Saturday, February 25, 2006
The Olympics
The winter olympics is not as cool as the summer. There are far fewer events so the coverage tends to get a little repetetive. Basically the events fall into the categories of skiing, snowboarding, sledding, or skating. I enjoyed watching some of the events, but the tape delayed coverage was not spectacular.
The coolest parts for me were the curling and the ski jumping, simply as events. Ski jumping is just cool. I like to watch it. Curling is cool because it's just a pretty intricate sport. It's like a game of shuffleboard in terms of strategy and I find it interesting. I thought the coverage of curling could have been much better, though, if the announcers had taken more time to explain the rules and strategies.
The coolest part of the coverage for me was the super slo-mo camera on the skiing events. Watching the skis wobble through turns and such makes it clear how hard all that stuff is. Snowboardcross is one of the best events. It's the only one that's just a race down the hill. It's akin to the 200m or 400m races in the summer games. That Jacobellis girl who tried to do a trick and fell in her gold medal run is pretty foolish, but she's the only one she let down so it's not a big deal.
The figure skating is still pretty interesting. The reason it's interesting, though is because the announcers do a good job of informing everyone what's going on. The best part of all the skating was clearly that Italian lady giving the stare down to her partner after he dropped her int he ice dancing.
Speed skating is good too. The Shani Davis, Chad Hedrick thing was corny. Davis apparently made it clear a while back that he wasn't going to race that relay thing, and he shouldn't have since it was right before the race he was favored to win. Obviously it worked out for him since he did win his race. First black dude to win a gold medal, that's an accomplishment.
Bode Miller sucks. If he doesn't give a fuck about competing then he shouldn't. He's talking about how he doesn't care about winning or his sponsors or anything, but he's out there in the races. If you don't care, then go home and just get a lift ticket like everyone else. No one wants to watch you give a half assed effort when someone can take your spot and at least try.
The coverage might be better for NBC in 2010 in Vancouver, since it's in a time zone where they can show shit live and not have the results all over before they can air it. It might also add some spontaneity to the coverage, which was lacking here. I'm not altogether surprised that the coverage lost out to American Idol and Dancing With The Stars and Grey's Anatomy and everything else.
The coolest parts for me were the curling and the ski jumping, simply as events. Ski jumping is just cool. I like to watch it. Curling is cool because it's just a pretty intricate sport. It's like a game of shuffleboard in terms of strategy and I find it interesting. I thought the coverage of curling could have been much better, though, if the announcers had taken more time to explain the rules and strategies.
The coolest part of the coverage for me was the super slo-mo camera on the skiing events. Watching the skis wobble through turns and such makes it clear how hard all that stuff is. Snowboardcross is one of the best events. It's the only one that's just a race down the hill. It's akin to the 200m or 400m races in the summer games. That Jacobellis girl who tried to do a trick and fell in her gold medal run is pretty foolish, but she's the only one she let down so it's not a big deal.
The figure skating is still pretty interesting. The reason it's interesting, though is because the announcers do a good job of informing everyone what's going on. The best part of all the skating was clearly that Italian lady giving the stare down to her partner after he dropped her int he ice dancing.
Speed skating is good too. The Shani Davis, Chad Hedrick thing was corny. Davis apparently made it clear a while back that he wasn't going to race that relay thing, and he shouldn't have since it was right before the race he was favored to win. Obviously it worked out for him since he did win his race. First black dude to win a gold medal, that's an accomplishment.
Bode Miller sucks. If he doesn't give a fuck about competing then he shouldn't. He's talking about how he doesn't care about winning or his sponsors or anything, but he's out there in the races. If you don't care, then go home and just get a lift ticket like everyone else. No one wants to watch you give a half assed effort when someone can take your spot and at least try.
The coverage might be better for NBC in 2010 in Vancouver, since it's in a time zone where they can show shit live and not have the results all over before they can air it. It might also add some spontaneity to the coverage, which was lacking here. I'm not altogether surprised that the coverage lost out to American Idol and Dancing With The Stars and Grey's Anatomy and everything else.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
The Sell Out Of The Century
It seems clear to me that the biggest sell out of any kind in the last 20 or so years has been MTV. I guess you should take that statement with a grain of salt as in the grand scheme of things it's probably not the biggest sell out of any kind, but it's way up there.
The phrase "Remember when it was all about the music?" actually genuinely applies to MTV. I'm a member of the generation that MTV nearly single-handedly defined, but they've gotten away from that to an enormous extent. On a cultural level they went from filtering the things that were important to the kids to trying to actually be the thing that's important to the kids. It's a huge mistake, in my opinion, but they obviously don't see it in the same way.
The argument from the MTV execs is that their ratings are much better with their no music, heavy reality/pop culture programming. While that's probably true, that's an enormous fucking huge whopping sell out in the truest sense of the term. That's a sell out that trumps Vanilla Ice by leaps and bounds, which had qualified as the biggest in history until about 1997 when MTV began their downward slide.
The is what really upsets me about MTV. There are lots of bands who I grew up with that I came to know by their videos. MTV essentially made the music video a credible way to market a band and in fact made it probably the most important way for a while.
A short list of bands who went from nothing to something or from something to legendary based solely on their videos and MTV: Madonna, Michael Jackson, Duran Duran, Smashing Pumpkins, Run DMC, Aerosmith, Pearl Jam, Cyndi Lauper, Peter Gabriel, Dire Straits. There are probably hundreds more who people know of solely on the strength of their videos and not necessarily their songs.
MTV's schedule used to consist of shows like Yo MTV Raps, MTV Jams, Headbanger's Ball, and the highlight of their week was the Top 20 Countdown every Friday night. They had shows where it was just a VJ who would pop on and show a video and that was it. They haven't had a show like that since I would say 1997 with a show called MTV Live which was a little more like the Z Morning Zoo with guests and more talking from the VJs and a small crowd. That MTV Live show evolved into TRL, by the way, which is just insane. I don't recall the last time MTV showed an entire video between the hours of noon and midnight (Don't say TRL, which even cuts off the number 1 video half way through). They've essentially given up on that format.
So MTV made the video the way to promote your band and then also rendered it obsolete. Videos used to make news and define a band and so on. I think the decline of the video has also led to the decline of music recently. I can't think of a so-called "important" band that's out today that hasn't been out since the video era.
MTV used to be necessarily self-important. They made a big deal about their 10 year anniversary and used to take their all time countdowns very seriously. The MTV Video awards used to mean something and the videos that won were actually seen by people. It's no longer important for a band to make a video because no one will see it.
The original Real World show was 100 times more interesting than the current ridiculous contrived version of the show. At the time The Real World was one of the only non video shows on MTV. This is sortof beside my point because as great as the first couple Real World's were, culminating with the San Francisco season, it was the start of the break from their format.
I guess my main point is this. The people who ran MTV in 1986 would kick the asses of the people who run it today. Even the people who ran it in 1996 would rough them up. I don't even know or care if the same people have been in charge all that time. MTV has lost its way and it's not pretty. It's nearly unwatchable now.
I guess the caveat here is that as a 27 year old I'm probably outside their target demographic and so maybe I just don't get it any more. I find that hard to believe, though. And since when I was 14 I watched MTV Jams religiously, I know that today's 14 year olds probably would too. Is TRL really the best representative of today's youth music? That's just not possible. I still love music. When I can find a show that just plays videos I watch it. I don't have a problem with new legitimate artists who could be showcased on video shows.
And don't try to tell me about MTV2, which doesn't even have video shows any more and is buried in most cable packages in the 100s and 200s. There is a station called MTV Hits that I don't get that seems to just show videos, but it's not on my cable package, and I know it's not on DirecTV, so who is getting that station? And that doesn't have anything to do with MTV selling out on their core.
The phrase "Remember when it was all about the music?" actually genuinely applies to MTV. I'm a member of the generation that MTV nearly single-handedly defined, but they've gotten away from that to an enormous extent. On a cultural level they went from filtering the things that were important to the kids to trying to actually be the thing that's important to the kids. It's a huge mistake, in my opinion, but they obviously don't see it in the same way.
The argument from the MTV execs is that their ratings are much better with their no music, heavy reality/pop culture programming. While that's probably true, that's an enormous fucking huge whopping sell out in the truest sense of the term. That's a sell out that trumps Vanilla Ice by leaps and bounds, which had qualified as the biggest in history until about 1997 when MTV began their downward slide.
The is what really upsets me about MTV. There are lots of bands who I grew up with that I came to know by their videos. MTV essentially made the music video a credible way to market a band and in fact made it probably the most important way for a while.
A short list of bands who went from nothing to something or from something to legendary based solely on their videos and MTV: Madonna, Michael Jackson, Duran Duran, Smashing Pumpkins, Run DMC, Aerosmith, Pearl Jam, Cyndi Lauper, Peter Gabriel, Dire Straits. There are probably hundreds more who people know of solely on the strength of their videos and not necessarily their songs.
MTV's schedule used to consist of shows like Yo MTV Raps, MTV Jams, Headbanger's Ball, and the highlight of their week was the Top 20 Countdown every Friday night. They had shows where it was just a VJ who would pop on and show a video and that was it. They haven't had a show like that since I would say 1997 with a show called MTV Live which was a little more like the Z Morning Zoo with guests and more talking from the VJs and a small crowd. That MTV Live show evolved into TRL, by the way, which is just insane. I don't recall the last time MTV showed an entire video between the hours of noon and midnight (Don't say TRL, which even cuts off the number 1 video half way through). They've essentially given up on that format.
So MTV made the video the way to promote your band and then also rendered it obsolete. Videos used to make news and define a band and so on. I think the decline of the video has also led to the decline of music recently. I can't think of a so-called "important" band that's out today that hasn't been out since the video era.
MTV used to be necessarily self-important. They made a big deal about their 10 year anniversary and used to take their all time countdowns very seriously. The MTV Video awards used to mean something and the videos that won were actually seen by people. It's no longer important for a band to make a video because no one will see it.
The original Real World show was 100 times more interesting than the current ridiculous contrived version of the show. At the time The Real World was one of the only non video shows on MTV. This is sortof beside my point because as great as the first couple Real World's were, culminating with the San Francisco season, it was the start of the break from their format.
I guess my main point is this. The people who ran MTV in 1986 would kick the asses of the people who run it today. Even the people who ran it in 1996 would rough them up. I don't even know or care if the same people have been in charge all that time. MTV has lost its way and it's not pretty. It's nearly unwatchable now.
I guess the caveat here is that as a 27 year old I'm probably outside their target demographic and so maybe I just don't get it any more. I find that hard to believe, though. And since when I was 14 I watched MTV Jams religiously, I know that today's 14 year olds probably would too. Is TRL really the best representative of today's youth music? That's just not possible. I still love music. When I can find a show that just plays videos I watch it. I don't have a problem with new legitimate artists who could be showcased on video shows.
And don't try to tell me about MTV2, which doesn't even have video shows any more and is buried in most cable packages in the 100s and 200s. There is a station called MTV Hits that I don't get that seems to just show videos, but it's not on my cable package, and I know it's not on DirecTV, so who is getting that station? And that doesn't have anything to do with MTV selling out on their core.
Saturday, February 18, 2006
An Interesting Coincidence In Sports
Ask someone who the greatest football player of all time is and a lot of people who know better will say Jim Brown. The Sporting News voted him the best player of all time in a 2002 poll as evidence of that claim. Jim Brown was born on February 17, 1936. By the way, Jim Brown is also considered by some to be the best lacrosse player ever. He was an All American in both football and lacrosse at Syracuse University.
The best basketball player of all time is Michael Jordan. This claim is more widely accepted as true and doesn't really need any proof (despite my own claim that Magic Johnson is the best player ever.) Michael Jordan was born on February 17, 1963.
It's pretty interesting that two guys who are considered to be the best to ever play their sports have the same birthday. Incidentally, February 17th is also Paris Hilton's birthday. I don't know if she's a prodigy at anything.
In case you were wondering, Wayne Gretzky's birthday is January 26, 1961 and Babe Ruth's birthday is February 6, 1895. All of these guys birthday's are within a month of each other. Certainly that's not particularly significant, but I'm not sure if it's even interesting.
All of this in some way relates to the birthday problem, also known as the birthday paradox. The idea here is that if you have as few as 23 people in a room, there is a greater than 50% chance that two of them will share a birthday. Once you have 60 people together the chance is greater than 99% that two of them will share a birthday. This goes against intuition, but makes a lot of sense once you realize that the number of possible combinations of 23 people is 23C2 = 253, it starts to come together more easily.
The best basketball player of all time is Michael Jordan. This claim is more widely accepted as true and doesn't really need any proof (despite my own claim that Magic Johnson is the best player ever.) Michael Jordan was born on February 17, 1963.
It's pretty interesting that two guys who are considered to be the best to ever play their sports have the same birthday. Incidentally, February 17th is also Paris Hilton's birthday. I don't know if she's a prodigy at anything.
In case you were wondering, Wayne Gretzky's birthday is January 26, 1961 and Babe Ruth's birthday is February 6, 1895. All of these guys birthday's are within a month of each other. Certainly that's not particularly significant, but I'm not sure if it's even interesting.
All of this in some way relates to the birthday problem, also known as the birthday paradox. The idea here is that if you have as few as 23 people in a room, there is a greater than 50% chance that two of them will share a birthday. Once you have 60 people together the chance is greater than 99% that two of them will share a birthday. This goes against intuition, but makes a lot of sense once you realize that the number of possible combinations of 23 people is 23C2 = 253, it starts to come together more easily.
Darko Will See The Light
Far be it for me to begrudge the Detroit Pistons of thier recent successes. They are clearly the best team in the league right now and are the favorite to win the championship this year, in my opinion. (I know Max is picking the Spurs.) This Darko Milicic thing is going to come back at them, though.
I understand that there was not a place for a 19 year old soft European on the championship ready Pistons and I understand why he didn't play. I understand that they had no need for Carmelo Anthony when they had Rip Hamilton. I guess you could make some kind of argument for drafting Darko over Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh among others that year, but now they're throwing that pick in the garbage. They traded him and Carlos Arroyo for Kelvin Cato, an average center at best.
I think this may go down as one of the worst trades in the history of the league. It's going to be up there with Robert Traylor for Dirk Nowitzki. I'm not saying Darko is Dirk, but Kelvin Cato is not even on par with Robert Traylor. Darko Milicic *will* be an impact player in the league. He is 21 years old and is 7 feet tall and has been playing professional basketball since he was 15. Make no mistake about it, Darko will be more than just an infamous draft pick. He is no Sam Bowie or Frederic Weis.
I understand that there was not a place for a 19 year old soft European on the championship ready Pistons and I understand why he didn't play. I understand that they had no need for Carmelo Anthony when they had Rip Hamilton. I guess you could make some kind of argument for drafting Darko over Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh among others that year, but now they're throwing that pick in the garbage. They traded him and Carlos Arroyo for Kelvin Cato, an average center at best.
I think this may go down as one of the worst trades in the history of the league. It's going to be up there with Robert Traylor for Dirk Nowitzki. I'm not saying Darko is Dirk, but Kelvin Cato is not even on par with Robert Traylor. Darko Milicic *will* be an impact player in the league. He is 21 years old and is 7 feet tall and has been playing professional basketball since he was 15. Make no mistake about it, Darko will be more than just an infamous draft pick. He is no Sam Bowie or Frederic Weis.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Don't Go Hunting With Dick Cheney
Because he'll shoot you.
I don't know if there's much else to say about that. There's probably a funny NRA joke in there somewhere. Also get the Second Amendment involved somehow. I don't know how the whole joke would go, but it should start with, "A well regulated militia went hunting in Texas this weekend with vice president Dick Cheney leading the charge..." and just go from there.
I don't know if there's much else to say about that. There's probably a funny NRA joke in there somewhere. Also get the Second Amendment involved somehow. I don't know how the whole joke would go, but it should start with, "A well regulated militia went hunting in Texas this weekend with vice president Dick Cheney leading the charge..." and just go from there.
Friday, February 10, 2006
La Educador De La Semana
Mi esposa, Kathy, era la educador de las semana hace dos meses para Univision, el canal de Espanol en Nueva York. Aqui esta el video.
That was interesting. My wife, Kathy, was the educator of the week for New York City a couple of months ago on the Univision station. They had a little vignette on the Univision channel that ran that week. That little thing is on the interweb now, so you should watch it. I can only get it to work on the 56K version and not the high speed one, and I'm not sure why.
The basic translation for those of you who don't speak perfect Spanish like me is this: "Ms. Gardner is awesome and she's the best." Kathy comes on and says, "Yeah, it's true, I'm awesome." and then they have a couple of her students on and they say "Ms. Gardner is great and I love her."
That was interesting. My wife, Kathy, was the educator of the week for New York City a couple of months ago on the Univision station. They had a little vignette on the Univision channel that ran that week. That little thing is on the interweb now, so you should watch it. I can only get it to work on the 56K version and not the high speed one, and I'm not sure why.
The basic translation for those of you who don't speak perfect Spanish like me is this: "Ms. Gardner is awesome and she's the best." Kathy comes on and says, "Yeah, it's true, I'm awesome." and then they have a couple of her students on and they say "Ms. Gardner is great and I love her."
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
One Of The Best Lines In Television History
If you haven't seen "How I Met Your Mother" on CBS Mondays, I suggest you check it out. The caveat is that you should be a fan of sit-coms, of you probably won't enjoy it. Anyhow, I've been watching it all season and I find it pretty funny. It's contrived at times, but I think absurd contrivances are taught in week 2 of Sit-Coms 101, so you get used to it.
Anyway, the greatest line ever was in last night's episode. The main character, Ted, started dating a new girl and she wanted to take it slow so they were going to wait for a month before having sex. At this point in the conversation Barney, played by Doogie Howser himself, Neil Patrick Harris, says:
"The only reason to wait a month for sex is if the girl is 17 years, 11 months old."
I just about shit my pants after that one.
Anyway, the greatest line ever was in last night's episode. The main character, Ted, started dating a new girl and she wanted to take it slow so they were going to wait for a month before having sex. At this point in the conversation Barney, played by Doogie Howser himself, Neil Patrick Harris, says:
"The only reason to wait a month for sex is if the girl is 17 years, 11 months old."
I just about shit my pants after that one.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Can We All Agree Now That Kanye West Is Full Of Himself
There's not really much else to say. Making inappropriate statements about Dubya is one thing, but this is a whole 'nother thing.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Fuck You, Isiah
Sexual harassment, company wide cover up, awful PR that was poorly handled, fine. You're not a good person, I get it, whatever. If you want to go around and be a jerk that's okay, but stop fucking with my team. What on Earth are you thinking?
Trading Antonio Davis for Jalen Rose? Are you serious? Out of the top 15 highest paid guys in the league, 4 of them are currently on the Knicks salary cap. And three of them are Allan Houston, Penny Hardaway, and Jalen Rose. These guys combined have contributed less to the team so far this year than David Lee. Hell, they've contributed less than Qyntel Woods.
As a side note, take a look at the top 30 player salaries in the league. That's embarrassing for the league as a whole. Out of those 30 players at least 20 of them should be earning mid-level salaries at best, starting with #s 2 and 3, Allan Houston and Chris Webber. On top of that, the highest paid Dallas Maverick is Keith Van Horn, although they paid Michael Finley even more than that just to not be on the team anymore.
Back to my point. Look at the Knicks' dismal salary cap situation. They're on the hook for $125,000,000 this year and are already committed to $110,000,000 next year, $17,000,000 of which they picked up yesterday by acquiring Jalen Rose. Don't even get me started on Jerome James, who couldn't start for my Jewish Center team that's currently 1-6. I can virtually guarantee that before the year is out, they will have committed millions upon millions of dollars to Eddy Curry for the next 5 or 6 years.
The only team with a worse record than the Knicks is the Charlotte Bobcats, in their second year as an expansion team and with the lowest salary in the league. The Knicks salary is 4 times greater than the Bobcats salary and apparently that only buys them 2 more wins at this point.
What in the fuck is going on at the Garden? Can we somehow rally the fans and get Isiah, James Dolan, and whoever is running the god awful Rangers out of the city and into an insane asylum? They're wasting money like it's going out of style. Please, show some restraint. Rebuild the team. Stop acquiring guys who suck. Give us some hope for the future. It will be a great day when the Isiah Thomas era is over with the Knicks. It will be an even better day when the James Dolan era is over at Madison Square Garden and Cablevision.
Trading Antonio Davis for Jalen Rose? Are you serious? Out of the top 15 highest paid guys in the league, 4 of them are currently on the Knicks salary cap. And three of them are Allan Houston, Penny Hardaway, and Jalen Rose. These guys combined have contributed less to the team so far this year than David Lee. Hell, they've contributed less than Qyntel Woods.
As a side note, take a look at the top 30 player salaries in the league. That's embarrassing for the league as a whole. Out of those 30 players at least 20 of them should be earning mid-level salaries at best, starting with #s 2 and 3, Allan Houston and Chris Webber. On top of that, the highest paid Dallas Maverick is Keith Van Horn, although they paid Michael Finley even more than that just to not be on the team anymore.
Back to my point. Look at the Knicks' dismal salary cap situation. They're on the hook for $125,000,000 this year and are already committed to $110,000,000 next year, $17,000,000 of which they picked up yesterday by acquiring Jalen Rose. Don't even get me started on Jerome James, who couldn't start for my Jewish Center team that's currently 1-6. I can virtually guarantee that before the year is out, they will have committed millions upon millions of dollars to Eddy Curry for the next 5 or 6 years.
The only team with a worse record than the Knicks is the Charlotte Bobcats, in their second year as an expansion team and with the lowest salary in the league. The Knicks salary is 4 times greater than the Bobcats salary and apparently that only buys them 2 more wins at this point.
What in the fuck is going on at the Garden? Can we somehow rally the fans and get Isiah, James Dolan, and whoever is running the god awful Rangers out of the city and into an insane asylum? They're wasting money like it's going out of style. Please, show some restraint. Rebuild the team. Stop acquiring guys who suck. Give us some hope for the future. It will be a great day when the Isiah Thomas era is over with the Knicks. It will be an even better day when the James Dolan era is over at Madison Square Garden and Cablevision.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Two People Who Are Oblivious of the World Around Them
Number 1 is Dubya, who's state of the union was, well, I don't know if there's a word that describes it. I guess entirely predictable is the best way to put it. Hardly inspiring. He basically came out and said "It would be great if America was perfect. Let's work on that." I hate all the clapping and shit. I'm glad I fell asleep in the middle of it, because otherwise I would have felt obliged to watch the whole thing.
The second person who's oblivious to the world is Cindy Sheehan. Some Democratic congressman gave her a ticket and she showed up with an anti-war shirt on and got arrested before the thing even started because she refused to cover it up and some other silly behavior. Is this woman 9 years old? Her presence at the thing would have been enough of a statement and the fact that the camera would have gone on her every 6 seconds would have been effective towards whatever her cause is. She should have worn her business suit and acted like a regular citizen and just given the stare the whole time. What a dumbass.
The second person who's oblivious to the world is Cindy Sheehan. Some Democratic congressman gave her a ticket and she showed up with an anti-war shirt on and got arrested before the thing even started because she refused to cover it up and some other silly behavior. Is this woman 9 years old? Her presence at the thing would have been enough of a statement and the fact that the camera would have gone on her every 6 seconds would have been effective towards whatever her cause is. She should have worn her business suit and acted like a regular citizen and just given the stare the whole time. What a dumbass.
