Passing the Boston Sports Torch

A pyramid of Boston championships has been built since 2001.  The Patriots have 3, the Red Sox 2, and the Celtics provided the cherry with their title in June.

But looking forward to the next five years, it is the Bruins who have the best prospects for success.

The other Boston sports teams are far more accomplished based on the recent past. But they all have large obstacles and question marks in their future: Who knows how Brady will come back from injury, the Celtics Big Three range from 31-33 years old, and the Red Sox will be competing with a Yankees team which has dramatically increased their revenue stream (and consequently payroll limits) due to their new stadium.  That leaves us with the Bruins in best shape to continue the Boston sports century.

Luckily, or Lucicly, they are ready. Maybe I’m giddy after last night’s win against the Red Wings and discovering that I can actually care about hockey again, but I am jumping on the zamboni-wagon as fast as I can.  

This Bruins team is talented, young, and for one of the few times in my life have a potent offense.  There was a series in the 3rd period of last night’s game where the Bruins had the puck in the Detroit zone and I knew they were going to score.  it was a relentless attack that eventually resulted in their 4th goal.  In the past, Bruin goals seemed the product of luck; now it seems predictable based on their cumulative effort.

Lessons from a Cat

Four weeks ago Molly found a stray cat crying in some bushes.  We ended up bringing him into our home and feeding him.  We kept him until a couple days ago, all the time hoping that somehow my cat allergies would disappear.  They didn’t.  We brought him to the Hopkinton Humane Society where they guarantee he will get adopted.

I have always been adamantly anti-cat, mainly because whenever I am near a cat I have trouble getting air. But “Buddy” changed my mind.  I learned a lot from having Buddy around these past four weeks:

1. Cats somehow know to go to the bathroom in kitty litter.  I was amazed when Buddy found his way to the box we set out on that first night.
2. If you move the kitty litter box, don’t expect the cat to find it right away.  I was amazed when Buddy started using the house as a large bathroom the second night.
3. Cat pee stinks.  And it doesn’t get better after a few days.
4. Many cat shelters are not receiving in cats since they are overwhelmed with cats abandoned due to the economy.
5. If you are warm and have food, everything else is bonus.
6. Except for oxygen, which is essential.
7. Cat paws are not a collective unit.  They have little fingers or toes that separate when they stretch.
8. You can name the cat whatever you want, kids will call it whatever they want (in this case “Fluffball”).
9. Charities and Not for Profits should study how cats effortlessly convince people to open themselves up to getting involved.
10. Cats are the perfect pets if no one is allergic to them.  They take care of themselves and show up for some affection once in a while.
11. You can get flashes into what your children will be like as adults by watching them interact with a pet.  It was wonderful to see.
12. No matter how temporary you know the situation is, you will become attached and it will be difficult to separate.

So, no more Buddy/Fluffball except for some pictures.  We miss him.

Barack-sketball

I have rediscovered the news channels on my cable tv lineup.  They’ve always been there, but I simply was not interested enough to camp on them these last few years.  Probably a combination of general disagreement with Bush policies and the far more positive news coming from Boston sports teams drove me to other cable stations.

But no longer.  I find I am hungry for all news Obama.  And I know there are many others like me.  And if these news stations get creative they can reclaim some of the audience that has abandoned them for more immediate and customized content channels like the internet.

An easy win for these stations would be a half hour show recapping Obama’s schedule for that day.  Who did he meet with? What was accomplished? Did he see his family?

But I think a true programming breakthrough would be to create a series around the Obama basketball games.  Ratings bonanza.  Well, relatively.  Enough to fund all expenses for the White House and take the burden off the taxpayers, leading to great PR for the new administration.

And think of the entertainment value.  Common basketball terms could be replaced by political equivalents: Blocked shots would be “vetos”, 24 second violations would be “filibusters”, and games would not end they would “adjourn”.  The rules would be modified as well; a tie game would not go to overtime, instead the outcome would be determined by the Vice President…can Joe Biden hit a pressure free throw to give his team the victory?

There would be a rotating cast of players, as is the case with Obama’s current games.  Viewers would tune in to see if the celeb politician’s playing style mirrored their persona.  Would Antonin Scalia only go to his right? Would Rep. Murtha play any defense?  Would Mike Huckabee just launch shots as soon as he crossed midcourt?

And think about the competition for the halftime speech.  Getting that assignment would be second to only the keynote speech at the conventions.  Of course Obama would be the speaker for the pilot episode: “Okay, the zone is not working.  We need CHANGE.  Every person has to do his fair share as we shift to man to man.  We’re down 20 points, but we can come back from this. YES WE CAN.”

Barack-sketball on CNN.  It’s fannnnntastic.

Thanksgiving: A Moveable Feast

There are many things we accept just because we’ve been doing them for so long.  Celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday is one of them, and it makes no sense.

For people who work at businesses that do not take the following Friday off it creates an awkward situation where you have to use a vacation day to make it a true long weekend.  And I can’t imagine much work gets done on that Friday since so many people are out. 

For businesses that do take the following Friday off, well, isn’t there a day that is more deserving of the recognition (such as a day recognizing Native Americans, to keep with the Thanksgiving theme, or a female American)?  And wouldn’t the additional day provide more incremental enjoyment to employees by being placed in a more barren stretch of the year such as August than placed within a month of Christmas and New Year’s?

There is really no reason that Thursday is the day we celebrate Thanksgiving, other than that is the way it has always been done.  And now is a good time to change that.  Well, not necessarily now, since it would be wise to give plenty of time for calendar makers and schedulers to absorb that the date was going to change, but certainly by 2020 (the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock) would make sense.

An additional positive byproduct of moving the feast to Friday would be that we would no longer have the worst nicknamed day of the year: “Black Friday”.  The day after Thanksgiving is supposed to be a positive kickoff for retailers to the holiday buying season, but we have saddled it with a name that makes it sound like we should be checking our 401k’s to see if there is any money remaining.  And I know that some say Black Friday refers to merchants getting into the “Black” with their profits,  but that is a forced, revisionist definition.  The true meaning was assigned by the Philadelphia police department in the 1960′s when they dreaded being so outnumbered by the combination of shoppers and revelers in town for the Army-Navy football game.

If we move the meal to Friday, then Saturday becomes the natural kickoff to the holiday season, and all consumers can have access to the special deals, not just those lucky enough to have businesses who take the day off.  And a more natural name like Super Saturday or Sale Saturday can take hold.

Or maybe I should just give thanks and not worry about it.

Blockbusted

I went to our local Blockbuster store today.  The only thing I left with was the very sure feeling that there will not be any Blockbusters (at least in its current state ) by 2013.

The video industry has changed completely since 2000 when Blockbuster was a regular stop for me at least 2x a week.  DVD’s, then Netflix, and now Tivo/Amazon/iTunes/video on demand created so many different channels for receiving movies that the physical location Blockbusters now seem completely outdated, right down to the logo which suddenly looks like it belongs to an after school special from the 1970′s.

I think bookstores will share a degree of the difficult future that awaits Blockbuster, but books at least have always been held, creating a physical connection that is reestablished over many sittings that can span days, weeks, or months.  People generally watch movies in one or two sittings, so the need for a physical object representing the movie (like a DVD and box) really is not needed. 

Even music has a more physical connection: I used to love looking at the album cover while listening to music and looking at the lyric sheet. But I was very willing to give up the album/cassette/CD for downloads.  Once the movie download  and its distribution are perfected then the adoption will be sweeping. 

So while I expect the building I visted today to still be around in 2013, I’m guessing it’ll be the front for Blockbuster silver DVD glass coasters or some other sort of enterprise.

Utah, Hawaii…..then What?

One of Molly and Emma’s favorite gifts last year was a collector’s album for the US state quarters.   They have spent hours this year sifting through coins to complete the set.  Along the way they have learned to pronounce the state names and have grown increasingly frustrated with the two states that stand in their way to completion: Utah and Hawaii (the disdain for Utah seems like another good life lesson from this experience).

 

The elusive Hawaiian quarter. So shiny.

 

But what will they do once the album is filled out?  Their game will be over barring a sudden call for Puerto Rican statehood, and we’ll have $12.50 in unusable money lying around the house.

 

We could always keep it as our emergency fund for when we’re short a bit of money and the pizza delivery person is on their way over.  But isn’t there some way to continue the education of America’s youth?  Now that the US Mint has decided that “tails” is up for grabs, can’t they come up with other collector’s sets?  Or is this just going to spiral down to the point that there will be advertising on the flip side (”Heads I win, Diet Pepsi you lose”)?

 

Of course I could just take out the quarters and restart their collection from zero.  They could use the money to pick out a stuffed animal or book.  Or they could learn to start building their fortune by selling the set on ebay, where the current bid as of this writing is $30 for the set.

(Update 11/24: Final winning bid was $38.51.  That definitely seems the way to go.)

Fast Pass – The Hand Towel Corollary

It is widely expected that the Mass Pike tolls will increase next year to $5 each way on my route to/from work.  But I have Fast Pass, which means I will not need to hand over the money on a daily basis.  In fact, the line item will be buried on my credit card statement along with all the other monthly charges I accrue. Which somehow makes me feel like there is not really an increase coming.

A couple days ago I blogged that I really like automatic hand towel machines; they make people take time and effort to get paper, which leads to great reductions of wasted paper.  Well, the opposite is also true — when a transaction requires little effort and no time then the waste/excess can get out of hand.  Or in the case of the Fast Pass, tolls can seem like they don’t matter even as you are cutting back on lunch.

Broadcast Blues

The economy continues to tank.  The newscast this evening was one sad story after another.  It sounded like the newscaster was about to slit his wrists, which would have added one more sad story for the replacement newscaster to report.

It seemed like the newscast could have used a blues riff in the background.  And then I realized, that would make things a lot better:

Da-da-da-da-Nah        The Dow Jones is Down

Da-da-da-da-Nah        Consumers have fear

Da-da-da-da-Nah        Unemployment is up

Da-da-da-da-Nah        Somali Pirates are near

It would make the news actually kind of fun to listen to.  And news broadcasts, especially TV broadcasts, need some novelty.  The internet has made traditional TV newscasts irrelevant.  People get their news increasingly (and more immediately) from the web.  So TV needs to take more of an entertainment angle, and the thought of Charles Gibson strumming a guitar and belting out the headlines would get me to watch.

Solving the Energy Crisis One Hand Towel at a Time

The advances in bathroom technology in the last decade have been astounding. Automatic toilet flushing, motion activated water faucets and soap dispensers, and, my favorite, the automatic hand towel dispenser.

Back in the 1970′s we were supposed to believe that automatic hand dryers were the wave of the future. But people simply did not use them much because it took three minutes to really dry your hands, and who wants to spend more time than absolutely necessary in a room that is generally smelly?  So, despite the apparent benefits to the environment, hand dryers went the way of shag rugs and we were right back to paper dispensers.

Enter the automatic hand towel machine.  Sure they use paper.  But by requiring a wave of the hand to dispense each towel, the amount of waste is strongly controlled.

Is there a lesson here that relates to the energy crisis?  I think so.  While it is important that we seek energy sources to replace gasoline, we should realize the solution may not be achievable in the near term.  We should also consider a “containment” option similar to the hand towel dispenser.

For example…..how about government mandating that all new cars include fuel tanks with no more than 10 gallon capacities?  This would force consumers to determine more often whether it is worth it to use their car, knowing it means another trip to the gas station. Also, with uniformly small tanks, manufacturers would need to look for ways to maximize mileage per gallon to get a competitive edge.

Veal, the other White Lie

A couple days ago I suggested that if Paul Pierce is nicknamed The Truth, then Brian Scalabrine should be called The White Lie .

Well thanks to the world’s greatest resource, Wikipedia, it is now clear that Scalabrine already has a nickname: Veal.

What goes good with veal?

I still like The White Lie as a bookend nickname to The Truth, but Veal is pretty darn good.

Also amusing from the Wikipedia entry is this anecdote:

When Matt Bonner was drafted in 2003, Jay Bilas referred to him as a “poor man’s Brian Scalabrine”. Three years later, in his NBA preview on ESPN.com, Chad Ford ironically called Scalabrine a “poor man’s Matt Bonner”.

Apparently the veal had come full circle.