Olympic Curling and My Civic Duty

For anybody who has been living under a rock for the past 12 hours, Fenton's team made history by taking the bronze medal in Men's Curling, the first Olympic medal the US has ever won in the sport (women's or men's). It's unlikely that this will live up to other great moments in the annals of the American Olympic experience like the Men's Baseball victory in Sydney or Paul Gonzales's gold in the light flyweight in Los Angeles. However, the sheer volume of the coverage (I swear every TV I've looked at for 2 weeks had people carrying brooms on it) will certainly do wonders to raise awareness of the sport in the Unites States. For a month or so, after which we'll forget it for 4 years. Kind of like figure skating with 44-lb stones.

In other words, on Wednesday I am fortunate enough to be able to travel down to Centre Street bright and early in order to personally ensure the proper functioning of our criminal justice system. I don't want to come out against the jury system, because that would be un-American, but it is amazing the kinds of things they let juries decide. Especially things like patent cases and drug safety cases. Do 12 people off the street in New Jersey really have the ability to determine if Vioxx was legally responsible for causing some guy's untimely death? Personally I don't view myself as capable of understanding either the law or the science behind such a case, and I almost have a chemistry minor. I think the reason this persists is...the people who could really judge are squarely in the drug industry's pocket. So, I guess this system is as good as any.

I am a bit intrigued about the whole thing, but from a "is it really as horrible a waste of time as people say" perspective. Any good ideas for things to do while waiting indefinitely in a cold, dank jury room?

MLB 2006 Preview

So pitchers and catchers has finally come, and we all get to trade in the monotony of arbitration numbers for the minutia of Tamba Bay's LOOGY's new dungball which won't see the light of day past Kissimmee.

That being said, it is not uncommon for me to hear the complaint that I adjust my baseball thoughts mid-season in order in accord with the prevailing winds, so as to make myself appear after-the-fact more accurate. With the majik of the instaweb, I can now prove to each and every one of one of you that I either know my stuff or am capable of finding websites that do. We'll run through standings and Wild Cards, the playoffs, and a few awards.

NL East:

1. Atlanta
2. Philadelphia
3. New York
4. Florida
5. Washington

The fact that Atlanta lost a few guys in the offseason doesn't affect the fact that I declared this year that I will pick them every year until they realize worse. Despite a top 5-10 MVP season from Howard, the Phils print but don't use playoff tix for the 3rd year in a row. steM easily break their own record for "Best 3rd Place Team in History". Marlins firesale v2 won't take them to their 3rd series until 2008. Nats fans, you will learn that Pythagoras is a vindictive bitch.

NL Central:

1. St. Louis
2. Houston
3. Milwaukee
4. Chicago

Unlike their East counterparts, this is the end of the run for an aging Cards team; I hope the new ballpark is nice. Houston is there as a placeholder; this Stros team has more what-ifs than the USA Men's Hockey Team. Milwaukee, 2007 World Series champs if they make the right moves next year. Cubs, one year away from moving to the irrelavant list with Cinci and Pittsburgh.

NL West:

1. Los Angeles
2. San Diego (WC)
3. Arizona
4. San Francisco
5. Colorado

Will be suprisingly strong division this year; I expect a 3-team race into September and a dead heat finish bringing the Dojers back to the playoffs. Arizona will be the suprise team in the NL - maybe their season will look like the Nats last year through August, except with a much better team. The Barry Bonds Show should be fun, in a "we didn't really like you when you were here and although we feel bad about it, we're also happy you didn't never won a World Series" kind of way. That will be a horrible, horrible baseball team, if I wasn't so lazy I might go back and switch em with the Rocks.

AL East:

1. Boston
2. New York
3. Toronto
4. Tampa Bay
5. Baltimore

Boston people, don't be too happy - the BOS/NYY rivalry is no longer relevant as including best teams in the league. The Rivalry is a spectacle of its former self, which was itself a spectacle...can you have a spectacle of a spectacle? I don't know, but both of these teams will have plenty of time to think about philosophy in late October. Rays most improved team in the AL - I would have put them in front of Toronto, but the Jays gave me a 5-year contract that prohibits me from doing so. O's will trade Tejada mid-season; STL? HOU? SD? I don't think they would trade within their division, so NL is most likely.

AL Central:

1. Cleveland (tie)
2. Chicago (tie - WC)
3. Minnesota
4. Detroit
5. KC

The best division in baseball, this year's version of the '05 NL East, with KC playing a rendition of the Nats that actually follows the law of large numbers. The White Sox Series was no fluke; only reason they don't run away with things is 3 of the top 6 teams in baseball are trapped in the old Norris. If Minnesota can keep all of their starters healthy, you have to give them a shot to make the playoffs. Even Detroit puts up a solid season; think 162 games similar to the first 60 games of 2005.

AL West:

1. Anaheim
2. Oakland
3. Texas
4. Seattle

When you have arguably the best hitter in baseball locked up long-term at a reasonable rate, and a rotation of above average innings eaters, you beat out a scrappy Oakland team by double-digits. That's a given. Washburn will be easily replaced by a stronger Erwin Santana and an underrated Jeff Weaver. I honestly don't know what to make of Texas, except that they will be closer to the A's than the M's. I'd probably buy them to win the division or Wild Card on Trade Sports, just because you get a lot of volatility in that trade.

For the awards, I'm listing who will be deserving according to me at the end of the year, not who the idiot writers pick.

AL MVP:

1. V. Guerrero
2. T. Hafner
3. M. Texeira
4. A. Rodriguez
5. M. Tejada

Watch for Thome, I want to have his name mentioned in here as a dark horse if the Sox do win the division.

NL MVP:

1. A. Pujols *stretch I admit*
2. J. Edmonds (on the chance they change the rules and Pujols isn't eligible)
3. B. Giles
4. R. Howard
5. J.D. Drew
6. J. Bay
7. A. Dunn

AL CYA:

1. Johan Santana *this is getting easy*
2. C.C. Sabathia
3. J. Vazquez
4. J. Westbrook
5. F. Hernandez (will be higher if his team wins 70 games)

NL CYA:

1. J. Peavy
2. R. Oswalt
3. B. Sheets
4. A. Pettitte
5. T. Hudson
6. P. Martinez
7. M. Prior
8. D. Willis
9. C. Carpenter
10. J. Smoltz
11. C. Zambrano

The top pitchers in the NL in 2006 will match up with the top pitchers in any league in history. The offshoot of this is a) there will be a bias in the press to say that the AL is better than the NL and b) it will be a lot of fun to watch. At the end of the year, any of these 11 would finish 2nd in the AL CYA. All awards ignore Clemens's possible return, but if forced, say #2 in the AL, #5 in the NL.

World Series: Cleveland over Atlanta, 5 games. 1995 avenged and all that.

That's it...let's see how it looks in October!

Olympic TV Viewership Blog Part I

For those of you who don't know, I tend to watch a lot of Olympic coverage. Currently, I have Ol Betsy (aka my DVR) set up to record all of the coverage on all channels (although it requires some manual intervention to avoid recording the same thing on say NBC and NBC HD). So far, since my watching of the event began (2:30 am yesterday), I have spent approximately 5 of 11 hours of my life watching, pausing only to sleep and post what you are currently reading.

I was pretty impressed with the show they put on for the Opening Ceremonies; they managed to put on quite a pageant without being overly hokey or commercialized. This morning, for anybody who missed the 20k individual biatholon (won by Michael Greis, beating out biathalon king Ole Einar Bjoerndalen by 16 seconds) it was your loss; it is a fantastic sport, even if only because it is one I know I could never do.

Among the multimedia following the event, the one thing I really with they had was a www.nbctimelagolympics.com. In other words, a site that pretended (much like the announcers do) that the events were being shown to us live. This way, you could get all the news you wanted without spoiling the prime-time events 6 hours in advance. Dorks, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't even think it's that hard to do...isn't there some kind of revert to a past time functionality that you could mirror the site to?

The Revolving Door continues

In a little noted news story, the White House nominated a new member of the Culture Ministry (aka the Federal Communications Commission): Robert M. McDowell. I was appalled.

We have heard about the love affair that the WH has had with nominating lobbyists to places the likely would not belong (eg Big Lumber lobbyist to the Forest Service, Christine Todd Whitman to the EPA), but I think this one may be the worst. According, Mr. McDowell is a senior vice president and assistant general counsel at the Competitive Telecommunications Association (CTA), meaning that he represents the likes of Cisco, Qwest, RCN and Tellabs. Notice that all of the verb in that sentance are in the present tense; Mr. McDowell is not taking any type of haitus between these two jobs. Forgetting that there is a precisely zero percent chance that he protects the public from the dangers of media conglomeration (lest we forget, the media is a public trust), one would also have to assume that he would not even fairly represent the Baby Bells, who are the CTA's sworn enemy.

While I am sure that McDowell is has excellent credentials, one would think that in the current climate, the WH would at least try to create a facade of independance in one of our nations key regulatory bodies. I truly believe they have no shame.

Since the game was marginal,

I thought it made sense to cover the coverage. Here is a group of random, unconnected points on how I think ABC fared. Remember...these guys paid several hundred million dollars for this thing, so by all rights it should have come off well.

In no particular order:

• It seemed to me like they didn't have Mick Jagger's mike turned up all the way. No it's not my setup - no chance the B&W's would let me down. A lot of people said they thought the Stones were horrible, but I think this was a big part of it.
• But for that matter...why not take a very slight chance? I mean the Stones following Paul McCartney is kinda like following vanilla ice cream with a slice of dry toast. You know who I pictured up there bringing the place down? Franz Ferdinand. But network execs wouldn't do that bc they are to afraid of the Gestapo...er...FCC
• I thought the studio portion of the halftime show was pretty decent, at least in comparison to the feeble effort these things usually are. Did anybody else see some tech intern with headphones get caught in the camera view for a second?
• The MVP of the game should have been that Steelers OG, #66, I think his name was Fannica. Props to Madden for giving the guy due.
• I liked bringing the former MVP's out before the game. The only similar, better gesture in recent memory was bringing out the All-Century Team during the All-Star Game at Fenway.
• I'm not sure I believe that the Ford Escape Hybrid really gets 36 MPH highway/31 city. If that is actually true, they should make all non-Hybrids illegal to make. The $3K for the feature pays for itself in a year!
• Did it seem to you like ABC had trouble selling all of those coveted $2.5mm Super Bowl Advertisements? They must have run like 20 promos for Grey's frickin Anatomy (the second season of which, by the way, is not even watchable. Add to that the rest of the promos. But then you have to remember ABC's corporate partners...Walt Disney corp didn't bring in any legit revenue for the ESPN mobile ads, the Disney World ads and my guess is most of the previews were produced by one of DIS's 300 studios. This reminds me of back in the day, when 2 POS internet companies would sell ads to each other and claim it as "revenue". I don't see how ABC made money on this game.
• For the paying customers, let me give you a piece of advice. Funny commercials can be good, but when they are all funny, they are easily forgotten. The 2 articles I remember are (as above) the Ford Escape w/ Kermit (not necessarily funny) and the ones for the new Escalade. Maybe the Big Dos are making a comeback.
• Probably my single pet peeve in all of sports coverage is when they talk to any coach for either team during the game. My favorite part of the game is how Cowher completely dissed the Michelle Tafoya-character at half-time. That dude deserves a ring.