It’s Sports, Not Fun

There were two articles in the Washington Post this morning that show a huge problem in the world of sports today.  The first was the front page article about excessive celebration penalties in youth football. I have no problem with rules regarding excessive celebration, but some of the “excessive celebrations” penalized were chest bumping a teammate and pointing to the sky.  That’s excessive?   Really?  We’re telling high school kids they are not allowed to have fun and show their emotion when something good happens on the field.  I guess we are so concerned little Johnny on the other team’s feeling might get hurt. We can’t have that.  We must quell all individuality so no one feels bad.  The next article was in the sports page and actually is a rule against taunting, but coaches fear individual referees will take the rule too far and penalize any show of emotion.   Add into this all of the rules that have turned the NFL into the No Fun League and what you have is a world of sports where emotion and personality are not welcome.   Adding to the problems in sports is a youth sports culture where kids learn from the beginning that it is all about wins, losses and in many cases the coach over the kids.  If these trends continue, I believe we will see many parents and kids deciding sports is just not worth the stress.   We need to get fun back into the world of sports.  After all, isn’t it still just a game?

Pop Culture Police

Yesterday, I came across this article from Kentucky about two librarians who decided they would refuse to give a tween a book because they decided it was “pornographic”.  Today, I decided to read Tom Shales, even though I don’t like him and think he should not write about TV when he seems to hate the medium, and see he is mad at Syfy for showing scary movies that could damage children.  It appears that we have regressed to the days of Tipper Gore when others have decided parents are too stupid, too apathetic or too busy to parent so they have to do it for them.  I am a parent and there are movies, books, etc. I consider inappropriate for my children, but I am the one to make that call.  Not everyone has the same values and beliefs.  You do not have the right to force yours on others.  If you don’t like it don’t read it, watch it or listen to it and have your kids do the same but don’t try to make others do the same.

UPDATE:  Just found this article via Google Reader: Someone crossing “dirty words” out of books in the library

The Demise of Drive Time Radio

When I lived in Cincinnati, I worked from my car and listened to the radio all day.  I spent most of those hours listening to WLW, finishing the day with the Gary Burbank Show.  When I first moved to the DC area I had an hour commute, but didn’t mind it so much because I could always find something to listen to on the radio.  I would listen to Jack Diamond in the morning and Don and Mike in the afternoon and enjoyed every minute of it.  Don and Mike are now off the air and Jack Diamond has not grown or changed at all in 15 years and does pretty much the same show every day.  These days, I have a 20-30 minute commute and spend most of it hitting radio buttons hoping to find something worth listening to on the drive.  Most days I don’t find it.  Baltimore radio is especially horrid, but DC is not much better.

My options on the morning drive are as follows:

Elliot in the Morning(DC101) – he’s almost listenable until he starts with his fake donkey sounding laugh
Jack Diamond(107.3) – I used to like him, but his show is the same every day. No growth at all in 15 years.
Jojo and Reagan(106.5) – likeable and funny, but a little to light and fluffy for me to do every day
Mickey and Amelia(98 Rock) – too annoying at all times.  I miss Kirk and Mark on 98 Rock
Ed Norris(105.7) – Interesting and usually what i choose, but goes too Baltimore local a lot and I don’t care about the topic
Sports talk – ESPN radio has too many commercials and the local Baltimore FOX channel airs the horrible Rob Long on instead of Steve Czaban

In the afternoon I like to listen to sports talk and 980 AM has the very entertaining Sports Reporters.  I always listen, but it is almost all Redskins talk.  Being a Ravens fan, I would like to listen to a Baltimore station, but my options are as follows:

Anita Marks – annoying, refuses to listen to differing opinions and too close to some players to be objective
Coleman – he’s OK, but insists on saying the station name, his name and the name of the person he is talking to every couple of minutes

There is nothing on the air close to being as entertaining and Don and Mike or Tony Kornheiser(who now airs while I am at work).  The music stations play the same songs over and over again and way too many commercials.  No wonder radio is dying.

Whip It: A Reviewlet

Unfortunately, I am now two days removed from seeing the movie, so my thoughts are not as fresh and easy to articulate as they would have been had I had time to write this earlier.

The good:  Ellen Page is very good in both the roller derby scenes and the scenes with her parents.  Daniel Stern and Marcia Gay Harden were perfect as the parents.  Kristen Wiig and Juliette Lewis were excellent as roller derby girls, Wiig as the mother figure to Page and Lewis as the villain.  Drew Barrymore was good in a small, comic relief role.  The roller derby scenes were well done and made me want to go see actual roller derby live.  The story was well written and didn’t have the pat Hollywood ending of everything being perfect at the end.

The bad:  The movie dragged in parts, especially in the scenes with Page and Landon Pigg, who played her love interest. I am a fan of  Alia Shawkat, but did not like her in the role of the best friend at all.

The verdict:  The good far outweighs the bad and this is a must see movie.

What I will Watch on TV Fall 2009

Here is my long overdue overview of what I think should be watched this TV season:

Monday night:  I will watch House and the CBS comedies as always.  I will try the new NBC show Trauma in hopes that it will be a good replacement for ER on my viewing schedule.  I will have to record encore episodes of Greek on ABC family now that I have too much to record on Monday nights.  Nothing else on the Monday schedule looks interesting.

Tuesday night: Possibly the worst night of TV of the week, I will only be watching Melrose Place and will either read or catch up on Tivo the rest of the night.

Wednesday night:  I will try Modern Family and Cougar Town – the two most promising new sitcoms this season. I might watch Hank and The Middle once because of the starts, but doubt they will stick.  I am already watching a loving Glee and will continue with that. I might give Mercy a try.

Thursday night:  Too much TV, too little Tivo – I will watch Survivor and Bones and try to record Flash Forward. I would love to try Vampire Diaries, but have no way to record it.  I will continue watching Grey’s Anatomy.  I know I should watch Fringe, but just didn’t find the time last season and will have to catch up on DVD.

Friday night:  Only Dollhouse and then Tivo’d shows after my kids are finished watching new Disney Channel shows.

Saturday night:  Nothing – Will watch Nick shows with my kids

Sunday night:  Will continue to watch Amazing Race and Desperate Housewives and football if it is a good game.

Eastern Travel Services/Megabus – A Review

I traveled to New York City from Baltimore this week on an Eastern Travel bus via Megabus.com.  The trip cost $10 round trip and this price plus all of the negative reviews on yelp made me very wary about what I would experience on the trip.  I left my house early Monday morning to make the trek to the Cherry Hill Light Rail Station to catch the 7:45 bus to New York.  I arrived at 7:10 and found just an empty street in front of the station with no signs directing me to the pick up location.  Before too long, however, a few more travelers arrived and I was satisfied that I was in the right place.  The bus arrived a few minutes before the 7:45 departure time and we were on the road right on time.  The bus wasn’t full, so I was able to head to the back and get two empty seats so I could stretch out and relax.  Two movies were shown on the drive and I had my books, so I was amply entertained.  There was some problem with the air conditioning for the first part of the trip, but it was came on about halfway through and we were comfortable for most of the trip.  The only downside of the Monday drive was the 20 minute rest stop at a service area in NJ which blew any chance we had to make NYC at the scheduled time.  They really need to add this time into the trip itinerary they have online.

The trip back to Baltimore was not quite as easy.  There was a representative from the bus company at the stop, but they didn’t do much to help the confusion of the mass of people waiting for two different buses to two different locations.  There also seemed to be some issues with the bus schedule being different than what was posted online, so we ended up with people with three different scheduled departure times on our bus.  I was able to board the 6PM bus that arrived at 6:25PM and we headed uptown. Unfortunately, even though the bus was almost full when we left Pike Street, we still had to go to 34th street and pick up a few more passengers.  There would be no empty seats on this bus.  We finally made it through the Lincoln Tunnel and into NJ where the traffic was light, but our bus driver drove very slowly and we were an hour past the scheduled drop off on Baltimore by the time we arrived. This caused problems for some passengers who planned to use the light rail to get to their actual destination but could not because the light rail was closed.  The trip itself was also not as pleasant. In addition to being not being able to stretch my legs, I also had no light for reading and only one movie was shown and that ended long before we got to Baltimore so I had several hours in the dark on a bus with nothing to do.

Overall, though, the bus was not a horrible experience and is well worth the small price you pay for the tickets.  I learned my lesson and will make sure I book a return bus for earlier in the day as NY traffic is miserable the later in the evening you get.  Also, traveling early gives me the daylight I need to read to pass the time.  Eastern is no worse than my experience on Greyhound, in some ways it was better and was much cheaper.  If you are taking the bus to NY.  I would definitely recommend Megabus/Eastern.

How Dare You Arrest a Thief!

I am watching the news and once again they were discussing this story http://www.wbaltv.com/news/20124542/detail.html about three kids who were arrested for stealing. The kids were stealing several items from a neighbor’s garage and were handcuffed and taken to juvenile detention when caught. The parents are outraged that their kids were treated this way. I don’t understand this outrage. The kids committed a crime. When you commit a crime, you go to jail. That’s the way life works. It’s better the kids learn this now and maybe get scared away from doing it again rather than getting away with it and deciding to do it again. If these were my kids I would want them to be handcuffed and taken to jail. I want them to see what happens when you break the law. It’s better to try to scare this behavior out of them early rather than wait until later when the crimes have escalated into something more serious. These parents need to wake up and see this was a good thing instead of sending their kids the message that the police are in the wrong here instead of them.

No more lazy summer days?

Last weekend, The Washington Post ran an op/ed piece extolling the virtues of year around school. Today there was a small piece in the same paper about what activities to do with your kids to keep them from falling behind or apparently being “lazy” over the summer. I guess the summer days of riding bikes, playing baseball or just hanging out with your friends like I had as a kid are now a bad thing that will prevent our kids from getting a good education and will lead to them being stupid, lazy and poor. I guess me and my friends were just lucky that we survived these horrible summers, made it to college and have good jobs.

What we are creating is a generation of kids who will not know relax or have fun. We will have a new generation of Type A, stressed out people and then we will wonder why road rage is getting worse, the suicide rate is up and people are snapping and lashing out at each other. Lazy summer days are not a waste of time. Lazy summer days are a time for kids to use their imagination, explore their world and learn how to relax. That’s just as important as what they learn in school.

There is also a push for year round school as a way to alleviate the daycare costs for people. When did school become free daycare? Why are we expecting the schools to raise our children? Free daycare is not a good reason to take away summer vacation.

My Take on FOX’s 2009/2010 Schedule

Fall:   Monday: House/Lie To Me – A good combination that should be a rating’s success.

Tuesday: So You Think You Can Dance – A guarantee I won’t tune into FOX that night, but will get some viewers.

Wednesday: SYTYCD/Glee – I am really looking forward to Glee, but have a feeling it will be a very good show no one will watch

Thursday:  Bones/Fringe – Another good combination but Fringe will get crushed in the ratings against CSI and Grey’s.

Friday:  Brothers/Til’ Death/Dollhouse – An odd combo that will likely result in even lower ratings for Dollhouse.

Saturday – Cops/AMW – Same old same old.  Nothing to see here

Sunday: – Animation night – Should hold it’s own against the others.  Can’t imagine any of them will be as good as The Simpsons

Spring:  Monday – House/24 – Even better ratings than the Fall

Tuesday – Amercian Idol/Past Life -  AI will dip and Past Life will not last the year

Wednesday – American Idol/Human Target/Glee – FOX should have waited to pair the premiere of Glee with AI. I can’t imagine Human Target and AI will have the same audience

Thursday – Sunday remain the same except for Sons of Tuscon on Sunday nights

What I will watch:  I will continue to watch House, Bones, Fringe and Dollhouse.  I think Glee looks great and will watch until it’s inevitable cancellation.  I will try Human Target because I try any show with Chi McBride.  I will try Sons of Tuscon because I love Tyler Labine on Reaper.  I expect I will like Glee and Human Target, but will hate Sons of Tuscon.s

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

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