Silly me, I tuned in to the network coverage of Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve show at 11:55 p.m., expecting to see the ball drop in Times Square.
I forgot that they do all that rockin' New Years coverage leading up to Midnight in the Eastern time zone, not Central. Oops! You would have thought I'd have learned my lesson by watching the TV coverage of New Years during the transition from 1999 to 2000, as we all waited to see if the power would go out on the East coast first. Except I happened to be watching that year in Columbus, OH, which is on Eastern time.
Oh well. Instead of Dick Clark or even Ryan Seacrest, they had some total boy band a$$ clowns up on stage some place in LA, and no one in the crowd looked like they were over 23. New Years must be a young person holiday.
Even if my wife and I could get a babysitter for long enough to allow us to attend a New Year's party, we always know that the kiddos will be awake at 6:45 a.m., so we simply can't afford to stay up that late any more. My current circumstance notwithstanding, mind you.
Have a happy New Year! I can't believe we're nearing the end of another decade already. 2009! *** John Cusack Movie Reference Alert! *** "TEN YEARS, MAN! TEN YEARS!"
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
A Quick Review of Film Noir
I've been chewing on this in my mind* for a little while, ever since renting and watching the movie Brick (2005) in mid-November. Brick was the debut film from Rian Johnson, or at least was the first full-length feature movie he finished after completing a short called Evil Demon Golfball from Hell!!! (1996) in film school. You can see that it took Rian the better part of a decade to find a producer or distribution company to support his debut film, which speaks more to the glut of new movies produced annually by Hollywood than it does to his talent.
* Initially, I thought I would create a top five list of my favorite film noir movies. Then, I thought stopping at just five would be silly; why not fill out a full top ten list? Then, I worried that any top ten list would by necessity unfairly exclude some great noirs out there. Plus, I have to admit I haven't seen that many of the classic film noirs, so any list I pulled together would be incomplete. So I scrapped that idea.
Brick, simply put, is nothing short of brilliant! As I watched it for the first time, I could tell instantly that it was a debut film. There's something about watching a really good movie that often marks it as a director's first movie. I can't even artfully describe those indicators; perhaps it is the movie's outstanding dialog; perhaps it is the cinematography that borrows shots from classic movies and great directors; perhaps it is simply a gut feel that says the director poured his or her heart and soul into the film. A parallel exists in the world of novels: the debut novel from an author often surpasses any subsequent work, no matter how excellent the following books may be.
Ah, so what makes the movie Brick so excellent? Here is where I wanted to compare it to other film noirs I love. Brick contains all the essential ingredients for a film noir: in the cast of characters, it has the intrepid detective (our hero!), the informant, the cops/authority figure, the femme fatale, the equally brainy antagonist, and the antagonist's muscle; it has the snappy, quick-witted dialog derived from the works of Dashiell Hammett*; it has the requisite dark settings and interesting interplay between light and shadows; and it has the twisting, turning plot that includes a mystery our hero must unravel. It does have the intrepid detective getting beat up by the muscle, a characteristic of most but not all film noirs. It does have the long reveal at the end of the movie, where our hero exposes the true criminal mastermind behind the plot.
* By the way, I know that many people give Wikipedia a hard time, and no encyclopedia should be used as the only reference for source material. No less a reknowned blogger than Curt Schilling advocates all bloggers refrain from using Wikipedia links in posts. To which I say, find other quick-to-grab reference material on the Web that is any more trustworthy than Wikipedia, and I'll use it.
As I thought more about Brick and other film noirs, I knew that I've been a fan of film noir for a very long time. Brick is similar to another noir that was the debut feature from my favorite film makers, Joel and Ethan Coen, the Coen Brothers: Blood Simple (1984). Like Blood Simple, Brick can be rapid-paced at times, while also being maddeningly slow-paced at other times. I was always very impressed with how the Coen Brothers allowed the storyline to develop in Blood Simple, and how the characters in the story never knew fully quite what was going on, not completely.
That characteristic set up the final line of Blood Simple by M. Emmet Walsh (who played a PI, yet wasn't the intrepid detective of the story), and also played a huge role in another film noir by the Coens, Miller's Crossing (1990). Brick probably borrows more from Miller's Crossing than Johnson would like to admit. Much of the dialog is very similar ("dangle," for please excuse us), the interplay of suspicion and distrust between the antagonist and the muscle is the same, and the intrepid detective gets a little lucky when facing his accusers and imminent death. If anything, the hero in Brick solves the riddle quicker than does Gabriel Byrne's Tom Reagan character in Miller's Crossing; Reagan ends the movie by being better lucky than good.
Brick even borrows heavily from Blade Runner (1982) which, although it is a sci fi movie first and foremost, is also a film noir in the best definition. I remember the very first time I saw Blade Runner, and how impressed I was that the hero got the snot kicked out of him in every single fight*, no matter the opponent. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's (the teen kid from "3rd Rock from the Sun", who looks surprisingly like a young Heath Ledger in this movie) Brendan also gets beat up by the muscle in most scenes, even though he has an early victory against the stud football player, Brad Bramish. I can't prove it, but I also swear that Johnson used the same music in Brick for a scene between Brendan and Laura, the femme fatale, as Ridley Scott used during a scene in Deckard's apartment with his femme fatale played by Sean Young. It's a lilting little jazz number, and it sounds like the same song in both movies.
* That might seem funny, but think about it: how often did John Wayne get physically beat up in his movies? How often did Clint Eastwood? Sylvester Stallone? OK, bad example; Rocky (1976) was all about getting beat up. But given that most Hollywood heros can fight off hordes of goons without a scratch, and that the Stormtroopers in Star Wars (1977) couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, the simple fact that Deckard in Blade Runner had his butt handed to him by the replicants was significant, even if replicants had super-human strength.
Johnson also borrowed heavily from the classic film noirs, and specifically mentioned Hammett in his discussion of deleted scenes on the DVD. He wanted his dialog to be witty and snappy, like the works of Hammett, who gave us Sam Spade and Nick and Nora, the heroes of the Thin Man franchise. What's funny is that I recently read The Thin Man the novel, after which we watched The Thin Man (1934) the movie, all because of the movie that started the successful rebirth of Robert Downey Jr. as an actor. No, not Iron Man (2008). While that was a great movie, and while Downey Jr. was an inspired choice for Tony Stark, the movie that resurrected his career was Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005). What a great film that was! The actors specifically referenced the great pulp fiction novels that served as the basis of film noir without actually giving credit to Hammett, but the reference was clear.
In terms of the classics, Johnson borrowed heavily from Orson Welles' seminal movies, using low shots looking upward at the actors for dramatic effect (borrowed from Citizen Kane [1941]) and the general look and feel of Touch of Evil (1958).
Given that Johnson borrowed heavily from other film noirs for Brick, what makes Brick stand out on its own? Why did it win eight awards from such notable film festivals as Sundance and the Independent Spirit Awards? The answer is that Johnson set all of these classic film noir staples mentioned above in a high school setting! The premise is brilliant, and it's hard to believe no one thought of it before. All of the main characters save for the cop/authority figure Assistant Vice Principal (played by none other than Richard Roundtree, the original Shaft!) are high schoolers, although they certainly aren't shown attending classes. Notes are passed between lockers. Who eats lunch with whom and where plays a significant role in the plot. All the usual teenage drama and histrionics that go along with high school heighten the danger and suspense of the plot line. Brendan has to navigate the treacherous waters of band geeks, drama queens, dopers, jocks, and brains, all while being an outsider and loner. It's brilliant!
As a coworker of mine told me after I let him borrow the DVD, he and his wife were smiling all the way through the movie. It's a very simple concept, setting a film noir in high school, but executed to perfection with this movie. What's old is new again. There are sequences of dialog between characters that could only happen with high schoolers.
Oh, and for all the drama and intrigue that goes along with film noir, there is also room for levity. I laughed my butt off when the high schoolers faced off over the kitchen table while the quite clueless suburban mom served up country-style orange juice in the same country-style juice glasses my grandmother had at her farm! Simply brilliant.
Given that the box office numbers listed on IMDB are quite low for Brick, it is clear that not many people have seen this movie. I "discovered" it when I rented The Constant Gardener (2005), another film from Focus Features that had the trailer for Brick on the disc. Ever since we saw Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation (2003) from Focus Features, they have been one of my favorite movie distributors. Up soon on my Netflix list will be another Bill Murray film by Focus, Broken Flowers (2005). Here's hoping it is as good as the rest.
If you get the chance to rent or watch Brick, take it. It is well worth the time.
* Initially, I thought I would create a top five list of my favorite film noir movies. Then, I thought stopping at just five would be silly; why not fill out a full top ten list? Then, I worried that any top ten list would by necessity unfairly exclude some great noirs out there. Plus, I have to admit I haven't seen that many of the classic film noirs, so any list I pulled together would be incomplete. So I scrapped that idea.
Brick, simply put, is nothing short of brilliant! As I watched it for the first time, I could tell instantly that it was a debut film. There's something about watching a really good movie that often marks it as a director's first movie. I can't even artfully describe those indicators; perhaps it is the movie's outstanding dialog; perhaps it is the cinematography that borrows shots from classic movies and great directors; perhaps it is simply a gut feel that says the director poured his or her heart and soul into the film. A parallel exists in the world of novels: the debut novel from an author often surpasses any subsequent work, no matter how excellent the following books may be.
Ah, so what makes the movie Brick so excellent? Here is where I wanted to compare it to other film noirs I love. Brick contains all the essential ingredients for a film noir: in the cast of characters, it has the intrepid detective (our hero!), the informant, the cops/authority figure, the femme fatale, the equally brainy antagonist, and the antagonist's muscle; it has the snappy, quick-witted dialog derived from the works of Dashiell Hammett*; it has the requisite dark settings and interesting interplay between light and shadows; and it has the twisting, turning plot that includes a mystery our hero must unravel. It does have the intrepid detective getting beat up by the muscle, a characteristic of most but not all film noirs. It does have the long reveal at the end of the movie, where our hero exposes the true criminal mastermind behind the plot.
* By the way, I know that many people give Wikipedia a hard time, and no encyclopedia should be used as the only reference for source material. No less a reknowned blogger than Curt Schilling advocates all bloggers refrain from using Wikipedia links in posts. To which I say, find other quick-to-grab reference material on the Web that is any more trustworthy than Wikipedia, and I'll use it.
As I thought more about Brick and other film noirs, I knew that I've been a fan of film noir for a very long time. Brick is similar to another noir that was the debut feature from my favorite film makers, Joel and Ethan Coen, the Coen Brothers: Blood Simple (1984). Like Blood Simple, Brick can be rapid-paced at times, while also being maddeningly slow-paced at other times. I was always very impressed with how the Coen Brothers allowed the storyline to develop in Blood Simple, and how the characters in the story never knew fully quite what was going on, not completely.
That characteristic set up the final line of Blood Simple by M. Emmet Walsh (who played a PI, yet wasn't the intrepid detective of the story), and also played a huge role in another film noir by the Coens, Miller's Crossing (1990). Brick probably borrows more from Miller's Crossing than Johnson would like to admit. Much of the dialog is very similar ("dangle," for please excuse us), the interplay of suspicion and distrust between the antagonist and the muscle is the same, and the intrepid detective gets a little lucky when facing his accusers and imminent death. If anything, the hero in Brick solves the riddle quicker than does Gabriel Byrne's Tom Reagan character in Miller's Crossing; Reagan ends the movie by being better lucky than good.
Brick even borrows heavily from Blade Runner (1982) which, although it is a sci fi movie first and foremost, is also a film noir in the best definition. I remember the very first time I saw Blade Runner, and how impressed I was that the hero got the snot kicked out of him in every single fight*, no matter the opponent. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's (the teen kid from "3rd Rock from the Sun", who looks surprisingly like a young Heath Ledger in this movie) Brendan also gets beat up by the muscle in most scenes, even though he has an early victory against the stud football player, Brad Bramish. I can't prove it, but I also swear that Johnson used the same music in Brick for a scene between Brendan and Laura, the femme fatale, as Ridley Scott used during a scene in Deckard's apartment with his femme fatale played by Sean Young. It's a lilting little jazz number, and it sounds like the same song in both movies.
* That might seem funny, but think about it: how often did John Wayne get physically beat up in his movies? How often did Clint Eastwood? Sylvester Stallone? OK, bad example; Rocky (1976) was all about getting beat up. But given that most Hollywood heros can fight off hordes of goons without a scratch, and that the Stormtroopers in Star Wars (1977) couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, the simple fact that Deckard in Blade Runner had his butt handed to him by the replicants was significant, even if replicants had super-human strength.
Johnson also borrowed heavily from the classic film noirs, and specifically mentioned Hammett in his discussion of deleted scenes on the DVD. He wanted his dialog to be witty and snappy, like the works of Hammett, who gave us Sam Spade and Nick and Nora, the heroes of the Thin Man franchise. What's funny is that I recently read The Thin Man the novel, after which we watched The Thin Man (1934) the movie, all because of the movie that started the successful rebirth of Robert Downey Jr. as an actor. No, not Iron Man (2008). While that was a great movie, and while Downey Jr. was an inspired choice for Tony Stark, the movie that resurrected his career was Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005). What a great film that was! The actors specifically referenced the great pulp fiction novels that served as the basis of film noir without actually giving credit to Hammett, but the reference was clear.
In terms of the classics, Johnson borrowed heavily from Orson Welles' seminal movies, using low shots looking upward at the actors for dramatic effect (borrowed from Citizen Kane [1941]) and the general look and feel of Touch of Evil (1958).
Given that Johnson borrowed heavily from other film noirs for Brick, what makes Brick stand out on its own? Why did it win eight awards from such notable film festivals as Sundance and the Independent Spirit Awards? The answer is that Johnson set all of these classic film noir staples mentioned above in a high school setting! The premise is brilliant, and it's hard to believe no one thought of it before. All of the main characters save for the cop/authority figure Assistant Vice Principal (played by none other than Richard Roundtree, the original Shaft!) are high schoolers, although they certainly aren't shown attending classes. Notes are passed between lockers. Who eats lunch with whom and where plays a significant role in the plot. All the usual teenage drama and histrionics that go along with high school heighten the danger and suspense of the plot line. Brendan has to navigate the treacherous waters of band geeks, drama queens, dopers, jocks, and brains, all while being an outsider and loner. It's brilliant!
As a coworker of mine told me after I let him borrow the DVD, he and his wife were smiling all the way through the movie. It's a very simple concept, setting a film noir in high school, but executed to perfection with this movie. What's old is new again. There are sequences of dialog between characters that could only happen with high schoolers.
Oh, and for all the drama and intrigue that goes along with film noir, there is also room for levity. I laughed my butt off when the high schoolers faced off over the kitchen table while the quite clueless suburban mom served up country-style orange juice in the same country-style juice glasses my grandmother had at her farm! Simply brilliant.
Given that the box office numbers listed on IMDB are quite low for Brick, it is clear that not many people have seen this movie. I "discovered" it when I rented The Constant Gardener (2005), another film from Focus Features that had the trailer for Brick on the disc. Ever since we saw Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation (2003) from Focus Features, they have been one of my favorite movie distributors. Up soon on my Netflix list will be another Bill Murray film by Focus, Broken Flowers (2005). Here's hoping it is as good as the rest.
If you get the chance to rent or watch Brick, take it. It is well worth the time.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Phony NFLShop.com Ad
So, I have to call B.S. on the ad below from the NFLShop.com guys. I know they need to move product during the busiest shopping season of the year, but c'mon! There isn't a single American household with three adult males in it where each of the three guys supports a different NFL team. And from such different regions of the country, too! It's just not believable to have a Browns fan, an Eagles fan, and a Chargers fan all under the same roof. It just doesn't happen.
People these days might move all across the country after college to take jobs in strange cities, but you can't tell me that someone who was raised on the Eagles would suddenly become a Niners fan if he landed in San Francisco for work. It just doesn't happen. That's what the NFL Ticket on DirecTV is for, so people who find themselves geographically removed from their teams can still root, root, root for the home team on Sundays.
A very good friend of mine from Ohio State lived in the Baltimore area for a very long time post-graduation. Did she ever cop out and buy Ravens* or Redskins season tickets? Not on your life! She was from the Cleveland area, so she was a Browns fan tried and true. She had Browns season tickets, flew up for the games she and her hubby could make, and sold the other tickets to other fans. That's how I was able to take my wife to see a Browns game in the new stadium in 2002.
* Despite the fact that the Baltimore Ravens happen to be the Browns v1.0, when the Devil Incarnate (Art Model) moved the team after the 1995 season, that team became the embodiment of evil and the antithesis of all that Cleveland Browns fans hold dear. The Baltimore fans were done wrong by Robert Irsay, so I can't really begrudge the fans their Super Bowl victory in 2000, even though THAT SUPER BOWL SHOULD RIGHTLY BELONG TO CLEVELAND!!!
All of which brings up some interesting issues of how people decide to support a given team to begin with. For most people, which NFL team to support* tends to be either handed down from parents or a byproduct of geography. I just recently watched the British version of the movie Fever Pitch (1997), in which the young lad becomes an Arsenal fan because football (soccer to us Yanks) was about the only way he could bond with his absentee dad, who just happened to take him to an Arsenal game for his first match. Very interesting movie, that.
* Since this in a NFLShop.com ad, I'm going to skip any discussion of which college football team people support, which usually is tied to familial traditions or alma maters.
My own NFL fandom was an interesting mix of family and geography. My parents and siblings were all born in Ohio, but we moved around a lot when I was a child. Right around the time I was becoming a fan of pro football, we lived in eastern South Dakota. From there, the natural order of things would have been to support the Minnesota Vikings, as they were the closest to us geographically. They also had some very good teams there in the 1970s, so it might have been a natural fit to support the "local" team. However, we were raised on Ohio teams all.
That meant we supported Ohio State at the collegiate level, the Big Red Machine for Major League Baseball (MLB), and the Cleveland Browns in pro football. To a lesser extent, we paid attention to what the Bengals were doing in Cincinnati, but we never much supported the Indians in Cleveland. Ah, but watching the Kardiac Kids in Cleveland during the late '70s -- Brian Sipe at QB, Ozzie Newsome at TE, Mike and Greg Pruitt at RB, Sam Rutigliano as the coach, Don Cockroft kicking -- yes, I even remember clearly that "12 Days of Christmas" song parody that promised a Rutigliano Super Bowl. That sealed the deal for me, and I've been a Browns fan ever since!*
* Being a student of history, I naturally dug into the Browns team history, and love how fantastic it is! Jim Brown remains the best pure runner ever in the NFL, but I'd stack Marion Motley right up there with him. Lou Groza, Otto Graham, Paul Warfield, and too many others to list all played for the Browns, who also won eight NFL championships before the Super Bowl era. Not too shabby!
The following years of hope and heartbreak throughout the '80s with Bernie Kosar, Kevin Mack, Earnest Byner, Webster Slaughter, Marty Schottenheimer, The Drive and The Fumble, did nothing except reinforce my fandom. I'll never forget the Hated One, Elway, and what the Denver Donkeys* did to my team. Although, given Denver's record in Super Bowls during that time, perhaps it was fine that the Browns never had to be embarrassed by whichever NFC team was in the Super Bowl those years.
* Years later, when I was going to college in Colorado, I took personal pleasure in the Broncos' troubles in the early '90s, when it seemed as if Elway would join the ranks of the most prolific QBs never to have won a Super Bowl. I remember the joke circulating at the time: "Did you hear that Elway can't get into his house? Someone painted an end zone in his front yard!" Ah, but I digress.
I'm actually facing an interesting dilemma with my own children, although they are both too young yet to decide which team they will support into adulthood. I always had my birth in Ohio (plus the fact that we never took a vacation anywhere but Ohio to see family; every Christmas break, every summer break from school, we were heading to Ohio on that interminable 16 hour drive!) to cement my fan roots in the Buckeye State. However, my two children were both born here in east-central Illinois. My wife is from Oklahoma, so I get no support from her side of the family, who are perhaps Dallas Cowboys fans if they support any NFL team. **shudder** They really aren't NFL fans, so maybe I can twist my kids into supporting the Browns yet.
However, from here, people can be an interesting mix of fans. We have plenty of Bears fans, to be sure. We also have plenty of St. Louis Rams fans, probably all the more so since the Rams were the "Greatest Show on Turf" there in the late '90s-early '00s. And now that Peyton Manning finally got the Big Game Monkey off his back, and against the Bears no less, there are plenty of Indy Colts fans in this area, too. On TV, the local games usually consist of those three teams before they show nationwide coverage. Given that Chicago, St. Louis, and Indianapolis are all just about equidistant from our city, I can definitely see getting single-game tickets to see each of those teams play in person.
So, at some point, I will need to let go and allow my kids to decide on their own which team(s) they want to support. If they want to be pro football fans at all, that is. Every once in a while, Matthew will say that he doesn't want to watch football on Sundays. And I'm OK with that. Any time he wants to play with his toys in our play room downstairs, I go with him and play with him. But eventually, those games most likely will transition to tossing the pigskin around the back yard. I'll just be happy to throw the skinny post to him streaking past his uncles and grandfather when the time comes.
People these days might move all across the country after college to take jobs in strange cities, but you can't tell me that someone who was raised on the Eagles would suddenly become a Niners fan if he landed in San Francisco for work. It just doesn't happen. That's what the NFL Ticket on DirecTV is for, so people who find themselves geographically removed from their teams can still root, root, root for the home team on Sundays.
A very good friend of mine from Ohio State lived in the Baltimore area for a very long time post-graduation. Did she ever cop out and buy Ravens* or Redskins season tickets? Not on your life! She was from the Cleveland area, so she was a Browns fan tried and true. She had Browns season tickets, flew up for the games she and her hubby could make, and sold the other tickets to other fans. That's how I was able to take my wife to see a Browns game in the new stadium in 2002.
* Despite the fact that the Baltimore Ravens happen to be the Browns v1.0, when the Devil Incarnate (Art Model) moved the team after the 1995 season, that team became the embodiment of evil and the antithesis of all that Cleveland Browns fans hold dear. The Baltimore fans were done wrong by Robert Irsay, so I can't really begrudge the fans their Super Bowl victory in 2000, even though THAT SUPER BOWL SHOULD RIGHTLY BELONG TO CLEVELAND!!!
All of which brings up some interesting issues of how people decide to support a given team to begin with. For most people, which NFL team to support* tends to be either handed down from parents or a byproduct of geography. I just recently watched the British version of the movie Fever Pitch (1997), in which the young lad becomes an Arsenal fan because football (soccer to us Yanks) was about the only way he could bond with his absentee dad, who just happened to take him to an Arsenal game for his first match. Very interesting movie, that.
* Since this in a NFLShop.com ad, I'm going to skip any discussion of which college football team people support, which usually is tied to familial traditions or alma maters.
My own NFL fandom was an interesting mix of family and geography. My parents and siblings were all born in Ohio, but we moved around a lot when I was a child. Right around the time I was becoming a fan of pro football, we lived in eastern South Dakota. From there, the natural order of things would have been to support the Minnesota Vikings, as they were the closest to us geographically. They also had some very good teams there in the 1970s, so it might have been a natural fit to support the "local" team. However, we were raised on Ohio teams all.
That meant we supported Ohio State at the collegiate level, the Big Red Machine for Major League Baseball (MLB), and the Cleveland Browns in pro football. To a lesser extent, we paid attention to what the Bengals were doing in Cincinnati, but we never much supported the Indians in Cleveland. Ah, but watching the Kardiac Kids in Cleveland during the late '70s -- Brian Sipe at QB, Ozzie Newsome at TE, Mike and Greg Pruitt at RB, Sam Rutigliano as the coach, Don Cockroft kicking -- yes, I even remember clearly that "12 Days of Christmas" song parody that promised a Rutigliano Super Bowl. That sealed the deal for me, and I've been a Browns fan ever since!*
* Being a student of history, I naturally dug into the Browns team history, and love how fantastic it is! Jim Brown remains the best pure runner ever in the NFL, but I'd stack Marion Motley right up there with him. Lou Groza, Otto Graham, Paul Warfield, and too many others to list all played for the Browns, who also won eight NFL championships before the Super Bowl era. Not too shabby!
The following years of hope and heartbreak throughout the '80s with Bernie Kosar, Kevin Mack, Earnest Byner, Webster Slaughter, Marty Schottenheimer, The Drive and The Fumble, did nothing except reinforce my fandom. I'll never forget the Hated One, Elway, and what the Denver Donkeys* did to my team. Although, given Denver's record in Super Bowls during that time, perhaps it was fine that the Browns never had to be embarrassed by whichever NFC team was in the Super Bowl those years.
* Years later, when I was going to college in Colorado, I took personal pleasure in the Broncos' troubles in the early '90s, when it seemed as if Elway would join the ranks of the most prolific QBs never to have won a Super Bowl. I remember the joke circulating at the time: "Did you hear that Elway can't get into his house? Someone painted an end zone in his front yard!" Ah, but I digress.
I'm actually facing an interesting dilemma with my own children, although they are both too young yet to decide which team they will support into adulthood. I always had my birth in Ohio (plus the fact that we never took a vacation anywhere but Ohio to see family; every Christmas break, every summer break from school, we were heading to Ohio on that interminable 16 hour drive!) to cement my fan roots in the Buckeye State. However, my two children were both born here in east-central Illinois. My wife is from Oklahoma, so I get no support from her side of the family, who are perhaps Dallas Cowboys fans if they support any NFL team. **shudder** They really aren't NFL fans, so maybe I can twist my kids into supporting the Browns yet.
However, from here, people can be an interesting mix of fans. We have plenty of Bears fans, to be sure. We also have plenty of St. Louis Rams fans, probably all the more so since the Rams were the "Greatest Show on Turf" there in the late '90s-early '00s. And now that Peyton Manning finally got the Big Game Monkey off his back, and against the Bears no less, there are plenty of Indy Colts fans in this area, too. On TV, the local games usually consist of those three teams before they show nationwide coverage. Given that Chicago, St. Louis, and Indianapolis are all just about equidistant from our city, I can definitely see getting single-game tickets to see each of those teams play in person.
So, at some point, I will need to let go and allow my kids to decide on their own which team(s) they want to support. If they want to be pro football fans at all, that is. Every once in a while, Matthew will say that he doesn't want to watch football on Sundays. And I'm OK with that. Any time he wants to play with his toys in our play room downstairs, I go with him and play with him. But eventually, those games most likely will transition to tossing the pigskin around the back yard. I'll just be happy to throw the skinny post to him streaking past his uncles and grandfather when the time comes.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Merry Christmas to All!
Last night, after putting the little tykes to bed, we did what families have always done through the ages... put together all those hard to assemble Christmas gifts that "Santa" brought to the house while the kids were sleeping! Fortunately, not many batteries were required this year.
My wife's father has been extremely busy in his woodworking shop out back of their house in Stillwater, OK. He built a play kitchen for the Festival of Trees auction in November, yet still had time to build a new Thomas the Tank Engine train table, a baby doll high chair, and a baby doll rocking cradle this year. Amy got the kids an art easel, so I had to assemble that last night. Thankfully, we already bought the first bicycle in September, so I didn't have to assemble one of those last night.
While putting those things together last night, we had the Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946) on in the background. We've all seen that movie a million gazillion times, but it always brings a smile to my lips every year. I loved it when a friend of mine described it once as "Hard Core Yuletide," because that is a perfect description. Many people, of course, also know it as "Capra-corn," and that label also fits.
Several things about the movie struck me for the first time last night, however. And isn't it funny how you can be completely familiar with a movie, yet still see something new every time you see it?
The first thing that struck me (and keep in mind that we spent the majority of the evening watching A Muppets Christmas Carol (1992), rather than put up with the interminable commercial breaks on NBC, so we came in towards the end of the movie, when George was being counseled by Clarence the angel; if I'm going to sit through the entire Wonderful Life movie, I'm gonna do it by watching my own copy on DVD) was that Pottersville certainly seemed like a lot more fun town than Bedford Falls. Doesn't it seem that way? Pool halls, bars, dancing, girls... it's like Vegas without the gambling! Sure, people were miserable living in Potter's housing projects, but they had fun going out at night!
The second thing, and this is more of a reach, is that perhaps, just perhaps, the American male preference for the Girl Next Door over the Blonde Bombshell was first captured here, in Wonderful Life. Think about it: Ginger or Mary Ann? Veronica or Betty? People have been asking those questions for ages, but here you see Violet versus Mary, Gloria Grahame versus the truly classy Donna Reed. Which would you rather have as your wife? As your girlfriend, even? Which one is going to stand by you and not cheat on you with your brother or best friend? It's gotta be the Girl Next Door, in my book. Which also made for an interesting movie starring Elisha Cuthbert in 2004, but that's beside the point.
I just think it's funny that something new always presents itself on the upteenth time watching a movie. For the very first time, I noticed which book Clarence signed to George at the very end of the movie to let him know that Clarence did, indeed, win his wings by helping George not commit suicide. What was it, you ask? None other than Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. That doesn't even make the trivia section on IMDB, so there's no telling if that book had special meaning for Frank Capra or anyone else associated with the movie.
Well, beyond the movies and the toys, we did have a wonderful Christmas this year. It was the very first time my wife and I hosted Christmas in our own house, and it worked out great! Our son turned over a new leaf today, or at the very least was on his best behavior this afternoon. He was very nice to everyone, hugged his little sister without being told to do so, and wished everyone a Merry Christmas on his own, without any prodding. He wasn't whiny, didn't fight a lot, and played with his new toys without getting upset or too possessive about any of them. Well, other than the new remote control Cat bulldozer from Grandpa. He really likes that one. But for a three-year-old, he did great today!
My wife's dream for peace on Earth, or at least peace in the household, was granted today. For that, I am extremely grateful! Here's hoping that everyone else experienced similar joys and peace today, and that everyone got what they needed during this holiday season. Merry Christmas, everybody!
My wife's father has been extremely busy in his woodworking shop out back of their house in Stillwater, OK. He built a play kitchen for the Festival of Trees auction in November, yet still had time to build a new Thomas the Tank Engine train table, a baby doll high chair, and a baby doll rocking cradle this year. Amy got the kids an art easel, so I had to assemble that last night. Thankfully, we already bought the first bicycle in September, so I didn't have to assemble one of those last night.
While putting those things together last night, we had the Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946) on in the background. We've all seen that movie a million gazillion times, but it always brings a smile to my lips every year. I loved it when a friend of mine described it once as "Hard Core Yuletide," because that is a perfect description. Many people, of course, also know it as "Capra-corn," and that label also fits.
Several things about the movie struck me for the first time last night, however. And isn't it funny how you can be completely familiar with a movie, yet still see something new every time you see it?
The first thing that struck me (and keep in mind that we spent the majority of the evening watching A Muppets Christmas Carol (1992), rather than put up with the interminable commercial breaks on NBC, so we came in towards the end of the movie, when George was being counseled by Clarence the angel; if I'm going to sit through the entire Wonderful Life movie, I'm gonna do it by watching my own copy on DVD) was that Pottersville certainly seemed like a lot more fun town than Bedford Falls. Doesn't it seem that way? Pool halls, bars, dancing, girls... it's like Vegas without the gambling! Sure, people were miserable living in Potter's housing projects, but they had fun going out at night!
The second thing, and this is more of a reach, is that perhaps, just perhaps, the American male preference for the Girl Next Door over the Blonde Bombshell was first captured here, in Wonderful Life. Think about it: Ginger or Mary Ann? Veronica or Betty? People have been asking those questions for ages, but here you see Violet versus Mary, Gloria Grahame versus the truly classy Donna Reed. Which would you rather have as your wife? As your girlfriend, even? Which one is going to stand by you and not cheat on you with your brother or best friend? It's gotta be the Girl Next Door, in my book. Which also made for an interesting movie starring Elisha Cuthbert in 2004, but that's beside the point.
I just think it's funny that something new always presents itself on the upteenth time watching a movie. For the very first time, I noticed which book Clarence signed to George at the very end of the movie to let him know that Clarence did, indeed, win his wings by helping George not commit suicide. What was it, you ask? None other than Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. That doesn't even make the trivia section on IMDB, so there's no telling if that book had special meaning for Frank Capra or anyone else associated with the movie.
Well, beyond the movies and the toys, we did have a wonderful Christmas this year. It was the very first time my wife and I hosted Christmas in our own house, and it worked out great! Our son turned over a new leaf today, or at the very least was on his best behavior this afternoon. He was very nice to everyone, hugged his little sister without being told to do so, and wished everyone a Merry Christmas on his own, without any prodding. He wasn't whiny, didn't fight a lot, and played with his new toys without getting upset or too possessive about any of them. Well, other than the new remote control Cat bulldozer from Grandpa. He really likes that one. But for a three-year-old, he did great today!
My wife's dream for peace on Earth, or at least peace in the household, was granted today. For that, I am extremely grateful! Here's hoping that everyone else experienced similar joys and peace today, and that everyone got what they needed during this holiday season. Merry Christmas, everybody!
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Victorious FFB Season
So, if you'll permit me to brag just a little bit, I wanted to wrap up this fantasy football (FFB) season with the announcement that I won my league on NFL.com this year. Now, I know full well that Joe Posnanski said in one of his blog posts in September that the relationship holds: "My fantasy team = interesting; your fantasy team = boring." That rationale was exactly why I decided against making my blog just be about FFB, to hopefully broaden the appeal somewhat. I probably should include more articles here about FFB strategy both before* and during the season, and perhaps I will do so next season.* I had designs on a very illuminating article about tactics to use while drafting in a live draft when most of the other team owners are going the auto-pick route, but couldn't get it written in time to be relevant.
For now, I just want to provide the summary of my performance, and remember: I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last week! My team was named the Salarymen, and I used the band's logo up top for my icon. I could have used any number of photos available of actual salarymen in Japan for my logo, but the black and white logo looked best in the small format on the NFL.com website.
I ended the season with a 12-4 record (6-0 in my own Division), finishing with a six-game winning streak, meaning I was only 6-4 after ten games. I led the league with 1513 points scored, and the nearest competitor (the team I beat in the championship game) was 108 points back, even though I only led the league in scoring once during the regular season. I had the best record, best breakdown schedule against other teams, and most points scored, which meant I dominated the power rankings at the end of the season.
I did all this despite the fact I didn't have any top scorer on my team. To wit: I had the #4 (Jay Cutler) and #10 (Chad Pennington) QBs; the #7 (Maurice Jones-Drew), #10 (Chris Johnson), #18 (Pierre Thomas) and #38 (Joseph Addai) RBs; #8 (Randy Moss), #10 (Terrell Owens), #15 (Kevin Walter), #28 (Jerrico Cotchery) and #72 (Kevin Curtis) WRs; the #6 (Owen Daniels) TE; the #3 (John Carney) K; and the #4 (Eagles) Team Defense.
Of those players, the only ones I drafted and kept throughout the entire season were Cutler, MJD, Moss, Owens, Cotchery, and the Eagles. Yes, I do like to turn over my roster when needed. It never hurts to troll the waiver wire and make changes when a better player becomes available. Chris Johnson, obviously, was a huge find for me and I got very lucky there. I traded Willie Parker for Addai early in the season, but that was a wash for both teams involved in that trade. Mid-way through the season, I was ready to trade Moss, but no one wanted him at that time. Go figure!
The guys at NFL.com always provide a Coach Rating, which is simply a measure of how efficient a coach is when deciding who to start and who to sit during games. They take the highest scoring collection of players for a team based on the starter rules and actual points scored, and then compare your game points scored against that hypothetical maximum number of points possible in a given week. The result is delivered as a percentage and expressed as a Coach Rating. My rating for the season was a whopping 82%, good for only 8th in my 12-team league.
Another way of looking at coaching efficiency is to compare the player utilization statistics using the team scoring statistics available on the NFL.com website. For example, Cutler scored a grand total of 295 fantasy points this year, but I had him active in my starting lineup for only 237 of those 295 points. For Moss, I captured all 154 of his points, and likewise for T.O., I captured all of his 146 points scored for the season. Start your studs, as they say. For Chris Johnson, I played him for 127 of his 192 points scored; for MJD, I played him for 119 of his 195 points scored; and for Earnest Graham, I played him for 75 of his 93 points scored before losing him to Inactive Reserve (IR). I also kept the Eagles active throughout the entire season, capturing all 222 of their points scored.
In many regards, it's still better to be lucky than good. In the final, I won the game 116-87, despite the fact that my opponent had Donovan McNabb, Michael Turner and Brian Westbrook (#2 and #6 RBs, respectively), Mark Clayton, Larry Fitzgerald (#1 WR), and Antonio Gates (#4 TE, and had a big game on Sunday). The tables easily could have been turned if the Eagles had played a better game on offense against the Redskins. My opponent in the championship game also had a Coach Rating of 90%, which put him second in the league for the entire season.
So, now that college football season is over, and now that FFB season is over, it becomes time to settle back into that Barcalounger, and watch a few Bowl games and the NFL playoffs as a true fan again. When I say "few Bowl games," I mean FEW. I'll probably only really watch one or two of the big games on New Year's Day, including the Rose Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl. I will watch the BCS National Championship Game, just to see which team I despise wins. Is it possible for both OU and Florida to lose?! I can dream, can't I?
And then, of course, the NFL playoffs are absolutely riveting football, 95 percent of the time. Every once in a while, you have one wild card team that lays a complete egg in the first round (I'm thinking Miami against the Broncos a while back, but can't pull up the actual game score... who do you think I am, the Worldwide Leader in Sports?!), but usually, every single game is exciting because all the coaches and players understand one simple principle rules all:
WIN OR GO HOME.
'Nuff said.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Amazing Snuggie!
So, travel has long been a way to experience new foods, new cultures, you name it. Going back to the days of Marco Polo and long before him, travelers and merchants have sought out exotic new lands, new peoples, and new products to purchase.
So it really is no surprise that traveling to another part of the U.S. still remains an effective way of seeing new things or new products. Having come to Montgomery, AL this week, I discovered for myself one of the most amazing, exotic new products ever. I saw, for the first time, commercials on TV for the Amazing Snuggie!
Yes, it's called the Snuggie, and here's the website. Yes, it's one of those "As Seen on TV" brands. I can't grab a picture very easily, so you'll have to click through the link to watch the commercial, which auto-runs on the website. That itself is annoying enough, and then I get the ads on any of the different cable channels here in the hotel.
I just can't imagine anyone thinking this is a good idea for a product, much less buying one. Maybe, if you swore you would never, ever be caught dead in a Snuggie by neighbors or friends, it might make a little bit of sense. I just can't stomach the images of the actors warming themselves in front of the fireplace, playing backgammon, watching the kids play soccer, or roasting marshmallows over the fire together as a family. It's ridiculous! Don't forget that the Amazing Snuggie is open in the back, so sitting on metal bleachers would still get cold. It's lamealicious!
So it really is no surprise that traveling to another part of the U.S. still remains an effective way of seeing new things or new products. Having come to Montgomery, AL this week, I discovered for myself one of the most amazing, exotic new products ever. I saw, for the first time, commercials on TV for the Amazing Snuggie!
Yes, it's called the Snuggie, and here's the website. Yes, it's one of those "As Seen on TV" brands. I can't grab a picture very easily, so you'll have to click through the link to watch the commercial, which auto-runs on the website. That itself is annoying enough, and then I get the ads on any of the different cable channels here in the hotel.
I just can't imagine anyone thinking this is a good idea for a product, much less buying one. Maybe, if you swore you would never, ever be caught dead in a Snuggie by neighbors or friends, it might make a little bit of sense. I just can't stomach the images of the actors warming themselves in front of the fireplace, playing backgammon, watching the kids play soccer, or roasting marshmallows over the fire together as a family. It's ridiculous! Don't forget that the Amazing Snuggie is open in the back, so sitting on metal bleachers would still get cold. It's lamealicious!
Monday, December 15, 2008
Paint the Whole End Zone!
A quick post tonight: I just saw this (pic below) while watching the Brownies play the Iggles tonight on ESPN. (For those of you who read my previous posts on my antenna-only digital TV at home, I'm on the road, in a Holiday Inn Express tonight, so I actually get to watch the MNF game this week.) The pic is a mostly-empty shot of the newish Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, which is the football-only stadium that replaced the old Veterans Stadium.
So, the picture makes me really wonder why they didn't use a couple other gallons of paint to finish the job in the end zones. Could it really cost them that much to make the end zones a uniform dark green, with the logo on top? As far as I know, this is the Field Turf stuff that plays like grass (only better!), so if you paint it once, it should be good for the whole season.
Maybe that's just it, exactly. If they also use this field for high school or college games, then perhaps they only replace those middle sections of the end zones to make it Eagle-neutral. I think they still play the Army-Navy game here, despite losing Veterans Stadium.
Oh, and the INT return for a TD by Asante Samuel for the Philly Team Defense pretty much assures I win my fantasy football game this week, so I'll make my league's championship game next week. I had the best regular-season record (10-4), best breakdown rating (beating other good teams in my league), and most points scored, so I owned the power rankings at the end of the regular season last Tuesday. But you never know how things will go from week to week, and the playoffs are single elimination, so I'm happy I'm not getting knocked out in the first round.
And hey, I might not be a FFB savant, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express!
So, the picture makes me really wonder why they didn't use a couple other gallons of paint to finish the job in the end zones. Could it really cost them that much to make the end zones a uniform dark green, with the logo on top? As far as I know, this is the Field Turf stuff that plays like grass (only better!), so if you paint it once, it should be good for the whole season.
Maybe that's just it, exactly. If they also use this field for high school or college games, then perhaps they only replace those middle sections of the end zones to make it Eagle-neutral. I think they still play the Army-Navy game here, despite losing Veterans Stadium.
Oh, and the INT return for a TD by Asante Samuel for the Philly Team Defense pretty much assures I win my fantasy football game this week, so I'll make my league's championship game next week. I had the best regular-season record (10-4), best breakdown rating (beating other good teams in my league), and most points scored, so I owned the power rankings at the end of the regular season last Tuesday. But you never know how things will go from week to week, and the playoffs are single elimination, so I'm happy I'm not getting knocked out in the first round.
And hey, I might not be a FFB savant, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express!
Sunday, December 14, 2008
I Went to the Wrong School...
...or at the wrong time, methinks. I saw this fine example of truly dedicated participatory journalism (I'll bet George Plimpton was sad he didn't get a chance to do this!) on Friday, but didn't have the chance to write up a post on it until now. Sam Alipour definitely took one for the team when he volunteered for that assignment. What the Undie Run at UCLA (and check out the pic of the students getting ready for their run below) has to do with the "Worldwide Leader in Sports," or sports of any kind, I have no idea. But it is a fun click-through, so it serves its purpose.
At Ohio State, they have a tradition of jumping in Mirror Lake on the night before the Michigan football game, which is always the last game of the season, so it happens in late November. Given that the OSU students are mixing water and cold air, I think the UCLA students have the better idea. A picture of the OSU students getting ready to brave the frigid water is below.
What's funny is that I did attend Ohio State (sorry, THE Ohio State University) for one year immediately following high school. Honestly, I have no recollection of students doing their dive into Mirror Lake. Either my friends and/or sister (who was a junior while I was a freshman) didn't clue me in on the tradition, or it is more recent in nature, like the UCLA Undie Run.
Actually, the Wikipedia entry for OSU Buckeye Football says that the tradition of jumping in before the Michigan game is more recent, as of 1990.* I missed it by a single year! Aaarrrgh!!
* You have to scroll down to the section on "Buckeye Football Traditions" and look for those associated with Michigan Week.
Which is not all that different from the morphing of the UCLA tradition from a simple Midnight Scream during finals week into its current form of college-age coeds running around in their underwear. Heck, at the Big Blue Womb (AKA The Zoo, AKA the Fishbowl, AKA Sister Mary Francis' Small Colorado Technical School for Wayward Boys and Girls), we had a long-standing tradition of performing a Midnight Scream during all finals weeks. Everyone would get their loudest stereos out, blast the most obnoxious audio they could find, and scream at the top of their lungs just to let off a little steam during finals. And then we'd go into Mitchell Hall for "scooby snacks", which were a complete lifesaver during finals!!!
I kinda doubt that cadets at USAFA morphed their Midnight Scream tradition into something more risque, mostly because it does get cold in Colorado in December. Oh, and there's a grand total of, what? About 12% of the entire student body is female? And many of the women who are there, you probably don't want to see in their undies. Which is completely unfair to those women, but true nonetheless.
So, any kind of underwear run or jump in the reflecting pool found in the Air Gardens (pic below) would be a total sausage fest, and not many guys at the Zoo will go for that. I'd be surprised to hear any different.
At Ohio State, they have a tradition of jumping in Mirror Lake on the night before the Michigan football game, which is always the last game of the season, so it happens in late November. Given that the OSU students are mixing water and cold air, I think the UCLA students have the better idea. A picture of the OSU students getting ready to brave the frigid water is below.
What's funny is that I did attend Ohio State (sorry, THE Ohio State University) for one year immediately following high school. Honestly, I have no recollection of students doing their dive into Mirror Lake. Either my friends and/or sister (who was a junior while I was a freshman) didn't clue me in on the tradition, or it is more recent in nature, like the UCLA Undie Run.
Actually, the Wikipedia entry for OSU Buckeye Football says that the tradition of jumping in before the Michigan game is more recent, as of 1990.* I missed it by a single year! Aaarrrgh!!
* You have to scroll down to the section on "Buckeye Football Traditions" and look for those associated with Michigan Week.
Which is not all that different from the morphing of the UCLA tradition from a simple Midnight Scream during finals week into its current form of college-age coeds running around in their underwear. Heck, at the Big Blue Womb (AKA The Zoo, AKA the Fishbowl, AKA Sister Mary Francis' Small Colorado Technical School for Wayward Boys and Girls), we had a long-standing tradition of performing a Midnight Scream during all finals weeks. Everyone would get their loudest stereos out, blast the most obnoxious audio they could find, and scream at the top of their lungs just to let off a little steam during finals. And then we'd go into Mitchell Hall for "scooby snacks", which were a complete lifesaver during finals!!!
I kinda doubt that cadets at USAFA morphed their Midnight Scream tradition into something more risque, mostly because it does get cold in Colorado in December. Oh, and there's a grand total of, what? About 12% of the entire student body is female? And many of the women who are there, you probably don't want to see in their undies. Which is completely unfair to those women, but true nonetheless.
So, any kind of underwear run or jump in the reflecting pool found in the Air Gardens (pic below) would be a total sausage fest, and not many guys at the Zoo will go for that. I'd be surprised to hear any different.
Friday, December 12, 2008
When is Enough Work Enough?
I don't normally want to delve into more personal issues here, for obvious privacy concerns. However, my life lately has been something of a wreck, work-life balance-wise, and if this forum allows me to vent a bit, so be it.
From my previous post on the myth of work-life balance, readers can guess where I stand on how important work is. If you actually have a job you love, then I suppose the long hours you devote to it don't seem like work to you. For the rest of us, work is merely something we do so we can get paid, so we can feed our family, so we can have clothes on our back, and so we can have a roof over our heads. In that situation, the fewer hours we spend at work, the better.
And yet, in today's day and age of high speed Internet at home, mobile computing devices like BlackBerries and iPhones, and telecommuting for regular office hours, employer expectations have changed to the point that employees are expected to be accessible and ready for work practically 24/7. Many employers will schedule away meetings on a Monday, so that the inevitable travel hours don't take the employee away during the regular work week. The same is true of an increasing number of industry conferences, which are scheduled for weekends just so the attendess do not miss regular work days. Is compensatory time off ever given to these employees? Not on your life!
Some offices, perhaps, are still good about enforcing the standard 8-5 office hours regimen, and if an employee is hourly, then of course they get monitored closely to make sure they cannot charge overtime, barring an emergency at work. But being a salaried, non-union employee in middle management means I'm expected to work my tail off much more than regular line employees. I'm getting paid more than they are, so in general terms, I'm OK with that. To a point.
Where things crossed the line for me was when I found out my mother had cancer about a month ago. Given my natural state of worrying about things I can't control, that was a doozy for me. But I did the British stiff upper lip thing, kept quiet about my own personal concerns, and continued working my tail off at work. I put on the group calendar my request for personal time off for this week, so I could be there for my Mom when she went in for surgery to remove the cancer.
Prior to this week, I spent one weekend in early November driving back and forth from my home to hers in Dayton, OH, just to be there and provide some emotional support as she went through the roller coaster of emotions that is natural with a cancer diagnosis. We were also all there at Mom's house for Thanksgiving, and that was a really good time spent together with family. She was generally in good spirits, and it gave us the chance to discuss events leading up to her surgery.
In the last week or two, I reminded everyone I work with once again about my request for personal time off, and I also started telling everyone, including my direct boss, why I needed to take three days off in the middle of a week to be there in Dayton. People were generally supportive, and certainly I'm not the only person who has had a close loved one experience a survivorship battle with cancer. I had close friends suggest giving the book The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch, to my mother, and she really enjoyed reading such an inspirational tale. (Side note: there is also a website dedicated to The Last Lecture, as well as YouTube videos of the same. Take the time to read the book, watch the lecture, or peruse the website. You'll be happy you did!)
I give you those details so I can then give you these details, and hopefully to not sound like I'm whining.
On Monday, when I once again asserted that I was going to be out of the office for three days this week, my boss* acted like there was nothing more important than getting a report finalized for the customer along with preparing a cost build-up for future work with the same customer. Oh, and that I was the only person who could perform such tasks, and that I needed to be here to make sure they got done even if I delegated them to others. I spent over 10 hours in the office on Monday, staying as long as possible to get as much of the work-breakdown structure (WBS) tasks put together before leaving for Dayton on Tuesday.
* This is the same boss who lately has made me feel guilty for taking an hour away from the office for lunch or to go work out at the gym, all very normal stuff. Just because he feels like food is optional does not mean I can be happy going without lunch every day.
On Tuesday, after driving the four hours over to Dayton, I was inundated with phone calls demanding why the WBS was not finished yet. After seeing my mom for about an hour that evening (and leading up to surgery, I knew that was the best time to see her for the next 36 hours or so) , I then proceeded to get wrapped into a two hour conference call using my personal cell phone minutes. After that finished at 1 a.m., I then worked another four hours on the WBS spreadsheet and associated Word document in which we listed all of the assumptions we used* to build the cost estimates in the WBS.
* Which, oh by the way, we now decided we will NOT provide to the customer in a Word document, instead listing those out in a PowerPoint briefing.
Yes, that's right. I didn't get to bed until after 5 a.m., with Mom's surgery just a couple of hours away. It turns out my step-father also didn't get much sleep that night, just three hours compared to my hour and a half. But it was for very different reasons. On Wednesday morning, the two of us were walking zombies in the waiting room, but we kept each other awake and simply waited for word on how the surgery was progressing.
The good news is that the surgery went well, and they hopefully got it all out of her body. Pathology results next week will tell us whether or not the Oncologist needs to prescribe further treatment regimens of either chemo or radiation, but we're very hopeful they won't need to take that step. Mom looked very tired on Wednesday evening, but that was to be expected. On Thursday morning, she looked much more like her usual self after sleeping and having a liquid breakfast. Her OB/GYN doctor came to see Mom on Thursday, even though that is usually that doctor's day off, which was very nice of her to do. They allowed Mom to have a regular lunch that day, and even allowed her to go home on Thursday evening. All of that was wonderful news! Mom very much wanted to recuperate at home, so she got her wish.
Well, after packing up the car and getting ready to head back from Dayton yesterday, I had another phone call from my boss asking why the WBS assumptions weren't fully documented yet. Fortunately, others in the office really stepped up and did a great deal of the work this week in my absence. When I came in to the office this morning, I found that we were actually in very good shape, with just a few minor modifications needed to finalize everything. After I made those modifications, we had a teleconference with the CEO, who said everything looked good and gave his blessing to proceed with the WBS as written.
But not once did I ever get even the slightest hint of concern for my Mom's well-being from my boss. When he called me yesterday afternoon, the question was not, "How is she doing," rather, his first question was "Enjoying your vacation?!"
Please shoot me if I ever get to the point where getting the mission done trumps all other concerns of my employees. Just because the boss might be a workaholic doesn't mean all the employees have to be, as well.
It just seems that way.
From my previous post on the myth of work-life balance, readers can guess where I stand on how important work is. If you actually have a job you love, then I suppose the long hours you devote to it don't seem like work to you. For the rest of us, work is merely something we do so we can get paid, so we can feed our family, so we can have clothes on our back, and so we can have a roof over our heads. In that situation, the fewer hours we spend at work, the better.
And yet, in today's day and age of high speed Internet at home, mobile computing devices like BlackBerries and iPhones, and telecommuting for regular office hours, employer expectations have changed to the point that employees are expected to be accessible and ready for work practically 24/7. Many employers will schedule away meetings on a Monday, so that the inevitable travel hours don't take the employee away during the regular work week. The same is true of an increasing number of industry conferences, which are scheduled for weekends just so the attendess do not miss regular work days. Is compensatory time off ever given to these employees? Not on your life!
Some offices, perhaps, are still good about enforcing the standard 8-5 office hours regimen, and if an employee is hourly, then of course they get monitored closely to make sure they cannot charge overtime, barring an emergency at work. But being a salaried, non-union employee in middle management means I'm expected to work my tail off much more than regular line employees. I'm getting paid more than they are, so in general terms, I'm OK with that. To a point.
Where things crossed the line for me was when I found out my mother had cancer about a month ago. Given my natural state of worrying about things I can't control, that was a doozy for me. But I did the British stiff upper lip thing, kept quiet about my own personal concerns, and continued working my tail off at work. I put on the group calendar my request for personal time off for this week, so I could be there for my Mom when she went in for surgery to remove the cancer.
Prior to this week, I spent one weekend in early November driving back and forth from my home to hers in Dayton, OH, just to be there and provide some emotional support as she went through the roller coaster of emotions that is natural with a cancer diagnosis. We were also all there at Mom's house for Thanksgiving, and that was a really good time spent together with family. She was generally in good spirits, and it gave us the chance to discuss events leading up to her surgery.
In the last week or two, I reminded everyone I work with once again about my request for personal time off, and I also started telling everyone, including my direct boss, why I needed to take three days off in the middle of a week to be there in Dayton. People were generally supportive, and certainly I'm not the only person who has had a close loved one experience a survivorship battle with cancer. I had close friends suggest giving the book The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch, to my mother, and she really enjoyed reading such an inspirational tale. (Side note: there is also a website dedicated to The Last Lecture, as well as YouTube videos of the same. Take the time to read the book, watch the lecture, or peruse the website. You'll be happy you did!)
I give you those details so I can then give you these details, and hopefully to not sound like I'm whining.
On Monday, when I once again asserted that I was going to be out of the office for three days this week, my boss* acted like there was nothing more important than getting a report finalized for the customer along with preparing a cost build-up for future work with the same customer. Oh, and that I was the only person who could perform such tasks, and that I needed to be here to make sure they got done even if I delegated them to others. I spent over 10 hours in the office on Monday, staying as long as possible to get as much of the work-breakdown structure (WBS) tasks put together before leaving for Dayton on Tuesday.
* This is the same boss who lately has made me feel guilty for taking an hour away from the office for lunch or to go work out at the gym, all very normal stuff. Just because he feels like food is optional does not mean I can be happy going without lunch every day.
On Tuesday, after driving the four hours over to Dayton, I was inundated with phone calls demanding why the WBS was not finished yet. After seeing my mom for about an hour that evening (and leading up to surgery, I knew that was the best time to see her for the next 36 hours or so) , I then proceeded to get wrapped into a two hour conference call using my personal cell phone minutes. After that finished at 1 a.m., I then worked another four hours on the WBS spreadsheet and associated Word document in which we listed all of the assumptions we used* to build the cost estimates in the WBS.
* Which, oh by the way, we now decided we will NOT provide to the customer in a Word document, instead listing those out in a PowerPoint briefing.
Yes, that's right. I didn't get to bed until after 5 a.m., with Mom's surgery just a couple of hours away. It turns out my step-father also didn't get much sleep that night, just three hours compared to my hour and a half. But it was for very different reasons. On Wednesday morning, the two of us were walking zombies in the waiting room, but we kept each other awake and simply waited for word on how the surgery was progressing.
The good news is that the surgery went well, and they hopefully got it all out of her body. Pathology results next week will tell us whether or not the Oncologist needs to prescribe further treatment regimens of either chemo or radiation, but we're very hopeful they won't need to take that step. Mom looked very tired on Wednesday evening, but that was to be expected. On Thursday morning, she looked much more like her usual self after sleeping and having a liquid breakfast. Her OB/GYN doctor came to see Mom on Thursday, even though that is usually that doctor's day off, which was very nice of her to do. They allowed Mom to have a regular lunch that day, and even allowed her to go home on Thursday evening. All of that was wonderful news! Mom very much wanted to recuperate at home, so she got her wish.
Well, after packing up the car and getting ready to head back from Dayton yesterday, I had another phone call from my boss asking why the WBS assumptions weren't fully documented yet. Fortunately, others in the office really stepped up and did a great deal of the work this week in my absence. When I came in to the office this morning, I found that we were actually in very good shape, with just a few minor modifications needed to finalize everything. After I made those modifications, we had a teleconference with the CEO, who said everything looked good and gave his blessing to proceed with the WBS as written.
But not once did I ever get even the slightest hint of concern for my Mom's well-being from my boss. When he called me yesterday afternoon, the question was not, "How is she doing," rather, his first question was "Enjoying your vacation?!"
Please shoot me if I ever get to the point where getting the mission done trumps all other concerns of my employees. Just because the boss might be a workaholic doesn't mean all the employees have to be, as well.
It just seems that way.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Back to What's Wrong With the BCS
Blow up the BCS already!!!
I'm getting really tired of bad bowl game matchups, tired of blowouts in big games, and really tired of not letting the players decide on the field of play who really is the best team in the "Football Bowl Subdivision" (what everyone still knows as Division I-A college football).
In case you're curious, here are the official rules straight from the BCS Football website on FOX Sports on MSN (whew! Sounds like many of these multi-sponsor bowl game names!):
This year, rule #1 is fairly easy to implement. #1 Oklahoma* (Big 12 champion, 12-1 record) faces off against #2 Florida (SEC champ, 12-1). Unlike in years past, this should be a good matchup between two very deserving teams. No quibbles here. Let's look at some of the other four BCS bowl games, however.
* For clarity's sake, all rankings are pulled from the final BCS rankings as of today, 7 Dec.
Now we're down to eight spots to fill from the mix of automatic berth qualifiers and teams deserving of at-large bids. Le "Granddaddy of them all"(TM), the Rose Bowl gets #5 USC (Pac 10 champ, 11-1) against #8 Penn State (Big 10 champ, 11-1), and that has two benefits: 1) It should be an entertaining game between two very good teams; and 2) It preserves the Big 10-Pac 10 matchup everyone likes to see. At least, that is the preferred matchup since 1947.
Now just six spots remain in three other BCS bowls. Let's swing over to the Sugar Bowl first, just for giggles. Meeting at the Super Dome this year are #6 Utah (Mountain West champ, 12-0) and #4 Alabama (SEC number two, 12-1). Wait, so that means we're already burning one at-large bid for a conference number two. Given that Alabama held the number one ranking for so long, and is still ranked so highly after losing to Florida in the SEC Championship, that's probably OK. This should be a good game, although I haven't seen much of either team this year. Alabama has a strong defense, and I couldn't begin to tell you anything at all about Utah other than they are undefeated. Urban Meyer isn't still coaching there, right?
Four spots remain; who's gonna get 'em?! Again, for giggles, let's go to the Orange Bowl. For some reason, the BCS commissioners decided to award automatic BCS berths to the winners of the Big Least and ACC conferences. The ACC has some traditionally decent football schools in there, including the Florida version of Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Florida State, and Boston College. Virginia Tech rose to prominence behind Beamerball and Michael Vick, and Ralph Friedgen did some good work at Maryland, but the rest of the schools are more basketball schools like UNC, Wake Forest, NC State, and Duke. The Big Least has been something of a football wasteland ever since they lost their more powerful schools to the ACC. They had to pick up Cincinnati and Southern Florida just to keep the conference going, so we're basically talking about Pitt, Rutgers, WV, and Louisville. Syracuse is a basketball school that hasn't been good in football since Jim Brown played there. Regardless, two other automatic bids go out for this game, and it should be a real winner. #12 Cincinnati (Big East champ, 11-2) looks much better in this matchup against a #19 Virginia Tech (ACC champ, 9-4) team that played its way into the automatic BCS berth by beating a better BC squad in the ACC Championship game. Again, this game should be a real winner... NOT!
Now that we've let in two teams that finished outside the top ten in the last BCS rankings, that means two teams from the top ten have to get screwed somehow. It's simple math.
And that takes us down to the last BCS bowl game, the Fiesta Bowl. Fortunately, we didn't have to worry about Notre Dame taking up a BCS spot via rule #4, although by some miracle, they did finish 6-6 and bowl eligible this season. They're playing in the Hawaii Bowl on 24 Dec, so Merry Christmas, ND fans. We did see the successful application of rule #3, in which the MWC champ, Utah, gets to play in a BCS game. That also invokes the last paragraph of rule #3, stating that no more than one team from one of the "lesser" conferences shall obtain an automatic berth. So, now that we've satisfied all the automatic berths, we go to the at-large berths.
This year, we actually see the successful application of rule #5 (and aren't you happy all the rules are right where you can see them?!). The University of Texas ended up #3 in the final poll, and since OU won the Big 12's automatic berth (not an at-large bid), the Longhorns suddenly find themselves in an automatic berth. Confused yet? We also see the successful application of rule #6, since Alabama finished #4 in the final poll, yet Florida qualified as the automatic berthee from the SEC Conference. But wait, we did see UT qualify under rule #5. At this point, I think all bets are off, and the BCS gurus can basically pick whomever they want.
The teams we're left with are #7 Texas Tech (Big 12 number three, 11-1), #9 Boise State (Western Athletic Conference champ, 12-0), #10 Ohio State (Big 10 number two, 10-2), and #11 TCU (MWC number two, 10-2). They already allowed two Big 12 teams into the BCS club, and the rules stipulate that no more than two teams from a BCS conference can take up spots in the BCS bowls. Sorry, Texas Tech, you had a great season and even knocked off the number one team in the land at home, but you're out!
They already allowed in one "lesser" conference champion in Utah into the BCS club, so what are the odds that Boise State would get an at-large invite? Even though Boise State proved two years ago they could play with the big boys (during one of the most thrilling Fiesta Bowls ever!!!) when they shocked OU in overtime through a little razzle-dazzle, what are the odds of getting another shot at a big-time football factory like Texas? Maybe the BCS gods were a little scared that Boise State might pull off another upset against a Big 12 school on a neutral field. That just might upset the whole BCS apple cart. Shock me once, shame on you; shock me twice, shame on me...
Oh, and sorry, TCU, but no one is about to pass out an at-large BCS berth to the number two team from the MWC. It just ain't gonna happen.
So, this year's Fiesta Bowl matches #3 Texas (Big 12 number two, 11-1) against #10 Ohio State (Big 10 number two, 10-2). Yes, OSU fans do like to travel to the desert in January. Yes, Ohio State has had good success at the site of the Fiesta Bowl. Yes, OSU is a football factory competing head-to-head with the football factory from Texas. OSU and Texas even played that very memorable home-and-home series several years ago, when Vince Young parlayed an early-season victory over Ohio State into a national title run. So there are numerous reasons why the BCS gods wanted to match those two schools against one another in Tempe, AZ.
And yet, I can't help but think that Boise State got screwed. Where will they be playing their bowl game this year? The 23 December San Diego Poinsettia Bowl, and against none other than TCU. So much for finishing the year ranked in the top ten overall, ahead of Ohio State. No good deed goes unpunished. Meanwhile, many other more prestigious bowls like the Outback, Gator, Cotton, and Capitol One Bowls filled their slates with the third- and fourth-best teams from the traditional power conferences. Why not match Boise State with Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl? They were the next two highest ranked teams, and they had Texas Tech fans to pack the place even if folks from Boise decided not to fly down (which is highly unlikely).
This type of thing happens every year, and generates no small amount of controversy. I, for one, was really hoping Missouri could pull off the upset in the Big 12 Championship game. That would have meant a 10-3 Missouri team (if they had won) taking up the Big 12's automatic berth, while Texas probably would have played for the national title -- without winning their own Division, much less their own Conference! That has happened several times in the past, and it seems the Big 12 is always the culprit.
Blow up the BCS already!!!
I'm getting really tired of bad bowl game matchups, tired of blowouts in big games, and really tired of not letting the players decide on the field of play who really is the best team in the "Football Bowl Subdivision" (what everyone still knows as Division I-A college football).
In case you're curious, here are the official rules straight from the BCS Football website on FOX Sports on MSN (whew! Sounds like many of these multi-sponsor bowl game names!):
OK, so we're dealing with five bowl games pitting the top ten teams according to the last BCS rankings at the end of the season against one another, right? To borrow a line from Lee Corso, Not so fast, my friend!Bowl Championship SeriesAutomatic Qualification, At-Large Eligibility and Selection Procedures, 2007-2010 GamesAutomatic Qualification
1. The top two teams in the final BCS Standings shall play in the National Championship Game.
2. The champions of the Atlantic Coast, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and Southeastern conferences will have automatic berths in one of the participating bowls after the 2008 through 2013 regular seasons.
3. The champion of Conference USA, the Mid-American Conference, the Mountain West Conference, the Sun Belt Conference or the Western Athletic Conference will earn an automatic berth in a BCS bowl game if either:
A. Such team is ranked in the top 12 of the final BCS Standings, or,
B. Such team is ranked in the top 16 of the final BCS Standings and its ranking in the final BCS Standings is higher than that of a champion of a conference that has an annual automatic berth in one of the BCS bowls.No more than one such team from Conference USA, the Mid-American Conference, the Mountain West Conference, the Sun Belt Conference, and the Western Athletic Conference shall earn an automatic berth in any year. (Note: a second team may be eligible for at-large eligibility as noted below.) If two or more teams from those conferences satisfy the provisions for an automatic berth, then the team with the highest finish in the final BCS Standings will receive the automatic berth, and the remaining team or teams will be considered for at-large selection if it meets the criteria.
4. Notre Dame will have an automatic berth if it is in the top eight of the final BCS Standings.
5. If any of the 10 slots remain open after application of provisions 1 through 4, and an at-large team from a conference with an annual automatic berth for its champion is ranked No. 3 in the final BCS Standings, that team will become an automatic qualifier, provided that no at-large team from the same conference qualifies for the national championship game.
6. If any of the 10 slots remain open after application of provisions 1 through 5, and if no team qualifies under paragraph No. 5 and an at-large team from a conference with an annual automatic berth for its champion is ranked No. 4 in the final BCS Standings, that team will become an automatic qualifier provided that no at-large team from the same conference qualifies for the national championship game.
This year, rule #1 is fairly easy to implement. #1 Oklahoma* (Big 12 champion, 12-1 record) faces off against #2 Florida (SEC champ, 12-1). Unlike in years past, this should be a good matchup between two very deserving teams. No quibbles here. Let's look at some of the other four BCS bowl games, however.
* For clarity's sake, all rankings are pulled from the final BCS rankings as of today, 7 Dec.
Now we're down to eight spots to fill from the mix of automatic berth qualifiers and teams deserving of at-large bids. Le "Granddaddy of them all"(TM), the Rose Bowl gets #5 USC (Pac 10 champ, 11-1) against #8 Penn State (Big 10 champ, 11-1), and that has two benefits: 1) It should be an entertaining game between two very good teams; and 2) It preserves the Big 10-Pac 10 matchup everyone likes to see. At least, that is the preferred matchup since 1947.
Now just six spots remain in three other BCS bowls. Let's swing over to the Sugar Bowl first, just for giggles. Meeting at the Super Dome this year are #6 Utah (Mountain West champ, 12-0) and #4 Alabama (SEC number two, 12-1). Wait, so that means we're already burning one at-large bid for a conference number two. Given that Alabama held the number one ranking for so long, and is still ranked so highly after losing to Florida in the SEC Championship, that's probably OK. This should be a good game, although I haven't seen much of either team this year. Alabama has a strong defense, and I couldn't begin to tell you anything at all about Utah other than they are undefeated. Urban Meyer isn't still coaching there, right?
Four spots remain; who's gonna get 'em?! Again, for giggles, let's go to the Orange Bowl. For some reason, the BCS commissioners decided to award automatic BCS berths to the winners of the Big Least and ACC conferences. The ACC has some traditionally decent football schools in there, including the Florida version of Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Florida State, and Boston College. Virginia Tech rose to prominence behind Beamerball and Michael Vick, and Ralph Friedgen did some good work at Maryland, but the rest of the schools are more basketball schools like UNC, Wake Forest, NC State, and Duke. The Big Least has been something of a football wasteland ever since they lost their more powerful schools to the ACC. They had to pick up Cincinnati and Southern Florida just to keep the conference going, so we're basically talking about Pitt, Rutgers, WV, and Louisville. Syracuse is a basketball school that hasn't been good in football since Jim Brown played there. Regardless, two other automatic bids go out for this game, and it should be a real winner. #12 Cincinnati (Big East champ, 11-2) looks much better in this matchup against a #19 Virginia Tech (ACC champ, 9-4) team that played its way into the automatic BCS berth by beating a better BC squad in the ACC Championship game. Again, this game should be a real winner... NOT!
Now that we've let in two teams that finished outside the top ten in the last BCS rankings, that means two teams from the top ten have to get screwed somehow. It's simple math.
And that takes us down to the last BCS bowl game, the Fiesta Bowl. Fortunately, we didn't have to worry about Notre Dame taking up a BCS spot via rule #4, although by some miracle, they did finish 6-6 and bowl eligible this season. They're playing in the Hawaii Bowl on 24 Dec, so Merry Christmas, ND fans. We did see the successful application of rule #3, in which the MWC champ, Utah, gets to play in a BCS game. That also invokes the last paragraph of rule #3, stating that no more than one team from one of the "lesser" conferences shall obtain an automatic berth. So, now that we've satisfied all the automatic berths, we go to the at-large berths.
This year, we actually see the successful application of rule #5 (and aren't you happy all the rules are right where you can see them?!). The University of Texas ended up #3 in the final poll, and since OU won the Big 12's automatic berth (not an at-large bid), the Longhorns suddenly find themselves in an automatic berth. Confused yet? We also see the successful application of rule #6, since Alabama finished #4 in the final poll, yet Florida qualified as the automatic berthee from the SEC Conference. But wait, we did see UT qualify under rule #5. At this point, I think all bets are off, and the BCS gurus can basically pick whomever they want.
The teams we're left with are #7 Texas Tech (Big 12 number three, 11-1), #9 Boise State (Western Athletic Conference champ, 12-0), #10 Ohio State (Big 10 number two, 10-2), and #11 TCU (MWC number two, 10-2). They already allowed two Big 12 teams into the BCS club, and the rules stipulate that no more than two teams from a BCS conference can take up spots in the BCS bowls. Sorry, Texas Tech, you had a great season and even knocked off the number one team in the land at home, but you're out!
They already allowed in one "lesser" conference champion in Utah into the BCS club, so what are the odds that Boise State would get an at-large invite? Even though Boise State proved two years ago they could play with the big boys (during one of the most thrilling Fiesta Bowls ever!!!) when they shocked OU in overtime through a little razzle-dazzle, what are the odds of getting another shot at a big-time football factory like Texas? Maybe the BCS gods were a little scared that Boise State might pull off another upset against a Big 12 school on a neutral field. That just might upset the whole BCS apple cart. Shock me once, shame on you; shock me twice, shame on me...
Oh, and sorry, TCU, but no one is about to pass out an at-large BCS berth to the number two team from the MWC. It just ain't gonna happen.
So, this year's Fiesta Bowl matches #3 Texas (Big 12 number two, 11-1) against #10 Ohio State (Big 10 number two, 10-2). Yes, OSU fans do like to travel to the desert in January. Yes, Ohio State has had good success at the site of the Fiesta Bowl. Yes, OSU is a football factory competing head-to-head with the football factory from Texas. OSU and Texas even played that very memorable home-and-home series several years ago, when Vince Young parlayed an early-season victory over Ohio State into a national title run. So there are numerous reasons why the BCS gods wanted to match those two schools against one another in Tempe, AZ.
And yet, I can't help but think that Boise State got screwed. Where will they be playing their bowl game this year? The 23 December San Diego Poinsettia Bowl, and against none other than TCU. So much for finishing the year ranked in the top ten overall, ahead of Ohio State. No good deed goes unpunished. Meanwhile, many other more prestigious bowls like the Outback, Gator, Cotton, and Capitol One Bowls filled their slates with the third- and fourth-best teams from the traditional power conferences. Why not match Boise State with Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl? They were the next two highest ranked teams, and they had Texas Tech fans to pack the place even if folks from Boise decided not to fly down (which is highly unlikely).
This type of thing happens every year, and generates no small amount of controversy. I, for one, was really hoping Missouri could pull off the upset in the Big 12 Championship game. That would have meant a 10-3 Missouri team (if they had won) taking up the Big 12's automatic berth, while Texas probably would have played for the national title -- without winning their own Division, much less their own Conference! That has happened several times in the past, and it seems the Big 12 is always the culprit.
Blow up the BCS already!!!
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Wow. What a Name!
So, I was heading in to my office yesterday when I saw the following bus parked out front of our building:
I don't have a camera phone, so I actually pulled that photo from the GoLamers website. Apparently, these guys run a very successful charter bus line in Wisconsin and Florida, and they apparently were transporting some university's volleyball team for a match against the Fighting Illini this weekend.
All I can really say is that they must have the MOST... UNFORTUNATE... SURNAME... EVER!!!
C'mon, when you have to make a claim like this:
It can't be good, am I right?
Would you really want to walk off a bus labeled "Lamers" in bright red letters on the side? And would you really want to take the Lamers 2009 tour? Get in on the thirtieth anniversary tour in 2009! In Roman numerals, that becomes the XXX-rated tour! I've never been a big fan of any guided bus tour, so perhaps I'm prejudiced.
I don't have a camera phone, so I actually pulled that photo from the GoLamers website. Apparently, these guys run a very successful charter bus line in Wisconsin and Florida, and they apparently were transporting some university's volleyball team for a match against the Fighting Illini this weekend.
All I can really say is that they must have the MOST... UNFORTUNATE... SURNAME... EVER!!!
C'mon, when you have to make a claim like this:
We at Lamers are committed to offering the newest and most meticulously maintained vehicles, as well as the most experienced and responsive staff. Traditionally, thousands of travelers rely on Lamers to make their trips a pleasure ... you can, too!
It can't be good, am I right?
Would you really want to walk off a bus labeled "Lamers" in bright red letters on the side? And would you really want to take the Lamers 2009 tour? Get in on the thirtieth anniversary tour in 2009! In Roman numerals, that becomes the XXX-rated tour! I've never been a big fan of any guided bus tour, so perhaps I'm prejudiced.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Best Blog List
I'll bet no one expected a follow-on post to my last one! It's like getting two, two, two posts in one! I would link to a Flying Circus video on the Spanish Inquisition for the first reference, and a gum ad* vid for the second, but I don't want this to go on forever.
* That was a gum ad, wasn't it? Now everybody uses that catch-phrase ("...it's two, two, two __ in one!") for other purposes.
So, after taking a hiatus from blogging (and unplugging from e-mail and the Internet in general) over the Thanksgiving break, I came back to discover that one of my oldest* friends gave me a Superior Scribbler Award. Awww, thanks! His blog is called "beyond assumptions," which I think is terrific. All too often, people stop with what they assume to be true, without examining events, situations, or press releases (or fill in your own blank) for deeper meanings. True, without mistaken assumptions, we wouldn't have Jack Tripper moments, but it was some guy who said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."
* Please note I did not say eldest.
Now, I do have a sneaking suspicion that this award was created (and very recently, too!) with the intention of giving props to little-known and obscure bloggers toiling away in anonymity. You know, people just like me. Why? Just to make me (us) feel better about the time we spend on these posts. Lord knows we're not getting paid for this.*
* There was a very funny multiple-strip segment recently drawn by Doonesbury's Gary Trudeau when his intrepid reporter of integrity, Rick Redfern, was downsized from his newspaper job. What was Rick's only alternative? Joining the ranks of the 35+ million strong blogosphere, where about 97% of the people do it for free, with no expectation of actually being paid for their words.
What is the Superior Scribbler Award, you ask? The rules are below, and they spring from the original post from "The Scholastic Scribe" on 18 Oct 08. Like I said, it's recent. Oh, and I'm #426 on the Mr. Linky List, if you're checking.
Since I'm limited to just a top five list, I've been wracking my brain for blogs that would truly fit my top five. I'd love to include my Dad's blog, but it's so far out there, I never visit it. I figure it's enough to have his blog near the top of my links list on the right side of my blog. It's a similar story with my sister's blog; I link to it, but I'm not going to list it in my top five. My brother's site is also linked, but his website is less of a blog than it is a merchandising site with bloggy characteristics on the news feed.
I also thought of all the websites I've visited in the past that would more qualify as blogs, but which I no longer visit or have been taken down. I thought Drew Curtis' FARK website was hilarious for a time, until I realized that it was just a news aggregator with snarky comments. The PhotoShop contests are way cool, but you can get in trouble with NSFW links.
During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, I regularly followed the LT Smash website. He was an Army Intel Reservist (I think!) who was supporting the troops marching on Baghdad, and his insight into OIF was very enlightening, even for those of us who are prior military. After rotating back to the U.S., he changed the blog to be Citizen Smash, and now I think that's been taken down.
I would have loved to follow Bat Girl for two reasons: 1) she had undying love for the Twins, and any baseball fan who is that dedicated and knows her stuff is worthy of admiration. 2) she regularly did baseball game scene recreations with LEGOs, which were pure genius! Alas, she took her blog down several years ago.
I never really got into "Faith and Fear in Flushing", a NY Mets blog from two guys who wrote The Daily Fix column (later converted into a blog) for the WSJ Online, mostly because I'm not a Mets fan. I always liked the name, though. It sounds like a sly reference to Hunter S. Thompson, and I'd love to know the etymology behind naming a town Flushing.
I also never got into "Deadspin", which might be heresy for sports fans who want a different opinion than what is being offered up by the MSM, which in the case of sports, means ESPN. I did see H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger tear into Will Leitch via YouTube (since I don't get HBO, so could not have seen the Bob Costas Show), and that was revelatory. That diatribe was also the source of my comment tucked away within my profile paragraph on the right side of this blog.
Having said all of that, and because it would smack too much of nepotism or paybacks to name Steve's "beyond assumptions" blog in my top five, here are my top five. Currently. They're always open to change in the next week, month, or year. Keep in mind that several of my top five are written by professionals, which again probably goes against the intent of this Superior Scribbler Award. What do I know? It's not my award idea, so I'll pass it along to whomever I feel is most worthy.
So there you have it. My top five list actually comes out closer to a top ten. It probably should be a top ten list, because then I could throw in other blogs I've visited in the past but not so much now. That would include "A Million Shades of Gray" (which I like the content, but she hardly ever updates it!), "Life Family et al" (which has been taken down, apparently), "Recovering Straight Girl" (which is kinda fun, but what does it have to do with me?), the "McCain Blogette" (which hasn't been updated since John McCain's concession speech, for obvious reasons), Mike Florio's "ProFootballTalk" Rumor Mill (which really has some of the best NFL scoops on the Internet, veracity be damned), "Because I Said So" (Dawn is the mom of Ebay Pokemon card pack fame, and has been called the "Erma Bombeck of Our Generation" -- how do you fight that? But I've had too much trouble subscribing to her feed via google reader, so I quit trying), and a group blog called "The Sports Economist" (which I still want to get on their author list, but haven't found the time to write anything worthy of their attention).
I'm not even including some of the more spurious pseudo-blogs out there, usually done more for humor's sake, like "The Cold Hard Football Facts", "The Borowitz Report", "The Sports Pickle", and "Drivl.com". Have I provided enough links to keep you busy today? Enjoy!
* That was a gum ad, wasn't it? Now everybody uses that catch-phrase ("...it's two, two, two __ in one!") for other purposes.
So, after taking a hiatus from blogging (and unplugging from e-mail and the Internet in general) over the Thanksgiving break, I came back to discover that one of my oldest* friends gave me a Superior Scribbler Award. Awww, thanks! His blog is called "beyond assumptions," which I think is terrific. All too often, people stop with what they assume to be true, without examining events, situations, or press releases (or fill in your own blank) for deeper meanings. True, without mistaken assumptions, we wouldn't have Jack Tripper moments, but it was some guy who said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."
* Please note I did not say eldest.
Now, I do have a sneaking suspicion that this award was created (and very recently, too!) with the intention of giving props to little-known and obscure bloggers toiling away in anonymity. You know, people just like me. Why? Just to make me (us) feel better about the time we spend on these posts. Lord knows we're not getting paid for this.*
* There was a very funny multiple-strip segment recently drawn by Doonesbury's Gary Trudeau when his intrepid reporter of integrity, Rick Redfern, was downsized from his newspaper job. What was Rick's only alternative? Joining the ranks of the 35+ million strong blogosphere, where about 97% of the people do it for free, with no expectation of actually being paid for their words.
What is the Superior Scribbler Award, you ask? The rules are below, and they spring from the original post from "The Scholastic Scribe" on 18 Oct 08. Like I said, it's recent. Oh, and I'm #426 on the Mr. Linky List, if you're checking.
So, I'll play along and try to be nice. It can be hard to do sometimes. Once you let the cat of cynicism out of the bag, he can be hard to pop back in! Hmm... "cat of cynicism." I like that! Maybe I'll trademark it. It's already copyrighted by appearing here. Yowza! Gotta love those Internet IP rights rules.
Here are the rules as I understand them:
* Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.
* Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.
* Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to this Post, which explains The Award.
* Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we'll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!
* Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.
Since I'm limited to just a top five list, I've been wracking my brain for blogs that would truly fit my top five. I'd love to include my Dad's blog, but it's so far out there, I never visit it. I figure it's enough to have his blog near the top of my links list on the right side of my blog. It's a similar story with my sister's blog; I link to it, but I'm not going to list it in my top five. My brother's site is also linked, but his website is less of a blog than it is a merchandising site with bloggy characteristics on the news feed.
I also thought of all the websites I've visited in the past that would more qualify as blogs, but which I no longer visit or have been taken down. I thought Drew Curtis' FARK website was hilarious for a time, until I realized that it was just a news aggregator with snarky comments. The PhotoShop contests are way cool, but you can get in trouble with NSFW links.
During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, I regularly followed the LT Smash website. He was an Army Intel Reservist (I think!) who was supporting the troops marching on Baghdad, and his insight into OIF was very enlightening, even for those of us who are prior military. After rotating back to the U.S., he changed the blog to be Citizen Smash, and now I think that's been taken down.
I would have loved to follow Bat Girl for two reasons: 1) she had undying love for the Twins, and any baseball fan who is that dedicated and knows her stuff is worthy of admiration. 2) she regularly did baseball game scene recreations with LEGOs, which were pure genius! Alas, she took her blog down several years ago.
I never really got into "Faith and Fear in Flushing", a NY Mets blog from two guys who wrote The Daily Fix column (later converted into a blog) for the WSJ Online, mostly because I'm not a Mets fan. I always liked the name, though. It sounds like a sly reference to Hunter S. Thompson, and I'd love to know the etymology behind naming a town Flushing.
I also never got into "Deadspin", which might be heresy for sports fans who want a different opinion than what is being offered up by the MSM, which in the case of sports, means ESPN. I did see H.G. "Buzz" Bissinger tear into Will Leitch via YouTube (since I don't get HBO, so could not have seen the Bob Costas Show), and that was revelatory. That diatribe was also the source of my comment tucked away within my profile paragraph on the right side of this blog.
Having said all of that, and because it would smack too much of nepotism or paybacks to name Steve's "beyond assumptions" blog in my top five, here are my top five. Currently. They're always open to change in the next week, month, or year. Keep in mind that several of my top five are written by professionals, which again probably goes against the intent of this Superior Scribbler Award. What do I know? It's not my award idea, so I'll pass it along to whomever I feel is most worthy.
- Joe Posnanski is a professional sports writer currently working for the KC Star and Sports Illustrated. His wonderful blog is writing he does on the side, so he probably doesn't get paid for it any more than the rest of us do. I discovered Joe's writing because The Daily Fix kept linking to his Star columns, which were terrific. When I discovered his blog, I was hook, line, and sinker. Only then did I find out he's originally from Cleveland, OH! So he definitely makes the list. I need to pick up his book about Buck O'Neil, and can't wait for his upcoming book on the Big Red Machine circa 1975.
- The Fantasy Football Librarian is a blog I discovered when I googled for "fantasy football draft prep kits" one day. I'm happy I did! Sara mostly posts links to other FFB content like start/sit lists on other sites, but hers is a very good news aggregator for FFB-ophiles. She also is willing to answer crazy e-mails from me, so that's a plus.
- I hate to say it, but there are excellent blogs being written on a regular basis at WSJ Online. Again, I'm giving more kudos to people actually being paid to write their blogs, but gosh darn it, they do it so well! Two I'd like to highlight from the Journal are "The Juggle", which is all about highlighting topics on the struggle to find work-life balance, and "The Daily Fix", which highlights the best sportswriting on the web every week day. Sorry, I just couldn't avoid listing those two in one space. I am sad that so many of the personal finance columnists I enjoyed reading so much on a weekly basis seemed to depart the WSJ shortly after Rupert Murdoch's News Corp took over, but perhaps the timing was just coincidence. The Juggle and The Daily Fix remain solid blogs, but I do miss "Buzzwatch", which kept track of what was hot on the Internet, Internet memes, and related information age currency.
- I almost didn't want to include this one, since I am restricted to just five top blogs. Anne doesn't update her "The Agile Mind" blog very often, but when she does, it's great stuff, especially because it is often relevant for my work in the Federal Government technology arena. I could have listed several others in this space that are also relevant to my work, such as GovExec's NextGov "Tech Insider" blog, or "The Danger Room" from WIRED magazine. Wait, have I busted the top five limit? Sue me.
- OK, last one. I just discovered this blog, so perhaps it is too early to be listing Jonathan Turley as a top five favorite. However, I used to check out the WSJ Online's Law Blog for many of the same reasons why I like Turley's blog. He tends to focus on crazy happenstances in legal cases, which sometimes smacks of News of the Weird. All too often, however, the cases Turley highlights are sad examples of authority figures overstepping their bounds in employment or termination decisions. Yes, I did link to that post just so I could link to the photos of the teacher's bikini pics. Seriously! Why do you think I found Turley's blog in the first place?! Sheesh!
- Exception: If you disqualify the Turley blog as too new, then I would throw in a blog written by a woman with whom I went to B-school. Eliza hadn't been writing much in times past, but now she's on the bandwagon along with the rest of us. She doesn't get many comments, so perhaps this little nod will bump up site traffic for her. One can hope!
So there you have it. My top five list actually comes out closer to a top ten. It probably should be a top ten list, because then I could throw in other blogs I've visited in the past but not so much now. That would include "A Million Shades of Gray" (which I like the content, but she hardly ever updates it!), "Life Family et al" (which has been taken down, apparently), "Recovering Straight Girl" (which is kinda fun, but what does it have to do with me?), the "McCain Blogette" (which hasn't been updated since John McCain's concession speech, for obvious reasons), Mike Florio's "ProFootballTalk" Rumor Mill (which really has some of the best NFL scoops on the Internet, veracity be damned), "Because I Said So" (Dawn is the mom of Ebay Pokemon card pack fame, and has been called the "Erma Bombeck of Our Generation" -- how do you fight that? But I've had too much trouble subscribing to her feed via google reader, so I quit trying), and a group blog called "The Sports Economist" (which I still want to get on their author list, but haven't found the time to write anything worthy of their attention).
I'm not even including some of the more spurious pseudo-blogs out there, usually done more for humor's sake, like "The Cold Hard Football Facts", "The Borowitz Report", "The Sports Pickle", and "Drivl.com". Have I provided enough links to keep you busy today? Enjoy!
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Worst Blog List
I think we can all be thankful that our 35 million+ blogs are too small to attract the attention of MSM powerhouses like MSN.com, who came up with this list of the lamest blogs. They basically ripped on lame advertising or marketing attempts (Jack in the Box, Pepsi, Wal*Mart, etc.) disguised as blogs, and I'm OK with that. MSN also ripped (pseudo-) celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Rosie O'Donnell and Paris Hilton for their blogs, and I'm OK with that, too.
The one blog I thought was unfairly singled out was Dave Walker's Dullest Blog in the World. The premise of that blog was pretty clever, I thought. If something is intentionally lame, that makes it un-lame, right? It's like if you make fun of yourself, then no one else can. Call it the Louie Anderson corollary. The one drawback is that Dave lost interest in providing further updates back in 2006, so MSN really shouldn't be picking this as one of the current lamest blogs.
I also greatly appreciated the below comic strip from Stephan Patsis, who writes and draws "Pearls Before Swine,"* one of my favorite comics these days. Don't we all feel like Pig sometimes?
* You might be familiar with the expression, which dates back to the Bible. Patsis regularly uses his comic to rip the old, staid standbys of the comics page, like Blondie, Beetle Bailey, Hagar the Horrible, and Family Circus; when Blondie did its huge anniversary/birthday party using characters from other comic strips (and the other cartoonists drew their characters as getting ready for the party in the days leading up to the event), Patsis drew Rat and Pig as the uninvited party crashers. Surely there's another expression about biting hands that feed... ah, but I digress.
The one blog I thought was unfairly singled out was Dave Walker's Dullest Blog in the World. The premise of that blog was pretty clever, I thought. If something is intentionally lame, that makes it un-lame, right? It's like if you make fun of yourself, then no one else can. Call it the Louie Anderson corollary. The one drawback is that Dave lost interest in providing further updates back in 2006, so MSN really shouldn't be picking this as one of the current lamest blogs.
I also greatly appreciated the below comic strip from Stephan Patsis, who writes and draws "Pearls Before Swine,"* one of my favorite comics these days. Don't we all feel like Pig sometimes?
* You might be familiar with the expression, which dates back to the Bible. Patsis regularly uses his comic to rip the old, staid standbys of the comics page, like Blondie, Beetle Bailey, Hagar the Horrible, and Family Circus; when Blondie did its huge anniversary/birthday party using characters from other comic strips (and the other cartoonists drew their characters as getting ready for the party in the days leading up to the event), Patsis drew Rat and Pig as the uninvited party crashers. Surely there's another expression about biting hands that feed... ah, but I digress.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Several Things Bugging Me Recently
Wow, what a great headline, no? I'll never be an editor, that's for sure! Like, totally! And can we ever get enough Valley Girl speak? I still cringe when I hear current American teens using the word "like" as a preposition, a noun, a verb, and as every fifth word in their sentences. It's cringe-worthy! Cringealicious! The Cringeinator!*
* OK, so that last one went one too far. Sue me.
Several things have been gnawing at me lately, so I thought I would combine them into a single post rather than spreading them out over several days.
The first is that I was troubled by how many people threw around the "Drinking the Kool Aid" metaphor in mid-November. I'm fully cognizant of the fact that 18 Nov 2008 was the thirty-year anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre (wait, can we call it a massacre if the Dr. Jones followers willingly drank the cyanide-laced Kool Aid?). I'm also fully aware that people have used that term to describe any groupthink, especially when it becomes rather obsessive. However, I saw people using that term in all manner of diverse methods around the time of the 30th anniversary, and it bothered me. Given that over 900 people lost their lives that day, we should be more circumspect in our words and their usage thereof. Maybe popular culture has moved on to the point where people casually disregard other human life unless it personally impacts us as individuals. Heaven forbid! I do see people joining causes to stop the exploitation and trafficking of school-age boys and girls in Third World countries, so perhaps there is still hope.
The 30th anniversary of Jonestown was, of course, followed by the news of the terrorist attack in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India. That dominated the news for the entire Thanksgiving weekend, which we sometimes have to remind ourselves is a uniquely American tradition.* When I heard the details of the attack, and that only 10 terrorists were responsible for a well-planned, well-coordinated, series of precision attacks meant to sow the greatest discord and achieve the greatest publicity world-wide, I was very troubled. Al-Qaeda, for all of its skill in training suicide bombers in organized camps pre-9/11, never had that level of sophistication in its attacks. Yes, they did an incredible job convincing 19 radical Muslims to take pilot training in advance of the 9/11 flying-airliners-as-weapons attacks, but their bombings always seemed a bit cruder than what happened in Mumbai.
* Try finding turkey, cranberry sauce, or pumpkin pie being served on 24 November outside the U.S. You might be surprised!
Now, some people might quibble with the previous paragraph. The terrorist group apparently responsible for the Mumbai attacks was officially named as Lashkar-e-Taiba, and it does have links to al-Qaeda. The group supposedly denied responsibility, which is strange for a terrorist organization; typically, they want their name associated with an attack, especially a highly successful (in their eyes) one.
What really bothered me about the attack was how coordinated it was, and how effective the ten attackers were against some top anti-terror Indian police and military units. It does show how small unit tactics and special operations-style training matters. Sadly, those tactics were used against innocent civilians this time. I fear that the effectiveness proven during this attack will be seized by other terrorists, who will undoubtedly try to copy the training and tactics. Heaven forbid, indeed!
And then I saw that lifestyle guru Deepak Chopra was making comments on CNN and other media outlets recently, blaming the U.S. for the attacks in Mumbai. (That's a WSJ link; subscription req'd) Needless to say, that bothered me! Even though the CNN interviewer interrupted Chopra and forced him to somewhat backtrack from his inflammatory remarks, there is no doubt that many people believe the same way Chopra does. Forget that the U.S. in October tried to warn the Indian government of an impending attack from the sea on Mumbai, which is found in the link from AFP provided two paragraphs above. This simplistic idea that Islamic terrorists strike against all nations simply because of U.S. foreign policies since WWII (inevitably and inexorably tied in with our support of Israel, naturally) is, well, just that: too simplistic.
Let's not forget about the Holy Crusades fought throughout the 10th-15th centuries, shall we? Let's not forget that Muslims, Jews, and then Christians have been having our little "family feud" ever since Abraham first fathered Ishmael with his hand-maiden, Hagar. Since Ishmael was the first-born, Muslims always considered that God's covenant was established with him, making theirs the one true religion. In our Old Testament Bibles, we are taught that God established his covenant with Issac, Abraham's son by his true wife, Sarah. From Judaism sprang Christianity, so we're all in this mess together, it seems.
Let me discuss one final issue bugging me recently, and I'll close. Tied up in all this mess of Presidential transition activities is the hope of many that policies enacted by the Bush 43 administration, especially the Patriot Act, will be repealed or fall by the wayside under Obama 44. I read this very strong op-ed piece from the WSJ discussing the need to move Intelligence past the 1970s. In the article, L. Gordon Crovitz focuses more on the usefulness or applicability of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, and rightfully so. He also touches on just how technology has advanced to the point of making FISA obsolete. The Mumbai attackers used Blackberries to communicate! They didn't even need to rely upon radios, which are almost always line-of-sight and short range, problems that bedevil our first responders even beyond the fact that the radios often aren't compatible between the police and fire departments. Perhaps the Indian first responders' first action should have been to shut down Internet access where the attacks took place. Maybe that will be standard operating procedure in the future.
Without giving away the farm, I can say that the Intel community has struggled for some time to remain relevant in terms of data collection. On one hand, we can collect staggering amounts of data, most of which ends up "on the floor" without ever being processed, simply because we don't have enough analysts to listen or look for what's really important. On the other hand, all Intel agencies struggle to obtain that highly relevant data from suspected terrorist groups who wisely avoid using technologies that we compromised long ago. Why is Osama bin Laden still at large? He relies more on couriers and messengers from his inner circle to distribute his edicts, and we have no way of intercepting those or of infiltrating his group.
Which led the first Bush 43 administration, dominated by the neo-conservatives, to suggest we build the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, later renamed as Terrorism Info Awareness after privacy-minded individuals raised serious objections to the DARPA-funded program. Perhaps people in America have forgotten about TIA, but the Brits have not. Recently, my wife and I watched the thoroughly engrossing Masterpiece Contemporary miniseries titled The Last Enemy (2008) on our local PBS station. If you get a chance to see it, I highly recommend it. I obviously understand the makers of that miniseries overly dramatized the reach and capabilities of the Intel agencies in Britain in order to make their point about TIA-style information mining programs run amok. It's the same whenever Hollywood puts out a movie with the National Security Agency (NSA, or "No Such Agency") as the bad guys (think Enemy of the State (1998) with Gene Hackman and Will Smith).
But as Crovitz said very eloquently, we do need to balance the need to discover terrorists with the right to privacy expected by average U.S. citizens. Which gets into all its own arguments pro and con, and this could go on ad infinitum. I've gotta cut it off here. Whew! That's what's been on my mind recently.
* OK, so that last one went one too far. Sue me.
Several things have been gnawing at me lately, so I thought I would combine them into a single post rather than spreading them out over several days.
The first is that I was troubled by how many people threw around the "Drinking the Kool Aid" metaphor in mid-November. I'm fully cognizant of the fact that 18 Nov 2008 was the thirty-year anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre (wait, can we call it a massacre if the Dr. Jones followers willingly drank the cyanide-laced Kool Aid?). I'm also fully aware that people have used that term to describe any groupthink, especially when it becomes rather obsessive. However, I saw people using that term in all manner of diverse methods around the time of the 30th anniversary, and it bothered me. Given that over 900 people lost their lives that day, we should be more circumspect in our words and their usage thereof. Maybe popular culture has moved on to the point where people casually disregard other human life unless it personally impacts us as individuals. Heaven forbid! I do see people joining causes to stop the exploitation and trafficking of school-age boys and girls in Third World countries, so perhaps there is still hope.
The 30th anniversary of Jonestown was, of course, followed by the news of the terrorist attack in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India. That dominated the news for the entire Thanksgiving weekend, which we sometimes have to remind ourselves is a uniquely American tradition.* When I heard the details of the attack, and that only 10 terrorists were responsible for a well-planned, well-coordinated, series of precision attacks meant to sow the greatest discord and achieve the greatest publicity world-wide, I was very troubled. Al-Qaeda, for all of its skill in training suicide bombers in organized camps pre-9/11, never had that level of sophistication in its attacks. Yes, they did an incredible job convincing 19 radical Muslims to take pilot training in advance of the 9/11 flying-airliners-as-weapons attacks, but their bombings always seemed a bit cruder than what happened in Mumbai.
* Try finding turkey, cranberry sauce, or pumpkin pie being served on 24 November outside the U.S. You might be surprised!
Now, some people might quibble with the previous paragraph. The terrorist group apparently responsible for the Mumbai attacks was officially named as Lashkar-e-Taiba, and it does have links to al-Qaeda. The group supposedly denied responsibility, which is strange for a terrorist organization; typically, they want their name associated with an attack, especially a highly successful (in their eyes) one.
What really bothered me about the attack was how coordinated it was, and how effective the ten attackers were against some top anti-terror Indian police and military units. It does show how small unit tactics and special operations-style training matters. Sadly, those tactics were used against innocent civilians this time. I fear that the effectiveness proven during this attack will be seized by other terrorists, who will undoubtedly try to copy the training and tactics. Heaven forbid, indeed!
And then I saw that lifestyle guru Deepak Chopra was making comments on CNN and other media outlets recently, blaming the U.S. for the attacks in Mumbai. (That's a WSJ link; subscription req'd) Needless to say, that bothered me! Even though the CNN interviewer interrupted Chopra and forced him to somewhat backtrack from his inflammatory remarks, there is no doubt that many people believe the same way Chopra does. Forget that the U.S. in October tried to warn the Indian government of an impending attack from the sea on Mumbai, which is found in the link from AFP provided two paragraphs above. This simplistic idea that Islamic terrorists strike against all nations simply because of U.S. foreign policies since WWII (inevitably and inexorably tied in with our support of Israel, naturally) is, well, just that: too simplistic.
Let's not forget about the Holy Crusades fought throughout the 10th-15th centuries, shall we? Let's not forget that Muslims, Jews, and then Christians have been having our little "family feud" ever since Abraham first fathered Ishmael with his hand-maiden, Hagar. Since Ishmael was the first-born, Muslims always considered that God's covenant was established with him, making theirs the one true religion. In our Old Testament Bibles, we are taught that God established his covenant with Issac, Abraham's son by his true wife, Sarah. From Judaism sprang Christianity, so we're all in this mess together, it seems.
Let me discuss one final issue bugging me recently, and I'll close. Tied up in all this mess of Presidential transition activities is the hope of many that policies enacted by the Bush 43 administration, especially the Patriot Act, will be repealed or fall by the wayside under Obama 44. I read this very strong op-ed piece from the WSJ discussing the need to move Intelligence past the 1970s. In the article, L. Gordon Crovitz focuses more on the usefulness or applicability of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, and rightfully so. He also touches on just how technology has advanced to the point of making FISA obsolete. The Mumbai attackers used Blackberries to communicate! They didn't even need to rely upon radios, which are almost always line-of-sight and short range, problems that bedevil our first responders even beyond the fact that the radios often aren't compatible between the police and fire departments. Perhaps the Indian first responders' first action should have been to shut down Internet access where the attacks took place. Maybe that will be standard operating procedure in the future.
Without giving away the farm, I can say that the Intel community has struggled for some time to remain relevant in terms of data collection. On one hand, we can collect staggering amounts of data, most of which ends up "on the floor" without ever being processed, simply because we don't have enough analysts to listen or look for what's really important. On the other hand, all Intel agencies struggle to obtain that highly relevant data from suspected terrorist groups who wisely avoid using technologies that we compromised long ago. Why is Osama bin Laden still at large? He relies more on couriers and messengers from his inner circle to distribute his edicts, and we have no way of intercepting those or of infiltrating his group.
Which led the first Bush 43 administration, dominated by the neo-conservatives, to suggest we build the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, later renamed as Terrorism Info Awareness after privacy-minded individuals raised serious objections to the DARPA-funded program. Perhaps people in America have forgotten about TIA, but the Brits have not. Recently, my wife and I watched the thoroughly engrossing Masterpiece Contemporary miniseries titled The Last Enemy (2008) on our local PBS station. If you get a chance to see it, I highly recommend it. I obviously understand the makers of that miniseries overly dramatized the reach and capabilities of the Intel agencies in Britain in order to make their point about TIA-style information mining programs run amok. It's the same whenever Hollywood puts out a movie with the National Security Agency (NSA, or "No Such Agency") as the bad guys (think Enemy of the State (1998) with Gene Hackman and Will Smith).
But as Crovitz said very eloquently, we do need to balance the need to discover terrorists with the right to privacy expected by average U.S. citizens. Which gets into all its own arguments pro and con, and this could go on ad infinitum. I've gotta cut it off here. Whew! That's what's been on my mind recently.
Having a Tyler Durden Moment
Is this subversive? Is it appropriate? Is it art, as my dad would say?
What if it accurately captures how we feel? What do we say to that? And I'm thinking I really have to read the book by Chuck Palahniuk.
I always liked the name Chuck. My grandfather was a Charlie, and my sister used that name for her oldest boy. But I always liked when people changed it to Chuck, a la Peppermint Patty. Maybe I would feel differently if it were my name.
What if it accurately captures how we feel? What do we say to that? And I'm thinking I really have to read the book by Chuck Palahniuk.
I always liked the name Chuck. My grandfather was a Charlie, and my sister used that name for her oldest boy. But I always liked when people changed it to Chuck, a la Peppermint Patty. Maybe I would feel differently if it were my name.
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