Blast From The Past

On Saturday I went to go see the new IMAX movie "Jerusalem" at the Museum of Science. (It's there because the Museum also has the Dead Sea Scrolls on display. Quick movie review: eh. As you would expect from an IMAX movie it is visually stunning, but there isn't a whole lot of point. It is supposed to explain how this one small area of the globe came to be the center of three major religions while getting a view of how life is there now through the eyes of three young girls who all grew up there but have different religious backgrounds. It did those things but that was kind of it. I guess I was expecting a big moral to the story which wasn't there.) Anyway, we got there super early and so I had time to walk around a few of the displays outside the Omni Theater. It was kind of surreal experience. Like any kid who grew up around Boston I went to the Science Museum once a year on field trips, but hadn't been back since I went to see a laser light show in college. It was very strange to see that while just enough things had switched to let you know time had passed, most of it was still the same. They still had the chart telling you how much you would weigh on the Moon versus on Earth and the pendulum clock was still swinging next to the coach check room. If you had just woken me from a coma and taken me there without telling me how long I had been out I would have guesses a year, maybe two but never over a decade. It made me think about how it's never the objects in our lives which change that much, just our perspective about them. It actually turned out to be a good precursor for later that night.

Because getting around the Museum can be tricky I figured it would easier to just take the Green Line over. Going to the Museum it appeared to be a great plan, as we got there with plenty of time to spare. It was when we were leaving that things took a turn because the first train we got on was nice and empty since it was the first stop. However, because the MBTA is kind of stupid we had to get off that train and onto another one, which was slightly more crowded and it only got more crowded as we got closer to the city. But I've always said it is not crowds which bother me, it is the people who make them up that will determine how tolerant I feel like being. When the train stopped and I was immediately hit with a cloud of Drakkar Noir I knew I was in trouble. (Free tip for the teenage readers: one quick squirt is enough. Axe Body Spray is lying to you about how much to use to get you to buy more of their product.) Sure enough, a large group of 14 or 15 year-olds stumbled onto the train and gathered right in front of me. They were falling all over each other as well as the passengers seated nearby and blocking the path of people trying to get by but they were too far into their own little world to notice how quickly they had annoyed everyone on the train. They could have easily made more room if they had just wandered further into the train but apparently they hadn't quite figured out how steps worked just yet so they just clustered in the middle of the aisle. A piece of furniture would have been less of an intrusion.

This scenario pretty much represents my worst nightmare - being surrounded by a group of kids who just started going through puberty and yet who actually believe that what they think regarding events which are happening in the world is important. Just because you're doing very well in social studies doesn't mean I want to hear your thoughts on Syria considering you still won't be old enough to vote in the next Presidential election. Even worse, kids are incredibly self-involved at that age. They kept getting in everyone's way, stepping people's feet and yelling their conversations the length of the train. (As you would expect they spent every second they weren't talking with their faces in their phones. I almost wanted to suggest they text rather than yell.) But worse than that, they were just rude. Every time a chair opened up these teens dove for it like they were going to die if they had to keep standing even though there were older riders who probably could have used the seat. I couldn't even get up to offer a woman my seat because they had blocked me and I am pretty sure a teen would have just taken it anyway. (I am well aware that my nieces and nephew will eventually morph into exactly these annoying little monsters. That is not what I am worried about. I love them and always will no matter how much they annoy society. What I'm not looking forward to is the first time one of the girls brings one of them home to meet the family because I don't care about them. I may kill the first one to send a message.)

But before I exploded at these kids about how they just need to sit down and shut up I stopped and reminded myself that I was once just like them. Maybe not that annoying, but I am sure I was pretty close. After I reminded myself of that fact I actually felt kind of bad for these kids because the only thing sadder than being the person everyone else finds annoying is not realizing that is how the rest of the world sees you. (Actually, there is one things worse: knowing that the world finds you annoying and not doing something to correct that behavior.) Plus, high school freshman is a tough time because you finally made it to the top of the grade school ladder only to find yourself back on the bottom rung. Not to mention, when I was going through my awkward phase I didn't have to deal with things like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram which not only lets everyone know about the mistakes you make which used to be able to stay private, now they broadcast them to the entire world, so people who don't even know you are making fun of you. Plus, even though I know everything they are stressing over now is going to seem really stupid in about 3 years those kids certainly don't. Until you've dealt with big issue the small ones seem enormous. That moment of introspection changed my whole feeling towards this group. All that being said, it didn't do anything for my nostrils and two days later I'm still getting whiffs of the cheapest cologne known to man, so from now on any time I need to go to the Science Museum, I'm driving there.

End Of The Road

Later tonight the final episode for the television show "Breaking Bad" will air. Of course, you probably already knew that because you haven't been able to turn on any channel without hearing about it for the last couple of weeks. The cast, which filmed the ending months ago, have been making the rounds on just about every show and podcast you can think of. Seriously, there are members of the Kardashians who think they are whoring themselves. I'm not denying it's a great show, I just think the love fest which has lasted over a month is getting to be too much. The fans are very loyal and enthusiastic, we get it. I'm not above falling into a little hyperbole myself but the other day I heard someone say that "Breaking Bad" was the most important show in history (wrong) and that we will never see anything like it again (also wrong). The most important show question is a personal choice and up for debate, but of course we will see another show like this. Everyone says the show was so innovative but between premium channels like HBO and Cinemax to go along with the basic cable ones like AMC and FX, lines will continue to be crossed and boundaries expanded. "Breaking Bad" was a great show, but we need to stop acting like the fact it is ending is akin to losing a family member. I have to say the only thing all this excessive attention has really accomplished is for casual viewers like me to wish the series would just hurry up and end already.

I just think too many people are doing that most annoying of habits, which is acting as though everything that happens today is the greatest thing which has ever or will ever happen, showing absolutely no perspective in the process. I know it is human nature to inflate recent events that we are excited about, but at the same time we shouldn't forget everything that has come before now. There have been plenty of popular things which have gone away before people were ready to let them go and do you know what happened? The world kept on spinning and we filled those fads in with other fads. I'm not saying people are going to look back at all this "Breaking Bad" love the way we look at the Macarena but I wouldn't be surprised to hear people admit they may have gone a little overboard in praising the show once they gain some distance. Besides, I still question just how popular this show really is. If you look at the ratings I can't help but question if all this attention is warranted. I know popularity doesn't equal quality but you also can't deny the fact that the show isn't actually watched by a huge chunk of the population. Also, do the math - it certainly seems like there are more people talking about how much they watch the show than actually tuning in to see it. (Then again, considering the show is mostly about a man who lies to everyone around him that is oddly fitting.) The thing is that I know it is only a matter of time before another big thing comes along that gets too much attention and drives me crazy, but after the last couple of weeks I am totally ready to embrace whatever it will be just because it will be something different.

Weekly Sporties

-No one seemed to be particularly upset or surprised when Denver Broncos linebacker Von Miller was suspended four games during the offseason after testing positive for a banned substance. At this point apathy is the typical fan reaction to finding out a football player is take some kind of drug, performance-enhancing or otherwise. However, more than a few eyebrows were raised a couple of months ago when the suspension was increased from four games to six without any explanation as to why. The only thing the NFL said was that Miller did not fail a second test but he had committed a violation while on probation. Of course, no one was going to let such a vague explanation go unchecked, so people started digging. That was when someone uncovered that Miller had tried to convince a star-struck specimen collector to have his tainted urine switched with a clean sample so he could have his suspension overturned on appeal. What is even crazier is that the collector had agreed to go along with it but hadn't thought it through because a second collector (clearly not a Broncos fan), notice that Miller was in a different section of the country on the day the first collector claims to have gathered his sample. (Obviously, not the brightest partner Miller could have picked.) Now, karmic justice aside, I have to say I think Miller got off rather easy here. An NFL player failing a drug test is not something to take lightly but at the same time no one is about to get up in arms over it either. All he had to do was serve his time and as long as he didn't fail another test the matter would have been forgotten as soon as he recorded his first sack. But trying to manipulate the system feels like it takes his cheating to an entirely different level. It is one thing to cheat but it is another to keep trying to cheat after you have been caught (believe me, I know how insane this logic is). Also, it shows that Miller obviously hasn't learned his lesson and is probably still taking a banned substance so he should (rightfully) expect to be tested frequently for the rest of his career. Also, rather than being one of the dozens of players who will miss a few games this season he is now a punchline and his entire career has to be looked at differently. The lesson, as always, is that the cover-up is usually worse than the crime.

-Of course, the premise that the NFL wants the game cleaned up in the name of player safety took another laughable hit this week when it was revealed that after dropping the matter during the last labor negotiations, the NFL is once again quietly pushing to expand the regular season to 18 games. I've said before that I am against this planned expansion and my mind hasn't changed. I think that is more punishment than these players should be expected to take and also the current system of 16 games feels like the perfect number, so adding more is only going to mess things up. All that being said, I am slightly intrigued by the twist the NFL is reportedly considering, in which players would only be allowed to play in 16 of the 18 games. The extra bye week would probably do the players some good but the bigger issue would be how coaches would decide to handle their rosters. What players do you sit and against which opponents? I'll say this, if I were a fan of a bad team I would want this proposal to go through because it would give my team a fighting chance if for example the Patriots decided they were going to try and beat me without Tom Brady. This rule would definitely add a new dimension to the sport. However, I still don't think it will end up happening for two simple reasons. The first is that the rosters would have to expand exponentially to make room for extra players because you certainly couldn't expect coaches to use this system with only 53 players. That would mean the salary cap would have to go up and I just can't see NFL owners agreeing to that. But the second reason is because fans would get screwed two games every season. Think about it - they are never going to announce which two games each player will be sitting out until the very last second so the opponent doesn't have time to prepare. That is fine from a football standpoint but if I paid all this money to see the Patriots and discovered that was one of the games in which Brady was benched I would be pissed. It would be like going to Red Sox game and discovering Ortiz had the day off, only 10 times worse. Not seeing big stars play the whole game is the reason we all hate the preseason so much and now the NFL wants to bring that feeling to the regular season? Do not they not remember there is a reason we were all so anxious to have fewer preseason games? Sadly, I have a feeling I may be shoveling against the tide on this one. Throwing an idea out there once can be considered talk but the fact the NFL keeps bringing up the idea of an 18-game season means it is just a matter of time before it happens. Someone needs to remind them that more does not always equal better and that some times it actually does more harm than good.

-For all the grandstanding baseball does in regards to things like traditions and the sanctity of the game while going for decades ignoring steroid use, I think the thing I hate the most is when someone gets high and mighty regarding baseball's "unwritten rules". A couple weeks ago the Braves took exception when Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez took a little too long to admire his first homerun and catcher Brian McCann told him so when Fernandez reached home plate. The benches emptied but, as so often happens in baseball, it just resulted in a lot of talking. At the time most people were on the Braves side, but could understand why Fernandez would have been a little bit excited. Well, apparently this half-assed show of support emboldened the Braves into thinking they were the baseball police because the other night Brian McCann strolled up the third baseline to block the plate and admonish a Milwaukee Brewers player who talked the whole way around the bases. The whole things started a couple months ago when Carlos Gomez was hit by pitches thrown by Brave Paul Maholm on two separate occasions. When they faced each other on Tuesday Gomez got the best revenge by taking Maholm deep. He used his entire trot to first to point this out to Maholm, but when he got to first Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman decided to interject his opinion the matter. Gomez kept going but was now yelling at Freeman and Maholm as he made his way around the bases. Before he could get home McCann took it upon himself to interject. Once again benches cleared and a Freeman and Gomez were ejected. While I think it is admirable that Freeman and McCann felt the need to stick up for a teammate, the reason I am sick of the Braves is that afterwards McCann said he was doing it because he wants to show kids watching the proper way baseball should be played. This is laughable for two reasons. 1) this is Atlanta so no one was watching. 2) no one asked McCann to be the defender of baseball's code of conduct. Seriously, McCann is a nice player but who is he to tell anyone how to act because as near as I can tell this was his second fight in less than a month which doesn't exactly paint him as the picture of restraint. What he should have done instead was not sink to Gomez's level and start a bench-clearing fight, because I would say is the far worse thing for kids to see.

-Unlike the NFL which has 53 players on each team they can market and create merchandise for, an NBA roster only has 12 players to choose from and the average fans is only going to want about 3 of those players' jerseys. That numbers game is why I am more willing to accept the fact that the NBA rolls out new styles of jerseys every two weeks, even though I typically find the idea of 'alternate jerseys' more annoying than interesting. However, this week the NBA may have gone a little too far as some people are reporting they are playing with the idea of using nicknames on the back of jerseys, specifically for a Miami/Brooklyn match-up during the regular season. So, rather than "James" on the back of LeBron's jersey it would read "King James". I am not a fan of this idea. First of all, I am wondering just how they will handle the players who don't have a nickname. On top of that there is the issue of players who have nicknames which aren't specific to them. For example, Shane Battier has said he wants his jersey to read "Batman", only the people at DC Comics have a copyright claim on that name. Or what about Brooklyn's Andrei Kirilenko, whose nickname is "AK-47"? Do you really think the NBA wants to sell that jersey? But, my bigger issue with this is that it leads to one of my least-favorite things in the world, which is people giving themselves nicknames. I have a long-held belief that people don't get a say in their nicknames, so when someone suddenly declares that they want to be called by a moniker I actually become inclined to call them anything but that. (For all the reasons Kobe Bryant has given me to not like him through the years, the main reason I am not a fan is that he started calling himself "Black Mamba." Dwayne Wade, who is coming up with a new nickname for himself every week at this point, is starting to nip at Bryant's heels.) You also can't ignore that the NBA has an image problem right now because after years of things like "The Decision" and the Dwight Howard free agency tour, many casual fans see NBA players as selfish babies who only play when they want and where they want. Putting nicknames on the backs of jerseys like a glorified AAU team is only going to reinforce that image. Remember, older sports fans love it when coaches do that cliched move of removing names from the backs of jersey because it is, "about the name on the front of the jersey, not the one on the back." This is pretty much the antithesis of that. That's fine if you want to appeal to the kids but you have to remember the kids won't be the ones buying the jerseys, their parents will, so hopefully this idea will be out back on the shelf, just like anyone who seriously considers calling Wade by the name "WOW".

-There is a storm brewing in college athletics. After years of players complaining about things like merchandising rights and the billion dollar TV deals these conferences are signing but not actually doing anything about it, college athletes are starting to get organized. Last weekend players from Georgia, Georgia Tech and Northwestern took the field with a simple "APU" written somewhere on their uniforms. It stands for "All Player Unite", the rallying cry of college athletes everywhere and it is expected to continue on various fields across the country until the players see some radical rule changes. [Sidebar: they may have gotten their first victory this week as video game maker EA sports settled a lawsuit with them for $40 million. It will only work out to about $340 per player, but it sets a precedent regarding organizations using an amateur player's likeness without permission or compensation.] As you would imagine, the NCAA is not in favor of any of this and claims that it will take immediate action if it sees this again because these players are breaking the rule the NCAA has regarding writing personal messages on your uniform.( I don't think the NCAA quite knows how protests work. Still, there is no better example of how messed up the NCAA is right now than them telling kids who are rebelling against the very principle the NCAA was founded on that they should respect a uniform rule. Let me know how that works out for them.) While I have my doubts that this will ultimately be good for college athletics (I have long contended that when athletes from lesser sports start demanding to be paid schools will simply disband that sport), I support these players' right to protest. Sadly, I am not hearing much support from the schools themselves. I never expect coaches, who despise anything which could be seen as a distraction, to be on board with them, but I would have thought the institutions would have been proud of these kids of standing up to the powerful NCAA. Sadly, that is not the case. For example, Northwestern has said they will check players before they take the field from now and and discourage them from writing "APU" on their uniforms. I would have expected more from a forward-thinking school who despite being in a major conference actually appears to put education first, but I guess this just shows that even at schools where learning is supposedly more important than athletics, money is put above them all.

-If the college athletes actually do start to make progress when it comes to getting the NCAA to change some of its policies, perhaps the next thing they should look into is how teams schedule opponents. Last Saturday Louisville, Ohio State and Miami all took the field against teams which were either at the very bottom of the rankings or not even in Division 1. Not surprisingly, the scores quickly got out of hand to the point that to try and be merciful the teams agreed to either shortened the final quarter to 12 minutes or started using a running clocks, but the damage was still done as the three major conference teams still won by 70. Now, we have talked previously about why these match-ups happen: the major programs see them as any easy win before their tough conference schedules start and almost treat them as preseason games. The small schools are there because they need the money. They can be paid upwards of half a million to be a punching bag and at smalls schools like Savannah State being the sacrificial lamb is the only way to make sure the athletic department stays afloat. Occasionally we all get a laugh when it backfires and these small teams manage to keep it close, but no one thought that was going to happen last weekend, as evidenced by the fact the teams had already figured out how to navigate a blowout. (The only one who didn't appear to be in a charitable mood was Ohio State, who went for it on 4th down despite being up by 40 points. It just adds fuel to my theory that Urban Meyer is a dick.) But just because I understand the economics of it, that doesn't mean I think it is right. As Jason Whitlock of ESPN pointed out this week, we all think boxing is morally corrupt, but if college football were boxing these two teams would never have been allowed to step into the ring together. And that is the thing which really irritates me - these college administrators are setting these kids up to get their brains beaten out and never taking the field themselves. Ohio State probably has 20 guys who will eventually find their way into the NFL while their opponent, Florida A&M, is more famous for their band. (That is actually why Ohio State and A&M were playing one another, to have a band competition. A hazing incident kept the band at home, so the football team got whacked for nothing.) If the NCAA keeps allowing these incredibly mismatched teams to keep sharing the same field eventually someone is going to get seriously injured and no amount of money is going to make up for that.

-As a golfer I am always trying to debunk the myth that golf is a sport for nothing but rich guys. I like to contend that golf only requires as much money as you feel like spending because you can always find a cheap set of clubs or green fees if you want to play on the cheap. Still, I admit that it can be hard to keep costs down when you get paired with the guy who has all new equipment and you see how nice and shiny it is. Also, there is no denying that the nicer courses are usually worth the money you spend. So, yes, golf is better if you have more money to spend on it, but that can be true for everything. The good news is that while I really don't have much of a leg to stand on while defending golf I will always have richer, more elite sports to point at and say, "Yeah, well at least golf isn't like that!" To a lot of people the richest of the rich kid sports is sailing. That perception has only gotten worse as the America's Cup, sailings premier competition, has devolved into more of a personal competition between billionaires featuring boats which coast more than your average MLS team. The Cup was contested this week and on one side was the United States team supported by Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison while on the other was a New Zealand squad backed the the United Arab Emirates. Normally I have no problem wrapping myself in the flag when it comes to International competition even when I don't particularly care about, follow or understand the sport (I do it every Olympics) and since I actually like boats and being on the water ("Wind" was a good movie), you would think I would have been all over this competition. Additionally the US team staged an historic comeback to add to the drama but this time I just couldn't bring myself to care. The first obstacle in my way was the fact that this year the America's Cup adopted a bunch of crazy rules to keep 99.999% of people out of the competition and the way I see it if they don't want me to be involved in their sport I am not going to force my way in. But more that was the fact that there weren't actually many Americans on the US team. In fact, the captain was English and all but one of the crew was from New Zealand. Now, I am not stupid, I know that it is not like players on the Celtics have to be from Boston but there is just something different when it is supposed to be International competition and yet the two boats were full of people who probably grew up on the same block. Then again, a victory is a victory so say it with me: U-S-A!

It Speaks Volumes

It only took my brother-in-law about five visits to my family's house for Sunday Dinner for him to realize that if he wanted any chance of being heard around the table he would simply have to talk louder than the people sitting on either side of him. He was not wrong. There is no denying that the members of my family all possess strong pipes and when we get together the volume can rise pretty quickly. However, I honestly do not believe this problem is exclusive to my gene pool. I think any time you get a large group of people together that have something to say to each other the noise level is bound to go up by a few decibel points and my family is simply an example of that. When you grow up with three siblings and want to get your parents' attention speaking the loudest is the easiest way to to achieve that goal (Fun fact: the more girls in the house the louder you have to be.), until eventually being quiet makes you appear to be guilty of something. Unfortunately this increased volume has this pesky habit of sticking around. (I'm working really hard to make sure the next generation grows up being a little bit quieter, but as of right now I am failing miserably.) The only thing I am comforted by is that soon enough we're going to be seen as a quiet bunch, because the world around us certainly isn't getting any quieter.

I arrived at my doctor's office the other morning to discover I was second in line to check-in. It shouldn't have been a big deal, only the woman in front of me wasn't content do simply let the receptionist know she had arrived, she wanted to tell her every gory detail which had lead her to come in that morning. What was a little crazy is that she didn't appear to have any shame about keeping her medical history a secret. She seemed almost proud to go over every procedure she had gone through, some of them rather personal. I was doing my best not to listen but when you don't have a smartphone there is only so much you can do to distract yourself from something taking place directly in front of you (if anyone wants to convince me to get a new cellphones, this situation is the way to do so). Even worse the woman had one of those voice which just cuts right through you and worms its way around your brain to the point you could be watching TV two rooms away and you would still hear her. I had just gotten the sound of her out of my head when I went to the gym this morning and found myself working out between a grunter on side and a loud counter on the other. Now, I'm never going to demand people keep their voices down in a public space because I have no right to do so. That being said, these two were driving me crazy. The counter was especially bad because she kept screwing me up. I'm counting in my head and her voice kept throwing me off. I probably did 15 extra reps of each machine. Not sure if I should thank her or not (how sore I am tomorrow will go a long way to determining this).

Personally, I blame television for this issue being so widespread. I'm constantly complaining about the "experts" the cable news channels are bringing on who attempt to make up for their lack of original opinions or useful knowledge of a situation with volume or who compensate for their shortcomings by yelling insults at one another. But, those channels are hardly alone in this because sports channels are just as guilty. No matter the sport pre-game shows have ever-expanding rosters to the point that you can have 10 people talking at the same time, all trying to make the same point and, much like at a crowded dinner table, figuring the only way to get credit for making that point first is to make it louder than everyone else. It is as if no one told them there was a microphone clipped to their shirt. Still, there is no denying the biggest culprit in all of this is cellphones. I think we all know how frustrating it was to be standing in the middle of a major metropolitan city and have the person on the other end of the line tell you that your phone was so bad they could barely hear you, meaning your only recourse was to start yelling. It happened so frequently that after a while I think we all just started yelling into the phone out of habit, even on landlines, so before too long that yelling had invaded our everyday lives. Even though reception has improved, that need to yell has remained constant. Just think, for all the wonderful things our phones can do these companies still can't make one that makes it easier to talk.

Now, because we have several suspects we can point to as the cause of all this extra noise you would think that would make it simple to correct them and begin to reverse the trend, but that is easier said than done. First off, phone companies have had 20 years to work on making better cellphone microphones and they don't appear to be in any great hurry. Instead, things like Blu-Tooth are getting smaller and further away from our mouths, which is only going to make it worse. Not that I can blame cellphone companies for this decision because people are doing way more texting than talking at this point, so they probably see putting a better microphone on a cellphone as being the equivalent of working on a way to make record players have better needles. And you know TV isn't going to start reducing the size of their panels because they remain convinced that eventually one of these talking heads is bound to make a good point and they will be damned if it happens on some other network. That means it is up to humanity to do it on our own and even if everyone tried their best it will still be years before our behavior starts to change. Even worse is that all this yelling is causing people to take drastic measures, like turning up their headphones to drown out the noise. That would be fine, only is is causing the next generation to go deaf at a young age, which means eventually they will need to start screaming to be heard so the cycle will continue. I guess all I can hope for in the future is that my gym starts putting more space between machines.

Keep Your Guard Up

I usually try and come down on the right side of law enforcement. The way I see it, I would never want to be a cop because it is such a thankless job so anyone willing to take on that responsibility should get respect and admiration. That being said, there is one issue I really disagree with the police union on and that is when police are sent out to work as traffic detail for work being done on the side of the road. I understand that for a lot of cops those details are how they make the majority of their salary, but at the same time it gets harder and harder to swallow every time I drive passed and see them standing around not doing anything. (Even worse are the times when there are cars having trouble navigating their way around and the cops still aren't doing anything.) This has actually become a hot-button issue in the last couple of years because there are some in the local government who want to take these cops off the details and replace them with civilians waving flags. The politicians contend it would save money because they could pay them less and it would allow the cops to rest up for their regular duty. The cops are obviously against it but they claim it is a safety issue. (This is clearly grasping at straws and I would respect the police more if they just admitted that. No one is going to hold it against you if you don't want your salary cut - no one wants that. Stop hiding behind made-up concerns.) If the cops really want to get people back on their side they should point out the bang-up job civilians do the other time they are given traffic authority as crossing guards. I'll tell you this much, it would certain sway me over to their way of thinking.

This morning I had a doctor's appointment to follow up on the back injury I had last month. Even though my doctor is usually pretty good about staying on schedule even the best offices fall behind during the day, so my strategy was to get in and out as quickly as possible by getting an early appointment. The only problem with my plan is that at that time of the morning it meant I had to deal with crossing guards who were out to make sure the kids made it to school safely. Now, I don't want you to think I don't respect what the crossing guard is there to do. Obviously little kids can't be left alone near busy intersections and should get priority when they need to cross the road, because patience is not taught in schools... ever. Kids get to an intersection and they want to be on the other side this second, so having an adult there to oversee their progress is a great idea. The issue was that the crossing guards I saw this morning were hanging around long after the school day had begun to make sure the parents who had walked their kids to school were going to be able to make it back to their houses. To me, this is a gross abuse of power. The way I figure it crossing guard authority ends when it is applied to anyone over the age of 14, so these guards halting traffic so a perfectly able-bodied woman in her late-30s can cross the street without waiting seems like overstepping her boundaries. If that woman hasn't figured it out by now she never will.

Because I don't have any kids I can typically avoid school zones around the time the children are released back into the wild. However, it is getting harder to avoid the crossing guards, as their range appears to be expanding. Seriously, when I was in elementary school I think there was one crossing guard located on each side of the school and they were there to get you across the street and off school property - after that you were on your own. Now these crossing guards can be found standing at intersections which are miles away. On top of that they don't appear to have any concept of traffic patterns as they go about their duties. As soon as a kid shows up the guards strut out into traffic as if the stop sign in their hand came from a Presidential order and just start messing with your errands, causing you to miss green lights and creating long lines of cars where there shouldn't be any. It is even worse if you happen to be walking down the street because many of these crossing guards act as though they have real authority over adults and will yell at you if you try to cross anywhere but the crosswalk. I guess it is because they want any adults in the area to set a good example for the children coming out of school but I have to say if these kids are ready and willing to follow the lead of any stranger they see on the street than they need to be turned around and sent right back into a classroom, as they are clearly in need of more education.

Out of curiosity I went online this afternoon and checked what you would need to do if you wanted to become a crossing guard. As it turns out, not much. Most schools' only requirements are that you be able to communicate with students and make quick decisions (and they don't appear to be a stickler on that last part). Even crazier was that many of the listings I saw said the shifts were typically only 40 minutes in the morning and afternoons, which meant these crossing guards who were still hanging around to assist the parents had gone rogue. Clearly these are people with some time to kill in their day but how crazy is it to think they stick around after their shift and just keep stopping traffic? I can only assume it is because the power has gone to their heads, so the next thing you know they are going to start showing up at random intersections in the middle of the day to help elderly citizens cross the street and causing delays on those roadways as well. I'm all for safety but if we're not careful someday there is going to be a crossing guard at the end of every driveway. The only good news is that at least if they are all doing this after their shift has ended at least it won't cost us any money. I always say the measure of how much something annoys me is directly related to how much it costs, so unless crossing guards start pulling down $50 an hour like cops on detail I guess it could always be worse. Still we need to be careful because if this is how they react when given a sign and vest, God only knows what would happen if they got a badge and a gun.

A Difference About Opinions

Over the last couple of years I have learned a very important lesson when it comes to the internet - when I really enjoyed an article or story I have just read I make sure not to accidentally scroll too far down past the byline because that will only lead me to the comment section and frankly, no good can come from reading those. It doesn't matter how innocent a subject matter is, there is always one curmudgeon out there who will hate it. Not that the comments after an article are always related to the subject of that article. If you have ever been online you know the comment section of websites are typically filled with poorly-spelled, grammatically-challenged ignorant and often racist thoughts which have nothing to do with anything as well as political rants which have even less to do with the subject. The few people who actually manage to produce an insightful comment on the story usually undo all their good work by then firing back at anyone who may disagree with their point of view idiots. Seriously, it is enough to make you lose hope in humanity. The biggest reason for all this hate is most likely because these people can hide behind anonymity since a lot of sites allow you to create an alias. To combat this, recently a few sites have started to try and curb these type of insults by demanding people comment through their Facebook pages, thus eliminating some of the bravado which comes from thinking there are no consequences to your actions. However it didn't get rid of them all, so I wasn't really surprised the other day when I read that someone decided to simply do away with internet comments altogether.

The only thing that I did find curious was that the site which finally decided to take this nuclear option was Popular Science. I never would have thought a fairly straightforward website like Popular Science would have attracted the kind of people who felt the need to insult people just to get their point across, but perhaps that fact they were the first people to snap should prove just how out of control these internet trolls have gotten. If the rational scientists are fed up, what hope do the rest of us have? Now, it is not like they are turning and running - Popular Science will still provide the author's contact information if you feel compelled to get in touch and debate something in the article. The catch is you have to email them through your own email address. Not only will providing personal contact information slow a lot of these people down I assume Popular Science is also going off the principle that most people can't stay angry for too long. The biggest problem with internet comments (other than the mindset of people writing them) is that they are far too convenient. The box to input your ravings just sits at the bottom of every article and all you need to do is enter a small code to prove you aren't a robot determined to send out spam before you can say whatever is on your mind at that moment. A little time-lapse is probably in everyone's best interests. We all know how easy it is to get sidetracked on the internet, so many of these angry emails will never get written once the commentator clicks on two or three other links and suddenly its an hour later and the urge to write in to disagree with someone has gone away.

Of course, the free speech advocate in me has some concerns about silencing people's opinions on topics because people have the right to show the world just how stupid they are. After all, the First Amendment was intended to protect the speech we hate, not just the stuff we agree with. But beyond the political aspect there is also the sense the site is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Even though you have to go hunting for them, occasionally there are some valid, well-composed thoughts and counter-arguments mixed in among the crap and spam. Not allowing those comments to see the light of day is almost as bad as making people weed through the terrible ones with no reward for their troubles. Plus, this system allows the authors to pick and choose which comments they want to read and I am going to assume they are only going to read the good ones. This is bad because if there is one thing I know about writers it's that we love it when people tell us how great something we wrote is. It is a recipe for some severely inflated egos and unchecked opinions, neither which makes for particularly great reporting. A little push back or negative reinforcement can occasionally be good for the soul. But, then I sat back and really thought about how many of those great comments from random people on the internet existed and decided the number was low enough that I could live with losing them, so my feelings of going to the barricades over this issue went away.

Still, I guess I am just sad that it came to this. I mean, when did people forget how to debate without immediately sinking to insults? I was reading a story the other day about something in the world of sports and stupidly started reading the comments. One guy provided a very compelling counter-argument to the original author but the next person who replied started their thoughts on the matter with, "Your (sic) dumb." Making it even crazier was that following that inauspicious start the second person's comment was filled with some well-thought out rebuttals to the first guy, yet for some reason that guy felt compelled to start out by insulting the first reader. It's like starting his comment with an insult was a tic and it made me totally dismiss all of his points, no matter how valid they may have been. I'm not going to miss seeing comments like this as I make my way around the internet, I'm just going to be curious to see if this method catches on. As I said before, it is not like Popular Science often publishes articles which gets people's blood boiling, so the world most likely won't miss their comment section but if this system allows people to still get their points across using some other method it may provide a model for what other, more heavily-trafficked sites could use going forward. It probably won't do much to correct all the horrible spelling out there, but at this point any little move in the right direction should be seen as progress.

A Slice Of Home

When I was still working at Gillette another co-worker and I used to make a bet on game days on just how many opposing team fans would show up and fill in the expensive seats. I would throw out a number of how many I thought would be on each side of the stadium and then he would take the over or the under. It was originally designed to just be one of those thing you come up with to pass the time when you would rather be anywhere but at work, however I was also using it as an unofficial personal barometer of who had the most loyal fans. I figured this was a better gauge than looking all over the stadium because, not only were these people willing to travel to an away game, they were shelling out the big bucks for Clubhouse seats, proving they weren't just hopping on StubHub for the cheapest available. (If you are interested in the results, they go pretty much how you would expect. The closer the team the more fans were willing to shell out for the good seats since they saved money on travel and while teams which have always had a reputation for traveling well like the Cowboys and Steelers had plenty of representation, I couldn't have set the over/under low enough when it came to the Jacksonville came to town.) But even the Jaguars had a little representation, which just goes to show you that no matter how small you think a team's fanbase may be, they are always a few in every city.

I guess is is because I had this experience of seeing how loyal NFL fans can be that I shouldn't have been surprised when I turned on the TV before last Thursday's Eagles/Chiefs game and discovered that the pre-game show was broadcasting from a Kansas City Chiefs bar in Philadelphia. At first I thought they meant that this bar was the standard meeting place for all the out-of-town fans to take over when their team was playing the Eagles and it was simply a Chiefs bar that weekend, but it turns out this specific location was always a Chiefs-only establishment on NFL Sundays. They had a large collection of memorabilia all over the walls and had always shown Chiefs games, even during lean years. It had even seen a few current Chief players stopped by before the games. First off, who knew that there were enough Kansas City transplants to warrant their own establishment and secondly, why would they all flock to Philadelphia? I was confused on both fronts, but a little research revealed that the original owner of the bar had won a great deal of money when the Chiefs won the Super Bowl in the 70s and gave the bar its theme out of some sense of loyalty to the team and his son, who currently owns the bar, was brought up to root for the Chiefs even though he was raised in Philadelphia. Turns out his father was ahead of his time.

You wouldn't think there would be much of a market in catering to a fanbase whose team plays in a different city from the one in which your bar is located but that is where you are wrong. Not only are there bars like this all over the country, as it turns out the bigger the town the more team-specific bars you can have. It used to be that wandering in and finding a bar which had DirectTV and was showing out-of-town games was all you were ever going to get but at this point it doesn't matter where you live or what team you root for you should be able to find at least one bar where all the fans of your team gather together to watch the games together. For example, in New York there is a separate bar for each NFL team. Or, if that is too specific for you there are bars which caters to fans of certain sports in general, because apparently soccer fans can't stand mingling with football fans and the feeling is quite mutual, which is why there are bars which open early to show Premier League games. Normally I would think a restaurant would want to appeal to as many people as possible but I guess if you crunch the numbers you could say it all makes sense because 10 extremely loyal customers who are going to spend at least 3 hours eating and drinking at your establishment for 16 weeks will bring in more money than 20 guys who watch half a game and then leave never to come back again. I am just not sure I would present this as my business plan when first applying for the loan at the bank.

Normally I am not in favor of separating people into groups like this. I usually think allowing people to only gather with individuals who think exactly as they do is dangerous, small-minded and prevents people from learning how to interact with each other. I would advocate for sticking two groups of people with opposing views in a room because before too long they will see they have more in common than they think and learn to talk out their differences rather than continuing to hate each other based on ignorant and out-dated stereotypes. In this case, as these groups would already have a love of sports to go off of so the process would probably go by very fast. Not to mention I think the reputation of certain fanbases have been greatly exaggerated and while every group is going to have its knuckleheads, 95% of them are well-behaved people who just want to watch the game in a social situation, so we're keeping them apart worrying about fights which probably won't happen. All that being said, not everything in life has to be a teaching moment, especially when alcohol is involved, so I think I am ok with keeping people in their own corners this time. People are passionate about their teams so given how tempers can flare during games I am not sure I would want to have the rival team's bar in a city which means I won't be opening a Jets bar in Boston any time soon, no matter how profitable it would be. Or a Jaguars bar anywhere, because I am pretty sure those don't even make money in Jacksonville.

Shouldn't Be An App For That

As the only person between the ages of 15 and 35 without a true 'smartphone' (My phone can send emails, Tweets and photos, it just doesn't run all the apps. I like to say I have a smart-ish phone.), I admit to having limited knowledge when it comes to apps. I know what they do, I just don't have any personal experience with them. But from what I have seen when looking at other people's smartphones, it appears that there is an app for just about everything. You can shop for clothes with one app, get concert tickets using another app, make reservations at a restaurant and then call a cab with yet another app, brag about all the things you just did with the social media app, call in a tactical airstrike just for the hell of it and then play very detailed video games while you wait for SEAL Team 6 to arrive. Also, if the look of a particular app doesn't strike your fancy there are dozens more to choose from which do the same thing, so you can look around until you find one that looks aesthetically pleasing. And those are the the useful apps. For every app which performs a useful duty there are just as many which serve absolutely no purpose at all and those are just as technically impressive as the crucial ones, not to mention there are new ones coming along every day. Still, sometimes I wonder if we have gone too far and are reaching a point in which we expect there to be an app for everything.

I keep seeing this very disturbing PSA (is there any other kind lately?) in which people are standing around looking inside a glass room while a man inside begins to physically and verbally assault a woman. At first everyone is watching the scene for a few moments but then they start turning away uncomfortably, until finally one of the people watching the scene can't take it any more and picks up her phone, types away and then throws the phone through the glass. It sends a powerful message about not staying silent when you witness an act of violence, but it does lose some of its luster at the end, which is when you discover it is an ad for a new app which is designed to help users report domestic violence. The app gives downloaders a quiz regarding behavior they may have seen or heard to determine if what they saw was, in fact, domestic violence. If you get a high enough score the app will then give you a number to a local domestic abuse shelter or the police so you can report your suspicions. Then, because so many people are hesitant to call the police themselves as they don't want to get involved in what they feel is a private matter, the app will even allow you to make the report anonymously. I'm not saying this premise behind the app is a bad thing, I just don't like the fact it is necessary in the first place.

Thankfully I have never found myself remotely near a domestic abuse situation but I'll just go ahead and say that if you have enough of a suspicion that domestic abuse could be going on to the point you actually take the time to download the app and then fill out a quiz about it than my guess is there is domestic abuse going on. I'm not usually one to advocate for jumping to conclusions but when it comes to issues like this I tend to air on the side of caution because I would rather apologizing for being wrong later than wait too long and have something horrible happen in the interim, so if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's a duck. That kind of app is not something you download because you are looking to kill time during an airport layover, so my feeling is that what the user really wants this app to do is force them into action by doing most of the work for them. That is bad news because horrible situations like this are all about timing and frankly, time is not on your side. I know delayed action is better than no action at all, but if the roles were reversed you would probably not want the person who was thinking about calling the police to hesitate at all. If you think the police need to arrest the person next door before something truly horrible happens, that is not the time to be worrying about your network's 4G nationwide coverage.

Not that I want to sound like an 80 year-old here, but this is what happens when people become too attached to their phones. I understand that technology has a way of being very seductive and taking a hold of you but clearly something is wrong when it suddenly becomes hard for a person to make a move unless their phones tells them they should. This is the problem with everyone getting too attached to their phones - we've forgotten how to interact with each other including the fact that sometimes gets uncomfortable and you just have to power your way through those moments as part of being a grown-up. No one likes conflict but these days it feels like we go out of our way to avoid it, almost as if viewing it through our phones makes it not real. This is not a new phenomenon, of course. When video cameras were just starting to take off  and trouble broke out all anyone thought to do was break out the camera and take pictures rather than help the people in danger We're still trying to figure out how to kick our urge to capture everything on tape since cellphone cameras now shoot tremendously clear videos. I guess it comes in handy when the police finally show up because then you can just show them the video rather than rely on memory but that still means the police have to show up and considering the main job of cellphones was always supposed to be making calls, getting them there should be the easy part.

Better Them Than Me

I will freely admit that I have never been above talking to inanimate objects. Every time my car takes a second to turn over or my computer won't open a program in a timely manner I will start out with a few words of encouragement and if that doesn't work (and it never does), I switch over to trying to motivate through fear. But even beyond those I have been known to compliment various appliances if they complete a task better than I expected them to. I find there is nothing wrong with doing this just on the off chance machines can actually hear us. The last thing you want to do is anger the machines and cause them not to work because then you will have to do their job instead. I'm not above washing dishes or doing the spell-checking on my own, but it is just nice to have the back-up. In fact, as more people start to cede responsibilities to computers in the future I expect the idea of talking to them to become standard practice. Most people are halfway there already by assigning personalities to machines saying things like, "That copier is really temperamental." It is crazy if you look at it from an outside view but less so if you have ever been trying to get one last task done before your weekend can start and the machine won't cooperate because at that point you'll try whatever you can think of to change its mind.

It is because I know how often people do this in office settings that I was not surprised to read an article this week which concluded that soldier in war zones are getting so attached to their bomb-dismantling machines that they don't want to risk them and it is starting to impact their effectiveness. Basically, the soldiers think it is too dangerous for these machines to be doing the one task they were designed to do. Thankfully I have never been in a war zone but I can totally understand where they are coming from. First off, they are probably told every day how expensive these robots are. I don't care who you are or what you are doing, knowing how much something cost is going to make you tentative whenever you are asked to send that robot out to examine a suspicious package. But the bigger issue is also that if these robots can't go out and hunt for bombs than these soldiers are going to have to do it instead. We are constantly hearing about how long it takes to requisition items in the military, so I would imagine a new bomb-hunting robot would take a few months. If you told me that until the replacement showed up I would have to do that job I would handle that robot with kid gloves as well. I certainly wouldn't try and fix it by giving it the old "Fonzie" treatment, which is how I try and fix broken items now.

Weekly Sporties

-For reasons that don't make a ton of sense, if you looked behind all the Patriots jerseys hanging in my closet, you will see several Cleveland Browns jerseys. I certainly never set out to acquire an abundance of jerseys for a team I don't particularly root for, it just kind of worked out that way. But it because of my tiny allegiance to the Browns that I was very interested when the team traded running back Trent Richardson (the team's first round pick in the 2012 draft and the 3rd pick overall) to the Indianapolis Colts on Wednesday. Mostly I was stunned any trade happened, because the NFL teams rarely make big moves like this during a season. As you would expect many people in professional football circles take dropping Richardson as a sign the Browns are packing up the 2013 season and tanking for a high draft pick (they will have to compete with Jacksonville for that honor). And while this move certainly doesn't make them any better in the short-term, I don't hate it as much as most Cleveland fans. First off, it gives them a lot of assets. I know Indianapolis' pick won't be great (more on that in a second), but it is still a first-round pick in the NFL Draft and teams are always interested in those. Now they have two first, third and fifth rounders in next year's draft which should be enough to either re-stock their roster with talent or trade up should they be a few spots away from the player they truly covet. Of course, that would mean trusting that the team to make the correct personnel decisions which has been a problem for this version of the Browns since they were reborn as an expansion team. Still, I don't see this trade being too tough of a loss for the team. The simple fact of the matter is that whether or not Richardson was on the team they were going to have a tough year. Running backs, even supremely talented ones, are only as good as the offensive line they are running behind which is why you can take a guy in the 6th round and have him get you a 1,000 yards. That means if the team spends a few high draft picks to shore up that part of their team they won't regret trading a first-round draft pick. Lastly, given the way NFL offenses are trending it is far more important to have a good quarterback before anything and this should get the Browns in position to take a quarterback of the future in next year's draft and then compliment him with a good running game later. (Since the Colts already have their franchise QB I love this move for them). I'm not saying it doesn't suck to be a Cleveland fan right now, I am just saying this trade didn't make it suck any worse than it already did.

-One of the guys the Browns were rumored be after during last season's coaching search was Alabama head man Nick Saban, who obviously decided to remain in college. I thought that was a wise decision for him, but a couple days ago we were reminded the question of how long he will stay with the Crimson Tide is just going to keep coming. This week we learned that Saban's agent met with officials from the University of Texas towards the end of last season. Texas was having a bad year and the rumor was coach Mack Brown could be forced to retire, so the University wanted to have a plan in place in case they went that way. Turns out Brown wanted to keep coaching and swayed the University into keeping him so the talks never went any further than that. Well, this year the Longhorns are having another tough season and the rumor mill is heating up that the decision about next year will not be left up to Brown. Coming off two straight National Championships and well positioned for a third, naturally Saban is going to be the target of any school with a large athletic budget and, frankly, they don't come any bigger than UT's. Between the Longhorn Network and several oil baron alums, money stopped being an object for Texas years ago. So, if Saban wants to make an outrageous offer there is no question the school could match it. The only question now is if Saban actually wants to leave. So far he has maintained he has no interest in leaving Alabama but we can ask the fans of Michigan State, LSU and the Miami Dolphins how good Nick Saban's word is. (Don't take that as a knock on Saban either, it's just the nature of the life of a football coach. If a football coach told me the sky was blue I would go to the window and check.) That being said, I tend to believe Saban in this case. Sure, the Alabama program is on cruise-control at the moment and Saban is probably a little bored. Also, no matter what he does he will never be the legend in that state the Bear Bryant is, but I don't think that matters as much to a guy like Nick Saban as it would to a lot of football coaches. Plus, unlike Pete Carroll, I have never gotten the feeling Saban wants to give the NFL another try so why mess with a good thing? As great as Texas is, when it comes to football tradition and prestige Alabama is on the same level, which means it would be more of a lateral move. Seeing as how bad things happen when you lateral in football, I see Saban staying in Alabama for the foreseeable future.

-A reoccurring theme on the Weekly Sporties has been how thin-skinned the NFL can be even though they are the most powerful organization in sports right now. This week we heard about another example of that, as the NFL has apparently been going after rapper M.I.A. for $1.5 million ever since she flipped off the camera during her appearance with Madonna in the 2012 Super Bowl halftime show. Admittedly I don't remember this incident at all but that is par for the course because I don't remember much about the Super Bowl halftime shows (I tend to worry about the actual games) and I'm not a Madonna fan so I was probably in the bathroom. I vaguely remember it was a scandal for a half-second but given the number of channels in which you can show the middle finger and it doesn't even have to be blurred I wouldn't have thought this was that big a deal. Also, after the Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake incident you would think the NFL would have some money stashed away for any fines which may get levied as well as language written into the performer's contract. (It turns out M.I.A. wasn't paid her appearance fee, so that last guess is probably true.) But, here is what makes this story truly crazy to me - neither NBC nor the FCC had any issues with M.I.A. giving the world the finger and it is only the NFL which is going after the money. Apparently the League has concerns this could tarnish their wholesome image which, as was pointed out by M.I.A.'s lawyer, is laughable when you remember the game's inherent violence, the League's neglectful stance on concussions and players getting arrested for various off-the-field incidents. But more than this suit's hypocrisy I think I am annoyed at the NFL appearing as though they want to be the arbiter of good taste for all of America. Frankly, they need to remember where they came from and if they need any more proof of that they should just look to their friends in NASCAR. For years it was the fastest-growing sport in America thanks to its rabid and loyal fanbase of Southern good 'ole boys. But, they started to get a little too corporate, take themselves too seriously and now many races feature entire sections which are devoid of fans and teams are struggling to find sponsorship deals. Everyone already knows it is better to watch the NFL at home, so if fans feel they are going to be subject to some kind of "good taste" police before being allowed to enter the gates they may just avoid buying tickets altogether. I don't care how great their ratings may be, it is awfully hard to sell your games to advertisers when the teams are playing in front of half-full stadiums. All I'm saying is the NFL shouldn't forget they are in the business of sports and sports are supposed to be fun.

-Speaking of bad audio from a couple years ago, on Monday a tape was leaked to the website Deadspin from 2011 in which Nebraska head coach Bo Pellini can be heard cursing his program's fans up and down, accusing them of only supporting the team when things are going well and leaving games early at the first sign of trouble. My first thoughts upon hearing the audio was that Pellini is probably just saying what a lot of college football coaches think. However, there are many people in and around the Cornhusker program who do not think this was funny and feel the tape could be grounds for dismissal. What makes this tricky is that while NFL coaches are not expected to be warm and cuddly, college football coaches are often called upon to make a lot of public appearances, shake a lot of hands and schmooze with a lot of donors so the fact that Pellini has such public disdain for these people is going to cause many of them to close their checkbooks. As we know college athletics is all about the money, which is what I really think could end Pellini's time at Nebraska. (If you need proof look no further than Charlie Weis at Notre Dame would probably would have been able to survive another couple seasons if he had just been a little nicer to the alums.) Also, the fact someone held on to this audio for two years and leaked it after a particularly bad loss to UCLA shows that someone around the team already has it out for Bo, which can't be good. As you would expect Pellini came out and apologized the day after the audio was leaked, saying it was heat-of-the-moment frustration. He also said they he expects Nebraska fans to forgive him and they would all move on from this together. I am not so sure Pellini can count on that. If there is one thing fans hate above all else it is to be called fair-weather. Nothing is more insulting to a sports fan than insinuating they lack loyalty. (I will say this though, you know who really takes their hatred of being called fair-weather to the extreme? Fans who really are fair-weather.) It will take more than an apology to make this right, which means Pellini needs the ultimate scrub-all for a sports scandal - winning. How the team finishes the season will be what ultimately determines if Pellini stays at Nebraska and seeing as how the team is not off to a great start that doesn't look like it will save him. But, at least for us non-Cornhuskers fans we can look forward to one hell of an interesting farewell press conference.

-Last Sunday the Red Sox said good-bye to longtime rival Mariano Rivera prior to his last game at Fenway Park before the closer calls it quits on his Hall of Fame career. As with nearly every other final visit to a city the Yankees have made this season the Red Sox decided to honor Rivera with a pre-game ceremony. They had the members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra play "Enter Sandman", the music which plays when Rivera enters a game and gave him gifts such as a seat from the stands and a piece of the Green Monster. Everything was going well until the Sox decided to play a video for Rivera. Some in the Yankees organization thought the video was a little too focused on the 2004 Red Sox and the saves Rivera blew in that year's ALCS, likening it to a tribute of that team more than celebrating the career of Mariano Rivera. These people need to shut the hell up. Now, I will admit to not having seen the video but given all the history between the Yankees and the Red Sox you had to expect a little more friendly jabbing. For example, of course the ceremony between the Yankees and Royals was going to be more subdued - the Royals haven't been competitive as long as Rivera has been in the league. There is simply too much history between these two teams since Rivera has come into the league for it to be like every other stop on his retirement tour. The Red Sox even said the video was going to be "more roast than toast." But, the larger issue here is that the Yankees seem to be forgetting that the Red Sox were under no obligation to do anything for Rivera in the first place. Sure, it would have appeared petty if the team had done nothing when even teams Rivera barely played against were lining up to celebrate his storied career but the Yankees still don't have the right to complain about this like a Bridezilla who is upset someone dared to buy her something which wasn't on her registry. Most importantly, Rivera has yet to say that it bothered him, which is all that matters. He seems to have a sense of humor about not only the video but the rivalry in general. I know the Yankees feel especially protective of guys like Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Derek Jeter but they may be overreacting on this one. Besides, if they didn't want that defeat rubbed in their faces they could have not blown a 3-0 lead in the first place.

-But if you are looking for a team that doesn't know how to celebrate, perhaps you should look west. Specifically look to the NL West, which the Dodgers clinched last night with a win in Arizona and then took a celebratory dip in the pool the stadium allows fans to lounge in during games. As you would expect the Diamondbacks are none to pleased with how the Dodgers appeared to go over the boundaries of good taste and LA is taking quite a bit of heat from baseball purists. For once I have to say I agree with them. First off, I wonder if all these clubhouse celebrations are a little over the line considering the circumstances. You want to go crazy after you win the World Series? Sure, it'd be weirder if you didn't. Want to celebrate after winning a League Championship? Go ahead, you earned it. But acting like it's V-J Day because you won a mediocre division by 9 games? Seems a little excessive. (Sadly, I feel like as a Red Sox fan I have to take some of the blame for this. Those Wild-Card winning Red Sox teams were allowed to get away with anything, even though winning a Wild Card is like receiving a trophy for honorable mention. We should have called them out on this way back then.) Anyway, it is entirely possible I am being a little harder on the Dodgers because of who they are. The Dodgers have always been seen as one of the classiest organizations in baseball and the extreme way they went crazy last night seems to be beneath them. Act like you've been there before, because you have. In fact, the Dodgers were there recently. This isn't like the Pirates, who haven't finished above .500 in 20-plus years - the Dodgers won this division back in 2009. Also, the Dodgers basically did what they were supposed to do. They currently have one of the largest payrolls in the majors and a slew of All-Stars, so this division title was hardly a shock. I get that baseball has an extremely long season and this was more an emotional release than anything, but that doesn't mean they had to go as crazy as they did. Pop a few bottles, have a couple drinks and then get ready for tomorrow because soon enough the important games are going to get started. In the meantime I guess we should just be happy the Dodgers weren't playing in Tampa last night, because their outfield pool has stingrays in it.

-One of the reasons I have gotten away from boxing over the last couple of years is that I simply could no longer take all the bad decisions. It seems like every year there is at least one terrible judge's decision in every weight class and even more annoying is no one does anything about it. Half the people involved think of it as the cost of doing business because the sport's history is littered with bad decisions, which is bad enough, but the other half insults my intelligence by trying to act like these things are a result of a poorly-trained official even though we all know the judges were probably bought off. And that's the bigger problem - right now boxing has a credibility issue because even if every judge on the panel isn't corrupt casual fans assume they are. If we wanted to watch something where the outcome is pre-determined we would go back to pro wrestling because the PPV costs are lower. Last weekend there was a split decision in the fight between Floyd Mayweather and Canelo Alvarez, even though most experts though Mayweather won the fight rather easily. The lone dissenting vote came from judge CJ Ross, who scored the fight as a draw. This was her second straight questionable decision, as she was also involved in the Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley fight which many boxing experts thought was one of the worst decisions of the last 20 years (and, as we just discussed, that is saying something). This time it didn't cost the Champion the title, but for the first time I can remember we may have finally reached a breaking point. The backlash over Ross's scorecard was so loud that early this week she stepped down from the Nevada State Athletic Commission. (Ok, if you want to be technical Ross was scheduled to meet with the state boxing commissioner to review her license later this year for renewal and instead said she would allow it to expire. It is close enough to a firing and I will take what I can get.) Now, I'm not taking any personal glee in someone getting fired because I don't know the woman so she could be perfectly lovely. I'm just saying that at some point even the most hardcore boxing fans have to say enough is enough and demand someone make these people accountable. Perhaps a few of them should even end up in front of a real judge at some point in the future and see how they like being on the wrong end of decision they don't agree with.

Step It Up

Last week I mentioned that I had finally gotten around to joining a new gym. Now, don't worry, this blog isn't about to turn into daily updates on my training and diet. Frankly, the internet has more than enough of those to go around. On top of that I haven't been back into a routine long enough to see any of my work pay off yet and get people to write in saying how good I look, which is really all those blog are trying to accomplish anyway. Plus, I'm still trying to figure out my way around the place and how some of the machines work. I had forgotten just how specific weight machines are, which is why so far I have mostly been sticking with the stuff I know how to do and occasionally sprinkling in some new machines to test them out, some of them for the first and last times. One of the machines I tried this morning was a StairMaster. For those of you not familiar, this is another one of those machines which simulates a normal activity (in this case walking up stairs) - the kind of physical exertion where if we were willing to do it in our daily lives we wouldn't need to join a gym in the first place. StairMasters are not exactly a new piece of gym equipment but they were never something I had previously put into my workout routine for one reason or another. But with my new "why the hell not?" attitude towards the gym I figured I would try it this morning. After today's attempt I do not expect to add it to the rotation.

The first thing I noticed is that there was a serious design flaw with this machine in that you need to step a full 18 inches off the ground to get on the first stair. That wouldn't be so bad if the stairs were on some kind of piston system in which they never really went away, but that is not what happened here. These stairs were more like an escalator, which means you only got three steps before the belt went underneath the machine and the bottom step disappeared. This meant if you weren't paying attention or keeping up with the pace not only would you come off the machines, you would have a pretty nice fall to accentuate your failure. The same thing would happen if you lost pace on a treadmill, but that would only drop you a few inches. Therefore using this machine felt very similar to how I assume Wile E. Coyote feels after he runs off a cliff but hasn't looked down yet. I guess it is one way to motivate the person on the machine but I would also think you could have a pretty gruesome injury on your hands unless the floor is padded. So, I'm already on the machine and desperately trying to keep up with the moderate pace I had set myself when I noticed a second problem - whoever designed this machine had really small feet. I was never expecting the machine to easily accommodate my size 14s, no stairs ever do, but for some reason these rapidly moving stairs seemed smaller than what you find out in nature. I could barely get my heel on them and constantly felt like I was about to go flying backwards, which was just another thing for my mind to think about on top of the gravity issue. If these two things were done on purpose to distract the user from the pain screaming through their thighs, congratulations, it worked like a charm.

With those two things weighing heavily on my mind I guess you can understand why I didn't pay much attention to the settings on the StairMaster and instead just started climbing. It wasn't until I was in a nice rhythm that I noticed one of the programmed workouts you can choose is "famous buildings". The big trend in workout machines over the last couple of years has been to attach some kind of game to the display screen because designers know nothing motivates people better than competition. It certainly is more appealing to look at than a bunch of numbers. Most of them allow you to race someone else at the gym or the computer and then post scores for other people to try and beat later. Other will allow you to compete along a famous route so, just like those expensive exercise bikes which will let you race Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France, this machine would let you track know how far up the Empire State Building your workout would take you (you know because we all visit skyscapers for their famous stairwells). Obviously not exactly the kind of thing which would motivate me, but it clearly inspired someone because the next screen shot was the "High Scores" for the week. That was when I noticed someone at the gym (allegedly) had climbed 350 flights of stairs. Now, because I was preoccupied with not falling I didn't catch if that was a total or just one session but either way it feels excessive.

When I was working out religiously back in high school the goal was to get as jacked as possible so I could bench press a lot of weight because that seemed like what I should be trying to accomplish. It wasn't until I matured a bit that I realized there is no need to be able to lift 500 lbs because we have things like forklifts to move really heavy objects and my workout goals shifted to being slightly more realistic and normal. Clearly the person who set that score (if they even exist because it could be an artificial number set by the StairMaster maker to motivate gym-goers) hasn't learned that yet. I get that part of the reason for going to the gym is to push yourself to be able to do things which are more physically demanding than everyday, civilized society requires but there is also a point where you cross from being in shape to just being crazy. I checked, the tallest building in the world in Dubai only has 160 flights of stairs, so it is not like being able to climb that many stairs is even useful. This is more like training by walking the distance from Boston to London on a treadmill, something which will never come in handy, ever. But, since I have no doubt a building that tall is only a matter of time, let me just go on record with this right now: if something gets left behind on the 350 floor, the elevator is out of order and the only person left to go retrieve it is me, than whatever that object happens to be is staying there. Besides, only having one elevator for a 350 story building seems like a pretty large design flaw and I think I have dealt with enough of those this week.

Yeah, About That...

Remember yesterday? I certainly do. In fact, you could say I remember it like it was yesterday. Anyway, yesterday I posted a video for you all to watch and said that you should really pay attention to it because it was not just one of those days where I post anything to keep my streak alive. Turns out today is one of those days. Sadly, I really don't have anything to write about today so instead we're going to post this video which was made in response to Ben Affleck being named as the new Batman, pondering how one of his most famous roles would have been different if he had played it as the Caped Crusader. I have to say, while the joke gets a little repetitious towards the end the premise itself is very well done. Also, I would like to compliment the internet on getting these videos out faster and faster. Trust me, the only thing worse than an old joke is a fresh one which comes out about 3 weeks too late. The speed at which pop culture moves these days dictates that something which happens today won't be funny by next week, so speed is of the essence. Now, I know this video was posted as a promotional piece for comedian Pete Holmes' new TBS show, meaning the budget was a little higher than your average clip on FunnyOrDie and there were more people to work on it, but the whole thing still had to come together in about 3 days and I think it is a nice representation of how much better comedy skits have gotten in the last few years. Seriously, comedians may be the people making the best use of all the technology available to them today. All that being said:

Dear interesting things in the universe, please happen so I have something to write about...

Too Good To Ignore

I am willing to confess that there have been times when I have put a video up on this blog simply because I didn't have anything else to write about that day and was desperate to keep my posting streak alive. I'm not saying I would put just any old video up (I would still take my time to find a good one), just that on occasion I wouldn't have anything to write about, wanted to go to bed at a normal hour and thought it would be faster to embed a video than come up with 1,000 words on a topic. Everyone fight writer's block at some point and I figured this method would buy me enough time so that and I could come back and try again fresh the next day. But I assure you, that is not the case this time. No, this video is being posted for no other reasons than it is very funny and I want to share it. A couple of times I have done "Commercial Break-Downs" in which I rip apart ads when it feels like I see them every single commercial break in a short amount of time, "Mystery Science Theater 3000"-style. Well, I was already thinking about ripping apart the latest Cheerios ad when Stephen Colbert beat me to it. I was dying laughing at the time and now every time I see the commercial run I think about this bit and I start laughing again, which makes me look slightly crazy when you see the subject matter. I'm sure you'll have a good laugh at it as well.

Ship Shape

If you've been reading this blog for a while you probably know I am mildly fascinated with the salvage operation regarding the wreck of the Costa Concordia, the cruise liner which ran aground last year on a small island off the coast of Italy when the Captain tried to get close enough to show the ship to his friends and didn't know there was a reef under the water. What has followed as a result has turned into the most massive salvage operations in the history of shipwrecks with crews working around the clock to get the ship off the rocks. But I'm not only interested in this story because of the scale, I'm also curious as to why it is happening in the first place. Reportedly the operation has already cost the company which owns the ship $500 million and costs are expected to go even higher than that. I understand they need to recoup as much money out of this as they can but I would think it would be easier to go in, strip anything that was of value out of the ship and then rent a few dozen heavy-duty tugboats to haul it further away from the island and sinking it to become a man-made reef (you know, to replace the one you ran into.) Instead they are spending all this money to re-float the ship, sail it a couple hundred miles and then take it apart. Seems like a waste of money if you ask me. If they are doing this in the name of PR I have some unfortunate news for them - they could spend as much money as they want - no one who was on the original cruise will ever go sailing with them again.

Anyway, yesterday was the most critical phase of the operation in which they would actually get the ship upright, off the rocks and onto these massive platforms which had been buried under the surface. This was the most critical stage of the whole thing because if the operation was going to fail everyone assumed this is where that would happen, as all the water inside the ship could cause it to be too heavy or weaken the structural integrity and the boat would break apart (rendering all that work and money a waste). The tipping of the ship started early in the morning and was supposed to take roughly 12 hours. However, the ship ended up being heavier than expected and while it remained in one piece the task of getting it onto a platform started slowly and thus took longer than expected (closer to 20 hours). When the ship was finally upright it was about 4 in the morning and I'm sure the quiet Italian village located nearby really appreciated all the foghorns which were set off in celebration (as if this operation hadn't messed with their lives enough). But while the most dangerous part is over there is still a long way to go before the operation is over. Crews need to structurally repair the side which has been underwater all this time, then attach a series of giant floats, raise the ship and pull it to dry dock, none of which is expected to take place until next spring or summer. After that comes the attempts to restore the reef to its pre-crash levels (which, let's be honest with each other, is never going to happen). The hardest step may be done but there are plenty of steps left to take.

But before we rush to worry about the next steps I want to go back and focus on the process of righting the ship. As I mentioned I have been interested in how this was going to work since seeing an extensive report on it during a recent "60 Minutes". So when I heard there was going to be a live feed where I could watch the operation taking place I was pretty excited to check in with it throughout the day. As it turns out, taking 20 hours to right a ship is just as boring as it sounds. Going in I understood it was not going to happen in a flash but I still expected it to at least be visible to the naked eye. Nope. If it weren't for the line of algae which had coated the half of the ship which was underwater I never would have been able to tell if any progress had been made between my visits. Before too long I forgot to even check back and see if the operation had been a success. Thankfully, Twitter came to the rescue because when I saw "Costa Concordia" was trending later that night I knew by the laws of the internet things had either gone really well or really badly. Not only did the subsequent Tweets provide good pictures of the now-righted ship it even had a time-lapse video of the operation. I got to watch the entire 20 hours in about 2 minutes. I have to say, it was a much more efficient way to watch the news.

Normally I am against things like episode recaps before the start of shows because I feel like they are the Cliff Notes versions of TV series and since TV doesn't require any effort the people who took the time to watch last week's episode deserve to have a leg up on the people who couldn't be bothered to set their DVR or watch the episode through the dozen on-Demand options available to people. It's all about rewarding people for their loyalty. That being said, I can really see the advantages to watching a long video in a short amount of time and only getting the highlights. I don't want my entertainment delivered to me in this fashion, but I could get used to my news being condensed down to the essential facts and nothing else. I'm always complaining the news is too bloated with stuff which isn't actually news, but I bet those stories would bother me a lot less if I could blast through them in seconds instead of minutes. I know this is the general idea of a DVR but that just has you totally skipping sections and it is not that I don't want to hear these stories, I just want the unimportant items to be two or three lines instead of 10 or 15. I actually think people would watch more news if they were given this option. I am also willing to bet the salvage crew on the Costa Concordia wouldn't mind a fast-forward button either because while the next time I check on the ship will be when it finally starts to head to a dry-dock, those guys are going to be there every day putting in a lot of effort. I guess if they need to skip the occasional episode of their favorite show to get the work done I can excuse it this one time.

Silence Is Golden

Last week featured a big couple of days for the space program. First the image of a frog being blasted high into the sky during a rocket launch in Virginia started to make the rounds in social media, becoming a pop culture phenomenon for a couple of minutes as people tried to figure out if it survived. I know that technically the frog had nothing to do with space exploration but given all the cuts the space program has seen and the fact that we no longer have any of our own shuttles to send astronauts into space, anything which reminds the general public that scientists are still shooting rockets into space has to be counted as a win. (This would drive me crazy if I were a rocket scientist. When you think of all the time and energy put into developing the technology to make space travel possible, the fact the only thing in 2013 which genuinely gets people excited about it is when a frog gets a little too close to the launch pad and it happens to be caught on camera has to be infuriating. It's like buying your kid a $300 toy only to find out all they want to play with is the box.) But, "Rocket Frog" aside the bigger news was came towards the end of the week when NASA announced the Voyager 1 space probe had officially left our solar system, making it the first man-made object to do so. Even better than that was the fact that it sent back some unexpected audio from its journey.

Voyager's official mission ended years ago and even though some of its sensors have stopped working it is still sending data back every day and scientist expect it to keep churning out new information until it runs out of power around 2025. (I'll say this - that was one well-built probe.) But until the day it goes quiet the guys monitoring its progress will take what it feels like showing them. That is why everyone was so excited to learn that it turns out space isn't so quiet, as the density of various interstellar plasma create a low-frequency whistle. They heard this noise last year but didn't want to say anything until they heard it a second time so as to not jump to any conclusions. But now that they have two separate incidents capturing approximately the same noise this is all very exciting for scientists because it proves many theories regarding what lays beyond our solar system and could provide valuable data should we ever get back into the space-exploration game. It's just good planning - whether you are driving around the corner or 13 billion miles from home it's always nice to know what kind of surface you might be driving into and these brief audio files are making a lot of people very excited. It's not exactly the three-notes from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" but it's something and when you remember that these sounds are coming from about 12 billion miles from here, I would say any audio is good audio. Which is what got me to thinking - we have been a little too ambitious with the Golden Record.

For those of you who aren't fans of remembering random facts objects which were hurled into space before you were born, included on Voyager was a Golden Record with various audio recordings (and before you ask the space craft also included instructions on how to build a phonograph just in case). The main tracks were standard greetings in 55 different languages and the disk also had tracks which would give you a listen to many of the sounds you would hear on Earth - waterfalls, wind, thunderstorms. You know, all the dangerous aspects of nature you would want to know about before you went to invade a planet. But, the more interesting thing to me was that the record also included 90 minutes of music from around the world. Everything from the standard wedding march and symphonies from Mozart and Beethoven to Native American chants and good old fashioned rock 'n roll. I just want to know who was on the committee to decide which music was good enough to make the first impression for an entire species. Also, I am not sure I would want that much responsibility as a musician. The most famous song on the disk was Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode." The rumor has always been that NASA wanted to include the Beatles "Here Comes The Sun" but while the band was on-board with the idea their record label was not, proving that even back then record label executives were huge pricks because apparently they think distribution rights apply to an entire galaxy.

It is just too bad those choices have to last forever because some really good music has come out since this probe was launched, so I wish the technology had existed back in 1977 which would allow us to upload some new music. I may not have added anything new to my iPod in the last year because I have been so unimpressed with the new music of today but the fact remains that if you told me that what is on there today is all I would be able to listen to for the rest of time I would go slightly mad. On top of that nothing illustrates just how short-sighted these scientists were better than the fact that they used a record in the first place. Think about it - that's about five generations of technology behind where we are now. I'm not saying they should have gone with an 8-track, but tapes were available. Also, these guys were working with the best technology of the day so they had to know CDs were coming soon. It just makes us look bad because if Voyager were to ever run into aliens in their spaceship they are going to think records were the best thing we ever came up with when the truth is that those are more common to time capsules than space shuttles. Now we have to hope whatever aliens eventually find this disk were born before before 1985 because if they are anything like the kids around here they wouldn't have any idea what to do with a record when they get their hands on it. Or even worse, they could be hipster aliens which would be unfortunate proof once and for all that there is no intelligent life on other planets.

Monkey Business

Every time I watch a nature show on the National Geographic Channel I am filled with this momentary urge to hop on a plane and go on an African Safari. I've always enjoyed checking out animals and I just assume seeing all these amazing creatures in their natural habit would be truly awe-inspiring. But then I remember how much a trip like that costs as well as the fact that Africa is home to pretty much every deadly type of spider and snake known to humanity and that feeling fades away almost as quickly as it arrived. Aiding in my decision to forgo a trip to Africa is the fact that there is an alternative just as close which would provide me with almost as many opportunities to see wild animals - Florida. Florida is like any state in that people buy animals when they are young and easy to care for but as soon as they get too big or become too much work lazy owners give up and released the creature into the wild. The only difference between Florida and most other parts of the country is the fact that weather down there allows the animals to thrive rather than freeze to death as they would in say, Rhode Island. Previously I talked about how the Florida Everglades are home to such a large population of pythons that the state eventually held a contest to see who could kill the biggest one just to try and get the numbers down a little. Well, it seems the next wave of unusual animals they will have to cope with are monkeys.

Just like with the pythons the monkeys are not native to the area, but were brought over about 70 years ago and eventually set free to do what it is that monkeys do. They were originally contained to a small island off Florida but as they said in "Jurassic Park", "Nature finds a way." Before too long the monkeys learned to swim and are now filling in the trees around cities like Jacksonville. They are quite the hit on nature cruises and if it were just a few dozen it wouldn't be so bad but there are thousands of them and state officials are starting to become concerned. As you would imagine the monkeys can be quite a menace and on top of that they are a rare species, so the state just can't declare open season on them like they did with the pythons (although if there are thousands of them I would question just how rare they truly are). As if the thought of wild monkeys were bad enough, many of the animals caught in the last few years have come with a special present - herpes. I'm not quite sure how monkeys get herpes but I am sure that I don't want to think about it too much. Seems like a personal issue. Now, the wildlife experts say the monkeys are the same as all animals in that if you give them their space they won't bother you so if you see one just leave it alone. Well, when you consider between the snakes and the monkeys my thought of visiting Florida are becoming as fleeting as my thoughts of visiting Africa that seems like it should be pretty easy to do.