I think one of the best things about spring is the way that no weather pattern lasts for too long. Unlike a season such as summer, when you know one 90+ degree day signals the beginning of a really long stretch of oppressive heat, one day of spring weather is almost no indication of what you should expect for tomorrow. We can go from 80 to 50 in about 6 hours, which is why I was not running for the air conditioning just because yesterday was particularly muggy and uncomfortable. The only real problem with stuffy air is that for some reason my bedroom gets almost no air flow despite having plenty of windows. I can open every window and even the doors, but I can never seem to coax the cooler air from the hallway to come in and for some reason the rest of the house is always at least 10 degrees cooler than that one room. Seeing as how I tend to run hot anyway the last thing I need is hot air making it even worse. Trying to go to bed last night I couldn't take it anymore and decided that even if I couldn't get the cooler air into my room the least I could do was try to move the hotter air around and perhaps get some relief that way. As it would turn out I should have just tried to suck and it and spend the night being uncomfortably hot.
The issue was my standing osculating fan. The first thing you should know is that it is probably older than most of my nieces and nephew and while it has served me well, it is not without it's quirks. Specifically the blades of the fan somehow slide back and forth, occasionally going far enough back that they start slapping into the safety cage which surrounds the fan and making a rather annoying "thwap, thwap, thwap" noise. It started doing this last summer, but close enough to the end of the season I could ignore it and planned to get to it later. I guess now is later enough. A machine making a noise it is not supposed to make is annoying enough, but I have found this is even worse on those occasions when the noise comes and goes, which was the case here. Few things in life are quite as frustrating as waiting for a machine to make the noise so you can start to think about how to fix it, waiting several minutes while it performs its duties exactly as the manufacturers intended it to and then as soon as you turn around it makes the noise almost out of spite. At that moment it is as though the machine is mocking you or playing a game you didn't know had started. But if you think that is bad, you should try going through this experience while trying to sleep. I would be listening intently, not hear the "thwap" for an extended period of time, be 95% asleep and then be woken up when the loud thwapping would start again. It took a long while before I gave up the other way and turned the fan off, opting for silence and humidity.
While I had no doubt some thunderstorms would roll through shortly to get rid of the excessive humidity (and I was right) I also know that this will hardly be the last time I need a fan in the next few weeks. Thus, this afternoon I set about trying to remedy this situation by acting as an amateur fan repairman. At first I was hopeful the solution was as simple as tightening all the necessary screws, but it quickly became apparent that was not the answer to my problem. It didn't matter how tight I tried to make the cage to the fan it would run quietly for a few minutes before the tell-tale "thwap" would begin again. Another solution which came to mind during a particularly frustrating stretch was to remind myself that I had a good run with this fan, cut my losses and eliminate the chance of this happening again by buying one of those Dyson fans which don't actually have an blades but still produce cold air magically. However, my house has air conditioning for the really hot days, so I only really need the fan to help with those occasional borderline days and thus the top of the line product would seem excessive. Plus, when you can run to Wal-Mart and get a brand new model of the fan which I currently use for about $20 and I know that works just fine, spending $300 for a fan seems like a rather idiotic move - I don't care how fancy it is. So, rather than doing the idiotic move in a last-ditch effort I did the redneck move and just removed the safety cage.
I know that sounds like a bad idea and at first it sounded like a bad idea to me as well. That should have been enough for me to stop because trust me, there is nothing I hate more than knowing something is stupid and doing it anyway. However, I was still able to easily talk myself into this plan by reminding myself that I have no small children, large dogs or birds which could accidentally clip this fan as they walk passed it. That means the only person I have to worry about is myself because I now have what is essentially a small boat propeller whirring away in my bedroom and it is standing right about elbow height. It is probably just a matter of time before I get up in the middle of the night, don't put on my glasses because I don't want to turn a light on (not that it would matter since the blades are dark gray), forget I took the cage off and swing my hand into the fan. In some ways the fact that I know this day is coming and I won't have anyone to blame for it but myself when it does is somehow comforting. Also, as a result of months of hitting the metal cage most of the blade edges have been sufficiently dulled so the chances it takes off a finger are pretty slim. Therefore I am pretty sure this solution will be just fine for the few weeks I need it to work until the days are so hot I decide to cave and turn the air conditioning on. That being said, if spring wanted to throw me a week of really warm days sooner rather than later, that probably wouldn't be the worst thing.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Monday, May 20, 2013
Mailing It In
So, I've again got nothing. I'd been on a good run of things worth blogging about, but I have to say I had a very uneventful weekend (not that that is a bad thing.) So, for the first time in a while, I'm punting just to keep my streak alive. I'm not proud of it, but something tells me I will get over it before too long.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Bug Out
As the world's population continues to grow, environmentalists continue to worry about the long-term impact humans have on the plant, especially when it comes to how we eat. They think we should be doing more to take advantage of the naturally occurring food around us rather than breeding an excessive amount of the animals simply because we find them tasty. That is why this week the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization released a report asking everyone to eat more bugs. Yes, the United Nations truly think people should be more open to eating things like worms, bees, beetles and ants because they are plentiful, especially in areas where there is not nearly as much meat. The report reminds us that 2 billion people on the planet eat bugs every day and they are fine because if you eat enough of them bugs contain just as much protein as your average piece of meat and also that insects are easier to breed, take up less space and unlike cows and pigs bugs do not emit methane gas. In fact, many places consider certain insects to be a delicacy. It is all a matter of getting over the 'gross' factor. Everything they say makes perfect sense, but unfortunately for them the rest of us happen to think eating insects is only something which should happen when you are drunk and on vacation in an exotic land.
This is the problem with most of the plans people like environmentalists come up with - they call for things which are too extreme and have to be enacted too quickly. I'm sure we would be able to get away from eating so much meat eventually, but you need to slowly walk us to that point, not just insist we abandon our longstanding habits immediately. No doubt UN officials would be very quick to point out that in many cultures people eat insects all the time and no one makes a big deal of it. These people have been eating bugs their entire lives and it is totally normal for them. Yeah, well, I would counter that argument by remembering that there is a reason they open a new KFC every 20 minutes in China - once they get a taste of the food group I like to call "not bugs" people would rather eat that than "bugs". (I can only imagine what they would do if we gave them Five Guys.) But beyond taste, here is the other problem these guys face - for our entire childhood our parents taught us to avoid putting insects in our mouth. I don't care how powerful the UN thinks it is, it is not more powerful than mom. But, if this is really what they want people to do I say there is no more powerful leadership tool than being the one who sets the example, so let all these ambassadors be the first in line to start chomping on grasshoppers. Given how often they take advantage of their diplomatic immunity to illegally park in front of really nice restaurants I don't expect that plan to take off.
This is the problem with most of the plans people like environmentalists come up with - they call for things which are too extreme and have to be enacted too quickly. I'm sure we would be able to get away from eating so much meat eventually, but you need to slowly walk us to that point, not just insist we abandon our longstanding habits immediately. No doubt UN officials would be very quick to point out that in many cultures people eat insects all the time and no one makes a big deal of it. These people have been eating bugs their entire lives and it is totally normal for them. Yeah, well, I would counter that argument by remembering that there is a reason they open a new KFC every 20 minutes in China - once they get a taste of the food group I like to call "not bugs" people would rather eat that than "bugs". (I can only imagine what they would do if we gave them Five Guys.) But beyond taste, here is the other problem these guys face - for our entire childhood our parents taught us to avoid putting insects in our mouth. I don't care how powerful the UN thinks it is, it is not more powerful than mom. But, if this is really what they want people to do I say there is no more powerful leadership tool than being the one who sets the example, so let all these ambassadors be the first in line to start chomping on grasshoppers. Given how often they take advantage of their diplomatic immunity to illegally park in front of really nice restaurants I don't expect that plan to take off.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Weekly Sporties
-I have to say, for an NBA team which I couldn't care less about, the ongoing saga of Sacramento Kings is really interesting. When last we left them, the Maloof family which owns the Kings were trying to sell the team to a group from Seattle who intended to move the team there to replace the Sonics, who were bought and moved by a group from Oklahoma City. The only problem was that the NBA ownership committee voted against the team being allowed to move. At the time I assumed they were just being greedy and when the Seattle group offered to pay $65 million more as well as an extra $4 to each team just for the hell of it I thought that would be the push which was needed. That is why I was so surprised that when the NBA ownership group continued to vote against allowing the Kings to leave. Instead, they wanted the Maloofs to sell the team to a group from the Sacramento area which was offering about $80 million less than the Seattle group. (We've since learned one of the big factors is that the Sacramento group was so desperate to keep the team they were willing to spend millions on a new stadium while opting out of things like revenue sharing - giving every other team money while never making a profit for themselves.) At first the Maloofs said they had another idea in mind, which was that they just wouldn't sell at all. Or if they did it would be a smaller piece of the team, like 20% of the franchise and they would sell if to the main investors from the Seattle group, allowing them to take control of the team slowly. It had begun to have all the making of a long, drawn-out fight and I was going to enjoy every minute of it. That is why I was so surprised to wake up Friday morning and discover the Kings had been sold to the group from Sacramento and they didn't even raise their offer. Revenue sharing or not, the NA can't force an owner to sell because if they could the Suns and Clippers would have had new owners a long time ago, so I am dying to know what changed the Maloofs' minds. I can only hope that somewhere someone is writing all this down for a book and when it comes out I will be one of the first in line to read about how all this really went down.
-Speaking of books, former Lakers and Bulls coach Phil Jackson has a new one coming out. This is his eighth book, which means he is running out of interesting things to say and if he wants to make the New York Times best seller list he was going to have to start talking about some of the more juicy aspects of his coaching career. Now, for the last 10 years or so everyone has been debating who was better in their prime, Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan. (I've always maintained it was Jordan.) Since he coached both in their prime Jackson is the only one who can adequately answer this, but had refused to up until now. However in his latest book he finally broke down and compared them, ultimately deciding that Michael Jordan is better than Kobe Bryant because he was a better teammate, passer and leader (while conceding that Kobe was never asked to be a leader as long as Shaq was in Los Angeles). For the most part this nothing the general public outside of Los Angeles hadn't decided on its own, but it was nice to get confirmation. However, here is what I really find interesting: after their flame-out in this year's NBA playoffs, there had been a lot of speculation that Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni was going to be tossed overboard and the Lakers would bring back Phil Jackson, something most of their fans (and Kobe Bryant) wanted them to do for this season. I have to imagine this type of slight would pretty much put an end to that because even though Bryant is going to miss most of next season with an Achilles injury, he still has as much influence over that team as any player in the league. The two may have mended fences when Jackson called Bryant immature in a previous book, but I can't see someone as competitive as Kobe Bryant being willing to move on from a comment like that twice. Phil has long maintained he was no longer interested in coaching and if he were to return to the NBA it would be in a front-office capacity. I have to say that for the first time I'm starting to believe him. But even better, I can now definitely tell any who is a Los Angeles resident or under the age of 20 to shut up when they claim that Kobe is better than Jordan.
-I was very surprised the other day when I got the news that the Patriots had cut defensive tackle Kyle Love. While not a star of the defense, Love had played very well during his time in New England and had started a lot of games for them the last two season. With no clear replacements in line it was a questionable move. It wasn't until a couple days later that I learned why this decision had been made and I have to say the reasoning behind it was another one of those things which makes me squeamish about all the people so blindly loyal to the NFL. You see, the Patriots cut Kyle Love because this offseason he discovered he has Type 2 diabetes. Love will hardly be the first diabetic in the NFL but the difference is that the other players which come to mind are a quarterback and cornerback, two positions which value speed and mobility. Playing defensive tackle is all about girth and power and while trying to get his diabetes under control Love lost a significant amount of weight. While you would think someone who is trying to get a serious medical condition under control would be seen as a good thing, NFL teams are more worried about the short term - specifically their goal-line defense. (Fortunately for Love not all NFL teams are worried about his condition as he was claimed by the Jacksonville Jaguars. Not ideal going from one of the best teams to one of the worst, but at least he stays in the league.) Still, this just speaks to a larger issue. For all the talk about player safety and making sure the long-term impact playing football has on the brain is being studied, people seem to forget that there is just as much damage being done to these guys' bodies simply by trying to carry all that weight. On top of that you would think Love could have brought a legal case against the NFL because he was essentially being fired for having a disease, something which should be illegal. Of course, no one would ever bring this up to the NFL because they love football too much. This is just another example of a league which has a tremendous amount of power at the moment and is more than happy to use it. I would just warn them that those days are going to come to an end eventually, so they shouldn't get too used to being able to do whatever they want.
-While we're on the subject of weight, the NBA combine was this week. Now, if you think the NFL combine is useless, you really don't want to pay attention to the NBA combine because it is even worse. It is just a bunch of guys running drills with no one playing defense and the really good players only half-trying because, unlike the NFL version in which a bad combine can cost you a lot of money, the highest NBA prospects know their draft position is secure and just don't want to get hurt. The only interesting part of the whole thing is seeing how tall some of these guys really are because college programs are notoriously inaccurate. In doing all the weighing and measuring one number stood out from the crowd: Kentucky center Nerlens Noel clocked in at 6'10", which was expected, but only 206 lbs, which is a lot skinnier than people thought he would be. Now, if Noel played shooting guard or small forward like Kevin Durant this wouldn't matter to me because KD has proven you can be skinny and still impose your will on the NBA. However, Noel was a center in college and was projected to play at least power forward in the NBA. If he tries to do that he will be going against guys like Kevin Love, Marc Gasol and Dwight Howard who are all roughly the same height as him but weigh anywhere from 40-60 pounds more. It is going to make holding his spot on the low block a real problem. I know there are guys like Kevin Garnett who are stick figures and still play in the low post, but Garnett is a special kind of player and in his one year of college I did not see Noel have that kind of fire. I'm not saying he should go undrafted, but it does make me think it will take him a couple of years to bulk up before he can be an effective player. On top of that he is coming off a knee injury and probably won't be able to play his first season. It just all adds up to him being taken a few spots lower than projected in what was already supposed to be a pretty weak draft class. You know, they say the best thing for a young player is to go to a team with a lot of veteran leadership, this may be the first time the most important thing a team can have for a player is really good catering services.
-If you follow baseball at all you know the last couple of weeks have not been very good for umpires. First they got a homerun call wrong even after reviewing it and then they didn't know the rules and allowed an illegal substitution when a pitcher was taken out despite not throwing to any batters. Since all this was in addition to the mundane, everyday stuff that umpires seem to get wrong with regularity, Major League Baseball has been considering expanding replay to include pretty much everything short of balls and strikes. I have to say, I couldn't be more in favor of this kind of thing. I know purists say it will slow the game down, but I would counter by saying those people haven't been to a baseball game in a while because it couldn't get much slower. On top of that I think it is far more important that the correct team wins versus a game only taking 4 hours instead of 4.5. (If they really cared about games moving faster they would start enforcing some of the time rules, but they never do.) That being said, rather than going the other way and allowing everything to be reviewed all the time, MLB needs to make sure they have some kind of challenge system in place like the NFL does. I mean, there are way more stoppages of play in baseball and baseball managers are such sneaky bastards they could do something like ask for a review of regular play just to give their pitcher a little more time to warm-up. Thus, like the NFL where all scoring plays are reviewed I think they should continue to automatically review any homeruns which are close, but beyond that I think managers should only be able to request two reviews per game. I know through the course of a 162 game season that sounds like a lot of time spent under the hood, but I really don't think most of those will be used. Despite the bad couple of weeks if you broke down the performance of most umpires you would find that they get most of their calls correct (just when the screw up they really screw up). Thus, many games would pass without needing reviews it is just a matter of being able to use it should it be needed. Trust me, it is more important to have the rules in place and not need them than the other way around, which is how MLB currently operates.
-Staying on the subject of expanded replay, after some iffy calls in the playoffs a few NHL stars have come out and suggested the league needs to expand replay to include reviews of penalties. Now, given what I just said about MLB's plan to expand you probably think I would be in favor of more replay in the NHL, but in this case I am not. To me it is a totally separate argument because calling penalties is the hockey equivalent to calling balls and strikes - it's a judgement call which needs to be made in an instant and if you start to undermine that you may as well not even have refs. As long as they continue to review goals in hockey that is really the only thing that matters because while a bad call in hockey may put you at a disadvantage, a bad call in baseball usually costs you the game. For example, this reason this issue came up because the refs called a delay of game penalty against the San Jose Sharks for shooting the puck into the stands when replay made it look as though the puck actually caromed off a Los Angeles Kings player first. While that was bad for the Sharks, it was their sloppy play on the power play which actually cost them the game, not the penalty itself. The other issue is that you would have to ask yourself where would the line be? Could you ask them to check if a guy flopped? What about going back because you think they missed a penalty? Think about it like this - even the NFL, which expands replay almost every offseason, doesn't review penalties with replay because they know you could call holding on just about every play if you went looking for it, just like you could probably call a high stick every couple of seconds. It would ruin the flow of the game. The NHL is actually one of the best league for fixing broken rules on the fly but in this case I think they would be better served to slow down and make sure it is necessary before going off to replay every little thing. Unlike baseball, which needs 8 years and an act of nature to change an obvious problem, the NHL can wait a little bit before seeing if this becomes a real issue in the future. If it does they can address it then, but no need to insert a new rule in the middle of the playoffs because of one bad incident.
-As you may have heard there was a bit of a dust-up at last weekend's Player's Championship. Playing together of Saturday, Tiger Woods was accused by playing partner Sergio Garcia of pulling a club at the wrong time on purpose. You see, Sergio was on one side of the fairway and Tiger was off in the trees. Tiger pulled a fairway wood out, meaning he was going to try and pull off the more risky shot and the crowd murmured its approval. Unfortunately they did this loud enough for Sergio, who had just begun his swing, to hear it. His shot shanked off to the side and he glared in Tiger's direction. After the round Sergio said Woods did it on purpose and began playing the victim. Meanwhile Tiger admitted he and Sergio aren't exactly friends, but he only pulled the club after getting the all-clear from a marshall. (The next day this became a game of he-said, he-said, he-said, he-said as one marshall claimed Tiger was never told Sergio had hit and was showing back character by throwing the volunteers under the bus, while another marshall came out and said Tiger absolutely had been told it was his turn. We may never know the truth.) Either way, I don't care if Tiger was told it was clear or not, to me this is Sergio's problem. Garcia has always been known as a whiny player and this is just another chapter to add to his legacy. I've long said that golfers complaining about noise is one of the worst things for the image of golf and it is especially bad when it comes from people who should know better. Sergio has played with Tiger before and has to know that means playing in front of a larger gallery who will mostly be casual golf fans and may not be as up on the etiquette of the game. But even if that is the case it is not like they were excessively loud. Basically, I think this is Sergio, once again, looking for a way to excuse bad play by accusing someone else of breaking the rules. Normally he blames everyone from the course architect to the golfing gods so, sadly, blaming a playing partner is an improvement. You know, I've obviously never been to Garcia's house, but for some reason I feel strangely confident in saying there probably aren't any mirrors in it.
-Speaking of books, former Lakers and Bulls coach Phil Jackson has a new one coming out. This is his eighth book, which means he is running out of interesting things to say and if he wants to make the New York Times best seller list he was going to have to start talking about some of the more juicy aspects of his coaching career. Now, for the last 10 years or so everyone has been debating who was better in their prime, Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan. (I've always maintained it was Jordan.) Since he coached both in their prime Jackson is the only one who can adequately answer this, but had refused to up until now. However in his latest book he finally broke down and compared them, ultimately deciding that Michael Jordan is better than Kobe Bryant because he was a better teammate, passer and leader (while conceding that Kobe was never asked to be a leader as long as Shaq was in Los Angeles). For the most part this nothing the general public outside of Los Angeles hadn't decided on its own, but it was nice to get confirmation. However, here is what I really find interesting: after their flame-out in this year's NBA playoffs, there had been a lot of speculation that Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni was going to be tossed overboard and the Lakers would bring back Phil Jackson, something most of their fans (and Kobe Bryant) wanted them to do for this season. I have to imagine this type of slight would pretty much put an end to that because even though Bryant is going to miss most of next season with an Achilles injury, he still has as much influence over that team as any player in the league. The two may have mended fences when Jackson called Bryant immature in a previous book, but I can't see someone as competitive as Kobe Bryant being willing to move on from a comment like that twice. Phil has long maintained he was no longer interested in coaching and if he were to return to the NBA it would be in a front-office capacity. I have to say that for the first time I'm starting to believe him. But even better, I can now definitely tell any who is a Los Angeles resident or under the age of 20 to shut up when they claim that Kobe is better than Jordan.
-I was very surprised the other day when I got the news that the Patriots had cut defensive tackle Kyle Love. While not a star of the defense, Love had played very well during his time in New England and had started a lot of games for them the last two season. With no clear replacements in line it was a questionable move. It wasn't until a couple days later that I learned why this decision had been made and I have to say the reasoning behind it was another one of those things which makes me squeamish about all the people so blindly loyal to the NFL. You see, the Patriots cut Kyle Love because this offseason he discovered he has Type 2 diabetes. Love will hardly be the first diabetic in the NFL but the difference is that the other players which come to mind are a quarterback and cornerback, two positions which value speed and mobility. Playing defensive tackle is all about girth and power and while trying to get his diabetes under control Love lost a significant amount of weight. While you would think someone who is trying to get a serious medical condition under control would be seen as a good thing, NFL teams are more worried about the short term - specifically their goal-line defense. (Fortunately for Love not all NFL teams are worried about his condition as he was claimed by the Jacksonville Jaguars. Not ideal going from one of the best teams to one of the worst, but at least he stays in the league.) Still, this just speaks to a larger issue. For all the talk about player safety and making sure the long-term impact playing football has on the brain is being studied, people seem to forget that there is just as much damage being done to these guys' bodies simply by trying to carry all that weight. On top of that you would think Love could have brought a legal case against the NFL because he was essentially being fired for having a disease, something which should be illegal. Of course, no one would ever bring this up to the NFL because they love football too much. This is just another example of a league which has a tremendous amount of power at the moment and is more than happy to use it. I would just warn them that those days are going to come to an end eventually, so they shouldn't get too used to being able to do whatever they want.
-While we're on the subject of weight, the NBA combine was this week. Now, if you think the NFL combine is useless, you really don't want to pay attention to the NBA combine because it is even worse. It is just a bunch of guys running drills with no one playing defense and the really good players only half-trying because, unlike the NFL version in which a bad combine can cost you a lot of money, the highest NBA prospects know their draft position is secure and just don't want to get hurt. The only interesting part of the whole thing is seeing how tall some of these guys really are because college programs are notoriously inaccurate. In doing all the weighing and measuring one number stood out from the crowd: Kentucky center Nerlens Noel clocked in at 6'10", which was expected, but only 206 lbs, which is a lot skinnier than people thought he would be. Now, if Noel played shooting guard or small forward like Kevin Durant this wouldn't matter to me because KD has proven you can be skinny and still impose your will on the NBA. However, Noel was a center in college and was projected to play at least power forward in the NBA. If he tries to do that he will be going against guys like Kevin Love, Marc Gasol and Dwight Howard who are all roughly the same height as him but weigh anywhere from 40-60 pounds more. It is going to make holding his spot on the low block a real problem. I know there are guys like Kevin Garnett who are stick figures and still play in the low post, but Garnett is a special kind of player and in his one year of college I did not see Noel have that kind of fire. I'm not saying he should go undrafted, but it does make me think it will take him a couple of years to bulk up before he can be an effective player. On top of that he is coming off a knee injury and probably won't be able to play his first season. It just all adds up to him being taken a few spots lower than projected in what was already supposed to be a pretty weak draft class. You know, they say the best thing for a young player is to go to a team with a lot of veteran leadership, this may be the first time the most important thing a team can have for a player is really good catering services.
-If you follow baseball at all you know the last couple of weeks have not been very good for umpires. First they got a homerun call wrong even after reviewing it and then they didn't know the rules and allowed an illegal substitution when a pitcher was taken out despite not throwing to any batters. Since all this was in addition to the mundane, everyday stuff that umpires seem to get wrong with regularity, Major League Baseball has been considering expanding replay to include pretty much everything short of balls and strikes. I have to say, I couldn't be more in favor of this kind of thing. I know purists say it will slow the game down, but I would counter by saying those people haven't been to a baseball game in a while because it couldn't get much slower. On top of that I think it is far more important that the correct team wins versus a game only taking 4 hours instead of 4.5. (If they really cared about games moving faster they would start enforcing some of the time rules, but they never do.) That being said, rather than going the other way and allowing everything to be reviewed all the time, MLB needs to make sure they have some kind of challenge system in place like the NFL does. I mean, there are way more stoppages of play in baseball and baseball managers are such sneaky bastards they could do something like ask for a review of regular play just to give their pitcher a little more time to warm-up. Thus, like the NFL where all scoring plays are reviewed I think they should continue to automatically review any homeruns which are close, but beyond that I think managers should only be able to request two reviews per game. I know through the course of a 162 game season that sounds like a lot of time spent under the hood, but I really don't think most of those will be used. Despite the bad couple of weeks if you broke down the performance of most umpires you would find that they get most of their calls correct (just when the screw up they really screw up). Thus, many games would pass without needing reviews it is just a matter of being able to use it should it be needed. Trust me, it is more important to have the rules in place and not need them than the other way around, which is how MLB currently operates.
-Staying on the subject of expanded replay, after some iffy calls in the playoffs a few NHL stars have come out and suggested the league needs to expand replay to include reviews of penalties. Now, given what I just said about MLB's plan to expand you probably think I would be in favor of more replay in the NHL, but in this case I am not. To me it is a totally separate argument because calling penalties is the hockey equivalent to calling balls and strikes - it's a judgement call which needs to be made in an instant and if you start to undermine that you may as well not even have refs. As long as they continue to review goals in hockey that is really the only thing that matters because while a bad call in hockey may put you at a disadvantage, a bad call in baseball usually costs you the game. For example, this reason this issue came up because the refs called a delay of game penalty against the San Jose Sharks for shooting the puck into the stands when replay made it look as though the puck actually caromed off a Los Angeles Kings player first. While that was bad for the Sharks, it was their sloppy play on the power play which actually cost them the game, not the penalty itself. The other issue is that you would have to ask yourself where would the line be? Could you ask them to check if a guy flopped? What about going back because you think they missed a penalty? Think about it like this - even the NFL, which expands replay almost every offseason, doesn't review penalties with replay because they know you could call holding on just about every play if you went looking for it, just like you could probably call a high stick every couple of seconds. It would ruin the flow of the game. The NHL is actually one of the best league for fixing broken rules on the fly but in this case I think they would be better served to slow down and make sure it is necessary before going off to replay every little thing. Unlike baseball, which needs 8 years and an act of nature to change an obvious problem, the NHL can wait a little bit before seeing if this becomes a real issue in the future. If it does they can address it then, but no need to insert a new rule in the middle of the playoffs because of one bad incident.
-As you may have heard there was a bit of a dust-up at last weekend's Player's Championship. Playing together of Saturday, Tiger Woods was accused by playing partner Sergio Garcia of pulling a club at the wrong time on purpose. You see, Sergio was on one side of the fairway and Tiger was off in the trees. Tiger pulled a fairway wood out, meaning he was going to try and pull off the more risky shot and the crowd murmured its approval. Unfortunately they did this loud enough for Sergio, who had just begun his swing, to hear it. His shot shanked off to the side and he glared in Tiger's direction. After the round Sergio said Woods did it on purpose and began playing the victim. Meanwhile Tiger admitted he and Sergio aren't exactly friends, but he only pulled the club after getting the all-clear from a marshall. (The next day this became a game of he-said, he-said, he-said, he-said as one marshall claimed Tiger was never told Sergio had hit and was showing back character by throwing the volunteers under the bus, while another marshall came out and said Tiger absolutely had been told it was his turn. We may never know the truth.) Either way, I don't care if Tiger was told it was clear or not, to me this is Sergio's problem. Garcia has always been known as a whiny player and this is just another chapter to add to his legacy. I've long said that golfers complaining about noise is one of the worst things for the image of golf and it is especially bad when it comes from people who should know better. Sergio has played with Tiger before and has to know that means playing in front of a larger gallery who will mostly be casual golf fans and may not be as up on the etiquette of the game. But even if that is the case it is not like they were excessively loud. Basically, I think this is Sergio, once again, looking for a way to excuse bad play by accusing someone else of breaking the rules. Normally he blames everyone from the course architect to the golfing gods so, sadly, blaming a playing partner is an improvement. You know, I've obviously never been to Garcia's house, but for some reason I feel strangely confident in saying there probably aren't any mirrors in it.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Fish Foreclosure
Back in the summer of 2001, I helped my sister move down to Washington, DC (yes, members of my family are actually allowed to leave Massachusetts... for brief periods of time). Anyway, while I was down there we decided to see a few of the local sites and as I so often do when I am in a new city, I decided I wanted to see the aquarium. I figured that something with a title as grand as "The National Aquarium" was bound to be good. After all, this was the aquarium which was supposed to represent the entire nation. The National Zoo is certainly one of the best ones around, so it stood to reason that the aquarium would have been just as impressive. Also, it has the right kind of address because it is right off the national mall and near the Smithsonian, which gives it an air of respectability. That is why the fact that we got to the address and found it was the Commerce Department building did not phase me too much. I figured it was just a way to save space, even though it really should have been my first hint to lower my expectations. As it turned out the "aquarium" was in the basement and had all the charm you would expect from the part of a government building where they would normally store reports on the expected growth of the popularity of the penny from the 1940s. Seriously, the Alamo has a nicer basement.
Of course, I am hardly the kind of person who judges a place just by its exterior - I love it when people reconstitute old buildings into quirky apartments rather than tearing the place down and putting up a bunch of cookie-cutter condos and some of the best food comes out of buildings which were never meant to house a restaurant. Thus, if it had turned out that the National Aquarium was filled with exotic fish and rare animals I would still be raving about the time I went to the cool, secret aquarium hidden in Washington, DC. Sadly, my dreams did not come true because, again, the place is subterranean and actually has less light than your average basement apartment. It felt a lot like a dungeon and you end up just feeling bad for all the animals. I know all zoos are essentially animal prisons, but some places do a better job of hiding that fact. The exhibits consisted of a few lobsters, a couple of alligators which may or may not have been stuffed, a nurse shark which appeared to be desperate to get out of the water and while they had the occasional tropical fish their main displayed was a large tank of goldfish. I'm not even joking - your average rich person in Miami has a more impressive collection of fish in their living room, though given the conditions that is probably for the better because if the National Aquarium had some extremely rare fish in this location I would have felt compelled to construct a rescue team.
I bring this up because last week the aquarium learned it is going to be kicked out shortly. You see the Commerce Department needs to do some serious updates to the building and that starts with the basement. So the animals need a new home until renovations are complete, sometime in 2015. Now despite the name of National Aquarium, it turns out the entire place is privately funded so it is not like they can just have taxpayers rent them a new space while the current location gets updated. The Commerce Department has said they will try to help the National Aquarium find a new location around the mall, but they will not delay the start of renovations to do so. If the Aquarium can't find a temporary home for their fish they will have to donate most of their animals to other aquariums, most likely starting with the one in Baltimore. (I think if the fish were allowed to see both locations and vote they would gladly take the short drive up to Baltimore sooner rather than later. For their sake I would hope the move becomes permanent because the Baltimore aquarium is quite impressive and to see how the other fish live only to be thrust back into their cramped basement would actually be cruel. Fish may not have much of a memory but they can tell when the have a lot less room to work with.) As you can see, the clock is ticking.
Part of the problem is that I grew up in Boston, which has one of the best aquariums in the nation. When everything is getting held up against that it was already going to have a hard time meeting my lofty standards. That is why if the aquarium is ever going to come back to DC I hope they do so with either a much better location or at least a better set-up. Since there are only so many ways to dress up a basement I think an entirely new location is in order. Frankly, I feel like they have gotten too hung up on being close to the mall when tourists have shown a willingness to travel provided the sites are interesting enough once they get there (and believe me, the Washington and Lincoln Monuments are not as close to each other as you think they are). There has to be a location which is close enough that people could take public transportation to get there but not too far so that it couldn't be done on the same day as the Air and Space museum. You may think DC doesn't need to have a particularly impressive aquarium because Baltimore's is so close, but I would just like to point out that this is a country which is willing to build a Starbucks across the street from another Starbucks, so don't get hung up on redundancy now. Besides, which city do you think gets more International visitors? I certainly wouldn't want them going back to their home countries telling everyone that this National Aquarium was the best we could do.
Of course, I am hardly the kind of person who judges a place just by its exterior - I love it when people reconstitute old buildings into quirky apartments rather than tearing the place down and putting up a bunch of cookie-cutter condos and some of the best food comes out of buildings which were never meant to house a restaurant. Thus, if it had turned out that the National Aquarium was filled with exotic fish and rare animals I would still be raving about the time I went to the cool, secret aquarium hidden in Washington, DC. Sadly, my dreams did not come true because, again, the place is subterranean and actually has less light than your average basement apartment. It felt a lot like a dungeon and you end up just feeling bad for all the animals. I know all zoos are essentially animal prisons, but some places do a better job of hiding that fact. The exhibits consisted of a few lobsters, a couple of alligators which may or may not have been stuffed, a nurse shark which appeared to be desperate to get out of the water and while they had the occasional tropical fish their main displayed was a large tank of goldfish. I'm not even joking - your average rich person in Miami has a more impressive collection of fish in their living room, though given the conditions that is probably for the better because if the National Aquarium had some extremely rare fish in this location I would have felt compelled to construct a rescue team.
I bring this up because last week the aquarium learned it is going to be kicked out shortly. You see the Commerce Department needs to do some serious updates to the building and that starts with the basement. So the animals need a new home until renovations are complete, sometime in 2015. Now despite the name of National Aquarium, it turns out the entire place is privately funded so it is not like they can just have taxpayers rent them a new space while the current location gets updated. The Commerce Department has said they will try to help the National Aquarium find a new location around the mall, but they will not delay the start of renovations to do so. If the Aquarium can't find a temporary home for their fish they will have to donate most of their animals to other aquariums, most likely starting with the one in Baltimore. (I think if the fish were allowed to see both locations and vote they would gladly take the short drive up to Baltimore sooner rather than later. For their sake I would hope the move becomes permanent because the Baltimore aquarium is quite impressive and to see how the other fish live only to be thrust back into their cramped basement would actually be cruel. Fish may not have much of a memory but they can tell when the have a lot less room to work with.) As you can see, the clock is ticking.
Part of the problem is that I grew up in Boston, which has one of the best aquariums in the nation. When everything is getting held up against that it was already going to have a hard time meeting my lofty standards. That is why if the aquarium is ever going to come back to DC I hope they do so with either a much better location or at least a better set-up. Since there are only so many ways to dress up a basement I think an entirely new location is in order. Frankly, I feel like they have gotten too hung up on being close to the mall when tourists have shown a willingness to travel provided the sites are interesting enough once they get there (and believe me, the Washington and Lincoln Monuments are not as close to each other as you think they are). There has to be a location which is close enough that people could take public transportation to get there but not too far so that it couldn't be done on the same day as the Air and Space museum. You may think DC doesn't need to have a particularly impressive aquarium because Baltimore's is so close, but I would just like to point out that this is a country which is willing to build a Starbucks across the street from another Starbucks, so don't get hung up on redundancy now. Besides, which city do you think gets more International visitors? I certainly wouldn't want them going back to their home countries telling everyone that this National Aquarium was the best we could do.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
See You In Syndication
Later tonight they are going to air the series finale of "The Office." I have to say, 9 seasons is a pretty good run for a show no one thought would make it more than 2 or 3. Now I have to admit I won't be watching tonight's final installment but that is par for the course, because I rarely watch episodes of "The Office" and when I do it is never the new episode. The more likely scenario is that I eventually catch a rerun on another network. The first few years the show was on everyone told me how much I would love it but for some reason their recommendations always fell on deaf ears. I guess there was just always something I wanted to watch instead, though right now I can't tell you what that would be. I did try to watch the show on a few occasions and even watch an episode of the original, UK version of the show but by that point I feel like too much time had elapsed to be invested. Plus, the show had been on the chopping block for a couple of seasons, so I figured why get attached to a show which was going to be cancelled soon anyway? (This is what stopped me from getting into shows like "30 Rock" and currently prevents me from tuning in to programs like "Community.) And this is not the first time I have felt like I have missed my TV viewing window.
Previously I mentioned that when gamers are in their early teens they make a very important decision in their lives - X-Box or Playstation - and once that decision has been made there is no reversing it because the effort required to master the controllers is simply too time-consuming to allow for both. More and more I am feeling like TV shows are demanding that same level of loyalty. With a vast number of channels offering original program and only so many hours in the day to watch shows if you still want to be a productive member of society you just have to pick your programs, hope they don't fail you and refuse to alter your schedule. It also doesn't help that TV episodes are being forced to cram as much story into 22 minutes as they can (it is not like commercial breaks are going to get shorter). The days of being able to skip an episode without missing a lot of key storylines are going away, especially if you are talking about a drama. There is nothing worse than not catching an episode, being convinced you are caught up with everything going on and suddenly realizing you have no idea what the characters are talking about because they are referencing some fact which happened the night your cable went out.
The other problem is that after a while having a mountain of old episodes of a TV show to watch is a rather daunting task. For example, I think I would like to go back and start catching up on "Breaking Bad" but at this point it's around 60 hours and do I really want to sacrifice all that time in the summer? When the task is that large watching old episodes of a TV show starts to feel like homework and the entire point of television is to escape the feeling of doing something out of obligation. Seriously, the only way I catch up on that show now is if I get a monster version of the flu and does that sound like something I should be wishing for just to watch a TV show? Even the invention of DVRs isn't helping because while you think you can record something now and watch it later people rarely ever go back and clean up their library as instead the shows just sit for months. On top of that the newest episodes in the On-Demand library usually disable the fast-forward option, which means you can't even catch up quickly. That's like having Cliff's Notes which are just as long as the regular book. And the networks aren't doing you any favors either because for all the crap they seem to churn out in a given year (they just released the teasers for most of the new shows coming out next year and I can already confidently predict 75% of new shows won't get a full-season run), they still manage to put the only two quality shows on opposing networks on at the same time. I can't tell if this is brilliant or idiotic, but I know which way I am leaning.
The funny thing is that you would think shows like "Justified" or "The Wire" would be easy to catch up on because they are on cable channels, which means their seasons are only 10 to 13 episodes long versus a network show which can crank out 20+ episodes per run. However, those shows are actually crazy complicated to keep up with because writers are always trying to out-think themselves by adding new characters and multiple over-lapping story arcs which will be repeatedly referenced in the future. As it is you pretty much need to take notes as the show airs, so if you aren't in with a program from the very first season you have a small window to catch up on all the action or there is simply no hope for you. Thus, with 8 previous seasons to catch up on you can see why I didn't bother to try and cram all the back episodes of "The Office" in before tonight's finale. The good news is that I don't work in an office in which people want to talk about all the shows they watched last night, so tomorrow I won't feel left out of the loop. Plus, I think if you are in an office talking about "The Office" it creates some kind of weird space/time loop and those never turn out well for anyone.
Previously I mentioned that when gamers are in their early teens they make a very important decision in their lives - X-Box or Playstation - and once that decision has been made there is no reversing it because the effort required to master the controllers is simply too time-consuming to allow for both. More and more I am feeling like TV shows are demanding that same level of loyalty. With a vast number of channels offering original program and only so many hours in the day to watch shows if you still want to be a productive member of society you just have to pick your programs, hope they don't fail you and refuse to alter your schedule. It also doesn't help that TV episodes are being forced to cram as much story into 22 minutes as they can (it is not like commercial breaks are going to get shorter). The days of being able to skip an episode without missing a lot of key storylines are going away, especially if you are talking about a drama. There is nothing worse than not catching an episode, being convinced you are caught up with everything going on and suddenly realizing you have no idea what the characters are talking about because they are referencing some fact which happened the night your cable went out.
The other problem is that after a while having a mountain of old episodes of a TV show to watch is a rather daunting task. For example, I think I would like to go back and start catching up on "Breaking Bad" but at this point it's around 60 hours and do I really want to sacrifice all that time in the summer? When the task is that large watching old episodes of a TV show starts to feel like homework and the entire point of television is to escape the feeling of doing something out of obligation. Seriously, the only way I catch up on that show now is if I get a monster version of the flu and does that sound like something I should be wishing for just to watch a TV show? Even the invention of DVRs isn't helping because while you think you can record something now and watch it later people rarely ever go back and clean up their library as instead the shows just sit for months. On top of that the newest episodes in the On-Demand library usually disable the fast-forward option, which means you can't even catch up quickly. That's like having Cliff's Notes which are just as long as the regular book. And the networks aren't doing you any favors either because for all the crap they seem to churn out in a given year (they just released the teasers for most of the new shows coming out next year and I can already confidently predict 75% of new shows won't get a full-season run), they still manage to put the only two quality shows on opposing networks on at the same time. I can't tell if this is brilliant or idiotic, but I know which way I am leaning.
The funny thing is that you would think shows like "Justified" or "The Wire" would be easy to catch up on because they are on cable channels, which means their seasons are only 10 to 13 episodes long versus a network show which can crank out 20+ episodes per run. However, those shows are actually crazy complicated to keep up with because writers are always trying to out-think themselves by adding new characters and multiple over-lapping story arcs which will be repeatedly referenced in the future. As it is you pretty much need to take notes as the show airs, so if you aren't in with a program from the very first season you have a small window to catch up on all the action or there is simply no hope for you. Thus, with 8 previous seasons to catch up on you can see why I didn't bother to try and cram all the back episodes of "The Office" in before tonight's finale. The good news is that I don't work in an office in which people want to talk about all the shows they watched last night, so tomorrow I won't feel left out of the loop. Plus, I think if you are in an office talking about "The Office" it creates some kind of weird space/time loop and those never turn out well for anyone.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Rolling To The Front
If you have ever been to an amusement park in your life you know that you spend most of the day standing in line. The waits to get on ride which are only going to last 10 minutes can take well over an hour, especially if you go during a busy season, like school vacation week. In the last couple of year various theme parks have come up with programs to combat this, such as making ride reservations for specific times or a system which will allow you to put your name in at the most popular ride and then walk around to less-crowded attractions, like the beeper system at restaurant. Still, none of those things get you to the front of the line faster, they just mean you don't have to stand around for quite as long. (Don't let the parks for you into thinking these concepts are for you, though. These ideas are for their benefit because the less time you spend standing around the more time you have to spend money on crap.) Apparently, the only way to totally cut the line is to have a disabled person with you. Now, this seems totally fair to me - any person fighting a disability clearly has a hard life and would gladly trade places with you if given the option, so it feels like the least society can do for them is let them cut the line at a stupid amusement park. But today I read a truly disturbing story which claims that some entitled families have begun hiring disabled people to guide them around Disney World and using those people to cut the lines for rides.
Yes, apparently there is a woman who has been confined to a wheelchair and for a few hundred dollars she claims you as a member of her party, toting you around the park for the afternoon and allowing you to walk right passed the lines of people either too poor to afford her or too much of a normal, well-adjusted human being to think of such a scam. (Let's be honest, the disabled can be sociopaths as well.) You know every stereotype society has of the entitled rich family who thinks they are far too good to mingle with the rest of humanity just because their grandfather made money back in the 1920s and they haven't had to work a day in their life? This is the kind of story which does nothing but reinforce those stereotypes. The people interviewed for this story (and of course the families which took advantage of it are going to talk about it without shame because the only think rich people like more than their money is being able to flaunt it to the world while talking about themselves) even try to justify it by saying things like they are doing this woman a favor because she wouldn't normally be able to work. While it does take two to tango and it is not like anyone is forcing these people to rent themselves out for line-cutting purposes, that doesn't change the fact that if these people weren't so wrapped up in themselves she wouldn't have any customers. It's nothing more than trying to justify bad behavior.
Look, I love walking passed a long line of people and being able to tell the person working the door that "I'm on the list" as much as the next guy, but I find the very concept of this practice really bizarre. I'm not sure if it is because someone out there is twisting what would normally be a sweet idea and making a profit from it or if the fact that her customers don't see why what they are doing is wrong that I find more unnerving. I know the idea is that when life gives you lemons you make lemonade however I don't think then turning around and selling the lemonade to the 1% is what the people who came up with that saying had in mind. On a personal level this doesn't impact me in the slightest because I have no desire to go to Disney World anytime soon. (I actually hate amusement parks and wouldn't go to Disney if someone else was footing the bill.) However, it makes me fear for the kids of these parents, who are being taught at a very young age that if you have enough money than the normal rules don't apply to you. These are absolutely going to be the people who guide us into the next great financial disaster in 20 years. I mean, if you are willing to skirt the rules just to go on the teacup ride than where is it going to end?
Now, Disney has said they will look into this and vowed to stop the practice. I'm sure they would like to ban this woman from the park, but kicking out a woman in a wheelchair is going to be some really bad PR (though maybe not in this case because helping rich people get even further ahead isn't going to win you any popularity contests). The bigger issue is that I think it would be nearly impossible to enforce, because someone else will just pick up the business and how would you know which people are actually friends of the disabled person and which people are their customers? Of course, seeing as how this is Disney as long as they keep pumping out irresistible kids movies they can pretty much do what they want. It is not like they have a great reputation among adults to destroy, because we know that the reality is probably more along the lines that they will look at how much money this woman made per family and begin marketing line-skipping passes on their own because as we know they have no shame as long as it makes them money and the last thing they want at the Happiest Place on Earth is for anyone to be making a profit but them. In some ways they are exactly like the people who were buying their way to the front of the line, so maybe they deserve each other and it is fitting they this is happening at Disney World. I guess it is a small world after all.
Yes, apparently there is a woman who has been confined to a wheelchair and for a few hundred dollars she claims you as a member of her party, toting you around the park for the afternoon and allowing you to walk right passed the lines of people either too poor to afford her or too much of a normal, well-adjusted human being to think of such a scam. (Let's be honest, the disabled can be sociopaths as well.) You know every stereotype society has of the entitled rich family who thinks they are far too good to mingle with the rest of humanity just because their grandfather made money back in the 1920s and they haven't had to work a day in their life? This is the kind of story which does nothing but reinforce those stereotypes. The people interviewed for this story (and of course the families which took advantage of it are going to talk about it without shame because the only think rich people like more than their money is being able to flaunt it to the world while talking about themselves) even try to justify it by saying things like they are doing this woman a favor because she wouldn't normally be able to work. While it does take two to tango and it is not like anyone is forcing these people to rent themselves out for line-cutting purposes, that doesn't change the fact that if these people weren't so wrapped up in themselves she wouldn't have any customers. It's nothing more than trying to justify bad behavior.
Look, I love walking passed a long line of people and being able to tell the person working the door that "I'm on the list" as much as the next guy, but I find the very concept of this practice really bizarre. I'm not sure if it is because someone out there is twisting what would normally be a sweet idea and making a profit from it or if the fact that her customers don't see why what they are doing is wrong that I find more unnerving. I know the idea is that when life gives you lemons you make lemonade however I don't think then turning around and selling the lemonade to the 1% is what the people who came up with that saying had in mind. On a personal level this doesn't impact me in the slightest because I have no desire to go to Disney World anytime soon. (I actually hate amusement parks and wouldn't go to Disney if someone else was footing the bill.) However, it makes me fear for the kids of these parents, who are being taught at a very young age that if you have enough money than the normal rules don't apply to you. These are absolutely going to be the people who guide us into the next great financial disaster in 20 years. I mean, if you are willing to skirt the rules just to go on the teacup ride than where is it going to end?
Now, Disney has said they will look into this and vowed to stop the practice. I'm sure they would like to ban this woman from the park, but kicking out a woman in a wheelchair is going to be some really bad PR (though maybe not in this case because helping rich people get even further ahead isn't going to win you any popularity contests). The bigger issue is that I think it would be nearly impossible to enforce, because someone else will just pick up the business and how would you know which people are actually friends of the disabled person and which people are their customers? Of course, seeing as how this is Disney as long as they keep pumping out irresistible kids movies they can pretty much do what they want. It is not like they have a great reputation among adults to destroy, because we know that the reality is probably more along the lines that they will look at how much money this woman made per family and begin marketing line-skipping passes on their own because as we know they have no shame as long as it makes them money and the last thing they want at the Happiest Place on Earth is for anyone to be making a profit but them. In some ways they are exactly like the people who were buying their way to the front of the line, so maybe they deserve each other and it is fitting they this is happening at Disney World. I guess it is a small world after all.
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