Weekly Sporties

-With the season about to start, the issue of concussions in football and their impact on former players threatened to hang over the NFL every time there was a big hit or a player taken off the field. Everyone knows the League wants this story out of the papers and early this week they took the first step towards achieving that goal when they settled the lawsuit brought by 4,500 former players who contended the NFL knew about the long-term problems that result from concussions and did nothing, agreeing to pay $765 million over 20 years. Now, I know that sounds like a lot of money but it only works out to be about $150,000 per plaintiff (although that number will go up as the NFL will have to pay legal fees as well) and you have to remember that the NFL makes $9 billion per year, so $765 million spread out over 20 years will really be a drop in the bucket. But this settlement was never about profit margins for the League and that is why keeping these lawsuits from ever getting to a courtroom is the best money they will ever spend. Everyone knows playing sports, especially a violent sport like football, comes with certain risks. But, much like NASCAR fans want to see a big wreck and have everyone walk away, football fans don't want to acknowledge that they are watching these guys risk their long-term health for our entertainment. If every one of these trials featured a doctor reminding people of what is happening to players' brains and bodies with every single tackle, eventually parents would start to keep their kids away from football and the League's labor force would start to dry up. Before that people would stop going to games and the League's TV deals would get smaller and smaller. So by getting these lawsuits out of the public discussion (and probably making any future players sign waivers saying they won't sue) the NFL and its fans can go back only worrying about what is happening on the field while fooling ourselves into thinking that everything is fine, pretending the steps they have made thus far are more than enough and that as long as everyone can walk at the end of the game it was a good day. I'm not saying headshots are about to be legal again, but this settlement probably means the rules aren't going to be getting any stricter. I never would have thought it was possible to put a price on an entire community of people fooling themselves, but it turns out you can and it's $765 million.

-But while the NFL's concussion problem is simply being pushed to the back burner rather than going away for good, college football's longest-running story of the offseason may finally be coming to an end. After meeting with Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel for six hours regarding allegations that he took money in exchange for signing merchandise for a sports memorabilia dealer, the NCAA recommended suspending Manziel for the first half of the Aggie's first game this afternoon against Rice. Even though Manziel maintains he never took any money for his signature, he said he would accept the suspension and the NCAA subsequently said they consider the matter closed. I know to a lot of people making a player who may have broken one of the biggest rules in college athletics miss 30 minutes of a football game seems like a nothing penalty but that is only because it is. Texas A&M is a solid, up-and-coming program and while Rice has some nice moments in its history, the Aggies would have no problem beating the Owls even if Manziel never plays a snap. This is like punishing a kid by sending him to his room even though he was already on his way there because that is where is X-Box is. Despite the fact the penalty is less than a slap on the wrist, somehow this has to be considered a win for the NCAA because of the fact that they got anything at all. Let's be honest, if they had proof that Manziel broke a rule they would have brought the hammer down on him and the program but they didn't and they couldn't afford to raise this much of a stink and have nothing to show for it. Basically, the only way they were going to save face is if Manziel fell on the sword here and that is what happened. But that's the amazing thing out of all of this - Manziel is the biggest winner of them all. First off, I have no doubt someone got paid for all those autographs and that Johnny got his cut of it. (Considering I think NCAA players should get paid for stuff like that I am fine with it if he did.) But on top of that Manziel is now left looking like an unselfish leader, willing to be punished for a crime he did not commit in the name of removing a distraction from his teammates. This will only make him an even bigger God in College Station and, ironically, raise the value of his autograph in the future. So he probably got his money and managed to increase his legendary stature. Yeah, that'll teach him a lesson.

-One of the reason college sports is so great is because of all the rivalries. Sure, pro teams may not like each other, but that hatred is tempered by the fact that if a player is a free agent and the team he claims to hate today offered him the most money, he would sign with them and then talk about how he has always respected and admired their approach to the game. Professional athletes are mercenaries and the fans of pro sports know that. That doesn't happen in college sports, where the hatred can be real and run deep. However, even the most intense collegiate rivalries have a line and it gets crossed when you expect the entire world to take your traditions as seriously as you do, which we were reminded of this week. In college football there aren't many rivalries as contentious as Ohio State and Michigan. Because of that Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer has declared that no one is allowed to wear Michigan blue during football activities. It is exactly the kind of easy motivational tool that college football coaches love and college kids eat up so it was a great idea - right up until Meyer made some NFL scouts change their shirts because they were wearing blue. Look, I'm all for motivating your kids, but what Meyer needs to remember here is that these guys are on campus doing his kids a favor by showing up and telling them what they have to do to this season if they make it to the next level (which Meyer told them he was going to do when he recruited them). Asking these guys to conform to a rule they didn't know about in the first place is only going to embarrass them and that's not how you should treat a potential employer. I know college football coaches are known for being dictators but every now and again someone needs to remind them that their kingdom only extends to their players and students. The rest of the world is full of adults that you are not able to control and who don't have to listen to a word you say. On top of that, Meyer should ask guys like Rick Pitino and Nick Saban how well their dictator act worked at the next level. Look, I'm not going to pretend that I particularly like Meyer cause I think he's a bully but even if I did this move is pretty indefensible. I only wished that the scouts hadn't gone along with it, because it is only going to inflate Meyer's ego even more. Considering he is on his way of having just as many off-the-field issues in Ohio as he did in Florida, maybe Meyer should worry about making sure none of his players end up in orange instead of blue.

-Still, even if I don't agree with Meyer or his tactics, there is no denying that rivalries make sports much more interesting. Even when the rivalries are manufactured they can make a regular season meeting have just a little bit more juice, so I was not surprised when the Nets started sniping at the New York Knicks after they moved from New Jersey to Brooklyn last year. Because familiarity breeds contempt and the two franchises share a media market there has always been something of a rivalry between the two, but it was one-sided as the Nets have never quite been able to crack into the Knicks stranglehold on the city and were seen as the ugly step-sister (which is a little crazy if you compared the two teams' records in the past decade). The Nets clearly arrived in Brooklyn determined to change that perception and they quickly stepped up their offensive. First it was a giant banner advertising the Nets which was put up outside Madison Square Garden and then it was Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov saying in an interview that he would never want to emulate the Knicks because he wants to model his franchise after a "winning organization." If the Knicks had fired back it would have been just the kind of war of words the New York media would have eaten up, which is why I am kind of surprised to learn that Knicks owner James Dolan asked NBA Commissioner David Stern to get Prokhorov to stop taking jabs at him and Stern agreed. I understand why Dolan, who is hated by Knicks fans, would want Prokhorov to stop picking on him because if you compared the two Dolan would lose, but I would have assumed Stern would have been all for this. At the moment the NBA is really devoid of interesting team rivalries. Sure, there are heated match-ups which bubble up when two teams have quality stars playing for them but there are almost no rivalries that can sustain themselves even when both teams are down. The only one I can think of is Lakers/Celtics and they only play each other twice a year, so I would have thought Stern would be chomping at the bit to build some animosity between the Knicks and the Nets who share a city as as well as a division and play each other four times a season. I can only assume his reluctance to keep this going is because Stern is getting ready to step down next season and wants everything calm before he does. It's too bad because in the past Stern would have promoted this thing like it was a WWE match.

-Last week I told you that Allen Iverson had decided to call it a career. Well, it must be that time of year because on Monday former superstar Tracy McGrady announced he too would be stepping away from the NBA. Now, unlike Iverson who hadn't been in the NBA for 3 years, McGrady was still hanging around on a roster, buried deep in the San Antonio Spurs rotation. It was the kind of cushy gig veterans like McGrady usually love because they get paid good money and don't have any expectations and my guess is he could have stayed there another year if he wanted to, but reportedly he wants to play overseas and make even more money simply for being Tracy McGrady. Now just like with Iverson I am not quite sure how history will judge Tracy McGrady. On the one hand there is no questioning his was a talented scorer. There are only 17 men in NBA history with as many points, assists and steals as McGrady and the other 16 are in the Hall of Fame. However, unlike Iverson, who you knew gave everything he had and was de-rail by off-court problems, McGrady always struck me as a guy who should have been so much better given his talent. Tracy never got out of the first round of the playoffs until this year with the Spurs, which makes me wonder just how great he could have been. After all, basketball is the one sport in which one player can will a team to victory, so with that giant hole in his resume I don't know if McGrady can really be considered all that great. I know McGrady dealt with knee and back problems and was never blessed with particularly great teammates, but plenty of great players have had bad teammates and still managed to make a run in the playoffs at least once in their careers. On top of that he got a few coaches fired, burned more than his share of bridges and was traded away from two teams with neither franchise particularly sad to see him go, which doesn't sound like a Hall of Fame player to me. I just feel like McGrady was the perfect symbol of the post-Jordan, pre-LeBron NBA: supremely talented but not particularly motivated or interested in winning. Based on the numbers alone I expect that McGrady will eventually find his way to Springfield but I certainly won't be seeking out his plaque when I visit after his induction.

-After all the early-season praise heaped on LA Dodgers' outfielder Yasiel Puig it would be perfectly understandable if the kid developed a bit of a big head. You had already started to hear bellyaching about him from other organizations - he didn't speak to their media, was showing off too much during games and didn't appear to follow all of baseball's unwritten rules. I assumed it was jealousy and didn't put much stock into it until later in the season when you started to hear that the Dodgers themselves were trying to reign him in and 'sources' started leaking allegations to the media that Puig was making too many of the same mistakes and it was annoying to manager Don Mattingly. This may have finally come to a head the other night when Puig was benched in the middle of a game, reportedly because after he struck out to end an inning, he sulked into the dugout then sulked out to his position and took so long to do so he was still not ready to play defense by the time the pitcher had begun throwing to the first batter of the inning. Normally I hate it when the "old guard" takes it upon themselves to police the game and teach these young folk how it should be played because it just feels like they are taking sports too seriously and forgetting how they acted when they were that age but in this case I think I am on Mattingly's side. Think about any baseball game you have ever attended - the amount of time it takes between innings is interminable. Infielders toss a couple warm-ups balls, the batter has to get his gear on and the pitcher gets a couple throws to loosen his arm. The entire thing takes a solid four minutes, which is more than enough time for a guy, even moving at half speed, to make it out to his position and get into a defensive stance. The fact Puig wasn't at his spot by the time the first pitch was thrown means he must have been moving at a snail's pace and if the ball had been hit in his direction it would have been disastrous. I'm not saying the kid needs to be sent down to the minors to be taught a lesson about what a privilege it is to play baseball for a living, but I have no problem with using this as a teaching moment. It's fine to get mad at yourself for striking out but baseball players strike out dozens of times in a season - you need to have a short memory and you need to be ready when the ball is in play. The good news is that you can learn that lesson in less time than it takes for a pitcher to make it to the mound from the bullpen, so Puig should be fine.

-I'm always fascinated by what sports fans decide to get outraged about versus what we just accept as the cost of doing business. For example, steroids in baseball are the worst thing in the history of civilization and yet we automatically assume everyone in other sports are using them and couldn't care less. One of the sports where we are more shocked to find out someone isn't using science to improve than we would be if they failed a drug test is weightlifting. Now, even though I actually liked lifting back in the day I never saw it as anything other than a means to an end, so I never particularly understood the people who kept going with it. I mean, we have things like forklifts and pallet jacks specifically so no one has to lift 400 lbs anymore. Anyway, I think the average sports fan just assumes everyone involved with that sport is taking drugs at all hours of the day and stories like this one certainly won't help to change that image: an 80 year-old weightlifter tested positive for steroids while competing at the Pan American Masters, where he was attempting to break a record for his age group. (As you can imagine, that story left me with more questions than answers such as how many people were competing in this age group, what was the make-up of the group (70-80 or just 65+) and what was the record he was going for? Sadly, none of those questions were answered in the article I saw.) He was tested by the same group which tested Lance Armstrong, so I can only assume this guy is going to blame the French. And for as much as I want athletes competing on a level playing field, I kind of feel like we should let this one slide. I mean, elderly people practically have pharmacies in their medicine cabinets and for all we know this guy popped positive for some unrelated medication he actually needs to take. But even if that isn't the case I see no harm in looking the other way when an 80 year-old takes drugs. Frankly, I am impressed that he found a vein, so I say if you make it to 80 you can do whatever the hell you want. What I find extra ironic is that I can almost guarantee you that the organizers pointed the drug testers at this group assuming everyone would pass and it would count as an all-clear for the entire event. I guess this just goes to prove old habits aren't the only thing that die hard.

2013 DBC Pro-Am

It's that time of year again - time for me to make my annual pilgrimage to the Deutsche Bank Championship Pro-Am. Here are just some of the pictures I collected as I walked around the course.

After attending this event for a few years I finally figured out the system of when to get there (hint: you can go ahead and sleep in a little), which means I showed up as Tiger Woods was coming up the 18th hole. I also know where to stand, which was why Tiger hit it to within 10 feet of me. (Then again, I also nearly got hit by an amateur for the second straight year. Sometimes I learn quickly, other times not so much.) I had enough self-respect to not go running to be closer, which is not a claim several men older than me can make. 

Next I took a right and headed up to see Adam Scott. I was really surprised at how small the gallery following the current Masters champion was. I assume it is Stevie's fault. (I continue to find it weird that he is the only caddies not required to wear the bib.)

After that I ran into Webb Simpson, performing the second half of every golfer's job description - signing autographs. 

I was patiently waiting for Jason Day to look in my direction to take his picture. He seemed to be making a concerted effort to not look at the crowd, as if he was trolling us. That was when I remembered I didn't really care if I got a picture of Jason Day and snapped this.

After that I started backwards through the front 9, where I ran into my boy Hunter Mahan. Because he is my favorite golfer I will refrain from commenting on the white pants.

Next came Rickie Fowler. Now, I'm all for adding a little color and flair to the golf, but it should also match. I mean, what the hell is that golf bag? Hot pink doesn't go with a lot of other options, at least not in my closet.

After those two came Bubba Watson, completing the "Golf Boys" trifecta. All his amateur partners were hitting hybrids or woods into the green. I'm pretty sure Bubba hit 8 or 9, which really doesn't seem fair.

Not surprisingly, Phil had the biggest gallery on the front 9. He also hit two balls out of bounds off this tee. I guess when you win the Open you can take as many mulligans as you want.

This is Jordan Spieth (far right), playing with the Celtics' group. In the green is owner Steve Pagliuca and Danny Ainge is walking towards the camera. I'll explain why after this next picture:

Both new head coach Brad Stevens and Danny Ainge tried to kill me with their drives. Seriously, both missed me by only a few feet which, as a long-standing Paul Pierce fan, feels strangely appropriate for this offseason. Still, I think I am happy that both are really bad golfers because that means they aren't spending all day on the course and this team is going to need all the help they can get this season.

I made it to the first tee just in time to see Ernie Els start his round. Again, it never fails to amuse me when these pros feel the need to introduce themselves to their pro-am partners. They know who you are, in fact they paid thousands of dollars to play golf with you because of it. Introductions are really not necessary.

Having come in a complete circle I wanted to head up to the range to see if any of the guys I had missed in the morning wave were on the range. Specifically I wanted to catch US Open champ, Justin Rose. So, imagine my surprise when he was just now coming off the 18th hole. These pro-ams move at a glacial pace and must drive the pros insane.

Now that I had seen Rose I figured I should wait until Jason Dufner played the 18th. Not the best picture of him, but at least it meant I had captured all four major winners.

With that mission accomplished I figured I would head up to the range to see who was still around. The first guy I saw was Rory McIlroy, who won this event last year and whose game finally appears to be getting back on track. I assume this means he'll finish DFL this week.

The only other person still on the range who I hadn't seen earlier in the day was Camilo Villegas, who was practicing his chipping alongside.... you know what, I have no idea who the guy in the blue is. I never saw his name on a bag and it annoys me to no end because his face looked so familiar. Anyway, when I can't tell which players are it means I've seen everyone I came to see and I took that as my cue to head out.

Until next year...

I'm A Rambling Man...

So, we've reached one of those days when I have a bunch of random observations but none are large enough to deserve their own post. As such I'm just going to throw them out there to get them out of my system...;

-I went to the Deutsche Bank Championship Pro-Am this afternoon (pictures coming tomorrow). I love this event but I continue to think the parking situation is horrendous. You park over at the Comcast Center and get shuttled over, which would be fine except the shuttle doesn't drop you particularly close to the course. It really only takes you about 90% of the way there and you walk the remaining quarter mile to the course. Considering these buses use a lot of gas it seems kind of wasteful. Still, despite not being happy to be on the bus I still felt the need to thank the bus driver as I was stepping off. I don't know why I do this but I involuntarily feel the need to thank whomever is in charge of the public transportation I am on (bus drivers, pilots, MBTA operators). It is like it has somehow become engrained in my brain, which is strange because I never had to take the bus whenever I was going to school. Perhaps this is the problem - you only have so many thank you's for this kind of situation and I have a surplus of them in storage. I know this much, if any other person was supposed to drive me somewhere and left me a healthy walk from my final destination they would not be getting a thank you from me.

-The golf tournament does offer another parking solution, one in which you pay extra and a smaller shuttle drops you much closer to where you want to be. There is just one problem with this concept - you have to buy it beforehand and since I don't want to buy my tickets until I see the weather, I don't leave myself enough time to do so. I really get annoyed at myself when I forget to do something until I am in the middle of doing it the next time and this tournament is also a great reminder that I really want to get a better digital camera because my current one is rather annoying. I don't take a lot of pictures (this golf tournament represents the most pictures I will take in one day all year) but when I do I want them to be really nice and that just doesn't happen when you can't zoom in. As you would expect for all the merchandise the TPC Boston has to offer, the pro shop does not have an electronics department, which I have to say feels like a missed opportunity. I have a hard time believing I am the only person who went this afternoon who wanted a new camera. The tournament has several merchandise booths around the grounds I think a high-end camera company would do some really good business. Judging from the fact that there were no people in their booth when I walked by I can guarantee they would do no worse than the "Celebrity Cruise" people who were in attendance.

-As we were getting off the bus the kid in the aisle across from me nearly hit his head on the compartment above him. Turning to his girlfriend he remarked, "Tall people problems" and gave me a knowing look, as if we were comrades in a common fight. However, he then stepped into the aisle in front of me, which was when I noticed he was about 5'9". I'm sorry, but that is just not tall enough to complain about how tall you are. I understand it is above the national average for height, but unless you are touching at least 6' I do not want to hear how much of your life is spent ducking. Besides, when you are actually tall you learn how to watch out for objects near your head by the time you are 20. (At this point I duck going through any opening out of habit.) Thus, the fact that this kid nearly gave himself a concussion is actually proof he doesn't know what a real tall person problem actually is. I was thinking this as I walked away from the bus when, almost as if the universe wanted to prove my point to this kid, it started to drizzle and the woman walking next to me, totally in her own little world, opened her umbrella and nearly poked out my eye. That, my friend, is a real tall people problem. What you experienced was design flaw.

-Other than the weather and the constant threat of catching an umbrella in the retina, the only thing wrong with the day was that many of the marshalls at this tournament appeared to be in a foul mood, which I did not get. Sure, plenty of them were nice and chatty but almost as many didn't appear to want to be there and took it out of patrons by appearing to attempt to ruin many photo opportunities on purpose, which is insane when you remember that not only did they volunteer for this assignment, they paid for the opportunity to do so. It is one thing to get annoyed at work because people can't always control where they work and frustration is natural. But these people are using vacation time to do this, so you would expect them to be happy with their decisions. I mean, I can understand where they are coming from - having worked at a stadium for years I know better than most how maddening it can be to spend all week setting things up only to have the general public show up and do whatever the hell they want but some of these volunteers have been doing this for years - they can't exactly be surprised. But regardless of that, my main takeaway from their body language was, for roughly the 1825th consecutive day, to be happy I no longer work at a football stadium.

-On a totally unrelated note, my family is having a barbecue this weekend and in anticipation of that my mom bought some lobsters to make an extremely fresh seafood salad. They were cooking them tonight and it got me thinking - if cows were that small do you think that is how we would have to eat meat? Think about all the work you have to do to get even a small amount of lobster meat (and when you think about how much inedible stuff comes with it you are better off just paying extra for cooked lobster meat) - why are we willing to put up with it there but not for hamburgers? I have to think it is because the task of killing, skinning and cooking a cow is rather daunting but boiling, cracking and then pulling apart and lobster has just as many steps, only due to the small size of lobsters it is less labor-intensive. If cows were the size of footballs would we eat more or less meat than we currently do? I say less because not only would it be far too messy but burgers would have to be so much smaller and not worth the effort. I think the big moral of this story is just to not think too much about the food we eat because it will mess with your mind if you let it. And, no, to answer your question - I am not high right now.

The Doctor Is Out

I've been dealing with a very annoying back injury for most of the summer. It doesn't feel like anything serious, just a muscle issue but the reason is is so annoying is that it seems to bounce between my upper and lower back which makes it hard to concentrate on fixing the problem area. However, even more aggravating than that is the fact the pain will slowly start to go away for a couple days only to return with a vengeance. This is always the problem with back injuries - they take forever to heal up since you can't very well avoid using your back like you could make a conscious effort to stay off a twisted ankle. Sitting the wrong way can cause back pain to flare up and just when you think you are finally in the clear with your back issue you twist a half-second too fast and searing pain shoots up your spine. After that it is not the pain which is the worst part of a back injury - it is the anticipation of pain. I'm not trying to sound tough and tell you pain doesn't hurt (it absolutely does) but when your back spasms it only hurts for that few seconds before that wave passes and then it is over. The far worse part is that now you are waiting for the next spasm and you never know when it is coming. You start moving gingerly because you are afraid of tweaking your back a second time. Of course, your back knows this and lays low just long enough for you to let your guard down, at which point it strikes again. It really is the worst muscle to pull.

About a month ago I couldn't take it anymore and went to see my doctor who prescribed me the standard cocktail of rest, lots of Advil and emailed me a series of stretches I should do each morning to try and cut down on the frequency of the spasms. Now, I've been pretty good about keeping up with the stretches (mostly) as well as taking Advil and paying attention to how I sit at my desk but there really is no way to rest back muscles. And while it gave me some peace of mind to know that my back pain wasn't the sign of something more serious, as of right now my back hasn't seen much improvement since my doctor visit. This lingering pain has really made me frustrated (not to mentioned killed my golf season), so even though I like my doctor he isn't exactly a back specialist, nor did tell me anything I hadn't already suspected on my own. That is why this afternoon I decided to embark on a quest to find a better series of stretches to see if they helped ease the tightness in my back. But before I went diving down the rabbit hole which results from a blind internet search I first wanted to find a more technical term for the muscles I have pulled, hoping that by searching for that area of my back specifically it would cut my search time down dramatically and maybe help pinpoint the problem. Not having a medical dictionary handy I went to the first name in web-based medical answers, WebMD. Big mistake.

By this point I think everyone knows that WebMD is like that hypochondriac friend we all have, only it is worse because has every disease known to humanity memorized. While your friend may be convince that your constant sneezing is the sign of a brain tumor rather than just allergies, WebMD can not only come up with the medical term for that condition it will also give you 15 other diseases that could be a sign of, all of them deadly. That is why I was not surprised when the first disease WebMD told me I had when I said my back was bothering me was kidney failure. (Never mind that the pain is located above where my kidneys are, it is in the general area and that is good enough for this program.) The next thing it suggested was blood clots. Since I clearly couldn't take it seriously anymore I began scrolling through all the suggested diseases, hoping that maybe one of the technical names would give me a better idea of what to search for in my quest for relief. That was when I noticed that every disease listed also came with a list of symptoms and what WebMD does is list every disease which is associated with the issue you came to them with, even if you don't have any of the other systems. So, even though I don't have any tingling in my leg or blood in my urine it still wanted me to know that people with kidney failure have back pain. I know that going 1 for 3 in baseball is a Hall of Fame career, but it sounds like a pretty awful success rate for a diagnostician.

Eventually I gave up and just looked for back pain relief stretches on Google, which yielded results far too close to what I'm already doing for my liking. But with that done I spent the rest of the afternoon thinking about how insane WebMD's symptom-checking formula really is. A much better system would be to let people put in multiple symptoms and slowly whittle the options down to the most likely cause before offering a guess as to what is wrong with them rather than have them enter one issue and throwing out every disease which presents with those problems, because do you have any idea how many different diseases can present in the same way? But, the larger issue is that even though we all know WebMD is going to tell everyone they're about to die regardless of what problem they enter and doctors are constantly telling people to stay off the site because their self-diagnosis are causing more problems than they are solving, we continue to go there first. I can only assume it is because the site has MD in the name, which somehow gives it credibility even though I don't see a diploma hanging anywhere on the website. Most people won't trust third-party reviews for something as simple as a television and yet we're going to take a website's word for it that we could be dying? I honestly think WebMD should have a big claimer on the site which says everything you see on the site is just a guess. I'm sure there are some out there out there who would still take the site as gospel, but those people have bigger issues to deal with than a nagging injury because as near as I can tell the D in WebMD stands for shot in the Dark.

Someone Take Control

Even though I am never the first in line to buy the latest gadgets (I expect the first few versions to have a few bugs which need to be worked out and I want that to happen on someone else's phone. Also, if you wait a few months the gadget will be much cheaper since nothing loses its value faster than new technology), I still have a great respect for innovation. I like it when companies are out there trying new, risky venture to actually advance society forward and even more excited for them when they finally succeed. But more and more I find that when I first hear about a new proposed invention my initial reaction is to dismiss it. I don't like this side of myself, but the simple fact is that after many examples of being promised revolutionary technology which never gets delivered I am rather jaded. At this point I only want to hear about the product once it has arrived, not while it is still in the proposal phase. Last week I was telling you about the hype surrounding the HyperLoop - the idea which was put forward where people will move around the country in a series of tubes, thus eliminating the need for trains and planes - and how I thought the technology was probably too flawed to ever work properly and even if it did it would take decades to be available to the general public. This week I am sad to sad to say that I have a lot of the same reservations regarding the next great invention which is supposedly only a couple of years away, the self-driving car.

Yesterday Nissan announced that they will soon be putting out the first self-driving car. This lofty claim has been made before but unlike on those occasions, in this case Nissan is putting their money where their mouth is an offering a delivery date of 2020. Now, unlike the HyperLoop which is trying to take a small example of existing technology (the pneumatic tubes used by banks and skyscrapers' mail rooms) and expand it out to its most extreme conclusion, the idea of a self-driving car is not nearly as far-fetched as it would have seemed just 5 to 10 years ago. Back then cars only did as they were told but now every new car apparently comes standard with a voice-activated computer in the dashboard which will recommend the best local restaurant and then when you find a parking space you can take your hands off the wheel and the park assist feature will fit your car snugly between two cars. On top of that there are cars which will hit the brakes if they feel you are too close to the car in front of you, stop if something trips a sensor while you are backing up, light up when a car is in your blind spot and act as your alarm clock if it detects your eyes are wandering off the road. Basically, all the components were in place and Nissan is just trying to pull them together in one automobile.

Look, I like the idea of a self-driving car (even if it is a Nissan, which is one of the car brands I do not fit in). Every time I pull out of my driveway I know I am entering into a world full of distracted drivers who are too busy texting, Tweeting or composing a Facebook status update to pay attention to the fact that they are operating a 2-ton machine which could very easily be turned into a deadly weapon simply by pointing it at someone. And by all indications we are moving towards getting more distracted, not less. The technology genie is out of the bottle and with these dashboard computers acting as mobile hot-spots it is only a matter of time before we are permanently connected to the internet and its many distractions. The thought of taking control away from some of the drivers of these cars actually sounds like a great idea and it would make plenty of lives easier if you could just send the car rather than have to go and pick up someone from school when you have a meeting which runs late. I just think before we go all the way to removing control of the vehicle from these people it would be easier to take away their licenses or at least make the driving test a little harder. Besides, there is something special about driving a car. Getting your driver's license is a rite of passage and that rite is certainly going to lose a little bit of luster when all it means is that you get to program the car's destination into the dashboard.

I must also confess the egomaniac, control freak side of me thinks that a computer could never handle a car as well as I could and hates the thought of allowing a machine to take over. I don't want to sound like a fogy, but there is nothing in my history which leads me to believe my car is going to make the right decision when it needs to swerve to avoid an accident. My GPS has led me on too many obscure routes for me to trust it completely and I simply can't imagine sitting behind the wheel of a car and then doing nothing. I hardly think I am alone with this school of thought. But the biggest issue I have is with the previously-mentioned bugs which come with first editions of technology. It is one thing when the new iPod is released and it is only after a few thousand people buy one that the manufacturer finds out it won't sync with your computer unless you have a certain software upgrade. That obviously sucks, but in a first-world problem kind of way. If these things have issues while going through their beta testing someone is going to die and could take a perfectly innocent person driving their normal car with them. Now, the good news is that 2020 is still a good ways off and even then I highly doubt the first generation of these Nissans will be affordable to the general public. But eventually they will come down in price because that is what technology does. I can only hope they are working by 2050, because it's going to take until I am about 70 for me to trust one of these things.

Getting It Right... Eventually

Few things in life are as satisfying as being able to cross a long-standing project off your personal to-do list. Everyone on this planet has a list of things they want to get done around their home but the universe has an annoying way of stopping us from getting to it, either through lack of time and money or simply by giving us a more pressing (and expensive) task to get to first. Finally have time to repair those loose bricks on your front steps? Surprise, your washing machine hoses just broke. That is why when we eventually get around to those long-standing tasks there is a great mix of relief and fulfillment knowing that you finally tackled something you had been telling yourself you would get to "next week". A couple months ago I got to experience this when I finally took apart the rear door of my truck and fixed the inner latch release, a project which had been staring me in the face for a couple of years and didn't take nearly as much time and effort as I thought it would when I put it off time and time again. It was one of those moments in which you realize you didn't have to put up with something being off for that long and you kind of feel like an idiot for allowing it to linger but at the same time it doesn't lessen the fact you finally did it. Every time I opened that rear hatch after that day I had a tremendous feeling of accomplishment. Do you know what was not nearly as satisfying? Having to do that same task again.

From the second I put the covering back on my rear hatch door I kind of had the feeling I was working on borrowed time. After all the part which had broken (connecting the actual latch to the locking mechanism) was small and oddly-shaped. Trying to order one through Ford didn't work because I couldn't locate a part number on the flimsy piece of plastic and when I finally figured it out they wanted me to buy an entirely new locking mechanism for roughly 300 times the amount it should cost to replace the only thing which was actually broken. That left me with trying to rig up a system which would work not as well as original but good enough to get the job done. By using a standard hook-and-eye as well as a couple of nuts and a slide-on clip I knew I had the "work" part down, but had lingering doubts about the "getting the job done" aspect, at least in the long-term. My initial calculations told me I only had about 40 pulls before the latch broke again and when I saw the clip lying on my bumper (I also discovered that in all the time I hadn't opened it the underside of the door had developed quite a rust issue) the very next day I figured I would probably be closer to 25. Not sure how many pulls I actually was able to do but last month I could hardly act surprised as I went to open the door to get something out of the back (because this kind of thing only happens when the there is something in the truck which needs to come out) and the hatch was flapping in the breeze, not connected to anything.

The good news is that after I do something once that is more than enough experience to consider myself an expert in my brain and thus I didn't let this problem linger around for another couple of years. Instead I broke out the tools I knew I would need on Saturday and had the rear hatch open in just a few minutes. The biggest issue was trying to find a nut that would fit on the end of the hook-and-eye. I had a drawer full of candidates to choose from but none of them were a particularly good fit. In addition to that I was also dealing with the issue of trying to squeeze my above-average sized hand into the small door opening to test all these nuts on the bolt because I certainly wasn't about to undo the half the contraption which had held together nicely. It would have made finding a match easier but also doubled my workload trying to put it back together. This is the same issue I had run into last time and what was ultimately caused me to finally say screw it and just use a slide-clip. But if there is a benefit to having to do something a second time it is that all the steps leading up to the problem step seem to fly right on by and thus you have more energy, time and patience to attack that problem step. Unfortunately, for as wonderful as energy, time and patience are they can't change the laws of physics and make a nut which is the wrong size fit.

After trying almost every nut in the drawer (as with most junk drawers there were plenty of the size I didn't need) I eventually found one which would go on the end as long as I put in the requisite amount of forcing, grunting and swearing. It is not on as far as I would like it, but it is on. Also, instead of getting annoyed that I still never found the perfect size for what I was trying to do, I am going to comfort myself in the knowledge that if it took all this force simply to make the nut go on this small amount, it will take a tremendous amount of energy to get it to fall off as well. Thus, I think it will last slightly longer than my last repair job, though I admit that is a low bar. After aiming for 25 last time I am pretty confident this latest repair will last closer to my original guess of 40. And while I honestly think the new solution will work I am still being cautious. Basically my plan is to not put anything in the back of my SUV unless it can also fit through the window, which can also open and has never stopped working. Also if the day ever comes when I do need to put something significantly larger in the back I will make sure I bring all the tools I know I need to force the back hatch open with me. But I also need to remember that the rules of baseball still apply. This latch has already broken twice so a third would mean it is time to finally admit defeat. If that day ever comes I think I'll just re-classify by SUV as a four-door sedan and be done with it.

Where There's Smoke...

After all we have learned regarding government spying in the last month, you would think most people would be thrilled to learn that the United States government has finally decided to come clean about some long-held myths. Specifically they are finally answering questions about the rumored base code-named "Area 51". Just in case you don't spend your time trolling conspiracy theory websites, Area 51 was long believed to be a secret military instillation somewhere in the New Mexico desert and it was supposed to be where the CIA took the bodies of the aliens who crashed in Roswell as well as every other dirty little secret the government didn't want the general public to know about. For the longest time the military refused to admit that the base even existed until late last week when they finally conceded that it is real, but instead of being used to house aliens or the Ten Commandments, it was where they used to test their most secret spy planes. (By the way, this is what my brother-in-law, who knows a thing or two about the issue, has always said was what happened. People probably saw lights from the new planes but rather than have plane enthusiasts (or spies) out there with binoculars trying to spot the new experimental designs  it was better to have crazy people out in the world spouting off about aliens because they will be dismissed as crazy and no one will look for the base. Sometimes the best defense really is to say nothing and let the other person talk themselves into looking bad.) And while it is always nice to learn that our government is no longer lying to us about everything, this is one of those stories which they probably should have kept to themselves.

I am willing to bet the US government gets hundreds, if not thousands, of letters requesting they come clean about some crazy theory every single day. Most of them are ignored, as well they should be. But by acknowledging that one of the longest-held conspiracy theories turned out to be true (even if the main issue of aliens was not addressed) they have opened the floodgates. The last thing you want to give a conspiracy theorist is even a shred of credibility and yet that is exactly what has happened. Now every person who has ever claimed to see Bigfoot or been abducted by aliens actually has a counter-point when they get into an argument with a sane person. It used to be they didn't have a leg to stand on but now they can go, "Yeah, well, Area 51 wasn't supposed to exist either!" Of course, this is probably what the government wants because, just like back when Area 51 was testing spy planes, it is better to have conspiracy theorists on TV demanding the government now stop lying to us about aliens than having news reporters talking about all the stuff the current administration is doing. (Sometimes the old tricks still work the best.) Still, if they were going to try and distract the American people by releasing once-classified information couldn't it have been something useful to the rest of us? How about Sinatra's FBI file because I bet that had some stories which would be a lot more interesting to the general public.

Weekly Sporties

-A couple weeks ago I told you about the rumors that LeBron James was thinking about making a run at President of the players association. At the time I said I thought it was a bad idea because James is going to be a free agent after this year and focused on growing his brand globally, which means he really won't have time to be an effective leader for guys fighting to stay on a roster. After all, there is a reason the majority of player Presidents have been well-known role players rather than the biggest star in the game. Well, James ultimately came to the same decision I did and elected not to make a run for office. However, the players association still decided to elect a superstar as their President, selecting the Los Angeles Clipper's Chris Paul. On the surface this decision appear to have the best of both worlds - Paul is well-liked throughout the league and he is a star, but not on the level of a guy like James so he may be able to better understand where the middle-of-the-roster guys are coming from. Plus, he is in a large media market and just signed a large contract extension which means he will be able to focus on the issues of the day rather than worry about his own future. However, I have concerns about this selection due to one of the same reasons I had questions about James - if there is an issue between the owners and the players (and let's be honest it is only a matter of time before that happens) there is a chance the fans are going to come down on the side of management because they known too much about Paul's history. For some reason in this country we tend to do that anyway but if the player President is a guy who got a coach fired, whined until he got traded from a small market team to one of the biggest in the league and then got a second coach fired once he got there, all why publicly claiming he had nothing to do with it even though we all know he did, that is not exactly the figure a lot of NBA fans are going to be in a hurry to rally behind. Sometimes it is just better to let the less-famous person take the stage and deal with all the crap. Unfortunately, like all politics, I am sure a huge part of this has to do with ego and Paul wants to show everyone how smart he is. I don't know about you but that is not exactly the first quality I look for in a guy running any organization.

-It is always sad when a once-great player reaches the end of his career but that day gets a little bit sadder when the player is the last one to see it. This week former NBA MVP Allen Iverson announced he was retiring. Given that Iverson was always one of the most polarizing players in the NBA (beloved for the tough-as-nails way he played, getting everything he could playing a big man's game in a small body and yet vilified because he was seen as the poster boy for the NBA-players-as-thugs movement which took over the league in the late 90s) this should have been a much bigger news story. However it barely registered with the national media and that has to do with the fact that Iverson hasn't played in the NBA since February of 2010. After getting released by the 76ers in the middle of the season to deal with a bevy of personal issues, Iverson tried playing overseas but continues to maintain he would be a good fit for the right NBA team. There was even talk the Celtics would bring him in to solidify their second unit during the 2011 season but at the end of the day the team was too concerned he would have trouble in that role and the fact that he is just now getting around to announce his retirement confirms that. Iverson's greatest strength was that he never listened to the doubters and willed himself into being one of the best players in the NBA. But that strength was also a weakness because Iverson probably could have extended his NBA career if he would have accepted coaching a little better as well as admitted to himself that he had lost a step and needed to come off the bench but he was just too stubborn to do it. When you add in that Iverson also has one of the more complicated off-court lives of anyone who has ever played in the NBA (overbearing former addict mother, rocky relationship with the mother of his children, a posse of yes-men on his payroll who unsurprisingly disappeared when he ran into money problems as well as problems with gambling and alcohol) it is actually a surprise that he didn't burn out well before now. He is still going to make it into the Hall of Fame the first year he is eligible, but part of me is always going to wonder what could have been if only he had a better support system around him. Considering it took him 3 years to finally realize what everyone else knew in 2010 it certainly doesn't like his decision making has improved in his years away from the game.

-Everyone knows that the unofficial nickname for the NFL is the No Fun League due to their insistence on cracking down on minor things like end-zone celebrations and especially uniform violations. Seriously, they will wait as long as possible to act on serious issues, hoping the teams will self-discipline when it comes to things like DUIs but they will barely wait until the game is over to fine a player for wearing the wrong color cleats. Well, this week we learned just how far they think their uniform policy should extend after Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III was fined $10,000 for wearing a non-conforming shirt during warm-ups. Allow me to give a little back-story: Griffin is currently coming back from a knee injury suffered in a playoff loss last season. He claims he is ready to go, but Redskins coach Mike Shanahan wants to take things very slow (ironically if he had shown this much restraint in the playoff game Griffin never would have gotten hurt in the first place). This has lead to a few verbal jabs between Griffin and Shanahan through the media which would not be a story in any other city but, just like everything else which happens in Washington DC, this minor controversy has been blown totally out of proportion. I don't care how good the back-ups look in the preseason, there is no way anyone but Griffin will be starting as soon as he is healthy. But, the long wait has made RGIII and his fans impatient so he took to the field before a preseason game with a shirt on which said "Operation Patience". The league said it has no problem with the message, just that the shirt was made by Adidas and the NFL's current contract is with Nike, so all on-field apparel has be to made by them. This is clearly bullshit because you see guys warming up in non-Nike gear all the time, but the league says its uniform policy extends to both pre- and post-game. Now, it is entirely possible the Redskins themselves went to the NFL and asked them to fine Griffin because they perceived it as a shot at their management but didn't want to create an even bigger rift between Griffin and Shanahan. But the fact that no one questions whether or not the NFL would have done this on their own should tell you all you need to know about their reputation among football fans.

-Since we are talking about large organizations which don't appear to understand that sometimes you need to allow a small amount of leeway with the rules, let's move to the NCAA. Early this week it was reported that the NCAA wasn't going to let a Steven Rhodes, 24 year-old former Marine who walked on at Middle Tennessee State, play this year because he was part of an intramural football league while he was enlisted. You see, under NCAA bylaws any player who participates in an organized team activity, even if it is something as informal as an intramural league, loses a year of eligibility and must wait a year before playing college athletics. It doesn't matter how informal the football league Rhodes played in may have actually been, they wore uniforms and kept scores, so in the NCAA's mind that made it an official league. Of course, this decision was idiotic and the NCAA rightly got plenty of scorn heaped down upon it. Obviously Rhodes should have been allowed to play immediately and the fact that he was a walk-on should have told the NCAA that this was not Middle Tennessee State's attempt to circumvent the rules. I am sure the spirit behind this rule came from a good place and was designed to prevent athletes from getting paid to play in rec leagues run by boosters because as we know those guys are everywhere and constantly trying to involve themselves in college athletics. However, situations like this are exactly why the NCAA needs to pull back every now and again and look at each case individually. This rule was probably put in place to combat some problem they were facing at the time and since it was rushed into action they didn't stop and think about putting in a few provisions for extenuating circumstances. It doesn't make them evil it just makes them stupid and the fact that they were doing this to a kid at Middle Tennessee State just added another dimension for the people who think the NCAA is too quick to punish the little guy while the megapowers can do whatever they hell they want. The good news is that after getting blasted my the local (and eventually national) news, the NCAA admitted they were probably sticking a little too close to the letter of the law and overturned their ruling on appeal, meaning Rhodes can play this season. They have even said they will look into re-writing the rule and add a provision for students coming out of military service. It may be full of slow learners but maybe there is hope for the NCAA after all.

-A couple years ago I coined the phrase the "Sympathy Boomerang". This is the social phenomenon in which people are sympathetic to a public figure we think has been wrong in some way but after a while we get sick of hearing them whine about it and go the other way, eventually understanding the point of view of the other person involved (for example, every break-up Taylor Swift has ever been a part of). Usually the person in this situation starts out as the victim, but it can go the other way in which the person starts out as the bad guy but eventually we have some sympathy for them because we think people have begun to pile on. The easiest way to reverse public opinion is to physically go after someone, which is why I was so annoyed last weekend why Red Sox pitcher Ryan Dempster continually threw at Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, before eventually plunking him on the fourth try. First off, I don't quite know who told Dempster he was the judge and jury for baseball justice. I'm sure there are plenty of baseball players who are mad at Rodriguez for sullying the game and casting suspicion on all of them, but A-Rod has been suspended and will probably miss all of next season so there is really no need to add your own personal level of outlaw justice. But the more annoying part was that by doing this Dempster somehow made A-Rod sympathetic. Suddenly no one was talking any more about the failed drug tests or the allegations that he leaked the names of other players to deflect attention from himself - they were all talking about what a jerk Dempster was. And when Rodriguez hit a big homerun later that game it was as if the Yankees had rallied around A-Rod which is not something any Red Sox fan wants to see. Even worse is that it may have caused a small fraction in the Red Sox clubhouse as David Ortiz has said he sides with Rodriguez because Dempster was wrong to keep throwing at him. (In his defense, if the Yankees were to retaliate they would have thrown at Ortiz, so his comments were probably in the interest of self-preservation. Also, Ortiz has said he and Dempster have talked it out.) It just adds a layer of intrigue which didn't need to be there. The only good news for Dempster? This is Alex Rodriguez we are talking about, so give him a few days and he will manage to do or say something which will cause 90% of the population to start hating him all over again.

-To me there is nothing quite so sad as seeing a grown man running after a ball at a baseball game. I believe bringing a glove to a baseball game should have a cutoff age and it should be around 17. So when I see grown men knocking their own children down to catch a ball I not only get sad for them but I feel bad for their entire families. I know the idea of a free souvenir can make people temporarily insane and if the ball in question is an historic homerun it can be worth a lot of money, but can you really put a price on your own dignity? If you want a baseball that much you can go to the store and buy one because it will be cheaper than the seats you are in. But some people just can't control themselves, which is why this week there was a story which claims a man is being investigated by San Francisco police for assaulting a kid to get a homerun ball. The ball in question was a three-run homer hit by Stephen Drew during a Red Sox rout of the Giants. Given the score and the batter I would only have gone after this ball if it was hit directly at me (actually, given the fact that I have bricks for hands I probably would simply duck) but it landed just beyond the bleachers at which point several people went diving for it. Initially a 16 year-old Red Sox fan claims he came up with it, but then a large adult landed on him and twisted his hand to the point his wrist was sprained and the pain forced him to drop the ball. The video of the incident is inconclusive but you can clearly see the two wrestling for the ball, which begs the question of whether or not you can really assault someone in a scrum? I am always saying that anything which happens on the field could not be brought up in a court of law, I am just not sure that should extend to the crowd as well. I am sure this is not the first time someone has gotten hurt going after a ball (some of the fights to catch Barry Bonds' homeruns looked intense), so in my opinion the only reason this is a story is that one participant is a teenager while the other person is an adult who really should have known better. Ultimately I don't expect the guy to be charged with anything but just for the hell of it I looked up how much a Stephen Drew baseball was going for on eBay and you can get an autographed one for between $40 and $70. That hardly seems worth the effort, especially when you consider the ball in question isn't even signed so it is probably worth less than that. You may be able to get a little more because it was game-used but remember this if you are ever at a game when a ball comes your way - there is no way that ball will be worth enough to cover bail money.

-Only slightly lower than adults who bring gloves to games on my annoying sport fans scale sits the golf fans who feel compelled to yell something as soon as the golf ball is in the air. Fans have been yelling for years but it seems the last few seasons the calls have gotten stranger, going from the traditional ("get in the hole") to the random ("mashed potatoes") and the ever-present "Baba-Booey". While annoying, most of the time the yelling is harmless because it has been timed well-enough to come after the player has finished his swing. However, in an effort to be the first person heard on TV fans are getting dangerously close to yelling while the player is still swinging, which is a big breach of golf etiquette. Things may have come to a head a couple weeks ago during the PGA Championship when Ian Poulter took to Twitter to vent his frustrations with the fan tradition, saying he thinks golfers should be given tasers and allowed to shock anyone who yells too early. This was obviously a joke (I think), but it did open the debate as to whether or not fans should be allowed to yell in the first place. Some are saying that the yelling is disruptive while other think as long as the fans are waiting until after contact to yell they are just having fun and this is just another area in which golfers need to lighten up. (As for the people who want to point out that other professional athletes deal with noise I would just tell them to go to a golf tournament. The silence is deafening so every little yelp sounds like it is coming through a bullhorn. Therefore, silence is actually a much better way to break a player's concentration.) At first it didn't sound like the PGA Tour was in any hurry to shut this practice down but then on Thursday the very first person was ejected for yelling "Baba-Booey" during a golf tournament. Not surprisingly it was yelled at Poulter, but the difference was this guy yelled in the middle of his swing. And I think that is ultimately what will be the deciding factor in all this - the PGA can't very well expect fans to remain silent for the entire time they are at a tournament (they already loosened their policy regarding cellphones) so it will have to be more about managing the noise than eliminating it. As long as the fans don't yell before the ball is in the air than the players are just going to have to live with it. It is not a perfect system but if I have learned anything since I started playing golf it's that the game is all about making the best of a bad situation so you would think the pros would know that better than most.

He'll Be A Wicked Batman

As soon Marvel's "The Avengers" topped $1 billion in earnings I knew it was only going to be a matter of time before DC got their heads out of their asses and agreed to make a movie featuring both Superman and Batman. After all, the Avengers are a nice group of superheroes but they are nothing compared to Batman and Superman, the Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson of the comic book world. So, the idea of having them in one movie has always been a pipe dream of anyone who has ever bought a graphic novel in their life. Well, recently it was announced that the dream pairing would finally be coming to a theater near you in just a couple of years during the summer of 2015. The only question now was who would play Batman. You see, while Superman was recently rebooted with Henry Cavill playing the Man of Steel and produced a solid box-office effort, Christian Bale has said he will no longer play the Caped Crusader. At first there were rumors he was offered upwards of $50 million to play the part one more time, which is insane to me. This movie is guaranteed to make hundreds of millions of dollars, regardless of who are in the starring roles. In my opinion they could have plucked another mildly obscure actor, paid him a tenth of what they would have given Bale and spent that money on script writers. I guess that makes yesterday's announcement that Ben Affleck would be the next Batman all the more surprising.

This is not Affleck's first foray into the world of superheroes, because he was once in a very bad version of "DareDevil." With that fresh on comic enthusiast minds, the backlash against the casting was as expected as it was quick. Almost immediately a Twitter topic of people who would make a better Batman than Ben Affleck started trending while dozens of unoriginal people made the same joke about casting Matt Damon as Robin. And even though I am supposed to be the on the side of Affleck because he is a Boston boy, I can see why they would be hesitant. In the last couple of years Affleck has started carving out a very solid career as one of the better directors in Hollywood and his Golden Globe win for "Argo" combined with the outrage that he wasn't even nominated for an Oscar was proof of that. Most observers seem generally pleased with the majority of the decisions he makes for his movie, with one major qualm - his reoccurring decision to cast himself as the lead. For as much as he has grown as a director, the acting side of Ben Affleck continues to lag behind. In fact, many people thought he would have been an inspired choice to direct this Superman/Batman movie but the thought of him trying to play Bruce Wayne leaves them cold and their concerns could be warranted. If you look at his IMDB page at the movies the movies in which he was asked to do nothing but act has not exactly been a run of hits.

If it is any consolation to Affleck there was literally no one the studio could have named that the fans would have seen as a good choice. The hardcore comic book community may be small but when it comes to the world of social media they are loud and opinionated. On top of that they have been thinking about this movie for years and I can guarantee they never saw Ben Affleck in the role. And while I can see why they would feel slightly betrayed because it is like following a sports team and finally realizing that they don't care what you think they should be doing no matter how loyal you may have been to them, at the same time I do think they are being too quick to condemn Affleck here. I always like to take a wait-and-see approach to movies because there have been plenty of examples of casting which seemed weird at the time and produced amazing result. If you think about it there is actually no better example of this than the Batman character itself. Michael Keaton was known as a quirky, comedic actor the first time he put on the cape and everyone thought Tim Burton was insane for picking him. Now he is seen as the best Batman ever. Additionally, to all the people calling out that the studios should pay Bale whatever he wants, I would challenge you to show me the movie in his past which told you he would make a fine superhero some day because if you go back and look at what people thought of that choice when it was made they certainly didn't see it working out as well as it did.

That really is the crux of the matter - people are programmed to automatically second guess every decision Hollywood makes. And yes, I know Hollywood makes a ton of really bad decisions when it comes to movies (ironically the bigger the budget the worse the decision seem to be) but every now and again they are capable of reminding us that they do this for a living and are allowed to spend all this money to make movies for a reason. The problem is that we are hardwired to remember the really awful casting choices and forget the ones which just worked out perfectly. (Staying in the superhero genre, Robert Downey Jr was a really risky choice to be Iron Man and now you can't imagine that character being played by anyone else.) Affleck may be a curious choice but people also need to remember that superhero movies are most action sequences and special effects, so it is not like he is being asked to perform Shakespeare. That is why ultimately the hard truth is it doesn't really matter which actor they hire to play Batman as long as the script is good. People love to argue over casting in movies but the greatest actors in the world can't do a damn thing with a terrible script and a well-written story can cover up a lot of acting flaws, so the most important hire is the writer and yet that mostly gets overlooked. All I know is I don't care who plays which character as long as I don't have to sit through another origin story reboot.

Mi Casa Es Su Casa

As soon as my family put the finishing touches on the beach house renovations back in 2010 people began asking us if we planned to rent the place out. I have to be honest that idea had never crossed my mind before then because I simply assumed no one was in a hurry to rent a house mostly rebuilt by an editor and a web programmer. (I'm proud of the way it came out, but very aware impartial observers or people who do construction for a living may not feel that way.) But a guy I worked with at the time insisted we could get $1100 a week if we decided to make the place available, a figure which seems insane because I think there are places around our beach house you could rent for a month and it wouldn't cost you that much money. Either way, by this time my parents had heard far too many horror stories about people who owned rental property and agreed to lease it to people who seemed normal and trustworthy, only to come back and find the place filthy and everything that wasn't nailed down stolen. Thus the idea was never given much more thought after that day, which is fine because I am not really comfortable with the idea of a group of random people sleeping in my bed. I'm more than happy to share my things with family or friends but I am less willing to embrace total strangers. However, more and more it sounds like I am in the minority.

A couple members of my family were trying to plan a weekend getaway, but were having a terrible time finding a hotel room for a reasonable price. That was when my sister suggested they try FlipKey Vacation Rentals, a website in which people rent out their homes or timeshares when they won't be around or in a couple cases the people own a few small properties to make a little extra income. Obviously, this is not a new model - people have been renting out apartments for years. I can remember as a kid my family rented out a house in Chicago for our vacation and it was awesome - the homeowner was a local television anchor who had won locals Emmys and left them at the house for us to hold. On the surface it sounds like a good idea because break-ins are on the rise around the country and you would much rather have someone who has been vetted staying in your house (and has given you their credit card information) versus leaving it open to criminals while you are on vacation. It is not the best peace of mind, but it is better than nothing. Also, the apartments are typically cheaper to rent than hotels because you are sacrificing things like fresh towels and turn-down service in the name of a more laid-back and homey vacation experience. (To me this is the largest hole in the plan because if I am going on vacation the last thing I want to be doing is washing towels.) But, if you are looking for a good deal it is not bad place to start.

The more I look around the more it sounds like relying on the kindness of strangers is the new way to do business. In addition to home rental sites like FlipKey (and that is just one of a number of sites you can use to avoid staying a hotel), you have companies like Lyft, in which people call on regular folks from around the neighborhood to drive them around in their personal cars in lieu of taxis and then pay whatever they feel the ride is worth. (Drivers are encouraged to spruce up the experience to earn larger tips. Still, how that company can exist in a time when people are told to avoid gypsy cabs at all cost is kind of amazing to me.) But the majority of crowd-sourcing sites are for fundraising. If you have some money laying around and inclined to donate it there are plenty of sites willing to help you funnel it to deserving charities or people. In some ways crowd-funding as become the new way of asking for a grant because if you are looking for strangers to give you money to complete a passion project there are no shortage of place you can go, from Kickstarter to FundAnything. Those sites have gotten so big and useful they aren't even for starving artists anymore as stars like Kristen Bell and Zach Braff have used it to raise money to supplement projects being done by major studio so they can have more control over production (typically in exchange for donations you get a copy of the movie). Basically, if you don't mind asking total strangers for favors, there are plenty of outlets for you to try.

Look, in this economy I am all for being inventive and trying new and creative ways to make money. Plus, houses and cars are the most expensive investments many of us will ever make, so if you can find a way for them to pay you back a little than I say go for it. I simply have some reservations about all these "go through us and cut out big business" sharing sites for one main reason - big businesses are subject to regulations and guidelines and these guys are much more loose with the rules. I know the cry for smaller government is getting louder by the day but there are times when regulations are our friends.Yes, FlipKey and Lyft do the best they can to make sure both parties are on the up-and-up but people are inevitably going to fall through the cracks. I am not sure I would ever feel totally comfortable getting into a stranger's car or staying at their house until the experience was over and everyone had gone their separate ways, which does not sound like the makings of a very relaxing vacation. Ultimately, I just feel like this is the same reason I would rather pay the extra money and go through a site like StubHub than pay cash to a scalper I will never see again. Sure, it may cost me a little extra with fees, taxes and surcharges added on to the total but at least I can be sure the tickets will work when I try to get into the game. That is something you really can't put a price on.

Intentionally Inexperienced

There is no denying that the internet is amazing. It allows us to answer every question that could ever pop into our brains in a matter of moments and then provide us with hours of free entertainment once that is done. You can do serious research in one window and look at the IMDB page of a random Bond villain to see if he ever worked in show business again in another. On top of that there is all the music and movies you could ever want to hear or see, including shows from our childhoods which we never thought we would ever see again (and it could all be free, depending on your feelings regarding things like copyright laws). But it's not just cat videos, college dissertations or old episodes of "The A-Team" because the internet can actually provide us with useful services. There are podcasts which provide us intimate looks into the minds of writers, actors and athletes, blogs where aspiring writers can put there words out for the world to read and many video sites which allow people who want to become directors can hone their craft and be discovered. And that's just the artistic side - the internet is also extremely practical. Seriously, in 30 minutes on the web you can find a new job, apartment, car, and girlfriend - tasks which would take you weeks if you wanted to do them on foot. I know the wheel was pretty amazing at the time, but I am confident that when all is said and done the internet will go down in history as the greatest invention ever. That being said, maybe the internet isn't for everyone.

Lately I keep seeing a series of PSAs in which people are being shown how to use the internet to do simple tasks for the first time. One person is paying a bill online, another is purchasing plane tickets and the third is chatting with her family for the first time in years (there has to be more to that story than simple lack of computer skills). I assume the idea behind the PSA is to inspire people to get out there and learn new skill. Obviously I am in favor of that and recognize that the first step when learning a new skill is admitting you have work to do, so anything which tells people that the help is there when they finally decide to ask for it is a good thing. But while I think people experimenting with new technology is great and understand that to a lot of people computers are intimidating, I can't help but shake the fact that the internet is not a particularly new concept. Also, it is not very complicated, so if you haven't figured out how to pay a bill online by now I am pretty sure the internet is going to be wasted on you. The other thing is that the people in the video appear to only be a few years older than me. Listen, my father basically made me sign up for an email account and told me it was going to be something I would need going forward, which I didn't really believe at the time. However, that was about 20 years ago and I knew I was wrong within a couple of weeks. That means these people grew up in the same world I did and that world pretty much demanded you knew how to work the internet.

Whenever I see these PSAs my reaction to them feels to be very similar to how I react when I see ads telling people not to smoke or that they need to wear their seatbelts - if these people don't know they should be doing these things by now there may just be no saving them. In addition to that, sometimes I wonder if certain people staying off the internet isn't the worst thing in the world. Perhaps these internet avoiders exist so that someone out there will still buy stamps or keep the travel agency industry going. [Sidebar: Not to mention, these people haven't been vetted. You and I may know you don't need a license to use the internet but these guys don't so why don't we use their naivety to make sure they aren't going to just be another bland internet voice? For all the great things the internet, its ability to be accessed by everyone is simultaneously its best and worst feature. Maybe the fact that these internet newbies had never learned how to log on was the universe's way of balancing that out. Think about it - if the world has gone for this long without hearing from these people on the issues and no one noticed their absence, there is probably a reason for that. I'm not trying to be the arbiter of the web here, but something tells me these late-bloomers are the people who fill comment sections with poorly-spelled insults and then send mass-forwards about conspiracy theories to all their relatives. I'm just saying that if that is all they plan to use the internet for maybe we should leave them in the dark ages.]

My point is that telling people they need to use the internet is not the same as telling people they need to watch "Breaking Bad." It would be nice if they did the latter, but they pretty much no longer have a choice with the former. As the last person in my family not on Facebook I can appreciate that there are people out there who refuse to sign up for the latest fad on principle alone. There is something admirable about not signing up for something just because you see everyone else doing it - even if you are going against the crowd for no other reason than to be a contrarian I can respect that childish position as long as you stick to your guns. But I don't care how out of touch you may want to be at some point you simply can't fight the movement anymore and I think at this point we can safely declare that the internet is here to stay. I know it is annoying to spend time learning a skill which is obsolete by the time you get around to using it, but I promise you the internet is not going to suddenly become like learning how to use a slide-rule. Not only are the days of having to do almost everything online here, they were here several years ago. That means at some point these people made a conscious decision to be ignorant regarding the internet and now they are being forced to scramble because the world is passing them by. Of course, if you are looking for a place in which actions don't really have consequences the internet is the place to be. Apparently these guys already knew the most important rule of the world web web already.

Thrown For A Loop

I find constantly fluctuating gas prices to be one of the more frustrating things humans are willing to put up with. Not only do they go up (and rarely down) based on events which may or may not happen and which may or may not even impact where the gas being shipped to a specific region of the world (for example a hurricane might hit an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico and prices jump), but all this happens based on some super-secret formula no one seems in any hurry to share with the rest of the class. It is a very helpless feeling. One thing I know for sure is that gas is no different from any other product in that prices can vary wildly based on where the station is and the closer to a main highway the more expensive the gas is going to be. Economically this makes sense because you put the highest prices where there most people are going to be driving passed and therefore have the highest chances of needing fuel so you make the most money. But I think the gas companies have begun to underestimate just how far off the beaten path people are going to drive to save a few extra cents. It used to be you had to hunt for a few miles to find the cheapest gas but not anymore. This weekend I drove passed a station which was just off the highway and gas was one price and at a station not 200 yards down the road it was a full dime cheaper. Americans may be lazy and in the grand scheme of filling a tank 2 cents savings may not be worth the gas you use to drive across town to buy it, but we're not so lazy we can't drive the length of a solid par 3 to save a dime per gallon.

Due to my annoyance at gas prices and oil companies in general you would think I would be a big fan of the proposed HyperLoop which was making the news rounds last week. For those of you who may have missed the press release, the idea proposed by PayPal founder and eccentric billionaire Elon Musk is quite simple. Basically he wants to build a series of tubes all over the country which would ferry passengers to their destinations at speeds of around 800 miles an hour by having them sit in small aluminum pods. Think of it like the system your local drive-thu bank uses for the outside lane (or how elderly Senators think the internet works). Not only would it obviously cut down on travel times (LA to San Francisco would take 30 minutes) but many of the other hassles of air travel such as delays for weather or mechanical issues would be reduced as well. Sure, you have to ignore the obvious fact that when something did go wrong it would go very wrong and leave people with literally no where to turn as well as the idea that being in a tube zooming along at 800 miles an hour would take the concept of motion sickness to an unprecedented level. But if this worked it would save fuel, time and the environment not to mention finally bring us in line with many of the promises made by sci-fi shows of the '50s. That is why it is obviously never going to happen.

The first reason this idea is going to have some problems at the beginning is that it just sounds so insane. Honestly, it sounds like an idea someone would have while stoned so if anyone other than the tech billionaire suggested this the news media would accuse them of watching too much "Futurama" and then go about the rest of their day. But because the man behind the idea has more money than he will ever be able to spend, people feel compelled to listen to him and bring experts on to debate the validity of the concept. (Money may not buy you happiness but apparently it can buy you credibility.) This is kind of ironic because the most obvious reason that this project will never get off the ground is money. Building this thing is going to cost a lot of money and Musk has already said he doesn't have the time or funds to put into this, just that he hopes someone takes his concept and runs with it. Musk doesn't seem like the kind of guy to leave a successful business idea on the table for anyone to have, which leads me to believe there are probably a lot of design kinks which need to be worked out. This concept was being used by high-rise mailrooms to send letters up and down since the 1920s so Musk can't be the first person to think of taking this to a larger scale and the fact no one else has put this idea out there means the theory may not really work. And given how much influence the oil, airplane and automobile industries (which would all be crippled if this invention worked) have in Washington there is not a politician on the planet who would approve funding to research what it would take to make this idea plausible.

Look, I love a hair-brained idea as much as the next guy. I firmly believe every great invention in history was nothing more than a crazy idea at some point and it is only through innovation that society advances. Therefore, we should be encouraging these people and their big ideas rather than telling them all the reasons they will most likely fail, which is why I love corporations which sponsor contests to see if there is anyone out there who can build their product better than they currently do. However, this particular idea just feels like we tried to skip a few too many steps on the road to progress. I mean, we still haven't perfected the electric car or even have a plane which provides people of average height with enough legroom and somehow we think we're ready to send real, live people through an interconnect series of tubes which spans the country? I think a better use of time and money would be having our best and brightest minds working on ways to improve the current modes of transportation (which are far from perfect) and once we have cars, trains and planes operating at peak efficiency then we can work on the futuristic concepts. But even then we should start slowly and work up to revolutionizing nation-wide travel. We're only a couple years away from the date in "Back to the Future II" so how about we try and get hoverboards and work from there? Hell, at this point I would settle for self-tying shoes.