Schiver's Blog of Annoyances (and other stuff)

Give Me Novacaine

2009-07-24T13:56:00.007-04:00

Wow, it's been a long time since I last posted. I've meant to. No, really, I have some great rants in reserve, but today I want to write about one of the most amazing concert experiences in my life while it's still fresh in my head.

Green Day was in town on Tuesday and I was there, on the floor, 10 feet away from the stage. It was my first time seeing Green Day live and I was not disappointed. I've heard some of their live music and I've heard all the rave about their shows, but nothing could have prepared me for what I experienced. Let me be honest: I'm not the hugest, die hard Green Day fan in the entire world. I am a huge fan of theirs, though, especially in the last five years or so. I loved "Dookie" (of course, who didn't?), "American Idiot", and especially "21st Century Breakdown". I also enjoyed many of their songs in between. I have always been amazed at how they keep getting older but still nail it on the head with the younger generation. They get it. They understand how we feel. I'm not exactly "young" anymore, but I'm young enough to have grown up listening to Green Day. The crowd on Tuesday was mostly young, high school and college age, but also some others that looked my age or older (although most of the older ones were dragged there by their kids).

First Green Day concert... floor seats, bitches!

So anyway, I got off work and hopped the subway down to the Spectrum. Being that this was one of the last concerts ever in the Spectrum, the whole night felt a little more special. I got my tickets from Will Call while listening to Green Day warm up from outside ("American Eulogy"), changed clothes, and met up with Sarah, my future sister-in-law Becky, and my best man Kyle. I have been to many a concert with Sarah and Kyle. We have been on the floor, getting knocked around at many raucous punk shows. This was, however, Becky's first rock show on the floor, but she held her own surprisingly well. We tailgated, drinking a few beers and chatting before the doors opened. When the doors opened, we headed in and grabbed some crab fries and a couple more beers before heading down to the floor, soon after The Bravery was finished with their set. We took our positions and got ready for the lights to dim. While we waited, we were entertained by a drunk guy in a pink bunny suit that was dancing and stumbling around the stage for a good 10 minutes before he went backstage again. When Green Day did finally come on (around 9:15 or so), it was a non-stop adrenaline rush for over two hours.

A picture of Mike Dirnt, just because

Billie Joe opened with "21st Century Breakdown" then followed it up with "Know Your Enemy", and "East Jesus Nowhere". I had peeked at a setlist beforehand so I kind of knew what was coming, but it was still amazing. The sound was so full and perfect. Billie Joe was jumping and running around on stage, pulling people out of the audience, and then telling them to "get the fuck off my stage". During "East Jesus Nowhere", a very religiously-charged song, he called a small girl on stage to imitate a scene out of a southern Baptist church of someone being saved before telling the girl to get off his stage.

Billie Joe and the first girl he pulled on stage to sing with him, for "Are We the Waiting"

They followed that up with "Holiday", "The Static Age", and "Before the Lobotomy", which is one of my favorite songs from the new album. They then dipped into "American Idiot", not losing a step while playing "Are We the Waiting", "St. Jimmy", and "Boulevard of Broken Dreams". One of my favorite songs, "Hitchin' A Ride", was next and then they dipped into some real old stuff. They played "2,000 Light Years Away" and, later, "King for a Day", during which the entire band wore silly hats. Billie Joe donned a police cap, while Mike Dirnt wore pink bunny ears, and Tre Cool wore a type of white Sunday church hat.

It's not too easy to see, but Mike is wearing pink bunny ears and Tre is wearing a white Sunday hat.

They played a string of older songs, including "Welcome to Paradise", "Brain Stew", "Jaded", "Longview", "Basket Case", and "She" before launching into an Isley Brothers cover of "Shout". They ended with "21 Guns" and "American Eulogy" before coming back out to play their encore. The encore consisted of five songs: "American Idiot", "Jesus of Suburbia" (!!), "Minority", and then an acoustic performance of single verses of "Words I Might Have Ate" and "Give Me Novacaine", followed by "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" to end the show.

Billie Joe, playing "21 Guns"

The setlist was great and the band sounded awesome, but what was really cool is the way Billie Joe interacted with the audience. They hadn't even sung a song yet and he already had someone up on stage, asking them how they felt tonight. He frequently brought people onto the stage with him, including a girl to help sing "Are We the Waiting" and three different people to sing the three verses of "Longview", including one whom he prompted to do a stage dive off the runway portion of the stage. The most incredible, though, was during their encore, when Billie Joe asked the audience if anyone knew how to play guitar. He then said, "does anyone here know how to play Jesus of Suburbia?" About 10,000 hands flew into the air and there was much deliberation until he picked a guy near the front on the floor. He hopped on stage and, upon looking out at the crowd, put his hands on his head in disbelief. He was about to play one of Green Day's most well-known and well-liked songs in front of about 40,000 people. Also, the song is over 9 minutes long. The guy didn't miss a beat though. He took Billie Joe's guitar and started jumping around the stage, doing his best AC/DC impression. He looked like a rock star out there and Billie Joe looked like a genius (we wondered later how many times that has blown up in his face).

This guy was rocking out to "Jesus of Suburbia" with Bille Joe's guitar

The rendition of "Jesus of Suburbia" was fantastic. I haven't heard many live songs that were better than it. I love seeing bands having fun and getting the audience involved during their concerts. It shows me that they really get it. They know that it's part of their job to do that and they enjoy the adoration and idolization that they get from their rabid fan base. Billie Joe made about 10 people's nights and probably their lives on Tuesday by having them on stage singing or playing with him. One guy actually full-on kissed him on the lips and without missing a beat, Billie Joe kissed him back. It was probably the most fun show I've ever been to.

One of the best parts about the show, though, was that, although there was some pushing and shoving, nobody really got out of hand. I counted three crowd surfers the entire show. There was one douche-nozzle who was acting rambunctious before the show, elbowing people in the head and calling the girls around him "bitches" (including Sarah and Becky), but I gave him a short jab to the head and he calmed down after that. I think that everyone was too mesmerized to even care about moshing or crowd surfing, to be honest. Billie Joe's frequent calls of "Hey oh!", to which the crowd would respond in turn with a "hey oh" of their own, and his prompts for the crowd to sing along were enough to keep the entire audience enthralled for a full two and a half hours. I even snuck a peek at a couple of the event staff personnel getting into the show.

Billie Joe, wrapping it up acoustic-style with "Give Me Novacaine/Good Riddance"

In all, they played 28 songs and by the time we walked out, the time was approaching midnight. We were exhausted and sweaty and thirsty. I ended up buying a t-shirt from a street vendor since the line inside was too long, only to find out that the shirt was accidentally reversible. The screen print was on the inside-out side of the shirt and on the other side was a graphic promoting the recent boxing match in Philly. Wonderful. I ended up ordering a tour shirt from their website to make up for it. By the time we got home, it was almost two in the morning and I got about 4 hours of sleep before I had to wake up for work the next morning. I was exhausted (I took a 5-Hour Energy and still fell asleep on the train), and I think I'm still feeling the effects of it, but it was well worth it. I thank Green Day for putting on such an amazing show, one that instantly ranks in the top 3 of the best shows I have ever seen and one that I will never forget.

Crazy Night

2009-06-13T12:31:00.002-04:00

Ok, so... Sarah and I had a long, crazy night last night.

I took the day off of work yesterday and we planned to go to the Phillies-Red Sox game. We left around 4:30 for the game and didn't get into the stadium until almost 7:00. We took our seats among dozens of obnoxious Red Sox fans in the 200 level near the right field foul pole. The game was underwhelming until the bottom of the 9th inning, when Ryan Howard hit a game-tying home run. The game got boring again until the 13th, when the Red Sox scored 3 runs on 4 hits and a walk. The Phils were retired in the bottom half of the inning and the game was over.

Then there was the drive home. Bumper to bumper traffic, despite the fact that approximately half of the fans left the game before it was over. Unfortunately for us, there was a concert across the street at the Wachovia Center (Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood) that probably let out at the same time. Well, route 76 was a parking lot. We sat in bumper to bumper traffic for about a half hour. We were a mile away from the construction zone on 76, where 6 lanes merge down to 2 when... I got rear-ended. It was just a bump, nothing serious, but I was kind of pissed. I looked back and pointed at the guy behind me, an Asian guy in a Jeep Liberty. He pointed behind him, as to say it was the guy behind him that bumped me. When he went around us on the right, he confirmed that fact by telling us as he drove past. I was steaming but willing to let it go since I was fairly certain there was no damage. Sarah and I kept watching the guy in our rear views. He kept fiddling with something in his car, he had his interior light on, and he kept falling back when there was a gap in traffic, only to speed up and slam on his brakes, almost hitting me again. We watched him pull over in the right lane (which by the way, is an exit lane), stop, and turn his headlights off before turning them back on and going again. He then proceeded to rear-end another car. The woman pulled her car over, so I decided to do the same.

I got out of my car and walked back to his car, a silver Mercedes. I demanded to see his license and insurance information and told him that I was going to take his license plate number. He got out of his car with his pants unbuttoned and with only one shoe on. I can't make this shit up. I asked him for his license and he handed me his shoe. He told me that he takes his left shoe off when he drives because he doesn't drive with his left foot. When I told him I didn't want his shoe, he told me he was just trying to be honest. He assured me that he has never been in an accident and he has never gotten a ticket. At this point, we knew there was something wrong with this guy. He actually almost gave me his license and insurance card (which, by the way, was expired - that turned out being the least of his worries). We decided that we needed to stall him. The woman in the other car, Virginia, called the cops and we wanted to keep him at the scene until the cops got there. We kept inspecting the non-damage to our vehicles and I pulled my car over to the shoulder. I lent Virginia a towel to wipe off her bumper to see if there was damage. Finally, the cops arrived. When we heard the sirens, the guy said to us, "Oh, here they come. Can we just get out of here?" To which Sarah responded, "no."

The cops pulled up and took all our information. We told him what happened to both of us and then they went to interview the guy in the Mercedes. After about 5 minutes of what looked like sobriety tests, he was in cuffs and being escorted to the police cruiser. This is when we knew this was serious. After another half hour of God-knows-what goes on in that cruiser when the cops take your information, the one cop came back with our forms. Virginia's son, Mark, said he felt bad about ruining the guy's life, to which the officer responded, "Oh, you don't have to worry about him. He's going to jail." He said this while showing off his nifty new flashlight that has a slide-proof rubber seal on it. We asked him what the guy did to get arrested and he said, "Oh we found a bag of heroin in his backseat." Our jaws all dropped. We said we knew something wasn't right about him, but we didn't smell any alcohol on his breath. The cop said, "Yeah he wasn't drunk, he was just high on heroin and cocaine." I responded by asking if he was at the Clapton concert. Apparently, the guy had been in South Philly, scoring some heroin. This wasn't a junkie-looking guy either. He was in his late 40s or early 50s, with a Lower Gwynedd address (a wealthy area) and he told me he was a corporate executive. We told the cop that when I asked for his license, he gave me his shoe. The cop responded by saying, "Yeah, he's a crackhead."

So that was our evening. We made our first citizen's arrest, and it turned out being a heroin addict. We didn't get home until after 2:00 a.m. but we were wide awake on the drive home. Oh yeah, and when I went to start my car to leave the scene, my battery was dead. We had to get the tow truck driver to give me a jump. We got home way late, but I'm glad we stopped. I don't think that Virginia would have been able to keep him there on her own. And I have to give an assist to the Asian guy in the Jeep Liberty. Without him, I may not have even known which guy hit me. We still can't really believe what happened last night, but we have a hell of a story to tell for the rest of our lives.

Lost: The Incident

2009-05-15T10:17:00.003-04:00

Ok, so I’ve never done this before but I’m going to attempt to write an analysis of the awesomeness that was the Lost Season 5 finale. This episode was amazing and might rank as my favorite season finale of the entire series to date. I think that by the end of the series, this might rank as my all-time favorite episode.

The thing that made this episode great from the outset was answers. Answers, with a capital ‘A’. The writers and producers have been feeding us answers this season at a pretty steady pace, but the first five minutes of the finale gave us a revelation: Jacob is very real and seemingly very powerful. We learned a lot about Jacob in this episode. First off, he is a weaver. Weavers have a huge place in mythology. Weavers are big in Greek mythology as those controlling the destiny of others, although they are technically referred to as spinners. The ‘spindle of necessity’, which is part of the Greek Myth of Er, tells of souls dropping from the skies, then being sent back to Earth in new bodies. This could hold some significance, but I’ll get to that later.

Jacob, the man, the myth, the legend

The next thing we learn about Jacob is that he seems to have a counterpart on the island. After he finishes weaving, he goes out to the beach to catch a fish and a nameless man wearing black (Jacob is wearing all white, by the way) sits down next to him to have a chat. Their little talk is clearly filled with tension and passive aggression toward each other until the man in black asks Jacob the question, “Do you have any idea how much I want to kill you?” Jacob’s response is a simple “yes”. What they were discussing is the arrival of a ship, seemingly the enigmatic Black Rock, the ship that Rousseau and her crew arrived in. The two men had very different views of how things would turn out. On one hand, the man in black cynically predicted that things would happen as they seemingly always had: “They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.” Jacob, on the other hand, had a very different view on things: “It can only end once. Everything before that is progress.” These two opposite beliefs seem to mirror the beliefs of other characters on the show. It’s almost like Man of Science vs. Man of Faith, a la Jack Shepherd vs. John Locke. Nameless is the man of science, Jacob is the man of faith.

The dark and light between these two characters is extremely interesting. My first thought was that this man on the beach was the new “Bizarro Locke”, reincarnate (or, pre-incarnate?). But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let’s look at the two characters in terms of mythology. Clearly, they are opposite forces at work to control the way things play out on the island (or should I say The Island, since it has become such a large character in this tale?). Jacob would seemingly be the force of good and Nameless would be the force of evil. But sometimes appearances can be deceiving. More on that later.

Throughout the episode, we see flashbacks of Jacob touching the lives of the survivors. We had wondered up until this point whether there was one thing that connected all or some of the survivors, or at least the Oceanic 6, before they got on the ill-fated Oceanic flight 815. We had previously seen one or more characters run into each other in their previous lives, but we never saw a single thing that connected them all. Well, it seems there is a connection with some of the characters. Take note of who Jacob visited off the island, as this will no doubt be of great importance in the final season. Also, take note of the fact that he made physical contact in some way with each of the people he visited. Here are the survivors he had previously visited, in this order in the episode:

Kate: Young Kate was seen with an unknown childhood friend as she attempted to lift a super cool New Kids on the Block lunchbox from the Ames General Store in Iowa. After being caught, Jacob came to the rescue and paid for the lunchbox, but told Kate to “be good” and made her promise to not steal anymore, before touching her on the nose.

Sawyer: This scene appears to take place at Sawyer’s parents’ funeral, both victims of the murder-suicide that resulted from being conned by the man whose name James would later assume himself. Sawyer is 8 years old in the scene and is writing his “Dear Sawyer…” letter when his pen runs out of ink. Jacob to the rescue! He pulls a pen out of his jacket and hands it to James, brushing his hand as he does so. A family friend then sidles up next to him and makes James promise to not finish the letter, stressing that “what’s done is done”, a line we heard Sawyer repeat later in the episode, and a belief that was bestowed upon him by Locke himself.

Sayid: Jacob visited Sayid shortly after the Oceanic 6 returned from the island. Sayid is happily married to his love, Nadia, at the time when Jacob stops Sayid as he crosses the street to ask for directions. Nadia keeps walking and when she turns to look back at Sayid, she is run down by a speeding car. You couldn’t help but wonder if Jacob knew that Nadia would be hit by the car if he stopped Sayid.

Ilana: This scene takes place in an unknown location, but it seems to be some kind of primitive hospital (looks almost like an army barracks). Ilana’s face is heavily bandaged when Jacob walks in to ask for her help. It seems as though Jacob already knows Ilana at this point. Could Ilana have been working for Jacob when she kidnapped Sayid and brought him onto Ajira 316? Methinks this scene happened soon before the survivors went back to the island.

Locke: Jacob first meets Locke right after the fall that breaks both of John’s legs and paralyzes him from the waist down. Jacob closes the book he is reading (Everything That Rises Must Converge) and walks over to the apparently dead man on the pavement. He touches John’s shoulder and all of a sudden, John seems very alive again. It seems almost like Jacob is the reason that Locke survived the fall.

Jin and Sun: Jacob visited Jin and Sun at their wedding and while they did not know who he was, he apparently spoke excellent Korean. Jacob told them that their love is very special and not to take it for granted. The interesting thing to note here is that he visited both Jin and Sun together, which furthers the belief that they are tied together as a single entity in this storyline.

Jack: Jack had just finished his first major surgical procedure, the one where his dumb, old father embarrasses him in front of his new team by trying to calm him down after slipping up. Jack did calm down and fixed his mistake, but confronted his father afterward. He told real-life Christian that he humiliated him in front of his new team and he needs his team to believe in him. Christian’s response was that maybe he himself didn’t believe in Jack, or possibly that Jack didn’t believe in himself. Maybe Jack was just upset that his Apollo bar got stuck in the vending machine. No need to worry, though. Jacob shows up and gets the candy bar out of the machine for him, telling him that it “needed just a little push.” Interesting, because that’s all Jack needed to go back to the island.

Juliet: This was the only flashback that did not include Jacob and it wasn’t by accident. After learning of her parents’ impending divorce, Juliet stomps off to her room, yelling that she doesn’t want to get over it. This scene features another line that is later spoken by the character, when Juliet tells James that just because two people love each other doesn’t mean that they should be together. From this point on, it seemed that 1977 Juliet was doomed, as Jacob did not visit her in the past.

Hurley: Jacob visits Hurley one day before Ajira flight 316 takes off en route to the island. Hurley is released from jail and Jacob is already sitting in the cab that Hurley gets into. This was a great scene because the interaction between Jacob and Hurley was very well written. Hurley thinks Jacob is a dead person at first since Jacob wants him to go back to the island. Hurley lamented his “curse” that he can see dead people, but Jacob made it seem like it might be a blessing in disguise. He makes it clear that it is Hurley’s choice to go back to the island. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to”, says Jacob. He also tells Hurley that the guitar case he leaves in the cab is not his, which again raises the question: what is in the damn guitar case?

There a couple of recurring themes in these flashbacks. Jacob physically touches all of the survivors in some way. Also, Jacob apologizes in many of the flashbacks. He tells James that he is sorry about his family; he apologizes to Sayid because he is lost; he apologizes to Ilana because he couldn’t get to her sooner; he apologizes to Locke that his fall happened but assures him that everything will be alright.

Let’s go back now. The main plot of the episode follows Jack and Sayid as they try to get the hydrogen bomb to the future Swan station site to detonate and hopefully reset the timeline. The episode also features Locke, Ben, Alpert, and the others trekking to that ever-familiar traveling theme music as they hunt out Jacob (literally).Kate convinces Juliet, who convinces Sawyer, that letting Jack detonate the bomb is a bad idea, so they take the captain of the sub hostage just long enough for him to steer them to shore and let them out. While all this is going on, Alpert is knocking out Eloise to save her from the chaos that is about to ensue. Jack and Sayid try to disguise themselves are Dharma folk, but don’t do a very good job and Roger Linus shoots Sayid in the stomach. We see Jack has made his full transformation to Man of Faith here by telling Alpert that Locke should be trusted.

Sawyer, Juliet, and Kate meet up with Jack and the now-bloodied Sayid so that Sawyer can have a little chat with Jack. Jack gives probably the worst reason in history for wanting to reset the time loop, but nonetheless, his intentions seem to be good. Sawyer fails to see Jack’s reasoning, so he starts beating the bloody pulp out of him, until Juliet appears to give the second-worst reason for wanting to reset the time loop. Jack lumbers off to continue his quest, while Juliet spills her heart to Sawyer. Later, Jack tells Kate that Aaron would be back with Claire in this alternate reality and that seems like a more reasonable motive to reset the time loop, since clearly things weren’t working out with Aaron and Kate. One thing to note in this whole fiasco: Jack never seems real concerned with saving Sayid. He tries to stop the bleeding, but his only intent is keeping him alive until he can detonate the bomb. That means he really does believe in this idea more than anything else he has ever done (i. e. Man of Faith).

Jack sneaks into the Swan site not-so-stealthily and is immediately spotted by Phil, but his friends come to the rescue with guns blazing. Finally the shooting stops when Sawyer takes Phil hostage and Jack can toss the bomb down the hole. And… nothing happens. The drill keeps on drilling and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose. The bomb does not detonate and the plan seems to have failed. Everything that is magnetic starts to get sucked down the hole while the castaways struggle to get away. There is a final confrontation between Sawyer and Phil (which is totally not believable, by the way) in which Phil is ultimately impaled by about 5 metal rods. Then the dreaded event happens: Juliet is sucked into the pit by the metal chains wrapped around her. Sawyer tries to hold on but eventually loses his grip and Juliet is gone. Interesting thing to note in this scene: Jack is smacked in the head with a toolbox and rendered unconscious for a few minutes. Kate runs to help Jack, but then sees Juliet get sucked toward the pit and changes course. It could mean nothing, but it also could be another sign that Kate really chooses Sawyer over Jack. Or it could mean that Kate really wants to save Juliet because she know how much Juliet means to Sawyer. Or it could mean nothing.

We see the others scurry away and then see Juliet come to at the bottom of the pit with the bomb still intact. Interesting that she decides to try and detonate the bomb herself. She uses her free will to try to carry out the plan as it was designed by Faraday. She starts beating the bomb with a rock and… we’ll get to that in a little.

In the meanwhile, Locke, Ben and Alpert reach the statue where Jacob lives. On the way there, Locke informs Ben that Ben will be the one killing Jacob, not himself, after Ben tells Locke that Smokey/Alex told him to do whatever Locke tells him in the temple. We learn that Ben is a Pisces (although he’s actually a Sagittarius) in the following scenes that include more riotous dialogue from Michael Emerson. We also see the other Ajira 316 survivors make landing on the main island and take Lapidus in as a “candidate”. We aren’t quite sure what they means just yet, nor do we find out before the end of the episode. We follow them through the jungle as they carry a large crate and search out the cabin (how did they know where it was?) that seems to have been deserted for quite some time. They know now that they must hurry to the statue.

Finally, Ben and Locke head into the base of the statue, where Jacob calls home. This scene is one that I definitely need to watch again and again to fully capture what is going on. Jacob greets them and Locke responds in a tone that would assume he knows him, almost as an adversary. He tells Jacob that he has no idea what he’s been through to find him (although I think Jacob has a rough idea, what with the whole weaver thing and all). Then, it’s Ben’s turn to unleash on Jacob. After shamefully declaring to Locke earlier that he had never actually met Jacob, he lets Jacob have it. He releases all his pent-up anger toward Jacob, asking him why he was made to wait to see him all the time and finishing with a “What about me?” Jacob responds simply with the same sentiment: “What about you?” But he does not say it in a mean or condescending fashion. Ben, however, takes this as an insult after his 35 years of service on the island and stabs Jacob with Locke’s knife as the contented Locke stands and watches. Jacob utters one last, dying phrase: “They’re coming.” Who is “they”? Could it be his supposed followers, the other surviving Ajira 316 people? Or could it be Locke’s former friends and the original survivors? We also finally find out what lies in the shadow of the statue from Richard (of course he knows; also his Latin is excellent). The translation for what he says is: “he who will save/protect us all”. So it is a good thing or a bad thing that Jacob was killed? But the major bombshell (no pun intended) is the fact that the thing in the their giant box is actually John Locke’s dead body. Wow.

Creepy Bizarro Zombie Locke with Puppet Ben

Theory time! First off, my theory about Jacob vs. Nameless Man. This seems to be a pretty widely-regarded theory based on what I have read so far, but I did come up with it on my own (kind of). The Nameless Man is the Smoke Monster. In order for Smokey to take form, he must do it in the form of a dead person. My belief is that Smokey has taken the form of a number of different dead people throughout this series. In fact, I think every dead person seen on the island has been Smokey. Christian Shepherd? Smokey. Alex? Smokey. Bizarro Locke? Smokey. Why else would Locke have mysteriously shown up right after ghost Alex met with Ben to tell him to follow everything Locke tells him? Why would Alex tell Ben to obey Locke, his former sworn enemy? Smokey/Alex/Locke manipulated Ben to further its cause: to kill Jacob. We already know that the Nameless man is a sworn enemy of Jacob and that there seems to be some kind of rule in place where they cannot kill each other. Well, Nameless man found his loophole in the form of Benjamin Linus. He took the form of Locke via Smokey to manipulate the defeated Ben to do his bidding. And yet, Jacob still didn’t seem in the least bit worried about dying. And here is the big question… was this event, Jacob dying, supposed to happen? Did Jacob dupe Locke by simply carrying out the plan as it was set forth? Did he weave this into his design? The theory by Lost columnist Jeff “Doc” Jensen assumes this. Maybe Jacob was building his own loopholes off the island by visiting the survivors and helping to bring them back to the island. Maybe they are all reincarnated back into their bodies in the present-day, a la the Myth of Er. Doc thinks that they will either be reincarnated back into their bodies at the time of the crash OR be flashed back into the bodies at the moment in which Jacob touched them, retaining all previous memories. This would give each character the chance to change his or her destiny, a destiny which could include going to the island or their own free will. Hence, “they’re coming.”

More questions! What really caused the flash of light? Was it the bomb exploding or was it Jacob being killed? My initial thought was that it was Jacob being killed, but now I think it was the bomb. I was thinking, Jack hasn’t been fully redeemed yet and he won’t be until near the end of the series, most likely. But really, Juliet is the one who redeems herself by playing hero and detonating the bomb. So yes, I think it is the bomb because Juliet dies (we think, maybe) because she was redeemed. But why did the bomb not detonate on impact, like Sayid said it would? Did Sayid get cold feet and try to sabotage the operation? Another thing to question is… if the bomb detonating reset the timeline, does killing Jacob restore it? You have to wonder why Jacob touched the lives of the people he did while off the island. Maybe it was to bring them back to the island to actually restore the timeline that they were trying to reset because he knew that bringing them to the island would result in his imminent death (and possible resurrection?).

More on Jacob vs. Nameless. Which one is good and which one is evil? It would seem like Jacob was the good one and that Ben just royally screwed things up by killing him. But things aren’t always what they seem on Lost. Just because Jacob is wearing white and speaking softly and touching people on their shoulder does not mean he is all good. It could, in fact, be the exact opposite. If you think religiously, there is an ongoing battle between good and evil, heaven and hell, God and Satan. So why doesn’t God just kill Satan? Or vice versa? There is an unwritten rule, much like the one between Jacob and Nameless. So no matter how much Nameless wants to kill Jacob, he can’t unless he finds a loophole. These powers need vessels to carry out their work in the form of humans. The loophole for Nameless turned out to be Benjamin Linus, or Jesus? Far-fetched, maybe, but we’ll see. We see Jacob eating a fish in the opening scene; the fish is a symbol for Christ. But why, then, would Jacob be eating the fish? If he were the Christ figure, then he would be eating the very thing that symbolizes himself. Further, if you take a closer look at the dialogue between the two regarding the ship, it would make sense that the Nameless Man represents good. He laments the fact that the shipmates will come to the island only to fight and destroy and corrupt, almost as though he would do something about it if he could. Jacob says that it’s all part of progress. Progress toward what? Killing the good forces that are trying to kill him? Corruption would be a good thing for an evil spirit. The final indication could be in the statue in which Jacob lives. We all thought the statue was Anubis but it turns out we were wrong. The head of the statue is a crocodile head, not a dog’s head. This symbolizes Sobek, a morally ambiguous dark god who oversees dark waters and preys on sinful souls in the afterlife. Even worse, Set, the Egyptian god of chaos and evil was a shapeshifter who often morphed into crocodiles and hippos in his clashes with his enemy Horus (thanks Doc!). Could Jacob be a shapeshifter, disguising himself as a force of good when he is really evil? The whole relationship between Jacob and the nameless man could be one big bait-and-switch. I wouldn’t put anything past the writers of this show.

This statue is very ominous and should play a large role in the remaining mythology of the show.

Finally, the whole issue with the Cabin and with Smokey. Personally, I believe that Smokey is working against Jacob and never really had Jacob’s interests in mind. I believe Smokey was out to manipulate a weak soul into killing Jacob. So who was in the Cabin? Not, Jacob for sure. It was Smokey, in disguise as Christian Shepherd and/or Claire. This could be proven by the fact the Ilana believes the Cabin has been used “by someone else”, meaning that the “psychopomps”, as my fiancée and I call them, are actually evil (or good, if Jacob turns out to be evil). My belief is that Smokey was working his plan for the last 35 years, starting with Ben taking over the Others. Smokey fed Ben the B.S. for all those years to frustrate him and saw Locke as his opportunity to capitalize on the loophole theory. Thus, Ben became a pawn in his own game. The puppet master becomes the puppet and Ben ends up turning against the one person he actually believed in. I’m thinking more and more each week that Ben is really good at heart and has the Island’s best interests at heart. I see Widmore as a greedy S.O.B. that just wants revenge on Linus for kicking him out of the leader post after Widmore lost touch with the Island.

Aw, hell no! BERNARD! They found us!

So what about Hurley? He sees dead people too. Ok, this is a little out there but, what if his ability to see dead people really isn’t a symptom of schizophrenia, but rather a way of counteracting Smokey? Maybe Jacob was right when he told Hurley that his ability is really blessing and not a curse. Miles’ abilities could factor in the same way. This would point to Jacob being a good guy. Maybe Hurley is Jacob’s right-hand man, through and through. He did spend the most time talking with Hurley out of all the survivors he talked to, which might make him the most important one to return to the island. I have a feeling we may be seeing more of Hurley’s imaginary friends next season and we will definitely be learning more about Smokey and what exactly he is in the final 16 installations of this series.

Anyway, enough for now. Tell me your thoughts. How did I do? Do my theories make sense, or am I rambling fool? Let me know in the comments!

Also, read Doc Jensen: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1550612_20245769_20278837,00.html

Also, yay for Vincent and Rose and Bernard! Their scene was done to perfection!

And fade to white... clean slate? Alternate reality? And whose eye was that???

City Annoyances

2009-05-01T12:32:00.003-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted a good, old-fashioned rant, so I feel like today would be a good time to do so. I've been working in Center City Philly for about 11 months now and even though I am used to most of what I see down here, it still annoys the crap out of me.

[rant]
Number 1 issue: annoying train passengers. There are some people out there that think that the train is a good time to start a nice, long phone conversation. To those people, I say this: you are wrong. I simply cannot stand when somebody waits until they get on the train to call somebody and talk for an hour. The worst part is, the people that do this always talk in their "outside" voice. I think it's more or less an issue of not knowing the difference between an outside and an inside voice. Yesterday, just as the train was pulling out of the tunnel, a guy gets on his cell phone and calls what seems to be his mechanic. He's talking about a problem that his car has while chumming it up with this guy. Everyone is staring. People with earphones in their ears are staring, until a guy in front of him turns around and says "you know we can all hear you, right"? On Monday, a girl behind gets on the train at Fort Washington and proceeds to call one of her girlfriends to talk (loudly) about her relationship problems. I was playing my DS with my earphones in and I could still make out just about every word. I take the R5 train. This is the train line that actually tested the now-permanent "Quiet Ride" program. The first car of each peak-hour train is the "Quiet Ride" car, where you aren't allowed any cell phones, loud talking, or music devices. Wonder why they chose the R5 to test it out. It's now a permanent program on all train lines for all peak-hour trains.

Now that I got that out of the way, what is up with R5 passengers? I have never seen a more rude collection of people than on the R5 trains. People butting in front of you trying to get on the train, honking their horns at people in the parking lots of the train stations and just being generally rude. A couple incidents to point out: one morning at the Ambler station, as the passengers are boarding, a woman starts loudly accusing another woman of being rude. "How long are we going to have to put up with your childish behavior?" To which the other woman responds, "what do you mean?" First woman: "Every day you just walk in front of everybody else on the platform. I'm getting sick it!" And the conversation fades as the two walk to the back of the train car. Another incident, different morning: a guy around my age is sitting across from me listening to his iPod, albeit loudly. Yes, I could hear the music from his headphones but it didn't bother me. At the next stop, a middle-aged man (in a nice suit) boards the train and opens his newspaper. After about 30 seconds of staring at the iPod guy, he gets up, smacks the top of the seat in front of the guy and tells him to turn down the volume. The guy responds by turning the volume up. Granted, his music was loud. But there were seats everywhere. The suit guy could have just gotten up and moved to another car.

And the last incident, which happened to me: I had to drive to the Lansdale station one morning because I missed my train at Colmar. I got off in the evening (wearing my earbuds) and was walking to my car. Apparently, I wandered into the middle of the aisle as I was crossing the parking lot to get to my car. A guy in a car behind me honked his horn, which of course got my attention. I glared back and him and he mimed taking earphones out of his ears in the most condescending fashion possible. He drove past me and I flipped him off, of course. This guy actually stopped his car to yell at me (again, a middle-aged man with no tolerance of these young hoodlums and their iPods). He starts lecturing me about wearing my iPod while walking in a parking lot while I make the universal sign for "stop yapping". He proceeds to tell me that I "have a problem" and I tell him to "fuck off". He speeds away. I'm sorry, I was under the impression that pedestrians have the right of way in the great state of Pennsylvania, let alone IN PARKING LOTS!! I'll tell you what though; flipping that guy off made my day.

That's only the beginning. Then I actually get into the city and have to deal with more crap, like walking past smelly homeless people begging for a dollar (a dollar? seriously? whatever happened to "spare change"?) and hearing cabbies lay on their horns. I've never wished that cars were made without horns until I started working in the city every day. DUDE, honking your horn will do absolutely nothing! Don't you think that everyone in front of you also wants to get to where they are going? Then there are those people that walk around on overcast days with umbrellas, even if it's not really raining. Swear to God, this morning it wasn't raining when I came out of the train station. The only drops coming down were from trees and buildings, etc. And yet, I counted about a dozen people in my two-block walk that had their umbrellas up.

Then I have to deal with the noisy people that work on my floor. It seems like they maybe work for 2-3 hours a day on a busy day. They are constantly arguing with each other about something. It was worse during the election, when the one very Democratic woman was teaming up with her other colleagues on the one staunch Republican in the group. I'm sorry, regardless of your political affliation, I feel that it's inappropriate workplace discussion to be having when you are arguing over whose fault it is for the current economic crisis. You can do that outside the office, at lunch or over drinks. But that's not all. One day I heard two of the guys talking about breast implants. True story. The one guy had a friend that got breast implants and that's what they were talking about, loud enough for me and others around me to hear. And the one woman is always getting into heated arguments on the phone with companies that always seem to be charging her too much for... whatever. These conversations sometimes drag on for up to an hour and are just aggravating. The best one was on Tuesday, when she decided it would be a good idea to talk to one of her friends on her cell phone while walking around near my cube. Look, I'm not one of those guys that thinks it's wrong to make a personal call during work every now and again, but keep it to yourself. I don't need to know what's going on in your personal life.

Then I have to actually work, which can be annoying here. Everyone seems to think that meetings are supposed to start 5 minutes after the scheduled start time and end 5 minutes after the scheduled end time. I call it the "5 minute rule". Five minutes early, five minutes late. Then I have to deal with people responding to emails without actually reading them, people giving estimates without actually looking into what is being required, and people arguing with each other during conference calls, which is really one of my biggest pet peeves. I've been in several meetings, both in person and over the phone, that have turned heated and it's not fun. It's embarassing, mostly for the people that are arguing. It's not professional and it's ridiculous that people act like that in the workplace.

And then my day is done and I go home. That's my typical day. I don't know how I've done it, but I've kept my cool and stayed sane for 11 months now. I guess I know what would happen if I did lose it, though. I'd probably lose my job. So that kind of hangs over my head whenever I think of flipping out. Thank goodness for books and Nintendo DS and naps on the train. They are, I think, what keeps me sane during the workday.
[/rant]

Ah, that felt good.

I <3 Amazon

2009-04-24T11:20:00.002-04:00

Ok, so this is something that I had to write about sooner or later. I'm addicted to amazon.com. A co-worker did this to me. He told me about Amazon Prime and voila! Two years later, I'm hooked. I do about 90% of my shopping on Amazon. It's great for Christmas shopping, especially when you have the Amazon Prime membership. Let me rewind a bit.

Amazon is a website where you can find just about anything to buy, but I use it mainly for DVDs/Blu-rays and video games. Amazon Prime is a special membership you can sign up for to get free 2-day shipping on all items that are sold and fulfilled by Amazon. The membership costs $79/year. Also, if for some reason you need the item the next day, you can pay an extra 2 or 3 bucks to get it there sooner. Think about it. The rate to ship something 2-day (a DVD, for instance) is $3.99. If you buy more than one, the shipping rate goes up, of course. So, if you do lots of online shopping, this deal will pay for itself within a month or two. And it did, for me. In 2007, I did all my Christmas shopping on Amazon. I ordered all kinds of stuff and everything always showed up in two days or less, even items that I ordered the week of Christmas.

But the kicker came when I ordered two large items from Amazon. For Sezzy's birthday, I ordered a Dyson vaccum cleaner. Can you guess the best part? That's right, free two-day shipping. Then, last August, I ordered my 58" Plasma TV for our new rec room. Best part? Free shipping (they couldn't guarantee 2-day since they ship through a 3rd party, but it was still free and it was delivered to my front door by two very nice Hispanics that didn't speak a lick of English). The delivery guys even unboxed the TV for me (after some coaxing and a decent-sized tip) and hooked it up to make sure it was working. The best part about Amazon Prime (arguably) is that you can add up to 4 other members to your account. I added Sezzy so now we have one Prime account and all items that either of us buy get free 2-day shipping.

But Amazon Prime is not the only reason I shop on Amazon. Their prices are many times unbeatable. The retail price on the TV that I bought was close to $800 more than what I payed on Amazon. And it was full price at both Best Buy and Circuit City. Also, no tax for us Pennsylvania residents (I believe the New York residents now have to pay tax on Amazon because of some stupid new law that deals with online shopping). So I can buy a new video game (which by the way, are usually a couple dollars cheaper than the list price) and pay no tax and no shipping, and I can do it while I'm watching TV or surfing the web. The real kicker here came last summer when Amazon added "Release Date shipping" to some of their video game titles. I thought that shipping for new releases was usually spot on before they added this, but this guaranteed that the games would arrive on release day. For no extra charge for Prime members.

Where Amazon really wins, though, is their customer service. Or rather, customer satisfaction. I'll be the first to admit that dealing with Amazon's customer service can often be quite frustrating. Their call center is outsourced so communication can be a problem. Usually, you end up talking to somebody in India and having to explain the situation multiple times (seriously, average call time with them is like 25-30 mins), but this is pretty normal in this day and age anyway. The thing that sets Amazon's customer service apart is that they try to do whatever they can to make you happy if you have a problem. Everyone makes mistakes, and Amazon is part of "everyone". But they realize how frustrating it is when they make a mistake and they do what they can to keep you happy, even if they are just following a script. I ordered Mario Kart for the Wii when it came out. I had it pre-ordered and chose "Release Date Shipping". It did not come on release day. I called and explained and they threw a $5 credit on my account. When I ordered the Dyson, I didn't know it could come in the actual Dyson box and not a plain brown Amazon box. It was a birthday present so I kind of wanted it to be a surprise. I got a phone call at about 3:30 pm on the delivery date from Sezzy, and all she said was "We haz a vacuum?" Thanks Amazon. I called, complained, got a $5 credit on my account. Sezzy ordered a video game with 2-day shipping for me for our anniversary in November. It took 5 days for it get here. She called up, complained, got a $5 credit on her account.

But my latest incident with Amazon is what impressed me most. It impressed me because I was the one who totally screwed the pooch in the situation. Amazon recently started taking trade-ins on video games (credit comes in the form of Amazon gift card credit to your account). I'm a pretty avid gamer and I worked at EB Games/Gamestop for almost 4 years so I know my fair share of what goes on in the retail video game industry. I know, more or less, what you can expect to get in trade value from Gamestop for most games. So I thought I would check it out. I haven't traded in any PS3 or 360 games yet because Gamestop's trade values don't impress me much anymore. When I looked at Amazon's trade values, I was impressed. There were some games that I thought were worthless (i.e. Heavenly Sword, which I got for free with my PS3) that they were willing to give a very generous amount in trade for (I got $20.50 for mine but it's back down to $13 now). Plus, they pay for you to ship your games to them. I was skeptical of shipping times and whatnot, but I thought I would give it a try since the trade values were good.

Then I saw their trade-in special. Trade in 4 or more games for any system and get an extra $20 toward a select list of games. On the list was Killzone 2, a game which I have been meaning to get but was previously too cheap to actually shell out the money for. This was perfect. I could trade in my games and get Killzone for free, basically. So I got my games together to trade in: Heavenly Sword ($20.50), Prince of Persia ($17.75), NCAA Football 09 ($9.50), Rock Band ($7.25), and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith ($3.50) for a total of $58.50. These are all games that I'm not going to play anymore, for various reasons. So, with my $20 extra credit, that comes to $78.50. That's almost enough to buy two games. So my plan was to buy Fallout 3 ($49.99 on Amazon) and then when I got my $20 credit in my email (they don't all come at the same time; trade credit first, then promotion credit), I would buy Killzone 2. Voila, two brand new games for under $25.

However, I didn't exactly execute my plan the way I intended to. Somewhere in there, I had a brainfart and in my excitement to play Killzone 2, I went ahead and bought that with my trade-in credit (by the way, I still haven't played it). This was very, very stupid of me, since I did not yet receive my $20 promotional credit. So I had $5.51 left in trade credit, and last night I got my gift card code for my $20 promotional credit. Being the idiot that I am, I still only realized this morning that my $20 credit was more or less useless. Killzone 2 is the only game off of the list of "select games" that I really wanted. So now I was looking at paying $45 for Fallout, rather than $24.50. In desperation, I called Amazon. I explained the situation (5 times, and often in piecemeal) to the customer service rep who, by the way, was very helpful. I spent about 30 minutes on the phone with her, but eventually she was able to add a $20 credit to my account that I could use on anything in my next purchase. Praise Amazon. I thanked her profusely, admitting my mistake several times. I promptly bought Fallout 3, as if the credit were going to disappear as soon as I hung up with her.

So kudos to Amazon once again. I haven't found a more reliable, dependable online retailer in my short lifetime. From their great prices to their outstanding selection to their unbeatable deals to their sometimes-frustrating-but-always-satisfying customer service, they have it all figured out. I feel I will be an Amazon customer for life after the experiences I have had with them and if you haven't yet experienced the glory that is Amazon, I would definitely recommend it.

Strange Day

2009-04-14T09:36:00.004-04:00

Yesterday was a strange day for me, full of different emotions. I woke up yesterday morning with a holiday weekend hangover, the kind that makes you feel like you never want to wake up at 6:00 am and go to work ever again, but you know you have to. I dragged myself out of bed and got ready for work, hopped the train and rode into Center City.

My workload is light right now, so I spent a portion of my morning figuring out my local taxes. I hate taxes. Local tax in Pennsylvania is the biggest B.S. ever. Not only do I pay thousands in federal taxes (on top of what I normally owe at tax time), but the local boroughs charge every working residents anywhere from 1-2% of their gross salary in local tax. In Lansdale, the local tax is 1%, with half going to the township and half going to the school district. It sucks, but it's still only 1%. Sure, I complained about it last year, but I realize now how lucky I was. I went to do my taxes this year and found out that the local tax rate in my new town is 1.5%. That means that I have to pay 50% more this year than I paid last year. Luckily, I only lived there for 4 months, but next year should be real fun. Without telling you what my yearly salary is, this puts my local taxes at over $900 per year. It's disgusting. This pretty much ruined my morning.

So I went to lunch. There's a great sandwich place just down the block from where I work, but I choose Subway over this place sometimes because Subway is cheaper. No more! To my surprise, Subway changed all their prices over the weekend. They also put up a hip new menu to confuse people with. Get this: all of their good (in my opinion) subs are now over $5 for a 6-inch! And yes, they are still running the $5 footlong promotion. Yesterday, I wanted to get a 6-inch Subway Club with the meal. The 6-inch club used to be $4.50, but they raised the price to $5.25, making it more expensive to get the 6-inch than the footlong under the current promotion. So Subway would rather waste food than have someone simply buy the amount that they want or need. Nice going Subway. Way to do your part. Not only that, but all 6-inch subs are now at least 3.99, including the veggie subs. All subs with meat are at least $4.25. I actually hope that the $5 footlong thing ends soon so they can stop wasting food. The best part is that the 12-inch versions of the 6-inch subs that now cost $5.25, cost a whopping $7.00! That's right, $7.00 for a footlong Subway Club. If you add a meal, you're looking at a $10 lunch, which incidentally is more expensive than the local deli (Kennedy Food Garden, a.k.a. The Sandwich Nazi) I mentioned earlier.

So when I got back from lunch, I was pretty peeved. But then I saw something that made all that go away. I saw a news story come up on my Google Reader with the headline "Harry Kalas rushed to hospital". Of course I clicked it. The story said that Kalas collapsed in the press box of the Washington Nationals' stadium and was rushed to the hospital. Team President David Montgomery said it didn't look good. I frantically started clicking links on philly.com to get an update and when I clicked the "Home" link, the headline on the front page read "Harry Kalas Dies". I couldn't believe it. I was in complete and utter shock. It all happened so suddenly. I clicked the link and the story said that he passed out and was unconscious when he was rushed to the hospital and the doctors could not revive him. I felt lost for a few minutes. I teared up. I've never felt so sad over the death of somebody I don't even know. But he was the heart of the city of Philadelphia and the only Phillies commentator I knew in my lifetime. He was the image and voice of the Phillies and one of the greatest commentators the sports world has ever known.

See you Harry, you were the best ever

What few people know about him is all the different things he did in broadcasting. Sure, he has been the Phillies broadcaster since 1971, but other credits include being the voice of NFL Films since 1975, as well as credits calling NFL and college football games on Westwood One radio. He was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame in 2002. He was the Phillies' broadcaster during their 1980 World Series title, but did not get to call the games because of broadcasting rules set forth by the MLB. Four years later, the rules were changed and 24 years after that, Kalas finally got his crowning achievement: calling the last out of the Phillies' 2008 World Series championship. He is, in my and many others' opinions in Philly and elsewhere, the best there ever was.

Still feeling a little off when I left to head home, I read a little and dozed on the train before going home to help my fiancee with her taxes. We watched our CBS comedies (Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother), which were hilarious, before watching one of the most boring episodes of Heroes to date. At the climax of the episode, I was finishing up my local taxes and Sezzy was playing Final Fantasy III on her DS. It made me laugh at just how much the show has declined in the last two years. Anyway, I thought I would feel back to normal again when I woke up this morning and, for the most part, I did. I got ready for work and hopped in my car to head to the train station. On the way, WMMR played a Harry Kalas montage put together by a member of their morning show and I got emotional all over again (I posted it on my tumblr site). I guess it's going to take the people of Philadelphia some time to heal after this sad, sad incident. Our voice was taken from us yesterday and watching a Phillies game will never be the same. I hope the Phillies pull together this year and win another one for Harry the K. It's what he would have wanted.

Bad Day (and SEPTA Hate, Pt. 3)

2009-03-27T10:10:00.006-04:00

Sometimes, these posts write themselves.

I was having an ok day yesterday, not great but not bad either. It was just like any other work day. Sure, I don't enjoy going to work, but I also don't loathe it. Most of my weekdays are just... days. As was yesterday, up until about 2 pm.

I was surfing the web in the little free time that I had yesterday, checking my Google Reader rss feeds and chatting on Google Chat, when all of a sudden a slew of system errors started popping up on my screen. Here is what I saw:

WTF?

Now, I'm an IT guy, but even this message doesn't mean too much to me. I thought I would try the "Check online for a solution" option since I had never seen this error before. So I clicked that option and here's what I got:

WTF????????

Whoa. At first, I thought it was funny, hilarious even. I report a problem and get a message that Windows Problem Reporting stopped working. Ha ha, funny. My next question was: "if Windows Problem Reporting has stopped working, can I check for a solution?" This was all very comical to me at this point. So I tried clicking "Check online for a solution" again and got the same message. The answer to my question was a resounding "no". So of course, I had to copy and paste these screenshots to post on the web. This was just too funny to let go. So I tried to open Paint to paste my screenshot. Crash. I tried again. Crash. Ok, so Paint isn't opening. Now what? How do I get this hilarious screenshots saved? Microsoft Word? I tried to open that and... crash. Now I'm getting a little concerned but I still thought that I could reboot and everything would be a-ok again. But I still needed to save these screenshots. And then it came to me. My Outlook was already open so I should be able to send an email. I pasted the screenshots into an email and sent it to myself. Success! Now, to get my laptop back to normal (it's about 2:30 at this point).

I rebooted my machine, thinking it just needed a memory dump or some such. I log in to Windows and... nothing. Just errors. "Windows Explorer has stopped running", "Windows Module Installer has stopped running", etc., etc. Uh-oh. At this point, I am not longer finding this comical. I am now thinking there may be a serious problem with my computer. What could I possibly have done to cause this to happen? I was doing NOTHING out of the ordinary. Surfing the web, chatting with friends and colleagues, etc. I rebooted again and booted in Safe Mode this time. Everything seemed fine. I ran a chkdsk to scan my hard drive for corruption. No issues detected. Ok, let's try to reboot again. I logged in and bam! more errors. Services shutting down all over the place. Plus, I can't even launch any administrative tools to investigate. Even Task Manager was shutting down when I opened it to try to launch/end processes. I started Googling on my work computer at this point. I found a few useless solutions. I finally rebooted and ran system diagnostics, thinking the problem could be rooted in corrupt memory or hard drives. Memory can become corrupted out of nowhere and this memory is two years old so who knows?

After about an hour of running system diagnostics, all the tests come back as passed. My memory was run through about 15 different tests and passed all of them with flying colors. At this point, I am stumped. I am taking stock of my applications at this point and formulating a plan to re-install Windows, chalking this all up to a Vista issue. I am actually planning, at this point, to downgrade to Windows XP Professional and say "to hell with Vista". Then I get a bright idea. This just started happening about 2 hours ago (it's about 4 pm at this point). I should have a recent restore point. I boot up in Safe Mode and start System Restore (I had a restore point from Wednesday morning, luckily). At this point it's 4:15 and I normally leave work at 4:25. Crap, why didn't I wait until I got home to do this? I have a green and blue screen that simply says "Please wait while System Restore Initializes". Initializes??? It hasn't even started running yet?! It's 4:23 and I have to get going. I think that maybe just closing the lid of the laptop will keep system restore running while I'm on the train.

It doesn't. Instead, it shuts the computer off. Great, now I screwed it up. I boot up the computer again, starting Windows normally, and log in and... everything is back to normal. No errors, all my applications are loading up properly. I get a popup saying that System Restore completed successfully, which baffles me because it just told me 2 mins ago that it was still initializing. I'm afraid to do anything more at this point and I really can't deal with all this right now so I shut down and head for the train station. Feeling victorious, I head down to my platform and hear this over the loudspeaker:

"Attention all R5 passengers. Service on the R5 Lansdale-Doylestown line has been indefinitely suspended. You are advised to seek an alternate means of transportation."

All aboard the Express to... oh nevermind

I stand shock-still for a few minutes looking at the other equally shocked R5 riders that I recognize before swiftly heading upstairs and grabbing a few train schedules. I know that the R5 going the other direction makes stops past Center City, but where or when the trains get into the station is voodoo magic to me. I called my fiancee and ask her if she can possibly pick me up. She has to tutor at 6:30 but she calls the kid and is able to reschedule. I tell her to meet me at Lansdale station at 5:44. I head down to the platform for the R5 Thorndale and ask a guy there if any of the R5 Thorndales go through to Lansdale. He tells me that I have to take the R5 Lansdale line to get to Lansdale. Thanks, Captain Obvious. I remind him that the R5 Lansdale line is DOWN (you dumb f*ck, but I didn't actually say that) and I need to find an alternate route. He says he needs to find out what to do in this case so he asks the rather important-looking guy in a reflective vest sitting down at a desk-like thingy and this guy snaps that he's "not a route advisor" and orders the other guy to find so-and-so and he should be able to tell him which route to take. So the guy walks away and doesn't come back.

So I go over to map again to look at the lines. It would seem that the R2 line goes to Hatboro, which is really the best I'm gonna do at this point. The next train arrives at 5:02 on the same track as my usual train. I get down there and it seems like a lot of other people have the same idea. I actually was able to procure a seat towards the back of the train, but I was one of the last people to do so. The train was packed with not only R2 passengers but also the displaced R5 passengers. I text my fiancee and tell her about the change of plans. I got to Hatboro at around 6:00, so it wasn't too bad. Turns out, all hell was breaking loose because of the light rain we got yesterday (yes, light rain). The root of the SEPTA problem was actually a PECO power outage in Ambler, thus suspending the lines. There were traffic lights out and apparently flights, both arrivals and departures, were delayed up to 2 hours at Philly airport. Seriously, it was just rain. And it wasn't even heavy rain. It was just plain old normal rain. No thunder or lightning. Very little flooding on the roads. It was barely even raining in Center City.

So we went out to dinner after I got back and the only good thing to happen to me all day happened at Ruby Tuesday. I ordered a 12 oz. beer and got a 21 oz. Woot! And, they didn't charge me for the bigger beer. Double woot! As we drove home, the electricity was still out in places. Two lights were out on 309 and the entire Wal-Mart shopping center looked to be without power. Seriously, it was just rain, nothing else.

Just... rain. I guess sometimes, things happen that are completely out of my realm of understanding.

Ticketmaster Fiasco

2009-03-16T10:29:00.002-04:00

I come to you today with a tale about how annoying it is to deal with customer service and how disorganized the NCAA tournament ticket-buying process is. Let me start from the beginning.

I love March Madness. I have gone to two 1st and 2nd round sites, including Tampa last year, where all the upsets happened on the same weekend. When I heard that Philly would be hosting a 1st and 2nd round set of games in this year's tournament last May, I got excited. I figured this would be a good way to get to see some tournament basketball without having to pay for travel or take vacation. When I got the information in the mail, though, I realized that I had to put a deposit down almost a year in advance. Then there would be a lottery to determine who got tickets and where the each lottery winner's seats are. The problem is that everyone pays the same price. So one person could pay the $220 and get courtside seats, while someone else could pay the $220 and get Section 222, Row 15 (last row in the arena). The games are being held at the Wachovia Center and I know how bad the upper level is for basketball. I didn't want to take the chance. I wasn't going to shell out $900 a year in advance for the possibility of ending up with upper level seats. When I went before, my brother got the tickets (he works for a certain large sports entertainment network and has connections), so he was always able to get good seats. So the Wachovia Center had their little lottery and distributed the tickets in June or July of last year. I just kind of forgot about it until last Friday.

On Friday, I got my weekly Ticketmaster newsletter email with the latest events on sale in Philly. In the email, one of the events was "NCAA Tournament 1st and 2nd Round Men's Basketball". As you can imagine, I was a bit confused. I was under the impression that there was a lottery and that all tickets were distributed. I clicked on the link and the website said that the tickets went on sale Thursday, 3/12 at 2:45 pm. Strange date and time considering that the tournament starts on Thursday, 3/19. Anyway, I selected 4 tickets and clicked submit to search for tickets. The site basically said that the tickets are given out randomly. I would have to buy a package and go to the arena on Tuesday (tomorrow) and pick them up. The part I still wasn't sure about was how there were still tickets available. I wanted to get to the bottom of this so I called the Wachovia Center box office. They should know about this, right? They are the ones hosting the event and distributing the tickets. I talked to a very rude customer service rep that sounded like she had some place to get to quick and didn't have time to talk. She told me that they distributed all their tickets last June. I told her that Ticketmaster is selling tickets to this event on their website. She said that the Wachovia Complex has nothing to do with that and told me to call Ticketmaster. She hung up without saying "goodbye".

So I called Ticketmaster. After navigating through endless automated prompts, I finally got to speak to an actual person. I asked him about the tickets being sold on the Ticketmaster website for the event. He said that the tickets would be assigned randomly. I told him that I had concerns over whether or not there actually were tickets available, since the Wachovia Center did their lottery already. He told me I should call the Wachovia Center box office. When I informed him that I already had, he asked me to hold and checked with another rep. When he came back, he told me that the tickets were "first come, first served" but if I bought a package, that I would have tickets to the games. I thanked him and hung up. I thought about this for a while and all I can come up with is this: the Wachovia Complex had their lottery and didn't get enough people to bite. They had extra seats left after the lottery process and those tickets went to Ticketmaster to sell online. The other possibility is that the NCAA only released a certain number of tickets to the Wachovia Center and gave the rest to Ticketmaster. That doesn't make much sense to me, though, unless the NCAA is in bed with Ticketmaster, but I guess that wouldn't surprise me. But why now? Why didn't the tickets go on sale sooner? Even if they had gone on sale two weeks ago, it still would have been better than 6 days before the first game. And why can't you pick your freakin' seats yourself? I hate this lottery bullshit. The problem still was, I had no idea where my potential seats would be if I bought a package.

So I had an idea. I called the Wachovia Center box office again and asked the (much nicer) rep if they had any tickets left for the 1st and 2nd round games. Her answer? "No, we distributed them all through the lottery." Ok... So I told her that Ticketmaster is selling them online. She said that I should buy them then. She went on to explain that the box office distributed all the tickets they had last June. I asked her if they gave out all the tickets available for the whole arena and she said she didn't know. They don't tell the reps how many tickets are sold, they just process the applications and send out the tickets. This is a little disconcerting to me. The box office reps at a major sports complex don't know how many seats they have left for a major event. They don't know what seats are already taken, and which ones are still available. I mean, I'm sure somebody knows, but the reps don't and I didn't have the energy or remaining brain power to ask for a manager.

In conclusion, I did not buy tickets. This is a horrible job by the NCAA, the Wachovia Center box office, and Ticketmaster. First off, the lottery process is awful. It's so dated and it turns people like me off to the idea of buying tickets for these events. There are some locations that didn't sell out this year and I'm sure that this is one of the factors for that. Nobody wants to sit a half mile away to watch a basketball game and nobody wants to shell out over $200 per ticket to take that chance. If the NCAA was smart, they would let the box offices and Ticketmaster handle this the right way, which is first come, first serve just like every other event. It works great for concerts and other sporting events, so why not this? I can see having a lottery for Final Four tickets, maybe, but for the 1st and 2nd rounds? Come on, you can all do better than this.

Review: Bioshock (360)

2009-03-10T11:40:00.007-04:00

I got my Xbox 360 a little over a year ago so I'm still catching up on some games that most 360 owners have probably already played. Case in point: Bioshock. I'm not a huge fan of the FPS, or first-person shooter, but when I saw Bioshock on sale for $19.99 on Newegg, I told my fiancee that I would like that for Christmas, please. I recently finished it and all I have to say is, wow. What a game. And that's coming from somebody who is usually pretty critical of, well, just about everything.

Story
Ok so here's the deal. The game is set in 1960. The main character, Jack's, airplaine crash-lands in the Atlantic Ocean and you appear to be the only survivor. There is fire and destruction all around so you swim to the nearest stable object... which just so happens to be the bathysphere entrance to Rapture, an underwater dystopian/failed utopian society. The radio in the bathysphere comes on and you meet an ally named Atlas, who is set on protecting you and finding you so that you can save his family and get out of Rapture. On the other hand, there is a man named Andrew Ryan who you learn is the creator of Rapture who is hellbent on keeping you from accomplishing your goals. As you progress through the game, you learn more about Rapture and how it got to the state it's in.

The goal of Rapture was to escape the shackles of society and create a laissez-faire society free of the oppression caused by political, economic, and religious forces. This allowed the brilliant scientists that Andrew Ryan brought to Rapture to make rapid advancements in engineering and biotechnology. One such advancement was the discovering of ADAM, cells extracted from a new kind of sea slug that allowed scientists to change the human genome, allowing them to splice genes to give humans special powers. Dr. Tennenbaum found that ADAM could be mass-produced by injecting slugs into the stomachs of little girls, whom they took from orphanages.

Soon, the gap between the rich and poor in the society widened and a hero emerged. Frank Fontaine started programs to help the poor, something Ryan's philosophies did not support, and started a huge smuggling organization that provided people with items from the outside, such as religious materials. He also controlled the plasmid industry, which allowed normal people to give themselves powers by injecting their bodies with formulas. He attempted to overthrow Ryan, but failed miserably and was crushed and reported dead. Ryan seized control of Fontaine's plasmid business, but a new hero emerged, Atlas. Atlas started splicing his own army and on the eve of 1959, Atlas and his forces launched their revolt. Ryan launched his counter-attack with his own spliced army. The result was that Rapture was overrun by gene-spliced freaks that laid waste to everything in their path. To solve the ADAM shortage problem, Little Sisters were mentally conditioned to go around Rapture and extract ADAM out of dead bodies and recycle it into raw ADAM by ingesting it. They are protected by Big Daddies, which you may have seen before.

Scarier than they look once you actually fight one

That's where Jack comes in. Jack arrives in Rapture just as all this is going down. Without giving away the story, suffice to say that you make your way through Rapture, splicing your genes and gaining abilities on your way to try and take down the evil Andrew Ryan. The game is filled with twists and turns and deceit at every corner. You can't trust anyone in this underwater world filled with horror and suspense.
Score: 9/10

Graphics
The graphics in this game were surprising sharp for being almost two years old. There have been great advances in graphics technology since this game has come out and yet it still looks brand new. It actually looks better than some of the games that I have played on the 360. The game is built on the Unreal Engine 2.5 with some Unreal Engine 3 features thrown in. Even with the occassional freezes (it happened to me only once) and slight glitches, the game looks absolutely fantastic. It fully immerses you into the environment of Rapture and gives you a real idea of just how dismal this place is. The ambience of being so far underwater a miles away from real civilization is very creepy. The graphics contribute to that by portraying Rapture as very dark and deeply depressing.

The creepiest part is the lack of a sky... water in every direction

You never know what is lurking in the shadows or behind a closed door. The character design of the splicers (enemies) are horrifying and the bosses and Big Daddies are scary as hell. I wish there were more games that looked as good as this one.
Score: 9/10

Gameplay
The gameplay was fantastic. The controls were very easy to learn and very intuitive. Sometimes the problem with an FPS is that the controls are too sensitive, or not sensitive enough. That was not the case with Bioshock. They hit it right on the head. One interesting piece of the gameplay was the use of health packs. Many FPS games nowadays do not use health packs and instead just require the player to take cover and rest for a few seconds to recover their health. This was different for me at first but, at the same time, a relief. It made you feel like you really could die at any moment in this place. The sheer volume of enemies that spawn at certain points of the game is very much horrifying and the lack of ammo at certain points of the game makes you feel the desperation that Jack must feel. The game (on the normal difficulty level) is not too hard, but also not too easy. I died a few times, but generally I was able to get by despite lacking ammo or health packs numerous times. The game combines elements of using abilities, shooting, running, and hacking into machines. The hacking element was the most intriguing because the hacking system was totally different than anything I've ever experienced. There are a number of different machines to hack, including ammo and item machines, health stations, safes, and bots and turrets. When you start the hack, you have to rearrange tiles that represent tubing to get from the start point to the end point. While you are doing this, fluid starts to flow from the start point through the tiles you have already placed. If you do not connect the tubes before the fluid gets to a dead end, the machine emits a powerful shock that takes most of your health bar away.

Once you get good at it, it's not so hard... until the end of the game

It was an interesting way of accomplishing this aspect of the game and I actually enjoyed hacking once I got good at it. It's an almost necessary part of the game at many spots throughout your journey so I recommend practicing early and often.
Score: 9/10

Sound
The sound combined with the graphics to make this a fully immersive experience. I can't remember the last time I sat on the edge of my seat for just about every minute of a video game, but this game makes you do exactly that. You are constantly hearing sounds of splicers nearby or the thud of the Big Daddy's boots on the ground or the creepy voice of the Little Sister, telling the Big Daddy that she's ready for "dream time." The images of the Little Sisters stabbing their syringes into dead bodies to extract ADAM, combined with the *squish* that accompanies it makes you shudder.

Watch out for that splicer!

The mindless ranting that you hear from the splicers keeps you on your toes at all times, because you know that they could jump out from behind a door or from a bathroom stall at any moment. And that's not even the best part. The music that plays throughout the game creates the eery setting that is Rapture. The game is set in 1960 and the music that plays throughout the game is off of the Great American Soundtrack. You're in a place that you don't know, with eery oldies music seeping through the PA system. Excellent work of using music to further immerse the player in the environment and atmosphere of the game.
Score: 9/10

All in all, this was one of the best games I have ever played. It was just an all-around excellent game. The story was interesting, the gameplay was intense, and the graphics and sound fully immersed me in the environment. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time I played this game. I think the best sign of a great game is whether or not you want to play it again once you're finished. Now that I'm finished with it, I want to play it again already. It was that good. Unfortunately, I have other games that I have to tend to first, but I'm sure I'll pick it back up before Bioshock 2 comes out, which should hit stores sometime this Holiday season.
Overall Score (not an average): 9.5/10

You wouldn't like me when I'm angry

A-Rod, and Brett Favre too

2009-02-12T09:54:00.008-05:00

Please tell me I'm not the only one who is sick and tired of seeing these two clowns' names plastered all over the news. There are few things that irritate more than stupid athletes doing stupid things and making stupid headlines regarding those stupid actions.

So A-Rod finally decided that he had no other option than to come clean and admit he used PEDs (aka performance-enhancing drugs... by the way, when did this become the official abbreviation? I must have missed this). In an exclusive interview with ESPN's Peter Gammons on Monday, he spilled the beans. For a nearly 3-year period between 2001-03, he claims that he used banned substances. Prior to the 2001 season, A-Rod signed his record-breaking 10-year $252 million contract. His excuse for taking the drugs? He felt an enormous amount of pressure. Seriously? I can safely say that he brought that on himself by demanding $25 million per year over the next 10 years. He felt he needed to perform at a high level every day. He claims he doesn't know exactly what substances he took or where they came from, saying it was a "loosey-goosey era". The interview came just over two years after an interview with Katie Couric, in which he stated that he has never taken any illegal substances.

My question is: does anyone really care what this guy says anymore? Does he really have any credibility left? The only thing he had going for him before this interview was that he was the "clean one". He was the one who would eventually break the all-time home run record, and he would do it without taking steroids. Well all that's gone now. He hit 159 home runs during his time in Texas and whether or not the substances influenced that will never be known. He was the White Knight, the Harvey Dent of Major League Baseball. This guy has been the center of so much controversy, from his contract opt-out debacle in Texas, to his "alleged" affair with Madonna that eventually led to the divorce from his wife, to this latest incident. Can anybody believe anything that comes out of this guy's mouth? I personally have never liked him and now I just find him downright despicable.

Future All-time home run leader*

Now, on to Brett Favre. He announced yesterday that he was retiring. Again. Does anyone really care? He had a sub-par season in 2008, a very un-Favre-like campaign. In his last five games with the Jets, he threw 8 interceptions and just 2 touchdowns. The low point of the season came in the final week when Chad Pennington, the QB the Jets dropped to get Favre, led Miami to a victory and a playoff berth, effectively knocking Brett's Jets out of the postseason picture. Favre's season totals came to 22 TDs, 22 INTs. I guess that's fitting for the guy who holds the NFL's all-time records for both touchdown passes and interceptions in a career. Brett, get over yourself. You're 39 years old which, in football years, is about 70. You're a senior citizen. You're almost eligible for your AARP card. And the worst part is, despite how much he loves the game, he just can't cut it anymore. The game has passed him by and the 2008 season was something that never should have happened for him.

And if I have to see another tear-filled press conference where he openly bawls like a little girl over retiring or one more article about how "the league is never going to be the same", I'm going to lose it. That press conference last year was a joke. It was not sad or emotional. It was a complete joke. If he felt that passionately about continuing to play football, he should have just marched right up to the Packers' front office and demanded a trade. No, instead, he mulled it over for months and in the process almost ruined the Packers off-season moves by burdening them with unnecessary salary cap considerations. At the same time, he alienated himself from the rest of the team and the upper management of the Packers, while putting additional, unneeded pressure on the new starter Aaron Rodgers. He thoroughly insulted the Packers front office in an interview and left a sour taste in just about everyone's mouth over the situation. After pouting for a couple weeks, the Packers obliged and traded him to Jets, where he maintained the same selfish, crybaby attitude. That's right, I said it. He is selfish. One of the more selfish athletes in sports, actually. When the Packers drafted Aaron Rodgers, what seems like about 10 years ago now, Favre was quoted as saying that he wasn't interested in mentoring Rodgers. What a great guy. What veteran quarterback wouldn't want to take a rookie under his wing and show him the ropes? A selfish, conceited one like Favre, who only cared about his own interests (and, apparently, Michael Strahan's). The reason he stayed for a 17th season was to break the touchdown record. The reason he came back for an 18th was to try to prove he could hack it somewhere else. And as for all these sports writers penning article after article about how he changed the game and how the game will never be the same without him, spare me. You already wrote these articles, a year ago. It's recycled material. We all know how great he was and how he changed the game because you already told us. I'm sick of this even being a news story.

Cry me a river Brett. Just please don't do it in public this time.

So you know what? I'm glad he fell on his face in New York. He was never cut out for the Jets and his heart was never in it. He alienated himself from the rest of the Jets team all of last season and some of their star players (ahem, Thomas Jones) were calling for him to not come back in 2009. And I'm glad he isn't coming back. To me, this retirement is at least a year overdue and I say good riddance to him. I won't deny he is one of the best quarterbacks of all time, because he is. He is, without a doubt, a first-ballot Hall of Famer. I just wish his attitude during his years in the league (especially toward the end) was a little better. But maybe the worst part about this retirement is that we will all probably be subjected to watching him on some network's pre-game and/or post-game coverage eventually. Good thing I usually don't watch that crap.

* On steroids for roughly 159 of those home runs

Live Models

2009-02-10T10:27:00.002-05:00

My fiancee and I decided to go to the mall on Saturday to walk around and get some delicious Chick Fil-A. We walked in and went in to the pet store (which, incidentally, is closing -- sad story) and then headed up to the food court for lunch. When we were finished we walked around the mall for a while. As we walked, we were shocked--appalled--at this new phenomenon of live models in store windows. Has anyone else seen this? I have heard about some stores in high-end shopping areas doing this, but I have to say that I hadn't seen it in action until this past weekend. My younger brother told me once that while he was shopping he was asked to be a window model at a Hollister store. He respectfully declined the offer. I didn't realize how alarming this was until I actually saw it first person.

The thing that was alarming wasn't even the fact that there were live models in the windows. It was the number of stores that were all of a sudden doing it. We counted at least 4 stores that featured live models in the store windows, including Bandolino and Express. It was not only creepy and disturbing, but a little sad. The first store we walked past that featured them, we were just commenting on how real the models looked when one of them moved. This evoked a "Holy shit" reaction from both of us. Then we passed another store with them. We looked across to the other side of the concourse and saw yet another storefront that featured the live models. We didn't really know what to think. I felt bad for the girls (they were all girls, btw) but at the same time, they didn't look unhappy. Of course, they were trying not to move, although some of them couldn't keep a straight face to save their lives.

The other question that I thought of was: how were these girls selected for the stores? When we walked into the mall initially, it looked like there was some kind of fashion show going on. Did these girls model for the stores, who then selected, kickball-style, which girls they wanted to model in their windows? And is this a permanent thing? I hope not, because it's downright creepy and I feel bad for anyone that has to subject themselves to standing in a window front displaying their body (whether fully clothed or not--thank God there weren't any Victoria Secret window models; now that would have been uncomfortable) for other people to try to sell a company's clothing. It just seems wrong doesn't it? Has anyone else experienced this and if so, what is your opinion on the matter?

Pittsburgh won the big game, ho hum

2009-02-05T10:33:00.003-05:00

If you know me, you know that I'm an Eagles (and sometimes Niners) fan. If you know me, you also know that I loath the Pittsburgh Steelers. However, I'll try to put that hatred aside for this post.

So Pittsburgh won the Super Bowl. So what? Maybe it's just this area of the country that lacked excitement over the big game this year, but it didn't really mean anything to me. A big part of this was the way the Eagles exited the playoffs this season. The Eagles looked like they could be one of the better teams in the league early in the year, before stumbling mid-season, and making a miraculous comeback to join the party as the NFC's 6th seed. The low point obviously was their 36-7 loss to the Ravens, in which Donovan McNabb got benched for the first time in his career. That game motivated the team down the stretch, though, and they finished the season 4-1, capped off by a brilliant performance against the hated Cowboys. They somehow got all the help they needed from other teams and slipped into the playoffs. But they weren't finished. They ran through the Vikings in the first round and then demoralized the defending champion Giants in the divisional round. Next up was a rematch with the Arizona Cardinals, the team whom they put 48 points against on Thanksgiving, the first game after their humiliating loss to the Ravens.

The feeling around Philly in the week leading up to the game was that the Eagles would easily win. I wasn't so sure. I watched bits of the Cardinals first two playoff games and I knew that they were a different team than the one that showed up on Thanksgiving. One of my co-workers overheard someone saying that Arizona is good and actually said "no they're not." The confidence level was sky high for the fans going into the game. And maybe it was for the team too, as they gave up 3 Larry Fitzgerald touchdowns in the first half and didn't have enough left to seal the win after going up by a point late in the 4th quarter.

It was the worst Eagles loss I have ever watched. I have now watched them lose 4 NFC championship games in the last 7 years and this is definitely the worst. The way the team fought back after all the criticism and stood up for their coach and quarterback made me proud of them. When they came back late in the game to take a 1-point lead, I thought they were a team of destiny. Also, it seemed like this had to be the year. The rumors swirled all year about McNabb leaving Philly and Reid getting fired. The coaching staff has already gone through some big changes with three assistants leaving and Jim Johnson revealing that he has skin cancer. Unfortunately, the only destiny that waited for this team was to fall just short, like so many other times, and to once again break the hearts of their loyal fans. I think the sentiment was shared amongst most Eagles fans that this was the worst loss ever. It made Philly fans simply not care about the Super Bowl, even though another Pennsylvania team was in it. From what I have seen regarding Eagles fans, though, most hate the Steelers.

The Steelers are (arguably) America's team. They have now won a record 6 Super Bowls. They have an impressive cast of characters in the Hall of Fame. They were the team involved in the Immaculate Reception, they are the Steel Curtain. Everyone loves the Rooneys. Bill Cowher became a hero after finally winning the big game with the Steelers in 2005. So it's understandable for the Eagles to despise them, being that the Eagles are the franchise that is known mostly for its futility over the years. The Eagles have won zero, count 'em, zero Super Bowls in their history. They haven't won an NFL championship since before the Super Bowl existed. The Eagles are known as the team that has the choking quarterback that threw up during a key drive late in the Super Bowl in 2004. Philly as a city just won its first major sports title in 25 years when the Phillies won the World Series. As a sports city, we just haven't been that good.

So when the Eagles lost, most fans around this area stopped caring. Sure, I watched the Super Bowl. It was a great game. It gave me some consolation knowing that the Cardinals put up a good fight and almost won the game. It made me feel like the Eagles were still one of the best teams in the league and didn't just get hot at the right time. However, in a city filled with hate and criticism for its sports teams, both players and coaches, that's just not good enough anymore. So when the Steelers won, I really didn't care. I hate to say it, but I watched the game because of the commercials and the game ended up being better than the commercials. Sure, the Steelers got a bunch of calls that went their way, as always. Did it change the outcome of the game? Probably not. Should that last play have been reviewed? Sure. Would it have made a difference in the end? Probably not. But that's just it. I'm so down from the Eagles losing, that I don't even have the energy to argue about it. Instead, I'll just leave you with this: Was he in or was he out? You decide.

Not like it matters anyway.

Review: Prince of Persia (PS3)

2009-01-12T10:38:00.004-05:00

Time for another video game review! So I finished Fable 2 and in the midst of my disappointment, decided to pick up a game that I would almost certainly thoroughly enjoy: Prince of Persia. I loved the Sands of Time trilogy for the PS2 and the new style and direction of this new installment and the beginning of a new story interested me immediately. Boy was I let down. My first clue that it would be a stinker should have been the fact that it was produced by UbiSoft Montreal, the same studio that produced Assassin's Creed, which was OK, but not great. Here is my review of the latest installment of the flagship franchise that is now ruined in my eyes:

Story
Ok, story first. Prince of Persia games are always based mainly on the immersing storyline that develops throughout the game. This game was no different, however, I was quite disappointed with the overall story. The opening scene finds Prince in the desert with his donkey, Farah (funny reference to the useless female character from the Sands of Time trilogy), and a crapload of gold. He is heading home, apparently. From where, I don't know. I don't know if this is the same prince from the Sands of Time games or not, because the game never actually tells us. And I can't remember whether Prince rides off into the sunset with a donkey and bunch of gold at the end of the Sands of Time trilogy because it's been so long since I played The Two Thrones. However, he finds himself seemingly in the middle of a desert in a sandstorm when he falls through a hole and an attractive woman jumps down said hole to hide from some bad guys who are chasing her. She starts running again and he follow because he's an IDIOT. The bad guys catch up to her a little while down and think that Prince is trying to kidnap her and all of a sudden he is pulled into her rather fucked-up world.

That's it. That's how Prince get involved in the storyline. It's sad, really. The previous three PoP games all had a deep storyline that featured Prince as the main character, fighting against corruption and evil. In this one, he happens upon a pretty woman and seems kind of like a sidekick the entire game. To be honest, he could have not been in the game at all and you may not even notice. But more on that later. Finally, pretty woman's (Elika's) dad shows up and tells her that there is no going back or some such nonsense. Elika tells Prince to follow her to a temple, which is built into a tree. Prince thinks it's funny that her people worship a tree, but more on that later as well. So Prince follows her to the temple where they sneak in a find a small glowing tree. Apparently, there is an evil demon trapped under the temple and the tree is what is keeping him locked up. Elika's father and guards catch up and after fighting him, he breaks the tree with his sword and all hell breaks loose. The entire world is now filled with corruption. Here is where I would like to scold UbiSoft for inserting their world views into their video games.

There are some people who may not have seen through this, but I did. When Elika's dad breaks the tree, corruption is released into the world. It's literally called corruption. The corruption is this slimy black stuff that covers the walls of caves and other surfaces. The only way to get rid of the corruption is by defeating bosses and healing the fertile grounds within the broken-down city. To perform the healing, Elika must stand inside a glowing circle and she splooges seeds that grow grass and make the city alive again. Let's take a step back here: there is slimy black stuff called corruption covering everything. It looks a lot like oil to me though. When you heal the fertile grounds, grass and trees grow and the sky becomes bright and sunny again. Hmm. Elika's people worship a tree. A freakin' tree! Elika's people are tree huggers that are against the pollution of corruption, which is clearly an allusion to present-day. Oil companies are corrupt and are ruining our environment. Get rid of the oil, heal the environment. It's subtle at first, but once you see all the little things behind it as the story progresses, you get the point. Nice try Ubi, but I see through it. Or maybe I'm totally off base. But I don't think so.

Anyhow, looking past that, the story is actually decent. There are 4 bosses that sold their souls to the dark lord Ahriman for various reasons. The mythology in this game is based on Indo-Iranian religious beliefs, so there is a parallel to the real world, which the PoP games always seem to do well. There isn't as much character development as I would have hoped, but I'm sure they are saving that for the 2nd and possibly 3rd installments in this new series. The ending was extremely disappointing, but I won't give it away here.
Score: 6/10

Graphics
Prince of Persia games are known for their rich environments and stunning graphics. This game is no exception. The art team went in a different direction in this game, but it still works very well. The characters are cel-shaded, which is something I am never crazy about. However, the environments are done in a different style. It's not quite cel-shading, but it's not quite what you would have seen in the Sands of Time trilogy. It's pretty stunning nonetheless. The best part about the graphics is always climbing up onto a giant cliff somewhere and looking out over the world. And there's plenty of that in this game too. A trophy/achievement is awarded if you find the Assassin's Creed view in the one portion of the city (more blatant whoring out of their other PoP-like failed franchise) and another one if you find the highest point in the city.

The characters are cel-shaded but they move very realistically. Every movement looks human and not robotic. Clothes and hair blow in the breeze and the lip sync is also done quite well. The animation of the bosses is also impressive for being cel-shaded. It changes my opinion about games with cel-shaded graphics.
Score: 9/10

Gameplay
Here is where the game fell off a cliff for me. Prince of Persia games are usually complex and challenging, but they are fun at the same time. You enter a room with a bunch of poles and cliffs and hanging shit and you have to figure out a way to get to the top or across the room. Well, this one is done primarily outdoors, but that portion of the gameplay is still there. However, the developers decided that previous PoP games were too damn hard, so they added an idiot button to this one. If you press the triangle button, Elika will point the way for Prince, so figuring out puzzles really isn't necessary. I tried to use the button as little as possible, but it's hard not to use it because the game is based on completing certain areas as they become unlocked and every region connects to each other. So you could be in one portion of the city and all of a sudden find yourself all the way on the other side, in a portion that is locked and cannot be beaten. Then you have to trek all the way back to the other side of the city to complete your task. I understand that they wanted to make the game less linear, but it doesn't exactly work all that well.

The most annoying part of the gameplay (other than the combat system, but more on that later), are the Ormazd (the polar opposite of Ahriman) "powers" that Elika unlocks when she gathers light seeds after healing a fertile ground (the light seeds help her heal after healing a fertile ground). Basically, there are four colors plates that you unlock through the game, once you have enough light seeds to do so. These plates appear throughout the city and when you activate them, they either spring you to another area or plate or let you perform some special action. Two types of plates spring or direct Prince and Elika to other plates or platforms, one makes you fly (yes, fly), and the fourth gives you the ability to extend your wall runs. The first two are fine with me. It's the flying one and the wall running one that piss me off. The flying one takes you on a set course (think magic carpet ride minus the carpet), but puts annoying obstacles in your way that you have to dodge as you are flying. It's often tough to tell which way to go to get around obstacles and if you hit something, you have to start at the beginning. The annoying part is that some of these things last 30 seconds or longer and you almost always have to do them more than once. It's just a useless waste of time. The wall running one isn't quite as bad, but it's still very touchy. You can control Prince, to a point. You still end up running into stuff and almost always have to them more than once, though. The game could have done without these.

That aside, the running and jumping and swinging works pretty well. On numerous occassions the Prince does something incredibly stupid, but that's kind of part of the frustration with PoP. I will say that this game makes the gamer press fewer buttons. There is more that is done for you. For example, if you want to run on a wall, all you have to do is press the jump button near a wall, whereas in previous game you actually had to direct Prince with the analog stick to run along the wall. Those things, however, are excusable. What's not excusable is the combat system.

The combat system is completely broken in this game. First off, there aren't really any regular enemies. You hardly do any fighting at all actually. Every now and then there will be a monster that pops up from the corruption, but they are always in contained areas and if you get to the platform fast enough, you can kill it before it even spawns. If it does spawn, that's when the fun begins. Combat consists mainly of blocking and then quick trying a combo before the enemy attacks again. And the enemy attacks are epic. Every enemy attack is a combo of at least 4 or 5 hits and sometimes can be up to 10 hits or more. The problem, of course, is that you are fighting all of these creatures on platforms and platforms have edges. So when you get close to the edge, the enemy performs some kind of special attack that either results in Prince getting through halfway across the platform or a quick-time event that requires the gamer to mash buttons until they stop. Prince can block attacks, but that usually just results in a counter attack that is also blocked by the enemy and then another quick button event to try and block the enemy's counter-counter-attack.

The combos are cool, if you actually get to use them, but I didn't use probably 50% of them. There is one combo that you learn early in the game that can be used over and over to defeat every single enemy if you get within range (I fought the one boss 4 times without taking a single hit by only using this combo). The cool thing about the combos is that you have Prince, who uses physical attacks, and Elika, who uses magic, at your disposal. Your best bet is to use combos that involve both of them, since these are the ones that really do the most damage. One problem with them is that Elika is very picky as to how close you are to the enemy before she will attack. Prince basically has to throw her at the enemy for her to perform magic and even if it looks like you are clearly within range, sometimes she gets bitchy and says "Not close enough!" or "Not ready yet!". Another problem with using combos is that the enemies are so damn fast that even if you start an attack before them, they can still block it or just override your attack and knock you to the deck, which usually leads to another quick-time event where you have to press a button to not die. But wait! It's ok because you cannot die. If you miss a quick button event or fall of a cliff or whatever, Elika will save you with her magical powers. So why, then, is the Prince actually needed in this game? Elika can perform all the same maneuvers that Prince can, saves him whenever he is about to die, and has magic so she can defend herself. It seems kind of like Prince is a burden, no? He is really just along for the ride and the game could go on just fine without him. Not only that, but if he wasn't in the game, the story could end at the end of the game. But Prince is the one who fucks things up again and sends the world into corruption once more. Oh, now I get it. We need Prince in this game so we can have a sequel and so Ubi can make more money. It's all starting to make sense to me now.

To sum up the combat system, it's horrible. It's insanely frustrating. I went 5-10 minutes in some boss battles without attacking, only performing quick button sequences that were disjointed and I always seemed to screw them up somehow. Prince takes damage in battle, but I'm not sure why, because Elika can just save him. The only punishment for (almost) dying is the enemy regains some health, which is really just an annoyance. Where is the challenge in games where your character can't die? Another problem I have with the gameplay is the fact they the whole light seed thing is basically abandoned midway through the game. Each area contains 45 light seeds that the user must collect to unlock another Ormazd power and another portion of the city. Once you hit 540 light seeds (almost exactly the midway point of the game), you don't need to collect any more. There are (I think) 1,000 possible light seeds to collect. However, once you hit 540, everything is unlocked. One advantage to this is that the game went much faster after I hit 540 light seeds because I didn't have to backtrack through entire areas to collect the damn things the second half of the game.
Score: 5/10

Sound
Now that that's out of my system, let's talk about sound. Prince of Persia games are all about the look and the sound, and this game has incredible sound, just like its predecessors. The music was beautiful and really set the mood of the game. The way the music changed from happy to melancholy as you moved from a healed land to a corrupted one is awesome. The voice acting is also good, as always, with only a few exceptions. Prince is snarky and witty as always, but Elika gives it right back to him in this one. The interaction between the two is great and the best part is that you can partially control how much of the interaction you want. You can press the L2 button to speak with Elika about the city and its history, their predicament, or whatever else. Or you can just play and only witness the interactions at the predetermined cut scenes. I personally struck a balance between the two, because it was amusing, but at the same time would have gotten on my nerves if I had spoken with her too much.
Score: 9/10

In conclusion, this definitely wasn't the best installment of the Prince of Persia series. Actually, tt was the worst one that I have played to date, but I didn't play the atrocities that came out before the Sands of Time trilogy. However, I must say that with the broken combat system and somewhat weak involvement of the Prince in the storyline, the next installment won't be a definite buy for me like I hoped it would be. I'll have to see vast improvements to various parts of the game for me to care about the next installment in this series. I think that Ubi should start by assigning this to a different Ubi team and taking it out of the hands of UbiSoft Montreal.

Overall Score (not an average): 6/10 (and that's generous)

Review: Fable 2 (360)

2009-01-06T11:22:00.004-05:00

I figured with my love of video games, I should start to write some reviews up here. So here goes, my first video game review, and the lucky culprit that gets to be my first is Fable 2, the new RPG for the Xbox 360.

Having never played the first Fable, there's not much for me to compare this game to. I didn't have an Xbox so I never bought or played Fable (1) so I was starting from scratch with, basically, a "new" RPG. However, I'm a huge RPG fan and I'm always willing to try out something new and different.

Story
Let's start here. The story was interesting and different from most things that I have played in the past. However, for as much as the "every decision has a consequence" thing is played up, it didn't do a whole lot for me in the end. For one thing, the ending is the same no matter what path you take. I took the evil path for something different and while it was very fun, the ultimate outcome of the game was the same. I beat the bad guy, world is a better place, game over. The main thing that is affected by your in-game choices is how people react to you throughout the game and your character's appearance. For instance, if you decide to be evil and monstrous and whatnot, people in towns will cower in fear when you come near them. Merchants will be afraid of you and will discount items so that you don't try and kill them (which was cool because I got discounted items everywhere I went throughout the entire game). As my character got more and more evil, his skin darkened, his eyes grew evil, and he actually grew horns.

Looking past the consequences thing, though, the story was solid. SPOILER ALERT: Your sister gets killed by a crazy ruler when you are kids and you grow up and vow revenge. But it's not just vowing revenge; there is a creepy old lady with no retinas or irises that tells you that you must defeat said crazy ruler, who has now taken over a giant stick protruding from the ocean called the Tattered Spire. But you can't do it alone. You must recruit three other heroes and here is where the fluff comes in. You must seek out these heroes and these quests make up the entire main story. Once you find the three heroes, the game is basically over. The worst part about the main quest is that you can probably beat it in about 12-15 hours. I spent well more time on the game this because I did most of the side quests.

The game is never really over, though, because there are so many side quests to be done. I have completed all but about 4 side quests, only because those are the ones that require you to have a family and I just didn't want to deal with allllll that. The side quests, interestingly enough, were fun to do. Most games make you do side quests as a diversion to the main story and to make you level up before you reach a harder point in the game. These ones are actually enjoyable to complete and you are always leveling up, so you don't really have to do them all. Oh, and here's another (GIANT) SPOILER: there is no final boss battle, so leveling all the way to defeat a horrible giant boss at the end simple does not exist.
Score: 7/10

Graphics
The graphics in this game were done very well, as long as you don't expect Final Fantasy-style CG movies and cut scenes every 15-20 minutes. The style of the graphics was interesting. They were sharp, but at the same time cartoony, in a way. However, the graphics flowed smoothly for the most part and were pleasing to the eye, despite the lack of cut scenes. The environments were large and very detailed and looked great as well. My only issue here was with the amount of glitches. There were a ton. Enemies getting stuck in the side of a mountain, but still alive and able to attack you, while you struggled to find a spot where your attacks would still land rather than just hitting stone. Characters going through each other, blinking spots in the screen, etc. It was nothing that actually made me restart the console, but still very annoying nonetheless, considering how long the developer spent making this game.
Score: 8/10

Gameplay
The gameplay was just good in this game. The fighting is altogether fun, if not frustrating at times. It's an action-based RPG, so all the action is done in real-time, with no turn-based strategy. Which is ok. The only problem with this is that, at times, you are simply overwhelmed with enemies and some strategy is required to dispatch of said enemies before getting killed. You really can't be killed, though, per se. What happens is, you get "knocked out" and when you are revived (which happens immediately) you come back with some of your experience taken away. Your experience is built by gathering four differently colored orbs that enemies drop when you defeat them. When you have enough orbs, you can "buy" new abilities. So, most of the time, you have a surplus of orbs and when you get knocked out, you lose some orbs. Also, the orbs that the enemies drop depends on how you beat them. For example, if you kill them with your melee weapons, you get strength orbs. If you kill them with magic, you get will orbs, and if you kill them with your ranged weapon, you get skill orbs. (There are also generic orbs, if you will, that can be used in conjunction with strength, skill, or will orbs to level up.) And I like this, because it makes you use all available resources, which is something you really need to do in this game. It is hard to get through the whole thing without using, for instance, ranged weapons. This was a glaring flaw with Oblivion, which basically just made you use whatever your class called for.

Anyway, back to the combat. As I said, it's an open field that sometimes features massive amounts of enemies, sometimes 10 or more at a time. Sometimes you have help from your other heroes, sometimes not. Either way, the combat isn't all that difficult. I only got knocked out two or three times throughout the couse of the game. One cool feature that the game has is a little icon in the bottom left of the screen that has the buttons of the D-pad and an icon next to each button on the D-pad. When you hit one of the direction buttons, your character automatically does that action or uses that item. This comes in very handy in battle, because the game is smart enough to put your potions in this little icon and you can easily heal yourself seamlessly in battle without having to press pause and use an item.

Other than battle, the game consists of running around in large environments and dungeons and exploring large towns. I have to admit that I got lost more than once in numerous different towns. There is a level of customization that can be done, but I was surprised by how limited it was. You can buy new clothes for your hero, but it's basically a pointless exercise. The clothes that you buy only increase or decrease your attractiveness or aggressiveness and have no effect in battle. You can buy or find dyes to change the color of your hair or your clothes, but it is again only for looks. You can also buy furniture for the houses you buy, much like you can in Oblivion.

There are no stats to worry about, such as strength and defense or magic defense. This might be great for some people, but I was disappointed. It was like Oblivion for Dummies. Also absent is any kind of limit to the number of items you can carry. Yep, you can carry as many items as you choose. By the end of the game, I had about 75 books in my inventory. You try carrying that many books in your knapsack without keeling over and passing out. I know they were trying to simplify things, but I loved and hated Oblivion for these reasons. You go out on an important quest and you have to decide what items to take. It involves a level of strategy far above what is required in Fable 2.

Then there is the whole meeting people and starting a family thing. I said earlier that I bypassed the whole family thing, mostly because I think it's pointless. So what? You meet a woman, marry her, move into a house, and have kids. What's the big deal? I did seduce a couple of women, just to see how hard it is (it's not). Even though my character was evil and had horns and an evil dog, all you have to do is dance around for a little or play your lute and they are in love with you, so much so that most people will actually want to give you a gift. Here's where the consequence thing fails. You would think that most people, if they met someone with fucking devil horns, would turn tail as fast as they could upon meeting said devil. But not the lovely, stupid people of Albion. They still love you if you can play music and dance.

Another aspect to the gameplay was treasure hunting, but it wasn't a side quest. It was done right within the main gameplay, so it worked extremely well. When you start out as a young adult, you have a faithful companion in the form of a dog. He helps you fight, sometimes, when an enemy is already lying on the ground. He gets hurt a lot and makes you heal him with your neverending supply of dog potion. But most importanly, he finds treasure for you. And this is helpful because sometimes the treasure is really, really good. You can level the dog up, per se, by finding books about tresure hunting and reading them to him (not sure how he understands them, but whatever, we're not going for realism in this game, after all). You can also teach him tricks and impress the townsfolk with them. The best part about the dog is that as your level of evil (or good, I would assume) increases, your dog changes with you. By the end of the game, I was pretty damn evil and my dog was jet black with red eyes.

All in all, I have to give the gameplay good marks. There is virtually no level of realism, especially not to the level that Oblivion went, but you don't really care when you're playing the game because it's fairly light-hearted. It's almost alarming to go into a dungeon and see dead bodies and skeletons. It almost makes you forget that the game is rated 'M' for Mature.
Score: 8/10

Sound
Sound is very important to me in a video game and Fable 2 did the sound portion very well. The music was a little redundant, but it was pleasant so I didn't really mind it. Some of the music is actually very good. But the thing that really steals the show is the voice acting. While sometimes redundant, it is ultimately very funny. I look at Fable 2 as a much less serious version of Oblivion. The game is so un-serious that it can't even take itself seriously, as evidenced by the often funny quips that appear on the loading screens. The voice acting by the characters is done quite well, but once, just once, I would love to have the hero in a game have a voice. The hero says nothing the entire game. However, everyone else has a lot to say. The best voice acting in the game has to go to the gargoyles, though. The gargoyles are part of a side quest but it's impossible to go through the entire game without seeing (or hearing) any. The gargoyles hang from various places throughout the world (there are 50 total) and basically just hurl insults at you whenever you are near them. It's absolutely hilarious. And the best part is, you can to shoot them in the face when you see them and it goes toward the side quest.
Score: 9/10

Overall, this is a solid RPG in a sea of mediocre. It's the best action RPG I have played for the 360, and I say that only because I played Oblivion for the PS3. If the reason you liked Oblivion was because of how seriously it took itself, get Fallout 3. This game is more of a less-serious version of Oblivion and lacks the character stats and customization that Oblivion proudly featured.

Overall score (not an average): 7.5/10

My Rose Bowl commentary

2009-01-05T13:01:00.002-05:00

Another year, another USC Rose Bowl win. It hurt more this year for me since it happened at the expense of my beloved Nittany Lions. USC didn't just beat Penn State, they pounded them during the entire first half, then put it on cruise control midway into the 3rd quarter. I'm hearing it already. Penn State's offense was overrated; Big Ten doesn't deserve to be a BCS conference; USC should be in the national championship game; etc., etc.

Let me first critique how Penn State played in the game. It can be summed up in one word: atrocious. I haven't seen Penn State play as bad as they did on New Year's Day in a long time. And here's why: defensive coordinator Tom Bradley should be ashamed of himself with his stupid playcalling on defense. In the first quarter, Penn State had USC right where they wanted them. They were shutting down QB Mark Sanchez, and while the USC run game had some nice gains, they were forcing them to punt. For some reason, that changed from the second quarter on. For the rest of the game, the Penn State secondary sat back in a soft Cover 3 zone and let USC's talented bunch of wide receivers have their way with them. We aren't talking Big Ten receivers here. We are talking 6'5" 230-pound, 4.4-40 receivers. The corners were giving the receivers at least a 5-yard cushion on every play. I probably could have thrown for 300 yards against them. Lydell Sargeant and A.J. Wallace, along with most of the rest of the secondary, with the exception of Drew Astorino, looked useless out there. But I can't heap too much blame on them because of the horrid playcalling by Bradley. If he's next in line for the head coaching job, I don't want to see how the program turns out after JoePa.

On to the offense. The offense played... well... ok, really. They moved the ball early and really only started to struggle once USC started getting their offense moving and thus gained the momentum in the game (keep in mind, it's basically a home game for USC). Still, Daryll Clark looked ok, and the offense still moved the ball some without starting running back Evan Royster, who went out early with a knee injury. Two plays that really sent the momentum in USC's favor: 1) Aaron Maybin jumping offsides on a 3rd and short in which Penn State stopped the USC offense. The penalty resulted in a first down and USC scored on the drive; 2) on Penn State's final possession of the first half, Stephfon Green fumbled the ball after a great catch and run on a screen pass. Penn State would have had the ball in USC territory with the clock ticking down in the first half. The ensuing USC possession led to a touchdown and put them up 31-7 going into the half. Take away those two mistakes and the game could have been 17-14 or even 21-17 Penn State going into the half.

Instead, the sloppy play left the commentators calling the game at the half, announcing USC had already won the game. Which is something else I want to talk about. Aren't commentators supposed to be non-biased? Now, I usually have nothing against Brent Musberger and Kirk Herbstreit, but they were all over Penn State before the first half clock even ran out. Musberger, with 2:23 left in the 2nd quarter, said "we are about to see the Pac-10 win the bowl season among conference." Sure, Penn State was down by a few scores, but Brent: stranger things have happened. Kirk was saying, with under 2 minutes to go in the half, that Penn State just needed to play for pride in the 2nd half, dismissing any chance of them coming back. Then Musberger went on to call USC, under coach Pete Carroll, a "dynasty." I thought I dynasty was about winning championships. Since Pete Carroll took the head coach job at USC nine years ago, he has won two national championships. Not to take anything away from Carroll because I think he's a great coach, but I would think that 2/9 (22%) wouldn't be defined as a dynasty by most people. Now, if you define a dynasty by most Rose Bowl wins, then USC has and always will be a dynasty. They have the most Rose Bowl wins in their history than any school in college football, but really, how impressive is that anyway? They play in the Pac-10, which is usually a pretty weak conference. And don't argue with me; the Pac-10 features powerhouses such as: Washington (0-12 in 2008), Washington State (2-11, one win came against Washington), UCLA (4-8), Stanford (5-7), and Arizona State (5-7). The winner of the Pac-10 conference always goes to the Rose Bowl, so their chances of at least getting there are pretty high. The fact that they only have to travel 11 miles to play in the game makes it, pretty much, a home game for them. Their record is 24-9 all-time in the Rose Bowl, which seems pretty good to the outside observer, but I'm not impressed. They have lost 9 times in the Rose Bowl (27%) and they only have to travel 11 miles to play in the game. Every Big Ten team has a 1000+ mile trip and yet they still have beaten them. It's almost embarassing for USC to ever lose this game. What I would love to see the most is for the Rose Bowl to switch off between a Southern Cal location and the competing Big Ten school's home field. Then we would see who really was better. Imagine making USC play in 19-degree weather in Happy Valley. I think the tables would be slightly turned in that situation.

Unfortunately, that won't ever happen, not with the tradition of the Rose Bowl parade and playing bowl games in warm locales. Hey, if teams like Penn State have to suffer through sub-freezing temperatures and nasty weather conditions through over half of their season, why shouldn't their bowl opponent? It would just be an interesting twist, is all.

The last thing I want to talk about is the embarassment USC made out of this game. Their actions on the field are inexcusable, in my opinion. I don't know how other people feel about this, but everyone that was at my house watching the game was disgusted with their behavior. After every touchdown, they not only performed multiple-player celebrations in the end zone, but then proceeded to huddle around near their sideline (but still on the field of play) and do a little dance. Now, I'm not a professional on the rules here, but I'm pretty certain that it's not legal, in college football or even the pros, to perform a team celebration on the field, which is exactly what they were doing. I heard from a friend who went to the game that the USC players on the sidelines were actually imitating the onsides kick performed by Joe Paterno in a practice a while back that injured his hip and required him to have hip surgery. I wonder if they realize they are mocking the best coach in Division 1 college football history. I would love to see Pete Carroll try to coach until he's 82 years old. (Actually, I don't; there's no way I could stand to watch him in the Rose Bowl every year for that long).

Another thing that pissed me off was Carroll's attitude on the sidelines. Not only would he run onto the field to argue almost every call that was made, but after Green's fumble late in the first half, he actualy ran onto the field and grabbed the game ball and took it back to the sidelines with him. Again, I'm not pro, but I think that would warrant a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. USC wasn't flagged in any of these situations. To compound the matter, for every Penn State penalty that was called, the referee threw the flag well after the penalty occurred, almost as if they were waiting to see the outcome of the play. Twice, on the Maybin offsides and on a 45-yard reception, the flag came out well after the play. And while I'm at it, how about calling a goddamn roughing the passer penalty on USC? A big part of the referee's job is to protect the quarterback and Clark was getting hit late on almost every play, but no flag was ever thrown.

The referees' actions came to a head in the second half after a scary play involving USC safety Taylor Mays and Penn State WR Jordan Norwood. Norwood was going over the middle to catch a pass when Mays launched himself headfirst into Norwood, creating a helmet-to-helmet hit that looked scarier than it turned out. A hit like that in the pros would have drawn a 15-yard penalty, a $10,000 fine from the league, and a possible ejection from the game. The hit was made without Mays looking for the ball and with intent to injure. The fact that he only drew the 15-yard roughing penalty amazes me. This guy is projected to go top-10 on most draft boards and he goes and makes a play like that. NFL scouts, take note. This guy is a headhunter and will draw fines every week.

In summary, yes I am a bitter Penn State fan that watched the game with disappointment and hatred for USC. However, the actions of the USC players and coaches, and the referees were inexcusable. I thought Notre Dame was at the top of the list when it came to classless programs, but I think we may have a new #1. I can tell you one thing: if Penn State was up 31-7 at halftime, they wouldn't have been dancing on the field and mocking the other team. Penn State is a program that wins, and loses, with class.

Doctors

2008-12-29T12:59:00.003-05:00

It's so hard finding a good doctor, isn't it? The worse part about turning 18 is that the pediatrician that you used to see as a kid probably won't be your doctor anymore. I got lucky in finding a new doctor after college, as one was referred to me through my girlfriend and her family. However, when I moved recently, I had to find a new eye doctor and dentist. I just couldn't drive 45 minutes to an hour to go to the doctor every few months.

So I started my search. I found a dentist back in Fall of 2006: a small office, privately-owned and operated. They took my insurance and they seemed nice enough... until I got my bill. I needed to get three fillings, two on molars. I found out after they did the work that the white composite filling was not covered for molars under my insurance, a fact that would have been nice to know before getting the work done. Of course, this was partly my fault for not reading the page and pages of documentation that comes with an insurance policy. However, I also put some blame on the dentist's office for not pointing that out to me. When you have insurance, you assume that most typical procedures are covered under your insurance, for instance, fillings. I didn't even know that dentists still did silver fillings, but apparently they do, and they are common practice. I wrote the office a nice letter after partially paying my last bill to them, informing them that I would no longer be requiring service from them and that they shouldn't expect any more payment from me. They didn't.

Around the same time, I also found a new eye doctor. It was close and again, they seemed nice enough. I went and got a refill on my contacts and I got new frames for my glasses as well. They charged me an arm and a leg, but I chalked that up to glasses being really freaking expensive. So, when my vision insurance changed, I was obviously nervous when I had to try and find a new eye doctor. Well I searched around on my insurance provider's member portal and found an office that was, again, small and seemed like it would be pretty personable. Man, was I wrong.

I scheduled an appointment to coincide with my arrival at the train station from work. I got to the office 10 minutes early... and waited 15 minutes to get called back. I had to fill out the old patient information sheet, complete with a questionnaire that asked important questions like: "Do you experience any night blindness?" This was nice because I had never been asked some of the questions on the form before by my eye doctor and they seemed like important questions. Turns out, that was just to keep me busy while I waited because the doctor didn't ask me about any of the questions on the form. (Yes, I do experience a degree of night blindness). Anyway, I figured, what the hey? It's not like night blindness affects your vision or anything. So the doc was doing all his tests and whatnot and gave me the old "yeah you pretty much wasted your time and money here today" by telling me he was going to adjust my prescription for my glasses but not my contacts. Then he did the astigmatism test and found, miraculously, that I did not have an astigmatism, even though I was diagnosed with a slight one just two years earlier by a different eye doctor. Incredible.

Then it was time to pay up. I ordered 4 boxes of contacts since I was clean out of them. When I went out and talked to the (rather bitchy) receptionist, she tried very hard to get me to buy 8 boxes because I would be sent a $40 rebate, which I assumed had to be used on a future purchase which is complete and utter bullshit. I told her I would take 4 boxes and she can keep her $40 rebate, thank you very much. She totaled it up and to my amazement, the total was $40 more than expected. This is due to their "contact lens evaluation". I shit you not. They charge patients $40 to inspect their contact lenses and find out what prescription they are, regardless of whether they change or not. Damn it, I was sure that I inspected my insurance info very closely before I went in there and I even asked if I was covered for an exam and the same bitchy receptionist told me "yes, you are covered." I guess they don't count the "contact lens evaluation" as part of an exam. What the hell is it then?

Whatever, so I ordered my damn contacts and went up to the desk and waited for the receptionist to get them for me. After 30 awkward seconds, she looked at me as if to say "why are you still here?" I asked if she was going to give me my contacts. "Oh we don't have them in stock right now; we have to order them", is what she said to me. Wow, ok. "When will they be in?", I asked. "They should be here within 5-7 business days.", was the bullshit she fed me. Keep in mind, I have only the contact lenses that are in my eyes (which are no longer any good because of those damn diluting drops they put in your eyes), and the sample pair they gave to me. "Ok fine, will you call me when you get them in?" I asked. She assured me they would. As I was leaving the office, she gave me a card with my next appointment on it. The date? One year from the day of my appointment. That's right, they already scheduled my next appointment, one year to the day of my first appointment. How the hell am I supposed to plan that far in advance. And, more importantly, how can I possibly remember this information? I was so dumb-struck that I couldn't even say anything at the time.

So I went home thinking "I'll never go back there again" and waited for my contacts to come in (5-7 business days, right?). On the 9th business day (13 full days later), I called their office to ask if they got my contacts in yet. The bitchy receptionist's reply: "Oh yeah, we just got them." My response should have been something to the effect of "Were you planning on calling me to let me know?" or "By 'just', did you mean 2 days ago?" or "Why would you tell people 5-7 business days if it really takes 9? Vision is important to some people!" But I stayed calm and told her I would come in after work to get them. When I went in, I got my contacts and asked her to please cancel my "next" appointment, which was now 353 days from the present date, because there was no way I would remember the date. She seemed very reluctant to cancel the appointment and reassured me that they would send out a card when the appointment was nearer. And then, I understood. They probably get so many patients that go there once and never come back, so they schedule their next appointment a year in advance so they can hit them with a cancellation fee (which, I believe, is $60) when they forget to cancel the appointment.

In short, I will not be going back to Lansdale Eye Associates and I am writing their name here so that nobody that reads this ever goes there for an eye exam. They will rape you with charges, be rude to you, and mis-diagnose you. And then, they will try to rape you on the back end by scheduling a follow-up appointment a year from your original appointment. It's so hard to find a good doctor, isn't it?

Penn State Recruiting

2008-12-22T12:01:00.000-05:00

Two posts in one day!! There must be a break in the space-time continuum somewhere.

Anyway, I'm coming to you in this post to talk about Penn State's football recruiting in recent years. It's certainly been a roller coaster ride for Penn State recruiting since their outstanding class of 2004 that included 5-star recruits Anthony Morelli, Dan Connor, and Greg Harrison. In this class, they also landed 1-star recruit Jordan Norwood, 3-star recruits Gerald Cadogan, Josh Gaines, and Rich Orhnberger, and 4-star recruit A.Q. Shipley. But changes weren't evident until a year later when they landed 5-star recruits Derrick Williams and Justin King. Surprisingly, this class wasn't ranked in the top 25 in the country, despite it also including Anthony Scirrotto (2-star), Mickey Shuler (2-star), Sean Lee (3-star), Daryll Clark (2-star), and Kevin Kelley (2-star). Now, with all of those players looking at a future in the NFL, it seems they all were a little underrated.

The 2006 class turned out even better after a 2005 season in which Penn State went 11-1 and won their first ever BCS bowl game. The class ranked 6th in the nation and included 2 5-star and 11 4-star prospects. But rankings can be deceiving. Both 5-star recruits from that class are no longer with the team, both of them not being able to handle the pressure of Division 1 college football and losing their bearings (Antonio Logan-El and Chris Bell). Of the 11 4-star recruits, 5 have performed very well this season and could be looking at a career in the NFL. That means that less than half of Penn State's big-name recruits from the 2006 class actually panned out.

But it got worse. After an 8-4 season under former 5-star recruit Anthony Morelli, dubbed the savior by many, the 2007 class suffered. It ranked 19th overall and included zero 5-star recruits and zero quarterbacks. Still, it included 12 5-star recruits and was heavy on defense, something Penn State favors when recruiting. Of those 12, only one has made an impact so far (Stefan Wisniewski). Of course, you can't fault the rest yet. The 2009 season is a rebuilding year and many of these players will get their shot to make an impact the way they hoped to coming out of high school.

The 2008 class was even more pathetic, as they only signed 13 recruits through signing day, with a bunch of 1-star recruits filling in the rest of the class. This class was not in the top 25 and some started questioning if Joe Paterno was losing his recruiting touch amidst rumors that he wasn't able to go on the road on recruiting trips with his other coaches because he was too tired.

Which brings us to current-day. After the announcement by former 5-star recruit QB Pat Devlin that he would be transferring effective before the Rose Bowl, most Penn State fans became restless. The excitement surrounding Devlin was huge. He was from the Philadelphia area and was the #1 ranked QB coming out of high school. He broke his leg his freshman year and was redshirted. He sat behind Anthony Morelli and was forced to watch as he struggled to another 8-4 season. And then, an unknown, Daryll Clark, won the starting QB job over Devlin in the preseason. Many fans were worried until Clark led the Lions to an 11-1 season and a Rose Bowl berth, their first since 1994. However, Devlin was the hero in one of those games, the biggest one of the season, on the road against hate rival Ohio State. Many also blame the coaching staff for not starting Devlin over Clark in the Iowa game, the Lions only loss. Clark appeared concussed and threw a costly interception late in the game that led to the game-winning field goal by Iowa as time expired. Devlin obviously felt slighted by the lack of respect and lack of confidence in him after this series of events. Following the Michigan State game that landed Penn State with their second Big Ten title in four years, Devlin called it quits. It is rumored he will be transferring to Delaware to play in the same offensive scheme that made Ravens rookie QB Joe Flacco so successful.

Penn State fans started to grumble. Their savior had left the program. Their hopes now hung on the chance that Kevin Newsome, who some regarded as the best high school QB still available and one of the best in the nation, would commit to Penn State. He had been considering 4 other schools, including Boston College and Virginia Tech, but in the end chose Penn State. One of his decididng factors? The fact that Pat Devlin had transferred from Penn State. Call it luck, but we Penn State fans will take it. The talk turned from "How could the coaches let Devlin get away..." to "Devlin didn't really look that great when he played anyway." Curiously, head coach Joe Paterno received a 3-year contract extension the day before Newsome announced which school he would be attending in the Spring. The commitment jumps Penn State's 2009 class to 11th overall, with some big names still floating out there, including 5-star linebacker Jelani Jenkins, 4-star offensive lineman Pete White, 4-star receiver Justin Brown, and 4-star linebacker Dan Mason still interested in Penn State.

No matter which statement you agree with, I think we can all agree that high school rankings are hardly ever accurate. It is so hard to predict how an 18-year-old kid will handle the pressure of playing in front of 100,000 fans every week and how they will be able to balance studies and athletics. How they will handle becoming a celebrity. Because that's what college football players have become. The national championship and the Heisman have gotten so much hype in the last 5 years or so that all the best players in college football have become celebrities. And now it's spilling over into high school. This started a few years ago with Reggie Bush and Vince Young and have only grown since then. Last year, the name Terrelle Pryor was a household name in any household that follows college football. This year, Kevin Newsome is the name that is being thrown around by Penn State fans. Newsome certainly does appear to be a savior for Penn State. They were unable to sign a big-name QB in their 2007 or 2008 class, and their 2006 class featured Devlin and Brett Brackett, who has since converted to WR.

Now, it should be Newsome's show starting in 2010, unless somebody like Clark comes out of nowhere again. Paterno's contract is set to expire before Newsome will be finished with his four years (five if he redshirts next season). I wouldn't be surprised to see the Lions have success in 2010 and beyond for Paterno to have all the chips on his side once again in negotiating another contract extension, if he wants it.

This just goes to show that good ol' Joe really still is in charge at Penn State and he's going to stay as long as he wants to.

SEPTA, Part II

2008-12-22T10:29:00.000-05:00

I'll make this one short because I am planning on writing a longer one on a different topic soon. I just had to write this one because I once again wanted to express my extreme hatred of SEPTA. This morning, It was about 16 degrees in Sellersville/Colmar area, -7 with the wind chill. I left for work on time this morning, but after bypassing a broken traffic light, found myself running about 2-3 minutes late. I pulled into the train station at 7:20 (my train comes at 7:21), jumped out of my car, put my quarters in the parking board and walked up on the platform only to find... nothing. No train. Now ok, it's cold and icy and SEPTA has been running up to 5 minutes late in the mornings lately. So I stood there. In the -7 degree wind chill. With no hat. I didn't think I needed one because I figured I would only be outside for a maximum of 5 minutes at a time. So I waited. 10 minutes. 15 minutes. 20 minutes. After 25 minutes, when it felt like my ears were going to fall off, I finally went back to my car and jacked the heat up. It took me 10 minutes just to thaw out. Finally, at 8:02, the train pulled into the station. That's right, the train was 41 minutes late. I didn't get into the city until 9:00, making me a half hour late for work and thus making me stay a half hour later in this godforsaken city.

So, in conclusion, I hate SEPTA. And apparently SEPTA hates me.

My rant on the B.S.C, I mean BCS

2008-12-05T13:03:00.000-05:00

Wow, it's been a whole month since I posted. Ok well, here's a quick recap of my last month. I got real busy at work and I did lots of fantasy football stuff for the league that I run while maintaining a team in a separate league. I had a sinus infection for a while there, I got the flu early this week, and now I believe I'm fighting a particularly nasty case of tonsillitis or some such other sore throat condition. Oh, and I watched Penn State blow a chance at the national championship game by losing to Iowa a month ago.

So here is where my rant begins. But where to begin? Let's start with Penn State. They were 9-0 going into Iowa, only to lose on a last-second field goal in blustery conditions. Sure, they played a god-awful game and didn't deserve to win. But didn't they end up 11-1 with key wins over Ohio State and Michigan State? Why don't we throw in Oregon State for good measure, since they beat then-#1 USC to knock them out of the title picture and almost stole the Rose Bowl berth away from them. And PSU didn't just beat the Beavers, they crushed them, 45-14. So, another 11-1 season for Penn State and another non-championship BCS game. Sure, it's the Rose Bowl, which is the most storied bowl of them all with its rich history and USC getting an extra home game every year. But still, a shot at the national title would have been nice.

But enough on Penn State. What I really want to talk about is the BCS championship game. The BCS is what keeps one-loss teams like Penn State and Texas Tech and Texas out of getting a chance to play for the national title on a nearly annual basis. The national championship in Division 1 collegiate football is arguably the most elusive championship in all of sports. More so than the Vince Lombardi trophy, the Commissioner's trophy, the Larry O'Brien trophy, or even the Stanley Cup. Ok, so maybe the World Cup in soccer is more elusive, but no one really plays soccer in the U.S (not well, anyway). But I digress. There are 119 teams vying for the top two spots in the country. So why, then, is Division 1 college football the only American sport that does not feature a playoff system?

One word: money. That's what the head muckity-mucks that support the BCS will tell you. They'll also make excuses like "the schedule would be too long", or "we don't want to pull the athletes out of class or make them miss finals", or even "the holidays would interfere." And they're all bull. Every single one of them, even the argument about money. I have been opposed to the BCS ever since its inception and many people, mostly true fans of the game, share my hatred of the system.

I'll forgo writing a history of the BCS and instead focus on what is happening this season. The 2008 season, like the last couple, have been, to say the least, crazy. Lots of upsets, non-BCS teams going undefeated, and teams worthy of the national title game getting left out of the picture. This year is no different. Going into the last week of the season, there was: one remaining undefeated BCS team; two undefeated non-BCS teams; and six one-loss teams. To complicate matters, #1 Alabama played #4 Florida for all the beans in the the SEC conference and #2 Oklahoma played #20 Missouri for the Big 12 championship. There are a couple of things going on here and I'll detail them below.

First, let's address the Big 12. The Big 12 conference has two divisions: East and West. Each year the best team in the Big 12 East and the best team in the Big 12 West play each other in the (Dr. Pepper) Big 12 Championship Game. It seems like a pretty fair system. Well, the Big 12 West was outstanding this season, featuring three teams with only one loss: Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas Tech. Unfortunately, only one of those teams can play for the Big 12 title and since the Big 12 was one of the strongest conferences in the nation this year, the winner would surely end up playing for the national title. To complicate matters, Texas beat Oklahoma, 45-35, when Oklahoma was ranked #1 earlier in the season. They then beat #11 Missouri and #6 Oklahoma State the following two weeks before losing to #7 Texas Tech on a last-second touchdown miracle. Texas Tech beat Texas then blew out Oklahoma State the following week before receiving a beatdown from Oklahoma. Oklahoma lost to Texas early in the season, but rebounded by winning six in a row to end the season, scoring no fewer than 45 points in any game, and scoring at least 60 in five straight. Their signature win came three weeks ago, when they beat then-#2 Tech 65-21 to knock them out of the title picture.

So who goes to the Big 12 (and national) championship(s)? The easy choice would be Oklahoma, since they beat the team that Texas couldn't. But Texas beat Oklahoma, so that should count for something, right? Well, Texas Tech beat Texas so they should also draw some consideration, right? Fortunately, there are tiebreakers in place so we stupid humans don't have to decide. The tiebreakers are:

1) The records of the three teams will be compared against each other

That's no good, they're all the same. Next!

2) The records of the three teams will be compared within their division

Hmm, their division records are all the same too. Next...

3) The records of the three teams will be compared against the next highest placed teams in their division in order of finish (4, 5 and 6)

Well, that's also the same.

4) The records of the three teams will be compared against all common conference opponents

Wow, this is getting interesting...

5) The highest ranked team in the first Bowl Championship Series Poll following the completion of the Big 12 regular season conference play shall be the representative.

Zing! That's it! That makes sense right? Because the computers are never wrong, right? What a horrible system. Not only are you leaving it in the hands of computers, but you're leaving it in the hands of stupid biased voters, just like old times. The Big 12 made a statement last week saying that they are going to "re-evaluate the tiebreaking procedures", but not until March of 2009. Sure, that will help the teams this year. Let's see how long it takes a team like Texas Tech, a non-traditional football school, to recover from this black eye, especially with talk that the head coach may be leaving to take the head coaching position at Washington.

Moving along... Alabama was 12-0 and the #1 team in the land by virtue of one of the most pathetic SEC schedules I have ever seen. They played only 3 ranked teams this season, two of which aren't ranked anymore, the third of which is now ranked #15. Everyone touts their amazing defense, but shutting out teams like Auburn and Arkansas State doesn't impress anybody. But they were the last remaining BCS unbeaten, so a win against Florida last weekend would have sealed the deal. As we saw on Saturday, Saban's crew is a little overrated. Florida beat them, in Alabama, to win the SEC championship. This brings up another interesting issue. Florida finished the season with a 12-1 record and was ranked #4 in the BCS going into the SEC championship game. Texas was ranked ahead of them, at #3 in the second-to-last BCS rankings, but were idle because they got shut out of the Big 12 championship game. Well, the ultimate nightmare for the BCS occurred when #4 Florida jumped #3 Texas to grab the #2 spot in the final BCS rankings with Alabama falling from #1 to #4. Alabama could have saved the BCS a lot of controversy if they had just won on Saturday. Now, the debate rages on once again. If you hate the BCS, you rooted for Florida this week.

This season goes to show once again that you can lose early in the season and still make the national title game. Both Florida and Oklahoma did it, with Florida losing to Mississippi in week 4 and Oklahoma losing to Texas in week 6. Alabama, Texas and Texas Tech all lost after that and it cost them. Why is that? Because voters are stupid. They forget easily. Texas boasted the most impressive resume, in my opinion, having beaten 3 teams in the top 11 in the rankings in 3 consecutive weeks before losing to #7 on a last-second miracle TD pass. Not that what Oklahoma did wasn't impressive, but they were able to spread their games vs. highly-ranked teams throughout their schedule. It also goes to show that voters (and computers) can be swayed by style points. Oklahoma scored at least 60 points in each of the their last 5 games. Impressive, especially when considering that 3 of those games were against ranked opponents.

So instead of Texas playing a team like Oklahoma or Florida, they end up playing #10 Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, a game they will likely dominate. And I can tell you this: Texas was pitted against Ohio State because beating Ohio State will prove nothing. Penn State beat Ohio State in Columbus earlier in the season, so it goes to show that Ohio State isn't that great this year. Not that Penn State is a bad team, but they are the one 1-loss team that probably isn't making too many bones about not being considered for the BCS championship game.

Now for the non-BCS teams. Three non-BCS teams were undefeated going into this past weekend: Utah, Boise State, and Ball State. Utah and Boise State both finished undefeated and were off in the final week, but Ball State had to play their conference championship game... against Buffalo. That's right, a team that needed a last-second hail mary to beat Temple was facing 12-0 Ball State in their conference championship. Well, Ball State did the BCS a favor by wetting the bed on Friday night and losing to Buffalo, making them just a pretty good team instead of possibly BCS-worthy. However, that still leaves Utah and Boise State. Utah was the original bracket-buster, beating Pitt in the in the 2005 Fiesta Bowl. Boise State is the latest bracket-buster, beating Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl on a 2-point conversion, statue of liberty play in the waning seconds of what many call one of the greatest bowl games in history. Both teams have proven themselves to be legit, but only one is allowed to play in a BCS bowl game. Is that really fair?

The problem here is the bowl committees. Each bowl game has a committee that decides who plays in its bowl. The BCS bowls, however, have stricter rules that apply to their bowls. For instance, the Rose Bowl always features the Big Ten conference champion vs. the Pac-10 conference champion. The Orange Bowl always features the winner of the ACC championship. This year, the committees had a chance to buck these old-fashioned trends and go in a new direction. But they didn't. Instead, we will see #19 Virginia Tech play #7 Texas Tech in the Orange Bowl, instead of giving a team like Boise the opportunity to face off against a power conference team. What an interesting matchup Boise vs. Texas Tech would present. Instead, Texas Tech will likely blow out the undermanned VaTech. Note to the BCS powers that be: if you want to increase the viewership of the BCS, create interesting matchups like these and throw out your old-fashioned bowl committees.

I read an excellent article last week about the BCS and a plan to implement a playoff system. I've read a hundred of these things and I can't really agree 100% with any of them. With this article, I came close. The writer proposed a system that mirrors college basketball's March Madness. It consists of a 16-team playoff, but with a twist. The twist is that, like in college basketball, the winner of every conference in Division 1-A would receive an automatic bid in the tournament. Think about it. There are 11 conferences in NCAA Division 1 football. That's 11 automatic bids and 5 at-large. The bracket presents some interesting matchups. And before you jump on me and say that schools like Buffalo and Troy don't stand a shot, think of the NCAA tournament. Lower-seeded teams pull off upsets every year. Why should football be any different? The excitement that this system would generate would be great for everyone involved: students, fans, and schools alike. Teams like Troy would generate so much revenue that they could use to fund their football program and expand it and grow it. Some people say there's parity in college football. I say it's just schools becoming more competitive and this would be a great way to advance that.

One argument would be that they couldn't play games on neutral sites. Who cares? Have the higher-seeded team play host. Home-field advantage plays such a role in college football, so why take that out of the tournament? It keeps the atmosphere of college football fresh for the playoff games and gives students of the schools involved more a chance to attend. You could still have the championship game rotate sites and you can even still use the same sites that are currently used for the championship.

Some will argue that the season would be too long. That's just B.S. First of all, the college football season is shorter than any other season. Oh no, some teams might play 16-17 games in a season. How awful! The NFL regular season is only 16 games, so for the masses of players that are thinking of going pro, here's your chance to show that you can endure a longer season. The real problem with college football is that the games run longer because of the game rules. Tweak those game rules a bit to make them more like the NFL and you don't have to worry about players getting worn down.

And to those who say that the season could run through January and into February with the added weeks, I say "nay". What we need is to start the playoffs the week after the regular season ends, this weekend, and run through December. You can even take a week off for Christmas and finish it up the first week of January. To me, taking a month off before playing in your bowl game is worse. You can get rusty this way and it just isn't a good system. The real problem with scheduling is that it's not uniform throughout the NCAA. There are 17 official weeks in the NCAA football season, and yet teams only play 12-13 games. Let's reform scheduling and then we can talk about having a playoff that will end around New Year's.

Some will argue that too many students will miss finals. While it's true that there isn't a Division 1 school that doesn't have finals at some point during the month of December, since when did school presidents care about this? Every year lots of college basketball players miss mid-terms to play in the NCAA tournament. The tourney is about 4 weeks long, depending on how far your school goes in the tourney. Then there are conference championships the week before and those run all week. So don't come with that lame excuse. You can work something out. These kids are making your school a lot of money in revenue. You can find a way for them to take their finals around the playoffs.

The final argument is that having a playoff system would undermine the integrity of the bowl games. I have to say that I agree with this 100%. Kind of. It may undermine the integrity of the BCS bowls (i.e. the more important ones, or the "New Year's Bowls" as we like to call them). I say, keep them. Create an extra game for some teams that lose in the playoffs. Sure, it won't mean anything, but does it really mean anything now? Think of it. Penn State plays USC in the Rose Bowl, for what? What does the winner really get? They have no shot at the national title. Bragging rights. Recognition. And a bouquet of roses. That's all they get. Well guess what? If Penn State and USC both lose in the second round of the playoff and played each other in the Rose Bowl, the winner would still get all of those things. You can keep all the other bowl games if you want. The ones that don't mean anything, like the Meinke Car Care Bowl or the Papajohns.com Bowl, of even the Insight Bowl. Schools relish the chance to play in a bowl, even if their record is only 6-6. To be honest, though, bowl games are such an old-fashioned thing. And it's kind of gotten out of hand, hasn't it? Is there really any integrity in bowl games anymore? Teams that finish the season .500 can, and usually do, make a bowl game. In 2008, there will be 34 bowl games (including the BCS bowls and national championship game) with the addition of the EagleBank Bowl and the St. Petersburg Bowl (really?). That means that 68 out of the 119 Division 1 football teams will be playing in a bowl game. That almost guarantees that schools with .500 records or worse will be playing in the postseason. How much pride, really, does a school get from playing in the New Mexico Bowl? But if they are that important to you, keep them. I guarantee that eventually, every school will play in a bowl game, just so we don't leave anyone out.

The whole point to this overly drawn-out rant is to say that the system needs to change. But the change doesn't just consist of instituting a playoff and getting rid of the BCS. There need to be sweeping changes across the board, from the structure of the regular season schedule to the rules of the game to make games shorter to the conference championship system to the postseason and national championship determination. One line in the article I referenced above struck me. It said that school presidents aren't opposed to a playoff system. They just haven't been presented one that makes sense yet. While I doubt that this system will ever be proposed to the school presidents, I do think that it would work and it's a shame we may never see it in action. Unfortunately, it would require too many broad changes to the game and the stuffy old alumni that run the BCS system would never go for it. Not while they had their money to throw around at it.

Imagine that: me, a staunch Republican, preaching about change.

Election '08

2008-11-05T09:25:00.000-05:00

So the election is over and my side lost... not that I wasn't expecting it anyway. I thought it might be a little closer, but the experts were right: it was an electoral landslide for Barack Obama, but the popular vote was close (52%-46%) and the Democrats didn't get their 60 seats in the Senate. So as we get ready to close the book on our 43rd President, I wanted to post a link to an article that I found interesting. This article was written by a former intern on John F. Kerry's legal team during his 2004 presidential campaign.

My opinion of President Bush has changed over the years and I really do think that history will look at him differently 20 years from now. The article is written by a Democrat and I agree 100% with every word he says. The only thing he has left out is the fact that there hasn't been another attack on U.S. soil since 9/11, while numerous plots have been foiled along the way. If you told me 7 years ago that we wouldn't sustain another terrorist attack on U.S. soil, I would not have believed you. I would venture a guess that most people share that belief, whether they want to admit it or not. So while I don't think Bush is the most popular president we ever had or will ever have, I think he has unfairly received criticism from both sides for trying to be bipartisan in his second term as president. It will be interesting to see the reaction to President-elect Obama when he tries to reach across the aisle, if he does try to do that. I think, in the end, we will look at President Bush in the same way that we look at former President Harry S. Truman: someone who faced extraordinary scrutiny in the wake of a national disaster and a war. Someone who tried to unite the country during an economic crisis, but received too much opposition from both Democrats and Republicans, and ended up strengthening the opposition and alienating his own party, of no fault of his own.

The truth is, we should be ashamed of ourselves. This man was still the leader of the free world and he deserved our support. He was the commander-in-chief and he did his job better than 99% of people in this country could. And all we could do was scrutinize and insult him, rebel against him. Read the article; it's short and it just might give you a different insight as to the trouble he faced in his presidency.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122584386627599251.html

SEPTA, Part 1

2008-11-01T20:23:00.001-04:00

In what is sure to be an ongoing series of posts, I'm writing about the inadequacy of SEPTA. For those of you who might not know what SEPTA is, it stands for Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority. Authority is the right word, because they are the authority when it comes to transportation to and from Philadelphia. For most people, there is no other mass transportation option if you live in the 'burbs.

The problem with SEPTA is that they are horribly inefficient. Years ago, the Live Eight concert came to Philly. There were over 1 million people at the concert and a lot of them had to use SEPTA to get into the city. Let's just say, things didn't end well. We ended up in Villanova instead of Ambler because we took the wrong train. The stations were all a mess. It was run terribly.

Well this past week, the Phillies won the World Series. I'm happy for them. I'm happy for the city. But I knew that either the city of Philadelphia, SEPTA, or both would screw things up with the victory parade. Unfortunately, I work in Center City at the moment. It was cool, because I was able to watch the victory parade and get pictures. The bad part was that everyone started funneling out of the city around 4:00, when I, along with loads of other people, leave to come home. In hindsight, I probably should have just left work after the parade passed my building.

Anyway, the parade started at "noon" (12:30) and was pretty cool, even though the whole parade went by in about 10 minutes flat. I got some nice pictures and saw Pat the Bat riding up front in the Budweiser wagon. After the final float went by, the madness ensued. I fought my way through the crowds to my favorite sandwich place, the "Sandwich Nazi" as it is affectionately known in my work circle. After waiting about 20 mins for my sandwich, I went back to work. I thought I would try to leave a little early to hopefully beat some of the crowd back. I left work at around 3:50 and headed to Suburban Station. What I saw when I got there was complete and utter chaos. The line for every train was overflowing into the concourse and wrapping around pillars in every direction. The estimates said there were around 3 million people in Philly for the parade and when I saw those lines, I started to believe that figure.

I wasn't sure what to do. I called Sarah and asked her to come get me. Then I had an idea. I told her I would walk to Market East Station a few blocks away and check the lines there. What I saw when I got there was, arguably, worse. The line for my train looked to be about 2 hours long. It wasn't moving. I checked the train grid to see if I could take any other trains that had smaller lines. What I ended up doing was hopping in line for the R5 train going the opposite direction. The plan was to take that train to the Villanova Station and have Sarah pick me up there. I called her and she left right away. I waited another half hour or so for the next R5 train while all the other lines came and went. As I stood there, at least two R2s, two R3s, two R8, and two R7s went by. The R5 just happened to be running about 35 mins late.

I finally boarded the train around 5:30 and was on my way. Or so I thought. We went about 100 feet and stopped in the tunnel. And waited. Ten minutes later, we moved about another 500 feet. And stopped. Ten minutes later, we finally started going again and went all the way to Suburban Station. At this point, the train is packed full. There was room for maybe 10 more people in the train car that I was in. When we pull up to the platform, there are about 500 people crammed onto the platform trying to get on the train. After 10 more minutes of people shoving and cramming themselves in the train, we took off, leaving about 400 of the 500 people behind. Finally we were on our way. About 45 minutes later, the train pulled into Villanova Station. It was about 7:00 when I finally got off the train. I normally get home between 5:30 and 6:00. We are in Villanova, 45 minutes from home.

So we decide to go out to dinner on the way home. We hop on the turnpike and head towards home. We get to talking and I look up Texas Roadhouse on Sarah's BlackBerry so I can call ahead for seating. When I hang up, we see a sign for the Allentown Service Plaza. Somehow, we both missed the Lansdale exit. So we get off at Quakertown and turn around and come back the other way. We finally get to Texas Roadhouse around 7:45. We eat, head to the train station and the supermarket and get home around 9:45. The plan for the night was to watch some scary movies, but all we can think about is sleep. So, we turn in early and head to bed around 10:45.

The point of the story is... never trust SEPTA. Every major event that happens in Philly, they find a way to fuck it up. The news outlets were reporting that the city was telling people to take public transportation. SEPTA was telling people they were over capacity and that it wasn't a good idea to take public transportation. But the truth is, SEPTA had no plan. They added no extra trains to their tracks and expected close to 3 million people to just wait and fight for a spot in line for their trains. Some people waited 3 hours or more for a train to go home. Some waited 3-4 hours for a train to come into the city in the morning before they left and went home. SEPTA actually stopped inbound service to the city at a certain point earlier in the day. I had no other option because I work down there, and it was most frustrating for people like me. I think I've learned my lesson, and I won't be taking SEPTA during the next major event in Philly. I think I'll probably just stay home.

Indecision 2008

2008-10-15T14:30:00.000-04:00

I probably won't make many friends with this post, if anyone actually reads this. But since the election is coming up and it's the biggest election of our generation blah blah blah, I figured that I have to write a entry on the candidates. I wasn't going to post anything up on here either, but I saw an alarming article today that has me extremely worried about the future of this country.

First off, you should know that I am a Republican. No, I did not vote for Bush in 2004. I actually abstained from voting because I was in college and just didn't follow politics as closely as I should have. For the past 6-8 months, I have been very closely following the election coverage, on both liberal and conservative media outlets. I know the issues, and I have a pretty good idea what each candidate's stances are on those issues.

The thing with elections is, everyone has their pet issue that they are voting for. One person might vote for a candidate based on their stance on education, while others may vote for a candidate based on their military strategy. Others, including myself, favor voting for the candidate that would best be suited to get this country out of the economic mess it's in.

That being said, I will refer back to the article that I read today. The headline showed up on my Google Reader rss feed from Drudge Report and the article title was interesting, so I clicked it. The title was "OBAMA FIRES 'ROBIN HOOD' WARNING SHOT" from the New York Post. What I read was alarming. Last Sunday, Obama spoke in a town outside of Toledo. A small business owner whose company makes more than $250,000 per year approached Barack and asked him about his new tax plan. He asked if the plan would raise taxes for his small business. After Obama responded that it would, the man told him that he works hard, sometimes 10 to 12 hours a day and asks why he should be taxed higher to fulfill the American dream. Obama's response was (and I quote) "It's not that I want to punish your success. I want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too." He continued, "my attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

This comment should create concern with every American citizen. What Obama is basically saying here is that he wants to redistribute the wealth of this great country. He wants to tax the rich and give that money to the poor. The Robin Hood warning shot. For those of you who know something about government and politics, Obama's "trickle-up" economic theory is the main pillar of a Socialist economy. Redistribution of wealth. Now, I will say that I am not one of those radical right-wing conservatives that thinks all Democrats are the anti-Christ and the reason for all the world's problems. However, this is an alarming statement. Here is a breakdown of Obama's economic plan:

First off, he says he plans to cut taxes for 95% of all working Americans. This is a flat-out lie, because nearly half of all tax filers pay no income tax at all. So how can he cut their taxes if they don't pay any in the first place? His answer is "tax credits". Here is a list of tax credits that Obama will offer:

* A $1,000 "make work pay" credit.
* A $4,000 college-tuition credit.
* A $6,000 child-care credit.
* A $1,100 bump in the earned-income tax credit

These aren't to become income-tax deductions, which would be worthless to tax filers paying no income tax. Instead, they are checks straight from the government, with the subsidies set to grow to $1 trillion within 10 years. That's a pretty big transfer of wealth. Obama says that it's fair. But that's an interesting definition of the word "fair." Despite many of the wealthiest people in this country paying a lower tax rate than most middle-class workers due to a majority of their income coming from capital gains, the top 20% of earners still pay 69% of our country's federal taxes, and 88% of income taxes.

Obama wants to raise the capital gains tax, which means that these people will be shouldering an even heavier load of tax burden. Now, don't get me wrong; I don't feel sorry for these CEOs and corporate execs getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars. But in terms of doing your fair deed to this country, I believe they have. It's funny how all these Hollywood stars are coming out in support of Obama. Don't they realize they will be taxed to high heaven if he gains office?

On Monday, Obama promised a tax policy that would restore "a sense of fairness and balance that will give every American a fair shot at the American dream." But to the man he spoke with on Sunday, his American is going to become that much harder.

Let me take an aside here to say that I am also not a HUGE McCain supporter, but I do believe that his plans are more reasonable and fair to the majority of citizens in this country. That said, in contrast to Obama's plan, McCain calls for for real tax cuts - halving the capital-gains levy and scrapping taxes on unemployment benefits altogether.

What we have to realize here is that the economic situation cannot be solved in a day, or a year, or maybe even in the next four years. It's going to get worse before it gets better. We are suffering from policies put in place over 8 years ago (yes, I do mean Clinton) and it has put us in a hole. While Obama is so set on radical change for this country, McCain is proposing the level-headed policies that we need for these tough times. You may get roped in with Obama's rhetoric and his call for change, but when was the last time a radical change in this country made anything better?

However, this is where the McCain campaign is dropping the ball. I give Mr. McCain a lot of credit for resurrecting a dead campaign early in the primary season and winning the nomination. However, since then, his campaign team has not done a good job of breaking down Obama's policies and getting the facts out there. The numbers I wrote above are numbers you probably won't see anywhere else. McCain will probably not mention this in the debate tonight and probably will not be aggressive enough in defending his own policies, while pointing out the specifics that everyone is overlooking in Obama's. This is why McCain will lose and Obama will win the 2008 election.

I'll finish up with this. For those of you who were old enough to remember back to 1992 (I wasn't so I had to read about this on the Internet), remember Clinton's pre-election promises. He promised to lower taxes on the middle-class and raise taxes on those earning more than $200,000 per year (sound familiar?). Actually, that is the main thing that won him the election in '92.

After the election and as his inauguration drew nearer, he backed off of that stance. At a Jan. 14, 1993, press conference in New Hampshire, he claimed that it was the media that had played up a middle-class tax cut, not him. A month later, he announced his actual plan before a joint session of Congress. The plan called for increasing taxes of families making as little as $20,000/year. It wasn't until 1994, when a Republican-controlled Congress came into power, that he embraced welfare reform, signed a cut in the capital gains tax, and declared that the "era of Big Government is over." The economy was jump-started thereafter. Funny how McCain's economic plans are in line with those that helped stimulate the economy during the Clinton years. Makes you think, huh?

Mr. Obama is making the same promises that Clinton did, and I'll be interested to see how long it takes him to back down from those promises. To be fair, if he did raise taxes on the middle-class, it would be better than his "trickle-up" (aka redistribution of wealth) theory. At least this country would remain a Democracy and not fall into Socialism.

Sources:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10152008/news/politics/obama_fires_a_robin_hood_warning_shot_133685.htm

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122333585431009523.html

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10142008/news/nationalnews/mccain_unveils_52b_economic_plan_133598.htm

Jersey Curse

2008-10-06T14:39:00.000-04:00

I have this thing with sports superstitions. If you are even a halfway hardcore sports fan or if you play sports, you know what I mean. The rally towel, or the rally cap. Wearing certain clothes when your team is playing, or being in the room or not being in the room when they have the ball. It's the Madden Curse, or the Campbell's Chunky Soup Curse, or the Sports Illustrated Curse. Are they real? That's debatable. However, I have a personal curse that I bestow upon on my favorite athletes and teams and it deals with buying jerseys of players from those teams.

Just as background, I am a superstitious person when it comes to sports. I believe that the Madden curse is very real. When I play hockey (I'm a goalie) I don't touch any of the lines when I'm skating to my net at the beginning of the game or in between periods. I have lucky shirts, and unlucky shirts. I have noticed a certain trend develop over the last few years, though, that can unmistakably be categorized as a curse, of sorts. I love buying jerseys of my favorite players. It's something I've done since I was a kid. I used to own a Brett Favre jersey (before he was an jerk), Steve Young, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, etc. Only a few years ago did I start to see a trend of bad luck develop whenever I bought a new jersey. Let's start from the beginning:

The first I can remember me cursing athletes begins a long time ago. I have to go back about 10 years for this one. I got an Eric Lindros jersey for Christmas one year. I can't remember the exact year but I know it was around the time of the Flyers' last Stanley Cup Finals appearance, which was the 1996-'97 season. That following off-season, the drama between Lindros and the Flyers front office started heating up. He and Bobby Clarke feuded in the media, and during the 1998 season Lindros's string of concussions started. Then, during a game in April of 1999, Lindros suffered what was initially called a "rib injury." Later that night, his teammate Keith Jones found him in the tub of his hotel room, pale and cold. The trainer was told to send Lindros back to Philly on a plane with Mark Recchi, who was also injured at the time, and get treatment at home. Jones insisted he go straight to the hospital. They did rush him to the hospital and it was determined that Lindros had a collapsed lung caused by internal bleeding of his chest wall and had bled out about half his body's total volume of blood. If he had been put on that team plane, he would have been dead before he reached Philadelphia. More injuries and verbal disputes with Flyers management ensued between then and 2001, when he was finally traded to the New York Rangers. He played three seasons with the Rangers, then one with Toronto before finally retiring as a member of the Dallas Stars in 2006. In all, he suffered eight concussions in his career (all after I bought the damn jersey), a collapsed lung, and a torn ligament in his wrist that he re-injured shortly after returning from.

At this point, I didn't realize what I had done. But even so, I didn't wear jerseys much anymore so I didn't buy any for a few years. Then came my college years. My junior year was an exciting one. A young running back by the name of Austin Scott was turning heads at Penn State. He was a sophomore during my junior year and I swear he knew there was a curse on him the year before this. During my sophomore year (his freshman year), I bought his jersey, #22. The following year, he switched numbers, to #33, which just so happens to be one of my favorite numbers. So I bought a #33 jersey. That following season, he showed up to camp overweight, was hampered by ankle injuries, and apparently displayed a lack of focus and motivation. He lost his starting job to Tony Hunt, who ended up finishing third on the all-time rushing list at Penn State and now plays fullback for the Philadelphia Eagles. In the middle of his senior season in 2007, he was accused of rape after leaving a bar with a girl he met that night. He was acquitted of the charges, but it effectively ruined the rest of his college career. He had a tryout with the Cleveland Browns this past pre-season and got cut.

That same season, the Eagles signed an all-pro wide receiver named Terrell Owens. As you all know, Owens came into the league with the 49ers and exploded onto the scene, running his mouth along the way. When he signed with the Eagles, it felt like a new era was beginning. The Eagles looked like the best team in the league... until I bought his jersey. The Eagles started the season 13-1 and T.O. was on pace for 16 touchdown catches for the season until Roy Williams brought down T.O. with a now-famous "horse collar" tackle that sprained his ankle and fractured his fibula. The Eagles would lose their final two games of the season, but make a run to the Super Bowl, only to lose in a close game to the Patriots. Owens returned that game, catching 9 passes for 122 yards. The following offseason, Owens' agent Drew Rosenhaus demanded that the Eagles restructure his contract and when the Eagles refused, Owens's stay in Philly was done. He sat out the entire 2005 season and was eventually released by the Eagles in March of 2006. He signed with the Dallas Cowboys soon after, and you all know what has happened since then. Hey, at least I helped get a much-needed new rule passed in the NFL, and now NCAA.

The 2005 season was an exciting one for Penn Staters. Penn State had a great team assembled with lots of freshman talent. One of those key freshmen was wide receiver Derrick Williams. Williams was immediately my favorite player on that year's team. So, I went out and bought his jersey a few weeks into the season. The week after I bought the jersey, Williams broke his shoulder in the annual game against Michigan, and Penn State suffered their first and only loss of the season. Williams was forced to sit out the remainder of the 2005 season and never quite regained that magic he showed during his freshman year.

The following season was the big senior year for linebacker Paul Posluszny. Considered maybe the best linebacker in the storied history of Linebacker U, "Pos" had an outstanding season as he broke the all-time school record for tackles in a career at Penn State. I bought his jersey midway through that season. He fell to the 2nd round in the draft and ended up breaking his arm in his first NFL game, missing his entire rookie season.

That NFL season, I decided to try my hand at buying an Eagles jersey again. I was nervous, because I was now starting to realize the horrible trend that was occurring. Nevertheless, I went out and bought another jersey. This time it was Eagles tight end L.J. Smith. I really wanted a Westbrook jersey, but I decided to hold off because of the curse (no, seriously). He was a rising star after his 2005 season, when he caught 61 passes for 682 yards and 3 TDs. He had a strong start in 2006, despite criticism that he dropped too many passes. His final numbers dropped off that year, but that could be attributed to the loss of Donovan McNabb to a season-ending injury. In 2007, his production dropped even more and eventually suffered a season-ending injury. He has battled injuries and dropped passes ever since.

I figure, it has to be just a fluke right? There's no way that a single person can bestow these curses on so many outstanding athletes right? Wrong. In 2005, the NHL had resumed from a lockout that canceled the entire 2004-05 season. The Flyers returned with a bang and Simon Gagne was their leader, scoring 47 goals and recording 32 assists with a +31 rating. The Flyers were knocked out in the first round but who cares? Hockey is back! During the 2006-07 season, the Flyers suffered through the worst season in their storied history. Toward the end of the season, I went to a game and decided to buy a Simon Gagne jersey. Bad idea. When the 2007-08 season rolled around the Flyers were re-tooled and ready to bounce back. Gagne had been banged up during the entire off-season and true to form, suffered a season-ending concussion after playing only 25 games. It was believed that he suffered 3 concussions in 5 months, although doctors told him he only had one. He was originally injured on October 25, 2007 against the Florida Panthers. After sitting out 4 games, he returned on November 7 and was re-injured in that game. He sat out 26 more games before returning against the Pittsburgh Penguins on February 10, 2008, only to be re-injured on his first shift. He ended up sitting out the rest of the season.

So, I'm terrified to buy any more jerseys. There are a few that I want, namely Mike Richards or Danny Briere of the Flyers, Brian Westbrook of the Eagles, and Ryan Howard of the Phils. I just can't bring myself to do it though. I know, star athletes get hurt, but with a track records like mine, can you blame me?

Moving

2008-09-19T09:26:00.000-04:00

Note: this blog entry was actually written on 9/12 but my camera battery died and it took me a week to find the charger so I couldn't upload the pictures until now. I felt like the pictures really added to this post and it just wouldn't be the same without them. Sorry it's so long (that's what she said) but I had a lot to say, ok?

So, I’m still in moving mode. I woke up at 7:03 this morning and my train leaves the station that is a 15-minute drive from my new place at 7:21. Did I mention that I had a one-on-one status update with a Vice President of my client company this morning at 8:30? Even if I had made the 7:21 train, I still probably would have been 5 minutes late to the meeting. So here I am, staring at the clock thinking out loud “how did this happen?” and spewing expletives. So I got up and emailed said VP, asking hopelessly if we could push our meeting back, but of course he is booked solid until eternity. I end up taking the 8:19 train and doing our meeting over the phone in a cramped train with a freakin’ horn blowing 4-5 times at every goddamn stop. Lay off the fucking horn man! People will get out of the way when they see a damn train heading toward them! Then I got off the train and upon getting to my building, noticed lots of people standing around outside. Apparently a fire alarm has been triggered. It’s going to be one of those days. Luckily, I prepared for this when I got off the train by ordering a giant iced caramel latte with extra sugar.

But what this post is really about is moving. I hate moving. I’ve moved a lot in my life and let me tell you, it sucks. Sarah and I moved out of our old apartment two weeks ago and into a much bigger, much nicer, much newer place just about 10 miles away. It was about a week of running around like chickens with our heads cut off, trying to pack everything in boxes and change all our addresses and clean and paint the old place before we had to turn in the keys. That’s not to mention that two days after our move-in date, we had to go to a wedding in Maryland (thanks Nick and Crystal). But anyone that’s moved in their life knows that it doesn’t end there. The last 12 days have been hectic, unpacking, building furniture, decorating, etc. So let me start from the beginning.

Sunday, Aug. 24: We started packing this night. We had just gotten home from a bachelor/bachlorette weekend in Atlantic City where I won $200 playing craps!! Woo hoo!! Packing sucks.

Monday, Aug. 25: This day was spent calling all the utility companies to cancel service or change addresses. Also, I had to change the addresses of credit cards, bank accounts, insurance, etc. which is a giant pain in the ass. We also continued packing this day. Packing still sucks. We rented a steam cleaner this night as well to try and get the cat piss stains out of the carpet. It actually worked pretty well.

Tuesday, Aug. 26: More packing and changing addresses, canceling and setting up of utility services and coordinating delivery of our new furniture. Sarah went to take the steam cleaner back to Home Depot and noticed that the dog had chewed the cord (these things cost $700). Luckily her dad is an electrical whiz and fixed the cord without anyone being able to tell that anything happened (Sarah would have just wrapped electrical tape over it, which apparently would have done nothing at all). We saved the cord as a souvenir.

This was fun

Wednesday, Aug. 27: I’m freaking out at this point because despite our best efforts, we only have maybe 2/3 of the apartment packed up. I have the semi-finals and possibly the finals of my hockey league tonight, so I am unable to do any packing. I head off for my game(s), and my team wins both games and the championship. We take pictures with the trophy, etc. I get home around 11 pm exhausted after playing two hockey games. I tell Sarah I’m going to stay up all night packing. I last about 1 hour before taking 3 Advil for my splitting headache and passing out in bed.

Thursday, Aug. 28: Today is the day. Most of the stuff is in boxes and ready to go. I wake up at 6:30 to get things together and gas up my car before we have to start moving stuff. Miraculously, we are able to fit about 75% of all our stuff into my grandparents’ vans and trailer and my mom’s van. We are able to move most of the boxes and all the large furniture in one trip. The problem is, it takes us about 4 hours just to load up all the cars. We go and get my keys, I sign some final papers and we start unpacking. This is the worst part. Packing and unpacking, even if it’s just for a trip, is a waste of time. Putting things in boxes or suitcases, just to move them to a different location and take everything out of the boxes or suitcases. It’s something you have to do, but it’s just an annoying waste of time.

Anyway, after some McDonald’s for lunch around 3 pm, we finished getting everything out of the cars. I felt bad, because my 78-year-old grandpa was helping for most of the time. He’s still in great shape for his age, but he got tired midway through unpacking. Next time we move, we’ll have to hire movers I guess. My mom and grandparents leave with Jack (the dog) and Sarah gets back from work (in-service day), and now it’s time to take all of our stuff out of the boxes. Not before we get some dinner though. Sarah, her mom, and I went to an excellent Italian trattoria in Souderton called Caruso, where we got some cheap but delicious Italian food. Next up was a quick stop at the supermarket to get some necessities (i.e. toilet paper, we forgot to pack that in our one big load) and then a stop back at the old place to clean and gather up some more boxes.

By the time we got there it was around 9 pm. Sarah’s mom is vacuuming and cleaning the kitchen while her dad and I move boxes down to their car. The cats are terrified and have been huddling in a corner of the bedroom closet all day. We finally call it a night around 10:45. Sarah and I load the cats into my car, stop at Wawa for some drinks and snacks on the way back to the new place. We let the cats loose in the apartment and their one immediate emotion is fear. Neville doesn’t want to come out of the carrier at first, but then does and promptly hides somewhere in the apartment. Molly, on the other hand, explores the entire apartment and seems to be enjoying the new digs. We go to bed after midnight.

Neville is scurred.

Friday, Aug. 29: We wake up early after sleeping on the couches the night before (our bed wasn’t put together yet). Sarah goes to the old place to help her mom clean, while I patiently wait for the Comcast guy to come and set up the cable, internet, and phone (yay for the Comcast Triple Play). When he gets to the new place, I realize that all the Comcast equipment we have is at the old place. FAIL. He says, “no problem, just bring it back to the local office when you have it all.” He sets up the cable, having to run back to the local office twice for new cable boxes, etc. He is there for about 3 hours setting things up.

Meanwhile, Sarah and her mom are cleaning in anticipation of the head of maintenance coming for a final walkthrough of the old place. When he gets there, he stays for all of 7 minutes, making a comment only on the color of the paint on the walls of the living room, which we tell him we are planning to paint back to white. He mentions nothing of the pet odor or the carpet that the cats have shredded in places. We hope that he was checking things off as he walked through. Then it was more packing and unpacking. We took two more loads to the new place before meeting Sarah’s dad at Ruby Tuesday for lupper, or dunch, or whatever you call the meal between lunch and dinner/supper.

Back to the old place for some more cleaning and one more load of stuff to the new place. Sarah and I are dreading having to paint today because it’s already after 5. We drive back to Sarah’s parents’ place to get a halogen light, stepladder, a drill, and drop cloths. We get back to the old place around 7 to begin painting. It takes us less time that anticipated and actually looks like we will only need one coat, despite painting white over beige walls. We finish around 10 or so and stop at Wawa for subs before going back to our new place to retire for the evening. When we get back, Neville is still hiding God-knows-where, but Molly is loving the new place. We haven’t seen her this happy since before we got the dog. We go to bed late again, but at least we can sleep on the bed, which we put together earlier in the day.

Saturday, Aug. 30: We sleep in a bit and decide that today is an unpacking/watching Penn State football day. Sarah unpacked while I put together the new TV stand. The TV was set to be delivered today after some haggling by me to the shipping company. I told them they could call my cell phone when they were about an hour away so that I could prepare for them to get there. I listened to the PSU game from upstairs while putting together the stand, waiting for the movers to call. The battery of the drill Sarah’s dad lent me dies midway through putting the stand together. I pop the replacement battery in only to find that it also is dead. I have to turn the rest of the screws by hand. I almost had the entire thing put together when I remembered that my cell phone had died the night before because I couldn’t find my charger. Shit. I called my voicemail from the landline and listened to a barely audible Mexican man tell me that my address wasn’t coming up on his GPS. No timestamp on the message. Crap. I called the movers back from the landline and his comment was “that was an hour ago, we’re a long way from you now.” My response was “Ok…” Look, I screwed up but it’s still their job to deliver it today. It just meant that they were getting a bigger tip. After 15 minutes of trying to get my address into their GPS and finally just giving them an address close to where I live, they told me that would circle back after their next delivery and that they were about 40 miles away. Great, this gave me time to finish the TV stand and get it ready for the TV. I actually had some time to relax before they got there.

An hour later and they still haven’t arrived. I call them back. They are about 15 minutes away and will call when they are close. The guy finally calls back and I direct him into my community. There are two guys in the truck, one a hulking Latino with a really high-pitched voice, the other a short, squat middle-aged Latino that looks like he couldn’t lift a box of Pop Tarts without getting fatigued. Let me just preface this next part by saying that the TV I ordered is a 58” plasma that weighs in at about 120 pounds. I had to help the guys get it up the steps outside and into the apartment. Step 1 complete. Now it had to get down into the basement. This was apparently the hard part. After 5 minutes of lifting and turning and twisting, the TV went down the stairs and our walls were covered in black marks, including a nice sweaty buttprint from the high-pitched Latino guy. He asks if he can use my restroom and I show him where it is. I ask the other guy if they can help me get it up on the TV stand, since this is part of Amazon.com’s “white-glove delivery” (neither mover was wearing white gloves by the way, so no, it isn’t what you think). He doesn’t understand a word I say and tells me to ask the other guy, who clearly in charge here. He comes out and has me sign a paper confirming the delivery. He is clearly intent on having me try and lift a 120-pound TV by myself onto a TV stand. I ask him if he can help me and after a long sigh, he heads back downstairs. The two of them unbox it, set it on the stand, plug it in and hook up the cable, and turn it on to make sure it works (all part of the white-glove delivery by the way). He tells me to keep the box (which takes up about half the apartment) for a week in case there are any problems. I tip him $25 so he doesn’t come back and kill me in my sleep and they take off.

We take a quick rest for an hour before heading back to the old place to check on our paint job (not like it matters, because at this points we don't have time to put a second coat on even if it looked like crap). We decide that it doesn’t look professional, but it’s definitely passable, so we load up the equipment that Sarah’s dad lent us and head to her parents’ house to drop it off. We have some dinner and then head back to the old place for one final time. We clean the fridge and freezer and get all the remaining food into a cooler, gather all the cleaning supplies and head for home, stopping to drop our key off along the way. It’s after 10 pm and at this point, I am running on fumes and so is Sarah. Neville briefly comes out of hiding this day, and Molly is still loving the new place without the dog.

Sunday, August 31: We wake up semi-early and start packing to go to the wedding. Sarah is the maid of honor so we have to be down there for the rehearsal at 3:30. We take off around 11:30 and drive for a couple hours before we get hungry. We see a sign for a Wendy’s and get off on the exit. After driving 7 miles, we finally find the Wendy’s and go in to have a quick sit-down lunch. We get back on our way and my GPS shows that we have now lost a half hour by stopping. We get back on 95 and head to Baltimore without any trouble the rest of the way. We get to the hotel and Sarah goes to the bridal suite, while I go to a friend’s room where I will be staying. We watch Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor lose for the first time in over a year while we are waiting for the bus to go to the rehearsal dinner. We head downstairs and hop on the bus and off we go to the rehearsal dinner.

The rehearsal dinner is open bar so I intend on getting as many drinks as possible in this two-hour timeframe. I have a couple glasses of wine and a couple of mixed drinks with my stuffed flounder. Then Nick and Crystal talk for a bit and give gifts to their parents and then we are back on the bus, headed toward the hotel. My friend Hags snuck (sneaked?) the remaining bottles of wine into a bag before we left, so we spent the bus ride back drinking the remaining wine. Then we all went to the hotel bar, where we drank our faces off. Nick gave the groomsmen their gifts, and we all went to sleep.

Monday, Sep. 1: Wedding day. Yep, you read that right, a wedding on Labor Day. After lounging around for the better part of the morning nursing a hangover, it was time to get suited up (literally) and catch the bus to the wedding site. The site was nice and the wedding was beautiful, as was the open bar afterward. It was a great day for a wedding, but hot, so my coat was off in .2 seconds after the ceremony was done. Then it was off to the bar for a Crown and coke. We grabbed some food, took some pictures, and then sat down for dinner. After eating, it was back to the bar for some more drinks. There were more drinks, some dancing, and a human pyramid (4 tiers, very impressive) and then the reception was over and we headed back to the hotel. Sarah and I had to leave that night because I had to work the next day. We got packed up and went down to the bar for a drink before leaving. We said our goodbyes and congrats before ordering some champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries for the bride and groom on our way out and we got on the road. Traffic was light (thank God) and we got home around 1:00 am. I went to bed at 2 and got about 4 hours of sleep. Sarah’s school is on strike, so she was able to sleep in (just another reason why there should be an IT consultant’s union).

Tuesday, Sep. 2: I am a zombie at work. I have a status update meeting at 1:00 and I have to get myself back into the swing of things. I stumble through the day and get home around 5:30. I get changed and decide to put together our other new piece of furniture, the media cabinet. I open the box and take out all the content, find the instruction manual. This is what I have to go on:

This... also fun

WTF? The instructions are in paragraph format and there are about 8 different directions for each step. Somehow, I put the whole thing together without having any leftover parts and load the DVD’s into it. It’s too small. We have too many DVD’s. I put together the other, cheap DVD rack that we had at the old place and decided that that’s good enough for now. I watch the Phillies blow another sure win behind a strong effort (sarcasm) by Joe Blanton, who sucks. Also, Jack (the dog) is introduced to the new place and loves it. Molly is miserable again and resumes her ritual of peeing on the carpet every day.

Wednesday Sep. 3 - Thursday, Sep. 4: Nothing exciting here, just more unpacking.

Friday, Sep. 5: After I get home from work, we head to the King of Prussia mall to look at Lovesacs. We decide we want to have a Lovesac-type thing in our basement, but think that the actual Lovesacs are too expensive. We buy a Lovesac and head to Cheesecake Factory for dinner. When we get home, we pull the Lovesac out of its duffel and fluff the hell out of it.

Saturday, Sep 6: More unpacking and watching Penn State crush Oregon State 45-14. We leave around 4:30 to catch a train into the city for a concert. The concert is ok, and is made better by beer. We get back to the train station around 11 pm to catch the 11:20 train back home. Problem is, Tropical Storm Hannah had other plans for SEPTA. An official-looking woman comes down and asks everyone standing on the R5 platform if we are waiting for the R5 train (duh) then disappears. Apparently, there are electrical outages south of us that are delaying the trains. She tells us the train should be here in 20 minutes. An hour later, we wake up to her telling us that the train is coming into the station. A short, fat, impatient, white-haired guy ushers us into the train, making sure to let everyone know that this is some kind of “rescue mission” to get us all home tonight. Sarah and I fall asleep on the train, despite some annoying high school girls talking at the top of their lungs. We hop off the train around 1:15 and get home at 1:30.

Sunday, Sep. 7: IKEA day, which also unfortunately coincides with the first full day of NFL action. My reasoning is this: if I want to watch the games on the giant TV, I need furniture. I watch the first half of the Eagles game, which was really all that mattered, and we head to IKEA. We pick out a couch and a coffee table and grab some small necessities. When we go down to get our furniture, they are sold out of the couch but they'll have more tomorrow. Of course. Just when we thought things were looking up for us. We took our coffee table and met Sarah’s parents for dinner, where I got to watch Carolina beat San Diego on a last-second touchdown pass. I love football.

We got home and I put the coffee table together. We watched some of the Colts-Bears game, which was utterly boring, and went to bed.

Monday, Sep. 8: Back to the grind. I remembered I had to change my address on my driver’s license, so I did that today. Sidenote: at this point, we are still without a key to our mail box, after numerous visits and calls to the local post office. I’m not sure what is so difficult about changing a mailbox lock and leaving a key, but apparently our local post office can’t figure it out.

Sarah went back to IKEA and bought the couch while I was at work, and a nice man that helped her load it into her car asked for her phone number. Her dad and I brought the couch into the house later, scuffing the walls that I had just Magic Erasered days ago (the Latino buttprint walls). We watched Monday Night football, during which Jack got excited and peed on the new Lovesac, so that was fun.

Tuesday, Sep. 9 – Wednesday, Sep. 10: Nothing special, more unpacking and decorating. My surround system was delivered on Tuesday so that made me happy

Thursday, Sep. 11: I log into my American Express account online and see that Sarah has used my AMEX card for $225 at Pier 1 and Target. My first hockey game of the new season is tonight, and my team wins, 7-6. When I get home, Sarah has the mailbox keys (finally). I get the mail and there are numerous things from Comcast inside. I open one that looks to be a bill, and it says that I owe $664, due on receipt. This can’t be right, so I call Comcast immediately. It appears they’ve billed my account for equipment that I returned last week. The nice guy I spoke with will check with my local office and get back to me. The fiber optic audio cable came tonight so I hooked up surround system up with DTS 5.1 sound. It’s sweet.

Friday, Sep. 12: I miss my train and have to hold my status meeting with Mr. VP over the phone, on the train, with no headset, with freaking train whistles blowing in the background. I get into the city, buy a large latte and wait for the fire alarm to stop going off and enter the building, respond to a few emails and write this post. When I get home, I get a call from the Comcast guy telling me they are going to credit my account $500 for the returned equipment.

Note: It's now 9/19, a week later, and my account still has not been credited.

In conclusion, moving sucks. When you tell someone “we’re moving next Thursday”, it actually means “we are moving all our stuff to our new place on Thursday, but the moving process will not end for at least 3-4 weeks.” Doesn't it always seem like when it rains, it pours? Well, I was due for a streak like this I guess. This weekend, I’m doing absolutely nothing. And thank God that we don’t have to move again for another 2 years, at least.

Celebrities

2008-08-26T15:45:00.000-04:00

It’s been quite a while since my last post and I keep getting yelled at by my girlfriend for not updating this, so here goes:

So now that the Olympics are over and done with and everyone is recovering from their insomnia caused by staying up til 2 am every night to watch gymnastics or swimming or beach volleyball or whatever other crap they put on that late, I thought I would write a post on something ridiculous that I saw. Actually, there are two ridiculous things that I saw, but let me first preface this post with a little backstory. We all watched Michael Phelps break the world record for most gold medals in one Olympic games and also watched as he broke the all-time record for most gold medals in a career. It was a great story full of hope and inspiration and hard work and dedication. We all watched as the USA relay team beat the cocky French team and how he beat Cavic by .01 second to keep his dream alive. Even if you’re not American, you can appreciate the magnitude of achievement that Phelps accomplished in the last couple of weeks. Unless, apparently, your name is Chad Johnson or Jennifer Lopez.

Man, I hate celebrities. Talk about the most stuck-up, arrogant, ignorant pricks on the planet. Let’s start with Chad Johnson. On ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption” on August 13, Chad Johnson went off on a tirade about how Phelps really isn’t as good as everyone thinks he is, and that the real reason he is winning all those gold medals is because he has no competition (maybe Chad doesn’t know that the Olympics include all the best athletes from every country IN THE WORLD). He went on to say that he knows “several people” in the Miami area that could beat him in a swim race, including himself. He claims that his pre-teen years as a swimmer prepared him to take on Phelps in the pool, saying that he was “the three-time Charles Hadley Pool champ”, like anyone even knows what the hell that is. Hey Chad, Michael Phelps has won 14 gold medals, and you won some pool championship that no one has ever heard of. Here’s a question for you: if you were such a great swimmer, why didn’t you ever compete in the Olympics, or even the junior games? Congratulations Chad, you just made yourself look like an ass again. I guess you don’t remember when you challenged a horse to a foot race, huh? You got a headstart and still lost. You’re a loser, stick to what you do best, sitting out games due to injury and whining from the sidelines. Oh and FYI, Michael Phelps accepted Chad Johnson’s challenge. Interesting, how we haven’t heard back from Chad yet and it’s been a week since Phelps responded.

And now, for the next dumb celebrity: Jennifer Lopez. This bitch thinks she’s so high and mighty that she should be getting all the attention instead of Michael Phelps. Why, you ask? Because she is training for a triathlon. Unbelievable. Let me get one thing straight here: I think it’s great that she’s doing this. And I think it’s pretty impressive that she is doing it just six months after having a baby. But give me a break. The Olympics happen once every four years, and you just so happened to pick the wrong time to have a baby and train for a triathlon. Get over yourself. Get off your high-fucking horse and take a backseat to something more miraculous than you losing back the weight you gained from having a baby. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that she will be competing in the “Classic” triathlon and not the “Olympic” triathlon. Let’s compare: the classic race is a half-mile swim, an 18-mile out-and-back bike race, and a 4-mile out-and-back run. The Olympic race is a 1.5K Pacific Ocean swim, a 40K out-and-back bike race, and a 10K out-and-back run along the sands of Zuma Beach. Come on, J. Lo; if you want to make headlines, at least do the Olympic course (funny how she compares herself to an Olympian, and then doesn’t even compete with the other Olympians in her own event). This story is arguably worse than the Chad Johnson one because when she said this in her interview on Good Morning America, she didn’t even know Phelps’s name. She just called him “the swimmer”. Michael Phelps has become an icon for the United States of America and we have celebrities that don’t even know his name. At least Ocho Cinco knew that much. The greatest thing the American media can do is to not give these idiots the time of day and to not report on this crap. But unfortunately, this is what sells in this country.

I will be back with another update soon, hopefully in a week from now, when I can write about the horrible experience of moving.

'The Dark Knight' Review

2008-07-28T14:11:00.000-04:00

So, this isn't something I'll probably do often, or something I've even really done before, but I feel I should. I am going to write my own little review of 'The Dark Knight', that little flick that has now grossed over $300 million in just 10 days since its release. So here goes, I'll try to make it as spoiler-free as possible (not like anyone reads this anyway).

It's often hard to judge how a superhero/comic book movie will be. As we all saw, many times a film is over-hyped and does not live up to expectations. For instance, Spider-man 3 had enjoyed the biggest opening night and weekend ever in the US (before The Dark Knight, that is) and did anyone actually think that was a great movie? I sure did not. How about X-Men: The Last Stand? All hype. So when I started seeing trailers for The Dark Knight, I really hoped it would not succumb to the same fate. Thankfully, it did not.

Let me just say first of all that this was the best superhero/comic book adaptation I have ever seen on the big screen. Many times directors make the mistake of making these movies too hokey or deviating from the core of the story (see all other Batman movies except Batman Begins). Where all these other movies failed, The Dark Knight succeeds. The movie was long, at two and a half hours, but it kept me interested the entire time. Christopher Nolan is truly a genius at his craft. Just when you think the movie is coming to a close when Batman meets the Joker face-to-face for the first time, you realize there is another 30 minutes left. This, at first, concerned me. But Nolan pulled it off and the rest of the movie did not feel anti-climactic at all.

Now, on to the critiques. I recently saw this movie for the second time and it was just as good the second time around. The pacing is nearly perfect, with not many lulls in the action. There is a great balance of action sequences and informative scenes, with just enough story elements to make the movie interesting but not overdo it. Christan Bale, as in every movie I have seen him in, knocks this one out of the park. His portrayal of Batman is perfect and nobody could do it better. My girlfriend said this about his performance after our second viewing: he never, in any scene during the movie, looks like he enjoys being Batman. That pretty much sums it up. He is the Dark Knight, the hero that Gotham needs. Bruce Wayne has no choice in the matter, he does what he must. And Bale pulls it off perfectly.

But let's get to what everyone is talking about: Heath Ledger. Yes, Heath Ledger was excellent in this movie, his defining role perhaps. The first time I watched this film, I was in awe of his performance. Watching it a second time was downright chilling. And, in a way, sad. Knowing all we know now, you can truly see how this role drove him to the edge. He became the Joker. When he got into costume, he was no longer Heath Ledger, he was the Joker. He was so indistinguishable in voice and appearance that you would not know it was him if you didn't see the credits. But he was spectacular, from his opening scene "disappearing pencil" trick, to the "candy striper" scene, to the very end when he tells Wayne of his "ace in the hole." There was not one scene in which he disappointed, which is amazing because none of his scenes were cut from the final version shown in theaters.

So, to recap, this was an outstanding movie that succeeds not only as a great superhero flick, but also as a great crime drama. But don't go if you're faint of heart. This movie is twisted to the core (I saw people leave the theater within the first 5 minutes) and it will make your heart wrench. It captures your emotions and gives you chills. It's the best movie I've seen in quite some time, and if it doesn't win multiple Oscars, shame on the Academy.

Rating: 9/10

Cell Phone Companies

2008-07-01T11:14:00.000-04:00

So I’m writing this blog entry because I need to let off some steam and my girlfriend doesn’t want me to do it while I’m standing at the customer service desk at the Verizon store. So, here goes.

Add to my ever-increasing shit list: cell phone companies. What the hell are these guys thinking? Back in September, I switched from ATT/Cingular/whatever they’re calling themselves these days to Verizon. Because, you know, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. For months, all I heard from friends and co-workers was how much they liked Verizon and how reliable it was. Now I’m starting to think they were all just screwing with me. I’ll admit, my first 6 months or so went without incident. They lost my mail-in rebate on the shitty LG Chocolate phone that I bought, but when I called to complain I received it in two days. I had great service for the most part, and I had a really cheap mobile web plan ($5/month) that gave me 5 MB of data per month, more than I needed. Soon, I too became one of those people ranting and raving about Verizon and how much better it was than ATT.

But before I go any further, let’s flash back for a minute. I bought my first cell phone in 2002 and it was when ATT was still ATT and didn’t need Cingular to save their asses. Well, let’s just say that I had a really crappy phone and generally really crappy service too. I was, of course, locked into a 2-year contract and I hated it. Then something amazing happened. ATT Wireless merged with Cingular. Yay! Rollover minutes for everyone! So I re-upped with Cingular of course. But, rollover minutes are great if you actually use them, but worthless otherwise. I don’t spend my entire life talking on my cell phone so I had about 900 untouched rollover minutes and the same crappy service when I finally left Cingular for greener pastures last September. Cingular customer service was pushy, their service was spotty, and I got pissed every time I saw one of those “fewest dropped calls” ads because I experienced a dropped call at least once per day. Flash forward to today.

So here I am, telling everyone how great Verizon is and telling my girlfriend we should switch to a family plan so she can get off of her family’s plan and we can both save some money. Bad idea. Let me recap what happened:

She wanted a BlackBerry so we went in and told the guy we wanted to start a new shared plan and switch me over. Everything was great while we were in the Verizon store. The guy couldn’t have been any nicer. We got a sweet rebate on her BlackBerry with her teacher’s discount and we are getting 18% off our total bill and 20% off the BlackBerry service with the same discount. We got the unlimited data plan, which gave us unlimited data (duh) every month. He had to switch the account into my girlfriend’s name because of the teacher discount. No problem, he made me an account admin. We even got text messaging plans for each phone for cheap ($5/phone). Even better, I was still up for an upgrade under their “New Every Two” deal next April. Now let’s take a look at all the things they screwed up and/or failed to tell us.

The customer service rep told me that we, that’s plural for I or he or she, got unlimited data. Not so. Really we only got unlimited data for her phone, but not mine. No, I have to pay $1.99/MB for my data. I called customer service the next day and asked them to just put the mobile web thing that I had before back on the plan. They don’t offer it anymore. But they have an unlimited data option for my phone for an additional $15. No thanks.

Ok, that’s a slight annoyance but I can deal. I don’t use that much data. So the next day, I logged into the MyVerizon section of their website to check my remaining balance and update my auto-pay to the new account, since I pay the bills every month. I log in only to find that their website has gone retarded and doesn’t know how to handle an account that’s been canceled or changed. I can’t get the remaining balance and my auto-pay is, to put it nicely, fucked. So I called customer service when I got home and they informed me that being an account admin only applies to in-store and by-phone customer service, but not on the website. Super, we have to share an online account. What’s more, when we got home from the Verizon store, we found out that the guy had added a $10 text messaging plan to my phone, instead of the $5 one we asked for. Another customer service call.

So I am finally able to access my old account online after receiving two different emails from Verizon telling me that I have a balance due and that it’s scheduled for auto-pay. That’s a neat trick, because I turned off auto-pay using my American Express account. So I log in and I’m told that I owe $33.90 on my account. I enter my credit card details and wham! I get an error: “No MTN available. (No MTN available)”. Oh ok, apparently there is no MTN available. This is going to require another trip to the Verizon store. Meanwhile, a guy from work is telling me that with the family plan, you can only upgrade the main line through their “New Every Two” deal and tells me that I’m more or less going to get screwed on my upgrade. This just keeps getting better.

So we trek back to our local Verizon store to sort out this mess. I tell the guy about my billing problem and he takes me back into a special little room with a magical kiosk that tells me that, wait for it… I don’t actually owe any money and I’m due for a refund. Finally, some good freakin’ news. However, he tells me that they will send it by check to an address that I haven’t lived in for almost 4 years now, an address that I never actually gave them. Oh and he can’t change it, I have to call the customer service number. Thanks a lot, jackass.

Then I ask him about the upgrade thing and he explains to me that it doesn’t make any sense to give the secondary lines a cell phone rebate because they (Verizon) are only getting $10/month extra for the extra lines. But he informs me that I’m still due for a $50 credit at the end of April in 2009. So, bad news with a silver lining: I get an upgrade in April that carried over from my previous plan, but after that I have to fend for myself and pony up $400+ for a new phone at the listed retail price if I want a new one. Sweet. I know for a fact that ATT/Cingular offers upgrades every two years for the whole family because my family just got all new cell phones a few months ago. Screw you Verizon.

After thinking about this for a while, I don’t blame the petty customer service rep at the Verizon store. I put the blame squarely on the idiots who come up with these plans. They make everything too damn complicated and they do it for this exact reason. Customers go in expecting the world and the reps that help them give them just that, probably because they don’t fully understand all this crap themselves. Then weeks, or possibly even months, later the customer realizes it and then it’s too late because the contract is already written in stone and signed in blood.

So this is my story about Verizon. I know it’s a long one, but I think it’s worth posting here to try and save other people the frustration that I went through. Please beware when signing up for their service, especially their “unlimited data” and family plans. I think it’s safe to say that in June of 2009, I will be re-evaluating my cell phone options and possibly switching back to another carrier (grass is always greener).

EDIT: So I found out some additional information, and that is that both of us will still get the discounted 2-yr re-up price for a new celly when we are up for renewal but only one of us will get the additional $50 credit that Verizon gives for their New Every Two plan. Sheesh, can they make this stuff any more confusing?

First Post

2008-06-27T19:16:00.000-04:00

Hey everybody! Well, I finally caved. When blogs were created, I told myself that I would never create a blog because I thought people who blogged were sad, shallow people that just sat inside all day typing on their keyboard, never to see the light of day. Well, now that my life has pretty much stooped to that level, what with not being in college and working in IT, I figured it was only appropriate that I fold and create my own blog. It's not as sad now as it used to be I guess, because everyone's got one of these things now, right? Right?? Oh well. I have been kicking the idea around for quite some time now, mostly because I feel like I have some great rants inside me that never find their way into people's ears. If nothing else, this blog will relieve the stress that I suffer from on a nearly daily basis because of other people's stupid actions.

So let's start it off. I read an article a while back on Gizmodo about irresponsible shipping. It's a short article with just a couple of pictures of companies that ship things in ridiculously wasteful packaging. I thought this was great, because I do a lot of online shopping and I have noticed that Amazon and other companies like Newegg also do this from time to time. Well, I have a good one for you. I ordered a USB flash drive from Newegg.com the other day. And this is the package it came in:

Now, don't get me wrong, I love Newegg. I ordered the item Thursday and picked standard 3-5 day shipping (which was free by the way) and it arrived in 1 day; the item was also on sale (4GB flash drive for $15), but seriously? I was expecting the package to come today and I still didn't know what this huge thing was when I saw it sitting on the table when I got home from work. This isn't the first time this has happened to me either, but I unfortunately don't have any other photos as proof (the other time, Amazon was the culprit). Anyway, I just think that this is incredibly wasteful and companies should be more aware of this when fulfilling orders. I'm not a go-green, environmentalist crazy either, but this is a little ridiculous. Anyway, I gotta run and make dinner now; let me know what you think of this in the comments though! (Yes, I just correctly used a semi-colon).

Until next time,
schiver