Another goal in life achieved

I have set a few trivial goals in my life. Some that are obvious (own a home) and others that are trivial and fun (run a marathon, become a single digit handicap golfer). While this wasn't really a goal, as a youth I often dreamed of being an athlete. Part of that dream included being seen in magazines such as Sports Illustrated. Today that dream was partially realized as I found myself in a crowd shot celebrating the Celtics recent championship. I have not been able to find the photo online and will post it if I do. For those of you who subscribe, you can play Where's Waldo, looking for me on page 30-31. Next up, meet a President of the US or play a round at Augusta National......

Random musings from last week's Celtics game

While in line for a popcorn last week at the Celtics game I was asked by the vendor if I wanted the "Big" popcorn or the "Really Big" popcorn. I told him that I wanted the large one and he proceeded to try to give me the "Big" or small one. This led to a funny exchange with the vendor where we joked about what constitutes large. My point is that with 2 choices one should be called small and one should be called large. To put this in context, the "Big" popcorn was actually smaller than a movie size small. While foolish marketing has led us away from the traditional Small, Medium, Large model (to the Big, Bigger, Biggest), is it really too much to ask to have the vendor know what I am talking about when I try to order a large popcorn? I am calling for an across the board adopting of no more than 3 sizes for any items with the designation of Small, Medium, and Large (regardless of size) If there are only two items I am calling for a Small and Large designation. All in favor say "Aye"

At the same Celtics game, I noticed WEEI personalities Glen Ordway and Pete Shepard sitting court side at the game. I became a bit disturbed because my thought was that since they are members of the media that they more than likely should be sitting in the press box as opposed to court side. This is of course unless they bought the tickets themselves. As the tickets priced at a minimum of $1,000 per I am sure that this was not the case. In remaining true to my theme of everyone knows nothing, doesn't this constitute a huge conflict of interest? By accepting courtside seats to the game from the Celtics they are publicly showing that they are in the bag for the Celts. This unquestionably muddys up their objectiveness toward not only the Celtics but brings into question what favors they are accepting from the other teams in town. In my opinion, this is completely unprofessional and illustrates the fact that in our media culture almost everyone is selling out to be a part of the story as opposed to reporting on the story. If you are going to go in the tank for the Celtics and take the tickets, at least have the intelligence to take a pair of good Loge seats as opposed to sideline seats in order to show some discretion. As a side note, aren't there also either corporate policy issues and/or tax issues here as well as the tickets to the game are valued at over $1,000 a pop and have to be constituted as a gift? Someone from the IRS, please get on this.

Great finds

Sorry for the lack of posts this past week but One Man on an Island was actually on an island. Now that i am back I wanted to drop a couple of video recommendations out to all. The first one is a website called Hulu.com. Hulu has a number of current Fox and NBC shows that are posted on here weekly as well as a number of classic shows (Hill Street Blues (greatest theme ever), Miami Vice, In Living Color, Fantasy Island, etc) as well as current shows such as my current favorites, Hell's Kitchen and Family Guy. These can be viewed in clips as well as entire episodes with truly minimal commercials. While on this site I was looking for my all time favorite made for TV movie that unfortunately has never made it to DVD, The Jericho Mile. It was Michael Mann's first directorial effort. If you have ever seen it (perhaps on the old Providence Dialing for Dollars afternoon movie or on Channel 38's Dana Hersey's "The Movie Loft") you must agree that it is the greatest TV movie of all time as well as a top 5 guilty pleasure film. The cast includes Peter Strauss, Brian Dennehy, Roger Mosley (TC from Magnum PI), and Richard Moll (Bull from Night Court). Sadly it was not on the site. I did however find the final scene on youtube today (I have been looking for it for years). If you have seen the movie feel free to enjoy.




While on the subject of great underrated closing scenes, I also offer for your consideration the closing scene from "The Contender". This is a great political film that may have been a few years before it's time. Considering our current political climate as well as the media driven world we live in I think another look at this film today would be worth everyones while. I find the speech in the closing scene especially relevant today. Jeff Bridges is unquestionably the best president on film to date. I would vote for Jackson Evans today if he existed and sure as hell would have voted for him in 2000 when the film came out. Come to think of it, we would have been better off if we voted for Jeff Bridges in 2000. This film receives personal nominations for "Best President in a Film as well as "Best Closing Scene". It also receives a nomination for "Best Dedication" as the film was dedicated to "Our Daughters" which is mildly gay but considering the subject matter and the fact that I have 2 daughters seemed to resonate with me.



Feel free to reply with any "non-obvious" best closing scene suggestions or underrated great films.

Deal.............or no Deal

Two weeks ago I was clicking through the channels on a Friday Night and came across a prime time version of "The Price is Right". Needless to say I ended up watching the whole show and was mesmerized when a young girl won $1,000,000 during one of the games. here

While watching it I was reflecting on how much I always liked the show when I was younger (I would watch it if I was home from school). I love the theme song and the colors. Drew Carey has turned out to be a great. As a side note, I also love the Baba Booey parody for both the main theme here as well as the "losers" version of the theme. here An even funnier visual of this can be found here

In any event I love the show because it is enjoyable to watch, has good tunes, and you can play along at home. What is great about the girl winning the Million is that you get great anticipation, a great payoff, and great human emotion in 10 seconds. This is everything that you can ask for in a game show. When I asked my friends at the gym is they saw "The Price is Right" (TPIR) they all laughed at me, shocked that I would even ask such a question. It upset me because TPIR is a good show and no one would ridicule me if I asked them if they saw "Who wants to be a Millionaire" when it had its run or "Deal or No Deal" today. This brings us to the rant of the day.

In looking at the recent Neilson ratings I was shocked to find out that besides the fact that Dancing with the Stars finished 4th for the week with almost 20M viewers (this deserves its own post), Deal or No Deal was 20th with 10M viewers. Now I ask you who are the 10M people who are watching this show and more importantly why? For a whole hour you get Bald Howie asking some yahoo to pick a case number and then deliver a ridiculous pause before saying "Open the Case". He then gets on an absurd fake phone call from a phantom banker who he pretends to have a conversation with:
"Hello"
"Really"
"Wow"
"OK"
Again, this is a fake conversation. THERE IS NO BANKER!!! He then tells the idiot contestant how the banker was upset about the offer and then he asks the dummy "Deal..........or No Deal". That's the show. Are you kidding me? First of all, after giving it some thought, why is anyone watching a show where someone picks a case. That should be the name of the show...Pick a Case. It is absurd. Secondly, much like "The Moment of Truth" on Fox I don't see the value in dragging each "opening of the case" out for 10 minutes. The Price is Right gets 6 games, 2 wheel spins and a showcase showdown in an hour. Shouldn't this be the goal? Regardless of the pace, the entire premise is ridiculous. The show has even Jumped the Shark by introducing celebrity mentors, that A-Hole, Trump, as the Banker, and has gone as low as to use Star Wars characters is place of the Case Babes.

Howie......"Boba Fett....Open the Case"

This is insanity. It is a show about someone opening a case. Now I understand the the intended value is in watching the people struggle with decision to quit or play but if that is the case why not make the action more appealing than "Open the Case". It seems as if this show is really a watered down version of Howard Stern's "It's Just Wrong". Why not just have a show where you offer someone $50 to kick them in the nuts or taser them. If they say no, offer them $100. etc, etc. This would more than likely be significantly more entertaining than what we get from "Deal....or No Deal" as at least my intelligence wouldn't be insulted while offering the same human conflict around walking away from the cash in return for tangible penalties.

After doing some research I am sad to say that this should is about to be syndicated daily in the US and is shown in just about every country in the industrial world. here As I was writing this, about 1/2 through I wasn't sure where I was going with it. I just knew that I was enraged that this show is a hit and is making a lot of people a lot of money. I was completely baffled. How can 10M people a week watch this show? But then I found this , and it became clear and now I understand. I am not like everyone else.

I am one man on an island.

Keep America Beautiful and other recycling thoughts

Make no mistake about it, I am a recycling Nazi. Ever since my first visit to Prince Edward Island where even recycling compost out of your trash is mandatory, I have been fully committed to recycling. Upon reflection, I just don't understand why anyone wouldn't recycle. If you are going to take the pizza box and put it in the trash can, what difference is it to put it in the blue box instead. The truth is it doesn't take an change in behavior to recycle (unlike littering 30 years ago) as, for the most part, everyone now throws their trash away. Thankfully, rarely do we see anyone litter anymore as that practice has evolved into being socially irresponsible. I am not sure why the lack of recycling hasn't had the same negative association (perhaps because litter is obvious where as if you throw away recycled goods, no one can see it). However the practice of stopping littering, more so than recycling, did take a change in behavior. So perhaps there is hope. One of the larger drivers toward stopping littering during the initial environmental movement in the 1970's is of course the famous 1971 PSA Keep America Beautiful seen here.

A couple of thoughts on this PSA. First of all, Chief Iron Eyes Cody, the actor portraying the Indian is not even Native American. The guy is Sicilian. He was a child actor who was pegged to be an Indian. Over time he not only denied he was Italian (claiming to be part Cree/part Cherokee) but changed his name from Espera (Tony) de Corti to Chief Iron Eyes Cody. Side note: How great is it that he decided to make himself a Chief? He could have just been a member of any tribe but decided on Chief. He also completely fulfilled the vision by adopting several Native American children as well. Secondly, upon reflection, shouldn't this really be a PSA for racial tolerance. It appears to met that perhaps the "Chief" may be actually crying because some redneck just whipped a MacDonald's bag at the guy while driving down the freeway. You decide, Racial attack or common littering? Also, please note that side links on this site include a sequel commercial where the "Chief" cries again after riding his horse to another freeway (note that he has gone to elevation perhaps to avoid future racial taunts). and also note the 1970's Kool-Aid commercial as well which in addition to being a-whole-nother post is just classically funny.

But I digress....

Since my revelation, I am conscious of waste. One of the most notable forms of waste is getting 9 million plastic bags from Wal-Mart and/or the supermarket, post purchase. Wal-Mart is perhaps the most egregious in this practice as they have that bag wheel that easily allows them to put a single item in each and every bag. I have chosen to forgo bags whenever necessary and just carry the items out of the store by hand which often results in odd looks and questions from the check out clerk. Most often, when after asking for the items in no bags, the clerk doesn't seem to understand the request, puts the first item in the bag, is told again "no bag please", proceeds to ask me if I am sure or makes a face at me as they pull the item out of the bag. I have also embraced the cloth bag for my supermarket purchases. Beyond the fact that it eliminates the need for both the paper and plastic bag, the best part of the cloth bag is that you can get more items in each bag and they are much easier to carry as they have a strap. I am able to get all of my groceries into my house after shopping in some times a single trip. I am not sure as to why they have not been adopted at a greater rate as they not only are a better environmental option but improve the end user experience as well.
The bags are cheap and can bought at your local supermarket or better yet, here

Lastly, and the main reason for this post is my outrage at the waste I see at the supermarket regarding my receipts. Every time I shop I have to wait 5 minutes for the 8 foot long receipt to come out of the supermarket cash register followed by the two small credit card slips. While I understand the need for receipts to validate purchases why can't supermarkets adopt a model where the receipt is optional? I can't believe that NCR can't make a cash register that allows you to choose whether you want a receipt or not at checkout. We also know that there are systems that record transactions and you only need to re-swipe your credit card to have the transaction be recalled by the system without a receipt (Lowes and Toys R Us are two stores where I have recently made returns without receipts). I understand that there are infrastructure and database costs associated with this, but what kind of item would you possibly return at a supermarket any later than 2 days after purchase? You would make the return more than likely immediately after putting the groceries away (leaky milk, crushed fruit, etc). Because these are short term and low cost items I have to imagine that you could would only need a small database as you could clean out transactions after two weeks as it is unlikely groceries would be returned after that time. Better yet, why not adopt a policy where you accept every return without a receipt. I am sure you can make the business case that would show accepting all returns would cost less that the cost of delivering 2 foot long paper receipts to your customers with every purchase. I think that this is again a process that needs to be improved as it adds business value, shopping experience value, and environmental value.

Housekeeping updates...What defines a kick and follow up to the last post

There has been continuous controversy at my gym for the past 6 weeks around what constitutes a "kicked" ball during our basketball games. I was asked to address this in a blog post and after researching the NCAA 2007 rule book here (Rule 4 section 43)

A kick is defined as "Kicking" the ball is striking it intentionally with any part of the leg or foot. Accidentally striking the ball with the foot or leg shall not be a violation. The National Federation of State and High School Associations shares the same definition. Interestingly enough, if a player is squeezing the ball between his legs during a scrum in an effort to keep an opponent from getting the ball this is deemed a kick as he is trying to gain an advantage by using his legs.

The second bit of housekeeping pertains to my last post about the capabilities of a child. A journalist from the NY Sun gave her 9 year old $20 and a subway map and told him to get home from midtown Manhattan and wrote about it. The premise is similar to the one I floated in my post.

Here is the article she wrote.
Here is an article about the response she received after writing the piece.

Back in my day I walked 3 miles to school, in the snow...

I am currently watching the John Adams mini series on HBO. (Highly recommended). As I am watching it I was reminded of the speech I saw David McCullough give at a corporate event regarding history. He was speaking of the difficulties people faced in the 1700's and was talking specifically about the Adams family. While John Adams was participating in the Continental Congress in Philadelphia he would write letters to his wife Abigail regularly. The task of picking these letters up in Boston fell to his son, John Quincy, who I believe was 9 or 10 at the time. J.Q. would get on his horse and ride alone from what is now Quincy to Boston and back. This is about 10-15 miles each way on dirt roads. See here

What struck me about this story is that in today's culture we are very hesitant to let our kids do anything by themselves presumably because we feel that the world around them is unsafe. At 9 years old we rarely leave a child home alone while we go out for errands. We live 1/3 mile from my daughters school and only now are we just letting her walk home alone. When mentioning this to some friends they told me that when they were 10 they would get on the T and ride into Boston and sneak into Celtics and Bruins games but they wouldn't let their kids do the same today. Many parents site the fact that today's world is more dangerous that the one that we lived in 30 years ago. Is this true?

My theory on this is that it is not true. That the world we live in today is no more dangerous that the one we lived in 30 years ago and certainly less dangerous that the one that J.Q. Adams lived in 230 years ago. It is only the perception that today is more dangerous than yesterday. My guess is that proportionally to the population there are no more violent criminals or child abusers now than there were 30 or even 230 years ago. Recent statistics suggest that crime has been decreasing (although I don't put a ton of faith in stats) here You just hear about the case that do occur wherever they may occur on a regular basis. Local new no longer reflects local stories. All you see are sensationalized accounts of negative stories that happen globally not locally. Since the distinction is never made with any conviction that the story is not happening in your town, we assume that danger is all around us when in most cases it is not. The truth is that today's 9 year old is just as capable as J.Q. Adams was 230 years ago. If the expectation is set that they needed to ride a horse 10 miles from Newburyport to Topsfield there is no doubt that they could accomplish the task for they are capable. So if they can do that then why can't they do common tasks, like their own laundry for example, around the house. The fact is that they can and more than likely they should but for whatever reason, we just don't expect them to do it and that lack of expectation ultimately short changes the kid.