The Lament of an Early Adopter

I feel that I’ve always been on the vanguard of technological innovation, largely by virtue of the careers of my Dad and stepdad, and because (as a result) I grew up in the Silicon Valley. We had a very early VCR, an original Atari 2600 (before they called it that), a TV with infrared remote control at about the same time, a 1200-baud terminal when the concept of a BBS was brand-new ... lots of neat stuff. As an adult, I joined AOL in 1993 and used the buddy list to communicate long before IM became the bane of schoolteachers’ existence. Chris and I signed up for this newfangled “e-mail” thing in college that required us to tromp down to the computer labs and wrestle with UNIX-based terminals, all so we could send messages to Andy like, “wow, isn’t e-mail neat?” In law school, I was one of the first people to lug a laptop to class. We moved to cable modem before broadband was a household word. We upgraded to digital cable, then HDTV, on the leading edge of those burgeoning trends.

We have also been unafraid to use the internet to find and purchase relatively big-ticket items since before that was customary. Among the tools we have used to great effect at times, we started using Travelocity back in about 1993 or so. Booking one’s own flights; what a novel concept! Today, of course, it is de rigueur, but when Travelocity began, self-booking was quite a novelty. Based upon recent evidence, Travelocity has become the General Motors of online businesses: mature, fat and happy, putting out a shoddy product with little or no regard for the people who make use of its services.

One would think that a simple flight from A to B would be simple to arrange, even if it involved a connection or two, when one’s business is to, well, arrange such events. Through the mysterious marvels of technology, Travelocity conjures up dozens of potential flights, even illustrates which seats are available, and leads the user through the process of buying space on the flights. Travelocity will even throw in a discount on fleabag hotels for the mere click of a mouse button; what could be easier?

Neurosurgery, apparently. I found the flight I wanted, proceeded all the way through all of the selection screens, only to be brought up short by a screen indicating that an “error” occurred. Either I hit the return button on the browser, or there was an internal error. So sorry, start over. Okay, fine. Try again. All the way through, but no dice again. Fine, use the handy toll-free number to speak to a person. Good news: I’m speaking to a human within moments, who walks me through the very same steps, we pick seats, she takes my credit card info, all is good. She is in the middle of the “thankyouforusingTravelocityforyourtravelneeds” speech when she stops cold. It seems that she has run into a screen that says she cannot complete the transaction. Apparently my outbound flight is full. Gee, that’s odd, since it shows lots of seats available on their clever seat-picking graphic. Well, reservations come in from all over, I’m told. With a vision of the dizzying array of flight options dancing through my brain, I decline her offer to select a different itinerary and hang up.

After running through a number of other scenarios with other flights, none of which is nearly as satisfactory as the one I wanted, I followed a flash of inspiration and went directly to United. Mentally holding my nose at the prospect of dealing directly with United (the reason for which could easily fill another blog entry), I found both legs of the round trip, found seats, and booked the trip. For five dollars less than Travelocity. Simple! And, notably, available! All’s well that ends well.

If only it would end. In addition to a confirmation from United, my e-mail box contained a happy confirmation of my trip … from Travelocity. Calling up the document, it confirms that I’m reserved on the very trip I was told could not be booked because it was full, which I now know was not the case two times over. Great. I’m now overbooked. I’ve been warned thirty times in the last 24 hours that I’ll owe my first child’s lifetime income stream as a penalty for cancellation. A call to Travelocity dumps me into their mysterious voice-activated phone system, then into hold purgatory. Funny, when I wanted to book the flight, I got right through to a chipper young woman with a charming Southern accent. Now that I want to cancel, I cool my heels for twenty minutes before Bangladesh picks up the phone.

I may have been ahead of the curve on many things in the past, but experience with outsourcing is not one of them. Now I am forced to explain a mildly complicated situation to someone whose English skills do not give me any confidence that the outcome will be favorable, seeing as how I can understand only two out of every three words she says as she attempts to confirm what I am saying in a language that she probably barely understands. Fortunately, she cheerfully agrees to refund the amount of the ticket, sans airline penalties. Ah, but there is the matter of Travelocity’s five dollar fee. Ordinarily, I might let that go, but I find something slightly askew about being charged for the privilege of having my reservation screwed up. After ten additional minutes on hold while she tracks down her supervisor, the service fee is refunded as well.

Happy ending! Well, no. I am helpfully informed that every dollar I was charged will be refunded to my credit card … within 30 days. Whoa. Did I hear that right? Ms. Bangladesh concedes that it may not take that long, but it will take at least 10 days for the refund to occur. Slick operation, that. They ping my card while my voice intoning the last numeral of my card still reverberates softly in the air, but they can’t reverse the charge for 10 days. I’m thrilled that they will make pennies, maybe even nickels, off that 10 to 30 day float while I run the risk of being forced to pay for the flight on one statement to avoid finance charges, all the while knowing the refund will show up on my next statement, leaving me with an utterly useless positive balance on my credit card. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

My message to Travelocity is the same as what David Spade used to say to frazzled airline passengers in the SNL skit, “buh-bye.”

Movie Micro-Review: The Interpreter

This love letter to the United Nations was a reasonably engaging whodunit (or rather, whosgonnadoit). Nicole Kidman was, well, Nicole Kidman, with a lock of blonde hair fetchingly drawn across one eye through much of the movie, and an accent that can't decide if it's Oxford, Dutch or Africaans. Sean Penn was, well, Sean Penn, charisma-free and grimacing humorlessly throughout as if fighting persistent intestinal cramping. Still, it was a well-paced film with plenty of tense moments and a backstory that unfolds gracefully. And Nicole Kidman. That factor cannot be stressed enough.

That, of course, is the primary weakness of the dozens of films Hollywood spews out every year. As much as we all like to see Nicole Kidman (or George Clooney, or whatever star you care to name who spends as much time on the cover of People magazine as on the big screen), these kind of films never let you forget that you are watching a star, first and formost. The lighting, camera angles, extreme close-ups, flattering makeup and wardrobe; all of these conspire (by the director's design) to keep the thought of "ooh, look at him/her act" at the forefront of the brain. Because it is the star that sells the tickets, not the character. For a star who takes his or her craft seriously, it's as dangerous as typecasting. In this celebrity-addled culture, rather than being stuck in a role, they are stuck in a persona. Actors can "play against type;" stars can never break free of being stars. Tom Cruise, for all of his "Born on the Fourth of July" and "Collateral" efforts, is still "Tom Cruise" when you see him on screen.

It doesn't hurt his ability to put food on the table, but it is ultimately distracting for the viewer, who watches the star act, rather than enter the world of the character played by the actor.

Lame Rock Lyrics, Take 1

Certainly this isn't the worst offender, but I was reminded on the way home this evening of how much this one bugs me:

"Only time will tell if we stand the test of time."
-- Van Halen, "Why Can't This Be Love"

I'm sure Sammy thought he was plumbing new depths of profundity, but it comes across as simple and silly.

Please feel free to submit your candidates.

A Reason to Love Netflix

Sure, Netflix is incredibly convenient, and reasonably priced. That's not what makes it so great, though. No, Netflix's presence in the culture is a net gain for all for this simple reason: it has made the use of the word "queue" commonplace. No longer consigned to usage by the effite or the British, "queue" should soon be bedeviling elementary school children routinely on spelling tests.

Come Visit Los Angeles!

But bring your flack jacket.

Thank You, Virginians!

The week-long pause in posting here was due in large part to the fact that we spent last week visiting an impressively wide array of family and friends in the lovely Commonwealth of Virginia. Many thanks are due to Megan and Jason (and Emma, George and Gracie), and Chris and Cynthia (and Rudy and Scully) for being such gracious hosts. We had a great time, soaked up a bunch of Civil War history, reveled in the fresh blooms of the Virginia springtime, and enjoyed the good company of folks we do not get to see often enough.

I did reach one inescapable conclusion: there really is nothing like a Monkburger prepared by the Master himself.

This Is Fantastic News!

. . . if you're a motor racing fan who thinks that the auto racing firmament is missing a critical star without Porsche's factory involvement.

Porsche is back, baby! And with Penske, no less.

This will instantly bring additional interest and credibility to the ALMS series, and, unfortunately, hurt the Grand Am series by further revealing the Daytona Prototypes as the ugly, compromised beasts that they are (great racing action notwithstanding).

For those of you who don't know (and care even less), throughout its history, Porsche has designed and raced the most celebrated sports of every era in which they competed. From the 904s and 908s of the 60s, through the awesome 917s of the early 70s, to the all-conquering 956/962s of the eighties, Porsche racing sports cars have always been iconic, dominant, and the true source of the company's reputation. Porsche, now the world's most profitable car maker (for interesting reasons, but not for today's discussion), has stepped away from official factory involvement in racing since the GT1 of the late 90s. Privateers run hundreds of Porsches in sports car races all over the world, however. Those cars, based upon Porsche's roadgoing 911, typically dominate their fields, in number as well as in performance.

With a return to factory involvement, however, Porsche enthusiasts are celebrating the company's return to its competitive roots (trust me on that one).

The Feelgood Baseball Story of the Year

Finally, the vagabond, orphaned Montreal Expos have found a home. After slogging through Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos' maneuvering to keep the team away from "his" market, the Washington Nationals arrived with great pomp and ceremony. The franchise has been an incubator for great players, such as Vlad Guerrero, Larry Walder, Pedro Martinez, Moises Alou, Gary Carter and many others. They now enjoy the services of Brad Wilkerson and Jose Vidro (the second baseman for my fantasy league team). Even better, the team is now 6-4 after Livan Hernandez' near gem, eight innings of one-hit shutout ball against the Arizona Diamondbacks (6-3 entering the game). This team, managed by legend Frank Robinson, has deserved a better fate than the Quebequois indifference it suffered in recent years, with a crumbling stadium, dwindling crowds and hamstrung ownership by Major League Baseball. They have some work to do to become a contender, but at least they now have some folks to cheer them on.

Check Your Facts, Please

I don't often wade into the political swamp because I don't enjoy it, and on my blog, I'll write about what I enjoy. However, every once in a while, politics swerves into the absurd, which interests me greatly.

It seems that former Presidential candidate John Kerry gave a speech this weekend lamenting the intimidation of voters in the last election. Let me be clear, I do not doubt that thuggish behavior by partisans on both sides took place, and that well-meaning people on both sides made efforts to prevent it. Nevertheless, Kerry's flacks should have looked into these issues more carefully before they allowed him to use this as an example:

"Leaflets are handed out saying Democrats vote on Wednesday, Republicans vote on Tuesday. ..." he said.

Unfortunately, this particular example came from satire publications Scrappleface.com and The Onion. Oops.

And if people really did hand out those leaflets? The world would be far more bizarre than I thought.

Hat tip: Opinion Journal.

The All-Time Best Career Change

If you were, say, a very successful lawyer in, say, Fresno, and you had a sense of adventure, how might you change the course of your career? Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you thought being a diplomat in the State Department would be just the thing. Now, assuming you survive the testing and vetting process to get into the program, and you become a junior diplomat with no experience, where do you think you might be posted? Tanzania? Chile?Afghanistan?

How about here?

Greg has earned the everlasting enmity of all of his former friends.

(psst, Greg ... you will have a spare bedroom for vistors, right? Just kidding about that "everlasting enmity" thing. It's all good, right? Buddy?)

Dan Neil, My Hero

I've mentioned Dan Neil before. He's the one-time writer for Car and Driver who landed a gig writing about cars for the LA Times, and somehow managed to snag a Pulitzer Prize for his work. Now he is giving lectures at UCLA and causing the Times to lose its $10 million account with GM. GM looks incredibly petty by pulling its advertising over Neil's cutting remarks, which have the unfortunate characteristic of being true. It is not one scribe's fault that GM's market share and consumer satisfaction ratings have shrunk year after year. GM puts out shoddy products, and has for decades now. There are certainly good engineers at GM, but they are buried somewhere under the layers upon layers of middle managers and red tape. No public spat with a media outlet will change that fact, and the celebrated Bob Lutz (who revived Dodge in the last decade) has only had a minor positive influence (see the Solstice).

Fight the Man, Dan!

Woods Emerges From Them

The Masters golf tournament has become one of my favorites, in large part because Kelly was born on Monday the week of the 1997 Masters, which was Tiger's debut as a major champion. I was home that week and was able to see nearly every televised minute. He demolished the field by 12 strokes, and it was utterly compelling to watch. After three U.S. Junior and three U.S. Amateur titles, everyone knew he was going to be a champion someday, but the way he seized control was thrilling, and a harbinger of great things to come.

This year's tournament was equally exciting, but for different reasons. Tiger's 66-65 charge in the middle two rounds felt like the old days of 2000, when all one had to do is wait patiently until he would make what became a customary and decisive charge up the leaderboard. This year, however, was the first time one of his vanquished foes chased him down Chris DeMarco has been hanging around the top of big tournaments for several years now, competing well on Ryder Cup and President's Cup teams, coming in second (albeit a distant second) in this year's Accenture Match Play tournament, and he was in the final group of last year's Masters. He tends to be timid off the tee, but his iron play was at times far better than Woods'. He showed great confidence, pumping his fist to the patrons as he left the 10th green. He saved par, but Woods had just bogeyed his lead down to two strokes. DeMarco showed he believed he was on the charge, and so he was. He birdied 11, while Tiger carelessly settled for par. DeMarco kept the hammer down, competing well through the remainder of the round. Only mediocre putting, failing to sink several birdie putts inside 10 feet in the final round, kept him from winning the tournament.

Woods, on the other hand, is not nearly the automoton he is made out to be. He is easily as susceptible to the pressure of leading as anyone else on Tour. After the emotionally-charged miracle chip on 16 (which is the only thing that could have stopped DeMarco's momentum after a great birdie at 15), Tiger did not bother to regroup for 17. Cold-blooded prudence would have dictated a three-wood or iron off the tee, play to the middle of everything, and collect that fourth green jacket without further incident. Instead, with a two-shot lead to protect over the last two holes, neither of which is considered a birdie hole, Tiger pulled out the driver, put his best spiner-twister swing on it, and blew his tee shot well right, through the pines into the adjoining fairway. A vertical wedge shot over the trees left him twenty yards short of the green, and an inexcusably indifferent chip rolled back off the green, forcing him to get up and in just to save bogey. Same story on 18: pulled driver, poor second shot into the greenside bunker, average sand shot, poor putt, bogey. Tie. Tiger finally played smart and well on the playoff hole, hitting to the middle of the fairway and the correct part of the green, then sinking a longish putt that resembled Mickelson's winner of a year ago.

Tiger still has more ability to make more kinds of shots more often than anyone else, but that is not to say he is immune to pressure. He gets keyed up and makes mistakes, sometimes big ones. He is gifted enough to recover from them most of the time, as he was on Sunday.

Incidentally, that ball hanging on the edge of the hole on 16, displaying the Nike swoosh in real-time slow motion, is a ready-made marketing campaign waiting to happen waiting to happen.

Happy Birthday, Kelly!

My little baby girl is 8 years old today. She is now well into the years for which I have clear memories of my own childhood. Life is now school, homework, church, piano, gymnastics, soccer, basketball, Barbies and Little House books. It's all good.

Eight years ago, my life changed, irrevocably and at depths of my being that I did not know existed. She did it, and does it still.

U2, Live at Staples Center

After almost exactly half a lifetime, I've seen U2 live again. It was a very good show (here is the setlist), hampered only by the venue. Staples Center is a vast cavern of a building, constructed to maximize luxury suite space. It has a large lower bowl, above which three stories of suites go straight up. Atop the uppermost level of suites is a fringe of regular seating, no more than 15 rows deep. Other than the lowest seats in the lower bowl, none of the seats anywhere in the arena come close to the action, whether it is a sporting event or concert. The shape is akin to a large metal mixing bowl, and is acoustically just about the same. The effect of the reverberant arena is muddled acoustics, especially vocals. I knew all of the old songs, of course, but my knowledge of the newer songs was not as solid. I couldn't hope to learn the lyrics from the concert, as Bono's voice was overshadowed throughout the show by everything else.

Nevertheless, the show was a lot of fun. It started very strong, with lots of energy from two songs off the new album. My favorite song of the concert, Electric Co., came early. I loved it because of the raw energy, and because they didn't try to reinterpret it. It sounded just as it must have twenty years ago. I loved that they played some songs from Boy ... stuff I never thought I would hear in concert. New Years Day came off the same way. In fact, the old songs played better than the newer ones, perhaps in part to the fact that the older, simpler arrangements suited the space better than the more dense, complicated later songs. On that score, the songs from the last two albums played very well, but the songs from Achtung Baby, particularly Zoo Station, fared poorly. The complex sound layering and crunchy guitar works great on the album, but turned into very loud, energetic mush on this particular stage, and the vocals were totally lost. A bummer, but it didn't detract from the thrill of seeing and hearing the boys play their songs.

Don't think I didn't love the concert, though. There was a ton of energy in the arena, and as much as I enjoyed hearing the old songs, the songs from the last two albums played very, very well. Plus, it was an event. It takes a lot for LA to get excited; this was one of those times.

Cheryl and I turned it into a full evening, starting with a fantastic dinner at the Water Grill, the finest seafood restaurant in LA. The husband of one of my partners is a waiter there, and he set us up with the best private table and excellent menu recommendations. We luxuriated in two hours of wonderful food and atmosphere.

All in all, a great night. I should have my voice back by Thursday.

It's Springtime, and You Know What That Means

Baseball, of course!

After a one-year layoff following two championship seasons, I am back in the fantasy baseball world. It's not the old league with my college buddies, which I miss, but life just became too busy for everyone to commit time to the league. This time I'm in a league set up by a guy from church who lives and breathes baseball. It's a quirkier format than I'm used to, with weekly head-to-head matchups between teams, bench players, and additional statistical categories. Another unusual feature was a completely automated draft. I never got around to organizing the stock rankings, so I my team was picked without any input from me. Oddly enough, I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. I have some positional flexibility problems (too many 1Bs and OFs) and I have too many mediocre starting pitchers, but otherwise it's not a bad lineup. Albert Pujols, Hideki Matsui and David Ortiz are the big boppers, but I have a bunch of scrappy, lesser-known gamers who should put up good numbers, too. And with Jason Schmidt and Roy Oswalt as my lead starters, guys I would have picked on my own, I'll have fun tracking this team. Stay tuned for weekly highlights!

Star Wars Geeks, Unite!

We are truly living in a blessed age. Not only can Boba Fett-worshipping fanboys find their soulmates at the speed of light on numerous electronic websites and bulletin boards, they can celebrate their obsession, revel in their anticipation of the not-yet-announced release of the next (and final) Star Wars film, and raise a little money for a good cause. Plus, you can call them yourself.

Smile! You're on Candid Interplanetary Camera!

Astronomers have released what they say is the first photograph of a planet outside our solar system. The planet, circling a sun-like star known as GQ Lupi, is apparently twice the size of Jupiter, with surface temperatures above 2,000 degrees Kelvin, is approximately three times farther from its star than Neptune is from the sun, and has an orbit of approximately 1,200 years. It's also about 400 light years from here.

In related news, Richard Branson will be announcing daily service to the GQ Lupi system aboard Virgin Galactic.

You may have heard that there are a lot of dramatic events occurring in the world these days. Our emotions are tugged all sorts of ways: earthquakes in Indonesia, a family tragedy in Florida, the (impending) death of a beloved Pope, a steroid crisis in American sports. Okay, maybe that last one doesn't grab you as much as me, but baseball season is about to start and I'm feeling very fragile right now.

With all of these deeply affecting issues swirling around us, it's nice to know that some folks in Wisconsin have the laser-like focus on what really matters: getting angry at someone with the temerity to rise from her wheelchair. Sit down and stay there -- you're a symbol, so act like one!

We Have a Winner!

Check out number 27 ... woo hoo!

Haven't These People Suffered Enough?

A big earthquake has hit Indonesia.

I Think I've Found Shakespeare's Monkeys

It is said that, given an infinite number of monkeys pounding on an infinite number of typewriters (okay, it was said some time ago) for an infinite amount of time, the monkeys could produce the works of Shakespeare. It seems that rather than engage in that lengthy and ultimately useless task, the monkeys have taken up paying work writing spam.

I'm not sure what it all means, but the spam that gets through the filters at the office is relatively benign and thoroughly bizarre. Sent by such luminaries as Eloquent M. Rainwater and Lynch E. Proprietor, I am usually cheerfully saluted with something along the lines of "Greetings, white man! :)" I then am provided with some wisdom of the ages: "Nothing is poetical if plain daylight is not poetical and no monster should amaze us if the normal man does not amaze.Count not him among your friends who will retail your privacies to the world."

This is what happens when academics leave the ivory tower; so sad.

It's a Hard Knock Life

The one person no woman in her right mind should want to be: the wife or ex-wife of a Los Angeles celebrity.

Philandering Central Valley fertilizer salesmen get the needle, though.

You Read It Here First

You recall that witty little post below about the new Mercedes and the remarkable aural similarity between its model name and a certain libido-enabling pharmaceutical? Your humble scribe was not the only one to pick up on the connection.

In today's L.A. Times, Dan Neil (that's Car and Driver contributor and Pulitzer Prize-winning Dan Neil, mind you) derives the thematic metaphor for his entire review of the car from this link. The first three paragraphs concern the effort of carmakers to come up with names that will provide the desired market presence, and the liguistic pitfalls that occasionally result. Mr. Neil didn't draw all of the comparisons between the car and the pill (or rather, their owners) that I did, but he did observe, "the Mercedes-Benz CLS500 will forever be known as the "Cialis" 500 — which sounds like a NASCAR event and, come to think of it, probably is."

Well done, Dan. Feel free to call me anytime for more story ideas.

File Under "Another Addictive Little Internet Game"

Brush up on physics and medieval warfare, all at the same time!

Let me know if you get onto the leader board.

Match Wits with JPL, If You Dare

Here is the latest installment of one of the internet's more challenging puzzle series. Once you've figured this one out, try a few of the older ones. Fun for the whole family! Or at least the one who knows how to use Google.

UPDATE: this is by far the easiest quiz in the series, although it is easy to be misled. Try some of the older ones for more internet-searching fun.

What's the Nurburgring, You Ask?

Here, let me show you.

Keep in mind, this course, all 20 km of it, is open to the public. Not just to see it. To drive it.

Links Lefty Liked?

We build up our heroes so we can tear them down again, then enjoy their redemptive return to glory. It appears that Phil Mickelson may be entering into the tear-down phase now.

Sunday's final round battle between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson was great theater and a rare display of two superstars playing at their best, with the winner prevailing because of superior play rather than a mistake by the opponent. It is interesting to note, however, that a backlash is beginning to develop against Smilin' Phil. First, there is this AP article AP article that compares Tiger's rivalry with Phil to his rivalry with Ernie Els. The article mentions the even better final round between Tiger and Els in the 2000 Mercedes Championship and how much the two players appeared to enjoy the match, in comparison to the grinding, joyless approach Tiger and Phil took last weekend. (I have to agree that the Tiger-Els matchup, which kicked off Tigers historic 2000 season, was even more fun to watch, in part because both players seemed to be having fun, and marveled at each others' shots.) More intriguing is this quote:

"Ernie Els and Woods make the most natural rivalry. The Big Easy has finished second to Woods six times, more than any other player, and eight of his 15 victories on the PGA Tour have come with Woods in the field. But it is difficult for Woods to work up any animosity inside the ropes because Els is universally liked and respected.
That's not the case with Mickelson. "

The author doesn't elaborate.

Then there's Skip Bayless's hack job against Phil this week. Bayless clearly doesn't like Mickelson for some reason, and spares no opportunity to smear him as insincere and not well-liked inside the ropes. While I detest this sort of broadside attack that does not include any evidence and is secondary to the thesis in any event, I suspect that Bayless and others in the know (assuming Bayless is in the know; as he a studio talking head now, I doubt it) have seen things that the public doesn't know about. Stopping short of speculating about really detestable, Kobe-level behavior, it would not surprise me if it turned out that Phil annoys his fellow professionals. He's talented, been at the top of the game since he was a kid (before he was a successful pro, he was USGA Junior champ, USGA Amateur champ, 3-time NCAA champ and a winner on Tour while an amateur), he's good looking and, most importantly, he's a gambler. He's known for his gambling proclivities, especially his longshot Super Bowl bets (the Ravens paid off big). I take all of this to mean that Phil is ruthlessly competitive, and probably arrogant about it (Michael Jordan, who never met a circumstance he wouldn't wager on, was brutal to his betting partners, teammates or not).

A small moment at the end of the tournament led me to think there may be more steel in Phil's psyche than would appear by his plodding, aw-shucks-grinning exterior. Final hole, Tiger up by one, Phil just off the green behind the hole needing to drop the putt to birdie and tie after Tiger ran his 60 foot birdie putt 6 feet by the hole. Phil nearly holes it out (leading to the unintentionally hilarious photo shown in the first linked article above), leaving his ball a couple of feet out. Technically, Tiger is away, and should putt next. However, Tiger now has a lead and can only fail to seal the victory he screws up the putt; Phil can no longer do anything about it. Ordinarily, when a player is about to putt for the championship, his playing partners will putt out, regardless of the usual etiquette, to give that player his moment of glory with the crowd. However, on Sunday, Tiger putted his fourth and final shot before Phil had finished, which led to the somewhat awkward circumstance that Tiger had just won the tournament, the crowd is trying to show its enthusiastic approval for the day of golf they just witnessed, but thay all have to be shushed immediately so that Phil can proceed with his meaningless tap-in.

Because the tournament would be over if Tiger made the putt, it seemed to me that he should have gone last. Gamesmanship? Did Phil insist that Tiger putt first, with the inevitable result that any celebration would be muted? It would have made more sense, and followed tour custom, to allow Tiger to play last, which would have created additional pressure: on the last shot, either he wins the tournament (but gets the unrestrained adulation), or he misses and they play extra holes. If a little gamesmanship took place, it seems that it would be consistent with Phil's competitiveness, as well as his rarely-seen irritation at losing. It may also lend some credence to the veiled suggestions that Phil is admired far more outside the ropes than inside them.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have always admired Phil. We're the same age, so he was one of the first people of my generation to make a splash in the world. I got to see him play up close at his first professional tournament at the 1992 US Open the week after we both graduated from college. He seemed to be a good guy back then (and he definitely had the attention of every 16 to 30 year old woman within a 100 yard radius; he could hardly take a step without some PYT saying "Hi, Phil!"). He's done well for himself, and I was very happy to see him win the Masters last year. He and Tiger are going to be fighting it out for the rest of their golfing lives, and they probably will never really like each other. Their play, though, is magnificent to watch.

Video Game Review: Gran Turismo 4

This is the Holy Grail, the game all gearhead geeks were waiting for. I sat on a Best Buy certificate for more than two months to use to purchase this game, which I then picked up on its first day of release.

Is it worth the hype? It depends on what you're looking for, and whether you are willing to accept its particular culture.

First, the biggest flaw is the lack of a damage model of any kind. Bang over curbs, sideswipe your competitors, run straight into a wall ... you might lose some time, but the car will be undamaged. This is a huge void in a game billed as a "simulator." However, the Gran Turismo series has always operated on this basis, and within its world, the lack of damage makes some sense, because the simulation is aimed at something else.

Gran Turismo has always been about driving real cars on real tracks, and modifying those cars in realistic ways to simply make them go faster. It's about a competition of speed, rather than a fully realistic and ultimately frustrating battle with fragility. This is part of the GT "culture" that the gamer must buy into. Races then become a series of lessons in getting around the track faster rather than repeated trips to the garage to repair the banged-up car.

The GT physics engine makes up for the lack of a damage model (again, if you buy into the concept of speed for speed's sake). The game drives extremely well, with very accurate and lifelike response to controller input and game environment conditions. The game is also brutal in its punishment of sloppy driving, which for me excuses its lack of damage. If you are not on the racing line, or you carry too much speed into a corner, you will not do well. Learning takes place through losing races, one corner at a time, rather than busting up the car.

Another "culture" issue with the GT series is its heavy concentration on Japanese cars. Although the game includes numerous European cars you would never see in the US, and a variety of US cars as well, the heart of the game (not unexpectedly) is Japanese, with a dizzying array of Japanese models available. Not that there is anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld might say, but considering all the interesting products made in other parts of the world, the balance seems a bit off. However, if you simply accept this as part of the local culture, it's not a hinderance to having a good time. The lack of Porsche and Ferrari, though, is a major blemish (those manufacturers have licensed their images and trademarks to other games; GT makes do with Porsche-based RUF).

GT4 is not the leap forward in visual landscape that GT3 was. However, the visuals are improved, and tremendous. Playback still looks a little wonky, but the environments are rich, detailed and, often, beautiful, with a variety of weather conditions and sun angles (which can be very difficult at times).

Gameplay is essentially the same as in GT3, although it has been enlarged with more tracks and significantly more cars. The player still must pass licence tests, compete in beginner race series in a variety of cars, and collect enough prize money to win or buy cars to compete in higher level races. A notable addition to the gameplay is the B-spec mode, in which you direct an AI driver in your car. I was unsure about this feature ... until I used it. Far from an uninvolving cheat mode, as I expected, B-spec is actually extremely handy for progressing through the game. B-spec can be used to rapidly progress through a race series to gain prize money and reward cars (which can often be sold for more cash), which is the process necessary to proceed early in the game. Frankly, it's pretty boring to keep running the same races over and over just to gain enough money to get away from the beginning races. B-spec both automates and accelerates the process (up to 3X real speed); the gamer directs the driver to go slow, steady, fast or push, with appropriate consequences. If the car is not up to snuff, it will not win. The driver will sometimes make mistakes, especially if it is inexperienced (yes, that matters) or it is being asked to push too much. B-spec is a great time saver, a good way to collect the money needed to try new areas of the game, and even engrossing competition. To preserve my own sense of fair play, though, I won't go to B-spec until I have run and won the race on my own.

So far, I have made it through 3% of the game, so I've go some work to do. I've finished three of the beginning level race series and one Miata-only championship. I'm now working up the courage (and cash) to tackle one of the world's great tracks: the Nurburgring Nordschleife.

I'll be sure to keep all of you (that is, all five of you) closely updated on my progress. I know you can't wait.

New Possibilities

As Chris noted in a comment to the clock post below, my birthday was last week. Not just any birthday, though. It is perhaps the second most significant birthday of my life, after gaining the vote at age 18. What could possibly be so momentous?

Marketing.

I have dropped out of the coveted 18-to-34 demographic upon which networks build their schlocky schedules and to which manufacturers of everything from soup to cell phones direct their advertising efforts. MTV will now have nothing to do with me (although that became a mutual decision several years ago). Nothing but ads for Buicks and Propecia from now on, I guess.

Well, there is one other little consequence of my birthday that has some significance: I can now be President of the United States.

Don't hold your breath waiting for my campaign contribution letters to arrive in your mailbox.

Video Game Review: NASCAR Chase for the Cup 2005

Yep, I'm swappin' paint with the good ol' boys now. I picked this up because of the gameplay progression: start in the minor leagues and work your way up to the Cup cars. I have found the game to be very fun, and more enjoyable in some ways than Gran Tourismo (heresy!). The driving physics are good, the damage models are solid without being either too inconsequential or too punitive, and the extras like the agent calling on the phone delight the kids. There is something enriching about having someone call you and say, hey, you've done a great job, why don't you come test this other car in the next class up? Satisfaction in a job well done.

The game also works emotion into the racing. If you work with other drivers, help draft and generally behave yourselve, you will make allies. However, if you bounce other guys out of the way, you make enemies and get a bad reputation. You can use that to your advantage, as your "intimidation" powers go up (yes, there's a button for that), but I've learned the hard way that when the other guys don't like you, they will engage in some pretty anti-social behavior to keep you from succeeding. In my first Craftsman Truck race, with an underpowered racecar, I was passing for the lead when the car I was passing bumped me, sending me into the wall. I ended up finishing last, a lap down, because the whole field streamed by while I tried to back away from the barrier. I'll be looking for that guy in the future. In the same race, though, I worked carefully with another driver, drafting a little, eventually passing cleanly. After the race was over, I discovered that I had made an ally -- my first! (My villain quotient is pretty high due to ineptness with the controller in the first couple of events.)

Good clean fun, y'all.

What Time Is It?

The hardest working clock on the internet.

Jury Duty Haiku

Defendants, jurors,
A reckoning day for both;
I'll take the box, thanks.

Slumped forms, reading, bored.
Sunlight slants in the windows;
It, at least, is free.

Be the First Kid On Your Block to Try It

This may be old news to some people, but I just discovered a great new toy today: Google now has a maps feature. It's labeled "Beta," so I'm guessing it hasn't been around for long. The graphical presentation is very attractive, and the "steering" controls are far better than Mapquest or Yahoo! maps, since it does not reload the whole page every time you need to move the image around a little. I haven't asked it to provide a set of directions yet, but I never rely on text directions anyway. I can get lost just fine with the map alone.

Subliminal Midlife Crisis Tie-In?

Consider: the new Mercedes CLS, a swoopy sedan meant to evoke the spirit of a coupe, with all the luxury and sporting accouterments needed to satisfy the desires of the middle-aged man at whom this product is targeted. In other words, a stodgy, grown-up car that's trying to act younger than it is.

Now consider: Cialis (I'm not going to link it; I sure don't need that spam). A product intended to help the middle-aged man at whom this product is targeted satisfy his, um, desires. In other words, it lets a stodgy, grown-up man act younger than he is.

Say it with me, out loud: CLS. Cialis. CLS. Cialis.

Coincidence? I think not.

Speak Clearly, You Must

Sign on an apartment managment company:

"Free apt. rental info."

If I stopped in looking for gratis lodgings, would they show me to their stack of brochures, or laugh at me? As much as I love the English language for its daunting breadth of expression, the language is also subject to ambiguity due to the lack of rigid rules of structure. Mathematics can probably make better sense of this:

(free apt. rental) (info)? Nah. It's a possible result based upon the several rules of grammar applicable to the notice, but not reasonable in context. Most likely:

(free) (apt. rental info).

Okay, so it doesn't rank up there with "a farmer outstanding in his field," but these things give me something to think while stuck in traffic.

Tsunami Pictures

What an age in which we live. Satellites of various kinds give us incredible views of our world, and reveal truths about our surroundings that we are ordinarily too close to see ourselves.

Many satellite photos have been released of the areas of devastation created by the tsunami last December, but NASA keeps them coming. The destruction of Aceh is particularly stark. The second set of photos in this collection show how thoroughly the disturbed sea wiped out a small population center. These Landsat photos, also of Aceh, confirm how widespread and cruelly efficient the tsunamis were.

People from places other than California often are heard to say that they fear earthquakes above all other natural phenomena. As a Californian, I usually say I prefer the extremely infrequent and utterly unpredictable large earthquakes to yearly tornados or hurricanes, which are equally as distructive. The stealth of the tsunami's awful power, however, puts it at the top of my personal list of natural disasters I would be happy not to experience personally.

Birthday Greetings for a Great American

Happy birthday, Andy!

A Cryin' Shame

If this car shows up in the classifieds with a "freshly detailed!" notation, stay away.

A Day at the Races

Go here to see pictures of some of the fun Cheryl and I had at California Speedway this past weekend.

Note: the thumbnails do not work, for reasons that defy my limited grasp of webpage design principles. However, you should be able to see the pictures by clicking on them. I will accept any and all advice on how to solve the technical problems.

Thoughts on a Train Crash

Our little hometown made national news this week due to a train derailment that resulted in the deaths of 11 people. The tragedy is that the crash occurred because someone who was too inept to successfully commit suicide allowed his SUV to remain on the tracks where he had intended to meet his demise by risking the lives of hundreds of commuters. The shame is that under these exact circumstances, there is no reason why anyone had to lose their life but for the Metrolink practice of "push-pull."

I came up with this argument today before I realized that others smarter than I had already reached the same conclusions. As explained in this article from USA Today, it is a fairly common practice for commuter trains to keep the locomotive at one end of the train, regardless of which direction the train is headed. Thus, at one point in the day, the engine "pushes," and on the return trip it "pulls." The problems with this technique are many. There are dynamic issues of stability (imagine pushing a rope across the floor rather than pulling it) that can exacerbate the potential for a train to derail should the leading car encounter an abnormality in the tracks. There are undoubtedly visibility problems associated with the engineer working from the back of the train. It is said that a locomotive is more capable of shunting aside obstacles on the track, both due to the locomotive's strenght and the "pushing the rope" phenomenon.

To me, an equally significant issue is the fact that a railway car leading the train provides absolutely no crash protection. Pictures of the Glendale wreck show that the leading edge of the lead car was largely demolished. Althought the ensuing derailment (thanks in part to the "pushing the rope" principle) led to injuries throughout the train, no other car exhibited the scale of damage suffered by the lead car. I must assume that the majority of the deaths came from that area of the train.

Driving a train with a passenger car as the lead element is akin to riding on the hood of a car. The passengers have no protection at all, and I suspect that railway cars are not construted with any particular "crush zones" in mind, as is the case with automobiles. In any event, there is no room for a crush zone on a train; the front of the car ends with a door for passage to other cars to which it may be attached.

Had the locomotive struck the stranded car, it is likely that the train would have derailed. However, the brunt of the direct impact would have been taken by the locomotive. Unfortunately, in addition to a derailment, the passengers in the leading car were subjected to the direct collision between the 40 mph train and the 4000 lb SUV. Metrolink and other passenger rail carriers should immediately adopt standards of operation that prohibit the "push-pull" technique. It is simply unconscionable to allow passengers to be exposed to the first risk of injury in the event of a collision.

It Seems I Have Lived Too Long

Thomas Hayden Church has been nominated for an Academy Award.

Ah, yes, the exquisitely nuanced japery of Lowell, the brooding masculinity of Ned ... these roles were the building blocks of a career. They were the Burma Shave signs on Mr. Church's lonely road to inevitable cinematic greatness.

Wake me when Crystal Bernard stars in a Merchant-Ivory film.

It's Been Nearly Eighteen Years ...

... since I last went to a U2 concert. The wait is now over. I have tickets in hand, four days before they go on sale to the public, for the April 5 show at Staples Center. The presale went out to U2.com subscribers. They talk a big game about subscribers getting great seats, but I have serious doubts. Since I last saw the boys from across an entire football stadium, though, I won't complain about being in an arena that holds at least 50,000 fewer people. We saw Paul McCartney at Staples, and a we certainly enjoyed the show.

Based on the location of our reserved seats, I should be able to provide an in-depth report about the top of Bono's head.

Christmas in January

As Dylan might sing: Packages, they are arrivin'.

I've finally allowed myself to get a few items for the cars. To go with the new Porter-Cable Porter-Cable orbital polisher, a tasty set of Sonus polishing pads arrived yesterday. Today I received the good news that the hood struts I ordered from the good folks at Pelican Parts arrived early, so I can bloody my knuckles replacing those (to avoid bonking my noggin when the front or rear hoods close on me). Next week I will receive a leather treatment system that has been shown to substantially restore and soften typically hard German leather car seats. Whee!

Up next: hydraulic jack and jack stands. How else can I clean the wheel wells?

Weirdest Exotic Car at the LA Auto Show

There are many candidates for this title, but in person, the SLR Mercedes takes the cake. The proportions on this car are simply bizarre. This is a mid-engine car, but the passenger compartment is behind the engine. The driver and passenger sit nearly atop the the rear axle, which wouldn't be so striking (the same can be said of a BMW Z3 or Z4, or AC Cobra) if it were not for the fact that the front axle is waaaaay out there, fully ahead of the long V-12 engine. It looks awkward in pictures, and just wrong in the flesh. The length of the nose is awkward, and the rear of the car is so forshortened that it gives the appearance that the designers only had a certain amount of length allocated to the car and they mistakenly used most of it up on the front, requiring them to smash a little tail on the end to fit the car into the shipping box. A mildly shortened top-fuel dragster would have the same layout and proportions.

And possibly the same performance (even with a slushbox -- shame, Mercedes!).

Let's Perpetuate Some Stereotypes, Shall We?

I have no idea why CNN thinks this is a news story (and I mean that in a completely un-ironic way). Amusing, maybe, but only in the sense of we-all-know-those-people-are-trash-and-here's-proof, and there is no actual story. It must be tough, Tennessee, when another Southern outfit (Atlanta-based CNN) cracks back on you for being, well, the embodiment of what coast-dwellers believe is the true South.

Yeah, they probably all voted for Bush, too. Typical. Where's my apple martini?

Stay in School!

I have no particular affection for USC (for those of you on the East Coast and may be misguided, that's the University of Southern California; locally, it's University of South Central). However, every once in a while a normal person ventures forth from that fine institution. Defying the double whammy money-grubbing image of both USC students/grads and big-time athletes, Matt Leinert, quarterback of the national champion football team, has elected to stay in school to complete his degree and his final year of athletic eligibility.

Leinert, by all accounts, is a good guy. He even has admitted on local radio show that he doesn't feel he is mentally or physically ready yet for the NFL -- he's right, and he's almost alone among his peers in being honest enough to say so. The NFL money will be there even if he suffers a severe injury (see Willis McGahee). QBs who stay in school also tend to be more complete, successful NFL players (see Ben Roethlisberger).

Plus, he's the QB for the two-time defending national champs of college football on a team that will be well positioned to go for a third title, in a glamorous city. Big Man on Campus doesn't get much bigger than that. Good decision, Matt.

Least Favorite Car at the LA Auto Show

Based on a highly scientific polling procedure (eavesdropping on the people around me), it seems that the big loser of the LA Auto Show was the VW Phaeton. While people seemed to like the car, I saw more rolled eyes and open scoffing there than anywhere else. Why? $105,000, that's why. The price tag reduced people to laughter. While that number might bring a shrug of the shoulders over in the Mercedes exhibit, show visitors openly mocked VW's attempt to go up market. Unfortunately, it's not because the car is lousy (in fact, it is feature-laden, luxurious and powerful, and the lines around it were as packed as any other car at the show). It is because VW made its reputation on inexpensive transportation, and the car-buying world will not accept anything else.

You want a lesson on depreciating assets? Look on Autotrader.com in a couple of years for used Phaetons. They will be the steal of the luxury class.

A Long Season in the Making

Let's see, the Dodgers just signed a big, blond righthander. Decent power, good sinker. Laconic termperament, given to disappearing for long stretches of the season, but can pull out a dazzler just when you've given up on him. The Dodgers already have Darren Dreifort; why do they need Derek Lowe?

Even if Perez, Lowe and Penny play up to their capabilities, this is going to be a replay of 2003: solid pitching, absolutely no offense. Jeff Kent is the only capable bat in the lineup now, and he's useless without a Bonds, Bagwell, Berkman or Beltran hitting around him in the lineup. The best "B" the Dodgers have is Bradley. 'Nuff said.

As a Giants fan, I'm shedding no tears. Unfortunately, I'll have to live with endless moaning from the local radio shows and newspaper columnists. I think Depodesta has a workable plan, and that the Dodgers will be better for it in the next couple of years (if McCourt will pony up the $$). I'm not sure I'll be able to take the local media chicken littles for that long, though.

Rainblogging

After 90+ hours of continuous rain, blue skies have returned to SoCal, at least for a few hours. While the rain was seldom torrential, it was constant. The land just wears out after a while. Anywhere there is a roadside slope between home and the office, there is mud on the road, often resulting in the closure of the lane. Nothing as dramatic as this, though.

The nursery-worth of plants sitting in our back yard awaiting final installation appreciated the drenching, though.

Falling Off the Wagon

Gimme another hit, doc. Oh, that's good. Ah, I'd forgotten the sweet, sweet sensation, the laser-lock focus, the blissful transportation of the mind . . .

. . . that hits every time I watch "24."

It has been too long since we finished watching the second season. The third season finally showed up on Netflix, and our first dose, er, disk showed up yesterday. I defy you to watch just one episode. I'm powerless to stop.

When we discovered the first season last year, we went through six episodes in one sitting, and four or five episodes in other stretches. The show can push the boundaries of credulity at times, but what a rush.

Plus, I can just nail Keifer Sutherland's gravelly opening ("the following takes place . . ."), especially in the evening, when I have cold.

There Is No Joy in Mudville

The surprisingly powerful UCSB men's soccer team took Indiana, the defending NCAA champs, through overtime, eventually losing on penalty kicks. The Gauchos summarily dismissed Duke 5-0 in the semifinal, and had beaten Indiana earlier in the season. Gaucho fans were in fine form, flinging tortillas to the field at the Home Depot Center during the Duke game, and chanting "Let 'em score" during the blowout.

Congratulations to the Gauchos on a great season. Next up: the rise of UCSB football ... oh wait, my era voted the football team out of existence. Oops.

Go Gauchos!

The UC Santa Barbara men's soccer team has become a national power. They merited a mention in Sports Illustrated recently, and are now in the NCAA final four tournament.

The value of my degree grows and grows.

"... and I Feel Fine ..."

Mysterious portents afoot. Major earthquakes. Prospects for peace in the Middle East. Locusts. And of course, this. Clearly, the end is nigh.

Good News on the HD Front

Finally, positive news on the pressing issue of the day. It appears that the world is significantly closer to having a single format for high definition DVDs. Whew!

Actually, I didn't realize that DVDs were not HD until recently (thanks, Andy). Still far better than VHS, though.

We seem to be getting into the era, long-promised, in which HD-ready TVs are not significantly more expensive than ordinary sets. If you haven't gone HD yet, you will, and you will love it. On a large widescreen TV, the image clarity is noticably sharper. Football games, in particular, seem to be made for this format.

My one complaint: I've been an early adopter, grabbing Charter Cable's HD box as soon as it was available, then trading it in for the all-powerful cable box/DVR for which I had pined for years. Unfortunately, I picked it up before the advertisement blitz hit, so we missed out on all the free inducements made available to everyone else. I probably could have asked for the same treatment, but really, who wants to spend extra time on the phone with the cable company?

MNF Furor -- Oh, That's Right, It's My Fault

We are being told by our betters that anyone who has a problem with Monday Night Football's pre-show skit is an uptight red-stater. Every time there is an "edgy" program shown on TV, the inevitable adverse reaction is dismissed as reflection of an increasingly moralistic government in the thrall of right-wing evangelicals. I'm more than a little tired of that kanard. Entertainers are constantly pushing the boundaries of social acceptability (which is not the same as good taste), and there is always going to be a segment of society pushing back. That segment is always going to lose. "Sex sells" has been the entertainment industry's mantra since, what, Elizabethan times? This has nothing at all to do with today's "cultural climate," which is usually code for "Bush's jackbooted oppressors." Remember, NYPD Blue came out during 1993, under Clinton's watch. The now-automatic excuse of blaming everything on "W" didn't exist then, yet the loud complaints existed. Does anyone remember Elvis, or The Beatles? Those cultural battles seem quaint now, as I'm sure today's concern about Janet Jackson will seem 30 years from now. But if that's so, what are we going to be watching on broadcast TV then? Will the Playboy Channel be irrelevant?

The MNF skit, for what it's worth, was mildly amusing, poorly acted on both sides, depended on a single, obvious punchline, and probably would not have made the cut on SNL. More importantly, it would have been ignored on SNL, airing late at night. The problem is that the risque lead-in aired at 6 pm on the West Coast. Our betters seem to automatically believe that there was nothing there that kids couldn't handle. Excuse me? It is not within the experience of my 7 year old daughter for women to drop their towels in front of men. Was there depiction of naughty bits? No, but the nudity was obvious nonetheless. Plus, try explaining the point of the skit to a second grader. I don't know what your primary grade kids are watching, but I would imagine it doesn't involve "adult situations."

Thankfully, I got home too late to see the beginning of the game, so it wasn't an actual issue for my family. I think I'll wait a few minutes to turn on the game in the future, though. I just want to see the game, not a crass cross-promotion (thanks, Fox, for leading us down the rathole on that one).

And this is what I thought even before I heard about Tony Dungy's remarks. Dungy, the African-American coach of the NFL's Indiannapolis Colts, was offended by the skit's perpetuation of the stereotype of African-Americans as sexual predators. Interesting point.

Then there's the hypocricy of the league and network apologizing, sanctimoniously condemning the skit, when they provide hours of commercials featuring nubile young women and beer, usually in the same ads. C'mon, NFL, you may not have good taste, but for the sake of credibility you could at least at least own up to it.

Just call me a conscientious blue stater who believes that his daughter is entitled to a few more years of childhood.

The Quietest Place on Earth?

That would be Legoland on a Friday in November. A lovely little park, but a little sad. It seems to want to be a big boy amusement park, but if you are over the age of 9, you probably will be bored. Unless you are a parent, in which case you will spend too much of your day trying to corral your kids to care one way or the other, just like at any other amusement park. It's a nice place for little kids, though.

To its credit, Legoland has the single coolest attraction I've ever seen in an amusement park (this is a very personal preference, mind you), one that would have made it a season pass must-have when I was 10: the "driver training" area. Kids get to drive underpowered go-carts (festooned as Volvos, of course) around a little "city" grid, complete with lane lines, stop signs and traffic signals. Since the park was basically empty, the kids got to use the ride every other cycle. That's a solid hour of fun. You couldn't have pulled me away from that for all the world's treasures when I was that age. Too bad I came along about 25 years too early.

Aaaaand, We're Back

So, if any of my four readers are still there, thanks for checking in. It's been a little hectic lately, so extracurricular writing suffered. Regular blogging will resume momentarily . . .

Red and Blue -- It's All Wrong

I'm incredibly frustrated with this whole Red State/Blue State thing. I keep hearing about California being a "Blue" state, and it just rubs me wrong. Now I know why. As Keith Olbermann reports, until just days prior to the 2000 election, Blue corresponded to Republican, and Red corresponded to Democrat. For reasons unexplained, the networks switched that convention four year ago. I remember it the old way, and I don't think I'll ever get used to the reversal. Just one more reason to hate politics. Or mass media, take your pick.

You see, rather than taking unilateral action that would disturb the peace of millions of Americans, I would have built a coalition of focus groups, reached out to those who advocated overturning decades of tradition . . .

First Hot Stove Rumor of the Winter

There is some speculation that free agent Pedro Martinez may be interested in going to the Giants ... to be their closer. Petey is tight with Felipe Alou from their Expo days, which might explain the desire to come West. I don't think Pedro-as-closer is a viable option, though. Pedro has been a starter for too long, and being so fragile needs to protect his routine too carefully to be successful as a closer. John Smoltz made a remarkable transition to become a lights-out closer, but Pedro seems to require more time to prepare than most relievers. Evidence: Game 7 of the ALCS, and Game 3 of the World Series. The Yankee game, in particular, was instructive. Pedro was knocked around hard by the first few batters he faced, but what the announcers failed to point out was that after Pedro made about 15 pitches, he suddenly became unhittable and closed out the inning quietly. Similarly, against the Cardinals, Pedro was wild in the first couple of innings, then shut them down for the rest of the game.

Based on very recent performances, then, Pedro is still a top-flight starter when properly motivated, but he is unlikely to be a successful closer. Of course, it's pretty unlikely that anyone would ask him to be a closer. Even if the Giants still had to toss Herges out there to close games, they would prefer to have Pedro as a starter.

Why I Started This Blog

I was reminded last night of the reason I wanted to embark on this little venture; it's so I can say things like this:

Fellow driver, you know that light on your dash? That pretty blue one? That pretty, bright blue one? Guess what: it is not, contrary to your apparent belief, an indicator light advising you that you have turned your headlights on. No. Oh no.

IT MEANS YOUR HIGH BEAMS ARE BLINDING EVERYONE COMING TOWARD YOU!

I don't feel better yet. Drat.

If I Had to Have a Pickup

... I'd want room for five

... and 500 horsepower.

I guess this would be my choice. Rock on.

Murphy's Law, Quantified

Thanks to the fine folks at British Gas who commissioned a study on the topic (gee, isn't high taxation great?), the world now has the formula for Murphy's Law (as reported by the New Yorker). Pencils ready? Good:

Let U, C, I, S, and F be integers between 1 and 9, reflecting, respectively, comparative levels of Urgency, Complexity, Importance, Skill and Frequency in a given set of circumstances. A, which stands for Aggravation, must apparently be set to 0.7. The likelihood of Murphy's Law applying under any particular set of circumstances, on a scale of 0 to 8.6 (no, I don't know why) is:

[((U + C + I) x ((10 - S))/20] x A x 1/(1 - sin(F/10)).

According to the New Yorker article, the study was based on a survey of 1,023 mishaps, and found that bad things happen at the most inopportune time at a statisitically significant rate. The shower will turn cold when you're covered with soap rates a 6.0, whereas the likelihood that you will be stuck in traffic when you're already late rates a 7.3. The likelihood that the Sox will screw up? 7.4.

I leave it to you to find new applications for this stunning breakthrough.

For the Sake of Accuracy

Following the various conflicting accounts in the debates, go here for an explanation of Mr. Kerry's accomplishments in the Senate. Make of it what you will.

You Wanna See Me Lose It? Try This.

Here's something I posted this morning with the web group I belong to, made up of owners and aficionados of ... a certain car marque. Anyway:

Before you remove those lumpy US-spec rear bumperettes in search of the last few ounces of weight savings, consider this (if you drive your car on city streets):

So I'm on my way to work this morning, in a line of cars at a stop sign. As we creep forward, the guy behind me apparently picks that moment to adjust his latte or something and gives my car a 1 mph love tap on the rear bumper. I've had this happen once before in another car, and 1 mph certainly doesn't sound as low impact as it actually is. With dollar signs dancing before my eyes, I scream a couple of uncharitable remarks about my fellow commuter's parentage at my disinterested windshield as we pull to the side of the road. Thankfully (and here's the point), there was absolutely no damage of any kind to the car. There was a tiny mark on one bumperette to show that the guy's car had been there, but nothing else. Nothing dented, deflected, folded, spindled or scraped. Without the bumperette, I'd surely have at least a gash in the paint (as I said, I've been through this before in another car and know of what I speak).

At the almost negligible speed involved, it's really no surprise that there is no damage, although I wasn't quite thinking clearly in the instant after the bump and feared far worse. Without the bumperette, though, I definitely would have been left with an annoying scrape in the paint. Just something for you all to consider as you ponder body mods.

Okay, adrenaline is bleeding off nicely. I feel better now.

Maybe Not the Result You'd Expect

I'm suffering from poll fatigue (believe me, it doesn't take much), but I found the results of this mock election to be rather interesting. I'm not sure quite what to make of it, other than to note that this doesn't track with the MTV party line, that it involves a pretty significant sample size (although I cannot vouch for the sampling methodology), and that the geographical distribution of voting trends continues to be stark.

Martha Stewart's (New) Living

The comedians, it appears, weren't far off the mark -- that ever-resourceful Martha is at it again. Those lucky inmates; is there any doubt that they will be having the best big-house Thanksgiving feast ever?

Jon Stewart: Brilliant, Annoying, or just Brilliantly Annoying?

If you're like me, you just might have missed last Friday's Crossfire (I can't figure out why my DVR is not set on "record all"). Jon Stewart of The Daily Show conducts an epic takedown of Crossfire's hosts. The sites hosting the video clip have been crashing at record rates, but the transcript tells all. Beware to all who would have Stewart on their show in the hope that he would bring his presumably younger, hipper audience to your punditryfest: he can be a lousy interview, and he really doesn't care. He knows better than you, and you're going to hear all about it. Good theater, though.

Harsh Weather Alert

I've had my car since April. I used my wipers today for the first time. Three swipes.

And they say California has no seasons.

California Dreamin'

For those of my readers who have UCSB connections (I think that's all three of you), here's a little taste of what used to be home.

Also, in other UCSB news, that which was long feared has finally come to pass: several homes/apartments/overpriced hovels on DP have been condemned due to bluff erosion. A bunch of juniors and seniors, who thought they had finally scored the cool pad they had been waiting for through their first four or five years in school, have been evicted. Bummer, dude.

I jest because I love. Actually, UCSB is burnishing its newfound reputation as a top notch institution with two more Nobel Prizes -- UCSB's fourth and fifth since 1998. Go Gauchos!

Thumbnail Movie Review: "Friday Night Lights"

At Cheryl's request, we went to see "Friday Night Lights." On her birthday. I swear I had nothing to do with that choice ... other than 14 years of watching sports on TV, reading about sports in the newspaper, subscribing to Sports Illustrated, participating in (dare I say, dominating) fantasy football and baseball leagues.

Anyway, here's the bullet: it's no Hoosiers, but that's okay. The movie is filmed as the documentary it essentially is. From the opening frames, director Peter Berg uses the jumpy, continuous motion camera style that will someday be identifiable as a distinctively late 20th/early 21st century cinematographic style, one that is usually used to convey as sense of "this is really happening." (Incidentally, the movement of the camera was so constant that there were only a few moments during the film that I was able to tell that the projector was not in focus. Really; the camera never stayed in one place long enough to allow the moviegoer to concentrate on any particular element on the screen sufficiently to see that the whole thing was out of focus. Thanks for putting my $11 to such good use, Universal City Cinemas.) Berg also employs the kind of washed-out exposure that Steven Soderbergh used to such great effect in "Traffic." Rather than a mere stunt, the dry look of the film fits the West Texas setting.

The football scenes are excellent and believable, with none of the hokey lighting effects and shot-from-a-cannon player movements that made "Any Given Sunday" unwatchable as a sports movie. Ultimately, though, the documentary style lets the story down. Although this true story is rich with dramatic potential in the lives of its key players, the film merely skims the surface, focusing instead on the inexorable chronological march of the games. The core drama of the games is certainly gripping, but I get that rush nearly on a daily basis on the TV. The pathos comes from the lives of the players, and it is in this area that the film does not reach the full potential of the book. After all, "Hoop Dreams," a true documentary and quite possibly the best sports movie ever, wasn't a stellar film and story because of the games William and Arthur won or lost.

All in all, an easily enjoyable movie. I have no idea how to interpret Andy's movie rating scheme, since he has yet to follow through on his promise to explain it, but it seems to be based on an unusual numbering system with verbose prose correspondents. Okay. Here's my take: I give this a 13.8375/16.00762, which obviously means "a truly great time was had by all, especially since the evening included dessert at the Hard Rock Cafe."

Pulling a Grady

Are you like me? As Francona left Timlin in to face lefty Matsui with lefty Myers sitting in the Boston bullpen, couldn't you just hear Beantown-o-phile Simmons screaming at his TV? He must have been like Cameron trying to resist a day out with Ferris, banging his head against the back of his sofa: "He'll keep leaving pitchers out there, and leaving them out there ..." And was there any doubt that Manny wasn't going to catch Bernie's drive in the eighth? Not enough is being said about this.

[That, in case you are woefully uninformed, was a pitch-perfect Simmons tribute. It is hilarious. Trust me.]

Actually, plenty is being said about Manny, and Pedro, and the Babe, and the Curse. Can we please be spared one of these years from the narcissitic self-flagelation of BoSox fans? Enough! No, you're not the most deprived pro franchise (see Cubs, Chicago). You're dedicated fans, but by no means more knowledgeable or loyal than anyone else (Nomar who?). Just .... enough. Please.

Just Because

A guy in my neighborhood has one of these. Very sweet.

A Leader in the Making

Mark Prior is the rightful focus of attention for his pitching prowess. He has completed only his second year and yet has been considered the ace of the Cubs staff nearly all of that time. Now he is taking firm control of the reins in Chicago. He had the temerity to call out superstar Sammy Sosa for Sosa's sulking non-participation in the Cubs' last game of the season. Slammin' Sammy showed up an hour before first pitch and left before the game began without putting on his uniform. For somebody who describes himself as a warrior, that's a poor showing, especially when he receives 1/162nd of $17,000,000 for his trouble, and Prior was right to call him on it. Sammy had been untouchable, even weathering his corked bat episode (i.e., he was caught cheating) without long-term damage.

If he can stay healthy, Prior is going to be one of the all-time greats. All that, and he got his college education.

One Website You Don't See on Cereal Boxes

For some reason, this makes me laugh. Winning hearts and minds, one little kid at a time.

Happy Birthday!

It's that fun day for my lovely wife, who turns . . . well, that really doesn't matter, now, does it?. What matters is that for her birthday, she wants to go to a movie -- "Friday Night Lights." Yep, a sports movie, her choice. Is she cool or what?

Here's a Shocker

Is anyone still truly surprised by this?

If you don't want to jump, here's the key block:

Saddam Hussein bribed senior politicians and businessmen around the world to secure an early lifting of sanctions, according to the Iraq Survey Report.

Focusing his attention in particular on France and Russia, both permanent members of the UN Security Council, Saddam awarded oil exploration contracts and financial inducements to individuals.

The bribes were at first funded by the Iraqi government, but later derived from Saddam's illegal misuse of the oil-for-food programme, which was supposed to provide food for the poor and medicine for the sick.

Some US estimates have suggested that the Iraqis siphoned off $10 billion (£5.6 billion) from the scheme.

"He [Saddam] targeted friendly companies and foreign political parties that possessed either extensive business ties to Iraq, or held pro-Iraq policies," said the report.

A statesman and a patriot, then! Well, maybe not:

Saddam Hussein believed he could avoid the Iraq war with a bribery strategy targeting Jacques Chirac, the President of France, according to devastating documents released last night. Memos from Iraqi intelligence officials, recovered by American and British inspectors, show the dictator was told as early as May 2002 that France - having been granted oil contracts - would veto any American plans for war.

Although they found no evidence that Saddam had made any WMD since 1992, they found documents which showed the "guiding theme" of his regime was to be able to start making them again with as short a lead time as possible." Saddam was convinced that the UN sanctions - which stopped him acquiring weapons - were on the brink of collapse and he bankrolled several foreign activists who were campaigning for their abolition. He personally approved every one.

So, no WMDs in 2003? Perhaps, although nobody has looked in Syria's sofa cushions yet. Is it wrong to prevent someone from following through with a clear intention to commit a wrong? As one notable commentator says:

If a man says he has a gun, acts like he has a gun, and convinces everyone around him he has a gun, and starts waving it around and behaving recklessly, the police are justified in shooting him (even if it turns out later he just had a black bar of soap). Similarly, according to the Duelfer report, Saddam seems to have intentionally convinced other countries, and his own generals, that he had WMDs. He also convinced much of the U.S. government. If we reacted accordingly and he turns out not to have had WMDs, whose fault is that?

Is There Anything More Pathetic . . .

. . . than trolling one's own blog looking for comments?

Answer: probably, but I'd have to think pretty hard to come up with it.

The Next GTA Controversy is Coming

The fawning gamer magazines somehow manage to ignore the elephant sitting squarely in the middle of the room: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is going to send the non-gaming world into a tizzy. This time, it's going to be more than the usual promotion of crime as the primary game function. This time, there are going to be some serious questions about the wisdom of portraying California gang life from the inside. Like the other GTA titles, the gameplay does not culminate in social redemption. Unlike the others, though, the latest game draws on a very real, very violent, and (it has to be said, and will) very race-specific segment of society. How many white gamers will want to suit up as a black gangbanger? More importantly, how many black citizens of Compton or other communities riven with violence on a daily basis even now will welcome gamers of any color virtually participating as one of their own in "missions" that are actually crimes that afflict them every day? Exploitation has a new interface.

A friend of mine recently observed a criminal trial in Los Angeles involving a gang killing. What he learned about the gang world is chilling to those of us who prefer to shut out reality. There are streets in LA, right now, on which you must not travel unless you are of the correct affiliation. In daylight. If you go at night . . . well, chalk up another victory to natural selection, and thank you for removing your foolish self from the gene pool.

Is it, dare I say, insensitive to create a game based upon a tragic subculture in which extreme violence and disregard for human decency is played out on a daily basis (whatever the cause might be)? Sure, drug runners ruled Miami for a while in the '80s, so Vice City was a fun little romp. But gang warfare seems to me to be far more serious. Gang life is based inherently on family or family-like relationships, which is specifically recognized and used by the new game. Unlike drug running, or perhaps even the Mafia activities that are now the standard fodder for suburban crime life voyerism, SoCal gang life is not business, it's personal. It's a part of everyday life for just about everyone who lives in those communities. In games of this sort, it is usually possible to demonize, or at least marginalize, both the protagonist as well as the "enemies." I have a hard time dismissing the crime-committing, posse-building protagonist n the new game. He represents thousands of struggling young men and women living and, unfortunately, dying, right now in South Central. The little bit of humor injected into the storyline that leavens the anti-hero nature of the other GTA titles is going to be hard to come by in the new game.

As I noted at the top, the gamer magazines have not commented on the anti-social gameplay; given the path blazed by GTA in its other guises, that is no longer newsworthy. Watch the news when the game is officially released later this month, though. Along with the usual complaints about the anti-hero motivation, I think there will also be a more serious examination of the setting of the game. It's too close in time and temperament to reality to get a free pass.

And what is most disturbing: Rockstar is too savvy at promotion to not know this.

The Ponycar Wears No Clothes

May I be the first to say this? The new Mustang is ridiculous. All of the aerodynamic expertise for which Ford became rightfully known over the last 20 years has been utterly discarded. The interior similarly disregards years of improvements in human factors engineering, returning to hideous, unreadable gauge markings. Also, hasn't anyone figured out that when you go retro, you have nowhere to go with styling revisions? Dropping itself into its own late '60s styling loop, I guess in a few years we can expect the return of the Mustang II.

I guess once the design departments are no longer in the thrall of nostalgic Boomers (take Pontiac's GTO ... please), we can look forward to the Gen X phase of retro. I can't wait for an updated Fiero ("And we've almost fixed that overheating problem!"), Chevy Celebrity and Honda Prelude.

Actually, a new old Prelude would be a great idea. C'mon, fellow Gen Xers, climb those corporate ladders and bring back the '80s!

I Wish We Made Shows Like This

My life changed when our local cable company added Speed TV to the lineup. Now, I get to enjoy the coolest car show on the tube. Great cars, tons of personality, a willingness to savage cars that deserve it, and a fearlessness in utterly abusing cars on the track (as I type this, I'm watching Tiff hang out the tail of a DB7 sideways while dismissing it as a bit of a poser). It's a British import, of course.

I've watched somnabulent John Davis on Motorweek for twenty years, since back in the day when it was the only auto show on TV, hiding in the nether reaches of the weekend PBS schedule. Mr. Davis is clearly a nice man, who has put out a pleasant product for a long time, but let's face it: his show is just another arm of the manufacturers' marketing departments. It operates on the "Home on the Range" method: seldom is heard a discouraging word.

How Do You Say "Conflict of Interest" in French, Russian or Chinese?

Search out this developing story in the coming weeks. It should be above-the-fold news, but then, it should have been a front page story for years. It's not like this scandal has gone unnoticed; some people have been on the trail for years.

This story deserves more world attention as well, not just publicity.

It's sad, really. The UN is not a bad organization, in theory. Like too many other large bureaucracies, corruption runs rampant. Unfortunately, there are truly needy people in the world with whom the UN has broken trust.

Godspeed, Gordo Cooper

We have lost another pioneer.

Thankfully, that spirit of adventure seems to be coming back.

More Manning Happy Feet: I'm Not Howling in the Wilderness

I'm not the only one to be irritated by Payton Manning's micromanager routine. Check out Brian Murphy's column today:

"Sometimes, when Peyton Manning is telling all 10 members of the offense about his next audible, making a big show of it, going to each guy on the line, maxing out his TV time, don't you just wish an O-lineman would turn and knee him in the groin with the admonition: "Just run the freakin' play we called and stop
showing off, teacher's pet!" Maybe it's just me..."

Nope, it's not just you.

The Meek May Inherit the Earth, But They Make for a Lousy Baseball Team

I hate the Rockies. 'Nuff said.

Al Michaels' Best Line of the Night

As ABC showed admitted murder investigation obstructor of justice Ray Lewis pumping up admitted drug ring participant prior to the game, Lewis (R.) exhorting Lewis (J.) to put the pressure of the federal drug case "on your shoulders" (presumably to use it as motivation to excel):

"Well, he ought to know."

Rob Nenn, Phone Home

Four relievers, one out. That's all the Giants' bullpen could accomplish, up three runs going into the ninth. Ugh.

Go Rockies!

Angels Take Care of Business

So, Mr. Beane, how does Moneyball work when your Big Three starting pitchers, who have masked the deficiencies in your team's lineup for years, all have terrible Septembers? Not so well, apparently.

Now if Hermanson can just finish off the Dodgers ...

(Man I love picture in picture.)

Time is Running Out

The A's are watching their season go down the tubes. Macha's walk out to the mound to yank Rincon after giving up a game-tying double (that missed being a home run by a foot) to Erstad, the only batter he faced, was the trudge of a beaten man.

In the Giants game, I love the energy of Cararra spiking the ball after retiring the Giants on a double play in the eighth. I can say that because the giants are up by three, having given up only two hits.

Wasn't Tomko the guy who call Pierzynski a cancer earlier this year? I guess all is forgiven; Tomko's throwing a gem, and the shadows at home are starting to be a factor. Although I wonder what Tomko thought when A.J. called time in the middle of Tomko's windup.

One Down, Two to Go

Neat synchronicity just now. Within the same minute that Hermanson struck out Shawn Green to end the Giants' victory over the Dodgers, Andres Galarraga (yep, he's still around, making another comeback) hit a homer for the Angels to continue their beatdown on the A's. A pretty good evening all around.

No, I'm not an A's fan. I'm a Giants fan, remember? One cannot serve two masters.

Now FSN is showing a highlight of Gibson's homer against Eck in 1988. Boy, the Dodgers need some new memories.

Greg Floyd Is The Man

Warning: Fantasy football geekiness coming ...

Greg Floyd, fantasy sports impresario, suggested, cajoled, and finally begged us to draft Thomas Jones. He predicted that this unknown would flourish in the offensive system that was to be installed in Chicago by the same coaches who had turned Priest Holmes from an anonymous backup in Baltimore to an All-Pro in Kansas City. Pridefully, I resisted Greg's entreaties. I knew there was a pretty good chance he was right; his theory made sense. But I didn't want to look like a suck-up to the master (even though I was the reigning league champ, and had nothing to be ashamed of). Also, I hadn't prepared at all for the draft and felt more vulnerable to draft day screw ups than usual.

Next time, I'll check my pride at the door and follow Greg's advice. Jones, picked in our ninth round, is the top running back in the league, and is the fourth most prolific fantasy point scorer, behind such luminaries as McNabb, Culpepper and Manning. Crud.

Could the Dodgers Miss the Playoffs?

Everyone around here says that the Dodgers are one win away from the NL West crown. Fine. But the Dodgers are also a few losses away from missing the playoffs, I think. Consider: the Giants are three games back with three to play. If the Giants sweep, the teams play again to determine the NL West winner. But Houston is tied with the Giants for the wildcard lead. What if Houston sweeps Colorado? Considering the Rockies' sorry bullpen performances of late, that's a likely scenario. If Houston sweeps, and the Giants sweep, then those two teams would be tied with ... the Dodgers. Hmm. How does this work? I'm guessing a playoff to determine the NL West champ. Then another playoff to determine the NL Wildcard team would follow, I presume. So if the Dodgers lose their last five games (regular season and two special playoffs), LA could be out of the postseason. Nobody is talking about this.

See, as a Giants fan, I'm not just looking to get into the playoffs. I need to find a way to keep the Dodgers out, and I think it can be done. 5% chance of coming to pass, maybe, but a guy's gotta dream.

UPDATE: I was right. The schedulemakers have thought this all out, even if nobody has written about it yet. A Giant-Dodger playoff would be in San Francisco; if the Giants were to lose, they would stay there and play the Astros. If the Dodgers were to lose, a coin flip would determine whether the playoff to become the Wildcard team would take place in Los Angeles or Houston. Let the games begin!

Thank God for Picture in Picture

As they say, it just doesn't get any better than this. NoCal v. SoCal, in both the leagues. Giants-Dodgers, A's-Angels. Playoffs on the line in the last three games of the regular season. You will find me parked in front of my teevee this weekend, unless the Giants fall out of contention. Then you will find me bashing old nails into scrap wood, just for theraputic reasons.

Mt. St. Helens, Live

The Volcanic One has her own webcam. The picture was feeding yesterday, before the Instalanche, and before today's eruptions. Very interesting stuff. Somewhere in the many boxes I continue to drag around with me from my childhood I think I still have a little clear plastic envelope of St. Helens ash from the first eruption. My grandparents' farm in Oregon was covered in the stuff.

Debate Roundup, Round 1

It will be rare that I wade into political waters here, but in the last weeks before a monumental presidential election, it is difficult to stay completely dry. So ...

After the most partisan voices cancel each other out (or are thrown out, like the high and low scores in Olympic diving), we are left with what seems to be a general consenus that the debate was basically a draw. Interesting, and perhaps troubling if you are pulling for Bush. The topic on the table last night was terrorism/safety. Even with the profound differences of opinion over the war in Iraq, this figured to be Bush's strongest area (powerful response to terrorism is required, with moral certitude to match) and Kerry's weakest (waffling on support for the armed forces; vague notions of alliances [multi-lateral or bilateral? Ah, it depends]; he didn't have to make the tough decisions). This is the basis for the sharp divide between the camps, and there is probably little Kerry can do to change the minds of those who believe the Administration's military actions were correct because this is, after all, a war. Thus, Bush operates from a position on strength on these issues; notwithstanding the vehemence of the opposition, that opposition is countered by at least an equal amount of support. Bush stands to be much more vulnerable on domestic issues, which have flown under the radar for the most part, and are also more likely to be where the Administration's support erodes even among the party faithful, who aren't going to be pleased with the increased governmental spending we've seen over the last four years. Mixed economic numbers (or at least the impression that the numbers are not positive) don't help, either.

The difficulty in forecasting all of this is that the shrillness of the most partisan supporters on both sides tends to overwhelm a considered debate of issues, particularly those issues that don't pertain to 9/11 and military action. That's why I believe the debates that look beyond the war on terror will be the most revealing.

Of course, I fully anticipate that unless Kerry throws up on his shoes (figuratively or literally), he will be hailed the victor in the next debate by most media outlets because of Bush's perceived weaknesses on domestic concerns. You read it here first.

We should all do ourselves a favor: read the transcripts and track down the facts. Sadly, just because Dan Rather says it's so doesn't mean much any more.

Best Amusement Park Ride Ever

I would gladly wait in line for an hour to go on this ride.

[Editor's note, June 2008: this link used to go to the Michael Vick simulator commercial, in which the rider is transported up and over the line of scrimmage in a wild, twisting leap. For obvious reasons, I suppose, all evidence of a connection to Vick has been expunged from Nike's servers. For less obvious reasons, this post has received some hits recently, and those visitors have undoubtedly been confused and/or disappointed with what they found. Sorry; blame Ron Mexico!]