I was going to write about the Patriots and their surprise success story at QB. Then, I got this email from the guy who sends me tons of joke/junk mail everyday (we all know at least one):
A possible new President
What a fantastic idea. You know what would really P**S OFF the Democrats...
Bush should resign now.
Then Dick Cheney becomes President (that would really P**S OFF the libs)!!!
Then he appoints Condoleeza Rice as VP.
Then Cheney resigns two weeks later and Condoleeza Rice, a Republican, becomes the first BLACK - WOMAN President!!!
What's scarier than the obvious partisan driven ignorance and spite is the fact that there are people out there laughing at this, many of whom are doing so not completely in jest...
"TorrentFreak reports that Toyota's lawyers have recently contacted computer wallpaper site Desktop Nexus in a blatant example of DMCA abuse. Toyota issued a blanket request to demand the immediate removal of all member-uploaded wallpapers featuring a Toyota, Lexus, or Scion vehicle (citing copyright violation), regardless of whether Toyota legally holds the copyright to the photos or not. When site owner Harry Maugans requested clarification on exactly which wallpapers were copyrighted by Toyota, he was told that for them to cite specifics (in order to file proper DMCA Takedown Notices), they would invoice Desktop Nexus for their labor."
Ridiculous. Oh, and by the way, doesn't it behoove companies like Toyota to not suppress but rather encourage fan art? It's free marketing, no?
Just for that I'm taking a picture of the Matrix and making a new wallpaper...
Gerry Callahan and John Dennis, hosts of the sports radio show I listen to in the morning and ranted about 3 days ago for ignoring actual sports topics, apparently crossed a line this morning. At one point they told their listeners the election was postponed until Wednesday and at another they reported that only Republicans are voting today and Democrats should vote tomorrow. What they never considered (rather, one of the many things) is that some people may have actually believed them.
What seems to many of us like an obvious attempt at humor, albeit a poor one, did not register as such with all the listeners. For example, one listener "said his father-in-law believed the elections were postponed, and called him because he was so upset." Way to go guys.
Incidentally, this morning's buffoonery didn't go unnoticed by the State. Brian McNiff, a spokesman for the MA Secretary of State William Galvin, sent an email to both hosts and their station, WEEI, instructing them to "knock it off", stating that they were "doing a disservice to voters". He also made sure to mention the fact that there were laws specifically put into place to prevent any kind of tampering or interfering with elections.
As a result of that email, the broadcast on my ride home today was sprinkled periodically with not-so-subtle messages to listeners about how the election is today, not tomorrow.
It should be an interesting show in the morning, to say the least. It'll be all the more interesting considering how these results are coming in :)
Sports Radio. It's probably my #1 preference as far as what I listen to when I'm driving (TLM can attest to that). However, Now that I have more time to listen thanks to a lengthier commute to work in the morning, it seems to have all but disappeared. In lieu of listening to discussion about whether Matt Cassel is getting better or if the Celtics look poised to win another Championship, I'm instead barraged with political rhetoric and moronic condemnation from and of both callers and politicos.
I want my Sports Radio back.
I know the election is right around the corner, and I know that lots of people like to talk politics. My complaint is simply that there are other stations for that. It's like buying a newspaper, turning to the sports section and getting nothing but op-eds about everything except that in which you are interested. Enough already.
To make matters worse, the stuff I'm listening to is typical of the times: aggressively close-minded hosts who think they know best arguing with equally know-it-all callers. Is this entertainment? No, it's fuel for the [ratings] fire, and the fact that people like me who tune in to get their sports fix and end up reluctantly listening to these buffoons is testament to why it's currently allowed (and probably encouraged) by those in charge.
I'll give it a few more days. I suppose there will be a lot of airtime spent after the election filled with either intense gloat or warning of impending doom, but I'm holding out hope that all will be right by Friday.
This morning I see an ad for a new TV series called "Scarlet" that apparently premiered last night. The show looked interesting enough and I went over to the DVR and searched for it to record an episode...but it was nowhere to be found.
So I went to the site, scarletseries.tv, and saw the trailer, interviews, and even a behind the scenes vignette. Nowhere, however, was there a mention of a channel. I was quickly losing interest (and some patience) and after a quick search to see if anyone saw it and found it worth watching I discovered the horrible truth:
The "hit new TV series" referred to was not a show at all, but rather a new line of televisions by LG.
It's just an ad campaign, and I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. The news section of the site gives the (very biased) story of the "premiere". My favorite line was "To Win the Game, We Have to Change the Rules"...their way of rationalizing this scam.
The fact that I saw the ad on a podcast for the Onion News Network should have been the first clue. That it was voiced-over by that guy with the deep, melodramatic voice should have been another. Hopefully, at least for my own ego, I wasn't the only one who got duped.
Oh, and by the way, even though this fraud may have gone according to plan, I think the overall idea may backfire. I'm not sure playing someone for a fool will generate sales. As of know, I know I'll certainly never buy one of these things.
Um, not that I was played for a fool or anything....
I've been a member of the Blockbuster Total Access movies-by-mail program ever since its inception. The deal seemed too good to be true - at prices comparable to those of Netflix you get movies by mail and then get to return them to a store and swap for other movies while you're waiting for the next ones to come in. They even gave you a bonus movie or game rental each month.
It turns out the deal was too good to be true, I found out after a short time. Blockbuster has upped its prices for the program for the second time (what used to be $18.89 is now $34.99, minus some perks), and it's a service no longer worth paying for at all, particularly in light of Netflix and the new iTunes movie rental service. Maybe Blockbuster was taking too much of a hit with the old prices, maybe they're trying to capitalize on the lack of TV shows thanks to the writers' strike...I don't know.
What I do know is that Blockbuster is a model of extremely poor customer service, and I'm notthe onlyone whothinks so. I received an email informing me that their packages were changing and was brought to a page where I could select which plan I wanted to upgrade to, if any. I went through the process 4 times with 2 different browsers, and yet my plan info still reflected no change. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I sent a nice email "making sure" my plans to continue purchasing their product registered somewhere. I got back no response. I tried a second email, this time mentioning how I hadn't received any DVDs for over half a month. I got a response that told me to make sure my queue had at least 50 selections in it (which it did), and no semblance of a response to the subscription inquiry.
For my third attempt I tried the hardline approach, and pointed out how I felt cheated that I hadn't gotten any movies for almost 3 weeks and that I expected some kind of compensation. I got a coupon for a free rental.
What they're getting is a cancellation of service starting tomorrow and this gleaming review of their service sent out to everyone I know.
UPDATE 1.18.08: This short article at Paris Lemon basically says that Blockbuster's stock is plummeting...and I couldn't be happier.
Denise Martin told us all a tale during the "Survivor: China" finale that not only gave rise to a collective sob of compassion from the audience akin to what one might hear after seeing an impoverished child in a CCF commercial for the first time, but also a check for $50,000 from producer Mark Burnett. It seems, however, that she stretched the truth in places and skipped the truth altogether in the rest. Her nonchalant recitation of how the powers that be in the cafeteria hierarchy wouldn't let her keep her job as a lunchlady because she was "too popular" turns out to be more of a fictitious appeal to the masses than an actual lunchpail sob story.
According to Nancy Lane, the Superintendent of Douglas Public Schools, Martin was promoted to janitor, and given almost a $10/hr. pay raise along with it, in March of this year, before she even tried out for the Survivor. This, to be sure, is not what Martin wanted us to believe during that reunion show.
"They did explain to me today that reality doesn't necessarily mean factual" -Nancy Lane, Douglas Public Schools
Martin appeared on The Early Show this morning and admitted that the implication she made about being demoted because of her appearance on Survivor was false. She also said that she tried to get her old job back but the position had already been filled. Also, when the question of whether or not Martin would still accept the $50,000 was proposed, she gave the impression that she would, if it was still being offered.
In the words of my friend Bugman, "Another classy Masshole."
Last night Todd Herzog was announced as the winner of Survivor: China, and once again the Achilles' heel of reality television shows was exposed: they lose steam as time progresses and the finales totally or mostly suck.
Last night was a case of mostly sucking, as is the Survivor way. All we care about is when the jury gets their chance to congratulate, question, and chew out the remaining survivors....the other 2.5 hours you can fast forward through and not really miss a thing. Though it sounds like a waste of time (and it is), it's more than other reality shows can say for themselves. At least Probst used to jump out of airplanes and parachute into a live studio audience to deliver the results...
Go ahead. Pick a show. "Big Brother"? "Flavor of Love"? "The Bachelor"? "The Amazing Race", maybe? I defy you to come up with a show that has an exciting finale.
At least the next Survivor looks to be like an "All-Stars 2"...kinda. Rupert and Yul would be a good team up.
I'm not sure if it's a consequence of getting older, and it certainly has nothing to do with what the holiday is supposed to represent. It's everything else about it that makes me crazy. The people in the stores, the pressure to plan out tomorrow making sure to be as inclusive of everyone as you can, and of course then there's the actual family members. As far as I can tell, any plans you make with them prior to the day before Thanksgiving should always be disregarded; they always seem to change at the last minute.
Ah, how I miss the days of my childhood, never having to worry about where or when I had to be somewhere for a family event.
If I have to hear "Cleveland Rocks" one more time, I'm boycotting Cleveland, as well as anyone named "Drew" or "Carey". And what's up with the Indians fans? I don't know how many times FOX cut to people who have their faces painted like the ever so politically correct Chief Wahoo character (see above). Does anyone else see anything wrong with this? Is it that there aren't enough Native Americans to make a stink about it?
The Indians organization knows it's an ugly, hackneyed, stereotypical caricature. When they were scouting Jacoby Ellsbury, who eventually became the first Navajo to play in the bigs (and should be playing right field for the Red Sox in this series), they asked if he would be offended by the portrayal. Why continue to bask in the outdated and reprehensible emblem that is this face? Weak...
Enough about that. Where are the Red Sox bats? Paul Byrd? Are you kidding me? If we can't hit him, we almost don't deserve to win. Last night was tough to watch, tougher than the night before. At least in Game 3 we could partially assign blame to a couple of really bad called strikes in crucial situations. Last night was just a case of leaving the bats at home. Speaking of which, when are we going to see someone other than J.D. Drew in the lineup?
Ok, no more negativity. Two key points for all of Red Sox nation to remember moving into Game 5:
1) We have Josh Beckett starting, who's been lights out all postseason. 2) We've been in worse situations (2004 anyone?).
Last night, for the first time, I went to a postseason game and didn't sit in the bleachers. After TLM won the opportunity to buy ALCS tickets we went online and got a couple of grandstand seats 3rd base side with the tag "possibly obstructed" affixed to them, though I figured we'd be fine once I saw that they were in row 3. Then we got there before the game and saw this:
Just when I thought we were the proud buyers of the worst seats in the house, I noticed someone settling into a seat in front of us - a seat directly behind the post. Unreal. That guy lasted all of two innings.
The Red Sox have absolutely no gripes about selling this ticket, and why should they? They'll gladly take your $95...they told you "possibly obstructed", didn't they? At least they gave you some warning, as opposed to building something new that wrecks the view you've had for 18 years without telling you. Wait...I've heard this story before.
The first inning or two was, as TLM put it, an "exercise in patience", and not just because of the (missing) view. I try to make it a point not to complain (that's a disclaimer), but just about everyone seated around us was tough to bear. My personal favorite was some guy behind us, pretending to be a Red Sox fan, who wouldn't stop talking about how Yankee Stadium is better than Shea and how his uncle loved the Whalers. I'm pretty sure TLM's favorite was this obnoxious kid who claimed to be related to Johnny Pesky and had a knack for standing up and blocking what precious little view we had (oh, and his real seat was 7 rows behind us, by the way).
Eventually, a few more innings passed, the Sox took a commanding lead, and these and a lot of the other fickle fans left, allowing TLM and I to upgrade our seats and watch the Red Sox win. I can't wait to get back to the bleachers tonight for Game 2 with some real fans.
TLM is at Fenway, and I'm sitting in my car in one of the worst traffic jams I've ever been in. Impatience on the part of drivers and incompetence on the part of the BPD trying to direct traffic have together combined for standstills, gridlock, and nightmarish backups for blocks in every direction.
There go the fly-by jets, indicating the end of the national anthem. Maybe someday I'll get there...maybe even by tomorrow if I'm lucky.
When I get a call from my father saying to me "Are you watching the game? You should be WATCHING the GAME right now.", I know he can only mean one thing. Someone is throwing a possible no-no, but he can't mention it for superstitious fear of cosmic intervention. Such was the case yesterday when Curt Schilling took the mound yesterday in hopes of achieving a different but equally uncommon task (recently, at least): snapping a Red Sox losing streak.
Schilling won the game, and almost pitched his first career no-hitter as he went 2 outs into the 9th before Shannon Stewart smacked a first pitch fastball into right field for a single. There are lotsofarticles out there covering this in much more detail than I, complete with video highlights and play-by-play breakdowns and recaps of the game, so no more about that.
(Getty Images Photo / Jed Jacobsohn)
What I would like to note, however, is that with his performance yesterday, Schilling became the fourth Red Sox pitcher since 1900 to allow a hit for the first time in a game with 2 out in the 9th. According to "Lost in the Ninth" (a pretty impressive website about...wait for it...losing no hitters and perfect games in the ninth inning), the four instances are as follows, with date, pitcher, team, opposing team, and opposing player who got a hit (all singles except for Scott):
6/13/1933—Whit Wyatt, Boston vs. St. Louis, Tedd Gullic
4/14/1967—Billy Rohr, Boston at New York, Elston Howard
7/2/1975—Rick Wise, Boston at Milwaukee, George Scott (HR)
6/7/2007—Curt Schilling, Boston at Oakland, Shannon Stewart
The Billy Rohr game is an integral part of Red Sox lore these days, especially since this year marks the 40th anniversary of the "Impossible Dream" season of 1967. This was a game immortalized by Ken Coleman's call of a Carl Yastrzemski catch to preserve the no-hitter for Rohr in his first major league start...against the Yankees in Yankee Stadium, no less. I've included a segment of the famous "Impossible Dream" record below that talks about that game and includes the now infamous "he dives and makes a tre-MEN-dous catch". (For more clips from the album, check out fleetwoodsounds.com.)
Even our own beloved Jerry Remy once broke up a no-hitter with 2 outs in the 9th, though not with the Sox. On May 26, 1976, while playing for the then-California Angels, he came up to the plate in a scoreless game to face Ken Brett of the Chicago White Sox and smacked a single to break up the no-no. The Angels went on to lose a heartbreaker, 1-0 in 11 innings.
When thinking of no-hitters broken up with 2 outs in the 9th inning, one game sticks out in my mind even more strongly than the Billy Rohr game. That game took place on September 2, 2001, and it was Red Sox-Yankees at Fenway. I had gone out of my way to get some box seats for the game, as I wanted my girlfriend at the time to come to a game with me and she would settle for nothing less (she also pretended to be a Yankee fan to irk me, sign #1 she wasn't right for me).
Come time to leave, all of a sudden she doesn't want to go. I was beside myself, and though I tried all I could to get her to go, her resistance continued to equal the strength of my attempts. Eventually, she won and we both stayed at her place. After a couple of hours she was fast asleep (arg), I turned on the TV to check in on the game, only to see that it was the 9th inning and Mike Mussina was pitching a perfect game. A PERFECT GAME! Bearing witness to an event so rare in baseball would have superseded the fact that it was being done to the Red Sox, and for maybe the second time in my life, I was in a state of shock. All I could do was look at the TV, then over at the sleeping girlfriend, then back to the TV, over and over again, shaking my head back and forth. Ridiculous.
This story has a happy ending, though, as Crazy Carl Everett stepped up to pinch hit with one out to go, and with 2 strikes (1 strike away, Moose) got a single to break up the perfect game. The fans at Fenway became riotous, and I couldn't help but applaud and belt out my own shout of approval, waking up my girlfriend and anyone else in the immediate vicinity. Too bad...
In case you didn't know already, let this be even more evidence that TLM (who by the way shares Red Sox season tickets with me) is the best girlfriend ever.
In light of my last post and the release of the 3rd installment of Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, I came to the unfortunate realization that, yes, pirates are played out.
The Lovely Mary and I have been to a few games already this year, and though much of it has thus far been devoted to Matsuzaka's starts, rain outs, high scoring offensive displays, great defensive plays, and the first round of Red Sox - Yankers 2007 (SWEEP!), I still need to get some things out about the first game we attended: the Red Sox home opener against the Mariners.
The Good
BecKKKKKKKKett
Josh Beckett was maybe the biggest story of that day for me, though his performance may have gotten lost amidst the explosion of Red Sox runs (damn, I wish we could've moved a few over to Matsuzaka's start the following night). He pitched a 2-hitter over 7 innings with 1 run, no walks, and 8 Ks, including punching out Ichiro an unbelievable 3 times and striking out the side in the 6th. The defense was also solid, and I hope that all those people who were so concerned that Julio Lugo (nicknamed "JuLu" by TLM) was a significant downgrade at shortstop see how much of a difference it makes when the pitcher is as dominant as Beckett was at the home opener.
This was the Beckett I was hoping to see last year and the Beckett I believe we will see a lot more of this year. He's had another good start the following Sunday against Vlad and company, and hopefully his great performances will continue (I say this not only because I'm a Red Sox fan, of course, but also because he's on my main fantasy team).
Matsuzaka Mania
During the player introductions, the largest cheer came for that of Daisuke Matsuzaka (see clip below), unsurprising considering the expectations of the front office and the rest of Red Sox Nation. What was surprising was the uproarious applause given to his translator and just about anyone with a last name that even remotely sounded Japanese. If that wasn't enough proof that Boston has gone Japan-crazy, we heard the Vapors' classic "Turning Japanese" at least twice and noticed at least half of the ads inside the park had some Japanese on them, including a new and large Dunkin Donuts billboard above the right field bleachers (is there even a Lumber Liquidators anywhere near Japan?).
The Almost Fight
In the 8th, TLM and I are sitting in our seats watching many fans start to exit what had been a blowout since the 3rd, when I look up and suddenly see Jose Guillen walking up the 3rd base line after striking out, jawing at the mound. The home plate umpire restrained him, though Guillen really made no effort to charge the mound, but it was enough apparently to empty the dugouts and, in traditional baseball fashion, the bullpens, just in case the fists were to fly and our resident enforcer Julian Tavarez was needed to step in. Guillen was ejected after the fracas, and the Sox pitcher who struck him out, Brendan Donnelly (yeah, that guy with the sports goggles from the Angles a few years ago) was allowed to stay in, only to be ejected after hitting the next batter 2 pitches later.
At first we thought it was Guillen mouthing off to Donnelly, as he has a reputation of not playing well with others. He has Sheffield disease: though a better than average player, the Mariners are Guillen's 8th team in 9 seasons. He was even kept off the 2004 (then-Anaheim) Angels postseason roster for being a jerk even though he was one of their best hitters.
As it turned out, these two had a history together, as Donnelly reminded us in the post game conference. I had forgotten all about the incident back in 2005 between the Angels and the Nationals, featuring a heated argument that almost turned violent between the managers of the 2 clubs, Mike Scioscia and Hall of Fame player and manager Frank Robinson (who, by the way, was almost 70 at the time). Donnelly got caught with lots of pine tar on the heel of his glove and was ejected, as pine tar is considered a "foreign substance". The accusation was made that Guillen, who had a bad breakup with the Angels the year before, told Robinson all about Donnelly's use of pine tar, and whether true or not, the bad blood has existed ever since. Apparently both teams were warned both in spring training and before the game that any unruliness would not be tolerated. That seems to have worked well...
The Bad
New, Improved, and Obstructed View
My father first bought these tickets back in 1990 (Brunansky!) which back then was a great deal. Infield grandstand, just inside of first, $10 a game for 30 or so games.
This year marks the 18th season we had that plan, and over the years I've become, well, let's just say accustomed to how Fenway looks from that perspective. Full on view of the monster, the bleachers, clear views of the entire infield, and almost the entire outfield save for deep right when everyone stands up (Brunansky!)...nothing to complain about. That is, apparently, until this season.
No sooner had I sat down to enjoy my first view of the Fenway field of the season, one of my favorite moments of the year by the way, than I notice that some of the new "enhancements" installed this year were two metal cages for cameramen, hanging down below the luxury boxes and under the overhang. They were also directly blocking, uh, any view I had of the electronic scoreboard in center field. No letter, no phone call, no advance warning at all, just "Welcome to Opening Day, enjoy your new view of the cameramen...hope you don't miss replays too much."
For this I and neighboring season ticket holders called the Red Sox offices, to which the only reply so far has amounted to "Oh yeah...too bad.". This now forces me to write my first ever official letter of complaint. Ridiculous. I get pissed about this at least three times a day still.
Oh, and it was butt-ass cold too.
40th Anniversary of the Impossible Dream
This was just sloppy. For the commemoration of an amazing season I and throngs of other people my age has been told about since we were children, this was simply disappointing and I'm glad my father wasn't there to see it. There was no real organization behind what we at the park saw. The ever cheesy Robert Goulet came out to sing the famous song from "Man of La Mancha", then I heard some cheering coming from left field. Apparently, the players had started to come out from behind the huge American flag they drape over the Monster every year, led by Captain Carl himself, though we had to figure that out on our own. Who knows; maybe the names were clearly displayed on the center field scoreboard where (almost) anyone could see...
The players from that Impossible Dream season of 1967 ended up taking their old positions on the field...or at least I think so. It was hard to tell not only because of the lack of audio (nd no scoreboard view) but also because the Mariners were doing wind sprints back and forth.
The 1967 team players that were there then lined up to all throw out "the first pitch" to members of the 2007 club. I heard someone say "On the count of three", though it wasn't the counting off of numbers that followed, but rather balls being thrown from various locations to various targets and at wildly various times.
And to top it all off, I think the jets missed Fenway on the flyby.
The Annoying
There are three things I can practically count on being true of Opening Day every year: I will not go to work (school, whatever), there will be no parking, and there will be no empty seats. After one inning of play, however, I was astonished to see that the two seats next to us were as of yet unoccupied. I wasn't about to complain though, as it allowed us to move over a seat and give us a little more room in those annually shrinking grandstand seats.
It was just after the 3rd inning began that I saw people in our aisle start to get up, the telltale sign that the aforementioned empty seats were about to be claimed by their rightful, albeit late, owners. And then I heard them. Or should I say her. I couldn't make out exactly what was being blurted out, but I could tell it was being blurted by one really annoying voice. TLM later told me she was actually asking "you gonna make room for me on your lap while your sitting in my seat?". Ha. We stand up when they arrive and she greets me with a particularly sarcastic "Sorry buddy", obviously under the impression that she had asserted her authority and kicked out some vagrant trying to sit in her seat. My quick and not so endearing response was something like "No problem, I'll be sitting right here next to you".
And so I did. For exactly one inning. I kid you not, she and her follower, er, friend left after the 3rd. For that entire inning, however, she wouldn't shut up and paid absolutely no mind to, whaddaya call it again, oh yeah, the BASEBALL GAME that was going on. I couldn't help but hear entirely too much information. Yap yap yap yap yap. She was married in August 2004. She was separated in November 2004. She moved to Vegas afterwards to "get her life together"...I think that explains a lot.
Four years ago when I found myself in the new car market for the first time, I came across lots of makes and models, each with their own bells, whistles, advantages and disadvantages. Ultimately I settled on a Toyota Matrix (and no, not because I happen to love the movie by the same name). She was stylish, roomy, great on gas mileage, and most importantly a great deal less costly than other comparable cars.
Aside from a missing antenna (the fault of the stupid dealership and the beginning of another rant altogether), I drove off the lot a happy man, and stayed happy up until very recently. You see, I am now an official member of the missing hubcap club.
Why is this post-worthy? For starters, this is not the first time my car has mysteriously lost a hubcap. About a year and a half ago one popped off while I was driving unbeknownst to me until I noticed it missing after I parked. Luckily I hadn't gone far and after a short search I found it and kicked it back into place. No big deal, right?
A few weeks later the sister of a friend who also drove a Matrix told me the same exact thing had happened to her (she was also lucky and got hers back). After then, I noticed that almost every other Matrix I saw on the road either was missing a hubcap or had all four removed (presumably for consistency). I began to wonder if the random popping-off of hubcaps was a chronic problem of Matrixes (Matrices?) everywhere.
In fact it is. Although Toyota won't acknowledge any hubcap issues, plenty of other people write about how they are constantly losing their hubcaps. Interestingly, the people "in the know" who respond either claim the hubcaps are knockoffs and not originals or that the consumers should get them, and I quote, installed professionally. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when I buy a car from a dealership should the hubcaps not be originals and already installed by professionals? I know hubcaps are purely decorative and not terribly expensive (TLM has already offered to get me a new one), but shouldn't there be some kind of compensation for Matrix owners who fall victim to a problem Toyota secretly knows exists? Ridiculous.
All this didn't help me recently, however, when once again I returned to my car to notice only three hubcaps in place. Granted, one may have been taken by some karmically confused Matrix owner to whom the same thing occurred, but I suspect it was just a repeat of the first time and my hubcap is currently lying by some road in or around Boston, just wasting to be found so it can get its spin on again.
For now, I am a proud member of this missing hubcap club and I just may retire the remaining three hubcaps, drag racer stylee. Eh, what the hell.
That is until, of course, the fourth is found, in which case I will, um, "re-tire" them all...
As I look down and see I'm wearing my Celtics tee and my once-a-year green pants (TMT might get a kick out of these; they are Marithé et François Girbaud and were in fashion back in the early 90's!), I realize that today could only be one day: St. Patrick's Day.
Many things come to mind (besides the green pants) for those who celebrate this holiday commemorating the death of the patron saint of Ireland. There are the plastic green derbys, the bad Irish brogues, Darby O'Gill, the consumption of LOTS of Guinness and green beer (usually starting around 10:00am), and, of course, the St. Patrick's Day parade.
I was surprised to learn that the very first St. Patrick's Day parade was held here in Boston, not in Ireland, by the Irish immigrants back in 1737 (a general concession, though there seems to be some debate about this), marking the first time the holiday was celebrated publicly. To put that in a different perspective, we've been having St. Patrick's Day parades and celebrations almost four decades longer than we've been a country.
For Bostonians, the parade is a rite of passage, albeit usually in a drunken mess kind of way. Boston PD basically surrounds Southie (South Boston) and lets no one neither in nor out until most of the day is done. There is a better chance of seeing more fights in a five hour period in Southie on St. Patrick's Day than in the bleachers at Fenway at all Red Sox-Yankees games in a season combined (which is, needless to say, not a small number thanks to Yankee Yahoos). The actual parade is full of marching bands, dancing troops, and at least three people dressed as leprechauns (of the Lucky Charms variety, not the kind from the 1993 horror flick).
Whether you are one to brave the chaos that is Southie today or one to stay and watch from home, have a Happy St. Patrick's Day today!
I should start by saying I've never been a fan of college football. Check that: I like the actual football, but I can't stand the system by which the bowl games are "calculated". That's right, rankings.
Even when approached with seemingly the most scientific methods, college football ranking systems have always seemed vague and completely subjective to me (and the end of the year awards presented to individuals too for that matter). Science News recently had an article outlining how such systems' ability to produce "reasonable results" are inherently impossible.
In a paper published in a recent issue of SIAM Review, Paul K. Newton and Kamran Aslam of the University of Southern California argue against the widespread belief that it is possible, with just the right tweaking, to come up with a ranking system that yields reasonable results and eliminates logical inconsistencies—and, hence, settles all arguments, leaving everyone satisfied.
At the heart of the argument is the challenge of assumptions made when coming up with the various ranking systems. Highlighted is the assumption that "when team A is ranked higher than team B, and team B is ranked higher than team C, then team A is ranked higher than team C...seems like a reasonable requirement". This assumption is shown to be faulty, particularly when votes are part of the process.
So how do the bowl games get determined, if not by some ranking process? That's the million dollar question (not that the collegiate atheletes get any of it, at least not legally...). Well, unless another option is presented, science be damned (uh?), as the current system is what we have that works best so far.
Tangentially, this reminded me of a (not-so-recent) post on InsomniousPolitico where there was an attempt to classify various popular dichotomies (the term is used loosely) into two distinct groups; an attempt met with many vociferous comments as the ultimate goal seemed to be grouping logic, men, and conservatism against emotion, women, and liberalism (go see and decide for yourself). In this Science News article, the aforementioned faulty assumption and the example they chose to illustrate it (the selection of the top men's tennis player in 2002) is also exactly why Jaz's attempt to make two mutually exclusive groups won't work.
Let's say you have 3 groups of 2 instead of 3 individuals, groups A, B, and C. Group A may match up with group B in a particular way, and group B may match up with group C in a particular way, but that does not say anything about the relationship between group A and group C, which must be handled seperatly (particularly when the matching up of groups is as subjective as was outlined in the post). As in the tennis example, it is possible to have, even in a sample space as small as 3, a circular state of relation between the groups. Consider the following pairings:
Pairing 1
Pairing 2
Pairing 3
A1
A2
B1
B2
A1
A2
B1
B2
C1
C2
C2
C1
There are only eight possible ways the three groups can be grouped together, and all of them will go against how we defined the group pairings above in exactly one way.
Potential Group
Bad Because of
A1, B1, C1
Pairing 3
A1, B1, C2
Pairing 2
A1, B2, C1
Pairing 1
A1, B2, C2
Pairing 1
A2, B1, C1
Pairing 1
A2, B1, C2
Pairing 1
A2, B2, C1
Pairing 2
A2, B2, C2
Pairing 3
Well, you can't blame a guy for trying (to equate conservatism with logic). Anyway, sorry for what was I'm sure way too much information...I have occasional relapses into math education background. And I miss making tables.
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There are three things I can practically count on being true of Opening Day every year: I will not go to work (school, whatever), there will be no parking, and there will be no empty seats. After one inning of play, however, I was astonished to see that the two seats next to us were as of yet unoccupied. I wasn't about to complain though, as it allowed us to move over a seat and give us a little more room in those annually shrinking grandstand seats.
For Bostonians, the parade is a rite of passage, albeit usually in a drunken mess kind of way. Boston PD basically surrounds Southie (
I should start by saying I've never been a fan of college football. Check that: I like the actual football, but I can't stand the system by which the bowl games are "calculated". That's right, rankings.
