Shaking A Dead Horse

As you know if you read this blog a lot, I often find my way to fads later than most people. I didn't know what Gangnam Style was until about 3 minutes before it was uncool, therefore it should be no surprise that I didn't find out about these Harlem Shake videos until this week, right about the time the internet decided it was sick of them. For those of you who may have missed this fad (consider yourself lucky), the Harlem Shake are quick videos, usually about 30 seconds, and start off with one person dancing in the middle of a pack of people while no one pays any attention to them. About ten second in the beat changes and the video cuts to the same group of people, usually now dressed in crazy costumes and flailing around like idiots. Because the videos are so short and easy to make the fad exploded in a short amount of time and now it appears the gauntlet has been thrown down by the internet to make the most absurd Harlem shake video you can come up with. They are quite popular among high schoolers and college age kids, but occasionally you will see the a sports team or random office make one, probably at the request of HR, who sees it as some kind of team-building exercise that will break up the monotony of a Wednesday afternoon.

The videos even managed to make the news after someone made a Harlem Shake video on a plane, which is now being seen as a safety issue. Of course, this has prompted a few news stations to make their own Harlem Shake videos and start to look into the history of the original Harlem Shake dance, which was a real thing back in the 70s and looks nothing like what people are posting online today. Either way, I figure this should pretty much be the beginning of the end of this particular fad. As we all know, as soon as corporate America starts making copying a fad to try and appear 'hip' to the kids that particular pop-culture moment is on its last legs. No one cares where the video actually came from and they certainly don't want a history lesson with their internet fad. Not to mention, even though a few are amusing, once you've seen five Harlem Shake videos you have seen them all. I'm waiting for some Senator's office staff to make one, which should officially kill the videos once and for all and we'll look back on them with the same quizzical "Why did people do that again?" looks we now give things like flash mobs. Frankly, we're due - the videos have been around for almost three weeks, which is a lifetime in the world of the internet.

I think part of the reason the video is so popular is that the song behind the videos is kind of catchy. Seriously, the hook gets inside your head and it just wraps itself around your brain. As I said I just started watching a few of these videos the other day and as soon as I watched the first one I couldn't get it out of my brain anymore and this is coming from a guy who doesn't usually like this kind of music. For all I know the popularity of these videos is based on how a pyramid scheme works, in that all people want is the song to be stuck in another person's head. But, as I watched a few more videos and the addictive song playing underneath, I couldn't help but notice the name of the person who actually created the music (please note I didn't say wrote - this is techno music, which means it was probably done on a computer) is never mentioned by name. In fact, trying to find out the name of the artist who owns the right to the song takes a little digging. Even then, I can't help but wonder how many of the people who made these videos actually bothered to download the full song, just the clip they needed or if they were content to simply use any old music while filming. Watching a few of the videos it occurs to me you probably could have used any music you wanted, considering there is no set dance you need to follow along to do. Hell, on a few of the videos there may not even have been any music playing when they filmed.

This is where I honestly feel bad for musicians today. People are uploading thousands of these videos every hour and yet I bet the Baauer (that would be the artist's name, in case you were wondering) isn't getting a cut from any of it, even though YouTube is probably raking in extra advertising money from all the people watching Harlem Shake compilations. If I have learned anything from the internet is that no matter how well you think your copy-written material is protected, someone has figured out a way to get it for free and if they can't they will move on to something which they can find free. He's got to be terribly conflicted about seeing his song become a worldwide sensation but not actually getting anything out of it. Popularity is nice, but it gets a lot better when it starts to translate into actual sales figures. Unless people actually buy the song (I would put that figure at about 15% of the people who make videos) it is just theoretical money, which no company will take in exchange for goods and services. This is why I don't understand the people who try and create the next big viral video sensation. Sure, you'll be famous for 10 seconds, but wouldn't you rather be the driving force behind something which will help you pay your rent next month?

Check Your Local Listings

Last night I had a chance to go see two comedians, Jared Logan and Dan St. Germain, tape their comedy specials at the Royale in Boston. The tickets were free, which meant that I was automatically going to have good time because two of things I enjoy the most in the world are stand-up comedy and free tickets to things. However, I was slightly nervous because I never actually got any tickets. I was told by confirming my intention to show up I would be placed on a list and just had to check in at the door. I was strangely excited by this because I don't think I have ever been able to tell a bouncer I was "on the list" before. I left for the show early anticipating a crowd and traffic. As is always the case when I plan for traffic, I set a world-record pace and got to the venue far too early. I could have been the first in line but didn't want to appear too eager and hung back, settling for being third. Sadly, at no point did anyone come along and ask me if I was on the list, so I never got my moment. In fact, the list never came up, which makes me wonder what the purpose of making the list was. The only enjoyment I got out of that fact was when two girls showed up 15 minutes later and tried to skip us all by telling the bouncers they were on the list, only to be told to head to the back of the line because everyone was on the list.

We were led inside and down to the waiting area, which was the nightclub section of the building. This was helpful, because I hadn't been to a nightclub in a few years and had started to forget why I never go to nightclubs. (I'm sure the club is popular among a certain set, but it was just never my scene.) Here we were told for the first of roughly 50 times that we should go to the bathroom now because once the show started we would not be allowed to get up from our seats for any reason. Honestly, they did everything short of squeeze us to make sure we had gone. After that we found a spot and sat back to observe the other people in the crowd, which served as a great reminder that free tickets will bring people out of the woodwork, It was about as diverse a crowd as you will ever find. Young and old, everyone wants entertainment they don't have to pay for. Also, we were given bracelets and told they would be calling us up by color, which sounds like a very straightforward system, except the bracelets were not bright colors and the club had a strobe-light going, which meant depending on how the light was hitting it the bracelet looked several different colors. At different points of the night I was convinced my wristband was brown, gray, then purple, then black before ultimately deciding to call it 'smokey'. When they told us anyone with a black wristband should come forward we took the chance and by sheer dumb luck we had the right color.

At this point we were lead back up the stairs to the actual venue, where we were told to wait to be seated. This was a really nice way of telling us that we were about to be judged by the seating coordinator. The email confirming that I had tickets had come with a litany of rules for people going to the show such as not wearing too much white, no hats and nothing with big logos on it. Apparently, we had followed those instructions well, because we were seated in the third row, four seats in. For a while the seats in front of us remained empty and we got the speech from one PA about how important we would be for the comedian as the front row to bring energy and enthusiasm, but after that they filled in those seats with hipsters, blonds and various minorities and the idea of being in the front row went away. With that incentive gone I just kept watching the seating coordinator as she put some people here, other people there, left gaps to break up the groups of all men or all women and went about her task of trying to make an extremely well-thought out system look random to the people at home. It was interesting to watch. I took plenty of TV production classes in school and audience coordination never came up. She did have one big miss though, when she put one person in front of me who did not laugh the entire time. I know you want to have the crowd look like a Benetton commercial with all the races of the world represented, but I would think someone who actually looks like they like comedy would have been a better choice.

After everyone was settled in the warm-up act, Baron Vaughn, came out. He was really funny, even as he tried to remind everyone of the rules for yet another time. In addition to peeing now or holding it for the entire length of the show as well as the standard request to turn our cellphones off, we were told to put our coats under our chairs (he pointed out that it is a very strange request, but it can be distracting when you are watching at home), not to chew gum (that one was for our own benefit since we didn't want to be on camera with our mouths open) and to pretty much refrain from talking the entire time as the microphones around the stage would probably pick it up. I felt kind of bad for him trying to keep the mood light while going over all this stuff because nothing is better for comedy than a long list of rules. After Vaughn was done the show actually started with Logan going first and St. Germain second, both of whom were really funny, which was helpful. I was ready with my best fake laugh, but thankfully I didn't have to break it out. I don't want to tell you anything they said because I think you should just watch the specials but I can honestly say that I would have paid to see this show. (Please, Comedy Central, don't take that as an invitation to send me a bill.) We would have given them a standing ovation, but I think the crowd was too scared about being thrown out if we stood up.

I guess my only complaint about the entire evening was the way the seating was done. Sending us down into the club and then calling us by section felt a lot like how you board a Southwest airplane and there is a reason people prefer to fly almost any other airline. (Come to think of it, the venue was also a little like an airport because in the club they told us we couldn't bring our drinks up to the stage area, but once we were up there they had beers on sale. It's like how you can't bring a soda into the airport, but as soon as you are through security sodas are fine... and cost $6.) This is probably just my own neurosis, but I'm much more relaxed once I know I'm going to get a good seat, which is what makes me such a crappy airline passenger. I would have preferred it if they had made more of an effort to seat people in the order they arrived. I know it has everything to do with TV, but I watch a ton of comedy shows and I can assure you most comedy fans don't give the audience a second thought. Also, I know that it is a comedy show and as long as you can hear where you sit probably doesn't matter, but I think the comedians would appreciate having the audience members who were the most excited to see a show closer to the stage. And this is coming from a guy who had a good seat - I never saw the people ahead of me in line again, so God only knows where they ended up. I can only tell you where I ended up - third row, to the right, wearing a blue sweater. Feel free to look for me when these specials air.

Every Trick In The Book

Following last year's Oscar telecast, Jimmy Kimmel unveiled a trailer for a movie which he thought would be an instant contender for Best Picture the following year. As you probably guessed, he came up a little short on votes. So, this year he tried again and stepped up his game by including every movie cliche he could think of, while simultaneously showing just how silly the movie business can be. As you can see below, the results were very amusing. (It probably helped that he had tremendous production value and help from just about every buzz-worthy actor in Hollywood.) Honestly, I'm not sure which is worse - how accurate this is about the sorry state of movies and the crap movie going audiences are willing to accept or the fact that if this were real I would see it opening weekend.

Just The Good Parts

Last night was the Oscars, which always represents an internal debate for me over whether or not to bother watching them. On the one hand, I love movies. On the other, I can't stand award shows and the self-congratulatory nature of them. But in the end, since I think "Family Guy" is really funny, I figured I should tune in and support Seth MacFarlane, who I knew would get blasted for his performance no matter what he said or how he actually did. At least, that was the plan. The problem is that the producers of the Oscars appear to be frustrated football fans who were mad ABC didn't have the the Super Bowl this year, because the preamble for the Oscars was as interminable as it is on Super Sunday. I turned to the right channel at the time the guide told me to with every intention of watching the show but when I got there they were still doing the red carpet pre-show. Since I don't care about fashion I changed the channel, landed on a different show which kept my attention for the next 15 minutes, which of course triggered something else in my brain, so I started working on that, got distracted, forgot about the Oscars, turned on the Celtics game and by the time the game was over I figured I had missed so much of the show it wasn't even worth tuning in at that point. Maybe next year.

The good news for me is that I live in 2013, when everything which happens on TV is put on the web almost immediately. (No one is going to put the entire Oscar ceremony on the web, but that is actually for the best.) The only difference between the Oscars and any other TV show is that the Oscars have a very small window in pop-culture, which means you need to see the uploads as soon as possible or it's not even worth the effort. Fortunately, I have a fast internet connection so this morning I was able to click a few links, read which movie won which award, watch a few quick clips to see all the high points, heard all the best jokes and made myself aware of the moments which had everyone talking before I had finished my morning tea. Basically, it was just as good as watching the broadcast only I didn't have to sit through hours of awards I don't care about, hear speeches which ran too long and suffer through stretches where nothing interesting happened. Honestly, it was kind of great and I'm thinking of doing it that way with all award shows in the future. And if a lot of people decide to do it this way and skip the show for the online highlights the next morning the producers will have no one to blame but themselves.

As I said, I was on the fence about the show and the fact that the pre-show shenanigans ran so long ended up being the deal-breaker. This is becoming a disturbing pattern. I have noticed the trend in the last few years is to have very lengthy pre-shows which are almost as long as the actual show itself and while I don't know who it was that first decided this was a good idea, I would like them to know the rest of us would like to disagree with them. Last weekend's All-Star starting line-ups took an hour to get through and yesterday's Daytona 500 pre-race coverage was just as lengthy. As a result I tuned in well after the game and race had started because I didn't want to sit through it all. I feel like the problem is the pre-game shows for football manage to pull in decent ratings, so these TV executives probably assume people just like pre-game shows, when the reality is we just want to watch football and there aren't many alternatives for entertainment at 11 AM on a Sunday. Most of the audience has tuned in just to hear who appears on the injury report so as to adjust our fantasy football line-ups accordingly and then we tolerate the rest of the show while counting down until 1 o'clock. Believe me, if there was something else to watch which didn't involved Shannon Sharpe, most people would do that instead.

Of course, today's news stories are all about good the ratings for this year's telecast are which makes me look like I'm alone on this issue, but I bet they are still lower than what they could be based on taking too long to get to the show. I think the key thing for these TV producers is to remember that in this day and age people's attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. Thanks to over-stimulation people can only watch the same thing for about 3 hours, no natter how amazing it may be. When you are burning up half their attention span asking people what they are wearing and then having huge gaps filled with awards for Best Key Grip you can't be surprised when people start looking for something else to entertain them. And not only was the red carpet show stupid, it went long. The time the guide said the Oscars were actually going to start appeared to be nothing more than a suggestion. (That is another thing NFL pre-game shows have going for them - we know exactly the second they are going to end.) Without a specific time I was left to just keep tuning and out and each time I checked out something on another channel there was a chance I wouldn't come back, so when it finally happened no one could claim any great surprise. It's like anything else, really - if you want people to watch your show, don't make it harder for them by burying it behind two hours of people walking down a carpet having their picture taken. That crap is boring, you're up against 400 channels and I'm pretty sure there is a game on somewhere - when ratings are the name of the game the last thing you want to do is encourage people to start flipping around.

Flimsy Fences

I am not one of these people who thinks that just because I can drive a car I could be a NASCAR racer. I recognize that it takes a lot of endurance and skill to drive for 300 miles at 200 mph four inches from the car in front of you inside of a car where it is 100 degrees. And while I actually like auto racing, there is one thing I don't understand about the sport, which is why the races have to be so long, because it really doesn't feel like anyone starts trying to win until there are just a few laps to go? People are perfectly content to be in the middle of the pack for the first 170 laps, but as soon as there are 20 laps to go everyone starts trying to move to the front and with two to go it becomes a free for all. (It's a little like the NBA All-Star game that way.) I just think it would make a lot more sense to shorten the races down by about half as many laps and not only would that get people motivated to race a little harder a little earlier which the fans would enjoy, it would mean that when they get to the point that they all start driving like maniacs they won't also be on the verge of dehydration. Not only would this be a lot safer for all the drivers, as we were reminded yesterday, it would also be a lot safer for the fans.

During the final lap of yesterday's Nationwide race (think of it as NASCAR's AAA-level), several cars started jockeying for position as they entered the final turn. As so often happens one car hit another, a car went sideways, several cars tried to slow down to avoid an accident and were rear-ended, making a bad accident even worse. This is not uncommon. However, this time it went very bad for the fans in the few front rows because one of the cars went airborne and collided with the safety catch-fence, sending the engine through the wall and into the stands along with large chunks of the car. Several fans were sent to the hospital with injuries, but fortunately none of them were thought to be life-threatening. Watching the aftermath I couldn't help but feel like NASCAR is really lucky this doesn't happen more often. Driver safety has come a long way in the last few years with HANS devices, safer barrier systems and innovations in car safety, but things still go wrong and all the fans have to stop a car from coming at them in a chain-link fence. (Every driver was able to walk away from yesterday's carnage.) Honestly, it doesn't seem quite fair. This would be like going to the movies and suddenly the bad guy comes through the screen. I know NASCAR likes to pride itself as the most inter-active sport for fans, but I don't think this is what they had in mind.

Weekly Sporties

-As I mentioned last week, Spring Training has officially begun for every team in Major League Baseball, which means after just one week the beat writers are desperate for any new item to write about. We have reached the point where they only thing they can think of is to ask players on new teams about their old teams and hope one of them takes the bait, even though nothing good can come of it. This week it was former Ranger Josh Hamilton burning a few bridges when he said that Dallas is not a true baseball town. He thought that Rangers fans are bandwagon-jumpers who love the Cowboys the most and only show up to watch baseball when the team is playing well. He said the true baseball towns are places like New York, Boston and Philadelphia. (I couldn't help but notice he did not include LA, where he just signed. I think that was done on purpose. At least no one can say he was only trying to butter up his new fans.) Since no fanbase likes being called front-runners (even though every city has more than their share of them), Dallas was quick to defend itself, saying Hamilton's comments were sour grapes based more on his less-than-graceful exit from the team. The thing is, I actually have no problem with anything Hamilton said and if they are honest with themselves, neither should any Dallas residents. I don't think anyone will argue against saying football is king in Texas. Yes, there are people who live in that city who think baseball is the best sport, but those people are rare. If you polled everyone in that area and asked which team they wanted to win a championship the most the Cowboys would win and it wouldn't be very close. Hamilton gets points for honesty. For their part the Rangers say they will do just fine attendance-wise without Hamilton and I think that is true... as long as they are leading the division when Cowboys training camp opens.

-Speaking of football in Texas, this week it was revealed that Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel, the only freshman to ever win the Heisman trophy, is taking four classes this semester and all of them are on-line. Basically, that means if it weren't for spring football practice he would be required to spend as much time on the A&M campus as I would this semester. Now, technically there is nothing wrong with this. Plenty of legitimate schools have started to see the benefits of online classes. Plus, given the fact that Manziel is probably a big man on campus it actually makes some sense, because this way his presence won't be a distraction to his fellow students who may actually want to learn something. Still, Manziel needs to be careful here. Remember, he is still supposed to be a "student-athlete" and when it comes to the NCAA investigators too often perception is reality. There have already been several incidents to put him on their radar, such as pictures of him gambling the night away in a New Orleans casino and sitting in very expensive courtside seats at a Mavericks game. Manziel comes from a family who can easily afford such things, but just because his family has some money that won't stop certain people from assuming he is getting a little outside help. Seeing as how the last few Heisman trophy winners were the subject of NCAA investigations, I assume Manziel is under a spotlight from the NCAA to make sure he remains eligible. Since he is one of the few Heisman winners who actually remained in school the Aggies have a lot to lose if the NCAA finds a problem. And if we learned anything from this Miami Hurricanes debacle it is that if the NCAA investigators want to find a violation, they are going to do whatever it takes to do so. Even though he isn't doing anything wrong, Manziel may want to lower his profile for the rest of the offseason.

-Last weekend's NBA All-Star weekend was a pretty boring affair, right up until the last couple of minutes of the game when people started playing defense. The All-Star game is kind of a weird exhibition, because certain people take it seriously, other take it half-seriously and some see the entire weekend as a time to goof off. That is why it is hardly surprising that at least once every year we hear about some kind of friction between the people who take it super-seriously and those who only want to goof off. This year the tension was between Spurs coach Greg Popovich, who was coaching the Western Conference All-Stars, and Lakers' Center Dwight Howard. Apparently at one point Popovich drew up a play for Howard out of a timeout, only Howard wasn't paying attention, didn't know he was going in the game and still had his warm-ups on. According to some reports this lead to a string of obscenities being hurled at Howard from Popovich. I'm sure this is hardly the first time this has happened during an All-Star game, but the problem for Howard is that he has already been heavily scrutinized for being seen in certain circles as a guy who doesn't take the game seriously enough and in those peoples' eyes this is simply more proof that he doesn't have what it takes to be a champion. I have to say, for the first time in a few years I am on Howard's side of an issue. Seriously, it's the All-Star game - it doesn't count and no one remembers who won. Yes, Howard is immature, probably not getting enough out of his talent and if the Celtics had traded for him I would have put a fist through my TV, but if this story is true than Popovich is the one who needs to chill out a little. Every now and then these people need to remember they are getting paid to play a game and the All-Star Game is the perfect opportunity for that. Still, I can tell you this much - Howard is a free agent this summer and I am pretty sure he can scratch San Antonio off his list of suitors.

-Because the NFL doesn't actually believe in having an offseason, this week the NFL rules committee met to discuss a few changes. I'll say this about the league - they may not get every thing right, but when something is seriously wrong they correct it as quickly as they can. That is why it was hardly a surprise to hear that the NFL is close to implementing two new policies, both of which I approve of. The first fixes one of the stupidest rules the league has, which states that if a coach throws his challenge flag during a play which is already automatically being reviewed the coach gets a 15-yard penalty and the play is no longer allowed to be reviewed. Obviously this was put into place to prevent coaches from showing up officials and while I like the spirit of it, clearly there was a big flaw in the logic. The two main things which automatically get reviewed are turnovers and scoring plays and I don't care if a coach is trying to show people up, you really need to get those right. Fortunately the league plans to tweak the rule before next season. Coaches will still get a 15-yard penalty but now the play will still get looked at, which makes a tremendous amount of sense. Also, they will look to stop coaches from running out onto the field trying to intimidate refs by re-emphasizing the rule which is supposed to keep coaches on the sideline (they aren't officially calling this the 'Harbaugh Rule', but I think we know that is who it is aimed at). I like change as well. Half the time I feel like the coaches who run around screaming are just doing for attention anyway, so hopefully this will calm some of them down a little. Still, I can't help but find this whole thing ironic. This offseason the League can't do enough to protect its officials, whereas this time last year they were locking them out over to a few hundred thousand dollars. I'd like to think it was because the replacement refs showed them just how valuable the trained professionals are, but more likely it is because these new rule changes don't cost them any money.

-Speaking of policy changes, a couple weeks ago I mentioned the USGA and the Royal & Ancient, golf's two governing bodies, have proposed a rule which would outlaw the use of the anchored putter by the year 2014. At the time there were several players bellyaching about it, but I figured it was just the people who preferred to use that putting style who had a problem. However, this week the PGA Tour met with the players' advisory board and during the meeting it was revealed that close to 80% of professional golfers were against the ban (a much higher number than the percentage of people who actually use a long putter). If that number is true there could be a serious fight coming. Some are saying that if the players really dig in their heels the USGA and R&A may have to back off their proposal or risk the chance the PGA players will just ignore their rule banning anchored putters. That would put golf in the awkward position of having a rule which only applies during the US and British Opens. That could be really weird, but that is not what I found the most interesting aspect of this story. If ignoring rules is an option, why are we just getting to this now? Honestly, golf is full of dozens, if not hundreds of rules which should be tweaked in certain circumstance or outright ignored in others. Anchored putters are where people decided to draw their line in the sand? Seriously? They went with this instead of people watching at home being allowed to call in rules violations an hour after the tournament has ended, which can result in a player getting disqualified? Or the fact that if a single attached leaf is touching the sand in a bunker you aren't allowed to move rest of the branch should your ball go in the hazard? We're going to forgo those to fight so that guys with shaky palms can take their hands out of the equation and have a better chance of making a putt which could beat you? Look, I ignore rules on the golf course all the time and not only does it speed up my play, it makes the game a lot more fun. Trust me, if the PGA is going to start picking and choosing which ones it want to apply to itself, there are better ones to start fighting about.

-As a rule, it is never a good sign when people are telling you how bad an idea a contract is before the ink is even dry on the paper. Sure, everyone is an expert after a player gets hurt two years into a five-year contract, but it is rare to have the euphoria of a new contract wear off at the press conference to announce it. But, that was the case seven years ago when the New York Islanders signed goalie Rick DiPietro to a 15-year contract. Sure, DiPietro had a few solid seasons leading up to that deal, but no one thought it was a good idea to lock a player down for that long, even one playing a position as important as goalie. So, I have no doubt the Islanders have received more than their fair share of "I told you so!" emails since Friday when they placed DiPietro on waivers. That means DiPietro, who has spent the last few years struggling with injuries and has eight years remaining on his contract, will be sent to the minors if he clears waivers (which he will, because no one wants to pick up a massive contract with all that time left) and the Islanders will still be on the hook for the bulk of his salary. Now, since DiPietro is a former Boston University player, I'm sure several members of my family will be rooting for a comeback which can happen because he is still only 31 and goalies can play until they are in their 40s, but the first thing he needs to do is get out from under that deal. He was never going to live up to those expectations and, frankly, his agent never should have let him sign the deal, I don't care how much money he made. If DiPietro gets healthy and on the right team he could get back to the form that made him such a hot prospect to begin with. Meanwhile, the only thing the Islanders can hope to do is come to an agreement to buy out the rest of his deal this offseason and start rebuilding all over again. I would suggest an organization-wide policy of not signing anyone to a contract longer than five years as a good starting point.

-After baseball was voted out of the Olympics because it was one of the most costly sports (Atlanta may be the only place where the new baseball stadium came in handy after the Games were over), the professional leagues across the world got together to stage their own Olympic-style tournament called the World Baseball Classic. Unfortunately for them, much like Olympic baseball, most people haven't been paying attention. Because it takes place in the middle of Spring Training most of the players who are good enough to play in the Majors stay home rather than risk injury. So, what you end up with are teams full of fringe players, which I doubt is what the organizers had in mind when they started this thing. Plus, thanks to the fact it takes place in March, most players aren't in playing shape and the quality of the games can be low. Because of the timing and the rosters it is easy to forget that the WBC is actually taken very seriously by certain countries. However, this week we got a reminder of that when news broke that Taiwan had sent scouts to act as fake umpires to spy on the South Korean team in advance of the tournament. Apparently the scouts had shown up and were denied access to the South Korean facilities. So, rather than go home and lodge an official complaint, they decided the best course of action was to go to the stadium where the South Korean team was playing and pose as umpire trainees. They only got caught because someone thought there were far too many people in the umpiring seats and notice four of them were timing the Korean pitchers instead of taking notes on, you know, umpiring. For their part Taiwanese officials are claiming the four scouts acted on their own and were not ordered to do this. For Taiwan's sake I hope that is true because the only thing worse than losing a tournament most people don't care about participating in is cheating to win a tournament where the rest of the teams are only half-trying.

My Oscar Predictions

So, the Oscars are this Sunday and since America has a pretty healthy gambling problem that means it is time for people to start picking their winners and filling out office pools. Unfortunately, I failed in my quest to see most of the films nominated in the Best Picture category. However, that will not stop me from making a few guesses anyway. Actually, the way I look at it, the fact I didn't see certain movies should tell me all I need to know about them. If a film is truly the best its industry has to offer that year, shouldn't everyone, especially people like me who really enjoy a good movie, be dying to see it? If a movie isn't compelling enough for me to make time to get to the theater and see it, can it really be the best picture of the year? I say no. Which means Beasts of the Southern Wild is getting nothing this year. Anyway, here are the guesses as to who I think will win, not necessarily who I think should win.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Amour, Michael Haneke
Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino
Flight, John Gatins
Moonrise Kingdom, Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola
Zero Dark Thirty, Mark Boal

My Guess: Moonrise Kingdom. People tend to love Wes Anderson or totally hate him and while I don't think he is the genius most people want to portray him as, I certainly think his script was the best one of this particular bunch. Django was too much like every other Tarantino movie before it and since the most memorable scene in Flight was the CGI -heavy moment when the plane crashed it is hard to pick that as the best script. Zero Dark Thirty should win, but I think the laughable controversy about torture will probably prevent it from taking any awards home. There is a chance this will go for Amour because it is the kind of sentimental crap the Academy loves, but I'm sticking with Moonrise Kingdom.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Argo, Chris Terrio.
Beasts of the Southern Wild, Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin.
Life of Pi, David Magee
Lincoln, Tony Kushner
Silver Linings Playbook, David O. Russell

My Guess: Life of Pi. What I have noticed about this award in the last couple of years is that it has nothing to do with the quality of the movie and everything to do with how popular the story it was adapted from is. Lincoln may have the best story, but considering how many sources they have to pull it from, that does take some of the challenge out of it and I think the Hollywood-izing of the ending of Argo, adding extra drama that didn't need to be there, will be what stops it from taking home a trophy.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams, The Master
Sally Field, Lincoln
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook

My Guess: It's Hathaway. I mean, she is as close to a lock as you will see all show. Sally Field is the only one who has an outside chance of pulling off the upset, but since she hasn't even been seen this award season, I would say those chances are remote at best. I'm fine with Hathaway winning, because she was very good in Les Miserables, but I just hope she doesn't keep doing the Taylor Swift "What? Me?" routine I've seen as she pulls in award after award. You're the favorite and that's fine - just don't be fake humble, because that is actually worse than being arrogant.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Alan Arkin, Argo
Robert De Niro, Silver Linings Playbook
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

My Guess: Tommy Lee Jones. I have to be honest, anyone but De Niro would be fine with me for this one. Seriously, giving De Niro an award for this role, in which he is a shell of his former self, would essentially be giving him an award for finally appearing in a movie that doesn't suck. I don't think Arkin was in Argo enough to actually be supportive, but at least he was good when he was on screen. Waltz may have been the best of this group, but I just don't see Django as an Oscar-worthy movie. Since no one who saw The Master enjoyed it, that leaves us with Tommy Lee Jones. Hopefully he'll smile at least once during his speech.

BEST ACTRESS
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts, The Impossible

My Guess: Emmanuelle Riva. I'm going with the upset on this one. Everyone is saying the award is Lawrence's to lose, but the Academy loves throwing at least one curveball at us during the ceremony and this seems like the best spot for it. Riva, who will turn 86 the day of the Academy Awards, had never before been nominated and she plays a dying character in foreign film. Honestly, the only way the self-important Academy would have loved her role more would have been if she was a lesbian. Plus, Lawrence is 22 and will have plenty of time to get nominated again. My vote would have been for Chastain, but I will continue to pick the upset.

BEST ACTOR
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Denzel Washington, Flight

My Guess: Daniel Day-Lewis. Every now and again thinking is only going to get in your way - this is one of those times. Day-Lewis only makes a movie every two years, but every time he does he gets nominated for an Oscar. You add his reputation to a great role in a big movie and there is no reason to argue about this. Plus, I feel like actors who cut their teeth doing comedies like Cooper has have to do several serious roles before they are legitimate contenders, so he's out. As for the rest - I said in my original review that Jackman wasn't even the best Jean Val Jean I've ever heard, no one even knows why Phoenix's movie got so many nominations and Washington may only have been nominated because he's Denzel Washington. In retrospect this was not a very strong field.

BEST DIRECTOR
Michael Haneke, Amour
Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Ang Lee, Life of Pi
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

My Guess: Spielberg. I honestly don't get this category. You would find more people who want to give the award to people who aren't even nominated than 80% of the people who are. With Affleck, Tarantino and Bigelow out, all the drama went with them. When a category is this much of a formality you just hope Steven will keep his speech short.

BEST PICTURE
Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

Before revealing my pick, can I just say how dickheaded I thought the Academy was to nominate nine movies when they could have nominated 10 and thrown something like The Dark Knight Rises into the mix? I know it probably wasn't the best movie of the year, but it made hundreds of millions of dollars and was probably better than a couple of these nominees. You don't have to give it any awards, but at least acknowledge it was a good movie. I think they the only reason they didn't is because they have a bias against super hero movies, even though the quality of sci-fi movies have increased exponentially over the last few years. If you ever needed proof as to just how out of touch Oscar voters are, this category could be exhibit A.

My Guess: Lincoln. Since Argo has been cleaning up at all the pre-Oscar award shows some people have predicted that bodes really well for its Oscar chances. Personally, I don't think that matters since the voting was done months ago. Because of that I look at the rest of the nominations and use how many it didn't get to make my pick. Also, there are parts of that movie which are light and I find the self-important voting members of the Academy (read: all of them), probably think this award should only go to movies which are all-serious, all the time. Again, Zero Dark Thirty was the best movie I saw this year, but every now and again people get an idea in their head and refuse to let it go. This year too many people hopped in the "this movie is pro-torture" bandwagon and there was no getting them off it. The good news is that while Lincoln may not be my choice, it is still a good movie and not something we will look back on with outrage, such as Shakespeare in Love instead of Saving Private Ryan. The Academy will never, and should never, live that one down.

My Personal Normal

This week the PGA Tour is playing just outside Tucson, Arizona with Accenture Match Play Championship. It's one of my favorite tournaments of the year because it is so unique. Rather than the traditional 144 guys going out and playing the same holes for four rounds and seeing who has the lowest score, this week the field of 64 is paired up like the NCAA Tournament and the players have to knock each other out one at a time. It's definitely a nice change of pace from the rest of the year, though given how few times the best players actually make it to the finals I'm sure the PGA Tour is happy they only do it once a year. Since this tournament has such an unusual format, I guess it is only fitting that it also has the most unusual weather. As I mentioned, they are outside Tucson, which is about 30 miles from the Mexican border. Now, I know Mother Nature has decided to use this particular winter to remind us just how cold it should be between December and March, but I don't think anyone was expecting it to start snowing during this tournament. They certainly didn't expect it to keep snowing, especially not to the point where there was accumulating snow on the ground, forcing the cancellation of the first day of play.

The pros themselves seemed to take it rather well - making snowmen next to the greens, tweeting out tons of 'golf ball in the pile of snow' pictures and throwing snowballs at the reporters trying to give their studio updates. Some of them were marveling because this was the first time they had even seen snow. Sure, the fact that they are a bunch of well-compensated golfers probably helped lighten the mood, but I also think it has to do with the fact that then knew this would just be a temporary setback. Don't believe all the hype you may have heard about this story, like when they said it was blizzard conditions at the course and I don't think they ever got that bad. The residents of this area were just reminded what a blizzard looks like and that wasn't it. The course found itself under three or four inches of slushy snow it was not prepared for, but that is about two feet less than what you expect to find during a blizzard, so consider this New England resident unimpressed. Not to mention most of the snow had melted away by the following morning which, as we certainly know around here, doesn't happen with actual blizzards. (Certain parts of my deck still have two feet of snow on it.) This storm was an inconvenience and an anomaly, but not the sign of the apocalypse some media members were portraying it to be.

Still, it did remind me of just how hilarious it can be when an area gets (non-life-threatening) weather it is woefully unprepared for. I've found that traditionally warm places have the worst time adjusting to extreme cold as compared to people who live in colder areas who have to deal with a heatwave. I assume it is because it is easier to get cold than warm yourself back up. Still, this is the desert. The only thing I know about the desert is that for as hot as it gets during the day, it is freezing at night, so you would think they would pack for both temperatures just in case they wanted to go out after the round. But that was not the case. For example, half the caddies were wearing shorts. Also, the pro shop ran out of ski hats before 10 AM. But the most unprepared people appeared to be the ones who were trying to shovel the snow with any flat surface they could find. It was like no one ever told them any object, but especially snow, will get harder to push the more of it builds up in front of a flat surface. This is why plows are angled and shovels are curved. I can understand being somewhat unprepared for snow in Arizona, but it is not like they've never seen a shovel before. They watch Christmas movies out there, don't they?

I guess I shouldn't judge too harshly just because I see snow all the time and thus it is totally normal to me. I'm sure there are plenty of things out in Arizona which would cause me to freak out but wouldn't phase someone who has lived in the state for their entire lives in the slightest. For example, scorpions. As near as I can tell people who live in Arizona treat scorpions like you and I treat ants, whereas I would be on the first plane back to Massachusetts the first time a scorpion came into my house. Also, haboobs. While I would be concerned at the thought of a giant wall of dust coming my way, the typical Tucson resident knows just to move the picnic inside and shut the windows. (I have to say - I've always wondered about the people who originally settled Arizona. Who hacked their way through the wilderness, saw all that sand and was like, "Yeah, here's good.") Basically, everyone has their own version of normal and it can vary wildly from one place to another, so we shouldn't judge the people who live in an area unless we have spent time there ourselves. That being said, it's February - put on some long pants.

Tidy Trash

I have no statistical evidence to back this up but I believe roughly 85% of things which are near their breaking point will hang on until winter and break then. It could be that this is just my perception, but there are valid points you could make if you felt like talking yourself into it. For example, you could argue it is because the items we use indoors get more use when we are trapped inside by snow and sub-zero temperatures and the increased wear and tear is just too much. I know that the batteries in my remote certainly got a workout during the blizzard. Meanwhile, the outdoor items are breaking simply because they sat for long periods of time before suddenly being frequently called upon and now can't handle the harsher conditions even though that is what they were made for. I've certainly never snapped a shovel in the spring, but have done it multiple times during past winters. Then again, it could just be that it seems like more things are breaking because all I want to do is get inside and every extra minute spent trying to get the snowblower to start feels like an hour. The point is that I feel like if something has a weakness, Old Man Winter is going to find it and expose it to the world.

The other day I was out clearing some snow and thought I may have heard a ripping noise. I was concerned it was my very nice winter coat, but once I was inside I couldn't find any tears. Relieved, I assumed it was in my head and went back to doing my various indoor activities. That was when someone else pointed out to me that I had a fairly large hole in my jeans. Apparently the strain of shoveling yet again was simply too much for these jeans to bear and they had ripped from just below the back right pocket in a straight line across to the inseam. At first I thought about simply sewing the hole closed. After all, I have become quite good at repairing small rips in my shirts and no one being any the wiser. However, repairs to my jeans have not been as successful. That means that I could technically fix them but I could never again wear them out in public and instead they would have to make a fine pair of "working around the house" pants. As you may know, I have a formula when it comes to stuff like this - it's all about the cost of replacing an item compared to how hard it will be to fix it divided by the time repairing it will take. Since these were just a cheap pair of jeans that never really fit all that well to begin with and I already have plenty of working around the house pants compared to how much working around the house I actually do, I decided to forget it and throw them away. For about an hour I thought about being very environmentally friendly and donating them to an organization which turns ripped denim into household insulation, but the company is located in Arizona and I would have to ship the jeans to them, which seems like more of a hassle than it is worth. Ultimately, I found myself back to the point of just throwing the ripped jeans out. What's weird is that for some reason I felt like I had to wash them one last time before I did.

I understand washing a piece of clothing you plan to donate because not only is that good manners to make sure anything you give away is in solid working order, it saves the charity a step and gives the people who may need the clothes just a little bit of comfort knowing that you cared enough about them to not give them something which has been in the back of your closet for a decade and smells like mothballs. However, that is not the case here. This is just my insane need to feel like I have nice garbage, even though no one is ever going to see it. When I was a kid trash day would bring out all sorts of folks who would go from street to street, inspecting what people had placed at the curb and if they thought the item had any kind of value they would take it away. Honestly, the chances a couch you put on on Sunday night would still be there on Monday morning were slim. But since my town belongs to the cult of the green trash barrels and only allows you to throw away certain items those people have pretty much vanished. And even if there were people going through my trash looking for something of value, at that moment do they really have the right to judge how nice the stuff I am throwing away really is? I thought beggars weren't allowed to be choosers.

The only good part of this moment was that I knew what I was doing was stupid. I think everyone is crazy to some degree, the only thing separating people who are full-blown crazy from the people who aren't is that the non-crazy people will take a step back in the middle of a crazy act to tell themselves how stupid they are being. Self-awareness makes all the difference. Even as I was putting the ripped jeans in the washing machine I felt like kind of an idiot. Not only were they not that dirty to begin with, they were coming out of the dryer and going directly into the trash, so what was the point? (I would say it as stupid as rinsing paper plates before you threw them away but, yeah, I do that too. Guards against raccoons.) Perhaps I thought that just in case someone felt like rescuing and repairing them they would have one fewer item on the to-do list. The more likely thing going in my head is that, as I learned a few years ago when my family was having its first (and to this date, last) yard sale, people tend to value their stuff, even the things they no longer want, a lot more than a total stranger would. Admittedly, I don't expect to see anyone digging out my old jeans come trash day this week, but if they do I hope they are comforted by the fact they should still smell like a mountain breeze.

A Perpetual Motion Story

I admit to being slightly confused when people declare that they plan to go out and see every movie which has been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar once the finalist have been announced. Sure, I can see why you may want to see the contenders but I think we all know that once they expanded the category to the point it could have up to 10 movies a few of those films were only nominated to fill out the roster. So, if you were on the fence about seeing a movie I can understand why an Oscar nomination may push you over but if a movie looks terrible the first 50 times I see a preview no amount of critical praise is going to change my mind and get me to buy a ticket, especially when I don't like to listen to critics in the first place. (For example, this year there is no amount of awards which could get me to see "Amour".) I've missed plenty of Oscar winners in the past and I don't feel any large holes in my life, so I couldn't even guess how many nominees have passed me by. However, I admit that there are enough people who may be willing to have their minds change, so I totally understand why movie studios figure it is worth a shot to squeeze out a few more dollars and re-release an Oscar nominee which is now out of the theaters, especially since they can't cash in with merchandise like a kids movie. (I certainly haven't seen any "Argo" action figures.) The problem comes for those movies which come out around the same time as the nominations are announced. If those people want to keep the money coming in after the Oscar buzz dies, sometimes they have to get creative.

The last time I saw "Les Miserables"on stage in Boston they made a big deal of saying it would be the last time it would ever be in the city. Of course, I didn't believe it at the time. Nothing that successful ever really goes away. Besides, creating a false deadline is one of the oldest marketing tricks in the book and no one from the audience complained about it. While I am not sure if the show ever made it back to that theater, I am confident it has been performed in the commonwealth at some point in the last couple of years. After the movie came out in December and reignited interest in the musical I figured it was only a matter of time before it was officially revived and sent on tour again. Turns out I didn't even have to wait that long, because this afternoon it was announced that the show will be returning to Broadway in March of 2014 (and I thought movies liked to release previews too many months in advance). However, this is not going to be a simple revival of the show, as the producers are going to bring a few aspects from the movie to the re-imagined stage show. In other words: the new musical will be based more on the movie which was based on the previous musical which was based on the play which was based on the book. Everybody got that?

Of course, this is hardly the first time this has happened. Pretty much every successful Broadway play has been made into a movie at one time or another and Disney has been turning their animated movies into Tony-award winning musicals for the last decade. It makes a lot of sense - it is not often you can get two movies out of the same script (even though with the really bad sequels it may feel like you are watching the same movie) and be sure you will have an audience ready when the movie opens. Anytime Hollywood sees a shortcut you know they are going to try it and if it works once they have no problem going to the well a second time. Mel Brooks's great movie the "Producers" may have had the strangest circle of all. It started out as a funny-but-not-particularly-lucrative movie (hard to imagine it now, but it was very controversial in its day), was converted into one of most successful Broadway musicals of all time, winning a record number of Tony Awards and then they made a second, about-as-lucrative-as-the-first-movie version of the musical. I fully expect a movie version of Monty Python's "Spamalot" within a couple of years.

This reason this particular case sounds like a really bad idea to me is because I fear the producers are appealing to the wrong audience. Let's be honest - those audience members whose first experience with the story came in the movie theater are not going to come out and watch the stage version. They had 25+ years to do that and never made it a priority. The people who really drove "Les Mis" to box-office success were the theater nerds who had seen it multiple times on stage, loved it and dragged a few of their friends to the movies. I wrote this in my initial review of the movie, but it really felt like the more people loved the stage version the less they enjoyed the film adaptation. Therefore, if you were planning to revive the stage version, wouldn't you want it to stay more true to the original musical and get those people back to the theater? Not only is it less work, but it actually feels like the better plan. If they simply wanted to add the one new song they wrote for the movie to the stage (even though it wasn't very good) I think that would work out for both parties. Plus that way they can re-do the movie and make it closer to the stage version, then send the stage show out on another tour and on and on. Considering they can't very well make a sequel, this may be the only way to keep the story going.

Going My Way?

Whenever I am driving I find I have an internal clock which, when it goes off, tells me I am sick of seeing the same car in front of me. What is odd is that I never know when that clock is going to expire as it seems to vary from situation to situation. If the other driver is doing something to annoy me or the car is billowing exhaust, it obviously goes off faster. But sometimes I will be driving down the highway and, for no reason whatsoever, decide I just can't stare at the back of this Chevy Malibu for another mile - I simply must get around them and change the view. I often wonder if the driver is feeling the same way about me because I know I don't like having the same car behind me for too long as well. Even though I can't think of any excuse for anyone to ever follow me around, if a car has been behind me for several miles and starts taking too many of the same turns I start to get paranoid. Even if we're about to turn onto main highways, where 9 out of every 10 cars on the road will be turning, I become convinced they are going to follow me all the way home. I often joke about one day following through on following a random person for a few miles and then asking them a stupid question just to freak them out, but this afternoon I discovered the person who would be most freaked out by this would be me.

It started as I was driving on the street and a Chevy Tahoe cut me off. Admittedly, this would have made me annoyed in any situation, but I wouldn't have been as mad at the young guy for squeezing his 10-foot truck into a space which was 10-feet and 4 inches long if he had used a turn signal. However, no signal was given and so I fired a few expletives at him and felt better for expressing myself. Also, he did that move all drivers do when they know they just did something bad, which is I caught him looking at the mirror to see how pissed off I was. A few minutes later I needed to get over to make my turn and looked in my mirror to see if the lane was clear. It was, so I started to merge over. When I looked up I saw that the Tahoe had also begun to move over, a few seconds before I did. Strange, but clearly both of us are aggressive drivers so going for the same open space is to be expected. However, I don't think the driver of the Tahoe felt that way because he suddenly put on a burst of speed like he was trying to get away from me. I found that kind of amusing because he didn't have any place to go and by flooring it had gained maybe 50 feet of distance, but since I know people are always starring in their own personal action movie in their head I was willing to allow him his fantasy moment.

When we got to the next intersection I was having a moment of indecision about which way to go. I ultimately decided to take the turn and when I got into the turning lane I once again found myself behind my new friend in the Tahoe. This made me chuckle, because as I saw him once again looking at me in his mirror I had visions of him getting genuinely concerned I was still mad about being cut off and was following him to a place where I could easily voice my displeasure to his face. But, the turn we were both taking was still fairly well-traveled, so it is not like he had any reason to be concerned. The problem arose when we took the same four turns within the next few miles. Either he was doing the same errands I was or he also has a strange affinity for taking roads which may be shorter but require three times as many turns. At this point I was nearly home and the script turned. Suddenly I concerned he would be going down my street, like he was somehow following me from the front (damn my need to always use a blinker - it's a dead giveaway.) When I finally turned and he went straight I don't know which one of us was more relieved.

I assume the reason we get sick of seeing the same car for extended periods of time is because is goes against the very reason for taking a drive, which is to see something different. If we wanted to stare at the same thing for long stretches we would stay home and stare at the TV. It is actually far easier to explain why I get twitchy about a car making too many of the same turns as me. When I was probably too young to watch it I saw "Duel". For those of you who never saw that movie, it is about a traveling salesman on a road trip who does nothing out of the ordinary and yet somehow manages to piss off the wrong trucker. The psycho trucker spend the rest of the film trying to kill the salesman without ever giving a reason. Much like "Jaws" made me worried about swimming in the ocean, "Duel" (both Spielberg films) was a lovely reminder that road rage is real and there are tons of crazy people who have driver licenses. Sure the odds they were in the Tahoe in front of me were very low, but I bet the chances are better than getting bitten by a Great White shark and that happens several times a year. I can't very well stop driving, but I certainly will make sure to change the scenery outside my windshield every few miles.

Watching The Watchers

Obviously, the biggest story over the last couple of days was the meteorite which crashed into Russia early Friday morning. The rock, which was roughly the same size as a shoolbus before it broke into several smaller (though still large) pieces, hit with roughly the same force as a 1940s-era atomic bomb. The shockwave following the landing was felt for miles, leveled a zinc factory, shattered almost every windows for 30 miles and injured nearly 1,000 people. As you would expect, there is a lot to delve into with this story. The first is the rather ironic twist that for most of the week everyone was focused on the large asteroid which was set to buzz the Earth later Friday afternoon and while we couldn't stop talking about the thing which was going to miss us by 17,000 miles (which isn't a big difference when thought about in the context of space) we were totally unaware regarding the thing which actually hit us. (Space is sneaky that way.) I could also rail about why this is a perfect metaphor for why the world should spend more money on space exploration, because space is pretty big and we aren't monitoring enough of it.

However, the main thing which I can't stop thinking about is how many cameras caught a glimpse of this meteor as it flew across the sky. I mean, no one knew this coming, so it is not like they could set up cameras. Plus, it didn't happen near a major city. It happened in Siberia, which is literally the place most people would use when trying to think of an example of a place in the middle of nowhere. Despite that, within a couple hours we had 20 different camera angles to check out and not only were there multiple cameras, the pictures were clear - not the grainy, low-quality shots you would expect. It just goes to show you how much you are on camera without realizing it. Between security cameras, dashboard cameras and cellphones it is actually rare that something happens without being captured for posterity. If anything, this just proves why people are right to say they will no longer believe something without seeing it for themselves. If the world can produce multiple clear videos of an event which happened for 30 seconds in one of the more remote part of the worlds than I'm not going to believe aliens landed outside your door without definitive proof. (Sorry, hoaxers, the bar has been raised.) Just remember: you may be watching the sky, but someone is watching you while you do.

Weekly Sporties

-Early in the week an already volatile college basketball season took another turn towards chaos when Kentucky super-freshman Nerlens Noel tore his ACL in a game against Florida. I know Kentucky hadn't been having the season many people expected, but the Wildcats had started to come together in the last couple of weeks and had all the makings of a team you didn't want to face in the NCAA Tournament. They are still dangerous, but not nearly as much of a threat to repeat with Noel on the sidelines. Now the focus has turned toward's Noel's future. Before this injury he was projected as the top pick in the NBA draft and his injury has some questioning if the NCAA and NBA should take a second look at the rule which requires players to go to college for at least one year. I was in favor of that rule before Noel got hurt and, not surprisingly, I'm still in favor of it. Look, there is no denying that what happened to the kid sucked. However, playing the NBA is a privilege, not a birthright. Hopefully this will teach some other kids that maybe they shouldn't put all their focus into becoming a NBA player because injuries can happen at any time. Also, the stance that kids who are ready should be able to go right to the NBA because getting hurt could cost him millions of dollars takes a bit of a hit when you learn that tearing an ACL dropped Noel from being the projected top pick all the way to being projected as the third pick in the draft. Costly, but not that bad. Also, Kyrie Irving played all of 7 games at Duke before declaring for the draft and he also went #1, so it is not like NBA teams are scared away by injuries. The only people getting screwed in this deal are the fans of Kentucky because they didn't even get the one season they expected out of this kid. However, the Wildcats are in line to have another top recruiting class next year and I'm sure they won't be hurting for exciting players, so I hope those fans don't expect me to feel too bad for them.

-If Nerlens Noel has any question about just how careful NBA teams are willing to be regarding knee injuries of important players someone needs to give him Derrick Rose's cell phone number (I assume Coach Calipari has it). Rose, the Chicago-born talent who tore his ACL in the first game of last year's playoffs and sent the city into a state of depression, is just now beginning certain basketball-related activities and analysts have begun to wonder if he could be back in time for the playoffs. That would be one year removed from the injury, which is pretty much the standard recovery time for an ACL tear. What is interesting about this story is that a lot of people don't want Rose to come back at all this season even if he gets cleared by doctors and the loudest call for this course of action is coming from Bulls fans. You would think they would want Rose back to make a run at a championship but they are far more concerned about him making the knee worse and would rather he take the entire offseason to continue rehabbing the knee and make sure he is 110% healthy when he returns. I totally agree with that plan because while Bulls are overachieving this year I still don't think they could beat the Heat with Rose, who would be rusty, and his return could actually disrupt the team as they try and force-feed him the ball to get back to game shape. Frankly, it is not worth the risk he could re-injure the knee and miss even more time. As an outsider, it makes tremendous sense to think long-term with Rose's career. Having him sit for the entire year and come back fresh for next season is the smart and rational plan, but since when are sports fans rational? Ultimately the decision will be Rose's and players always want to play, so I expect him to give it a try. Still, the organization must be comforted by the fact that if they decide to hold Rose out the fans will be on their side.

-If I thought I couldn't have been more in favor of college football's plan to finally implement a playoff system, I forgot one of the key elements to picking which teams make the field is going to be strength of schedule. Most people thought this was going to be the way the BCS conferences got together to make sure schools like Boise State had no chance of crashing the playoff party and while that may be true, I had hoped it would also result in the breaking up a few of the conference's tradition of playing only the teams they were required to play and then filling out the rest of their dates with schedule fodder they were guaranteed to beat. While I can't be totally sure certain SEC teams won't continue to schedule West Culinary Academy between tilts with Alabama and LSU, at least the Big Ten is taking the idea to heart. This week Wisconsin AD Barry Alvarez said the the Big 10 is going to make a commitment to stop scheduling sub-Div. I teams. This means no more inviting East Central Montana State to Michigan so the Wolverines can win by 70 and ECMS makes a few hundred thousand dollars to keep their program afloat. As you would anticipate, I love this news. Yes, it will definitely force a few smaller programs to either change over to being D-I schools or close the program down, but I think that may actually be for the best. If you can't afford to fund football without taking a paid beating than you probably shouldn't have a football program in the first place. But mostly I like this news because it means the mantra of every college football fan - every game counts - actually rings true. I can't stand it when a team goes 9-2, but 4 of those wins were against terrible teams. If you want to be included in the playoffs you are going to have to earn your way in and that will include beating other tough teams. And if the fans of a team start complaining about this development, I think you can tell it is because they know their schedule isn't hard enough.

-You know, for all the success the NFL has enjoyed in the past decade they continue to exhibit signs of being terribly insecure about their place as America's new pastime. Sometimes it feels that whenever the league thinks people may not talk about one of their teams for a full day (unlikely), some executive is ordered to say something crazy which will get the people talking. Usually this takes the form of some crazy rule change, as was the case this week when former Colts' President Bill Polian floated the idea that one way to improve safety would be to have the league widen the field by 10 yards. Polian contends that the extra space would give players more room to operate, lessening the chances a player gets taken out in the middle of the field. Also, he thinks by spreading the teams out a little more it would cut down on vicious gang tackling. (It would probably increase scoring as well, which I don't think the NFL would ever be against.) I guess the idea has some merit, but this idea would require changing literally every stadium in the league and I just don't see it happening. The NFL may say they want safety, but not at the expense of a couple rows of seats where they can charge a few hundred bucks for each chair. Also, while increased space would make the game more wide-open, I do wonder what would happen when safeties (who are already the guys responsible for most of the more staggering hits in the game), have an extra five yards to gain even more momentum before colliding with a defenseless receiver. Honestly, a few of these hits would have been even worse if the defenders had a chance to get a running start. So, much like the idea to totally eliminate kickoffs or give teams the option to convert a 4th and 15 rather than punt, I don't see it getting very far in meetings. But, at least it got us talking, which I'm sure is all the NFL really wanted.

-Spring Training is underway across baseball, which means all the photos of slightly out-of-shape athletes doing stretches you could ever want are at your fingertips. Now, since I only care about 50% of regular season games and those actually count, you can probably tell that I don't pay much attention to a bunch of games where the teams play against themselves for practice. However, there is one part of Spring Training I do enjoy and that is annual tradition of traded players airing grievances against their former team. You know, they publicly complain about the team they are no longer on and then try to act like it doesn't matter by saying, "But that's all in the past. I'm a [fill in the blank] now." at the very end. First it was Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez talking about how bad the Red Sox clubhouse was last year. (Yeah, we already knew that.) But my favorite was new Blue Jays' shortstop Jose Reyes talking about just how horrible Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria was, saying that even two days before the trade went down he was advising Reyes to buy a big house in Miami and make himself comfortable. Now, you could argue that maybe Loria was unaware the trade was eminent, but that deal had a lot of moving parts and probably didn't come together in a day. My guess is he was just being disingenuous because he didn't want the news leaked and public outcry to kill the deal. In some ways it shows Loria is a smart businessman, but I'm pretty sure the players don't see it this way. He's already got a reputation as a terrible owner and this is not going to help him bring in any free agents. They already had an image problem and with every story like this which comes out that image gets even worse. Soon they will only be able to sign over-the-hill free agents and young players who may be talented but will bolt as soon as possible. The only good news about this? It looks like the Yankees may finally have a trade partner to offload Alex Rodriguez.

-I admit that when they come around I only watch the Olympics with half my attention and have no desire to see most of these sports outside of those two weeks every four years. However, even with my attitude towards the games I was stunned when I found out the International Olympic Committed voted to drop wrestling from the 2020 Olympics so they can add a new sport. This was shocking because wrestling has been around since 1896 or, as it is know in some circles, "as long as the modern Olympics have existed." It was also removed as one of the 25 core sports, being voted out instead of sports like the modern pentathlon, taekwondo and field hockey (everyone thought it would be the pentathlon voted out because who needs to be good at horseback riding, fencing, swimming, running and shooting?). Now, wrestling still has a chance to be be included in the 2020 games, but to do so it must be picked from a pool which includes baseball and softball, wakeboarding, karate, squash, sport climbing, wushu (I don't know what that is) and roller sports. Like I said, I don't really pay attention to wrestling for most of the time so I can understand when the IOC said part of this decision was based on ratings and ticket sales. But if the IOC was going to eliminate sports based on ratings I'm pretty sure the Olympics would essentially be down to gymnastics, basketball and track. I guess the real reason this bothers me is because I am pretty confident that the true motives behind wrestling being voted out is because they didn't bribe the right people. Everything about the Olympic Committees feel corrupt and that is exactly the opposite of what the Olympics are supposed to be about. It's a shame this is real wrestling and not the WWE stuff, because then all the problems could be solved with a well-timed chair-shot to someone's head. Also, I'm pretty sure that would fix the ratings problem.

-One of the sports being added for the 2016 games as well as being framed as the main culprit for why wrestling is being eliminated is golf. And while I love golf, I actually agree with the people who don't think it should be in the Olympics (definitely not at the expense of wrestling, anyway). However, I do take exception to all the wrestling fans who spent the week bashing golfers as not being as tough as wrestlers. If you want to know how tough golfers can be look no further than Sweden's Daniela Holmqvist. Early this week Holmqvist was trying to qualify for the Australian Open when she felt a sharp pain on her ankle. She looked down and saw a black spider with a red dot on its back starting to scamper away and immediately crumpled in pain. Quickly figuring out she was in a bad spot, Daniela decided against waiting for medical personnel to show up, took out a tee, widened the holes of the spider bite with it and proceeded to squeeze out the venom. As if that wasn't bad-ass enough, she then finished the round under the eyes of paramedics and shot 74. While this story does fill me with admiration for Holmqvist, it made me think about what I would do in that situation and I have decided I do not love golf enough to play through a spider bite. (I also decided I now have even less of a desire to go to Australia. The entire place just seems dangerous. The first day of the tournament also featured a delay as a flock (swarm? school?) of kangaroos crossed the course. Clearly the animal revolution is coming, it is starting in Australia and they have a grudge against golf.) I think the worst part of this story is the fact that despite her valiant effort Holmqvist didn't qualify for the tournament. You would think the Australian Open officials would have deemed this a special circumstance. Seriously, getting bitten by a poisonous spider isn't worth getting a couple of strokes per side?

Dying For Improvement

Unless you live in a cave somewhere you are probably aware that the fifth movie in the "Die Hard" franchise - "It's A Good Day To Die Hard" - opened in theaters today. Not only has the movie been endlessly promoted with commercials, but I have barely been able to click on a website without seeing Bruce Willis's face on advertising banner. The movie hasn't been getting very good reviews so far, which doesn't surprise me for a couple of reasons. The first goes back to my theory that the more a movie is promoted in obscure ways, the worse it is going to be. (Just remember, you never saw the stars of "Lincoln" sitting courtside at a Lakers game hoping to get a mention.) Secondly, action movies never get good reviews. The high-and-mighty movie critics never seem to think a movie is good unless it is trolling for Oscars, which is why I never pay attention to them when deciding whether or not to see an action movie. But, the third and most important reason I wasn't expecting good reviews for the latest Die Hard movie is because the last couple of installments have not been good. Seriously, has there ever been a movie franchise with such diminishing returns?

Look, I love the original "Die Hard" as much as anyone. In many ways, it is the perfect action movie. It is just the perfect actor for the role and the script of 'right guy in the wrong place at the right time' was so well done it has been endlessly copied ever since. It's been running on the cable movie channels all week and I can't help but watch a few minutes of it almost every time it is on. Also, I am one of the few people who doesn't think "Die Hard II" was awful. It wasn't as good as the original, but sequels never are. To me the franchise went off the rails in the third one when the added Samuel L. Jackson as the buddy sidekick. Plus, they went too big in that movie. What made the original so amazing was that it was over-the-top, but not offensive. I know the producers had to step up the action for the sequels or otherwise it would have just been the movie as before, but they went too far. I understand that all action films require the audience to suspend some level of reality and most audience members are willing to go along in the name of entertainment, but the really good action movies don't abuse that relationship just because they have a big budget. That is what made the fourth "Die Hard" movie so awful - suddenly Bruce Willis is jumping onto moving jet fighters and driving cars into helicopters. It was just too much. The previews for the latest edition appear to take it to an even more preposterous level.

I tried to think of another movie franchise which hung on too long and genuinely couldn't come up with one. Unlike TV shows which can stay on the air long after most fans stop watching, it is rare that movie franchises keep going once America decides they have had enough. It generally feels like movie franchises run out of steam by the third one (Spiderman, X-Men), which is why they get rebooted in one form or another but don't really count as being the same franchise. Had they stopped after "Die Hard: With A Vengeance" it would have been just another franchise that pressed its luck and went to the well too many times, but they now made two more movies after they ran out of steam. If you're doing the math at home that is four movies based on the same character which, depending on who you talk to, resulted in only 1 or 2 quality films. Armed with that math it is actually kind of surprising they decided to make a fifth installment at all. I can only assume it was because, like "Rocky Balboa" was supposed to wipe away the memories of "Rocky V", they were hoping this movie was going to be more of a throwback to the original and would make everyone forget about "Live Free Or Die Hard." (I'm pretty sure that dream ended as soon as they saw the rough cut of the first few scenes.) If this was the James Bond franchise they would have switched actors a long time ago, but I'm pretty sure Bruce Willis wouldn't let anyone else play this character.

The biggest concern is if the latest "Die Hard" movie is as bad as everyone expects it to be it will start to reflect negatively on the previous installments. Unlike with the "Indiana Jones" movies, where the last one was so bad it caused people to look back on "Temple of Doom" (clearly the weakest of the previous three) with a new-found respect, I would be worried that another bad "Die Hard" movie will make people downgrade the original. If this movie bombs that means three of the franchise's five attempts were poor, which isn't a great winning percentage. Much like a baseball GM, you are only as good as the last prospect you found and you can't live off past success forever. I'm sure the movie will open up to good numbers, but that will be more a product of the time of year (remember, putting out a movie when 40% of the country has snow on the ground is a great way to inflate the attendance numbers because people go to the movies more when it's cold) and the fact that there are no other huge movies opening up this weekend. This time of year it feels like every movie gets a turn at being #1, but that doesn't equal quality. I'll be interested to see how good the numbers for the second weekend are, because if we have learned anything from the "Die Hard" franchise it is that one good outing doesn't mean something positive is destined to follow.

Downtown Alley

Once again we have landed on Valentine's Day, a date which is supposed to be the most romantic 24 hours on the calendar. Personally, I think you should try to be at least a little romantic to your significant other every day of the year and instead use Valentine's Day to show the world at large a little love. Anyway, since I continue to think my private life is none of the internet's business, instead of writing about romance today we will keep up this blog's tradition of instead writing about something I love. This year's object of my affection? Those moments when my sense of direction actually works.

In the last year I have come to appreciate just how good my GPS is at getting me where I need to go. When I first got it I would question whether or not it was accurate and occasionally disobey its orders. But, after a few wrong turns and finding out I had a knack for taking the long way without realizing it, at this point I pretty much go where I am told. However, this obedience only works when I am going someplace I have never been before. I have a pretty good memory for directions and after I have driven to a location once I am about 80% able to get back there without any help the next time around, which means on return trips I leave the GPS in the glove compartment. Where I get into trouble is when I am somewhat close to my final destination and run into some kind of construction or can't find parking and am required to take an couple of unanticipated turns. Because I live in a city famous for its crooked streets which suddenly are one-way in the opposite direction I find myself grappling with the decision to either break out the GPS to keep me pointed in the right direction or taking the street I assume will lead me back to where I need to be. Usually I try to figure it out for myself, even though I only get it right about 40% of the time and often end up far away from my ultimate destination.

I bring this up because this afternoon I was driving in the city and could not find a parking space. Mayor Tom Menino had declared that all parking meters in the city would be free for the day, as a little gift to us all for surviving the blizzard last weekend. That sounded really nice in theory... right up to the moment when you discovered that most of these parking spots were still covered with snow. I must have driven by 50 parking spots which technically were open and free, only the spaces were three feet wide because the other half consisted of a 4-foot high snow bank. I couldn't have parked there in a motorcycle. (I can only hope for the Mayor's wife's sake that he is better at giving personal gifts.) Due to the lack of spaces I ended up driving several blocks past my destination before I needed to turn around and unfortunately you can only do that at certain intersections in this part of Boston. So, when I finally found a side street where I could turn around I had a dilemma - try to do a complete U-turn (not easy with my truck's turning radius) or go down the cross street and start working my way back towards my destination on the side-streets and hope to stumble upon an open spot along the way. Since I knew how poorly the street I was on had been cleared I went with the side streets. I think you know where this is going.

I was only about 100 yards down the street when I ran into a very large problem. The already narrow, one-way street was being blocked by an oil delivery truck. Normally there would have been enough space to get by, except the snowbank on the other side of the street had pushed the cars parked on that side a yard into the road, which meant there was about 4 feet of clearance between a parked car and the oil truck. (For those of you who thinks this serves me right for driving a big SUV, a mini-Cooper wouldn't have fit through this opening.) I would have said something to the delivery guy, only I had seen him get out of the truck as I was turning onto the street and not only did he not look like the kind of person who would care about my situation, I am slightly convinced he parked this way on purpose, just to dick us all over (clearly hasn't heard about my "Show the World Love on Valentine's Day" idea). I thought I was going to have to reverse my way back up the street, but the idea of trying to back into a busy intersection was not how I wanted to spend my afternoon. Besides, as I was weighing the pros and cons of that idea another truck started down the street and got stuck behind me, effectively ending that as an option. I thought about putting my car into park because I wasn't going anywhere for a while, but that was when I notice what was on my left - an alley.

I never drive through alleys in the city because I believe if people were meant to be back there these alleys would be main roads. Typically they aren't wide enough because the only people who are supposed to be back there are the people who live in the buildings and this is where they park their cars. Plus, if TV shows are to be believed it is where 95% of all murders and drug deals take place and I don't have an desire to be a star witness for the prosecution. However, with no other option at the moment I decided to take a leap of faith and squeeze my truck through the barely-wide-enough entrance. While it was a tight squeeze for a truck that size, I was immensely happy that I had an SUV, because suddenly I was effectively offroading in the middle of the city. This alley hadn't been plowed and was barely paved (actually, it would have been better if it hadn't been, because if there was no asphalt the road wouldn't have featured potholes you could lose a dog in). The only good news was that after a few hundred yards of wondering what kind of shocks I should upgrade to I emerged from the other side of the alley... right onto the side street I had been trying to get onto in the first place.

Admittedly, it took a second to realize that my last-ditched effort had actually worked in my favor. I know I shouldn't be surprised that driving perpendicular to the road I was going to be on resulted in getting to the cross street I had been aiming for (I assume this is happens all the time when you drive in city laid out in a grid pattern) and that driving one block behind a row of buildings doesn't seem like much of a shortcut but considering the number of times I have done this same scenario, only to get to the end of the street and find out I can't turn right or the street is closed for a water main break, it was damn near miraculous in my book. Now, in a perfect world the story would end with me surprisingly emerging onto the street and finding a perfectly-cleared parking spot at a free meter. Obviously that didn't happen and given the number of spots which won't be able to be used for another couple of weeks I knew not to press my luck. Besides, at that point I was just happy that I didn't take three lefts and somehow ending up on the other side of the river. Trust me, if that had happened the theme of today's post would have been very different.

A Monopoly On Boredom

There are some traditions which exist because the activity at the center of them is timeless and meaningful. For example, even though it is easier to use a propane grill some people still insist on using charcoal on the 4th of July because that is how their father taught them to do it and grilling that way makes them feel connected to the past. However, there are just as many things which hang around way beyond their usefulness simply because people have been raised that they should be around, even though if we stopped to think about it we would realize no one likes them. One of the longest-standing icons in this country is the board game Monopoly and I don't know why. Seriously, I have never met anyone who enjoys this game which can't be played in less than a 6-hour session and is essentially about the thrilling concepts of math, real estate and economics, yet it continues to be produced in mass quantities. I have begun to suspect it is like a giant pyramid scheme, where everyone plays one game and has a horrible time doing it, but rather than warn people who may be thinking about playing for the first time about how terrible it is, they decide to let them find out for themselves because no one told them how awful it was, so why should the next generation get a head's up? In other words, I firmly believe Monopoly continues to be one of the highest-selling games of all-time in America based on nothing more than spite.

I think Hasbro started to catch on to this as well and knows that this scheme can't go on forever, which is why a few years ago they started to produce themed versions of Monopoly, based on popular movie franchises and sports teams. For example, rather than get the traditional version you can now buy "Star Wars" Monopoly in which the game pieces are characters and ships from the movie and the streets names have been replaced to contain references to famous scenes. Sure, the basic principles of the game still suck, but you don't know that until you get it home because you think they may have changed something else. But, then you open it up and never actually play the game because you can't find anyone who wants to waste their afternoon with you. Worse yet, you didn't even bring this on yourself, because I am pretty sure no one has bought themselves a copy of Monopoly in the last 10 years - it has been nothing but gifts from distant relatives who once heard you like the Red Sox and now that is the theme of every gift from them. You just know they couldn't think of anything else to get you for your birthday and stumbled on Red Sox Monopoly at a local sporting good store and figured it was better than nothing.

It is because of this that I was genuinely surprised to learn of the high voter turnout when Hasbro announced they were retiring one of the traditional game pieces (the flat iron) and allowing people to vote on its replacement. After a heated race between a robot, a ring, a helicopter, a cat and a guitar, late last week it was announced that the people had spoken and decided to go with the cat. (A terrible choice, by the way. Looking at that list of candidate the cat should have been no higher than third.) I can only assume people were so quick to vote because we all have attachments to certain pieces. Frankly, racing to get your favorite game piece was the best part of playing Monopoly. (Obviously you wanted the car. If you got the thimble than you may as well have just quit before the game started, because you already lost.) But even then the attachment wasn't too strong because the pieces were the first thing to get lost. I don't think anyone has a Monopoly game which is more than 5 years old and still has all the original game pieces. Once you started losing pieces it was all about finding the most interesting knick-knack to replace the lost piece with... which was also more fun than actually playing Monopoly.

Just make sure you pay no attention to the people who think the high interest in this story has something to do with how much people love this game. Turnout was so high because Hasbro made voting so easy. Much like the fact "American Idol" get so many voters because 13 year old girls can vote 10 times without leaving their homes, more people will vote the easier you make it. In this case people were allowed to vote online, which I'm sure brought in more voters than people who actually enjoy playing Monopoly. Of course, this simply allows Hasbro to market yet more versions of the game - first the new one with cat piece and then a 'traditional' version with all the original pieces still there. (Probably just to replace the ones you lost.) The bad part of this for Hasbro is that their is no guarantee all the people who cast a vote will translate into sales of the game. If all the singing competition shows which have failed to produce lasting stars have taught us anything it is that people love to vote for things, but they rarely care once a winner has been declared. I guess that is why it feels strangely fitting that there is an "American Idol" version of Monopoly, but I would guess even the former contestants on the show have never played it.