have has varying levels of success without ever getting to the point of being household names, even as a couple of them win major awards. If you have even a little bit of interest in pursuing acting as a career it is the kind of movie you should watch, because it give you a lot of tips about managing your career, money and life. Now, there is something self-serving about a bunch of people talking about themselves, trying to tell you how grateful they are about the level of success they have reached while simultaneously (but subtly) complaining about not being more famous. Still, the amount of actors you will recognize from something you watched in the past is kind of funny. Ironically, I just can't think of any of them right now.

Real Steel I remember when I first saw the preview for this film, which appeared to be a real-life version of the children's game Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robot, and saying that while it looked utterly stupid, there was an above-average chance I would end up watching it once it was on the movie channels. Clearly I know myself all too well, as that is exactly what happened. Now, the movie wasn't actually based on that kids' game, it was based on something even worse - another movie. Seriously, this was a straight rip-off of the late-80s movie "Over The Top", right down to the rich ex-wife's parents who want to take the kid away from his biological father. If they were going to do this much ripping off the least they could do was include an homage by having them arm-wrestle at some point, but they couldn't even do that. If Hugh Jackman wants to rip-off Sylvester Stallone than he really should do some of his lesser-known work because if he checks out the mid-90s of Sly's IMDB page he would find plenty to pick from.

Password Puzzle

The other day I got an email from a friend. In this email, sent from his AOL account, he asked if I could send him money in England because he was recently robbed while visiting and needed my help in this time of crisis. The good news was that he was so organized he was able to tell me exactly where to send the cash. I found this email especially fascinating since I talked the same friend the other day and he didn't mention this trip and he hasn't used that email account in years. Obviously, I concluded his account had been hacked, quickly deleted the email and thought nothing more of it. However, because the universe is funny, this afternoon I had my attention directed to an article on the technology website, PCWorld. In it they talked about the 25 worst passwords you can have for your computer. As you can imagine, there isn't much in the way of groundbreaking insight in the article because it essentially points that the less imaginative your password, the easier it would be to hacker to crack. Some of the easier-to-figure-out yet still-popular codes they discovered that people are using include '1234', 'qwerty', 'password', 'jesus', 'abc123' and, for some reason, 'monkey'. Even the ones people used to think were creative just a few years ago, such as 'letmein', are not only on the "Too easy" list, they are in the top-ten. At first glance the article is the kind of thing which makes you feel better about yourself because even if your password isn't the hardest thing to figure out, at least you are doing better than these people. (Unless of course, your password is on here somewhere, in which case you're welcome for bringing it to your attention.) But if you read a little deeper you realize that even though this article may not be exactly about you, you could still learn a thing or two.

What mostly concerned me about the article was the fact that PCWorld felt the need to point this out, because it means a lot of people either don't know or don't care about password strength. You would think that in this day and age, when more and more business is being done online, that people would be willing to spend a few extra seconds on coming up with a password that is a little creative. Most websites will even give you a meter to let you know how strong your attempt is so people no longer have the excuse of simply assuming their selection is mind-boggling to a hacker. Seriously, at this point if you are using '111111' as your password than a small piece of me thinks you probably deserve what is coming to you. Now, the only flaw in the article is that it didn't tell the reader what kind of site these people were using these simple passwords on, which does matter. I know I certainly have a harder password for my emails than I do for my fantasy football league. I can only hope that these people were using these code words to protect inconsequential data. It is one thing when you have an incredibly unimaginative password to connect to the printer at work because it is not like hackers will be spending hours trying to break on through and even in they manage to break in they can't really do much damage. But when a password is all that stands between you and a random person having access to your banking records I don't think 'easy to remember' should be high on your list of priorities.

The other thing the article points out is that too often people use the same password for everything, which is just as bad. I know trying to remember a different password for every website you visit sounds like a pain but it beats the alternative, which in the real world would be like having your house keys also start your car. You can't stop people from trying to mess with your stuff but you don't have to turn yourself into a one-stop shopping center for hackers. Now, I've been lucky in that any hacking of my email or other such things has been pretty light and quickly corrected. For the longest time I have assumed this is because I really don't have an online identity worth stealing. Also, I'm online all the time, which would make sneaking in unnoticed kind of difficult. However, thanks to people I follow on Twitter constantly asking me if I want to learn how to make thousands of dollars working from home simply by clicking on a link, I am becoming increasingly aware that sometimes hackers go after random people for no real reason. So, this article made me kind of paranoid and considering one of the words I have used as a password previously appears on this list my concern appears to be justified.

That is why the main thing this article really achieves is fear. I don't care how secure you think the password you have picked out is, seeing an article like this will cause you to question if it is really strong enough. Personally, I think a little reminder that maybe we aren't as secure as we all think we are might not be the worst thing in the world. A little nudge to go back and double-check our password strength could be just what we all need, especially when you consider most people only change their work passwords because either their company upgrades software or the current system will only allow them to keep the same one for so long. When you consider most people don't bother to update their personal passwords for even longer, maybe we could all do with a little beefing up of our email security. If the inclusion of passwords which were once thought to be pretty strong such as 'trustno1' can make it onto this kind of list, it's pretty safe to assume the same password you have had for your email since the day you signed up isn't much harder than that. Even worse is that you don't know you've been hacked until it is too late. Now, if you'll excuse me I'm off to change every password I have. Also, if you actually get robbed while in England I suggest calling me because if you send an email I'm just going to assume you've been hacked.

Dramatically Different

Like a lot of people, I enjoy a good mystery when it isn't happening to me. I especially enjoy the shows about real-life mysteries, so it should come as no surprise that if I can't find anything else to watch I will often wander passed channels like "Investigation Discovery" to see which crime they are doing a one-hour special on. I think my favorite part of these shows are the 'dramatic reenactment' scenes in which actors will show you what investigators think happened while a voice-over narrates the action. I find them so interesting because they are often hilariously over-acted, as the people in them know their dialog will not be heard and therefore feel the need to try to show emotions in the most obvious ways possible. I do feel a little bad for the actors involved because you know when they were spending thousands of dollars to make it through drama school they had visions of starring as Shakespeare on Broadway or in a big-budget Hollywood movie, not overly-pantomiming getting stabbed by a jealous boyfriend in front of a crew of freelance cameramen just to get on television for a couple minutes. (That being said, if there are people who have to spend even one second working on a script for those actors to use, I feel even worse for them.) But at least they are showing a little pride in their work, because it doesn't always seem like the people in charge of casting are quite as diligent.

I'm continually surprised at how often the actors in these reenactments look nothing like the people they are portraying. I'm well aware that unless the producers can get the people originally involved to help recreate the scenarios or they have an identical twin it will never be a perfect match, but sometimes it doesn't even feel like they are trying. For example, the other night I flipped over in the middle of a story about a series of murders which happened a few years ago. One scene had the dramatic reenactment of the murders and the next had actual police footage of the suspect. The two people in the scenes were so far apart that I didn't know they were supposed to be the same person. The actor was balding with a goatee while the actual suspect had a full head of dark, thick hair and no mustache of any kind. There was nothing remarkable about the person they were profiling, so I simply couldn't get over the total lack of effort to even make them look remotely the same. It was as if the actor hired to be the stand-in couldn't make it to the set that day and the crew was forced to use the sound guy instead. But even in that scenario they still could have tried a little harder. I'm assuming these shoots don't have a huge budget, but they could at least have spent $2 on a disposable razor and had the guy shave.

Making it worse was the way they kept bouncing between footage with the actor and footage of the actual killer. Like I said, these things are never a perfect match, but most of the time these show won't reveal that fact until the very end of the show (if at all) when they show pictures of the people involved. I've always wondered why they wait so long and now I realize it is probably so you pay attention to the evidence and don't spend 45 minutes wondering how hard it would be to find an actor more suited to the part. By constantly switching between the two it only served to shine a spotlight on how much these two people looked nothing alike and it was all I could focus on. I don't think anyone watching these kinds of shows expects perfection, but I think they at least want you to make it look somewhat close and finding a guy with a little hair on the top of his head seems like it would have been an acceptable level of minimal effort. The only saving grace is that at least most of the time the producers will do the person the favor of casting someone better-looking to be the stand-in. I know one person has had the benefit of a make-up artist while the only time we see the other is usually in their mugshot (not a moment anyone is going to look their best), but the difference is usually pretty staggering in a positive way. Not here, though.

Now, I admit that I am a man who pays extra attention to details (probably to a fault) and most likely this kind of sloppy work bothers me more than it would most other people. But I know I'm not alone because the issue of casting in any kind of biopic is almost always a touchy subject and the more beloved a person is the harder that role is to fill. Recently people were up in arms when it was announced that Zoe Saldana would play the lead role of famous jazz musician Nina Simone. But, the subject doesn't even have to be that famous for people to have an opinion about a casting decision. I think we have all mentally cast our life story in movie form and while we all prefer to play ourselves, if that isn't happening we may as well get a world-famous and award winning actor to bring our story to the masses. At the very least you want someone who will make you look good. I'm not saying the suspects in these kind of shows should get a say in who plays them on TV, but if the people working on them behind the scenes ever want to graduate to the big time they need to step up their game. Otherwise their role will be played by someone who cares.

Still Thinking

The third and final Presidential debate is this evening and I have to say I am quite excited for it. Not because I actually want to hear what Mitt Romney and President Obama have to say about foreign policy, but because it means we are almost done with election season. We are just a couple weeks away from the end of robo-calls and volunteers trying to read through a poorly-written script without being hung up on. [Quick tip: I recently discovered that if you hit redial after a political call some of the time it will get you in touch with the people in charge of recording the message, at which point you can opt-out of any future phone calls. It doesn't always work, but when it does it feels like you found a cheat code for the game of life.] Honestly, this year's election has felt particularly dragged-out and I'm pretty much ready for it to be over. I think one of the main reasons it seems to have taken so long is because it feels like we could have started tallying up the votes months ago. Most people decided who they were planning on voting for as soon as the nominees were finalized and almost everyone else made up their minds a few weeks later. The debates are going to do next to nothing to change the minds of about 95% of people who plan on voting. Of course, that makes you wonder about the remaining 5%.

Now, at first you may feel there is something admirable about not automatically jumping to one side or another based on nothing more than blind party loyalty. People should take the time and look at both candidate's records, beliefs and political histories before they decide which person they want speaking for them for the next four years. The thing is, I'm pretty sure that period of examination has passed by now. You have had over four years to get to know the President and Mitt Romney has been the presumptive nominee for almost a full year. You've had enough time to do your research and at this point you aren't learning any more about them. So, I can't decide if these remaining 'undecided' voters are trying to seem edgy and aloof or if they have this much of a problem making a decision in all facets of their lives. I'm not saying every time I have walked into a voting booth it was done with 100% certainty about who I was voting for, but that was for things like town dog catcher, not Leader of the Free World. It's a big decision, but still one which should have been made well before this point. The good news is that "Saturday Night Live" is on the case and will hopefully shame these people into picking a candidate in the very near future.

Aftershock Afterthought

As you may have heard (although, given the lack of dramatic photographs of damage, maybe you didn't), Tuesday night an earthquake measuring 4.0 on the Richter Scale happened in southern Maine. The shock waves were strong enough to be felt in Massachusetts, just not at my house. Much like last August when a 5.9 earthquake outside of DC managed to rattle a few windows in Boston while I never felt a thing, I didn't know there was an earthquake on Tuesday until people started calling me to see if my house was still standing. I'm not sure if this is a testament to my personal shock absorbers or if I should be worried that apparently I will only notice a big natural occurrence as my roof is caving in on me. Either way, this incident has made me slightly more on edge simply because last year there was an earthquake south of us and now there was one north of us. It doesn't take a geologist to realize that eventually Earth will split the difference - it's honestly just a question of when. But for some reason I can't help but feel like my bigger concern on that day will be the people who can't wait to tell you how much worse the earthquake was for them than it was for you.

I'm always fascinated by the people who honestly believe a natural disaster was somehow personally directed at them. The easiest way to spot these people is just to stand back and listen, because their tale of heroics somehow manages to increase the more times they tell you the story. Now, I'm not talking about the people who felt a rumble, assumed it was something else and then when they saw the news drew the obvious conclusion. I'm referring to the people who really didn't feel a thing at the time, but once they figure out what happened and that having an earthquake story would make them stand out, their story changed and now to hear them tell it were lucky to escape with their lives. (In case you were wondering, these are also the same people who show up around playoff time to loudly tell you how they have stuck with their team through thick-and-thin while wearing jerseys so new they still have the tags on them.) I'm not saying people don't have the right to be mildly freaked out because they were in an earthquake which is rare for these parts, I'm just saying it's not a club or a contest.

Weekly Sporties

-Wednesday was not a very good day for Lance Armstrong. First it was announced that he would step down as the head of his LiveStrong charity. Then later that afternoon Nike announced they would no longer sponsor him and apparently they were the only company keeping people in line, because as the day went on dozens of sponsors made similar announcements. A lot of people are questioning why Nike was so willing to drop Armstrong when they stuck by Tiger Woods when he had his off-course issues. To me the two things aren't even comparable. First of all Woods' troubles never affected his previous on-course accomplishments. (If anything you have to be impressed he could concentrate on golf while juggling a baseball team of mistresses.) Conversely, now everything Lance has done has to be looked at with a more skeptical eye. But, let's not fool ourselves, the main reason Woods still wears the swoosh and Armstrong doesn't is that Woods is still playing and Lance had been retired for years. Not only does Tiger endorse Nike golf, he essentially is Nike golf because all the other players in their stable have had much more precipitous on-course falls than Woods. Every time Woods wins a tournament the Nike executives see nothing but dollar signs. Outside of the "LiveStrong" bracelet I'm not sure how much product Lance has been moving for the last couple of years, so the USADA report was able to be the last straw. It was a business decision and that's fine. I just can't stand the fact Nike released a self-serving press-release about how they can no longer ignore the evidence about Armstrong's cheating and that is why they are ending their relationship. This from the same company that stood behind Ben Roethlisberger, Kobe Bryant and re-hired Mike Vick. If Armstrong was still able to ride they would be buying off USADA officials to bury this report and we both know it.

-Speaking of guys who didn't have good Wednesdays, that was also the day the NFL unanimous approved the sale of the Cleveland Browns to Jimmy Haslam. The new Browns haven't exactly been the model franchise, but he's not the guy who was having the bad week. That distinction is reserved for Browns President Mike Holmgren, who announced his 'retirement' the very same day. Clearly, this is just the case of a new owner wanting to bring in his own people (which is totally within his rights) and Holmgren was really fired. That also means the Browns will likely be hiring a new head coach at the end of the year. One of the most interesting names which has come up is that of Alabama head coach Nick Saban. Now, Saban was an unmitigated disaster when he coached the Miami Dolphins a few years ago and quickly retreated back to the safety of the college ranks. On top of that he makes really good money at Alabama, has gotten the program to a position where they will be in the National Title conversation every year so he's a god in that state and will tell everyone who will listen he never wants to leave. When you add it all up you wouldn't expect him to think about leaving. However, I don't think people should ever forget 2 things: 1. Nick Saban lies about his job status all the time and 2. these college coaches are just as competitive as their players. Publicly he may say he is happy at Alabama, but you have to wonder if part of Saban doesn't want to give the NFL another shot, just to prove he can win at every level. Of course, none of this means I think the Browns should hire him - I actually think Saban's dictator mentality would fail again at the NFL level and both sides would regret the decision, but I don't get a vote. I'm just saying I understand why they might go after him and I won't be shocked if he coached in the NFL again.

-After being benched for the last game of the Yankees divisional series against the Orioles, Alex Rodriguez returned to the line-up for the start of ALCS. However, the day off didn't appear to do him him good and after two more poor games he was benched for the rest of the series, except for one meaningless pinch-hit at-bat in Game 4 as the Yankees were swept by the Tigers. It is starting to look more and more likely that will be A-Rod's last appearance in a Yankee uniform. A week ago people were saying there was no way the Yankees would be able to move his contract, but a lot can change in seven days and now it sounds like the team would be willing to pay upwards of $80 of the $114 million he is still due, which will definitely improve the number of teams willing to take him out of New York. The most logical place for him to land is Miami. First off, he lives in the area during the offseason. Secondly, the way Miami fans filled up the stands this year Alex wouldn't have to worry about hearing too many boos, which I think he would appreciate. Finally, the franchise doesn't appear to be on the way up, so he won't have to worry about failing in the postseason, because he will never see it. The only question is whether or not the Marlins want to risk it. They tried to go the big-spender route last year and it landed them with the same lousy record. Plus, they are in the National League, which means they won't be able to hide Rodriguez at DH during the last couple of years of that deal (if he ever makes it that far). The Miami option does sound pretty intriguing but in the end, unless the Yankees pick up almost all of his contract, I think the negatives still outweigh the positives. My money is still on A-Rod playing for the Yankees next season.

-While we're on the of former steroid users, this week it was revealed that Colorado Rockies' slugger Jason Giambi will be interviewing for the Rockies open managerial job. I have to say, this one was kind of a stunner to me. Now, throughout his career Giambi was praised for being a good teammate and he already has a relationship with the players in the Rockies locker room so I guess you could justify talking the job over with him. However, he has no managerial experience at any level and still isn't technically retired, saying he would only formally call it quits if the Rockies hire him, which means he might still have an itch to play. I'm not sure having a manager who wants to put himself in the line-up would work. It is true that having no experience hasn't been much of a problem in recent years for guys like Robin Ventura and Mike Matheny, both of whom did very good jobs this year. But while you heard what a good teammate Giambi was, you never heard anyone say, "Oh, that guy is gonna manage someday." Stories about Giambi were more of the 'you wouldn't believe how crazy he parties' variety. Also, his previous involvement in steroids could make him a tough sell to fans. And even if those fans didn't care about Giambi's appearance in the Mitchell report, it still wouldn't exactly be the kind of hire that would lead you to believe there will be a quick turnaround in Colorado. Part of me can't help but wonder if the Rockies know they are going to level off for a couple of years and are looking for someone to take the proverbial bullet while they do so. But even then you would think since there are only 30 managerial jobs in the world that someone more qualified would be begging for the job. I mean, I know Bobby Valentine isn't doing anything next year.

-As people's attention spans continue to shrink and the experience of watching games at home improves, professional sports leagues are looking for ways to speed up their games, worried fans are going to be unwilling to spend 3+ hours in an arena. With that in mind, this week the NBA announce that starting immediately they will implement a rule limiting pre-game rituals to 90 seconds. As soon as the starting line-ups have been introduced teams will be on the clock and if they aren't ready to go when the buzzer sounds they could get a delay of game warning. Essentially, this mean the days of the LeBron 'chalk toss' may be coming to an end. Now, I don't particularly mind this idea because I don't know if we really need to sit around while the 15th man on the roster works on his personalized handshakes with all the starters because he knows it will be the only time he is on the court all night. However, I do think that if the NBA wants to speed up the games they need to start looking at the other end of the game, because that is much slower to me. Seriously, between time-outs and teams intentionally fouling to stop the clock it takes 20 minutes to play the last 40 second of a basketball game. Rather than cut down on pre-game routines, why not cut down on the number of TV timeouts during the game, make any timeout in the last two minutes automatically of the :20 second variety or cut down on the number of times teams are allowed to intentionally foul before a technical is called? I bet those would shorten the game by a lot more than 90 seconds. I just know that I've never been in the stands wondering how many more handshakes the opposing coach is going to call for, but I'm genuinely excited when they are finally out of timeouts.

-Over the last couple of years the idea of sleep science has really become the in vogue thing to talk about in sports, as if it just dawned on coaches that their players might play better if they are well-rested before a game. The NBA has really gone all-in with it, as several teams will cancel game-day shoot-arounds so their players can take a pre-game nap. As a man who values his sleep I'm not denying the science, just wondering why no one thought it was a good idea before now. Anyway, following a lackluster effort during a win over Minnesota, several Northwestern players complained to coach Pat Fitzgerald about being thrown off because they didn't have enough rest. So, with a big game against Nebraska on tap for this week, coach Fitzgerald is requiring his players to take a nap before the game. Alright, it is kind of silly to think about these massive guys being treated like pre-schoolers, but normally that wouldn't be enough to warrant a mention. However, the Wildcats are playing against Nebraska in the middle of the afternoon (2:30 local time), which means they will be required to be at the stadium around 11 and so to make naps fit into the schedule Fitzgerald is requiring his players to go back to bed at 9:30 in the morning. Now, I understand that these guys probably have a team breakfast first thing and since they are college kids going back to be won't be a problem but I couldn't help but wonder why Fitzgerald wouldn't just let them sleep later in the first place? I know that once I'm up I am up for the day and I certainly can't go back to sleep just because I was ordered to do so. If anything I would be worried about not waking up with the alarm. Let's see how into sleep science everyone is the first time a hotel loses power and everyone sleeps through a game.

-When the economy is this tough for this long, even big companies need to start cutting out frivolous spending. One of the first things these companies tend to cut are any endorsement deals they have because when you are laying off people, simultaneously spending millions to advertise on the front of a sports jersey doesn't seem like the best use of your money. It has been tough finding sponsors for the even the best of teams, so as you can imagine the lower-level teams have started to resort to desperate measures. After losing their sponsors and facing the possibility they would have to cancel their season an amateur Greek soccer team was getting desperate to pay their bills. Well, the good news for them is that they were able to find some new sponsors - a couple of local brothels. Now, the league they play in doesn't have any kind of rules regarding what kind of businesses are allowed to sponsor teams (however, they do have rules about jersey color and are unhappy the team wants to wear pink jerseys because, yeah, that's the issue here). Prostitution is legal in Greece but that hasn't stopped the affiliation from causing a few of the more conservative fans to voice their displeasure. Still, money is money and prostitution is one of the few recession-proof industries, so the players will be taking the field wearing jerseys with "Villa Erotica" on their backs. Because sex sells this story has obviously gotten more attention than this level of soccer would normally get around these parts, so I guess you could say the sponsors are getting their money's worth. Besides, given a few of the companies which are allowed to sponsor stadiums in this country I'm not sure we should be the ones to judge.

The Law Of Averages

The other day I went looking for a band-aid to cover a medium-sized cut. I found one without a problem and continued on about my day. However, as often happens, the next day the cut hadn't healed enough so I had to replace the band-aid. I went back to the same box, only to discover that I couldn't find the same sized band-aid as the day before. Apparently I had lucked out in finding the perfect-sized band-aid the first time and that had given me a false sense of confidence. I even went so far as to empty out the entire box on the counter and look for one that way, like some kind of terrible 'Where's Waldo?' rip-off. Unfortunately, that still didn't work. My only remaining options were either a giant band-aid which would essentially wrap around my entire finger or one of the small dot-sized band-aids which wouldn't come close to covering up the cut. Since when it comes to open wounds I have a policy that it is always better to have too much coverage than not not enough I went with the giant-sized one. It has made typing a bit of a problem, but I am managing. Still, I'm annoyed at having to make the choice in the first place.

Adding to my annoyance is that it wasn't like I didn't have several boxes of band-aids to go through. Like most houses in America I keep a box of band-aids in every bathroom, and the lack of adequately-sized band-aids occurred in both locations. Actually, I have multiple boxes in my bathrooms and every box was exactly the same - each one had a couple of the massive band-aids, none of the regular-sized and then handfuls upon handfuls of the dot-sized ones. This happens because each box comes from the store with the same number of each size band-aid. This is a ridiculous notion because it goes against the very idea of medium. When you call a product medium it implies that it is the average of the large and the small sizes. If you follow that logic, then it would stand to reason that you should include more of that size because they would be the ones needed the most, as they would cover the widest range of cut sizes. When companies are ordering t-shirts for their retreats they don't order the same amount of small and XXLs, do they? No, they order a bunch of larges and if they don't fit a few people on the extremes of the chart, that is too bad. (As you can tell, I have won my fair share of free shirts which have then not fit.) If radio stations can figure this out, why not companies who sell band-aids? All of which leads me to believe there needs to be a change in the rations of band-aids put in every box.

However, what I really think needs to change is including the mini, dot-sized band-aids in the first place. Seriously, does anyone every use those dot-sized band-aids? If you have a cut that small I'm guessing you don't even need a band-aid to begin with. They are only good for shaving cuts which makes them twice as useless because few people shave with razors anymore and even if they do the cuts close quickly. I hardly think I am alone in questioning this, because I bet if you went into most medicine cabinets across the country and opened up the band-aid boxes it would be 90% small band-aids and they would have been in there so long that the paper around them would no longer be stuck together. I'm starting to think this is all part of some master plan by the band-aid industry in which they give you all the mini band-aids as a way to fill out the box and making it look like a good bargain, but the reality is they know all you really need are the normal-sized band-aids so they give you fewer of those to make you buy a new box sooner. This is why I have multiple boxes of band-aids in every bathroom - one is a new box which includes a few remaining medium sized band-aids and another box which came with the house 30 years ago full of useless small band-aids. We should just tell the band-aid companies they can keep those for themselves.

It is all part of the general annoyance which comes from companies giving us a whole lot the things we don't need while shorting us the kind we actually want. This happens in all kinds of industries, especially food. Ask yourself how many times you had popsicles as a kid and after a couple days the only color left was yellow, because yellow popsicles sucked. The same goes for licorice gumdrops. If you ever went to your grandparents house and they had gumdrops in a candy dish, they would have been picked through until what remained was 75% black licorice drops and they will have been in that dish since the day you were born. Fortunately, it appears customization is the next big thing on the internet. Soon you will be able to custom-order things like popsicles and tell them exactly what kind of flavors you want left out. Some experts worry if people today have been given too many choices and it has made us demand everything to be done exactly how we want it done. Considering big corporations have proven they can't be left to make these kinds of decision for us, I really don't see a problem with it. It certainly has to be better than having one finger look like a mummy just because you get a paper cut.

What, Me Worry?

Have you ever found yourself getting anxious about doing an activity you really shouldn't worry about? I mean, it is one thing to get worried before you do something for the first time and it is also totally normal to get nervous if you are about to do something really dangerous. The first day at a new job is always a little awkward and I'm pretty sure skydiving is going to put your stomach in knots no matter how many times you have done it before. But what I'm talking about is the silly idea of worrying about something which is not dangerous and has been done many times before, yet for some reason it still causes you to question yourself. For example, I always find myself slightly anxious when I go to buy alcohol. For some reason there is a small part of my brain which makes me think they are going to refuse to sell it to me and make a scene while doing so. This is, of course, an absurd notion because I'm 32 years old. That means I have been able to legally buy beer for a longer period of time then when I wanted it but couldn't have it. So, as long as I had the cash on me not only should I not be worried about buying alcohol, I shouldn't even be thinking about it when I do.

But, this afternoon I was in a grocery store which sold beer and wine. Now, I hadn't intended to buy beer when I went food shopping, but when I saw it in the aisle I decided to make the impulse purchase. (Every now and again I get the urge to do something just because I can and this was one of those times.) So, I threw a six-pack in my cart and did the rest of my shopping without incident. I was barely paying attention as I was being rung up, much more concerned about whether or not the bagger was crushing my bread, when all of a sudden a very stern-looking teenager came over who I can only assume was the head cashier and asked to see my ID. Since I was older than him I handed it over without pausing, but for half a second I was convinced I had just gotten busted for something. Fortunately he decided my ID was real and allowed me to buy the beer, because I'm not sure what I would have done if this 18 year-old demanded I respect his authority. (Honestly, I'm not sure anyone that young-looking should be in charge of anything. If there had been an issue I think my first move would have been to ask to speak to his mother.)

[Sidebar: In case you were wondering, I just got normal, run-of-the-mill beer. I catch a lot of crap for my taste in beer, because people often think my choices are boring. But what they don't realize is that my picks come from frequently getting burned by previous daring, yet disappointing, selections. In thinking about it, I can't remember the last time I was satisfied by anything which claimed to be an 'ale'. You would think by now I would remember that there is a reason microbrews exist - no one like them enough to turn them into mega-brews. They all have interesting names and impressive labels, but underwhelming contents inside the bottle. Instead I talk myself into the fact that this could be the time an ale didn't taste like piss only to be let down. And I'm not the only one who feels this way. Next time you are at a party pay wander by the cooler at the end of the night and pay special attention to which brand of beer has the most left over, because I'm pretty sure it won't be Bud Lite. This is how I typically end up with some kind of ale in my fridge and rather them throw them out (which I should know to do by now) I hang on to them for a couple days, give them a try and then pour the rest down the sink. I want you all to remember this next time you are on your way to a party and decide to buy something at the last minute - there is no need to buy some brand no one else has heard of just to look worldly. Buy something which will actually be consumed and the host will appreciate not losing the fridge space for the next couple of days.]

You would assume this strange apprehension came from an incident years ago in which I tried to buy beer with a fake ID, got caught and was traumatized by the experience. The only problem with that theory is that it never happened. I was the nerd who was content to wait until I was at the legal drinking age to go into liquor stores, so I really can't explain it. (In a rather ironic twist, once I turned 21 I found out I could have been buying beer for years because I rarely got carded. Apparently I looked much older then, because now I get carded all the time.) I think the real reason I was so thrown off about this was that I was kind of surprised to see the display in the first place, as the last thing I remember hearing about this issue was that Massachusetts voters had rejected the measure to allow beer in grocery stores. (Shows you how much attention I pay to both local politics and the configuration to the grocery stores in my area.) That surprise at seeing beer two aisles away from the cereal probably added to the urge to buy some because since I wasn't expecting it being able to buy some made it feel almost like I was benefiting from someone else's screw-up. It caused me to act as though I need to take advantage of or else this opportunity would not be available to me next time I was here. Apparently before I go shopping next time I should brush up on my local polling results, or else this could start to get rather expensive.

No Place To Hide

Last week the website Gawker published a lengthy feature about one of the most offensive posters on the website Reddit. If you have never been to Reddit it is a social networking site where people can post links to interesting stories or start discussions about pretty much any topic. It is a lot like a big message board, except celebrities occasionally swing by to answer fans question, which gives it more credibility. The problem with the site is they don't do a great job of weeding out offensive comments. Stupid people saying stupid things comes with the territory, but Reddit's commenters can be especially nasty. Still, one guy managed to stand out above all the rest and that was enough to get Gawker's attention. Turns out he's a middle-aged computer programmer and, like most people who comment on the internet, he doesn't believe most of the vile things he says (though he does defend some of them, which somehow makes it worse because it shows he does have a moral compass and it's slightly broken), he just like to make outrageous comments to get a response out of people while knowing they will never be able to do anything about it as he hides behind a screen name. Almost immediately Reddit responded by saying this was an infringement of the man's free speech and in response they would delete any links a user posted to any of the Gawker sites. Sure, because what is a better way to advocate free speech than to censor people who weren't involved in the original dispute?

As you would expect, I find this is an interesting issue because I happen to think freedom of speech is the most important thing we have in this country. People have the right to say what they want, no matter how obnoxious. Remember, the First Amendment doesn't exist to protect the statements we all agree with, it is there to defend the statements we all hate. You can disagree with the words, but you can't disagree with someone's right to say them. Besides, if they really offend you what you should be doing is ignoring the person, because giving them any kind of response is just going to encourage them. But even beyond that is the fact that no one asked Gawker to be the internet 'good taste' police in the first place. Reddit didn't see a need to ban this user and while we can question whether or not they should have, websites have the right to allow stupid commenters. That is not Gawker or any other website's call to make. Considering Gawker, and especially other sites in their network such as Deadspin (which I like and have linked to), often print rumors without always having facts to back them up, you could easily make the case that this was a textbook example of people in a glass house throwing stones.

The flipside to the free speech argument is that I don't think the Founding Fathers had internet trolls in mind when they wrote the Constitution. Also, they wanted people to have the right to say anything but never promised the right to anonymity. Saying something just to try and piss off random strangers and then hiding is not a good use of a person's time and at some point people should be held accountable for their actions. We live in an age where people can be offensive just for the sake of being offensive and never have to face the consequences thanks to the anonymous nature of the internet. The only way to get people to reverse this trend may be to shame them. One of my favorite moments of internet justice ever came when Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban reprinted some of the offensive emails people had sent him about one of his players and included the senders' email addresses. The number of people who were writing vile and racist comments through .gov or .edu emails was staggering. You can only hope they learned to tone down the hate. So, I do think there is a line people should not be crossing just because they can, but where that line is and who gets put in charge of watching it is a tough question.

I think my problem with this case, and what ultimately makes me land on the side of Reddit, is the fact that Gawker singled out this one individual. Sure, he may have been the most active offender on one particular website, but that still only makes him a small fish in a very crowded ocean. And I'm sure if you felt like having your faith in humanity destroyed you could go looking and would find much more offensive comments on another random website, yet Gawker picked this one person to go after. Plus, if they want to go on a crusade to restore civility to anonymous voices on the internet they should be outing people in clumps. (If you notice, this is how the police work, like with the Maine Zoomba prostitution case where they revealed 20 names at a time.) Not only will outing commenters like this one at a time take far too long, it can do real harm to that individual, as this internet commenter has since been fired from his job. I'm not saying he didn't deserve it (I certainly wouldn't want a person who says thing like what this guy said representing my company), but if his company wasn't aware of what he was doing I'm not sure it was Gawker's job to bring it to their attention. It's a really complicated issue, but I still think it has a fairly simple solution - before you post something, ask yourself if you would want your mother to know what you were writing and if the answer is no then don't hit 'send' because you may not be as anonymous as you think.

Could Go Either Way

I'm slightly in awe of people who are ambidextrous. Honestly, my handwriting is so bad with my right hand I can't even imagine being able to switch over and write legibly with the other one. The actual number of people who can do that is very low, but a larger percent can switch hands for certain activities, which is equally impressive. You hear about people who can do this in sports all the time - they are right handed in everything they do except throw a baseball, which they do left-handed and at 95 mph. We really should be making a bigger deal of this skill but instead it is casually mentioned, almost as a throwaway line, by the announcers as if it is totally easy to accomplish. Golfers who have gone years without improvement are even told they should just turn around and hit lefty. While I appreciate the humor of suggesting they couldn't hit it any worse, that doesn't sound like something which could be done without a ton of practice and if you are going to put that much time in you were probably going to get better regardless of which side you hit from. I know that I certainly won't be running out to check out a set of lefty club anytime soon, because that switch would take far too long.

I bring this up because of something which happened last night. I was making dinner and in the process burned a couple of my fingers on my right hand. The burn wasn't particularly bad (Quick cooking tip: steam gets really hot. And yes, I see the irony of this happening a couple hours after I finished a post about fire warnings. Karma is a bitch.), but was severe enough to sting and cause discomfort, so I wanted to keep those fingers in some cold water until the pain went away. Submerging them seemed to help a great deal. However, while I was doing this my dinner was, ironically, getting cold. Since I didn't this burn to have been happened in vain, I figured I would be able to keep my right hand off to the side with the burnt digits on ice and simply eat dinner with my left hand. It did not go particularly well. Actually, that is an understatement - it was more like my left hand and brain had never met before. Trying to get a forkful of rice was an exercise in futility - I may have done better with a remote-controlled arm. So, before too long I decided to just suck it up and wait to soak my fingers until after I had finished eating dinner with my normal right-handed action.

I was kind of frustrated at how poorly I had done trying to use my left hand at such a simple task, but was willing to chalk it up to the fact that I have used utensils this way my whole life. When you factor in three meals a day, I have probably eaten this way thousands of times - more than almost any other activity - making it among the hardest habit to break. Still, I was curious to see if I was going to have such trouble with every activity I tried to do left-handed. Throughout the day I decided to make a conscious effort to try smaller tasks like putting my wallet in the other pocket or arranging the money in my wallet with my left hand and see if it was any better, but it turns out they were just as awkward. Putting my wallet in my other pocket just made me worried I had dropped it. Also, when you are used to turning right most of the time, left is a pain. Turns out I'm not as flexible as I thought. Honestly, after 32 years of doing things one way my wrists just don't appreciate having to turn in new directions. They say the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and vice-versa. After today I have no doubt about which one of those is in charge.

However, the more I actually paid attention to which hand was in charge of which activity, I noticed I wasn't completely dependent on one hand. For example, I opened my car door with my left hand and it felt totally natural. Later my hands were full so I tried to open it with my right and I think people walking may have been concerned I was trying to break the door off. So, I think it has more to do with muscle memory than how my brain is wired. I'm sure if I felt like it I could practice using my left hand in more activities until I became proficient at it but I don't think this is that high of a priority - just something that I noticed which will bother me for a couple of days and then be forgotten about. (Although it would be awesome to be able to mean it when I say, "I know something you don't know... I am not left-handed.") Still, if I'm ever in the ocean and I see a shark coming I will make sure I punch at it with my left hand (That's how you get them to leave. Thanks, Shark Week!), because even though I'm positive I would eventually get quite good to doing everything left-handed, it is not something I really want to have to used to.

Warnings For Life

As I mentioned on Friday, I recently picked up a new bed. Because it has become impossible to throw things away these days, I had to wait to dispose of my old mattress until Saturday, which is the only day the place which takes mattresses is open. (I seriously believe more people would recycle if towns didn't make it such a process.) So, I didn't bother to make the mattress switch until the weekend because while mattresses are not heavy, they are annoyingly bulky and I only wanted to deal with moving them around once. After finally getting rid of the old mattress I was cutting open the plastic bag which contained the new one when a piece of paper came fluttering out. Picking it up to read it I discovered it was a warning label, letting me know my new mattress was not fire-proof. Honestly, I would have been more shocked to discover it was. But that was just one of the many things this label wanted to warn me about. There were actually 8 hazards to owning this mattress the company wanted me to be aware of, which I believe is more than you get if you buy a gun. The problem is I just don't think they are all as relevant as the Sleep Products Safety Council does. Let's go through them.

1. Don't smoke in bed. This is a common cause of fatal bedroom fires. First off, I don't think those qualifiers needs to be in there, as I think cigarettes are the most common cause of fires, regardless of the room they start in. Also, 'fatal' is unnecessary because it implies non-fatal fires are somehow not as bad. Secondly, this feels more like a warning about cigarettes than mattresses. How about sticking it on those packages and in bigger letters than the current tiny type of the Surgeon General's warning? I would also like it noted that just next to this the manufacturer notes that new mattresses burn slower than old ones to give you more time to escape. Or, if you don't move fast enough, to slowly roast like barbecue.

2. Keep matches and lighters away from children. Playing with fires can be deadly. Shouldn't this have been your policy before you got a new mattress? If you didn't know this until BJ's had a sale you have bigger problems than any warning label can help solve.

3. Using candles in a bedroom is strongly discouraged. Even a small candle can ignite a deadly fire. This is a problem because, as a guy, scented candles have come in handy through the years. I figured I should still be ok to mostly ignore this one because it's not like I put them on my bed. Not to mention, if I can't keep candles in my bedroom how am I supposed to check if the ghost of Jacob Marley is in my house?

4. Keep space heaters away from beds and other flammable items. Follow all the space heater manufacturer's instructions and warnings. This one made me start to think they just copied and pasted most of these warning from other companies' warning labels because it really seems like an item which should come with a new space heater more than a new mattress. Given the randomness of this warning label I'm fairly convinced the editor was like, "Yeah, for spacing purposes we need 8 items. Also, it's 4:45 and I need it done by 5. Just put anything about fire in there, but don't make it obvious by putting it last."

5. Don't run electrical cords under your bed or trap them against a wall. Heat from cords can build up and cause a fire. Avoid placing lamps where they can fall on the bed. How old are the electrical cords in this person's house that they get hot? I have never even heard of such a thing. I think that is an old wives' tale, like a cellphone causing an explosion when someone was pumping gas. I'm also curious as to what kind of crazy configuration they have which has lamps leaning precariously over their beds. Sounds like the house is not level and if that is case you should be spending your money to fix the foundation and not on a new mattress.

6. Don't sleep with a baby or let a baby sleep in an adult bed. Babies can suffocate or be strangled if trapped between a mattress and a wall or bed frame, or if an adult rolls over them. Well, this suddenly got morbid, didn't it? Seriously, as if new parents don't have enough to worry about, now we can't even let them enjoy a new bed without reminding them of how fragile their kid is? Why not just keep going then: "Also, don't leave your baby unattended by a pool or feed them peanut butter before they turn two or let them watch too much TV or dress them funny or let them hang out with the weird kid in school or spoil them. But, seriously parents - sleep well... with one eye open."

7. Discard the plastic wrapping on your mattress. A child or pet can become entangled and suffocate. Not that I want to point fingers, but this is a self-created problem which could be easily solved by not hermetically sealing my mattress in a thick plastic bag. I'm sure the manufacturers do that to prevent the mattresses from being stained before they reach their destinations, but it makes it seem more like they are trying to keep in the freshness.

8. Promptly dispose of old mattresses to avoid a fire hazard. Finally one we agree on. Hey, I would love to, but they need to take it up with my town.

Now, I don't want you to think that I am making fun of these warnings or the intentions of the organization behind it, because I'm not. I think they are things everyone should be aware of, but that is my point - this is stuff you should already be doing, regardless of whether or not you just bought a new mattress. That makes the warnings feel redundant. Also, it just serves to reinforce the image that all humans are idiots who need constant supervision. And sure, there are people out there who could use it but they probably aren't the kind of people who are going to read warning labels anyway. Give the rest of us more credit than that.

Prize Fighter

My least-favorite part of award shows tend to be the "Lifetime Achievement" section, because it seems like they never pick the right people. It never fails to feel like the winner is either getting it too early or should have already won it. But, I don't blame the voters, I blame the nature of awards. On the surface, an organization which wants to hand out a prize every year sounds like a good thing. After all, who doesn't want to see another human get rewarded for their accomplishments? However, I've found that it doesn't really matter what kind of organization is giving out the awards, eventually they all stop running out of worthy recipients. Oh, sure, it seems like a good idea at first because they had 8 or 10 people in mind, but eventually they go through all of them and then are left scraping around the sides of the barrel for next year's winner. The example I like best for this kind of situation is the NFL's "Comeback Player of the Year" which was first awarded to Frank Gifford for coming back after needing a year to recover from a serious injury and is now given to guys who simply under-performed compared to their fantasy football expectations last season. I know comparing every winner to the previous ones is a slippery slope but they should at least be close enough to be in the same sentence.

But, the real fear with any award is that the committee will have to start getting creative with recipients, because that could start to destroy not only the legacy of the award, but also the organization a whole. I couldn't help but think about that this week when I read this year' Nobel Peace Prize was being given to the European Union. Now, the Nobel Prize lost some of its luster when it was awarded to President Obama after just a year in office and before he had actually, you know, earned one. That one felt like it was being given because they were sure he would eventually get there. This year's award feels even more gimmicky than that one. Sure, the European Union has prevented World War III from breaking out but they haven't exactly brought the continent totally harmony, either. Not to mention, with Syria and Turkey currently lobbing bombs at one another while the EU remains silent the timing does seem rather curious. I'm just saying that in the future if the Nobel committee can't find someone actually worthy of their award they shouldn't feel compelled to give one out. If the only other option is to reward someone who doesn't deserve it than sometimes just not having a winner that year could be the smarter option.