Crossroads

OK, well I think it's high time that I stopped pretending that I haven't let this blog fall into a condition that resembles your average 1977 Ford Pinto.

A big part of it is that I became accustomed to blogging during work, and now a good part of my workday is now filled with, shockingly enough, work. The other problem is that I have become much more apolitical over the last year. That is partially due to the fact that it's just hard to get excited when the party in power either does nothing or waters down the few good ideas they do have till they're effectively nothing while you disagree with pretty much everything that the other party wants to do. And after working and spending time with Christy and Anabelle, in the few hours of truly free time I do have generally the last thing I feel like doing is getting myself riled up about something I have very very little control over. I still try to keep myself informed, but I just don't have the motivation that I did. I prefer the escapism of sports, movies, books, and video games.

All of which has left me pondering the question "if I'm not going to write opinion pieces, what am I going to write about?" My wife's blog does a fantastic job of capturing our family life, and I don't really see a lot of value in writing about every trivial non-event that happens to me in an average week (one of the main reasons I'm still not on Facebook). I contemplated just throwing in the towel and calling it a day and letting the fat lady sing and all sorts of other cliches too. I may very well end up doing that, but I decided I'd try something else first.

One of the main reasons I started this back in 2006 was that writing was always something I enjoyed, but it saddened me that I just hadn't done a whole lot of it since high school. I look back and I'm a bit amazed at myself that I wrote 3 screenplays before I was 19. None of them were what I'd call good but still, that's 3 more than most people and 3 more than I've done since. In fact, I've started on about half a dozen screenplays or books since then only to put them aside and never pick them up again. I had thought that by starting to write again here that it would give me some momentum in that arena as well. In fact it has had the opposite effect; for the most part I've gotten my writing "fix" here and haven't felt compelled to do anymore outside of this.

So now I've decided that it's time to align the projects. The closest I've come to completing one of my major undertakings was a story I came up with about 4 years ago that was somewhat inspired by watching Superman 2. I have written about 40 pages of it and actually had a pretty good outline of where I wanted to go with it. Then about a year ago I had a soul-crushing experience where I was lying in bed one night watching TV and saw a trailer for Megamind. My story is a bit different but the set-up is the same - it's about what would happen if the supervillain actually beat the hero and took over the world. On the one hand I was disheartened because one of my main motivations for writing it was that it had never really been done and now it has. On the other hand it was at least a little gratifying to see some other people thought that an idea I had come up with was a good idea too.

In any case, I've decided that I want to finish this story if for no other reason than to just complete a writing project for the first time in 12 years. And even though the set-up is largely the same I think it's sufficiently different from Megamind that it can stand on its own. So here's what I'm going to do; starting next week I'm going to use this blog to publish weekly installments so that hopefully within 6 months I'll have the whole thing finished and out there. I'm hopeful that having some kind of weekly "deadline" will give me the motivation I need to finally finish this.

I'm hopeful that some of you will still continue to follow me in my repurposed blog, as above all I want to improve my writing and it would be invaluable for me to hear about what you like and don't so I can help figure out what's working, what isn't, and what I need to work on. But I certainly understand if reading amateur short fiction is not something you have much interest in, and let's face it I'm doing this mainly for me anyway.

So that's where we are. Wish me luck and I'll post the first installment sometime next week.

Tis The Season

For sure the most depressing thing about the holiday season ending every year is the fact that, if you live in Chicago, you can look forward to at least two more months of frigid weather and grey days. But for me and my peers there is another beast waiting to pounce just after the New Year: tax season. Fortunately, I don't have one of those jobs where you basically live at the office from Jan to April. I do, however, get to be the guy that is in charge providing all our internal documentation to those individuals who do live at the office for those 4 months. In addition, since I've become a CPA I have become the one-stop shop for tax advice and/or preparation for many of my friends and family. I'm happy to help out and even happier when I get some paying work thrown in, but it does make for a pretty hectic couple of months. This year, in addition to our own personal taxes (which were more complicated than usual due to us having rental income and expenses for the first time) I also got to do personal taxes for two uncles, my uncle's business, my friend's partnership, and another friend's corporation. Today at lunch I mailed the last envelopes off to the IRS so as of now I can officially stop thinking about the IRS. That is, of course, until one of you pop up in the comments with "I have a question about my taxes . . ."

So even though it's not exactly current anymore I do feel compelled to make a comment or two about the Oscars. As promised by me last year, I watched exactly 4.7 seconds of the Oscars (the time it took for me to get up off my couch and walk to the PS3 to put Mass Effect 2 in). As I played my PS3 I had the laptop open and automatically refreshing the winner lists; I'd periodically announce the winners to Christy. Now that's the way to watch the Oscars. Judging by some of the stories I saw the next day, I missed even less than usual. The very idea of trying to make the Oscars "hip" is pretty comical. It's like going off camping in the middle of the woods and then complaining that there isn't a good day spa in the area. Certain things just don't go together.

As for the winners themselves, overall I think the decisions were decent. My biggest gripe is probably in the Best Supporting Actress category. I was pretty astonished when I first heard that Melissa Leo was nominated. I didn't have anything against her performance; there just wasn't anything there that stood out to me. Hailee Steinfeld, on the other hand, definitely stood out to me (even though I still contend that her role was a leading and not supporting one). The Academy tends to penalize you for being young though, so it didn't surprise me that she didn't win.

Next week brings my favorite sports event of the year - the first 2 rounds of the NCAA tournament! The whole tournament is great, but it's the first weekend that's really something special. 48 games in 4 days and for the first time every single one will be televised this year. Could there be a better reason to sit on the couch and not move for 96 hours?

#s 1-5

5. Winter’s Bone - This is why, despite all my complaining about the pageantry and self-importance of the Oscars, I’m still glad that they exist. Here’s a little known film that I had heard of but probably wouldn’t have gotten around to seeing if it hadn’t been for this. It’s a fact that year in and year out it’s easier to get nominated in the Best Actress category than the Best Actor, there’s just a dearth of good female leading roles that there’s a lot less competition. Well here’s one of the few very good ones, and Jennifer Lawrence nails it playing a 17-year-old that’s forced to deal with things no 17-year-old should have to. An excellent portrayal of poor, rural America, the things people have been forced to do, and the culture it has spawned.

4. True Grit – For better or worse I’ve never seen the original and thus can’t do a comparison. Here’s another really good female role that’s once again nailed by a young actress – Hailee Steinfeld. She gets a Supporting instead of Leading Actress nomination because, um, well I guess the studio decided she had a better chance of winning that. I don’t really understand how the individual with the most screen time in the movie is somehow a supporting role but there you have it. The comment I made earlier about Pixar could be said about Jeff Bridges as well. He always brings it and, Tron Legacy notwithstanding, as a rule he’s simply not in bad films. Like The Fighter, original concept is not this film’s strong point (it’s your pretty basic Western revenge tale) but is proof again that if you take a cliché and inhabit it with a good script and strong performances you can still end up with a memorable tale.

3. Inception – Let’s get this out of the way. Any film with a blatantly open ending is guaranteed to piss some people off. And the criticisms about the film making less than perfect sense and being overly complicated are fair. But I also think they miss the point. The way this film is meant to be seen is with a dream mindset, by which I mean that basically you’re Ellen Page’s character and it’s your dream. When you dream, each dream has its own logic and you don’t question it at the time. It’s only later when you think back and say “wait, that didn’t make any sense.” So it is here. This is a film to be experienced, not analyzed to death for every logical thread. No, that doesn’t mean that I give carte blanc to every film to make no sense because they can just say “it makes its own kind of sense.” This is a special case because of its subject matter, but to elaborate further would get into spoiler territory, and I don’t want to go there. Of all the films on this list, this is the one I had the most fun with and is probably the one that will have the most repeat viewings (well, technically it will probably be Toy Story 3 but they won’t all be voluntary). The last third of the film may be a bridge too far so to speak and is what keeps it from taking the number 1 spot. Finally, a quick word about the ending. Often, an open-ended conclusion is viewed as laziness on the part of the author. And speaking as an author of a screenplay who did choose to end it openly precisely because I couldn’t think of a good way to end it, I can say that it’s sometimes justified. But that is not the case here. This film ends in the best possible way. To end it any other way would have directly contradicted one of the main themes of the film.

2. The King’s Speech – This is the kind of movie people “expect” to see nominated for Best Picture. A period piece about the British royalty with lots of costumes and accents. But anyone who just dismisses it as that is missing out. This is a very accessible movie and one that anyone with even a passing fear of public speaking can relate to. Yes it’s true that the monarchy doesn’t have any actual power and didn’t then, but I wouldn’t suggest that it means what the king does or says doesn’t matter. The British monarchy is the one part of their government that remains constant. Prime ministers come and go as different parties come to and then leave power. That stability makes it a powerful symbol of the British Empire, particularly back then when Empire was really still the operative word. In fact, I think it’s precisely because the king has no actual authority that the speech carried so much importance. Figuratively, if you only have a pen and no sword, the pen becomes all important. I can only imagine the kind of fear that was being felt in England as Hitler marched across Europe. And I also can only imagine what the effect of a king seemingly shaking in his boots would have had on the morale of the nation. Would it have meant a different end to the war? That’s probably going a bit too far, but you never know. In any case, this film does a great job of setting up this story and then giving great performances to bring it home. Geoffrey Rush, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a performance of him that I didn’t enjoy immensely (whether or not the film he was in was any good or not). I think the best way to describe him is that he’s just eminently watchable. And Colin Firth, you really can’t say enough good things about the job he does here. Fleshing out a character in three dimensions whose precise problem is his inability to communicate has got to be the ultimate challenge for an actor and he not only pulls it off but makes it look effortless as well.

1. The Social Network - Another one that I’ve talked about previously on here so I’ll keep this one brief. Ebert often says how good a film is doesn’t depend on what it’s about but how it’s about it. That’s certainly applicable here. I could really care less about Facebook, so please believe me when I say that whatever your opinion of it is will have no bearing on whether or not you like this film. What this movie is really about is what happens when some very smart but inexperienced people have a good idea and try to turn it into the next BIG idea. And from that springboard an extraordinarily engaging story unfolds. Jesse Eisenberg does just a phenomenal job walking a real tightrope of a character. You’ve got a guy that’s brilliant but extraordinarily arrogant and the trick is to take both of these naturally alienating qualities and still create a character that the audience likes. And the way that Fincher chooses to tell this tale is pitch perfect. It’s one thing to read about how these giant companies start up with an idea and a few friends and end up with multi-million dollar lawsuits between them, but it’s another to actually see it unfold step by step. This is simply a captivating film with some great performances (yes, even including Justin Timberlake) and perfect direction.

Ranking the Best Picture Nominees

As promised (or at least, as hoped for) here’s my order and review of the 10 films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. Keep in mind that I’m not agreeing that these are the top 10 films of the year; there’s too many that I missed for me to feel like I can make a solid list at this point. As a general point, all 10 are certainly good films and there’s none that I can categorically say have no business being nominated. However, in my opinion, this list has 3 tiers. #s 9 and 10 are clearly the weakest, #s 8 – 4 are a step ahead but are all very close in quality, and #s 1-3 are clearly in a separate class. As long as it’s one of those 3 that win the Best Picture I won’t be disappointed no matter which one it is. So without further ado, here we go with films 6-10, with 1-5 to follow in the next couple days. Don’t worry, the reviews have already been written, so I promise there won’t be a month-long wait for them.

10. 127 Hours – Guranteed to be the best film you’ll ever see about a guy who cuts his own arm off. All credit to James Franco, who gives a great performance, and to Danny Boyle, who does a terrific job of directing what had to be considered an unfilmable project. But at the end of the day, it’s a 10-minute intro, a 10-minute wrap-up, and an hour of watching a guy slowly die and hallucinate while he’s standing in one spot. Considering that, they did as good a job as can be done with that story, but there’s just a limit to how good that kind of story can be.

9. The Kids Are Alright – This was the last one of the 10 I saw, and the one I was looking forward to the least. This film can best be summed up as 105 minutes of awkward conversations. Those who enjoy psychoanalyzing every scene and bit of speech will love this film. Every line of dialog or look from one character to the other is loaded with text and subtext and it just gets exhausting after a while. In a drama, you usually try to alternate between building up and releasing tension (so you can build it up again) but here they don’t do a very good of releasing. Good performances all around, interesting subject matter, and it’s certainly never boring, but it’s also a film I never see myself watching again.

8. Black Swan – I already posted most of my thoughts in the comment section, and I don’t want to repeat myself too much. This is a very good film that I just didn’t like very much. Just as it’s hard for a lot of people to understand how I can be so into the Cubs/Bears/Illini, it’s hard for me to understand how someone could be so obsessed with ballet. The result is that I found it very difficult to connect with Natalie Portman’s character. So let me just state explicitly (to save others the trouble) that I willingly admit that’s a flaw with me and not with the film. Again, great performances; Portman is well deserving of a nomination. It’s incredible that she basically started from scratch and learned everything in 8 months. But Vincent Cassell gives a really fine performance as well. Aronofsky’s direction, as usual, is excellent as well. Somehow, though, everything together just didn’t quite work for me.

7. The Fighter – This one surprised me a bit. All I knew going in was that it was a “boxing movie” and really how excited can you be about one of those? And really that’s basically all it is, but it’s just done very very well. Christian Bale gives a phenomenal performance and despite the fact that it is an acclaimed performance I still think it’s underrated. Playing a crack addict can be challenging. Playing a boxer can be challenging. Playing a character that’s both simultaneously and pulling it off is a real accomplishment, and Bale does it perfectly. I’d recommend anyone who watches this movie to look up Dicky Ecklund on You Tube and see just how good of a job Bale did at nailing his moves and mannerisms. The actual boxing in this movie is some of the best I’ve ever seen; it really looks like you might be watching Saturday Night Boxing on HBO. None of the Raging Bull dinosaur noises and slo-mo and none of the “what’s blocking?” you see in the Rocky films. And Wahlberg looks like he belongs in the ring and does his best work in the fights, so credit to him as well, even though outside of the ring most of the time he’s just kind of there. But I’ll also be honest; put Amy Adams in as little clothing as she’s wearing in this film and you’ve already got me.

6. Toy Story 3 – A bit ironic that what is arguably the weakest entry in the series is the only one to be nominated for Best Picture – pretty obviously a beneficiary of the expansion from 5 to 10 films. The public has gotten so used to Pixar constantly turning out one great film after another that it’s easy to overlook how big of an accomplishment that is. And this series stands out as a shining exception to the “sequels suck” rule. When you take the series as a whole you see a lot of common themes which are explored really well. Where most animated series are happy to take advantage of the fact that you can make time stand still, the beauty of Toy Story lies in its acknowledgement of the passage of time and the changes it creates. I know that I haven’t said much about this particular film, and I don’t think I need to. It’s another Toy Story that’s as good as the other two.

Preparing for the Massive Raging Insane Storm of Mega Super Death

That's what I've taken to calling the impending blizzard (which should be arriving in the next couple hours). Trademark pending. I think that the media has just lost their creativity in naming these things. I mean if you really want to strike the fear of god into someone, you've really got to step it up a notch.

I'm ordering my "I Survived the Massive Raging Insance Storm of Mega Super Death" t-shirts now. Naturally I put it on my credit card. I figure if I do survive I'll have a nice little memento and if I don't then I won't have to worry about paying for them. Pretty clever, huh?

In all honesty, I'm not terribly concerned. I'll most likely work from home tomorrow but that's more because I have the option to and not because I expect to have to. The only thing I'm worried about is losing power, particularly because we've got an electric stove. It'll be a lot of PB&J if it does happen, though if I really get desperate I can go out to the garage and fire up the gas grill. Really happy that we invested in our snow blower; should really get tested tonight.

In other news (but potentially related if we get snowed in for a few days), Christy and I are attempting to watch all of the Best Picture nominees before the Oscars. I know that a lot of them aren't available for rent yet but that's not much of an obstacle in this day and age. In any case, right now I'm ahead of her (I've seen 6 and she's only seen 2). So far, of the 6 I've seen (The Social Network, The King's Speech, True Grit, Winter's Bone, Toy Story 3, and Inception) I think that The Social Network is the best. And this is coming from someone who has doggedly refused to join the Facebook revolution. On the other hand, I am a big fan of both Jesse Eisenberg and David Fincher. Next would probably be a tie between Inception and The King's Speech. All of them were good though. Next up will probably be Black Swan; I have the distinct feeling that will be a movie I'm either going to completely love or absolutely despise. If I'm successful in getting through all 10 of them, I'll try to post a review of each.

Anybody Else Feel Binary Today?

I felt like a computer writing out the date today: 01/11/11. Only day that will ever be more one-y will be in 10 months on 11/11/11. Yes, that's just more of the kind of hard-hitting analysis you've come to expect from this blog.

On a more serious note, I do feel compelled to say a few words about the events of this past weekend. If anyone saw The Daily Show last night, Jon Stewart was pitch-perfect. There is waaaaay too much obsession right now about whether or not the combatative political climate is the cause of this. I agree with Stewart when he says that you can't blame that anymore than you can blame Marilyn Manson for Columbine. Even worse is this petty bickering over what category this guy belongs in - crazy right-winger or crazy left-winger - because the operative word is not left or right but crazy.

When something this stupid and senseless happens, it's only natural for people to seek to explain it. That is our nature as problem-solving animals, and it's the defining characteristic that has helped us become the dominant species on this planet. But unfortunately too often in non-scientific matters (and sometimes even in those too) we attempt to ascribe our vision of the world to events rather than letting the events speak for themselves. If you believe in god, it's easy for you to see evidence of his work everywhere. If you're an atheist, it's just as easy to see evidence that there couldn't possibly be a god. In other words, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

That's perfectly understandable, but just as regrettable. What's important here is that we all agree that this lunatic did something that we as a society cannot and will not tolerate and tragically took the lives of 6 innocent people. That should be the focus here; all the rest needs to be pushed into the background.

I've previously written on here that I do not support the death penalty. I still believe that, but I will admit that it's awfully hard to defend that position in this particular case.

I'm working on another post now that unfortunately will also be pretty weighty and melancholy. Sorry for that. Like The Daily Show promised, don't worry, I'll be back to my stupidity and inanity very soon.

They Should've Done a Remake

Due to my boss and, well, about half the office being on vacation today I was able to get out at lunch and see Tron: Legacy in 3D at the IMAX at Navy Pier. My overall impression is that it was decent but not spectacular and I walked away feeling a bit underwhelmed by the whole experience. It was great to see the world of Tron fully realized now that they have the technology to do it but the story and the characters just don't measure up to the original. That left me to have to face the somewhat awkward conclusion (since I've gone on so many tirades) that they should have just remade the original Tron.

To be sure, second only to Avatar it's the both the best use of 3D and the best example of a fully rendered digital world ever created for "live action". I say live action in quotes because the line between it and animated films blurs more and more each day. But the problem is that I've grown pretty tired of the "special-effects extravaganza". To quote Idiocracy: "And there was a time in this country, a long time ago, when reading wasn't just for fags and neither was writing. People wrote books and movies, movies that had stories so you cared whose ass it was and why it was farting, and I believe that time can come again!" That sums it up pretty good. Action sequences can still be thrilling but only if you have some characters that you actually care about and whom you actually believe might be harmed. And that's just largely lacking here. I would agree that Flynn wasn't the most fully-formed character to begin with in the original film, but I would argue that's a good reason why you could have really used this movie to flesh him out. You had a character that was instantly recognizable to your fan base and yet was still largely a blank slate. What more could you ask for? But what we get instead, and I wish I were kidding here, is Kevin Flynn infused with the Dude. And I promise you that whatever you just imagined when you read that is infinitely more exciting than what shows up on screen. I'd say that the other big problem with the movie is the new character Quorra (played by Olivia Wilde). Acting-wise she does just fine and clearly she's largely there for eye-candy purposes (and in that she succeeds). But the subplot revolving around her is just not nearly interesting enough to justify the attention it takes away from the main story between Flynn and his son.

If you read Ebert's review, he closes by pretty much telling you straight out that you should see it stoned (at least as much as he can say it while still being printed in a major newspaper). I think I'd have to agree with him.

Bipartisanship: Let's Just Replace The Last Letter with a T

Thankfully, I now get to go back to one of my favorite pasttimes: bitching about politics!

This latest tax deal proves once again that the only thing worse than the two parties not working together is when they do. Allow me to set up the impasse. The Democrats (and Obama, at least until recently) were committed to letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire for all those making $250,000 per year or more and extending them for everyone else, while the Republicans wanted them extended for everyone across the board. In other words, in the name of getting the deficit under control, the Democrats' solution was additional taxation and the Republicans' solution was to cut spending. That seems about right. So what compromise did they reach (they being Obama and the GOP)? Extend all the tax cuts and in return extend unemployment benefits and lower the social security payroll tax for next year. In other words, reduce taxes and increase spending.

If you're hearing a dull thud right now, that's the sound of me banging my head against the desk (or, if you're reading this after business hours, my palm slapping my forehead). What's perhaps even more dumbfounding than this is the fact that it's Congressional Democrats who are set to rebel at this. Aren't Republicans and those associated with the Tea Party supposed to be the ones all about fiscal responsibility? This is just a horribly irresponsible deal and the kind of thing Republicans always campaign against.

I'm sorry, but this is our government at its worst. This was financial shenanigans when Reagan did it in the 80s, it was shenanigans when Bush did it in the 00s, and it's shenanigans now. I've often been accused of being a fence-straddler when I say that I want a balanced budget and I don't really care if it comes via increased taxation or cutting spending. But this is why I say that! I can't afford to be picky with my ideology; I just want someone who can do math! You don't want to raise taxes? Fine, then you need to cut spending. Don't want to cut spending? Fine, then you have to raise taxes. It isn't quite, but it's damn close to a zero sum game. The cut to Social Security payroll tax is just the coup de grace. Hey look! We've got a program that's on pace to go bankrupt in 25 years. Let's cut the amount of money we pay into it! (THUD) (THUD) (THUD)

If you supported the Replublicans or the Tea Party last month, you should be furious right now. This is exactly the type of short-sightedness that let the deficit get to this point. But the truth is that the real agenda of the Republicans is simply low taxes at any cost, with lip service paid to the idea of a balanced budget via vague promises of budget cuts that never materialize. To be sure, the Democrats are no better but at least they haven't campaigned on it incessantly for the last 30 years.

Deja Vu

Well the last thing that I expected or wanted to do was post back to back posthumous tributes, but I can't let the great Ron Santo's passing go by without mention.

He retired in 1974, so obviously I'm too young to have seen him play and I've only seen the odd highlight film of his playing career. I remember knowing who he was when I was growing up a Cubs fan in the 80s but it wasn't till college that I really became a big Ron Santo fan.

The first couple years in college, the cable down in Champaign wasn't very good and as a result we only got the Cubs games that were on WGN. In addition to that, Christy was in school at Northern and that meant a lot of weekend road trips. So the end result was a lot of listening to Cubs games on the radio, and it was then that I really came to know the tandem of Pat Hughes and Ron Santo.

Now let's not mince words here. Ron, from a purely broadcasting standpoint, was terrible. He made absolutely no pretense at showing even the slightest hint of impartiality, he often forgot to either mute his mic when he was doing something noisy like clearing his throat or opening a bag of chips (yes, he ate while broadcasting), or would forget to unmute his mic on the few occasions when he remembered to mute it. And whenever anything exciting happened you'd have to wait a good 5 seconds to actually find out what happened because the first few seconds of air were always filled with Ron drowning out the play by play call with either a thunderous "Oh Yeah!" or an absolutely agonizing "Geez!" You always knew right away if something good or bad had happened, you just didn't know exactly what for a while.

But despite the fact that he certainly wasn't in line for any broadcasting awards, myself and most other Cubs fans loved listening to him. Because no matter how big of a Cub fan you were, no matter how much you lived and died with every pitch, Ron had you beat. Nobody was more excited when they won and nobody took it harder when they lost. So much so that it got to the point where whenever you listened to the Cubs blow another game in excruciating fashion, your own personal angst over the loss took a back seat to a desire to want to console Ron. You always knew that as hard as you could ever take a loss, he was taking it harder. And then you'd tune in the next day, and no matter if they were 20 games above or 20 games below .500 he'd be right back with as much optimism as he'd ever had and you almost had no choice but to get over yesterday's loss too. He wasn't Ron, the ultimate broadcaster, he was Ron, the ultimate Cub fan. And we loved him for it.

One of my favorite segments from the last couple years was the "daily pitching matchup breakdown with Ron Santo." Here's the hard-hitting analysis you could expect. No matter how bad a Cubs pitcher had performed recently, Ron had a feeling that today was the day he was gonna turn things around. And no matter how good the opposing pitcher was or how much he had dominated the Cubs in the past, Ron had a feeling that today was going to be the day that we were going to get to him. He wasn't Ron, the ultimate analyst, he was Ron, the ultimate optimist. And we loved him for it.

Honestly I don't know what he did during the off-season. I think he probably just sat around and simultaneously thrilled his fans and annoyed his family by relentlessly talking about what moves the Cubs had made or were going to make and how they were going to look next season. For Ron Santo, baseball wasn't his job, it was his life. And we loved him for it.

There's one story that does a great job of epitomizing him. Most people know part of it. It's the famous Brant Brown call. Late in September of 1998, with the Cubs tied for the wild card lead, they are playing the Brewers and it's the bottom of the ninth. The Cubs are leading by 2 runs with the bases loaded and 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth. Geoff Jenkins hits a completely routine fly ball to Brant Brown in left field, and he inexplicably just drops it. 3 runs score and the Cubs lose. As per usual, Ronnie talks right over Pat's call and just screams "OHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOO!" with such raw shock and anguish that you'd think someone had been murdered right before his eyes. Here's Pat Hughes describing the aftermath:

"After the inning ended I looked over and Ronnie had his forehead on the desk and wasn't moving. I thought he had died right there, so I poked him with my fingers to see if he was alive and he finally moved. After the game we were in the manager's office and I saw something that has never happened in American sports. The manager of the cubs, Jim Riggleman, put his arm around Ronnie and was trying to console him about the loss, Riggleman saying, don't worry, Ronnie, we're going to Houston and we're going to win and make the playoffs, and Ronnie just kept saying, 'how could he drop that ball?"

And what does Ron do next? He goes down to the clubhouse, gives Brant Brown a hug and tells him not to worry, that it's ok, and that he's made mistakes before and he knows how he feels. And the Cubs, despite getting swept in Houston, did end up making the playoffs that year, and no one was happier about it than Ron Santo (well, except maybe Brant Brown). We won't talk about what happened in the playoffs that year (or any year since 1908 for that matter).

I've always said that for whatever stupid reason, there was a group of miserable SOBs in the Hall that were going to make sure that he never got into the Hall of Fame while he was alive and that as soon as he passed away he'd get in for sure. I still think that's the case, and it makes me mad. Everyone that voted against him while he was alive and still does so now, that's fine. I disagree with them, but that's their right. But although I'm not a violent man, I'd like to go up to every guy who voted against him and changes their vote now and punch them in the face. His baseball numbers haven't changed in 36 years, so that means you weren't keeping him out because of what he did on the field. You were keeping him out because for whatever reason you disliked him and wanted to make sure that in his lifetime he never got to experience the one thing that would have meant the most to him. That is mean-spirited and despicable in a way that there's barely words for, and it makes you a horrible human being.

But at least he was around last year as the Cubs honored him on the 50th anniversary of his major league debut. And at least he lived to see his number retired and sent up the left field flagpole to a well deserved standing ovation at Wrigley in 2003. The next time I'm at Wrigley I look forward to raising a glass towards that flag and drinking a toast to the man that was the face of Cubs baseball for the last 50 years.

And so for the 2nd time in a week I have to say goodbye to someone who brought a lot of joy to my life. Farewell Ronnie; wherever you are, I hope there's baseball there!

I Would Have Written This Sooner, But You Weren't Dead Then

As I'm sure everyone's aware by now, Leslie Nielson passed away last weekend. I remember first looking up his age when Mr. Magoo came out in 1997 and thinking "whoa; he's 71!" so it's certainly not a shock that 13 years later he's gone. But it's still sad nonetheless.

When little 9-year-old John went to the theatres to see The Naked Gun in 1998, he instantly became one of my favorite comedic actors. When I got introduced to Airplane a couple years later and then Police Squad a couple years after that, I was even more hooked. But as big of a fan as I was and am, he's also one of the actors that disappointed me the most.

If there's one word that best describes Leslie Nielsen, I think it would be charisma. That may sound strange, and I certainly don't mean it in Hollywood sex-symbol kind of way. But he just had this way about him that made him instantly likeable the minute he appeared on screen. Even when he was doing the most absurd things, he conveyed such an innocence that you viewed it almost like you were watching a puppy do it. The act might have been bad, but you couldn't really blame him.

In any case, I think it was that quality in him that led me to be so disappointed so often. Because Leslie Nielsen has been in a lot of baaaaaad movies. Some that are just run of the mill bad but most of which are utterly and irredeemably awful (Spy Hard, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, 2001: A Space Travesty, Scary Movie 3 and 4). And because he was in them, I went into just about every one thinking, "Leslie Nielsen can save this movie." But of course he couldn't, because they were unsaveable. Besides The Naked Gun series (which get progressively worse but are all still enjoyable) and Airplane, I think the only other comedic film of his that I really enjoy (and I know I'm in the minority here) is Wrongfully Accused. But really, only Airplane and the first Naked Gun are worthy of being called great, and The Naked Gun was 22 years ago. Since then, in the back of my mind I've still been waiting for the next great Leslie Nielsen film, and even though the odds of that happening have gotten longer and longer with each passing year it's not till now that I've finally had to accept that it's now officially never going to happen.

But in a way, isn't that what every actor strives for? No matter how many laughs he gave me, he always left me wanting more. Farewell, Mr. Nielsen; thanks for all the laughs!

It has really bugged me that 90% of what I've read about him in news stories, celebrity tweets, etc are all fixated on the "Surely you can't be serious!" quote. While it's a great line, in my opinion he's got a lot that are at least as good if not better. So I'd like to invite any of my blog readers who are Leslie Nielsen fans to share some of their favorites. Here's a couple of mine (in addition to the one that inspired my blog post title):

Man: Who are you? And how did you get in here?

Frank Drebin: I'm a locksmith, and I'm a locksmith.

Frank Drebin: I'm single! I love being single! I haven't had this much sex since I was a Boy Scout Leader!

(Music stops; people stare)

Frank: I mean at the time I was dating a lot.

Finally, I was only recently introduced to the non-comedic acting of Leslie Nielsen in The Forbidden Planet. That movie is just lots of fun; everything a hokey, B sci-fi movie from the 50s is supposed to be. Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys that kind of thing or has ever wondered what the hell they were talking about in "Science Fiction Double Feature" from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

There Are Some Things For Which There Are No Explanations

Are you people punishing me with no comments or have I truly lost what extremely small readership I had? Am I just talking to my wife now? If that's the case, how's it going dear? What's for dinner tonight?

So god help me but I watched the Karate Kid remake this past Saturday. I woke up at 8 on Saturday morning and couldn't get back to sleep 'cause my back was hurting me so I went downstairs and put it on (baby had stayed overnight at Grandma's). I take some solace in the fact that the time I spent watching this film was just replacing time where I should have been unconcious. Makes it seem like less of a waste that way. Anyway, I really don't know how to review this movie other than to recommend that anyone who has ever seen the original shouldn't watch it. But if you've never seen the original, then I think it's probably a halfway decent film. Basically every place where the new one strays from the original, it was better in the original. And everytime the new one copies the original, it was waaaaaaaay better in the original. Probably the single biggest problem of the new one has to do with Jaden Smith. Notice that I say "has to do with" because it's not actually anything to do with his performance that's the problem - he actually does just fine. It's the fact that he's 11 (playing a 12-year-old). All the "teens" in the original were in their early to mid 20s playing 16-year-olds. Seeing a relationship between two 16-year-olds (who are really 23 and 21) is a lot more believable and relateable than one between two 12-year-olds (who are really 11). Second, the bullying of the enemy gang just doesn't carry the weight that it did in the original. What are a gang of unarmed 11-year-olds gonna do to you? Give you a cut lip? This leads to easily the most absurd scene in the movie. In the original, Daniel is literally getting the crap kicked out of him by a bunch of thugs in scary-looking skeleton makeup and Mr. Miagi comes and saves him. It works because 1) you feel like Daniel really might be in some legit danger, 2) Mr. Miagi looks like a frail old guy that you'd never expect this from and thus 3) you believe that he is actually putting himself in danger as well. The new one tries to recreate that scene but now you have Jackie Chan taking on a group of pre-teens. That's right; Jackie f'n Chan, martial arts god, taking on 6 11-year-olds. Feel the drama! That's like asking the audience to cheer for Bruce Lee as he beats up the Partridge Family (ok maybe I would have cheered for that).

I've gone off on tirades before about Hollywood running out of ideas and resorting to remakes and reboots, so I don't want to repeat myself too much. But I think what really gets me is when they decide to do so with blatant disregard as to why the original was a success. Or they do something equally absurd like the shot for shot remake of Psycho. Um, if I wanted to watch the script and shots that Alfred Hitchcock created, why I don't I just, you know, watch the film he already made? To me it just says that studio heads are wishing they could get away with just rereleasing the original films but they know they can't so they're just trying to repackage them and call them new. "Remember the Karate Kid? Big hit for us. But Pat Morita's dead and Ralph Machio's old, so do we have an old asian and a young actor that audiences will recognize? Great, go!"

Sometimes, remakes and reboots are a good idea: Batman Begins and the new Star Trek come to mind. Both of them took very popular icons that had run out of steam and tried to take elements of what made them a success in the past while putting a new spin on them. Even if you didn't like the results you can at least appreciate that there was some effort and imagination involved. Of course, you probably need look no further than the director to tell if a remake's going to be any good or not. Those two were directed by Christopher Nolan and J.J. Abrams, two of most imaginative directors out there. The new Karate Kid, on the other hand, was brought to us by the legend-in-his-own-mind Harald Zwart, director of such monumental testaments to cinema as The Pink Panther 2 and Agent Cody Banks as well as the epic films (I am not making these up) Long Flat Balls and Long Flat Balls 2.

Another Exciting Chapter of 18th Century Fights Waged in the 21st Century!

So hot on the heels of a big blowup about whether or not you have the right to build a church wherever you want (you do) and whether or not you can burn a book or not (you can) we now get the faux controversy of whether or not you should be able to sell a book that the vast majority of people find objectionable (you do).

I'm talking, of course, about this. I struggle with how much to write about this because (much like religion) to those that agree with me there's not really anything I can say that they haven't already thought of and those who don't agree with me will not be swayed by any type of logical argument.

So I'll try to take a slightly different tack on this. All but the most extreme individuals aren't saying that the author doesn't have the right to publish this book. It seems to more come down to whether or not Amazon should be selling it. Personally, I view stores (whether online or brick and mortar) as markets, and the consumer wins when the selection is as unlimited as possible. Even though it's not what often happens, I want supply and demand to be the only things dictating the price and availability of a product. For Amazon or any other business to spend time, money, and energy in deciding what is appropriate for the consumer to purchase just hinders my ability to get a commodity at the lowest price possible. When deciding whether or not to sell something like a digital book (which carries $0 procurement and production cost) the only relevant question for Amazon to ask is "is it legal?".

So now Amazon has removed the book from their website, and I don't really know why. Those leading the boycott charge are certainly not (and weren't going to be) satisfied with just this. A lot of them have lists of other books they also want to see removed, and this "success" just eggs them on further. So in the last 24 hours they've managed to outrage the religious and moral right-wingers by selling it and now they've pissed off the left-wingers by caving and taking it down. That's kind of impressive when you think about it. I guess they are counting on the American public having an extremely short attention span. And they couldn't be more wrong about . . . SQUIRREL!

Dem You! Dem You All to Hell!

Ah, nothing like a good Planet of the Apes reference on a Wednesday morning!

Yesterday I chose not to watch most of the election night coverage. And no it wasn't sour grapes on my part (I'm actually fairly pleased about it, which I'll get to in a second). It's just that there really weren't a lot of surprises or excitement, and the few that there were (like Quinn potentially beating Brady) are still being decided now. So instead I made another attempt to get through the 4-plus hour Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet. Now, I consider myself to be of at least reasonable intellect, I already know the story of Hamlet, one of my favorite films of all time is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (which is certainly not Hamlet but does feature a lot of dialogue from it), and I even read Hamlet in high school. Nevertheless I have to admit that watching it is akin to watching a foreign film without subtitles. More specifically, for me it's like watching the French dubbed version of a movie I've seen a couple times before. I took a couple years of French, so I can pick out a few words here and there, and since I've seen it before I know what's happening and is going to happen, but the vast majority of the actual conversations sail over my head. But perhaps the truly weird part about it is that I'm still enjoying it! I guess it is true what they say - that 90% of conversation is not what you say but how you say it and how you look when you do. In any case, I've been watching it in roughly 30-40 minute chunks and I'm 2 and a half hours in right now.

But back to politics. It looks like the Republicans are going to pick up about 65 seats in the House to take firm control of that chamber and cut the Democratic majority in the Senate to ~53 to 47 (pending a couple close races and counting the two Independents as Democrats). First of all I think it's important to put this in some historical context. Although this is certainly larger than most times, this is what happens in mid-term elections. Going back to 1934 (now encompasing 20 midterms), guess how many times the party of the sitting President has gained seats? 3 in the House, and 5 in the Senate. That's a record of 3-17 and 5-15 (respectively) so this is by no means shocking. And if Democrats are looking for some good news today, it's the fourth time that control of one or both houses of Congress has changed in the mid-term of a President's first term. All 3 previous times, the President has been re-elected (Truman, Eisenhower, and Clinton). And that's exactly what I see happening here. As of today, the Republicans still do not have a viable challenger for the White House in 2012. And they're also somewhat trapped in how to position themselves for that Congressional election: if things improve between now and then they can't take complete credit for it (since the Presidency and Senate are still under the control of the other party) and if things don't they can't continue to simply be the party of "no" since they now have a responsibility to join in the governing process.

Speaking of which, here's one person who is hopeful that the Republicans finally do actually believe in their own rhetoric of restoring financial responsibility. To this point, all we've gotten is vague promises of "across the board spending cuts", which never happen. In fact, I'd like to also point out to the Republican banner wavers out there, that the prospective new Speaker of the House John Boehner is the same guy who said in a position paper on 2001 that (and I'm paraphrashing here) "it turns out that the American people didn't care about balanced budgets, and it's unrealistic to think that we can actually shrink the size of the government. The best we can do is limit the rate of its increase." Mind you that this is the same guy who was part of the 1994 Republican sweep into power that promised, well, pretty much the same thing they are promising now. Hmm, the Who song "Won't Get Fooled Again" comes to mind. By the way, that quote appears in Alan Greenspan's book (and it is properly cited) and after reading it 4 years ago I was so surprised that I sought out the source document and found it. But upon looking for it again in 2009 I noticed that it now can no longer be found anywhere on the net. Literally. I can find as much trivial info about Blake's 7, an extremely obscure and low-budget British sci-fi show from the 70's, as I want but apparently a position paper written 9 years ago by a sitting U.S. Representative is now lost to us. I'm sure it's just coincidence though. I'm sure it wasn't intentionally removed or anything like that. In any case, I'll be the first one to cheer if the Republicans really do decide to concentrate on their fiscal responsibility crede rather than going on social crusades to please the religious right.

But now that I've blasted away at Republicans for a while let me blast away at Obama too. Yesterday he was out trying to get the disenfranchised and disillusioned out to vote. Fair enough. But he was quoted as saying that his "whole agenda was at risk" if Republicans swept into power. Excuse me, Mr. President, but I seem to recall that your message in 2008 was "Yes we can" but apparently that was just the truncated version. I guess the full version was "Yes we can, provided that once you bring me into power you also give me sweeping majorities in both houses of Congress and keep them there for my full first term". Guess I should have read the fine print on those yard signs.

Obama's Wars

Usually I am content to just post my star rating for the books I read and the movies I see, but I feel compelled to make some additional commentary on this one.

I think the rating I gave this book (3 Stars) is probably the lowest one I've given any book since I started posting ratings on here. While some (i.e. Weir) would argue that it means my rating system is too generous, I would argue that it's because I really try to limit myself to books that are really good (or at least ones that I'm really likely to enjoy). I don't mind occasionally throwing away 2 hours on a crappy movie, but giving 10-12 hours of your life to a book that sucks is not something I enjoy doing. And while I wouldn't go so far as to say that this book sucked, it was extraordinarily disappointing.

This is the 5th Woodward book I've read, although 2 of them I haven't read all the way through (I'm still in the middle of The Agenda and I only read about half of All the President's Men while researching for a paper on Watergate in high school). Until now, I'd always enjoyed them thoroughly. But he took a big step backwards here. To me I think it seems obvious that he really wanted to put out the first "big" book about the Obama presidency and it seems really rushed as a result. It seems like he thought "hmm, I've still got lots of military contacts from writing the Bush books and it'll take me too long to get new ones in the Fed and with various economic advisors so I'm just going to completely ignore that aspect." That's fair enough, but the problem is that there's just not enough there to fill up a 400 page book. You get a very good first 50 pages where he discusses the transition from Bush to Obama and a very good last 50 pages when they kind of open things up and talk about how Obama reacted to various situations as they occurred (e.g. the underwear bomber, the McChrystal Rolling Stones interview). But in between you get 300 pages of what is essentially recaps of minutes from various strategy meetings where Obama, the cabinet, and the generals try to agree on whether or not to send more troops into Afghanistan. Was that an important decision that is worthy of being put into print? Of course; but it can easily be accomplished in 50 or (at most) 100 pages. To say that it's padded is the understatement of the year. The central question that everyone is deciding on is "are we doing a full counter-insurgency, just a pure counter-terrorism, or trying some combination?" That question, in some form, is asked and answered no less than 30 times in the book. Instead of just saying "W,X, Y, and Z believed this while A,B, C, and D believed this" he gets detailed quotes from all of them. So even though there's just 2 different answers he gives it to you 8 times. It just makes for some painful reading.

Which is not to say that there's not some good information in here. You definitely get a sense of the inner workings of the administration (semi-dysfunctional, not moreso than the past couple administrations but certainly no better) and you also realize how quickly a lot of the "official statements" that are realeased to the press are thrown together, often without a lot of consensus within the administation. And I think that overall Woodward is relatively unbiased in his reporting, which is extremely valuable. But the bottom line is that if you're looking for a good overview of the first 18 months inside the Obama Presidency, you need to look elsewhere.

Some Thoughts on Unemployment

I just finished reading This Time is Different, it's a great but very dry read about the history of financial crises. The authors put together what is probably the largest amount of data ever compiled on economic statistics over the last 1000 years in an attempt to perform some analytics and draw some conclusions about what economies look like in the run up to a crises (useful in helping to avoid them) and what kind of severity and duration can be expected after they occur.

I lack the time and, quite frankly, the ability to relate even a fraction of what the book has to say. I can, however, summarize quite nicely. The power of delusion is so nearly absolute that with almost no exception the general public will deny all the signs pointing to a crises and will be thoroughly convinced that "this time really is different" all the way up until the crises finally hits. At that point the leaders will then usually throw up their hands and remark how it was impossible to predict. Finally, the return to "normalcy" is a lot harder and takes a lot longer than anyone likes to admit, especially when a banking crises is involved.

But my point today is not to review or rehash the book. I just wanted to use one piece of it as a stepping off point for some comments about unemployment. In an analysis of post-1900 banking crises which have occurred (of which there are 14), the authors found that on average the unemployment rises (as measured from trough to peak) by 7 percent and takes an average of 4.8 years to do so. Interestingly enough, on average the unemployment rates in emerging economies tend to rise less and last shorter than those in developed country. It's speculated (though not proven) that this has a lot to do with far more wage flexibility in the emerging economies.

So I thought that I would use this to see how our current situation stacks up to these historical averages. Here's a graph of unemployment since 2000 (which comes directly from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics):


Unemployment basically started increasing around June of 2007 (when it jumped from 4.4 to 4.6%), although it was actually fairly flat until 2008. The peak to this point (and hopefully THE peak) occurred in October 2009 at 10.1%. So all in all, we've got an increase of 5.7% (about 20% less than the average) in ~29 months (almost exactly half the average).

There's a couple conclusions to draw from this. First, compared to historical average we've actually done quite well. Certainly a double-dip recession is possible, but we've now had a year of decreasing unemployment (albeit a painfully slow decrease) so I don't think I'm jumping the gun too much. Of course, the big question now is whether or not this is because of the stimulus or whether this was going to transpire anyway and the stimulus just represented futile paddling against the current.

Speaking of the stimulus, it was pretty comically inept for Obama and his advisers to ever make the statement that with the stimulus they hoped unemployment would peak at 8%. It's usually not politically smart to ever tie yourself to any one number but if you're going to do it the 8% number was an incredibly bad one to use. Of course, by the same token it's also just as ridiculous to say that the stimulus was a failure because it didn't keep unemployment under 8%. Now the argument about whether or not the stimulus worked is for another time. I'm just saying you can't criticize a car because it can't take you to the moon, even if the car salesman told you it could.

As to where we go from here, prognosticator John says that we'll finally get unemployment down below 9% by mid-2011, hopefully below 8% by end of 2011, and below 7% by mid-2012 right when the election starts really ramping up. And I really think that 7% is the key number. If it gets below that, I think Obama is reelected easily. If it doesn't, he's got big problems.

John'sApologeticBlog.Blogspot.Com

I'm contemplating changing this blog's name to the above because I feel like every post in the last 3 months has been me apologizing for not blogging more. And the reason, more than anything, is that I usually prefer to talk about weightier things and shy away from the more frivolous (or at least achieve a 60-40 mix) and I haven't found myself with a whole lot to say about some of the weightier stuff lately.

Actually, to be more precise I haven't really found anything new to say. I still have the same problems with both the Republican and Democratic parties and I just haven't felt compelled to rehash my feelings when the Democrats continue to do next to nothing with the largest majority in decades while the Republicans continue to act like they've basically erased capitalism completely. As a result, I've actually returned to being somewhat apolitical. To be sure, I still keep myself informed and will definitely be voting next month. I just no longer devour my weekly Economist and I tend to skip the podcasts of the Sunday morning political shows in favor of This American Life and Zencast.

I guess this is the so-called "enthusiasm gap", which Obama talked about in a recent Rolling Stone interview. He said it was "inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines" and while I agree with him in the strictest sense that choosing not to vote is a terrible option (as it always is) I don't agree with the larger sentiment. In a way it reminds me of the Windows commercials from a few years ago. Vista had gotten such horrible reviews that they decided to take groups of people and demo for them a supposedly new Windows operating system. At the end of each session they asked for feedback and apparently the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Of course, it wasn't a new operating system, it was Vista. So essentially their marketing campaign consisted of saying "You know this thing you have that you've all told us you don't like? You actually like it." Not surprisingly, Windows Vista has now given way to Windows 7. So, in a similar vein, Obama is now telling all of his 2008 supporters "You know those things we've done in the last 2 years that you're not excited about? You should be." When a candidate, or a company, or anyoneelse trying to market something fails to generate excitement it is their failure, not the failure of the populace.

Of course, I'm not exactly shocked by this outcome. I have a standing bet with my friend Joe (made in mid-2008) that if Obama was elected he would be a 1 term President. Not because I didn't think he would do a good job but because the expectations that were being set (and that he was feeding into) were so high that he couldn't possibly live up to them. While I think I was dead-on with that assessment, to this point I still think I'm probably going to lose that bet. We're only a year away from the full-blown kickoff of primary season and I just don't see any Republican out there who's going to beat him. Republicans like to say that this year will be 1994 all over again. I say be careful what you wish for, because after that it's also just as likely to be 1996 all over again too. Ironically, I think the Republican's best path to the White House in 2012 is for the Democrats to retain both houses, because Congress is almost always extremely unpopular and the Republicans will benefit more from 2 more years of voter angst at a Democratic Congress rather than if it's split between the parties. I don't think that's likely though. The Republicans are almost certainly going to take control of the House, and the Senate is likely to wind up close to split (+ or - 2 seats).

In a slight topic change, the one issue I am fairly decisive about as it relates to the state elections is the proposed amendment to the IL State Constitution which would allow for a vote to recall the governor if enough people sign a petition. First I cannot imagine how anyone could have looked at the California recall election circus and thought "boy I wish we could have that here!" And second, I cannot think of a more hideous outcome for governance than to have a governor that is forever in campaign mode. I urge my fellow Illinoisans to vote no on the Governor Recall Amendment.

An End of an Era . . .

Or at least a pause in one. This week I officially resigned my membership with the Chicago Curling Club. I didn't want to but the dues were getting pretty pricey (they work on a graduated scale and for my 3rd year it was going to be $500), we now live a whole lot farther away from Northbrook, and we only have one car. I did the math and figured that I'd probably be able to play in about 10-15 games and I just don't think it's worth $35 - $50 per game. As weird a sport as most people consider it, I will miss it because it was something different to do and I felt like I was just starting to "get it". Hopefully I'll be able to go back to it in a few years when time and money become more plentiful but it has been my experience these last 10 years that free time gets ever more, not less, scarce.

I'd also like to make a comment on the "controversial" call in the Bears game last weekend, so I apologize to you readers that couldn't care less about football. OK, well obviously I'm a Bears fan so there's no way that I can disprove that I have a bias here. However, a lot of random fans and commentators have commented that they had never heard of this rule before. Well I have. In fact, this exact rule has screwed me over on at least half a dozen bets over the last couple years. But usually you don't see it in the end zone. Usually it's on the sidelines; a receiver catches the ball, gets both feet in bounds, then lands 5 feet out of bounds and drops the ball in the process. That's ruled an incomplete pass; and if that one is then so was Johnson's. It's the same rule. It is, however, the most ridiculous manifestation of that rule. Before last Sunday that would have been one of those hypothetical situations someone would have brought up and everyone would have said "pssh, that'll never happen". And I might add that the rule is basically the same as it is in baseball. If a fielder dives for the ball, clearly has it in his mitt, and then in the course of landing the ball comes out it's not a catch. In fact it's not a catch until he takes his other hand and reaches for the ball in his mitt (then it's considered lost in transfer). So imagine a third baseman catches a pop-up bunt with his bare hand, tumbles to the ground, and the ball squirts out as he taps it on the ground. In my opinion, that wouldn't even be controversial that it was called a non-catch. What trips a lot of people up is that on end-zone plays sometimes a player will fumble the ball but it will still be ruled a touchdown because he broke the plane before he fumbled it. In other words, as soon as a player has possession and breaks the plane the play is over. The difference is the word "possession"; in that situation there is no question of possession because it's already been established well before the player reaches the goal line; in the Johnson catch "possession" is not achieved until he completes the catch by maintaining control all the way to the ground.

Did You Hear the One About the Imam, the Pastor, and the Burning Books?

I don't even really know where to start with this whole thing. So I'll just start by saying that Pastor Terry Jones is a lunatic. Seriously, I can make some coherent and logical arguments here but all you really need to do is look at him:

I mean, if you're not a major league closer or a 40-year-old softball player, you have no business having that 'stache. Seriously, you're an insult to the ghost of Rod Beck.

And you're an even bigger insult to one of my heroes who has the misfortune to share the same name as you:


But of course besides those two individuals, there's also the minor matter of the roughly 1.5 billion Muslims you've managed to insult in the last week. And that fact alone would actually be mightily impressive if it wasn't for something so despicable. I mean, I'm lucky if I get around to insulting 9 or 10 people per month.

So if you happen to be one of the few people who haven't yet made up your mind about whether or not this guy's crazy, you can read an interview with him here. Here's one of my favorite passages, which does a good job of summing things up. He was asked about the comparison between him and the Nazis, who were also quite fond of books as an alternative energy source:

"Well I think it is very easy to see a difference. We have tried to make it very clear that even though this is a very radical message, a radical way of doing something we are not against Muslims. We do not hate them. And plus the Nazis, what the Nazis did was the Nazis gathered up all the books that were against their ideology and burned them. That's not what we are doing. We are not by any means promoting the burning of books."

So let's play a quick game of "Spot the Hypocrisy"; it's like "Where's Waldo" only waaaaaay easier. OK you're not against Muslims, you just want to burn their sacred text. You're not like the Nazis because they burned books that were against their ideology whereas you are just, um, burning a book because it doesn't agree with your ideology. And finally, you are certainly not by means promoting the burning of books, you're just hosting "International Burn a Koran Day."

This is my 2nd favorite passage:

"But we have also made it very clear that here in the United States we have a constitution, we have freedom of religion they are more than welcome to be here and worship and build mosques."

This one is particularly good because now he has apparently decided to call off the burning because he's supposedly gotten an agreement that the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" (which is neither a mosque or at ground zero) will be moved. Prior to calling it off, he had never made any connection whatsoever that his burning had anything to do with the GZM.

One of my favorite expressions (which to my knowledge I made up) is "don't act surprised when crazy people say or do crazy things." That would appear to be obvious but apparently it isn't. When Ahmadinejad, or Dick Cheney, or Sarah Palin, or Glen Beck, or Carl Everett, or Pat Robertson say offensive and inflammatory things it shouldn't be news. They're crazy, and that's what crazy people do (quick aside, for the sake of this discussion I am not differentiating between actual insanity and politically calculated insanity). So really I'm arguing (yet again) that this should not be being covered to the extent that it is. If some group of wackos wants to burn a Koran, it's pretty clear that in this country they are within their rights to do so. So let them, and don't give them the thing that they desperately want: attention. And at this point, from a damage standpoint he might as well go ahead and do it. The Muslim world is already pissed off enough about it that most of them are not going to bother following up to see if he actually did it or not.

But what I think is probably most striking is that we need to step back and ask the question of why exactly is this happening now. Why specifically the 9th anniversary of 9/11/01? Why didn't this happen a year ago, or five? And I'll just cut through the suspense and say, yes, I'm going to blame the Republicans for this one (technically the Republicans and Tea Partiers if you consider them different). George W, for all his numerous faults, always made it very clear that we were not at war with Islam and that it was paramount to respect peaceful Muslims of all nations. And when a Republican leader says that, the right doesn't jump on him for it and the left certainly doesn't (of course they generally don't give him credit for it either). But let a Democratic leader say the same thing and now the right not only doesn't agree with him - they accuse him of being a Muslim! And of course it doesn't do any good to make that accusation unless you whip up an anti-Muslim frenzy. The "Ground Zero Mosque" and this latest incidents are perfect manifestations of that. In the last few decades Republicans have been the "freedom of religion" banner-carriers. I think it's now been exposed once and for all as only a "freedom of Christianity" banner.

Fear not my fellow loyal blog readers . . .what? I don't have any of those? OK, well then fear not my fellow occasional drop-by-when-you're-really-bored-and-there's-nothing-left-to-view-on-youtube readers. I have not abandoned you! I have, however, vacationed from you. And for that I apologize. I promise to do better.

Well my poker streak finally ended, but not before I cashed out $1400. Of course, I've since lost the remaining $200 I had in my account and have dumped another $50 in, but I'm currently up to $108 so maybe it's the start of a new streak! See how the mind of a degenerate gambler works?

I also finally got around to updating the movies and books I've seen and read recently, so there's that. Definitely was a big fan of Inception, although I could tell as I was watching it that it was the kind of movie that some people would praise for being absolutely genius and other people would claim was completely incoherent drivel. I'm somewhere in the middle, although more towards the side of genius.

If you're bored (and I assume you are since you came here) I'd highly advise you to read this article on the MARS turbine. It's an awesome prototype of a wind generator that floats in the atmosphere rather than being anchored to the ground. Once they get the price down (like way, way down) it might be possible someday soon for consumers to own their own wind generators.

OK, that's it for the moment but I promise that I'll be back in less than 3 weeks with things that are more interesting and or stimulating.

Poker? I Don't Even Know Her . . .

Would you believe that I stared blankly at the title bar for 10 minutes trying to think of a way to NOT use that as the title of this poker-themed entry?

In any event, before I go into this story I want to make one thing very clear: I lose money at poker (as I do at all my gambling). Not a ton (that's relative of course) and I don't have the detailed records for it but I am quite confident in the fact that in my gambling life, which stretches back more than 20 years now, I am in the red overall. Non-gamblers hear that and think "oh, so you're admitting that it's stupid" and nothing could be further from the truth. I view it as entertainment and view it in the similar vein of spending money to see a movie, or buy a video game, or having a night out. The key difference is that when I pay money to see a movie I know exactly what I'm purchasing (roughly 2 hours of entertainment) but when I put money in my poker account I don't know how much I'm getting. I might be gone in the first hand or I might be able to play for 30 hours over the next month. But in the end, my expectation for both is the same. When I put down money, I'm not expecting to get it back. That doesn't mean that I'm not trying to win or don't get upset when I lose, it just means that I'm a realist about it.

I use all this as a preface so you will understand why I choose to play the types of games that I do. Since I expect to lose most of the time, I want the few times that I win to be memorable. As such, I tend to play in really large tournaments where the odds of cashing are small but the payouts are large. I also like to play in "Satelite" tournaments - these are tournaments where the buy-in is pretty low and the "prize" is an entry into a much bigger tournament with a much bigger payout.

Every week at Full-Tilt (I swear I'm not doing a commercial for them) they have a $220 buy-in tournament that has a total of $750,000 in prize money. The winner gets $130k. Not bad. Well I don't exactly often have a spare $220 lying around, so every once in a while I like to play in $22 Satelite tournaments where the top finishers get entry into the big tournament. Over the last year or so I've managed to get into it 5 or 6 times but until a couple weeks ago had never cashed. Well I finally ended that streak early last month, finishing in 180th place (out of 3600) and cashing $375. I cashed $250 out and then lost the rest over the next week(naturally).

Since that time I've put back in roughly another $125 and lost it (again, naturally). But every time you play in one of those tournaments you earn "Full Tilt Points" which (like carnival tickets) you can use to buy useless crap or to play in special tournaments. So on Tuesday night, not wanting to put anymore money into my account, I used all of my poker points to play in a tournament where the top 5 got entry into a big $22 tournament on Sunday and I finished in the top-5. This one only has a $200,000 total prize pool but it's still cool. I'll let you all know how I do in that one. In any case, that proved to be unsatisfying because even though I'd "won" I didn't have any money to show for it and now I didn't have any more poker points so I'd have to wait till Sunday to play again. So I put in $15 and played in a tournament where the top-20 finishers earn a token to play in any $75 tournament. Again, I finished in the top-20 and "won". So I went to bed on Tuesday night having "won" two tournaments but with a total cashflow of -$15.

So last night I used my $75 token to play in a 45-person game and ended up winning it. Actually, when it got down to two of us we just decided to split it. Total payout: $984! Although in practical terms I really won $750 because that's the amount I cashed out and I have no doubt that I will flitter the rest away in the next couple of days.

Now what's particularly crazy about the whole thing is that at one point in the $15 Satelite I thought that I had been eliminated. I got beaten but it turned out that I had 25 chips more than the guy that beat me so I was still alive. At that point the blinds were 200/400 with a 50 chip ante: I didn't even have enough to cover the ante! I was literally down to "a chip and a chair." But I won the next hand to get to 225 (still below the big blind) and then I won the next hand to get to over 1000 and then I had a tiny bit of breathing room and got a good run of cards after that to climb back into it and eventually get the $75 token which ultimately led to winning almost $1000. That means that if, at the pivotal moment early on, I had just 25 less chips or if that guy had had 25 more, I'd be $1000 poorer right now.

Furthermore, in the $75 tournament only 6 people get paid. I had been doing well for most of it but had hit a bad run of cards and by the time it was down to 12 players I was in last place. Needing to make a move, I pushed all-in with pocket 4s pretty much hoping that no one would call me and I could steal the blinds. Unfortunately, the player behind me had pocket Queens and called me instantly. For those of you not totally into poker (who for some reason are still reading this) that makes me about a 4.5 to 1 underdog, definitely not where you want to be with your tournament life on the line. But lo and behold I hit a 4 on the flop for three of a kind and go on to win the hand and I'm still alive! A little while later we're down to 7 people and since the top-6 get paid the next person eliminated will be the final person who doesn't cash (the aptly-named "bubble boy"). I'm not involved in the hand but for the two people who are all-in it's pocket Kings versus pocket Aces. Again, the lower pair hits for trips as a King comes on the flop and the Aces are eliminated. I can't think of a more agonizing way to have your bubble burst.

One final little tale from the tourney. When we got to heads-up (i.e. the last two people) I had the chip lead and was an eyelash away from winning it outright. I got dealt pocket Jacks and he went all-in with what turned out to be Ace-5. No Ace comes out but 5 spades do and, since neither of us has a spade, we both have flushes and split the pot. A couple hands later we had roughly equal stacks so I offered to split and he took it.

I take from all of this 2 things:

1. No matter how good or bad you are, luck is always going to play a role and you're always going to need to get insanely lucky at least once to win a big tournament;

2) The next time you're on the small blind with crap cards and think "it's only another 25 to call, why not?" realize that you might be making a bigger decision than you think.