Send me an E-mail
Archives:
Main blog
2003 Entries Part 1
2002 Entries
Other people of note:
Craig
Dwight
Greg
Mark
James
| It's Not Me, It's Him, Right... | ||||
| The random musings of Riverview High School's second-most famous non-football-coach alumnus, Mike Burger... (No longer most famous, not at least until I get on Oprah. (I'll get the log started) | ||||
|
23 Dec 2003 I "got" this "in the mail" from "DirecTV"...  Look at the picture on the right. It's from the Zagat Survey 2004 Spotlight on Independent Films which was my "gift" from DirecTV and The Independent Film Channel. Either Bennett Brower has found work again, their reviews are Mad Libs, or the people at Zagat like to be incredibly weird. And if anyone from Zagat is reading this, please contact us at All Media Guide. We'll set you up with much better reviews. Call us for a "quote".Walt would also like to point out that technically his ice studying trip was paid for by NATO, not the U.S. government. So, he went studying for NATO in a country that is not a part of NATO. At least he's making the world safe from the ice menace. | ||||
|
16 Dec 2003 Your tax dollars at work... Walt checks in with another of his adventures, this time he went to Moscow to study more ice. You might as well read it, you paid for it. And besides, he does a much better job at the travelogue thing than I do, plus you can see his previous jaunts to New Zealand and London. Well, there was also that trip to Paris. | ||||
|
9 Dec 2003 At least we didn't finish fourth... I don't care how undermanned or new you are to the sport. It should never, ever be an upset when you defeat Burkina Faso. | ||||
|
8 Dec 2003 Would you like a little cheese (or, Blame Tempe)... America is obsessed with making sure one person is a winner and everyone else is a loser. And this weekend proved no exception. But first, a little background. Up until the mid-60's, there was little need to worry about a college football national championship. Because, frankly, nobody really cared. It was a regional sport, and all people were concerned about was winning a conference. The bowl games (what few there were) were just a tack-on at the end of the season to put some good teams against each other in some friendlies. In my opinion, the year this probably turned for the worse was 1966, when Michigan State and Notre Dame had their infamous 10-10 tie. Here are the bowl games for the 1966 season:
So, in 1966, was the conference the most important thing? Nope. The smaller conferences: Ivy (8 teams), MAC (5), MVC (5), WAC (8), Big 8 (8) and SWC (8) did play a full round-robin. The Big 10 did have everyone play an equal amount of conference games (7). However, the ACC, Pac 8, SEC and Southern had haphazard scheduling, since none of these leagues had conference members play an equal number of games. Alabama and Georgia both went undefeated in conference play, with the Tide getting the championship because they went 6-0 while the Bulldogs only went 5-0. Conferences at the time were more of a scheduling convenience if anything else. The National Championship at this time was just something the two major polls (AP and UPI) decided before the bowl season. Although at times they split, it wasn't all that often. For the '66 season, Notre Dame was the consensus #1 despite the fact that: 1. they weren't perfect (the tie), 2. Michigan State was also 9-0-1, 3. Alabama was 10-0. The MSU-Notre Dame game was one of the first big college football games to get big play outside of their region. There were nationally televised games then, but since each team was restricted to two appearances per year, it was hard to build a big powerhouse. The 1968 season saw the first poll after the bowl season. There started to be more bowl games. The splits in the national titles became more frequent -- 1970, 1973, 1974 and 1979 -- mainly because there were two undefeated teams from conferences where the teams couldn't play because of conference tie-ins. This died down a little bit, until 1986. The '86 season had four powerhouse teams: Michigan, Oklahoma, Penn St. and Miami. At the time, the latter two were still independent, so they could pretty much schedule whoever they wanted. The Nittany Lions managed to squeak by Cincinnati (5-6), Maryland (5-5-1) and Notre Dame (5-6) by less than a touchdown, so they were 11-0. Miami only had one scare all season, squeaking by in a road game at Florida. They did play one other tough game, handing Oklahoma their only loss 28-16. The rest of their schedule was filled with cream puffs such as Northern Illinois, Tulsa, East Carolina and Texas Tech, so they were 11-0 as well. Michigan could have thrown an absolute wrench into this, but they were caught looking ahead to Ohio State and lost to Minnesota at home the week before, giving them a loss and securing the perfect scenario. #1 could play #2. They were both independents, so they had no tie-ins to other games. Normally, the undefeated teams would not do this. They would find some other bowl game. But, the people of Tempe had an offer they couldn't refuse. The Fiesta Bowl was started in 1971 as a bowl game by for the WAC champion, which conveniently for the first three years was Arizona State. When the Sun Devils jumped to the Pac-10 and the WAC to the Holiday Bowl in 1978, the bowl just became another of those games that vied for non-conference champions, since they wanted to get an Arizona school if possible. In 1982, they moved to being a New Year's Day game. From what I've been told, this became the go-to-bowl because the hosts were just so nice, showering the players, boosters, band members and hangers-on with a grand old time. For their 1986 game, they had a semi-marquee match-up when conference runners-up Michigan (#5) and Nebraska (#6) met. The stage was set. Two undefeateds would play for the national title. No polls, nobody else to cause problems. They even petitioned the NCAA to add an overtime if they were tied (I can't remember if they got this). NBC moved the game off January 1 and plunked it on a prime time slot the next day on Friday night. Penn State defeated the Testaverde-led Hurricanes 14-10, and the public liked it. 1987 didn't produce the same fervor, with Miami avenging and going a perfect 12-0 and winning the title. Notre Dame pulled the same trick in 1988. 1989 however posed a serious problem. Only one school was undefeated going into the bowl season -- Colorado. And they lost. And the one loss school that defeated them -- Notre Dame -- did not become the national champion. That honor went to Miami, since Notre Dame lost to the Hurricanes earlier that year. Tennessee also had one loss going into the bowl season, and finished #5. Two-loss Florida State finished 2nd. 1990 proved to be even more problematic, since teams were allowed to accept bowl invites anytime during the season. An 10-0-1 Georgia Tech was forced to go to the Citrus Bowl, leaving the de facto National Championship to be between 9-1-1 Colorado and 9-2 Notre Dame. 1991, 1994 and 1997 only made the "problem" worse, as a national title games could not be arranged due to bowl tie-ins. So, we got the BCS. The first few BCS arrangements were just simply poll aggregations. Nope, can't have that, people are too subjective. Let's add "computer" ratings. Whoops, you can fake the ratings out by running up the score. So, non-result based factors have to be yanked out. The only thing you can consider are the binary results of win or loss, the tie being conveniently yanked out because that didn't produce "a winner". This idea can work in some sports, where you play a sizeable chunk of games and can get a decent sample size. But, you can't do this in football, the sample size is too small. The "computer" ratings basically use a way of using strength-of-schedule to determine a ranking, knocking the entire system down to a couple of key games, which seemed pretty inocuous when scheduled 10 years ago:
Most of the computer ratings systems use an idea of the combined records of teams' opponents. For LSU, that's 79-69 (you don't count your own team's results), for Oklahoma it's 85-63, and for USC it's 69-64. Advantage Oklahoma again, then LSU, then USC. So, it should really be no surprise that USC is out in the cold. But why focus on just USC? There's three other one loss schools (TCU, Miami and Boise St.) which aren't even being given the opportunity to kvetch. What if TCU had stayed undefeated? Again, none of this would be an obsession if we weren't so damn set on trying to have a national champion? What's so wrong with three, or better yet, none, since none of these teams are undefeated? It could be ten years ago, when LSU would be off to the Sugar and Oklahoma would be off to the Orange and none of those teams would be playing each other. And what if they would have all lost? Who would it be now? Michigan (USC's Rose Bowl opponent)? Florida State or Miami-FL (likely Sugar and Orange opponents)? Would a Citrus bowl of Ohio State and Tennessee be for all the marbles? Well, no. Since our win-everything culture wants playoffs, they will eventually get them. But at what price? The only reason you have the bowl game system right now is because you essentially have the cash cow of four near-simutaneously Final Fours filling 80,000-seat stadiums with 20 other regionals nearly filling 50,000-seat stadiums. The NCAA doesn't really care about a championship, they care about $$$$. A playoff will only be considered when the potentitial revenues of a playoff will exceed the current revenues of the bowl system. Although the individual NCAA sports are usually entrusted to make their own playoff systems, they bascially follow a general template. All conference champions plus a smattering of conference runner-ups. The closest template would be the I-AA playoffs. Of the 14 I-AA conferences, they award automatic bids to 8. Two conferences, Ivy and SWAC, don't participate. The other 4 have either not been around long enough (Big South) or don't award scholarships and therefore aren't very competitive (MAAC, Northeast and Pioneer). Division I-A has 11 conferences, all of which award scolarships, so they would all have to get an auto-bid. If you went to a 12-team playoff, that would only leave one at large, so they would probably go to the full 16. I-AA plays all but the finals on a campus site, but I would guess I-A would be big enough that the first round would be on a campus site and the second round would be at a neutral site. The final four would probably be bid upon by the current bowls. Who are the 16? Well, you have your 11 conference champions: Kansas State (Big 12), Miami-Fl (Big East), USC (Pac 10), LSU (SEC), Florida St. (ACC), Michigan (Big 10), Utah (MWC), Miami-Ohio (MAC), Southern Miss (CUSA), Boise St. (WAC) and North Texas (Sun Belt). One of the at-large teams is easy - Oklahoma. The two loss teams -- Ohio State, Georgia and Tennessee -- are pretty easy as well. The remaining bid would probably go to Georgia, since two of their three losses are against LSU. The tourney would probably look a little bit like this:
Despite the obvious effort I put into this, I really don't care. Just play the stupid bowl games, and continue to complain about who is the best, because a playoff really doesn't solve it, either. Was Villanova the best team in college basketball in 1985? Nope, they just had a very good stretch at the end. Was the Michigan hockey team really the best team in 1998? Overall, 1997 was much better, they were unlucky that year and much luckier in '98. The original purpose for playoffs were to determine a winner between two leagues that never played each other (American v. National, East v. West in the NFL, NHA vs. PCHA in hockey). The only reason we have them now is for television and the league itself to have a big-money event. Don't believe the hype. | ||||
|
24 Nov 2003 If You Only Watch One Show This Year... I normally don't recommend what your viewing, listening or eating habits should be. However, I would highly recommend Arrested Development on FOX (9:30 EP/8:30 CM). Sick of the boring multi-camera setup? It's single camera film. Hate overly scripted dialogue? It's partially improvised. Like Ron Howard? He's the producer and narrator. Like a show where pretty much every character is detestable? Here's your show. Swing the other way? Liza Minelli has a recurring role. And FOX picked it up for the whole season, so you don't have to worry about it being yanked. They're even going to show a mini-marathon on New Year's Eve so you can catch up with what you missed. | ||||
|
12 Nov 2003 Lies, Damn Lies, and Ratings... "[NBC Research Chief Alan] Wurtzel argued that while adding young Hispanics made the sample more representative of the U.S. population, these new viewers were not watching television as much as counterparts in other demographic groups." -- AP Wire Story, 10-November-2002 I love it. The above essentially says "go back and make the data more favorable for us, even if it's wrong." I never understood why year after year NBC would get these boffo ratings for shows nobody ever seemed to watch. And now that the veil of truth is being lifted, we can't use more accurate data because it screws up year-to-year comparisons, rather than we should use this data because it better reflects reality. It sort of reminds me of when I worked for one of the federal goverment defense departments way back in the 90s. I spent a months working on better population models, but told to put them back to the flawed methodology because it won't make as many waves. So much for quality control. Of course, because the last thing you want is quality to get out of control. "Original raspberry Chipotle Dressing". I saw this monstrosity at a grocery store last week. This has to be the worst product naming since "Country Time Old-Fashioned Lemonade." Why yes, I remember my great-grandmother spending hours in front of the stove mixing the proper levels of raspberry and chipotle together, drying the peppers herself. Wait a minute, no I don't. Up until three years ago, nobody had ever heard of chipotle and the tyranny of raspberry had only just begin. It's like the Accident Fund commercial "you know you can order potato salad with your sushi but there's part of you wishing you couldn't." Not everything needs to be a flavor avalanche in every bite. | ||||
|
30 Oct 2003 I don't want a sequel... In 1997, I had a particularly bad six months on the job where I could have cared less what happened. About midway through the year, I changed my attitude and got back to doing good work. Right before the company moved to a new building, I was given management responsibilities. I tried my best, but I was probably too young (just turned 28), I ended up working for an absolute jerk, had an absolute horrible April of 1998 where I saw myself traveling to Maryland, Nashville on way too little sleep and ended up going nuts when my grandmother died. I quit my job the day of the funeral, mainly because I was such an emotional wreck I needed to decompress. In 2002, I had a particularly bad six months on the job where I could have cared less what happened. About midway through the year, I changed my attitude and got back to doing good work. Right before the company will move to a new building, I was given management responsibilities. I didn't ask for them this time, though. In a span of two weeks, two of our VPs quit and our company has been Anschlussed by business types, and I was sort of told we "need a hero at this time". In April of 2004 I'll be traveling to Boston, Chattanooga and St. Louis. I have no real conclusions here, but just a humble request. Bear with me because the next year of my life, no matter what I do or how I handle it, it's really going to suck. | ||||
|
27 Oct 2003 I really don't want Sparks nor Jane Wiedlin moving here... One of the biggest pushes by our foreign-born governor (hey, we did it first!) is to have "cool cities. The gov thinks that we are losing our best and brightest to cities like Austin, Chicago, New York, Seattle, San Francisco, etc. because Michigan just isn't the "coolest" place to work. I, for one, hope this fails. Miserably. Why? Several reasons:
| ||||
|
26 Oct 2003 Really bad pun alert... "Choosy spellers choose gypped." -- Me, when asked today how to spell gypped. Yes, I know it's an ethnic slur, and I explained after the pun why a different word should be used. MLB teams are slowly but surely releasing their schedules. 21 of the 30 have done it, so I can almost figure out the interleague play scenario for 2004. Series which are not official (but a reasonable guess) are in italics::
Of all the places in the World I would have seen my first woman-on-woman romantic kiss, Michigan Stadium was way down on my list. But, for better or for worse, that was taken care of on Saturday. The Are You Entitled page has been updated to reflect those wacky Florida Marlins. | ||||
|
21 Oct 2003 To whom it may concern... Montréal Canadiens 1260 Rue de la Gauchetière Ouest Montréal, PQ H3B 5E8 Dear Canadiens:  I work in the press box at the University of Michigan for their hockey team. All told, there are eight of us who perform various duties in order to be the best official scoring team we can be. The main way we do our job is to read the numbers off the sweaters. It's just more efficient than working with names. While watching a broadcast of your team against the Detroit Red Wings on 20 October, I became very concerned (please refer to attached example). How does your team, sitting in a perch beyond the second deck of the Bell Canada Centre, read those numbers? I could barely read them on the TV. Are they easier to read in French?I am asking you in all decency to go back to your old, much easier to read numbers. Even though I only work in the U.S. collegiate game, these teams tend to follow the trends the NHL teams use. For example, Michigan's numbers are of the same typeface as the Colorado Avalanche, a font where the threes and fives are incredibly difficult to discern when the players are travelling at any form of speed. It is your duty as one of the standard bearer franchises of the hockey world to be a shining example and have numbers that can be quickly discerned. Allez le Habs, Mike Burger Attachment: Richard Zednik | ||||
|
17 Oct 2003 Cheers and Jeers... Cheers: To the Marlins. Thank You. Thank You. Thank You. May the Cubs continue to be haunted for another 95 years. Cheers: To Al Leiter. You have a career after baseball. You will be the standard bearer of baseball analysis for a generation. Jeers: To FOX. Al Leiter will not be used for the World Series. Again, I am positively amazed how time and time again Tim McCarver manages to get jobs calling baseball when he is clearly the most annoying sports TV personality since Howard Cosell. At least Howard had something interesting to say, even though he couldn't convey it very well. Oh Deion, why didn't you use acid?
Jeers: To whoever in the 80s did the drywalling on what is now my basement. Were you paid by the nail? Hopefully, by January, it will look nice. | ||||
|
15 Oct 2003 Dumber than Wyoming... According to the "Education State Rankings" from Morgan Quinto press, Michigan is the 20th smartest state. It's a sweep for New England, as Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire are 1-2-3 while 48-49-50 are Mississippi, Nevada and New Mexico. What frosts my Kelvinator is that Wyoming is 14. Nope, sorry, wrong. You have to be dumber than a post to want to live in Wyoming. Why does VH-1 Classic give plugs to shoe companies for their VJs (all two of them)? You can never see the shoes. That's the worst product placement ever. You see bumper stickers for "a world without war." Other people envision a world without child abuse. Lionel Hutz cowered from the thought of a world without lawyers. However, I envision a world without marketing. No telemarketers. No junk mail. No commercials. No spam. I would gladly pay $100 a month for this, since the lower cost of products would certainly make up for this. Think of all the trees we would save. Newspapers would be 40% the size, magazines 20%. We would be spared made up days like "Separation Saturday." What the hell was that? Are we finally celebrating the break up of families? Was I supposed to go out and separate a shoulder (nearly done during drywall removal). It was a day of college football, no more, no less. | ||||
|
29 Sep 2003 It's been a slow month... Funniest commercial in a long time Nobody wins in the American League. Why? In one series, you have Oakland vs. Boston, teams run by two stathead GMs. As much as one can think baseball can be run by numbers, you also can't run baseball by numbers alone. In prior years, Oakland has been a bust in the playoffs, proving that you need a little more than just a stathead team to make it to the World Series. However, this year, one of them will have to at least make it to the ALCS. There's no choice. They have to. And to keep them out of the World Series, you either have to root for Satan himself, the Yankees or root for the Twins, who are only popular to the home folk when they're winning (division winning teams should not be in the bottom half of the attendance standings). And then the National League. You have the Cubs. I hate the Cubs. I Hate hate hate hate hate the Cubs. Hate them. Hate every simpering stupid vacant "we're so cool" aspect of them. Hated the sensibility that "we're so deserving because we've lost for so long". Hated the implied insult to baseball that the world would be somehow poorer without the Cubs. I'm so impressed how you traded for 11 players in midseason and won the division by beating the teams you took their players from. ESPN.com's RPI standings has the Cubs behind the Expos. They're not fraught, they're fraud. And then there's the Braves. Pitiful we've won 12 division titles and all we have to show for it is one World Series. Will you shutup and start sucking already (come back Biff Pocoroba, all is forgiven). And then there's the Marlins and Giants. As much as it warms my heart to see a once-Dave Dombrowski-lead team rise from the ashes of sell-off to playoffs in five years (I can wait until 2008), they are owned by Expo-ruiner Jeffrey Loria. The Giants. They have the greatest player of my generation. They have Felipe Alou. They have 87-year-old catcher Benito Santiago. They're the team statheads love to hate, since they play the players stat-heads don't understand like Ray Durham and J.T. Snow. They survived Neifi Perez starting 60 games. Go Giants! However, as much as everyone was excited about the pennant races, to me it was a disappointing season. Not enough comedy. Only one fielder pitched (Wiki Gonzalez of the Padres). No non-catcher was forced to catch. At least Robin Ventura played a game at second and Doug Mintkiewicz an inning at second and third. What happened to the good old days of Jose Canseco pitching, Mike Greenwell catching and Kevin Mitchell playing shortstop? | ||||
|
9 Sep 2003 One ringy-dingy, two ringy-dingies... I am going to rant about the phone company. I realize I'm preaching to a choir here, but it's gotten ridiculous. The story goes that shortly after <Insert Swoop Sound> The Blackout <Five Note Fanfare in a Major Chord>, a shocking development occurred when some construction workers, trying to actually fit in some work in between breaks, cut through a major phone line, knocking most of my part of Ann Arbor out of the phone world. It was out for 2 days, so I figure I was in for a two day credit on my phone bill. After going through a six e-mail, two phone call exchange to just to see my bill, I see that the credit was not there. So, off I go to call After getting intial information, such as my account number, she then said the following line (paraphrased, since in my blinding rage I cannot recall the exact wording): "Do you give permission for SBC to access your phone service for the purposes of offering you products from SBC or their affiliates?". So flummoxed about what I heard, I had her read it again, now having my "If it wasn't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college" moment. She read it again, and I tersely answered no. I am trying to get a $2 credit on my phone bill, I'm not trying to buy anything. She also mentioned she couldn't find my repair order, which was odd, because I both called it in and sent it in to the website. She then put me on hold, either to check with her supervisor or complete the three-way in the next cubicle. When she came back, she told it me it would take 1-2 billing cycles for this credit to appear. She then began to hustle me because my local toll calls were not with them (they're with the Sprint, I get 50 free minutes with my cell phone). I told her I did not appreciate being hustled. She continued the pitch, mentioning "I'm only trying to help you with your bill." No you're not, you're shilling. When she finally stopped, she asked me how I would rate SBC service from 1-5, with "5" being the best. I stated a 2. She then rotely read her script with all the sincerity of a People's Golden Global Choice Awards presenter on how disappointed SBC is that I would rate them so low and they will try harder. It is appalling to me that SBC takes a normal service call and turned it into a reverse-telemarketing session. Of course you have large call volumes, you spend more than half your time trying to bamboozle your customers into things they don't want instead of being a "service" center. Why do large companies never realize the big picture -- by not sending me off a cliff over a $2 credit, they wouldn't be risking my business. I'm at an income level now where I would rather have the excellent service over the price, and now the hunt will go on for that service. For more phone company phun, Go here. | ||||
|
26 Aug 2003 Jousting with MLB windmills... If you care about MLB scheduling, read this. Otherwise, read something else. | ||||
|
25 Aug 2003 Fifty-Seven-Six-Four party's over, oops, time to flee. We're going to party like it's 5763... Why diversity, double-checking and general knowledge are good things. | ||||
|
22 August 2003 Every Goal Matters... I know we've been gripped in Pan-Am Games fever the last couple of weeks, so I thought I would show you one of the more intriguing competitions that you may have missed while enraptured with water polo, namely pool A of the Men's Field Hockey competition. The teams in this group are Argentina, Chile, USA and the Dominican Republic. The first day of competition sees Chile and USA play to a scorless deadlock while Argentina routs the Dominicans 30-0. The next day, Argentina defeats the USA 4-0 while Chile struggles against those plucky Dominicans, winning only 25-0. So on the third day, the USA must out goal-differential Chile by 29 in order to make the medal round. Argentina scores only one goal against Chile, but that's all they need to make the needed goal-differential +28. Unfortunately, USA could only muster 23 goals and miss out on medal play. Argentina ended up winning the gold against Canada, giving up only one goal in the entire tournament during their semifinal 5-1 victory over Cuba. USA ended up finishing fifth, defeating Barbados 2-1 and Trinidad+Tobago 3-2. The DR failed to score in either of their two placement games either, losing to Trinidad+Tobago 22-0 and Barbados 13-0. They also actually have a Men's Softball competition as well, which was won by Canada. And they have demonstration sports, of which Men's Inline Hockey was won by USA, played in a 200-seat basketball gym using plywood boards. With a 10-7 loss last night, the Tigers have eked under the Throneberry Line again. I said to myself, it's sad they wasted 7 runs, since that would win them most games, including the last three. Similarly, if you're going to give up 10, you might as well score 0, you've done that enough. So I thought, if you could optimally align their runs scored and allowed, what would be their record. So:
| ||||
|
18 August 2003 Don't Believe the Hype... So we've heard story after story on how everybody got along and coped with aplomb <Insert Swoop Sound> The Blackout <Five Note Fanfare in a Major Chord> of 2003, brought to you by SBC, who reminds you that you will not be getting a discount for your missed DSL time during the outage. Well, to quote Colonel Potter, horse hockey. Southwestern Wayne County got their power back at 9. The news reports this. Gas stations in the area open up. People drive from outside of the area to those stations. They run out of gas. People go nuts. My area got power back at 12:30. By 12:40, I'm driving to work to make sure our customers (including The Irregular Hexagon of the Yellow Satan) have our data. Already, at the three gas stations I pass on the drive to work, lines. My cousin works in the food service industry at a chain establishment known for boasting of their lack of rules. Well, most of the Detroit area (not Ann Arbor, however) is under a boil water advisory due to a valve failing and pumping sewage into a water supply. So, my cousin and his compatriots had to make some rules: no salads (can't wash the lettuce), drinks will be one 20-ounce bottle (no refills) and there obviously is no drinking water. According to sources close to my cousin, there was incessant complaining and unruly demands for discounts, refunds, etc. Look, people, just because you are having it a bit difficult doesn't mean the place down the street is some sort of paradise where everything works. You might have to eat Spaghetti-Os warmed on your grill for a couple of days. You can make it a week without eating out. My great-great-great grandmother came over from Germany with nothing. Literally. They had to throw everything over to keep the boat from sinking. You know what I blame this on? Lack of camping. When I was a teenager, I had at least two weekend-long camping trips a year, in which we managed to survive without electricity of any kind. This wasn't even the longest blackout I've been in, since I've had two two-day experiences in my youth as well. If you're not adequately prepared to spend a few days surviving on what nature has given you, there's little reason for you to be in this gene pool anyway. Another Final Four... Saturday was our yearly softball tournament for the various Co-Rec leagues in Ann Arbor. Our first game at 9:30 AM ended up being a forfeit when our opponents failed to have enough women for the game to count (they only had 3, you need 4). So, we scrimmaged them. Being the extra player, I attempted to Shane Halter my way through the game, falling just seven positions short, but getting time at 3rd (made an error), 1st (used my non-glove arm to stop an errant throw) and left (getting my first OF assist since little league), and completing the Shane Halter experience, striking out. It's off on a road trip (well, to the other side of town) for Game #2. This other team had the first game off, so they were allegedly better since they had the bye. In the second inning, our catcher made a nice play to first, throwing well enough to get the runner despite the runners body clearly on the wrong side of the foul line. I asked the umpire if he would have called him out if the ball had hit the runner. He said possibly. Here's why when you see a manager/coach talking to an ump/ref, they're going for a future call. Next inning, same thing happened, except this time the ball did hit the runner, we got the call. The patented AMG collapse fell short as we blew an 8-1 lead and won 8-6, instead of losing the game like we did 4 times this year. Game #3, the semi-final, had a different issue. They had "the softball guy". You know him. Probably plays on 5 different leagues. Is still stunned he never made the Major Leagues. Treats this like his job depends on it. In the second inning, he nearly got run out of the game for arguing a foul ball call. In the third inning, he was called out for verbal interference when he screamed at our second baseman when she was catching the ball for a force on him, turning it into a double play. I twice heard him audibly say "miss it" on a fly ball from the coaching box. Lovely sportsmanship. In honor of Darren McCarty, I shook everybody's hand on the team but his after our 6-4 loss. | ||||
|
15 August 2003 Dancing in the Dark, to the Radio of Love... Unless you've been in a media black hole, you know that my area decided to shrink everybody's electric bill by 2% by having a mandatory no power day. I was personally out until 12:30 on Friday with the DSL out until 3:30. Whether it was Ohio's fault or the workings of Jean Chréien's Magic Lightning, it made for an interesting day. I was at work, demonstrating a program to a VP when the power jumped twice then went off. We've had this kind of fun at work before since our building is not very stable and have had several power outages. But I immediately noticed this was a bigger problem, since the traffic signal outside my office was out as well. Now you're freaked. Why would the power go out on a sunny day at 4:10 in the afternoon. Most cell phones were out, but mine was working as I frantically called anyone who might know anything. I really did want to think the worst, but it's hard not to. Finally, I got a hold of someone outside of the blackout zone, who fed me some initial news of which I was very thankful. I also managed to get an internet connection going out of our backup power in our office, and found out it was not sinister. By the way, natural gas makes a great backup power system. Your allmusic.com experience was not lost due to the magical hydrocarbon. Dumbest Question Heard From a Reporter: "DTE Energy has several coal plants and one nuclear plant. How come we can't use those instead?" -- an unidentified reporter to the CEO of DTE Energy. Meal of Choice: Cocoa Puff cereal bars. It was a fine dinner and a dandy breakfast this morning. Fortunately, it didn't have to be a third meal. Ironically, the Powersauce episode of The Simpsons is on right now. Media Moments: For a while yesterday, I was able to get FOX 8 out of Cleveland on my 2 inch TV, something I've never done before. The local stations that have news, the FOX, NBC and ABC stations, have pretty much been on the air non-stop with local coverage, with our coat-hanger CBS affiliate going with national coverage until 8 PM. A one section version of the newspaper made it to the house around noon, unfortunately it's just about the blackout. If I was doing it, I would have done a condensed set of features, I think everyone was pretty aware of the blackout. Because of the radio consolidation, most station groups decided to keep just one station on, with the Tigers making their first appearance on an FM station. The sucking sounds much better in stereo. What They Don't Tell You to Have in Your Emergency Kit: Clean underwear. I was on my last pair. What I'll never understand: The rush for gas once the power came back on. The power was back on. You don't need the gas so bad anymore. | ||||
|
11 August 2003 Just wondering...
Anyway, on that day my father decided I can now hold the boxes of all of the family pictures. I don't know why it had to be that day, maybe it's a closet space thing. I looked through some of them last night and felt a little sad that there are unlabelled pictures at least 100 years old that will never have names placed to them. Strangely, also in there was my father's and his siblings bills from the hospital when they were born. My father was born in 1941 and my grandmother was in the hospital for 9 days. Including time and ancillary services, the bill came to? I'm sorry, you overbid. You overbid again. Sorry, it was $86.50. The average salary of the U.S. worker at the time was $2,000. This would fall roughly in line with my Grandfather, who was a Ford worker at the time, whose wage went from 90-95 cents to $1.20 during the 1941 strike. So, the medical bill of my father's birth was 4.3% of my Grandfather's gross pay. I can't get a reliable figure on what it would cost today, hospitals and insurers are loathe to disclose their actual rates since it may (gasp) cause comparison shopping, but estimates I saw said about $2,000 a day. Nine days in a hospital would be $18,000. If you have insurance, it would be down to about $1,800 while an HMO would have it much lower, since it would be just copays. Ford workers now make in the $40,000-$50,000 depending on overtime. So, it would still be around 4-5%, since the Ford workers would have insurance, but the difference would also be that it would be unlikely that a nine day stay would be necessary. | ||||
|
2 August 2003 Beat this, sucker You think your last 25 hours is bad, try beating this. You can't. Alright, you could die. But that would be about it.
| ||||
|
23 July 2003 The trip travelouge is finally up! | ||||
