I Smell A Winner

Tonight is New Year's Eve, which means it is a night filled with possibilities, crowds and over-priced drinks. If you have read any of my previous posts about this holiday than you know my policy is to avoid almost all New Year's Eve celebrations for the most part. The problem for New Year's is that it has become a holiday which demands people have fun, which is the quickest way to assure that no one has a good time. There are some people out there who contend that the holiday was so over-rated in the past that it has now become under-rated but I happen to think that you never get a second chance to make a first impression and since my first "going out for New Year's" experience involved paying $20 to go into a bar where everyone was asshole to elbow, paying $10 for every beer which would only cost $4 just 23 hours earlier and then having some 13 year-old puke on the train ride home, I prefer to flip my calendar from the peace of my own living room. But even though it would take a tremendous change of heart for me to head into the city tonight that doesn't mean the City of Boston is going down without a fight in its efforts to woo revelers whose minds may not be quite so made up. This year's edition of First Night is supposed to be one of the grandest of all time. A few short months ago the company in charge of Boston's New Year's party ran into money trouble and said the show would not go on. Well, outgoing Mayor Tom Menino wasn't about to let that happen, pulled in more than a few favors and suddenly the event is bigger than ever. Reportedly there will be all sorts of things for people of all ages and even two separate firework shows, one early in the evening for the kids and one at midnight for the adult. I think one is more than enough.

I know this post is quickly making me sound like a party pooper but I have never understood the appeal of fireworks. Even as a kid I didn't see any good reason to gather in a field, fight for a spot before the show and then wait around for a solid 45 minutes when the firework display itself was going to last about 10 minutes. Fireworks are simply one of those things which seems like a really good idea when you are leading up to it but then after about 2 minutes all I can think is, "Ok, what else ya got?" I mean, how many different directions and colors can you have sparks fly through the air before it becomes redundant? Perhaps I would be more enthusiastic if the fireworks were coordinated to the music but most of the time if an explosion happens at the same time as a note of the song it has to be considered a happy accident. Also, by now I would have thought we would be further along with out firework technology but it is still the same shapes we've had for years. Give me something other than circles and star and maybe I will come out to your show. And keep in mind these are my feelings on this issue in July, when the show is happening in 70 degree weather - when you factor in that tonight's temperatures are expected to hover around 30 degrees I think that is enough evidence as to why firework are not on my schedule. As an added bonus, there is a firework display near my house which is conveniently set off at a spot where I can watch it from my living room if I so choose. I'll even hear the booms of the various explosions. It's all the sights and sounds without having to stand around losing feeling in my toes. In fact, it sounds like the only thing I will be missing out on is the smell.

Yes, the other day I read this very strange story which contended that a company had recently developed a firework which, when detonated, would produce the normal firework display but then would also be accompanied by smoke which would smell like various fruit flavors. Strawberry is the most popular but the company claims they can also produce smoke which would smell like cherry or watermelon. (The article was also accompanied by a second article about the confetti one town would be throwing which is going to be made from banana peels to be more biodegradable. This has all the makings of the most sweet-smelling New Years in history.) As you can imagine, after reading this I was flushed with questions but the most pressing of all was also the most obvious: why? I think by now it is clear that fireworks aren't really my thing and that I haven't been to a firework show in years but in the few memories I have of them at no point do I recall smell really being much of an issue. Personally I always thought the lingering smoke was more of a pain in seeing the rest of the show, not making people smell like they just came from a bar in the 1950s. If your fireworks are going off low enough to envelope the crowd in smoke cloud than I think you have bigger issues to address than making sure they the smoke smells pleasant. This just seems like another one of those innovations which came around because some very smart people were being misused at the office. I mean, the people who came up with this are obviously some pretty talented chemists, so is this really the best use of their time?

Now, I don't want you to think that I believe this innovation is a bad thing - just misplaced. I'm hoping this is one of those ideas which starts out as a recreational concept and is eventually adopted by for a serious purpose, like when the US military started using Silly Sting after they discovered it was very good at find trip wires attached to roadside explosives. What needs to happen here is that we could find a way to transfer the fruit-flavoring to cigarette smoke. I know that it won't make smoking any healthier but it is not like it can get much more unhealthy and at least this way the people in an office setting won't have to deal with the odor after their coworker comes back from a smoking break. Obviously there are other issues which have to be worked out - I can't be the first person to have this idea (I feel like flavored tobacco was a thing at one point), which is why I can only conclude the reason cigarette smoke has stayed as pungent as it has for so many years is that the last thing parents want is there kids hanging around smoking areas because they love the smell. All I want is some kind of happy medium where smokers can continue their habit without me feeling like I have to burn everything I wore simply because I stood near their smoking section that night. It sounds like a win-win for everyone so it will just be a matter of figuring out many small mixtures instead of one big one like you would find in a firework. For all our sakes I hope it is easier than figuring out how to make fireworks appear in new patterns because apparently that is impossible.

All That Glitters Is Not Gold

With all due respect to all the wonderful and thoughtful gifts I received this Christmas, the best one of all is probably the new desk chair that I got from my parents. Since I work from home and spend more time chained to my computer than is probably healthy, this chair will get a lot of use and probably do wonders for my back. However, the main reason this gift is at the top of my list is because it is exactly the kind of gift I would never have bought for myself and I feel like that should be the goal when you do any kind of holiday shopping. You see, there was nothing wrong with the chair I was currently using. Sure, the padding had worn a little thin and as such I was sitting on an extra foam pad that didn't look particularly nice but the great thing about chairs is that until the legs break you can still sit in them. And yes, the wheels had started to lose some of the ball bearings which made the chair not roll along as easily but when you remember the chair was sitting on carpet to begin with and had nowhere to roll it is not like the chair no longer worked. Basically it was functional but not much else and I was in the "I hope this breaks so I can replace it" phase. That is why I was not shopping for a new desk chair but was not about to turn this one down. It also helps that it is high-backed with very soft leather, making it one of the most comfortable seats in my house. My father had even gone the extra step of putting it together for me so I didn't have to do that. There was just one issue with that, which is you can't really wrap a chair which has been assembled. Instead they just stuck a bow on it which would have been great, only the bow they picked was covered with that most obnoxious of substances - gold glitter.

At first I didn't think it was a big deal, until I took the bow off the seat and discovered the bow had a shedding problem. The chair had a nice coating of glitter on the seat and even though I tried wiping it off I knew there was no way I had gotten it all. Basically all I succeeded in doing was getting my hand covered in glitter, which was totally expected. As anyone who has ever been within 200 yards of glitter will tell you, this stuff not only gets everywhere it is then impossible to get rid of. Since my family features four little girls we have bought more than our fair share of pink and glittery items over the last six years and are well acquainted with the knowledge that no amount of vacuuming will ever mean you are truly rid of it. Perfect example: two of my nieces were Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz" for Halloween, complete with their own ruby red slippers, which were really just normal shoes with red glitter on them. They came up to my parents house before Halloween to show off their costumes and even now, two months and about half a dozen visits from the cleaning lady later, you can still catch an occasional glimpse of a red sparkle in the carpet. I think the only way the glitter will ever truly be gone would be to get a new carpet and even then I am not sure it would work because no doubt a couple of specks would hide under the carpet pad and wait for the new one to arrive before coming back out. But, lest you think the issue with glitter is contained to one or two rooms occasionally you will seem a piece in a room of the house that the ladies were never in while wearing their costumes, proving that glitter is a little like a tic in that it will hitch a ride with anyone who happens to pass by with someplace to attach itself.

With that in mind I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when after having in my new chair around for a few days I started to find specks of gold all around my bedroom. Now, I don't want it to sound like there are huge clumps of gold glitter everywhere. It is just a few specks here and there, but to be honest that may be worse. If the glitter was in a couple big clumps I could attack it with gusto but by only having a couple specks at odd corners of my room I am unlikely to ever see it when I am cleaning and have absolutely no chance of finding it a second time after leaving the room to grab the vacuum on those few occasions when the light brings them to my attention for a half-second. Glitter also has a the ability to settle in the corners which never get more than a passing vacuum, so it will be there for years. But, more annoying than seeing and then not seeing the glitter is the fact that the stuff has started to spread to pieces of clothing I have worn since getting the chair because I did a load of laundry which included the pants I wore on Christmas and the glitter attached itself to some of the shirts that were part of that load. I would be more inclined to accept my fate if it would just stick to my pants but now several of my shirts are sparkly. Every now and again the light will catch me at just the right angle and suddenly part of my arm looks like a disco ball. I tried going online and doing a quick internet search for the best ways to remove glitter from my life (if you are wondering they recommend going after it with one of those sticky lint rollers) but just like with my father and his squirrel issue it appears that there is no best solution.

Obviously this is one of those things which will never be anything more than a minor annoyance. The only reason is it even worth noting is that a quick Google search for glitter removal yields around 1.3 million results. While this makes me feel better that I am far from the only person frustrated with this substance, the bigger question is why will still allow it to exist in the first place. Sure, there are plenty of substances which are annoying but at least they serve a purpose. For example, bleach ruins clothes and has to be kept under lock and key if you have children in the home but when properly used nothing gets your clothes as white and allows you to feel like your shower has never been cleaner. Let's be honest, glitter serves no purpose. Hell, even the movie "Glitter" was the worst thing ever. Sure, the substance itself is eye-catching but there are many ways something can be designed to draw the human eye to it and those techniques don't remain in your life for weeks. Most of the things which are covered in glitter could come without that glitter and the product would not suffer. (I'm am sure there is a connection between the fact that most things featuring glitter are intended for children and dramatic women.) I can only assume it is thrown in because it is cheap and the manufacturers figure giving it away is the only way to keep their own factories glitter-free. Well, I say in the future we should start working harder to avoid putting glitter where it doesn't belong, which is anywhere. You may say this is going to put the producers of glitter out of business but at the end of the day I think they will be happy to not have to work with it anymore. Besides if they ever get sad about it they can just look somewhere on their floor and I am sure they will see enough glitter to be reminded of why this had to happen. The memories, much like the glitter in their carpets, will last a lifetime.

The Year In Music

As we quickly approach the end of 2013, it is time for pop culture watchers to start compiling their lists of "The Best ____ Of The Year." I'm sure you have seen more than a few of these in your travels - the best movie, the best television show, the best moment. They are so abundant because everyone loves them. The writers love them because they are pretty easy to come up with, their editors love them because they are simple to put together and the readers love them because they make for a great debate. I don't know why this is, but few things get people heated as quickly as the concept of ranking things in a specific order. I mean, I would understand it if these articles were ranking something which you held near to your heart, such as members of your family ("How can you put Uncle Jim at 7th?") but all they ever rank are movies and albums, none of which have been out long enough for you to get attached to them. I will admit to reading more than my fair share of these articles but I have to say that I have never been a big fan of them because in my opinion it is nothing more than a microcosm of the entire insane concept that you can make a living as a critic in the first place. I have always maintain critic is the weirdest job in America because the second the reader ask themselves "Who are these people and why should I care what they think?" the job becomes pointless. Working through that premise, why should the order in which you put the opinions which I don't respect matter?

Even more annoying than these writers using valuable space to offer their opinions in list-form is the fact that half the time I don't even think it is their real list. Most of the time these lists are just an excuse for the writer to try and show how interesting they find themselves by digging up some obscure band which the reader has most likely never heard of. For example, if you scan the list for the Top-Ten of 2013 from your average film critic it will be filled with documentaries, foreign films and independent pictures, none of which have ever been screened in front of a full theater. Meanwhile a movie which makes $200 million its opening weekend will never get mentioned. I know that popular doesn't equal quality but that equation works the other way as well, because being an underdog doesn't make you noble either. These lists get even more obnoxiously self-congratulatory when you read anything concerning the album of the year. It is all about trying to find the most obscure musical act and pump them up like the writer has found the next Rolling Stones even though the reality is most of these bands will have to break up by the end of 2014 because they aren't selling enough tickets. Seriously, sometimes reading album reviews are enough to make me wish for the fall of the music industry completely. That is why I was really happy that someone put together the following video of all the top songs of 2013. There is no bias against popular musicians, just a mash-up of all the songs which performed well on the radio, presented without commentary. Letting the music speak for itself is something we should all resolve to let happen more in 2014.

Weekly Sporty

Even though the NBA and many other leagues have no problem when it comes to scheduling games on Christmas Day (I think I have made my feelings about that policy well-known), they are a little more realistic when it comes to working on off-the-field issues during the holidays. Yes, three of the major sports leagues are in the midst of their regular seasons and dealing with all the problems inherent with that but at the end of the day these league and team front offices are filled with average human employees, most of whom are more worried about making sure all their holiday presents are bought and wrapped or that their travel plans will go off without a hitch or just generally sitting at their desks but not actually getting much done as they look forward to a random Wednesday off. Rather than fight it most teams accept the reality and roll with it. In fact, the NHL has gone so far as to put a "trade freeze" in place so people can enjoy the end of the year without worrying they will wake up on Christmas morning to find Santa has put them on a new team. As a result, this is a really slow period for sports news, so much so that I couldn't even find seven stories to scrape together to make a Weekly Sporties post. Sure, I could have forced it by talking about MLB teams bidding on a Japanese pitcher even though there is plenty of evidence to suggest that is a waste of time but even that story didn't have too much meat on the bone. Actually, as near as I could tell there is only one interesting item from the week but what is nice is that it is such a big, complicated story that I'll spend a few paragraphs on it:

Tanking has been a hot-button issue in the NBA this year. For those of you new to professional sports, tanking is practice of sending out a team designed to lose as many games as possible with the end goal of securing a high draft pick for next year. In many cases it is actually a very smart thing to do because the one thing you never want to do in the NBA is be mediocre as there are only so many talented players coming out of college and they are all gone by the middle of the first round, so sacrificing one season in the name of having 10 years of success is a trade almost any coach and GM would make. The efforts to lose have been especially wide-spread this NBA season because there are supposedly four franchise-altering freshmen currently playing in college, all of whom are expected to declare for the draft as soon as their season ends. Getting one of these players is pretty much the only hope teams which do not play in attractive free agent markets (read: Utah) have of making themselves relevant again because no amount of cap space would ever bring a guy like Dwayne Wade to Salt Lake City. So, as I said tanking may be the best plan for a team like the Jazz. However, tanking is not very fair to the fans because while the team may be under orders to only play at 75%, the tickets are still going for full face value. That can lead to a lot of casual fans who may not understand the long-term goal of the front office to feel as though they are getting ripped off and swear off the NBA for good. The NBA certainly doesn't want that, which is why early in the week a story surfaced that some in the NBA's league office are discussing moving to a wheel system in which teams would have their draft position determined for 30 years at a time. Talk about having a long-term plan in place.

The way it would work is quite simple - all 30 teams would be slotted for one year's draft with no regard to how they finished the season. The next year the team which picked first would be slotted somewhere around 19th, again regardless of where they finished the regular season. This would continue until all 30 teams had selected from all 30 draft positions through a system which looks chaotic but is actually kind of logical. According to the proponents of this plan it would eliminate all tanking because it would not allow records to be any kind of factor in draft position, thus causing teams to take the "we have to play, we may as well win" approach to the regular season. Also, it would allow teams to map out their economic plans just as thoroughly as their basketball ones because they would know right now how much they will have to pay a draft pick in 2020 and therefore how much they could spend on free agency that summer. (To me this is the first crack in the plan because it assumes NBA GMs care at all about financial responsibility. Half the teams in the NBA are in cap hell because they can't think two years out and you want them to make a plan for 30 years in the future?) They also claim it would encourage smarter trades between teams because you could put a distinct value on the draft picks going from one team to another. So, rather than being traded for an ambiguous "first round draft pick" which could end up to be of no value a player could be traded for the #5 pick in the 2030 draft. That ability to explain a pick's value the day a move is made would certainly make it easier to explain a deal to fans, even though they will probably still hate the deal in the moment.

As you would expect, there are many people out there who hate this idea simply because they feel it makes the game far too rigid. They may have a point because what this wheel idea is really attempting to do is bring order to a system which thrives on the fact that "you never know." I mean, half the reason GMs make trades involving picks is that they have no idea where that pick could end up and who could be available at that time. It's is the ultimate riverboat gambler scenario and it is what makes the wheeling and dealing of the NBA fun. Also, whomever came up with this plan clearly doesn't understand how important hope is to basketball fans. As I have said before the only thing worse than rooting for a bad franchise is rooting for a bad franchise which you know is never going to get any better. Think back to a team like the Jazz, which I mentioned earlier. They are having a tough year but they are going to be in a great position to draft no worse than fourth and as long as all the super freshmen declare that means they are sure to come away with a supremely talented player. If this wheel system were in place who is to say they wouldn't be just as bad as they are, only they drafted #1 last year which was an OK but-not-spectacular group. That would mean they would still be bad only now they wouldn't be picking that high again for 30 years. Or, what if it was finally year your to draft first and the talent pool was awful? Imagine waiting 30 years and ending up with Michael Olowokandi? Also, let's not ignore the possibility that a player may see the top of the draft order and decide to stay in college for another season. I'm all for kids staying in school longer but it certainly won't help a cold-weather city bring in talent if a talent player decides to wait a year when they know the Heat will be drafting first. It is the same problem the NBA currently has about free agency which I believe is much more important to address than the way teams draft.

The other thing is that I feel like the tanking this year is more widespread due simply to the incoming talent. Most years the draft is only so-so and teams don't start nose-diving until they are totally out of it. This year is just a perfect storm of teams which have decided to bottom out because they were sick of finishing as 8-seeds and getting bounced out of the playoffs in 5 games and a good crop of potential draftees. No need to overhaul a system which has been in place for 30 years in the name of one odd season. Of course, that isn't to say the NBA doesn't need a better system to figure out its draft order. I have never been a fan of the lottery system mostly because I think it was an overreaction. The number of teams tanking are never as high as the media makes it seem, probably because half the league makes the playoffs. At some point you are just biting your nose to spite your face. Think about it: a team which just misses the playoffs shouldn't be in the running for the first pick, I don't care how slim their odds of winning the lottery are. They will be back next year while the team which loses out on the first pick despite having the worse record for a couple years in a row could be set back for years. (I know there are some saying they can always find a good player later in the draft but if that were true they wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.) The idea which I heard this week which I really liked was the one which took three-year winning percentage into account as that would give the teams which have really had a bad run of luck a better chance to turn things around as compared to a team which may have talent but just sprinkles in one bad year due to a few fluky injuries. It may be more complicated but it seems more fair. All I know is this - no matter how the NBA ultimately decides to tweak its draft system I am supremely confident the Knicks will find a way to screw it up.

Rewarding Bad Behavior

You wouldn't know it from looking at my iTunes library because I haven't added any new music in months but apparently there are people out there who still opt to buy music rather than just listen to a free internet radio station which emphasizes whichever artist they are in the mood to hear that day. Even more surprising is that there are still people out who still engage in piracy, illegally downloading copies of music for free. Internet piracy was a real problem a few years ago but it does feel things have cooled considerable on that front (at least for music - movie piracy is still going strong). Now, one of the most brilliant Tweets ever was when a comedian pointed out that the music industry's plan to fight piracy appeared to be to not release any more good music but I think the real reason behind the reduction in illegal downloading is that the music industry went very hard after a few of the more enthusiastic downloaders, having one sent to jail while another was fined millions of dollars. No one thinks that sort of thing will happen to them but there has to be a small part of everyone's brain who wonders if it is worth the risk before going to look for a free copy of a song. As for me, I don't download much music anymore is because I have severe trust issues when it comes to my computer. Many of these music sharing sites are filled with pop-ups and other equally shady-looking issues so I just stay away. Since my personal computer is often the one I use for work I have far too much to lose to gamble it all over a simple MP3 file that I am not totally sure will be a good copy of the song I wanted. I'd rather pay the $1.25 and not worry about waking up to find my hard drive infected with malware because I downloaded a corrupted file of some new song I'm going to be sick of in a week anyway. Many of the people in the music industry are saying the labels finally won this battle but that is only because they are looking at the short-term fight and not the whole war because one band out there is learning to embrace the pirates and coming out much better for it.

Iron Maiden has been a successful heavy metal band for decades despite never getting much airplay through traditional TV and radio mediums and they even pulled off the rare feat of staying relevant after switching lead vocalists (though they did eventually switch back). Thus you would think a band like Iron Maiden, who has had to fight for every hit they have ever had, would be diligent in trying to protect the mainstream hits they have made to make sure they can keep the money flowing in. There are only so many way to make money through music and those avenues dwindle pretty quickly when you only have one song people want to hear. However, the fact that Iron Maiden is even still touring makes it pretty obvious that they didn't hang around this long in a business which chews acts up and spits them out by being stupid. That is why, rather than go after people who illegally download their music the band went the other way - hiring two different internet data firms to look at the download numbers, find out where their songs were being the most-pirated and then scheduling several concert dates in that area. The band figured they had nothing to lose so they may as well cater to the people who want to hear them play because it is not like advertisers were beating down their doors asking to use their tunes in commercials. What's even better is that all the shows are packed and the band has made more money with this strategy than they would have if they had sat back and just let the old tunes continue to sell a few hundred copies a month.

Now, as with any good idea there are some naysayers, mostly the people who work in the music industry who contend the band is rewarding piracy when what they really should be doing is joining in the fight to shut down music-sharing sites. However, that view fails to take into account two very key things - who the band is and who their fans are. You have to remember that Iron Maiden is among the heaviest of the heavy metal bands and as such they have a reputation to uphold. I don't care how manufactured it may be, the truth is that bands in that genre are supposed to have a devil-may-care, the-only-thing-that-matters-is-the-music attitude. No one like it when a well-established musical act whines about things like licensing fees but that is especially true when it comes to heavy metal bands. (I still don't think Metallica will ever be able to repair all the damage done to their reputation by being the face of the fight to shut down Napster.) Iron Maiden may not have made the same kind of money as other musicians who have been relevant as long as they have but the simple fact is that they don't have to work for a living, which is all their fans care about. They would never be able to adequately explain to their fans why they were getting lawyers involved, no matter how rational their reason may be because when have rational thinking and metal fans ever going together? Better to be seen as embracing the rule-breakers because even though they probably don't fly on private jets that is what fans are going to imagine they are fighting about and that is not very metal.

Apparently Iron Maiden has been doing this for a while with great success which has prompted some people to wonder if this will become the new way to schedule a tour. I don't think we can quite go that far with it, though I admit it has less to do with ability to collect data and more about where the act is in their careers. Like I said, even though Iron Maiden is an iconic name they were never the most popular act in the world and as such they need to be strategic about where they schedule shows so they have the most impact. The iconic acts don't have as much to worry about that as much because they simply play where ever they feel like it and the shows sell out in ten minutes. Conversely, the small acts who really need to maximize their crowds don't have an expansive enough catalog to produce a large enough data trail to see where they are being heavily pirated. It is just the bands in the sweet spot of having a few hits but no longer sitting at the top of the game who could use this idea and there aren't that many acts who occupy that space. The other reason I can't see this catching on is because I doubt it is the easiest way to play a tour and that at some point you just aren't going to certain venues, regardless of how much of your music they are stealing. So, the music industry can relax and go back to suing the only people who still love music enough to risk their computers and jail time enough to illegally download it, blissfully ignoring the reality that the only thing worse than people stealing your music is people ignoring it. Meanwhile bands like Iron Maiden will keep an eye on the data and make millions playing sold-out shows full of pirates. Of course, if the music industry's lawyers put all those people in jail it will make scheduling a tour much easier.

If The Shirt Fits

The idea of using December 26th to try on all the clothes you got for Christmas is such a part of the tradition that at this point I think it should get its own lyric in a holiday song. Trying on clothes for the first time is always a risky proposition because somewhere along the way clothing manufacturers stopped talking to one another and just started doing their own thing. This means that two shirts from different companies could fit a person totally differently, even though they may be labeled as the same size. (And occasionally that happens in the same company. Case in point, I was working for Reebok when they were bought by Adidas and even though they were now one company I had to get different sized shoes depending on which brand I was wearing.) This is why it is always a bad idea to trust labels and you should always try on shirts before you buy them. But, you obviously can't do that when someone gets you clothes as a present, which is why I try and do the next best thing by requesting different sizes depending on who makes the clothing in question. Fortunately I am a guy with a very low-brow clothing tastes, which meant I only had to memorize two or three clothing variations and then I was good as long as I never strayed from those brands when making out a wish list. Sadly, try as I might to never stray from these approved shirt makers, there are times when I see a shirt which I like from a brand I am unfamiliar with. That happened this Christmas when I saw a shirt online at the same time my sister was hounding me for a gift idea. Out of better options I pointed out this shirt to her, crossing my fingers it would fit when it arrived. I guess if I was going to appeal to the universe I should have asked Santa as, given the time of year, it may have increased my odds.

As it turns out, even though I usually maintain that I will not ask for clothes during the holidays, I asked for and got three shirts for Christmas. All of them claimed to be the same size, with being two from the same company. Those two are so large I am swimming in them. The third one, from the company I had never heard of, is too damn tight. I'm not saying it could pass for a medium but knowing my personal style I just know it is too tight for me to ever wear. I should have known there was a reason it was on sale. What was even more frustrating is that I could tell it wasn't going to fit almost before the shirt was all the way over my head. (Sometimes you just get that vibe.) If I were trying this shirt on in a store rather than my bedroom it is exactly the kind of situation which would have had me leaving the dressing room so quickly that the woman behind the counter handing out number tags would have just assumed I changed my mind about wanting it in the first place. The shame of it is that it's a very nice shirt but there is just no way I can keep it. Sure, I could pull and stretch it out for one day but as soon as it goes into the wash it will shrink right back to the same pre-stretch size, if not smaller. Rather than get one day out of it and then sentence it to a life of hanging towards the back half of my closet I will have to send it back, which I started to look into this afternoon. It was at that point I noticed something which made me remember why I don't like shopping online as much as everyone else seems to.

The package came with the normal "easy" return instruction, in that all I have to do is find a box or bag for this shirt to fit into and I can then slap on the label they sent in the original shipping invoice, go to my local FedEx store and send it on its merry way back to wherever it came from. But as I was reading the instructions I noticed some fine print down at the bottom of the label, informing me that while the cost of the shirt will mostly be returned, this company keeps $5.50 as a processing fee. At first I thought it seemed kind of fair because, after all, I am shipping something to them on a label they sent me. However, the more I thought about it the more I realized that if I put this shirt in any other kind of envelope and sent it to that address without their label it would probably cost me less money. Also, that logic implies that the cost of the return label is probably included in the original shipping and handling, which my sister already paid for so (a cost which this company probably pockets 95% of the time) and that means the $5.50 means essentially we're getting double charged. I guess what really bothers me is the way it was sort of hidden at the bottom of the sheet, like they were hoping I wouldn't notice. Reading it I was filled with the same kind of annoyance which used to bug me when Ticketmaster charged me for shipping and handling of tickets even though I printed them out from my home and they never shipped or handled anything. I'm seriously thinking about sending an invoice with the returned shirt because I am pretty sure I will have done more work to send it back to the distribution center than they did to send it to my sister in the first place.

The big talk this holiday shopping season was that the days of the brick-and-mortal malls are going to be coming to end. People have been making this claim for a number of years but sluggish sales for Black Friday compared to Cyber Monday have economists taking this rhetoric into overdrive, claiming too many people are opting to just give out gift cards and order online, so before too long we won't be dealing with malls or traffic, even if we wanted to. Now, I have long maintained that I don't agree with the people predicting the demise of the mall because there are always going to be people who want to hold stuff in their hands before slapping down their cash to buy it (same logic as to why books will never truly go away). I have to say it is little stuff like this superfluous charge to return an item when they already over-charged my sister to ship it out to her in the first place which is going to keep the retailers open for far longer than the experts are predicting. Sure, people are willing to pay a little extra for the convenience of not having to drive to a mall and fight for a parking space but eventually all these little fees start to pile up and tips the scales to the point it would be cheaper to pay the gas and go get the item yourself. It is just a matter of enough people doing the math before the tide starts to swing the other way. Admittedly, I probably shouldn't be pining my hopes for enlightenment on the math skills of most people (myself included) but I have to say that this encounter is forever burned into my brain and it will probably stop me from making a couple of purchases going forward. I have to say losing out on a sale which could be for tens of dollars in the name of screwing a customer over for $5 doesn't seem like a good business model. But, then again, what do I know - I can barely figure out what size shirt I should buy.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Wishing everyone 

a wonderful day.

Hope Santa brought you

everything you asked for.

Not Worth Repeating

I mentioned this in a post the other day, but for a couple of reasons this holiday season has managed to get away from me. Normally I am really organized running up to this time of year but this Christmas I am just a few days behind schedule. (I honestly think the fact Christmas is on a Wednesday is the main culprit. Feels like we should have had another weekend to get all the last-minute details squared away.) This has resulted in a few lost traditions, such as certain decorations never getting brought up from the basement and put on display. In some ways this should be considered a good thing because it proves that not everything has be done exactly the same way it was done last year and the world will keep on spinning. Normally I am a stickler for routine and freak out when something falls through the cracks but time simply wasn't on my side and yet the holiday will go on as scheduled. I need to remember this feeling next season when I am trying to cram 3 hours of tasks into 1 hour of the day - both to remind myself that some of this stuff is only important to me and no one else is noticing, let alone caring, as well as to make sure I have better time-management skills so next Christmas I can do everything I want to do and still have enough time to enjoy the season. That is the thing which is really bothering me about this particular Christmas. Normally I like to finish all my shopping and decorating with a couple days left to just sit back and watch the holiday shows, listen to the music and soak up the ambiance. You can't really do that when you finish the last task less than 24 hours before presents are scheduled to be opened. I finally found a quiet moment to enjoy Christmas just in time for it to be over.

One of the main things I missed out on this year was the holiday music. You see even though some stations switch over to all-Christmas all the time the day after Thanksgiving I find it is very easy to avoid getting sick of the music by simply not turning on the radio. Considering the majority of my listening these days comes from podcast, that is much easier than it used to be. Also, for reasons I can't explain it feels like there aren't as many stations doing the all-Christmas format this year. This surprises me because back when I was still working in radio it was explained to me that the all-Christmas period often got some stations the best ratings they would see all year, hence why stations were changing over earlier and earlier. Part of it can be attributed to the fact that two of the station with the longest traditions of playing nothing but Christmas music changed formats. The oldies station in Boston has been replaced by a top-40 dance format, which makes going to all-Christmas damn near impossible. It is one thing to stop playing the same fifteen bands every day and start playing the same fifteen songs on repeat because clearly that audience doesn't mind repetition. It is entirely another thing to go from a techno remix of a Katy Perry song to Burl Ives. (That is not to say the top-40 station has a greater variety than the oldies station used to present. They also play fifteen bands on repeat but at least they can claim those bands are still alive and touring.) If they did want to play Christmas music they would probably have to meet somewhere in the middle by playing newer Christmas music and trust me, no one wants that.

I have often said that I don't avoid Christmas music for the first couple of weeks of the holiday season out of a sense that Thanksgiving should be allowed to be its own holiday but because if I listened to Christmas music as soon as it came on I would be sick of it by the first week of December. There are hundreds of thousands of Christmas songs to pick from and yet these station managers are only willing to open their libraries up a crack and let out the same ten to twenty songs from the last thirty years which are then played on repeat. It can be very frustrating but at the same time I was recently reminded that it is not like there is a good alternative. While finishing up my Christmas shopping in the last couple of days I noticed that malls and radio stations were digging deeper into their music collections for music. At first I was happy about this because really, how many times can you hear Springsteen tell us Santa Claus is coming to town? However, that was before I started listening to the songs themselves and discovered that they are terrible. Every song which came on was worse than the one before that and after a while I started wishing for a holiday song which had been around since the 1960s because even though it would feel stale at least I would know what I was getting. That was when it dawned on me that during all these years when I was crushing program directors for showing no creativity with their holiday playlists the people I really should have been crushing are the music producers because they aren't giving these people anything to work with.

Let's seriously think about this - how difficult is it to create a good Christmas track? I contend it would not be that hard if the music producers could simply fight the urge to do what all music producers fail at lately, which is let the talent work their magic. The best Christmas songs are the ones which are simple and clean. However, every holiday song produced in the last few years is over-produced with nonsensical lyrics and a thumping baseline. That'll get you a hit 11 months out of the year, but December is the one exception to the rule. Sure, there is something to be said about wanting fresh lyrics because I don't care how well someone sings "Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire" you are not knocking Nat King Cole off his perch of ownership of that track. Still, there is no need to get overly complicated with this. Just sprinkle a few lines about holiday cheer and the spirit of the holiday and you are golden - it doesn't even have to make sense. Now, it is entirely possible that the biggest problem with this new music is the very fact that it is new. Music can't become a classic overnight as it takes some time for it to age properly. I'm sure the first time "Do They Know It's Christmas" came on the radio everyone hated it and now if those same people don't hear that song they break out into hives. That means if these program directors show a little backbone, ignore the complaints and just keep playing these newer holidays songs eventually people will learn to love them. Still, it would be a hell of a lot easier for those people if one of the holiday songs made in the last five years could help them out by not being awful.

At Least Someone Is Watching

I think the most frustrating part of watching the news is being forced to accept which stories they decide to go overboard when covering versus the ones which they only mention in passing. As you probably guessed, the reason I find it so frustrating is that the news and I never seem to agree on which the most important stories are. For example, in my opinion the fact that Christmas is just two days away doesn't constitute actual news, just one fact out of many. Meanwhile, I think the story that someone compromised Target's security and may have gotten the personal information of 40 million people is kind of a huge deal and yet the item only got a passing mention on most newscasts. Think about it like this - all these thieves have to do is take two dollars from each person (who would never know about because we are hit with so many bank fees that we would just assume it was from one of them) and they have stolen $80 million. That would make for one hell of a heist movie and yet the story disappeared from the news almost as quickly as it appeared. I will concede reporters don't have much to go on since police haven't named any suspects or even told us how these hackers managed to worm their way passed security (I'm going to guess it had to be an inside job). However, the fact these reporters have so many unanswered questions should be causing them to break out their old-school reporter instincts but instead they don't seem very interested in getting to the bottom of things, especially when some celebrity could have scandalous pictures taken of them at any minute.

I tell you this much, the credit card and banks certainly seem to think this security breach is a big deal because they are out in force letting people know they need to monitor their cards and watch for suspicious activity. I have already gotten two emails from my banks asking if I shopped at Target recently and when I went online to pay a credit card bill I was met with a bright red warning bar going across the top of the screen where people should go if they fear their information was hacked. These companies don't want to deal with the headaches unless they have to and catching any suspicious transactions before they go through is the best way to do that. Of course, it would probably help if people just didn't shop at Target for a couple of weeks but that's a problem for someone like me who is trying to balance personal security with getting the perfect gift. I had an idea in mind for someone and while I was doing my pre-Christmas reconnaissance I had only seen it at Target. I should have bought it online weeks ago but clearly that ship sailed and now if I wanted this thing by Wednesday I was going to have to go to the store and buy it. I spent all day shopping around, desperately trying to find this item at another store which hadn't been dealing with such huge security breach but all this did was end up screwing me over because not only was I going to have to go to Target to buy the item, now I was going to have to use my debit card because I had used all my free cash in other stores and my bank comes up woefully short when it comes to available ATMs. Admittedly, it was not a well thought-out plan of attack on my part.

As I was waiting to pay I tried convincing myself I would be fine doing this, telling myself lies such as this was probably the best time to buy something at Target because they would have spent the last week beefing up security to the point their firewall was impenetrable. It's like eating at a restaurant the day after it re-opened after the board of health shut it down for having too many violations - surely they cleaned everything up or else they wouldn't have been allowed to re-open and they will be on their best behavior in the coming weeks because the board of health will be watching. However, all that confidence was shattered less than fifteen minutes after I left the store when my bank called to inquire about my debit card being used at Target. Apparently they don't have as much faith in the security at the store and wanted to make sure I was the one who used the card and they even made sure to ask about the other two times I had used the card during the day. According to the woman on the phone they just wanted to confirm I was actually the one making those purchases and that I was willing to accept the charges. Thankfully the stuff I bought was the only activity on my card (though I'm going to keep an eye out for the next couple of weeks just to make sure). It was kind of unnerving because no one had ever called to check something like that before. For a half-second it made me feel like I was stealing money from myself and I thought about returning the gift in favor of something else. I obviously didn't but after I hung up I started thinking about all the other purchases I have made in my lifetime and I have to say, I kind of wish someone from the bank called me every time I bought something.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that I want to have to worry about the security of my ATM card after every transaction. What I am saying is that I'm made some dumb purchases in my life and it would have been nice if someone had called me at that moment and asked me if I really wanted to do this. When I think back to all the stuff I bought that I never used I can't help but to wonder how much of it would have remained on the shelf if someone from the card company had called a couple minutes after I had swiped through to ask if I really wanted to buy that item. Buyer's remorse can be a powerful deterrent and I probably could have been swayed into returning many things which I never ended up wearing/using nearly as much as I envisioned. I mean, how many tickets to Celtics games did I buy when the team was going 15-67? That is money that could have been better spent elsewhere because there was no need for me to watch a team which was trying to lose for draft purposes in person and if someone from my bank had reminded me of this I would have saved some money. I wouldn't want the bank to have final say over how I spend my own money but most of the time I am shopping alone and every now and again it would probably serve me well if there was someone there who stopped me before I even got to the car and asked when was the next time I planned to use this thing I just bought. Think of like a real-life version of having an angel on your shoulder. I'll say this much - so far my bank certainly seems more interesting in making sure that I don't get ripped off than my local TV news screw is.

Hitting The Bottle

Anyone who has ever walked on a beach in their lifetime has probably imagined finding a bottle washed up on shore with a note inside of it. Apparently it used to happen all the time back when people were still exploring the oceans but now it has fallen into the category of being another one of those cultural images which has probably been written about and appeared in movies 10,000 more times than it has happened in real life. Still, if you are anything like me you keep your eyes peeled for these bottles whenever you are near water, just in case. Of course that is only half the fantasy because in our minds these messages in a bottle always contain something extremely cool, like a note from a stranded traveler or the map to some distant location. Actually I think most of us would be excited to find anything, even it was just one of those generic "mail me a letter telling me where you found this" postcards that school kids send out usually attached to balloons because most of the time finding a bottle on the beach means the next step is finding a trash barrel to throw it in, as that is what you do with garbage. The point is the mere possibility of what could be in a bottle on the sand fills the average person with a sense of adventure. With that context in mind, how annoyed would you be if you finally found a bottle and it had a note in it only when you opened it up you rather than something fun you found homework? I know I would be pretty peeved but that is the situation a researcher team recently found themselves in.

The researchers were exploring a glacier in Canada at the point closest to the North Pole. There they found a bottle wedged between two rocks with a note inside dated July 10, 1959. Even more intriguing was that the note was signed by Paul Walker and Albert Crary - famous geologists around that time who had made several trips to the area to study the glaciers. Imagine how it must have felt to not only find a message in a bottle (sure the bottle was in snow and not on a beach, but let's not get picky) but to also have it be signed by a famous person in your field. This must have been a thrilling moment, something these geologists never thought they would experience (I don't imagine geology to be action-packed). Now, if this were a movie all of this would add up to the note containing some kind of profound message or the final clues to one last great discovery but instead it simply contained a note asking whoever found the bottle to measure the distance from a nearby rock to the edge of the ice formation and then mail their results to an address in Ohio. Sadly, neither Walker nor Crary are with us anymore but the scientists still honored their request and measured as the note requested (if you were wondering the ice shelf had retreated nearly 200 feet). I am not quite sure where they mailed the data but I hope it wasn't the address in the letter. When the note was written that street address was the home of Walker's parents who have no doubted passed on by now. That means there are new residents living there who would no doubt be excited at the thought of receiving a mysterious letter from a research team in Canada. They would probably be excited at what the letter could possibly have to do with them, only to be let down that it only contained measurements about an ice shelf. Hopefully the research team thought this through and held on to the data because I think this cycle of disappointment has gone far enough.

Weekly Sporties

-It's kind of hard to believe, but the Winter Olympics are just a few weeks away. Leading up to the games a lot of the talk hasn't been about the sports or the athletes, but Russia's anti-gay laws. You see back in June President Vladimir Putin signed a law prohibiting the promotion of "non-traditional" marriages to children. Because you could make the case that children see just about everything that rather vague set of standards allows the Russian government to crack down on pretty much whatever they want, from gay pride parades to a rainbow flag in front of someone's house. It has caused a lot of friction in the country as well as around the world as many people see this as an infringement on personal freedom. This has especially been a sore subject within the United States and some in the LBGT community have called on the US to boycott the games. The issue of how to balance sports and politics has always been tricky but I think having the United States simply refuse to participate seems a bit extreme. What I like is that instead the US is doing the next best thing, which is sending gay athletes as part of their Olympic delegation and no high-ranking officials from the United States will be attending the Games. I actually think this is the best solution. Simply skipping the games would be the easy way out as it would give Russia cover because they could continue to act as though gay people don't exist. Not only that it would probably turn those athletes and their families against the LBGT cause because they will have worked the last four years for nothing. Even if they are supportive of the issue, they didn't spend all those hours in the gym to be a political pawn. Sending openly gay athletes as representatives will put them front and center, which is the best way to let people know you don't agree with something they are doing. I only have two issues. The first is obviously security because while I don't think the Russian government will do anything there could be some whack job who has a Cold War flashback and goes crazy. The second is the fact that many Olympic sports are done by judging. I can't help but think a few of the Russian judges will be told to be extra critical of the US routines. Even worse there would be no way to know if that was the case because Olympic judging is always such a mess. There is always at least one screwy decision during the Games, so why would Sochi be any different? I guess in some ways it is nice to know that no matter how messed up the hosting country's political landscape is, it certainly couldn't be any worse than the IOC.

-Last week I told you about the drama surrounding the Washington Redskins. The quick recap is that head coach Mike Shanahan and franchise quarterback Robert Griffin III can't seem to agree with one another on how the plays should be called (a job which is performed by Mike's son Kyle). Additionally, the elder Shanahan doesn't like that Griffin is so close with team owner Daniel Snyder because he thinks this personal relationship creates a way for Griffin to circumvent his authority if he doesn't agree with a decision. Allegedly it got so bad that Shanahan was ready to quit last season but held off because Griffin got hurt during the playoffs and didn't want to appear to be abandoning the franchise. However, Shanahan can no longer put up with the drama and wants out, only he would like to still get paid the remainder of his contract, so has spent the last couple of weeks trying to get himself fired. He has begun poking at ownership, going so far as to deactivate Griffin for the last three weeks of the season under the guise of trying to preserve his health going forward. Meanwhile, both camps are leaking information to the local papers in an attempt to win in the court of public opinion. If you don't care about the future of the Redskins it has been kind of fun to watch, in the same way people like to rubberneck at car accidents. I have to say this week's entry was especially juicy as there was a report that Robert Griffin II has been in Snyder's ear and wants the Redskins to hire Baylor coach Art Briles (who coached RG III in college) to be the new coach of the Redskins. I have no doubt this story came from the Shanahans and I have to say, it was a masterful stroke. Seriously, it has all the elements that typically turn sports fans against an athlete - meddlesome parent, unreasonable request and the appearance of wanting control over a franchise after only being in the league for a year. On top of all of that while Baylor has had a very good couple of season there is no reason to believe Briles would be a good coach at the next level (the list of college coaches who successfully jumped to the NFL is a short one). If you just read the story without any of the background context you would absolutely believe Shanahan had the right idea when he said RG III is too close to the owner because even the biggest RG III supporter would concede that his father should not be consulted about who to hire. Mike Shanahan may not have been able to replicate the on-field success he had in Denver but unless Griffin has something up his sleeve for next week it appears Shanahan can at least claim on off-field win.

-Two summers ago the Houston Rockets tried to make a splash in free agency when they signed center Omer Asik. Coming off a good playoff run with the Bulls, Asik was seen as the kind of defense-first big man the team would need if they were going to get past the Lakers, who had just acquired center Dwight Howard. Well, a funny thing happened just one year later when the Rockets signed Howard in free agency. Some thought the two would combine to make one of the best frontcourts in all of basketball but Asik quickly saw the writing on the wall and asked for a trade. Initially the Rockets refused because they were going to try and change his mind but once they saw that was going to be too hard of a sell they agreed to try and get him out of town. However, they didn't want trade rumors hanging over them and distracting the rest of the team, so the Rockets self-imposed a deadline of December 19th to get a deal done. On the 18th it looked like a deal was in place with the Celtics but it fell apart. [Sidebar: I'm actually glad the trade never went through. I like Asik for a team which is on the verge of competing for a title but with the Celtics in quasi-rebuilding mode he wouldn't be a good fit here. The whole point of hoarding all these assets (first round picks, expiring contracts, ect.) is to use them to get a really good player who just needs a change of scenery, not a center who can't score. Unless this team plans to deal Rajon Rondo (unlikely) they need to make sure they get back some scoring in any trade because Rondo has always been a streaky offensive player. The whole reason Kendrick Perkins was traded was because the team didn't want to go forward with him and Rondo as the offensive since neither can hit free throws down the stretch. Also, the only way the Rockets got Asik in the first place was through some very creative contract math, which means he will make a ton of money in the next two years. He would be a cap nightmare, especially since having the cap space to make a trade is only way the Celtics will get any talent. Asik would have been a nice addition in 2010 but in 2013 he doesn't make any sense.] But getting back to the Rockets, the problem with this story is that there really wasn't a deadline. They can make a trade up until the NBA's deadline in February and I have a hard time believing they wouldn't listen if someone called to make them a really good offer. It is not like Asik has changed his mind about getting traded now that the 19th has passed. If anything, refusing to negotiate with teams beyond the 19th has only served to guarantee the team will be going through the same issues in February when even more teams will call about Asik. But hey, at least they can claim they stuck to their guns, even if those guns weren't actually loaded.

-Since I just mentioned Kendrick Perkins, his new team, the Oklahoma City Thunder, are on an impressive win streak at home. They have currently won 13 games in a row there, including a win early this week against the Chicago Bulls. Now beating the Bulls without Derrick Rose is not quite the accomplishment it used to be which is why the game was more noteworthy for what happened afterwards. Bulls forward Joakim Noah and Kendrick Perkins got into a yelling match when Noah came to visit a former teammate Thabo Sefolosha in the Thunder locker room and the two continued to lob insults at one another all the way to the team buses, to the point NBA security had to get involved. Now, there are many who are saying Perkins needs to chill but I'm on his side in this one. (Before we get too far into this story I guess I should reveal my biases: I always liked Perk when he was in Boston and find Noah to be one of the most obnoxious players in the NBA. I would be naturally inclined to take Perkins's side in any dispute between those two but I promise you, my feelings on this issue would be the same even if the participants were different.) Look, I know this is how the NBA works now - half of these guys were teammates on AAU teams before they ever got to the NBA and with so much player movement (especially for the guys at the middle and backs of rosters), summer leagues, international competition, shared trainers and guys coming together for charity events the old days of players hating anyone who is not on their team are long gone. I'm not saying rivalries are dead - there are always going to be teams which plain just don't like each other - only that with the way professional sports now work the fans are always going to be more invested than the players. That being said, a locker room will always be an extremely personal place and it should be off-limits to players from other teams. It would be one thing if Noah had previously played for the Thunder or the game was in Chicago and he wandered into the visiting locker room but neither of those things apply here. Players visit with former teammates all the time but they do so by waiting outside the locker room until those guys come out to them. Call it professional etiquette and even though Perkins was probably taking his role of team tough-guy a little too far (he has to do something to justify his massive contract and it won't be through scoring), Noah was in violation of that unwritten rule and he admitted as much a couple days later. That's too bad because I was kind of hoping these two would continue to chirp at each other and build up the bad blood. It wouldn't be the best reason for a rivalry to get started but it would be better than no rivalry at all.

-As the price of going to games continues to rise and the ability to watch all sports on television from the comfort of your own home continues to improve, professional sports teams are fighting a battle to get people to come out to the games. One of the ways they are trying to get people to shell out their money is to give them more interesting seating options. If you have watched the NBA for an extended period of time you have probably noticed that over the last few seasons the area which used to be reserved for the press has continued to shrink considerably in favor of extremely expensive courtside seats which practically put spectators on the bench with the team. I'm sure it makes the arena a couple extra thousand dollars a game, which is why I was hardly surprised to hear that the NHL is trying to figure out where they can add seats for their games. The problem is a rink is much larger than a basketball court, so they don't have nearly as many ways to get creative about this problem. Los Angeles Kings coach Darryl Sutter thinks has a solution - remove the penalty boxes. Now, at first glance this seems like a really good idea because the penalty box takes up two rows of prime location and it goes unused for roughly 95% of every game. But the reason I can't get behind this idea is because of that other 5% of the time. I mean, where are the players who commit penalties supposed to go? Someone suggested sending them off the ice to an area behind the bench for the two to five minutes they are serving their time but I am not sure that would work, logistically. I mean, wouldn't that add time as they were walking back to the bench? (You ever try walking in skates? Even hockey skates, which have a wider blade and are more stable, are not great for moving quickly anyplace but on the ice.) Besides, this is messing with tradition. People have been sitting the the penalty box since hockey started. It is part of the sports lexicon. How are we supposed to explain to future generations where they are to sit when they get in trouble? At the end of the day removing the penalty box is only going to add six or eight seats to every arena, which doesn't seem worth it to me. Of course, those six or eight seats will probably sell for a couple hundred bucks each and over the course of a 41-game home schedule that will add up quickly. By now every sports fan is cynical enough to know any tradition can be sold for the right price and the price is never as high as we think it should be. With that in mind I am almost surprised the penalty box has survived this long.

-While we're on the subject of using unique locations to market sports, this week it was announced that Notre Dame and Boston College are going play to a football game in Fenway Park in 2015. It will be the first football game in Fenway in almost 50 years and should make for quite the spectacle. I am sure I will find it visually stimulating while I watch it from the comfort of my couch. Normally I am in favor of these marketing strategies. I continue to think the NHL's winter classic was a stroke of brilliance and the decision to hold a Tennessee football game at a NASCAR track could be awesome. However, I am just not sure this specific location is going to work all that well. First off, I think it could be too small. Normally the reason these events work is because they are put into places which able to hold larger-than-normal crowds. For example, this year's Winter Classic in Ann Arbor is expected to have 100,000 people at it, an insane number of people for a hockey game. On its best day Fenway can hold about 45,000 spectators. That was fine when the Bruins played there because they only get around 18,000 at the Fleetcenter. But, that is roughly the same size as the stadium Boston College plays in now and is only half the capacity of Notre Dame Stadium. I know making it a tough ticket to get will only help to drive the price up but even if the tickets are sold for twice their face value it won't make as much money as putting the game at a place like Gillette Stadium would. Plus, I can't help but wonder how the field dimensions are going to work, remembering that Northwestern and Illinois tried to play in Wrigley a couple years back and ended up having to play in one direction since the field ended too close to the wall and it became a safety issue. Additionally, I am sure the two teams will have to split the gate, which makes me wonder why BC would do this. The few occasions in which Notre Dame visit Alumni Stadium are the only guaranteed sell-out they have. (If you don't believe me, go on Craig's List looking for tickets for BC football during a season in which the Irish are coming to town. They all say the same thing: "Every game for sale, except Notre Dame.") Boston College could play anyone in Fenway and have a sell-out, which makes this feel like a wasted opportunity. On top of all that there is the normal issue at Fenway, which is that I out-grew that place when I was 12. All of this is added up to make the game more an oddity than an attraction and there is a big difference. Still, I guess it would be nice to sit in the stands and have those seats which directly face the wall come in handy for once.

-For as much as I enjoy playing golf, there is one common aspect of the game I have never been willing to embrace - the gambling. I know putting a dollar or two down on each hole is quite common but I have never been too enthusiastic about that idea, probably because I am still so bad at the game. But while I am not about to risk my paycheck on my putting skills the low handicappers on the Tour are confident enough in their skills to not only wager with each other, they do it for big money. What I have always found interesting is that the PGA not only admits gambling happens on Tour, they openly discuss it. While the NFL and MLB refuse to acknowledge the very existence of gambling (which is especially hypocritical on the NFL's part considering it is one of the reasons the sport is watched across the country) the PGA Tour will hand out press releases detailing the high-money games which happen between players during Tuesday's practice rounds. It is because they seem so comfortable with the idea that when two high-ranking officials from the Japanese wing of the PGA Tour had dinner and played golf with a member of the Yakuza crime family I didn't expect it to be a big deal. Sure, they probably shouldn't be openly associating with mobsters but it is not like they did something really heinous, such as refuse to admit a ball rolled forward roughly a third of a dimple. However, I got this one way wrong as the hammer quickly dropped and the two officials resigned. But that was hardly the end of the story because not only did they leave, they took everyone down with them as a string of resignations followed. All told, 91 other representatives including 20 board directors and 4 vice chairmen resigned. I know looking guilty and being guilty are two very different things but I have to say this story makes me wonder just what the hell was going on over there. My first thought is that the Yakuza were buying off officials to make bad calls (which happens all the time in soccer), but considering golfers are expected to call their own penalties I am not sure how that would work. The next scenario to come to mind is that the PGA is very bullish about expanding to the Asian market and wants any hint of something shady gone before they will commit to the Japan Tour full-time. I'm not sure if all these resignations should fall under the category of leaving before you are asked or simply getting out ahead the posse to try and save your reputation. Either way, if you were struggling to find a job with the PGA and don't mind a little travel it appears there are a few openings to be filled.

Tree's Company

On Monday I told you about my adventures in trying to hunt down a Christmas tree last weekend. With a storm quickly approaching it seemed as though everyone had gone out to get their tree at exactly the same time (which was a couple hours before me) and it meant the remaining pickings were slim. The trees which were left were the ones which had just come off the truck and many were still in the protective netting. Worse yet, they had clearly been stored that way for a couple of cold nights and as a result even the ones which had been cut from their nets were still holding that shape, making them more like treesicles. They looked to be a really nice crop of trees but you can't really be sure in that situation and since I take my Christmas tree shopping very seriously we decided to pass on buying a tree then and there. Instead we went back this afternoon, hoping for a better result but I have to admit my spirits were not high. Normally I have my tree well before now (Thanksgiving being so late and Christmas being on a Wednesday have combined to throw off my normal holiday schedule) and was not quite sure what to expect. Obviously I knew they would still have trees. But, the question was, would they still have good trees? I've never worked in tree sales so I am not sure how the system works. Since the trees become worthless on December 26th I would assume vendors only buy so many so as to not have leftovers. Driving up I expected the good ones to be long gone and my only choices to be one with large gaps or full but only come up to my waist. I'm glad to report I was wrong on both fronts.

I walked down the aisle, spotted a tree and that was it. Seriously, the first tree we grabbed was the one we ended up with, which almost never happened. Normally I talk myself out of the first tree for no other reason that it's the first one but we could help but to keep circling back to this one. It was almost too tall but nice and full and didn't appear to be too dried out. However, we didn't buy it right away because you always want to make sure that the tree you leave with is the best tree on that lot. Normally letting go of a tree is dangerous, especially since in the past I have been followed around by people waiting for me to take my hand off a particularly nice tree so they can snag it. What is nice is that when you shop for Christmas trees on a Friday at 3 in the afternoon you pretty much have the place to yourself so I wasn't too worried about the one other group looking for trees making off with my selection (they were sticking to the smaller trees). But I have to admit I still would have been fine if they had grabbed that first tree while I was checking out the other options because this may have honestly been the best crop of Christmas trees I have ever been able to pick through. I go to this same lot every year because they always have a nice selection but this year was unbelievably good. Every tree was full, tall and fresh. One of them even had what appeared to be a nest in it - that was not the one we bought (though I guess that answers the question of how often the vendors get new trees delivered). If this is what you get when you shop for a tree this close to Christmas remind me to start altering my schedule.

The only issue came when we went to buy the tree because while I am normally quite willing to defer to the experts (especially when I am on their turf) I am quite hands-on when it comes to my Christmas tree. I am not quite sure how the 18 year-old manager of the place took that, especially when I asked if I could just use his clippers and cut the branches how I wanted them done. In my mind I was just giving him a break because he's been doing this for a month and probably would appreciate having the mini-break. (It has to be grueling to lift Christmas trees for 8 hours a day, which is probably why I have been going to this same place for about a decade and have yet to see anyone work their for two seasons in a row.) But from the look I got I think he was working more along the, "Oh sure - you do it. What do I know? I just do this for a living" mindset. His annoyance with me only grew as I told him not to worry about carrying the tree to the truck because I would handle that as well. I would think the final straw was when I realized I would need some twine and went back to help myself because when I un-spooled a couple of arm lengths before realizing I didn't have a knife on me, he came over to cut me some but put about half what I wanted back into the box before doing so. As he walked passed the truck after helping the other couple put their tree on the roof of their car I imagine he was looking over my tie-down job with a very critical eye. Part of me wonders if he was hoping the tree would go flying into the street as I made the first turn. (It didn't.)

Hey, I've been there. One of the reasons I got out of customer service is because the customer is almost never actually right and more often than not things would go a lot smoother if they would get out of the way and let the people who work there do the task they were trained to do. The chances a guy working as an accountant actually knows the best way to pack a box truck are pretty slim and yet these are always the guys you see trying to carry boxes out to their car and show the movers where things should go. I guess it is sweet that people in this country are so eager to help themselves rather than just be waited on but every now and again they just get in the way. I am just as guilty of this as the next guy because as I have discussed before on this site, all I have to do is complete a task one time to consider myself an expert, at which point I will bristle at any further attempts at instructions. But, at least I can admit this is a problem and I believe that is a good first step. Of course, it is entirely possible that this guy was annoyed because tips are a big part of how they make their money and since I carried the tree to the front, trimmed most of my own branches, then put the tree on top of the truck and tied it down that was not going to get him a particularly huge holiday bonus. If that was his problem I would simply advise him to start being more insistent about helping because even though I am a big fan of the dollar-inside-the-palm handshake I'm not going to do that just for the fun of it. Money doesn't grow on trees after all - something you would think the guy selling Christmas trees would know better than anyone.

Tough Pill To Swallow

There are few feelings in life quite as unnerving as the vibe you get when you start to suspect you are being cheated. I think we all know the feeling - you think you got the deal of a lifetime but then something happens to change your mind and suddenly you can't shake the feeling that you are getting the raw end of a deal or the person you are dealing with is not totally on the up-and-up. Now you start to rethink every encounter with that person or company and you walk around waiting for the other shoe to drop. It is a terrible way to go through the day. In fact, I can only think of one worse feeling and that is the day when all those feelings are confirmed and you find out for sure that you were, in fact, being played for a fool. Then your days are spent contemplating how you could be such an idiot and let this happen in the first place. But all you can really do is control the damage and hope you didn't reveal to too many people just what a sucker you can be. If you are currently walking around in either of these moods, I have good news for you - there are always bigger fools to be had and this week we learned about two groups which have the distinction of not only being suckers, they were loud and sanctimonious to everyone who didn't want to be part of it. The other day the FDA released a lengthy report containing two things which I found interesting. The first is the news antibacterial soap no better for you than regular soap and water and the second is that multivitamins are damn near useless. It appears Christmas has come early for the people who are fans of schadenfreude.

To be honest, I am not totally surprised by the news that antibacterial lotions are no better or worse than regular soap because we got along doing just fine with regular soap for a couple thousand years. I wasn't even all that surprised by this study also revealing that antibacterial lotions are actually worse for you than the germs you are killing because frequent applications eventually start to damage your skin. I mean, all you have to do is think it through - antibacterial lotions are not found in nature which means they have to be made in a lab somewhere and that means creating the perfect mixture of chemicals and chemicals, even the ones intended to help you out, are going to mess you up if you lay them on too heavy. Just because the product is designed to help that doesn't mean you should take a bath in it, which is the whole issue with me. For the last couple of years it seemed as though every place I went people had started replacing good old fashioned soap with antibacterial foam, as though it was the only product anyone should ever use. Over the summer I was on the golf course and got caught on the tee with a gentleman and his son and the kid needed a band-aid for a small cut on his arm. I happen to have one but I didn't have any antibacterial lotion to go with it and this father opted to let his kid continue to bleed rather than apply a band-aid without the healing powers of Purell. At the time I thought it made sense because they didn't know me and didn't know how long the band-aids had been in my golf bag but still thought it was a tad over-cautious. Thinking about that dad today I can't help but smirk.

Still, I am willing to give the Purell police a pass simply because they did have either their or their children's best interest in mind and I wouldn't expect anything less from anyone in this world. I have far less sympathy for the multivitamin hawkers simply because every inquiry regarding what multivitamin I took was met with a lengthy lecture once they found out I don't take any of them. At my gym there is a large poster telling you just what multivitamin you should be taking and when I go in tomorrow I will have to fight the urge to write some kind of smart-ass comment on there somewhere. Again, if you stop and think about it, the idea was flawed from the very start. I mean, it's called a multivitamin because it contains small amounts of many kinds of vitamins, so of course those minuscule amounts wouldn't be enough to meet a doctor's recommended daily dosage. Have you ever seen the size of your standard one-supplement pill? (It should be noted that if you take a vitamin supplement meant to replace just one deficiency the FDA found that those are still effective.) Doing the math, a pill which claimed to combine all the items into one bottle should have been bigger than my fist. Clearly, what this all boils down to is showing the powers of presentation. These products are no different from the "magic elixirs" that used to be sold by scam artists out of the back of wagons at state fairs. Yet, they became such staples of our daily lives because the companies behind them hired really smart marketing firms to get people in lab coats to say these things were good for us and then made convincing TV commercials. That was all it took for these two products to become multi-billion dollar companies. There is a store called Vitamin World and it does very well. They have to be shaking in their boots today.

Again, normally I wouldn't take any great pleasure in knowing that millions of people out there needlessly spent their money on this stuff, only there have been too many times when I was made to feel like the fool because I refused to fall in line with them. That is why today I can't help feel a sense of smug satisfaction in thinking about that person in your office who practically coat themselves in a protective layer of lotion during cold and flu season and shoots you a dirty look for refusing to do the same. The only thing stopping me from getting too smug is that at some point we all fall for this kind of thing. How many times has some product been touted as a miracle cure for everything which ails us, only for it to be discovered a short time later that it really gave you a disease worse than the one it was trying to protect you from? If anything, the fact multivitamins don't appear to do anything - good or bad - should probably be considered a positive outcome. The far more dangerous news is in regards to the lotions but I don't expect that stigma to hang around too long. I am sure it will follow the same cycle it always done - the news tells us something is good for us, the news tells us that thing which was good for us is now very, very bad for us and finally the news tells us that thing is ok as long as we don't go crazy using it. I just wish that we would remember this pattern the next time some miracle product comes on the shelves but I know we won't. All I can really hope for is that I am not one of the people who falls too hard for the hype because it would not be fun to sit through an entire day of people telling me they told me so.

Not Wicked Smaht

Your average movie-goer probably doesn't know who the Weinstein brothers are but there is little doubt they know their work. Back in the 1970s Harvey and Bob Weinstein started an independent movie distribution company to get smaller and foreign films out to the masses. The named it Miramax and ended up working on little films like "Pulp Fiction", "Clerks" and "The Crying Game". It was a testament to quality over quantity and Miramax showed a talent for getting its films Oscar nominations if not wins. Before too long the company was making a lot of money, which caught the attention of the major motion picture studios and in 1993 they were bought by Disney. The Weinstein brothers still had control of the company and kept pumping out hits like the "Scary Movie" franchises and "Good Will Hunting". But, as so often happens in situations like these eventually the Weinsteins got tired of no longer having final say regarding the movies they decided to distribute (Disney did not want to be involved with Michael Moore's documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11") and left the company they had founded - going back to their roots producing smaller movies like "Transamerica" under their new company name of The Weinstein Company (not the most creative, but it got the point across). As you would expect when a company which was founded as a passion project get turned over to a corporation which has no sentimentality towards it, Miramax slowly started going downhill and Disney sold it off to foreign investors in 2010.

Around this time you may be wondering why I just made you sit through that history lesson. It's because last week the Weinstein Company announced it had reached a deal with Miramax to go into their vast catalog and start producing some sequels based on the movies they had previously made, starting with "Shakespeare in Love" and proposed television series based off "Good Will Hunting" and "Rounders". I guess the Weinsteins fail to see the irony here. The entire reason they left Miramax in the first place was because Disney had come in and started worrying more about making a buck than producing a good movie. Now the Weinsteins are now using a similar "money-over-all" mentality because there is no way anyone who genuinely cared about the legacy of a movie such as "Good Will Hunting" would green-light a sequel. (I am less worried about "Shakespeare In Love" because I didn't see the first one and won't see any sequels.) I admit, there have been a few ok sequels to great movies but very few which you would say are on the same level as the original. I'm thinking of movies such as the second "Godfather", "Star Wars" and "Rocky" films. In thinking about it, that is pretty close to the entire list right there. That's three movies... in the history of cinema. Far more often the second movie does nothing but make us view the original film in a lesser light because it starts to appear to be a fluke rather than the carefully-crafted work it actually was. They may make some money but that really shouldn't be the only standard.

Still, if given the choice I would rather have one crappy sequel than come to resent a movie I used to like over 13 drawn-out episodes of a television show. While the rate of getting a good movie out of a TV show is around 60%, going the other way and basing a TV series off a movie almost never works. The problem starts right away when the actors we have come to identify as those characters are often not available, which totally kills any interest the audience may have had before the pilot even airs. I doubt Matt Damon would want to be in a "Good Will Hunting" show and even then he is probably too old. (I mean, no one wants to see a guy in his 40s still fighting his issues. At some point it tips from inspiring to depressing.) Additionally there is the issue of language. I mean, every great line from "Good Will Hunting" has an expletive in it. The experience of watching it is ruined when it is on basic cable, so how good would it be if it were on some network? Even if it were on HBO they would probably still find a way to make it not work. I also wonder if the time has passed everyone by. I mean, "Rounders" came out in 1998. During the poker craze a few years ago everyone lamented how that movie was before its time but poker is back to being in the fringes of public consciousness, so how much outcry can there really be for it? Hearing this news I can't help but think of how bad the "Napoleon Dynamite" cartoon was. Sure, it probably would have been that bad regardless of when it aired but that movie came out in 2004 and the cartoon came along in 2012. If eight years is too big of a gap to bridge how is 16 going to be any better?

I'm going to be honest with you here - my problems with this announcement are based almost entirely off the fact that three of the movies they want to go back and try and squeeze a few more dollars out of ("Swingers", "Rounders" and "Good Will Hunting") are three of my favorite movies of all-time and I thought enough time had passed since they had first been released that this wouldn't be an issue. Clearly, I was wrong. If they had made this same announcement regarding almost any other movies I would not be writing this today but they had to pick those movies to lead their announcement. They were just about perfect for the time in which they came out and one of the most admirable thing about all three is that they never threw a sequel together just to try and make a few extra dollars. Sometimes a story can be told in two hours and everyone walks away happy, with no need to know what happened in the future. That's how I feel about "Swingers". I mean, at this point I am almost antagonized by Vince Vaughn's choice in movies so the idea of him going back to play Double Down Trent in 2014 is just too much. (Although it could be argued that every character Vince Vaughn plays is some version of Double Down Trent.) Even worse, the Weinsteins have to know this because they already went through this when they made "Clerks II" which was universally reviled. All of this adds up to the fact that the Weinsteins should focus more on trying to recapture the old magic of finding the next classic movie rather than sit back on their laurels and churn out something we have all seen before. Because I have to say, at this moment, I would rather had Disney back in charge.

On Short Notice

As music has become almost exclusively a digital media, the days of the big-deal record release are quickly fading into the past. It used to be that in the days and weeks before a record was due you would turn on the radio and hear the DJs endlessly promoting it by playing the singles. Then when the day finally came that the record was going to be available, people would rush to the record store and stand in line for the right to buy the CD. Now, you'll still get some run-up before a CD is released and radio stations still beat you over the head with the single in the days before the album is available for download but the days of running to the store to buy the physical copy are definitely dead and gone (that'll happen when on average there is only one remaining record store within any 15-mile radius). There is no sense of urgency because there is no chance the internet is ever going to run out of copies, so rather than "You'd better go and buy it now" the tone has shifted to "Oh, hey. There is this thing. Eventually you should get it. Whatever." It's definitely not the business model I grew up with but I get that times are a changin', so we all just have to learn to adapt. And that lesson was never more apparent than last week when mega-artist Beyonce release a CD with no advanced notice whatsoever and it immediately shot all the way to #1. Hope no one in the music industry got too comfortable with the way things had been done the last couple of years because apparently it could be on the verge of changing all over again.

I have to say, as impressed as I am that Beyonce can turn the internet on its head just by releasing 14 songs (and 18 accompanying videos) I am far more impressed that she was able to keep the fact she had even recorded an album a secret. In this age of internet over-sharing it feels like everyone knows what is happening with everyone else at all times and that is just your average citizen. When you are a star at the level of a Beyonce everything you do attracts a massive amount of attention and every step you take towards a recording studio immediately becomes fodder for gossip websites. On top of that there are just so many people involved in the production of a CD like this - musicians, back-up singers, producers, sound engineers, directors to shoot the videos, stylists as well as the normal staff at the recording studios and online distributors (you can swear the people involved directly with the project to secrecy but janitors, secretaries and the like don't sign a confidentiality agreement) - I am just shocked there was not at least one pair of loose lips in the bunch. I would have at least thought someone from her record label would have "slipped" and given the news to someone with a nationwide radio show so they could let people know when it was going on sale. Yet no one even uploaded a single lyric which is staggering. (And could be the most important development. The reason this strategy could be a game-changer is it's the best way to fight piracy. As soon as a single hits the radio waves you can find a copy online and that eliminates the need to buy it, which takes money away from the artist.) Instead everyone kept their mouths shut and their illegal mp3 copies on their laptops, which I guess just speaks to the power of Beyonce.

But for as interesting a story as this is about one artist and her fans, in my mind this news actually serves the dual purpose of firing a warning shot across the bow of two industries I am very familiar with - radio and advertising. Radio has to be shaking in their boots right now because if artists no longer need them to promote singles than exactly what purpose do they serve? Sure, it is nice when a radio station plays a song I hadn't heard in a long while but more often than not the terrestrial radio stations in Boston play the same 10 tracks on a near-continuous loop. I get more variety from my iPod on shuffle mode and I can skip songs I don't like, which is why I use it more often. As for the advertising side of things, I think this is just further proof that people make up their minds early about a product and no amount of clever advertising will get them to change it in either direction. Considering most of these companies pay advertising agencies a lot of money because they promise they can do exactly that, this has to be making people who create ad campaigns a little queasy. I mean, think of all the money Beyonce just made by not paying anyone to promoter her album and watching it still sell half a million copies the first weekend. Why would she ever go back and hire these people to produce a convoluted commercial to alert the masses about her new project when all she has to do is send out one tweet and let her fans take it from there? No ad campaign could be that cost-effective, I don't care how clever a slogan they could come up with.

The good news for anyone who works in either industry is that the list of people who could pull of this feat is pretty short. Beyonce has a long track record of producing songs which have a good beat and that her fans enjoy, so they wouldn't have any problem forking over their money without getting a little sample first. Sure, every musical act has a few hundred people who have that kind of faith in them but most music lovers are going to want to hear two or three good songs before they take you at your word they will enjoy the rest just as much and buy an entire album. Still, it has to be a bad feeling for people in radio because it is not like there is anything they can do differently for the next time something like this happens. They are at the mercy of the artists and the labels and if those people decide to cut them out of the action there really isn't much they can do about it. Now, advertising is a little more fortunate because they can take some lessons from this and change their ways. For example, I think the strong sales for an album with no advanced noticed just proves to the advertising world that people no longer need to be inundated with weeks and month worth of ads to get them to buy a product. In this click-and-buy world people make a decision in a split-second and continually trying them to change their mind is just going to annoy them into hating a product they were previously just disinterested in. Maybe tone things back a bit and see if you can't keep your skin in the game by at least not charging a huge amount to these mega-artists who clearly don't need you. Of course, knowing how advertising works they will probably go the other way, cranking things into overdrive to try and make themselves appear more valuable. I can only hope next time Beyonce drops a double-album and finishes them off.