When it comes to recycling, I feel like the reusable shopping bag is literally the least a person can do. You know the things I am talking about - the $2 bags which are made out of a stronger material than your average free plastic or paper bag that you then bring back around every time you go grocery shopping. The reason I think everyone should have a few of these bags is that they really are a win for both sides. The bags are supposed to be much better for the environment because even if you recycle a plastic bag it takes forever to fully break down. The consumer wins because they don't rip or tear between the cart and the car like every other bag the grocery store tries to give you. You can get six bottles of soda in these bags - try carry more than two in a plastic bag. (Seriously, plastic bags rip if the wind is blowing too strongly. Quick theory: grocery store bags have gotten weaker in the last few years as a way to guilt you into buying the reusable bags.) As an added bonus since the reusable bags have wider handles which don't dig into your hands you can carry more (my record is 8 bags in one trip), which means fewer trips between the car and the kitchen. It's a great idea and it is really too bad it took us this long for it to catch on considering the early days of grocery stores were probably giving you bags which could have been reused and we just didn't make the connection. All that being said, I don't feel like every other kind of store should assume we brought a bag with us into their store.
The other day I was in a store buying a non-food item. What it was is not important, just know that it was slightly heavy and kind of an awkward size. On top of that I had one more loose item, a bottle of soda. So, I bring my items up to pay and the woman scans through the drink and hands it back to me, as you do. But after she scans through the box she looks at me and says, "This doesn't need a bag." Not wanting to disagree with a woman who makes this judgement call all day, every day as her chosen profession I didn't say anything but she then hands me the box, my soda and my change with my wallet still in one hand. Now I am trying to get out of the way of the next people in line but also put my money back in my wallet without dropping my soda and carrying this box which was again not heavy, but awkward. You know what really would have come in handy at that moment? A bag which would have allowed me to carry this box with two fingers and left the rest of my hand free to finish my business and fish out my keys. Instead I was left balancing these things like an idiot as I made my way to the car while everyone I walked passed was probably wondering why I didn't use a bag and make it easier for myself.
I bring this up because it has come to my attention that a lot of stores have begun to try and get people to opt-out of taking a bag for their items. I'm not talking hippy stores like Trader Joe's which want to guilt you into it, I mean the stores which try to slyly withhold the option. What's even stranger is when it happens in stores where the items they typically make some kind of bag to carry them all in a given. I don't know why it happened, but suddenly the people behind the registers are acting like every bag which is given away comes straight out of their paycheck. As a result, they try to convince you to go without, especially if they see you already have a bag from another store. (No, I don't want to shove a dirty shoe box into the same bag as my new sweater. Call me crazy.) It's usually very subtle, with the clerk just asking, "Did you want a bag for this?" with a tone which indicates they don't think you do. Normally I agree with them because the last thing I want is one more thing to throw away. But it really depends on what you are buying and how many. If it is just one item than yeah, I can carry it to my car but if it is a lot of something, even if those things are small, sometimes a way to corral them would be in my best interest. I just think that whether or not I will do that should be left up to me.
This is a large cultural shift from just a few years ago when stores were willing to shoehorn bags onto items that didn't even need them to begin with. I remember buying a TV which came in a box that had handles on it and the woman behind the counter still tried to put a bag on each half to try and cover it all up before she finally heard me say it really wasn't necessary. Apparently plastic was more abundant then. I guess it is probably good that more people are environmentally conscious, but some times it does feel like we have done that oldest of moves, which is to try and correct bad behavior by over-correcting in the opposite direction even though the answer probably lies in moderation (as it always does). Any way you want to look at it, I don't think we have quite reached the point where people are trained enough to bring their own bags to every store, so why don't we have one common sense rule: if people bring their items to the register in some kind of cart that is their signal to the clerk they have more than an armful of items and are going to need something to carry them home. Besides, when you remember that most stores are going to self-checkout whenever possible maybe looking busy for a few extra seconds isn't the worst thing in the world.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Monday, May 6, 2013
To Kill A Copyright
One of my biggest pet peeves in life is when people somehow get their hands on the rights to work which isn't theirs. Honestly, I don't care how terrible I think something may be, if you were the one who came up with it I can at least respect the fact you had a moment of creativity, but if all you did was let someone else do the work and swoop in once the copyright expired then I see you as more of a vulture than anything. It is why I can't stand comedians who do jokes which other people wrote and why I don't respect people who buy the rights to music and then sell it for licensing rights. (Seriously, hearing Beatles music in a commercial trying to sell me a mattress still annoys me.) For example, last week there was a big news story about how Hulu had lost the rights to all the old episodes of "Saturday Night Live" and they would now be owned by Yahoo. Why do I get the feeling that all the people who actually wrote those skits won't be seeing any of that money? I just don't think artists should be forced to sign away ownership just to have their work be seen and it really shouldn't change hands just because an arbitrary amount of time has passed. That was why I was a little bummed out this weekend when I saw the story that "To Kill A Mockingbird" author Harper Lee had lost the copyrights to her classic story and was forced to sue to regain those rights. How does the universe let this happen?
I'm going to be upfront about something right away - I hated this book when I was told to read it in school. All I heard from my English teacher was how amazing it was going to be and instead I found it to be a pretty standard read. Part of it could be from the fact that I was forced to read it as an assignment and I am the type of person who immediately despises anything I am told I have to enjoy against my will. (If anything "To Kill A Mockingbird" should be flattered it is in such good company as I hated a large chunk of the books I was ordered to read for my English class. At first you may think less of my taste in literature, right up until you remember I actually won an award for voluntarily reading the most books in a school year. Clearly, I like books, so I feel like this speaks more poorly about the assigned choice of reading materials than me.) I thought time would help heal my bias against the books but even as I look back now years later I fail to see what the big deal was. That is why I have begun to suspect it is one of those books which no one actually likes but everyone claims they do to appear cultured. But with all that being said, there is no question that Harper Lee should be the only one who profits from the fact that millions of schoolchildren are forced to read her book every year. Allegedly Lee signed over the rights back in 2012, but she contends she was tricked into signing the documents because she was in poor health and hasn't received any royalties in years.
Now, there is part of me that thinks a chunk of this is Ms. Harper's fault because when you have only written one thing you should be a little more careful about keeping track of stuff like this. It is not like she had a massive catalog to protect. (Seriously, "To Kill A Mockingbird" was her only novel. She started two other books but never finished them. I'm not sure if that is more a case of wanting to go out on a high note or fear that the new stuff was never going to live up to the first book. Either way I think it is pretty clear she needs these royalties because she doesn't have anything else coming in.) I can't help but wonder how this literary agent thought he was going to get away with this move because even people who don't like this book know who wrote it. It would be like trying to pass off the statue of David as your own. Trust me, if you want to get the rights to a book and not put up with too much of a fight, find a struggling author who would only be too happy to sign their rights away for the chance to be published (it should take a Google search of approximately .5 seconds). If the book becomes a best seller you make a ton of money and if you low-balled them for the rights they will not be able to afford a lawyer who would mount a credible argument as to why they should be able to get them back. Seems like a much easier plan.
Of course, none of this would be an issue if they changed a few of the archaic copyright laws which exist today. I just feel like the only the people who create something should be able to say how it is then used. I'm not trying to say the two things are equal, but you wouldn't want someone coming in and telling you how to raise your child just because a few years had passed. Even more frustrating is that the laws vary wildly from one country to another, so all someone has to do is hide behind the idea that they didn't know they were breaking a law and more often than not they will get away without much of a fine. This is only going to get worse in the future because the current tech-savvy generation has been raised with the idea that copyrights aren't worth anything. Not only do they want to be able to download the stuff for free, they don't care where it came from or who they may be stealing it from and they blow past copyright warnings like they aren't even there. At this point I think I am one of the few people who still pays for music online. This is extra ironic considering that thanks to the internet these days people are producing more original content for more people than any point in history. Unfortunately, the only way that is going to change is if a few more people have some of their work stolen from them and ironically that isn't going to happen when they are forced to waste time reading old and over-hyped books.
I'm going to be upfront about something right away - I hated this book when I was told to read it in school. All I heard from my English teacher was how amazing it was going to be and instead I found it to be a pretty standard read. Part of it could be from the fact that I was forced to read it as an assignment and I am the type of person who immediately despises anything I am told I have to enjoy against my will. (If anything "To Kill A Mockingbird" should be flattered it is in such good company as I hated a large chunk of the books I was ordered to read for my English class. At first you may think less of my taste in literature, right up until you remember I actually won an award for voluntarily reading the most books in a school year. Clearly, I like books, so I feel like this speaks more poorly about the assigned choice of reading materials than me.) I thought time would help heal my bias against the books but even as I look back now years later I fail to see what the big deal was. That is why I have begun to suspect it is one of those books which no one actually likes but everyone claims they do to appear cultured. But with all that being said, there is no question that Harper Lee should be the only one who profits from the fact that millions of schoolchildren are forced to read her book every year. Allegedly Lee signed over the rights back in 2012, but she contends she was tricked into signing the documents because she was in poor health and hasn't received any royalties in years.
Now, there is part of me that thinks a chunk of this is Ms. Harper's fault because when you have only written one thing you should be a little more careful about keeping track of stuff like this. It is not like she had a massive catalog to protect. (Seriously, "To Kill A Mockingbird" was her only novel. She started two other books but never finished them. I'm not sure if that is more a case of wanting to go out on a high note or fear that the new stuff was never going to live up to the first book. Either way I think it is pretty clear she needs these royalties because she doesn't have anything else coming in.) I can't help but wonder how this literary agent thought he was going to get away with this move because even people who don't like this book know who wrote it. It would be like trying to pass off the statue of David as your own. Trust me, if you want to get the rights to a book and not put up with too much of a fight, find a struggling author who would only be too happy to sign their rights away for the chance to be published (it should take a Google search of approximately .5 seconds). If the book becomes a best seller you make a ton of money and if you low-balled them for the rights they will not be able to afford a lawyer who would mount a credible argument as to why they should be able to get them back. Seems like a much easier plan.
Of course, none of this would be an issue if they changed a few of the archaic copyright laws which exist today. I just feel like the only the people who create something should be able to say how it is then used. I'm not trying to say the two things are equal, but you wouldn't want someone coming in and telling you how to raise your child just because a few years had passed. Even more frustrating is that the laws vary wildly from one country to another, so all someone has to do is hide behind the idea that they didn't know they were breaking a law and more often than not they will get away without much of a fine. This is only going to get worse in the future because the current tech-savvy generation has been raised with the idea that copyrights aren't worth anything. Not only do they want to be able to download the stuff for free, they don't care where it came from or who they may be stealing it from and they blow past copyright warnings like they aren't even there. At this point I think I am one of the few people who still pays for music online. This is extra ironic considering that thanks to the internet these days people are producing more original content for more people than any point in history. Unfortunately, the only way that is going to change is if a few more people have some of their work stolen from them and ironically that isn't going to happen when they are forced to waste time reading old and over-hyped books.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Not Jumping For Joy
Unfortunately, it is once again time to turn the weekly musical interlude into a "Musician Who Died This Week" tribute post. And this one is especially sad because the musician is 34 year-old Chris Kelly, better known as "Mac Daddy", one half of the 90s hip-hop duo Kriss Kross. I have to say, it's always a little unnerving when a famous person around my age dies, especially when they have also been in the public eye for as long as the guys from Kriss Kross who burst onto the scene when they were barely teenagers. The act's first and biggest hit is one of those songs which everyone of a certain age owned, usually the casingle version. Even now it remains on most iPods, as it is still a party anthem to this day because it is so catchy. The bad news for Kriss Kross was that they hit it big just as the rap game started to change over to more hardcore gangster style. They tried to adapt with the times and their next couple of albums definitely had an edgier feel to them but even though the albums had some good sales numbers, it just didn't work as work as well and Kriss Kross couldn't make a successful transition. Plus, I would imagine it is hard when people think you peaked at 13, so I was far from surprised to learn the group officially broke up in the early 2000s.
But even more than their music or the lingering question of what may have been if they had better timing, Kriss Kross is probably better known for their personal style which involved wearing their clothes backwards. Yes, don't ask me why, but the duo would always have their pants on backwards (but at least they would be pulled up). Since this was the early-90s some parents were concerned it may have been some kind of gang symbol, when the reality is that the pair were probably told to do this by some record executive who thought it would be a way for them to stand out from the crowd (and they were right). But even crazier than the fact that these guys were convinced this looked good is the fact that they actually influenced people to do this on their own in real life. Seriously, some people put their clothes on backwards on purpose and then walked out in public. If they did that now we would think they were crazy. Fortunately I can proudly say this was one trend I never got into because I would not want pictures of me looking like that floating around. It just serves as another reminder for a lesson we never should have forgotten in the first place - kids can be very easily influenced into looking like idiots.
But even more than their music or the lingering question of what may have been if they had better timing, Kriss Kross is probably better known for their personal style which involved wearing their clothes backwards. Yes, don't ask me why, but the duo would always have their pants on backwards (but at least they would be pulled up). Since this was the early-90s some parents were concerned it may have been some kind of gang symbol, when the reality is that the pair were probably told to do this by some record executive who thought it would be a way for them to stand out from the crowd (and they were right). But even crazier than the fact that these guys were convinced this looked good is the fact that they actually influenced people to do this on their own in real life. Seriously, some people put their clothes on backwards on purpose and then walked out in public. If they did that now we would think they were crazy. Fortunately I can proudly say this was one trend I never got into because I would not want pictures of me looking like that floating around. It just serves as another reminder for a lesson we never should have forgotten in the first place - kids can be very easily influenced into looking like idiots.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Weekly Sporties
-You can always tell that a sports story has crossed over into being an actual news story when the national programs gets involved. So when every network had a reporter outside the Verizon Center in Washington, you could see how big the story that Washington Wizards' center Jason Collins came out as the first openly gay male playing a major team sport on Monday truly had become. However, the story faded from the spotlight almost as quickly as it appeared and I have to say I was actually kind of proud of the muted response in the sports world because it shows that stuff like this isn't nearly as big of a deal as it used to be. In fact most sports fans were disappointed in the news simply because Collins isn't big star but a guy end the end of the bench. Still, I think this was the next logical step. We've had a few players come out after their career is over and now we have one who is at the tail end of his career. Next it will be a mid-level player with a few years left and then it will be the big star. This stuff has to have its own natural evolution (I use that word on purpose, considering the people most likely to have a problem with Collins are the kind of people who also have a problem with concepts like evolution). The only question left now is whether or not Collins is an active NBA player next year. Unlike some people I do expect him to catch on somewhere. He's too good of a bench guy and too good in the locker room, plus he comes cheap. (I know the Celtics would take him back.) The simple fact of the matter is that the NBA isn't like the NFL where coaches would loathe the distraction - given how big the personalities in the NBA are you almost have to expect some kind of drama from them all at some point. In this age of Twitter beefs and camera phones capturing every bad decision a player coming out as gay is actually one of the less-controversial things a head coach would have to deal with all year. I would say that should be considered progress.
-I have to be honest, the fact that there was a gay NBA player was far less surprising to me than the news that the NBA relocation committee voted that the Kings should remain in Sacramento instead of be allowed to move to Seattle. Once the Maloofs, who currently own the Kings, announced that they had a buyer from that area I expected it to be nothing more than a formality, especially since the fact there is no franchise in that area is a major mark on outgoing Commissioner David Stern's record, the community has already proven it can sustain an NBA team, the city is ready to build a team an arena and Seattle is a much bigger television market than Sacramento. On top of all that the bid from the group who wants the team to remain in Sacramento is less than the offer from the Seattle group and you would expect NBA owners to want to jack up the prices of their own teams. I can only assume the rest of the NBA owners hate the Maloofs as much as the residents of Sacramento. Plus, if I were an NBA conspiracy theorist I would be concerned that Clay Bennett, the man who moved the Sonics to Oklahoma City in the first place, is on the committee deciding the fate of the Kings. Now for the first time I'm actually slightly worried that Seattle isn't going to get a new team. I mean, it could become something like the NFL with Los Angeles - they are more valuable as a tool to threaten any city which doesn't give it's current NBA team money for stadium upgrades than it would be to actually have a team there. But while LA has so many transplants from other cities around the world they don't see the need to have their own NFL team (and don't seem to want one), Seattle was very loyal to the Sonics and deserves to have them back. I hate to see any fanbase lose their team and I know two wrongs don't make a right, but since the NBA doesn't plan to expand any time soon someone is going to have to move for Seattle to get a new NBA team. I hope Charlotte hasn't gotten too attached to the Bobcats.
-Last Thursday night, as he slowly slipped out of the first round West Virginia quarterback Geno Smith was on display for a national television audience. Leading up to draft night there was a lot of talk Smith would be the first quarterback off the board but when that didn't happen he began free-falling due to a combination of a weak crop at that position and the fact a lot of teams had addressed quarterback issues through other means. I imagine Geno had to be terribly embarrassed about slipping as far as he did and watching as team after team passed on him you couldn't help but feel bad for the kid. Even when he was finally drafted by the Jets early the next night he didn't seem very happy - more relieved than anything. Watching his free-fall I couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't been better advised on how the draft might unfold. Apparently Smith was wondering that same thing, because he fired his agents within a couple of days. Smith says it has nothing to do with where he was drafted, but it is hard to come up with any other scenario which makes sense and now the agents are taking potshots at Smith, saying he was unrealistic about the draft, aloof during certain team interviews and was mad that he wasn't the first player taken. (Wow, I can't believe their relationship didn't work out.) Still, the main thing I take from all of this is that this is exactly why it is just better to stay home and wait for a phone call out of the view of ESPN cameras. Because I'm not saying NFL GMs lie, just that their job prevents them from telling the whole truth. Sure, they may like you as a player but they also like a dozen other guys and have no idea who is going to be available when their spot comes up. No, you won't get that moment of walking across the stage to shake the Commissioner's hand, but you can suffer in the comfort of your own home. NFL careers are notoriously short, so you may as well have the few memorable moments not be awful.
-The only person less enthusiastic about Smith being a Jet is his former teammate Tim Tebow, who was released by the Jets a couple days after the draft due to the fact they now had an overabundance of quarterbacks. Now, you would be hard-pressed to find an athlete who has received more attention in contrast to the amount of time he is actually on the field and normally I wouldn't think this was even worth mentioning, but this story was still noteworthy due to the fact ESPN still insists it is a story. The Worldwide Leader went all in on Tebow from the moment he became a Jet and while it is not uncommon for a news organization to decide something is a more important story than the rest of the world thinks it is (this is who outlets like MSNBC and FoxNews stay in business), ESPN's love affair with Tebow became particularly annoying once they started playing both sides of the fence, with people on their own network complaining about Tebow getting so much attention. Even worse is they kept beating a dead horse. For example, "SportsCenter" spent hours talking about Tim Tebow on the same day that the Jason Collins story came out. They devoted much more time to Tebow, a fact which is both laughable and a little sad. The day he was released the producers kept bringing on analyst after analyst, all of whom said the same thing - no one is really interested in signing him. After a while it started to feel like they were going to keep asking people until they got an answer they liked and were going to run with it after that. The thing is this isn't helping either side. Not only does ESPN look like a psycho ex-girlfriend who can't let go, Tebow has been experiencing a backlash far beyond anything he would have created on his own. (He may have liked it at first, but I think even he would like it to dial back.) However, there is good news for Tim in one respect - I don't think they get ESPN in Canada.
-I've always had a high level of respect for people who want to become referees and umpires. Just based on the fact that you never have a home game and every decision you make is going to make at least 50% of the people in the game hate you, I fail to see the upside. That is why I am usually willing to cut those guys a lot of slack, but there are a few umpires who need to be reminded that no one came to see them. I think baseball umps are the worst. While guys like basketball referees simply don't take any crap and toss a player or coach, for some reason baseball umpires feel the need to shout at guys first and some of them could be accused of instigating the conflict. That is allegedly what happened this week between Tampa Bay pitcher David Price and the home-plate umpire Tom Hallion got into a shouting match during a game. It apparently started when Price felt like he got squeezed on a pitch and let Hallion know it when the inning was over. Hallion responded by telling Price to, "Throw the ball over the fucking plate." They then started swearing at each other back and forth and Hallion threw out a couple of Rays before it was all over. That would have been bad enough, but because this is 2013 the feud continued when the two couldn't agree on what actually caused the incident and began calling each other liars through Twitter. (Both were eventually fined by the league.) While I have no doubt that Price is telling the truth, I have to say I don't think this was very smart on his part. Sure, Hallion was the one out of line because he should be the more responsible one, but who do you think his fellow umpires are going to side with? Going forward I don't think Price should expect a very generous strike zone from any of the crews working his game and that will cause him way more aggravation than winning in the court of public opinion is worth. After all, there is a reason umpires have acted this way since baseball first started - because they can.
-There was actually a second non-player/player feud that started this week. Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz is having a bounce-back season after a very down 2012. A lot of people have attributed that to the fact that John Farrell, his former pitching coach, is now his manager and Clay simply has more confidence in what he is doing. Toronto Blue Jays color commentator Jack Morris has a more clear-cut answer: he thinks Buchholz is cheating. Based one witnessing Clay's habit of touching his forearm between pitches and noticing a white patch on that part of his arm, Morris contends that Buchholz is doctoring up baseballs and putting some kind of substance on the ball. Buchholz claims it is just rosin, which is allowed (actually, Red Sox analyst Dennis Eckersley seemed way more upset about the accusations than Buchholz, making this more of an announcer-on-announcer crime). Putting my Boston homerism aside for a second I side with Buchholz for a much more practical reason - you would like to think that if Morris saw this people in the Toronto dugout would have noticed it as well and if they were really concerned they would have brought it to the umpire's attention. The fact the Blue Jays didn't say anything makes me think they didn't feel it was anything worth complaining about. Still, I find it amusing that this is even an issue because I thought this was another one of those unwritten rules of baseball which says that if you ain't cheating you ain't trying. Then again, that logic leads me to wonder if the Blue Jays were keeping their mouths shut because the last thing they wanted was for someone like John Farrell, who managed them last year, to point an umpire in their direction. It's one of those situations in which the inmates are running the asylum and the only thing which keeps them from turning each other in is they all know where the bodies are buried. Because nothing says "America's past time" like organized blackmail.
-Right before the Super Bowl Sports Illustrated had a lengthy article on the deer antler supplement that Ray Lewis had taken to be able to play in the game. The product markets itself as helping to heal injuries faster thanks to a chemical extracted from deer antler, which is one of the fastest natural regenerating substances on the planet. As you can imagine, the article also raised questions about whether or not the spray was legal for use since it was supposed to contain the banned chemical IGF-1. Since Lewis was retiring right after the game there wasn't much people could do about it (not like they could suspend him), but in that article golfer Vijay Singh also admitted to using it but claimed not to know it contained a banned substance. Because Singh is still active many people thought his admission would result in a temporary ban from golf, but as the months dragged on nothing happened. After a while the silence was becoming deafening. That was until this week when the PGA Tour ruled Singh was in the clear and would face no suspensions. While you may think that is normally good news, the reason behind letting Singh off the hook doesn't make him look so good. You see, in the last couple of months deer antler spray has come off the banned substance list. It was not removed because IGF-1 is no longer banned but the spray was cleared because, to put it simply, it doesn't work. After the hoopla of the Sports Illustrated article scientists tested the spray and found that there is almost no IGF-1 in it and even with the low levels which were found, spraying it into your mouth is one of the least-effective ways to take the drug. So, by buying and using the spray Singh is nothing more than the victim of a scam and while he may have been trying to cheat, you can't actually be punished for intent. To be truthful, I'm not sure if I would rather have everyone think I was cheater or an idiot. Unfortunately for Vijay, now everyone thinks he's both.
-I have to be honest, the fact that there was a gay NBA player was far less surprising to me than the news that the NBA relocation committee voted that the Kings should remain in Sacramento instead of be allowed to move to Seattle. Once the Maloofs, who currently own the Kings, announced that they had a buyer from that area I expected it to be nothing more than a formality, especially since the fact there is no franchise in that area is a major mark on outgoing Commissioner David Stern's record, the community has already proven it can sustain an NBA team, the city is ready to build a team an arena and Seattle is a much bigger television market than Sacramento. On top of all that the bid from the group who wants the team to remain in Sacramento is less than the offer from the Seattle group and you would expect NBA owners to want to jack up the prices of their own teams. I can only assume the rest of the NBA owners hate the Maloofs as much as the residents of Sacramento. Plus, if I were an NBA conspiracy theorist I would be concerned that Clay Bennett, the man who moved the Sonics to Oklahoma City in the first place, is on the committee deciding the fate of the Kings. Now for the first time I'm actually slightly worried that Seattle isn't going to get a new team. I mean, it could become something like the NFL with Los Angeles - they are more valuable as a tool to threaten any city which doesn't give it's current NBA team money for stadium upgrades than it would be to actually have a team there. But while LA has so many transplants from other cities around the world they don't see the need to have their own NFL team (and don't seem to want one), Seattle was very loyal to the Sonics and deserves to have them back. I hate to see any fanbase lose their team and I know two wrongs don't make a right, but since the NBA doesn't plan to expand any time soon someone is going to have to move for Seattle to get a new NBA team. I hope Charlotte hasn't gotten too attached to the Bobcats.
-Last Thursday night, as he slowly slipped out of the first round West Virginia quarterback Geno Smith was on display for a national television audience. Leading up to draft night there was a lot of talk Smith would be the first quarterback off the board but when that didn't happen he began free-falling due to a combination of a weak crop at that position and the fact a lot of teams had addressed quarterback issues through other means. I imagine Geno had to be terribly embarrassed about slipping as far as he did and watching as team after team passed on him you couldn't help but feel bad for the kid. Even when he was finally drafted by the Jets early the next night he didn't seem very happy - more relieved than anything. Watching his free-fall I couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't been better advised on how the draft might unfold. Apparently Smith was wondering that same thing, because he fired his agents within a couple of days. Smith says it has nothing to do with where he was drafted, but it is hard to come up with any other scenario which makes sense and now the agents are taking potshots at Smith, saying he was unrealistic about the draft, aloof during certain team interviews and was mad that he wasn't the first player taken. (Wow, I can't believe their relationship didn't work out.) Still, the main thing I take from all of this is that this is exactly why it is just better to stay home and wait for a phone call out of the view of ESPN cameras. Because I'm not saying NFL GMs lie, just that their job prevents them from telling the whole truth. Sure, they may like you as a player but they also like a dozen other guys and have no idea who is going to be available when their spot comes up. No, you won't get that moment of walking across the stage to shake the Commissioner's hand, but you can suffer in the comfort of your own home. NFL careers are notoriously short, so you may as well have the few memorable moments not be awful.
-The only person less enthusiastic about Smith being a Jet is his former teammate Tim Tebow, who was released by the Jets a couple days after the draft due to the fact they now had an overabundance of quarterbacks. Now, you would be hard-pressed to find an athlete who has received more attention in contrast to the amount of time he is actually on the field and normally I wouldn't think this was even worth mentioning, but this story was still noteworthy due to the fact ESPN still insists it is a story. The Worldwide Leader went all in on Tebow from the moment he became a Jet and while it is not uncommon for a news organization to decide something is a more important story than the rest of the world thinks it is (this is who outlets like MSNBC and FoxNews stay in business), ESPN's love affair with Tebow became particularly annoying once they started playing both sides of the fence, with people on their own network complaining about Tebow getting so much attention. Even worse is they kept beating a dead horse. For example, "SportsCenter" spent hours talking about Tim Tebow on the same day that the Jason Collins story came out. They devoted much more time to Tebow, a fact which is both laughable and a little sad. The day he was released the producers kept bringing on analyst after analyst, all of whom said the same thing - no one is really interested in signing him. After a while it started to feel like they were going to keep asking people until they got an answer they liked and were going to run with it after that. The thing is this isn't helping either side. Not only does ESPN look like a psycho ex-girlfriend who can't let go, Tebow has been experiencing a backlash far beyond anything he would have created on his own. (He may have liked it at first, but I think even he would like it to dial back.) However, there is good news for Tim in one respect - I don't think they get ESPN in Canada.
-I've always had a high level of respect for people who want to become referees and umpires. Just based on the fact that you never have a home game and every decision you make is going to make at least 50% of the people in the game hate you, I fail to see the upside. That is why I am usually willing to cut those guys a lot of slack, but there are a few umpires who need to be reminded that no one came to see them. I think baseball umps are the worst. While guys like basketball referees simply don't take any crap and toss a player or coach, for some reason baseball umpires feel the need to shout at guys first and some of them could be accused of instigating the conflict. That is allegedly what happened this week between Tampa Bay pitcher David Price and the home-plate umpire Tom Hallion got into a shouting match during a game. It apparently started when Price felt like he got squeezed on a pitch and let Hallion know it when the inning was over. Hallion responded by telling Price to, "Throw the ball over the fucking plate." They then started swearing at each other back and forth and Hallion threw out a couple of Rays before it was all over. That would have been bad enough, but because this is 2013 the feud continued when the two couldn't agree on what actually caused the incident and began calling each other liars through Twitter. (Both were eventually fined by the league.) While I have no doubt that Price is telling the truth, I have to say I don't think this was very smart on his part. Sure, Hallion was the one out of line because he should be the more responsible one, but who do you think his fellow umpires are going to side with? Going forward I don't think Price should expect a very generous strike zone from any of the crews working his game and that will cause him way more aggravation than winning in the court of public opinion is worth. After all, there is a reason umpires have acted this way since baseball first started - because they can.
-There was actually a second non-player/player feud that started this week. Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz is having a bounce-back season after a very down 2012. A lot of people have attributed that to the fact that John Farrell, his former pitching coach, is now his manager and Clay simply has more confidence in what he is doing. Toronto Blue Jays color commentator Jack Morris has a more clear-cut answer: he thinks Buchholz is cheating. Based one witnessing Clay's habit of touching his forearm between pitches and noticing a white patch on that part of his arm, Morris contends that Buchholz is doctoring up baseballs and putting some kind of substance on the ball. Buchholz claims it is just rosin, which is allowed (actually, Red Sox analyst Dennis Eckersley seemed way more upset about the accusations than Buchholz, making this more of an announcer-on-announcer crime). Putting my Boston homerism aside for a second I side with Buchholz for a much more practical reason - you would like to think that if Morris saw this people in the Toronto dugout would have noticed it as well and if they were really concerned they would have brought it to the umpire's attention. The fact the Blue Jays didn't say anything makes me think they didn't feel it was anything worth complaining about. Still, I find it amusing that this is even an issue because I thought this was another one of those unwritten rules of baseball which says that if you ain't cheating you ain't trying. Then again, that logic leads me to wonder if the Blue Jays were keeping their mouths shut because the last thing they wanted was for someone like John Farrell, who managed them last year, to point an umpire in their direction. It's one of those situations in which the inmates are running the asylum and the only thing which keeps them from turning each other in is they all know where the bodies are buried. Because nothing says "America's past time" like organized blackmail.
-Right before the Super Bowl Sports Illustrated had a lengthy article on the deer antler supplement that Ray Lewis had taken to be able to play in the game. The product markets itself as helping to heal injuries faster thanks to a chemical extracted from deer antler, which is one of the fastest natural regenerating substances on the planet. As you can imagine, the article also raised questions about whether or not the spray was legal for use since it was supposed to contain the banned chemical IGF-1. Since Lewis was retiring right after the game there wasn't much people could do about it (not like they could suspend him), but in that article golfer Vijay Singh also admitted to using it but claimed not to know it contained a banned substance. Because Singh is still active many people thought his admission would result in a temporary ban from golf, but as the months dragged on nothing happened. After a while the silence was becoming deafening. That was until this week when the PGA Tour ruled Singh was in the clear and would face no suspensions. While you may think that is normally good news, the reason behind letting Singh off the hook doesn't make him look so good. You see, in the last couple of months deer antler spray has come off the banned substance list. It was not removed because IGF-1 is no longer banned but the spray was cleared because, to put it simply, it doesn't work. After the hoopla of the Sports Illustrated article scientists tested the spray and found that there is almost no IGF-1 in it and even with the low levels which were found, spraying it into your mouth is one of the least-effective ways to take the drug. So, by buying and using the spray Singh is nothing more than the victim of a scam and while he may have been trying to cheat, you can't actually be punished for intent. To be truthful, I'm not sure if I would rather have everyone think I was cheater or an idiot. Unfortunately for Vijay, now everyone thinks he's both.
Friday, May 3, 2013
Don't Be A Glasshole
I'm always slightly skeptical whenever a new product is about to be launched which promises to change the world. From a marketing aspect I don't have a problem with it because you wouldn't expect anything less - it is not like a company is going to put out a press release and say something like, "Yeah, we have a new thing coming out. It's pretty good and we think you'll like it." Obviously, when it is time for a sale you go bigger than that. I just wonder if these companies are setting themselves up for automatic failure because these days it is nearly impossible to create a product which actually changes the world overnight. Sure, there have been plenty of technological advances that have made our lives much better, but I feel like they were under-sold and allowed to build a following at a natural pace. For example, I don't remember a big iPod campaign yet one day I looked up and everyone had one. It's always a more gradual shift and takes a few generations to get the bugs out. And that is if people even buy it. I think we all remember the hoopla surrounding the Segway scooters which were supposed to drastically change the way major cities did business as people predicted they would become the principle mode of transportation. Obviously, that didn't happen because the only time you see Segways these days is when tourists are on over-priced tours of a city and not looking at the attractions because they are too busy trying desperately not to fall. With that as my last frame of reference it is easy to see why I am not getting too excited about the product which has been getting all the buzz this week - Google Glasses.
In case you have missed the videos, Google Glasses are a mini-screen which goes a few inches in front of one of your eyes and is connected to the internet. The system is voice-controlled and you can make the program look up information on whatever you are looking at, give you turn-by-turn directions or shoot a video or picture of exactly what you are looking at. Trust me, if you have ever seen a spy movie in the last decade you have seen the inspiration for Google Glasses. They have been teasing its release for months, but they are clearly getting closer to the sale date at the end of the year because Google did the smartest of marketing ideas - they gave them to celebrities and journalists for free and released them into the wild to post a bunch of videos of themselves playing with the glasses and let them do all the work. It's actually very savvy because they are essentially infomercials that Google didn't have to produce. (You probably expect the celebrities to be the ones making all the videos, but the tech journalists are way worse. The only thing tech journalists love more than free stuff is being able to play with that free stuff before it is available to the general public and then gloat about having it under the guise of research.) By the end of the week it seemed like every site I visited had at least one Google Glasses video for you to look at. At first it was kind of cool. Again, that was at first.
The tutorial video available online shows the glasses can do a lot of really interesting things, but apparently all anyone wants to do is shoot first person-style videos. In the right hands it produced some very interesting snippets. A few professional athletes wore the glasses in practice to show people what it looks like when you take a penalty shot against an NHL goalie, some used them while performing extreme stunts, etc. The thing is it felt like a waste that this is what people decided to focus on, because it's not like we've never seen this before - the helmet cam is far from an original idea. I get that the glasses are smaller than a normal camera rig, but that actually made it worse since people felt like they could wear the glasses all the time. See, when you have this huge camera strapped to your head you feel the need to justify why it's there and that pressure doesn't exist if people can't tell you are filming. Once this dawned on the people wearing the glasses they kept them all while doing ordinary, mundane tasks, then filming it and showing it to people like it was supposed to be ground-breaking. In reality it immediately began to devalue the technology. I don't care how famous you may be, making toast looks the same for just about everyone. So, in a matter of a couple days Google Glasses went from being kind of cool to being the early days of Twitter, when people were using the social media site to announce they were going to the bathroom and what they had for lunch. You know, the days when Twitter sucked before all those people were shamed away.
Once again, just because you can film your life that doesn't mean you have to. There is also a privacy issue with the glasses, as along the way someone noticed that there is nothing on them which lets the person you are looking at know they are being filmed. Not only does that seem like a really shady invasion of personal rights it also means people who work with sensitive materials can't be allowed to use them. That seems like a pretty healthy chunk of businesses to be losing before the product even launches. The only good news is that since Google isn't planning to start selling the glasses until the end of the year there will be plenty of time to work out the bugs before then. Also, hopefully they can figure out a way to make them a little cheaper because the initial price of $1500 is going to prevent a lot of people from buying them, no matter how cool they are. I have to say that when only a few hundred people can afford your product you are going to have an uphill climb in trying to change the world. I'm not saying it can't be done, but if you think an expensive piece of unnecessary technology is truly about to shift the way the world operates I would ask you when was the last time you saw someone use the voice recognition software on their phone without becoming incredibly frustrated and just dialing like we always have. Sometimes it's ok to leave things as they are.
In case you have missed the videos, Google Glasses are a mini-screen which goes a few inches in front of one of your eyes and is connected to the internet. The system is voice-controlled and you can make the program look up information on whatever you are looking at, give you turn-by-turn directions or shoot a video or picture of exactly what you are looking at. Trust me, if you have ever seen a spy movie in the last decade you have seen the inspiration for Google Glasses. They have been teasing its release for months, but they are clearly getting closer to the sale date at the end of the year because Google did the smartest of marketing ideas - they gave them to celebrities and journalists for free and released them into the wild to post a bunch of videos of themselves playing with the glasses and let them do all the work. It's actually very savvy because they are essentially infomercials that Google didn't have to produce. (You probably expect the celebrities to be the ones making all the videos, but the tech journalists are way worse. The only thing tech journalists love more than free stuff is being able to play with that free stuff before it is available to the general public and then gloat about having it under the guise of research.) By the end of the week it seemed like every site I visited had at least one Google Glasses video for you to look at. At first it was kind of cool. Again, that was at first.
The tutorial video available online shows the glasses can do a lot of really interesting things, but apparently all anyone wants to do is shoot first person-style videos. In the right hands it produced some very interesting snippets. A few professional athletes wore the glasses in practice to show people what it looks like when you take a penalty shot against an NHL goalie, some used them while performing extreme stunts, etc. The thing is it felt like a waste that this is what people decided to focus on, because it's not like we've never seen this before - the helmet cam is far from an original idea. I get that the glasses are smaller than a normal camera rig, but that actually made it worse since people felt like they could wear the glasses all the time. See, when you have this huge camera strapped to your head you feel the need to justify why it's there and that pressure doesn't exist if people can't tell you are filming. Once this dawned on the people wearing the glasses they kept them all while doing ordinary, mundane tasks, then filming it and showing it to people like it was supposed to be ground-breaking. In reality it immediately began to devalue the technology. I don't care how famous you may be, making toast looks the same for just about everyone. So, in a matter of a couple days Google Glasses went from being kind of cool to being the early days of Twitter, when people were using the social media site to announce they were going to the bathroom and what they had for lunch. You know, the days when Twitter sucked before all those people were shamed away.
Once again, just because you can film your life that doesn't mean you have to. There is also a privacy issue with the glasses, as along the way someone noticed that there is nothing on them which lets the person you are looking at know they are being filmed. Not only does that seem like a really shady invasion of personal rights it also means people who work with sensitive materials can't be allowed to use them. That seems like a pretty healthy chunk of businesses to be losing before the product even launches. The only good news is that since Google isn't planning to start selling the glasses until the end of the year there will be plenty of time to work out the bugs before then. Also, hopefully they can figure out a way to make them a little cheaper because the initial price of $1500 is going to prevent a lot of people from buying them, no matter how cool they are. I have to say that when only a few hundred people can afford your product you are going to have an uphill climb in trying to change the world. I'm not saying it can't be done, but if you think an expensive piece of unnecessary technology is truly about to shift the way the world operates I would ask you when was the last time you saw someone use the voice recognition software on their phone without becoming incredibly frustrated and just dialing like we always have. Sometimes it's ok to leave things as they are.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Sex Doesn't Always Sell
I don't know why, but I can't help myself when it comes to survival shows on the Discovery Channel. There is just something about them which prevents me from changing the channel. Even if I don't catch them the first time around I know I'm going to get sucked into a marathon of them at some point. I think my interest comes from the fact I am always fascinated to see what type of crazy tests people are willing to put themselves through in the name of entertainment and the survival guys are the craziest of the bunch. Two guys strand themselves out in the wilderness for a couple of days, so the next guy has to get himself trapped on a glacier for a week and the third stick himself on the side of a volcano for 10 days. Honestly, sometimes it feels like it is a competition to see who can get closest to killing themselves without actually doing it. And even though I won't go camping at a site which doesn't have wi-fi, I can't get enough of these shows. That is why I was interested to check out Discovery's new show, "The Naked Castaway." A former member of the British Army was going to strand himself on a remote tropical island for two months and prove that if you have the right skill set you can make a pretty nice life for yourself, no matter what the conditions. Sadly while it made for a fascinating idea, it didn't exactly make for fascinating television.
Like me, you are probably wondering about the name. At first I assumed the title was some kind of a play on the guy's habit of walking around naked. And while it is not the way I would want to spend two months, I can understand the nudity as a personal choice. I mean, when it's just you on the island why bother wearing clothes? But, in watching the first episode I discovered the title was actually because the guy was getting dropped on the island naked. He wanted to do this trip without any type of modern comfort, even clothes. You may be asking yourself why (I know I was)? Unfortunately, I really don't think there was a good reason why, he was just throwing this in as random part of the experiment to make it harder on himself. At the very start of the first program the explorer stated that he would be the first person to try to survive on a tropical island for two months while nude. (I disagree with that premise, by the way. I think he's just the first guy to do it on television. I'm sure there were plenty of naked people on islands in the past.) On top of that the first thing he did once he was on the island was work on making something to cover up his nudity, meaning that not only was this stunt unnecessary, it wasn't even all that accurate.
As I watched a couple more episodes, I came to the conclusion that this is just the kind of guy this adventurer is - he feels the need to make things harder for himself. While listing his qualifications for the show he stated he was the first person to walk the length of the Amazon River. Clearly that challenge happened because no one was willing to take this man aside and tell him there was probably a reason for that - the rest of humanity never thought it was necessary. Early humans were pretty quick to come up with the concept of the boat and even their primitive minds were able to figure out that letting currents do most of the work was a lot easier, which made walking the length of the Amazon something people haven't had to do for thousands of years. (Apparently they don't teach that adage to work smart, not harder in the British military.) I have to admit this revelation did not boost this man's credentials to me. You see, this goes back to one of my biggest annoyances with stunts like these - people creating an extravagant clause where there doesn't need to be one. It's like the guy in Texas who puts rattlesnakes in his mouth and just keeps breaking his own record because no one else is trying. When you are the only person doing something it doesn't make you a hero, it makes you an idiot.
Unfortunately for this show the fact the guy was naked for the first few minutes was the most memorable thing about it (hence why I've been calling him vague things like "that guy" and "the explorer" because I can't remember his name and don't think it is important enough to look up). And clearly the Discover Channel recognized that as well, because they crammed two months of tape into a few hours. There is a chance this guy simply isn't very good with a camera and they have a lot of video which was just unusable, but the fact of the matter is Les Stroud can turn 5 days of camping into an hour-long show and this guy spent 60 days living off the land and it was all cover in 4 episodes, which makes me think there were just really long stretches in which nothing interesting happened. (Case in point, it took him 30 days to build a proper shelter because he was very particular about the roof (again, creating extra challenges). At that point why even bother?) Call me crazy, but based on the quick way this show came and went I don't think he will be working on a second survival situation any time soon. It's probably too bad because I'm sure his friends and family were looking forward to his next challenge in which he tried to do another task which was both complicated and unnecessary. At least this way he won't have to worry about getting sunburned in any particularly sensitive areas.
Like me, you are probably wondering about the name. At first I assumed the title was some kind of a play on the guy's habit of walking around naked. And while it is not the way I would want to spend two months, I can understand the nudity as a personal choice. I mean, when it's just you on the island why bother wearing clothes? But, in watching the first episode I discovered the title was actually because the guy was getting dropped on the island naked. He wanted to do this trip without any type of modern comfort, even clothes. You may be asking yourself why (I know I was)? Unfortunately, I really don't think there was a good reason why, he was just throwing this in as random part of the experiment to make it harder on himself. At the very start of the first program the explorer stated that he would be the first person to try to survive on a tropical island for two months while nude. (I disagree with that premise, by the way. I think he's just the first guy to do it on television. I'm sure there were plenty of naked people on islands in the past.) On top of that the first thing he did once he was on the island was work on making something to cover up his nudity, meaning that not only was this stunt unnecessary, it wasn't even all that accurate.
As I watched a couple more episodes, I came to the conclusion that this is just the kind of guy this adventurer is - he feels the need to make things harder for himself. While listing his qualifications for the show he stated he was the first person to walk the length of the Amazon River. Clearly that challenge happened because no one was willing to take this man aside and tell him there was probably a reason for that - the rest of humanity never thought it was necessary. Early humans were pretty quick to come up with the concept of the boat and even their primitive minds were able to figure out that letting currents do most of the work was a lot easier, which made walking the length of the Amazon something people haven't had to do for thousands of years. (Apparently they don't teach that adage to work smart, not harder in the British military.) I have to admit this revelation did not boost this man's credentials to me. You see, this goes back to one of my biggest annoyances with stunts like these - people creating an extravagant clause where there doesn't need to be one. It's like the guy in Texas who puts rattlesnakes in his mouth and just keeps breaking his own record because no one else is trying. When you are the only person doing something it doesn't make you a hero, it makes you an idiot.
Unfortunately for this show the fact the guy was naked for the first few minutes was the most memorable thing about it (hence why I've been calling him vague things like "that guy" and "the explorer" because I can't remember his name and don't think it is important enough to look up). And clearly the Discover Channel recognized that as well, because they crammed two months of tape into a few hours. There is a chance this guy simply isn't very good with a camera and they have a lot of video which was just unusable, but the fact of the matter is Les Stroud can turn 5 days of camping into an hour-long show and this guy spent 60 days living off the land and it was all cover in 4 episodes, which makes me think there were just really long stretches in which nothing interesting happened. (Case in point, it took him 30 days to build a proper shelter because he was very particular about the roof (again, creating extra challenges). At that point why even bother?) Call me crazy, but based on the quick way this show came and went I don't think he will be working on a second survival situation any time soon. It's probably too bad because I'm sure his friends and family were looking forward to his next challenge in which he tried to do another task which was both complicated and unnecessary. At least this way he won't have to worry about getting sunburned in any particularly sensitive areas.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Time Down The Drain
Normally I like to have my family's house on the Cape open by this point in the year. However, I don't need to tell people around here that a very tough winter was followed up by a mostly chilly spring and, honestly, when we there were still piles of snow on the ground in April going to the beach was the furthest thing from my mind. The good news is that the last week or so has been really nice and I was finally inspired to go down and (mostly) open the place up for the season. After doing this for a few years I have started to feel like I have it down to a science. It's not nearly as complicated it as it sounds, I just have to be willing to shoehorn myself under the house to do some minor plumbing; all the while reminding myself that my grandfather was a very wiry man. [Sidebar: for some reason this week has been filled with me doing things I never do. I spent two days fixing my car and then I found myself under a house working on plumbing, which is one of the two home repairs I really hate doing (electrical work is the other). I don't know what has gotten into me.] Anyway, this year opening was going to be a little different, because first I had to complete a scavenger hunt.
The best money spent all year long is when we hire a guy at the end of the season to blow out the pipes for the winter. Before we started doing this the first day the cottage was opened always involved a torch and some soldering iron to close pipes which had cracked open while frozen. That has yet to happen since we started hiring this guy and even if there is a leak the work is guaranteed so they come and fix it for free. He also offers to come open it for us in the spring if we wanted him to. The thing is I have yet to need to call his services in the spring and I think that he is getting annoyed with my cockiness because the last couple of years he's started throwing curveballs at me. Two years ago he unhooked a water meter for the first time ever which I did not see and so I when turned on the water the following spring I did so without connecting it first and found myself kneeling in a puddle. Then last fall he fully took apart the shower handle and left it for me to assemble. Apparently this has been bugging him for as long as he has been blowing out our pipes, but the handle was installed upside-down and then the screw was stripped, locking it in this position (admittedly it bothered me a little as well, but since I don't know a damn thing about plumbing I was willing to live with it). Well, last fall he finally got the handle off, but didn't have a replacement screw on him at the time. If I was going to turn the water on I would first have to get my hands on one of these screws.
On the surface this sounds like fairly easy task. After all, this is the cottage we are talking about. My father and I spent three summers building it and left behind boxes and boxes of randomly-sized screws. However, none of those were going to fit in the shower because this was a special plumbing screw. I've noticed plumbing problems can never be solved with everyday tools or the materials from other home repairs. And that's the thing - in this day and age where everything is expected to be able to work with everything else, how can you make you still make a product which only serves one purpose? Seriously, there is nothing else this particular screw could do except hold a shower handle. Even worse, the company which makes this screw took it to another level by then making this special screw which does one thing hard to find. I went to two hardware stores in the area and neither of them would sell me just the screw. They were more than happy to sell me a brand-new handle set which would include the screw, but they couldn't sell me just the screw. Standing in the plumbing section of this large hardware store chain listening to the kid try to sell me on the benefits of a new shower handle even though the one I have works just fine I had to fight back the urge to rip open the box and just take the one part I needed. I would never do it, but in that moment I could understand why people shoplift.
In the end I found the special screw in a plumbing supply store. (Because the only thing more annoying than plumbing projects requiring special tools is having to go to a special store to get the necessary tool. Also, I have notice plumbing supply stores are never near anything else which would help you get the rest of your errands done. It is like the entire experience has been designed to frustrate you into hiring a professional.) Fortunately these guys didn't make me buy an entirely new handle, but they also would not just sell me one screw - I had to buy a smaller kit which included several special plumbing-specific things which I can assure you I will not be using, so I essentially spent $5 for one screw (better than $20 for a new handle I didn't need). I will say this much, I was damn careful putting that screw in place and made sure it did not get stripped a second time. The good news is that despite this little detour the rest of the opening went mostly as planned and the house is now open for the season. As always I am more than happy to let people swing by and stay for a few days, but this year I have one condition - make sure you notice the shower handle is now facing in the right direction.
The best money spent all year long is when we hire a guy at the end of the season to blow out the pipes for the winter. Before we started doing this the first day the cottage was opened always involved a torch and some soldering iron to close pipes which had cracked open while frozen. That has yet to happen since we started hiring this guy and even if there is a leak the work is guaranteed so they come and fix it for free. He also offers to come open it for us in the spring if we wanted him to. The thing is I have yet to need to call his services in the spring and I think that he is getting annoyed with my cockiness because the last couple of years he's started throwing curveballs at me. Two years ago he unhooked a water meter for the first time ever which I did not see and so I when turned on the water the following spring I did so without connecting it first and found myself kneeling in a puddle. Then last fall he fully took apart the shower handle and left it for me to assemble. Apparently this has been bugging him for as long as he has been blowing out our pipes, but the handle was installed upside-down and then the screw was stripped, locking it in this position (admittedly it bothered me a little as well, but since I don't know a damn thing about plumbing I was willing to live with it). Well, last fall he finally got the handle off, but didn't have a replacement screw on him at the time. If I was going to turn the water on I would first have to get my hands on one of these screws.
On the surface this sounds like fairly easy task. After all, this is the cottage we are talking about. My father and I spent three summers building it and left behind boxes and boxes of randomly-sized screws. However, none of those were going to fit in the shower because this was a special plumbing screw. I've noticed plumbing problems can never be solved with everyday tools or the materials from other home repairs. And that's the thing - in this day and age where everything is expected to be able to work with everything else, how can you make you still make a product which only serves one purpose? Seriously, there is nothing else this particular screw could do except hold a shower handle. Even worse, the company which makes this screw took it to another level by then making this special screw which does one thing hard to find. I went to two hardware stores in the area and neither of them would sell me just the screw. They were more than happy to sell me a brand-new handle set which would include the screw, but they couldn't sell me just the screw. Standing in the plumbing section of this large hardware store chain listening to the kid try to sell me on the benefits of a new shower handle even though the one I have works just fine I had to fight back the urge to rip open the box and just take the one part I needed. I would never do it, but in that moment I could understand why people shoplift.
In the end I found the special screw in a plumbing supply store. (Because the only thing more annoying than plumbing projects requiring special tools is having to go to a special store to get the necessary tool. Also, I have notice plumbing supply stores are never near anything else which would help you get the rest of your errands done. It is like the entire experience has been designed to frustrate you into hiring a professional.) Fortunately these guys didn't make me buy an entirely new handle, but they also would not just sell me one screw - I had to buy a smaller kit which included several special plumbing-specific things which I can assure you I will not be using, so I essentially spent $5 for one screw (better than $20 for a new handle I didn't need). I will say this much, I was damn careful putting that screw in place and made sure it did not get stripped a second time. The good news is that despite this little detour the rest of the opening went mostly as planned and the house is now open for the season. As always I am more than happy to let people swing by and stay for a few days, but this year I have one condition - make sure you notice the shower handle is now facing in the right direction.
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