The Worst Sportscenter Ever

As usual, I woke up shortly after 10 AM today and rolled out to eat some cereal and watch Sportscenter. However, instead of a normal, raucous show filled with last night's scores, sports highlights, and Scott Van Pelt doing his best Triumph the insult dog impersonation ("That's a nice pitch there, for me to POOP on!"), I had to sit through 15 minutes of coverage on Barry Bonds hitting #715, and then ten more minutes on the Indianapolis 500. It sucked. In fact it sucked harder than the 20 pages in Critical Mass that only talk about phase transitions for states of matter.

The only way I would care about either is if for some reason Barry Bonds wandered out onto the track during the Indy 500 and got hit by Danica Patrick, and her fire-retardant suit flew off in the process. Well actually, I wouldn't care, but I wouldn't mind seeing the video clip on Sportscenter.

So, with that in mind, here are a few of my suggestions to make both activities exponentially more interesting. I'll start with baseball:

• Allow corked bats, spitballs, pine tar, etc- They're already part of baseball lore, just make them part of baseball.
• Make steroids legal, if not mandatory- Just consider this scenario: Barry Bonds goes 2-2 off Kenny Rogers in his first two at-bats, hitting two homeruns over 500 ft. In response, Kenny Rogers goes on a "roid rage" and starts throwing 110 mph fastballs at Barry's head. Barry deflects one with the bat, shattering it, both benches empty and proceed to fight it out with the bat shards as weapons. (Writing that just got me so excited I had to headbutt my dog, we both screamed)
  

As for racing:

• Eliminate all restrictions on cars- they should be able to go as fast as they can, as long as they can, and be able to carry weapons. Think The Fast and the Furious meets Twisted Metal.
• Drivers should be able to get out of laps by drinking beers. For example, 1 beer=3 laps. This way, the winning driver could either try to run fast and sober, or cut off a reasonable chunk of the race by taking down 15 beers. Granted, the beer/lap ratio may have to be adjusted a few times until a proper compromise is reached, but you can't tell me this idea won't catch on with the NASCAR crowd. With this rule in effect, watching racing would probably pass domestic violence as the best way for these rednecks to pass a Sunday afternoon.

*Actually, I'm modifying the beer/lap ratio. The new formula is 2 beers=Laps equal to 1 Fibbonaci series level (starting at 1). This accounts for the exponential effect of drunkening- I'll show you how it'd work;

• 2 beers = Total of 1 Lap- keep drinking pussy.
• 4 beers = Total of 2 Laps- my grandma pours 4 beers on her cereal in the morning.
  
• 6 beers = Total of 4 Laps- six beers barely gets you a DUI.
• 8 beers = Total of 7 Laps- The race is a couple hours long, you can pace yourself.
• 10 beers= Total of 12 laps- Is it just me, or did the track get narrower?
• 12 beers= Total of 20 laps- Hope your drinking Coors light, not Fuller's ESB.
  
• 14 beers= Total of 33 Laps- Ok, we all agree you're a baller.
  
• 16 beers= Total of 54 laps- Yup, you're drunk.
  
• 18 beers= Total of 88 laps- Now you're just showing off...
  
• 20 beers= Total of 143 laps- If you haven't won yet, you aren't going to...
  

Is the Plural of Sasquatch "Sasqui?"

I have a bunch of different topics I wouldn't mind posting on, but none of them are substantial enough for their own post- and rather than not post anything (which is my tendency), I'll post a compilation. (This would have been posted two days ago, but the internet has been down...)

Sometime this morning, between playing golf, swimming in my pool, and making my way into work by 1 PM (for my brutal six hour shift of reading books, watching TV, and wasting time on the internet), and laughing at homeless people, I realized- I have a great life.

I just finished reading (well, I have like thirty pages left, but I'll never read them- I can't remember the last time I actually finish-finished a book) The (Mis)Behavior of Markets by Benoit Mandelbrot. It was amazing. Mandelbrot, the founder of fractal geometry, demonstrates how the market actually moves similarly to fractal models, instead of the random coin-flip motion proposed by the now defunct Efficient Market Hypothesis (defunct everywhere but the Ivory Tower that is). Most interesting part- memory and market movement. I'll summarize- markets (and individual stocks, commodities, etc...) are influenced by the past, i.e. the past causes the future. Well, not caused, but more of a Humian correlation. Stocks that have trended downward continue to trend downward, and vice versa. It's much more complicated, but beyond the scope of this eclectic post- check out the link above for more information, it's a great book, even if you aren't interested in the market.

Dos- I'm now reading Critical Mass, a book in which "Philip Ball makes physics sexy again" (according to the back cover quote from Vanity Fair). Besides doing for physics what Doris J. from the Grove didn't, Critical Mass "asks the question, Are there laws of nature that guide human affairs?" (once again from the back cover). I'm only forty pages in, all of which have dealt with Hobbes' Leviathan so far, so I don't know. But I will, and I'll probably tell you.

Three- I'm inheriting a business in the next few months under one condition; I stay in the Outer Banks to run it. It's a simple business, changing air filters and light bulbs in a couple hundred rental cottages (i.e. 2-10 bedroom houses are "cottages" down here) once a month in exchange for some cash (should work out to around $30 an hour). In terms of what I've been looking for, it's perfect. I don't have any fixed costs other than renting a storage unit to keep the air filters and light bulbs, it's seasonal (perfect for long winters in Colorado, or a villa in the south of France), it requires no initial investment (perfect for starving ex-college students), and it's legit. It's already been incorporated, and it's a perfect fit to be my investment vehicle, along with probably allowing me to write off a decent amount of things I'd buy anyway as a business expense (hello company vehicle!). Plus, there is a ton of expansion I can do with it, provided I can find suitable help. Also, I'm making $30 an hour doing some landscaping around here, so all I need to find is some illegals to do it for less than $15 (shouldn't be tough) and I'll just sit back and collect checks and throw them in the market.

IV- I just read this article in National Review about AlGore's movie and coupled with his non-election year, non-host, guest spot on SNL a few weeks, I have to say I'm uneasy with the whole blending of boundaries between politics and entertainment. I'm not saying things were ever ideal, or that the blend is a new development, I just things are so much more seamless between the two, and I think everything is cheapened the moment Rick Santorum gets cast in some Lifetime remake of Little House on the Prairie, or when Barak Obama starts getting crunked up with Little Jon on MTV: Spring Break.

On a semi-related note, the Kyoto Protocol was stupid when it was proposed, stupid when it got voted down 95-0, and stupider now that the short-sighted countries who signed it are admitting they have no chance of compliance. The Kyoto Protocol makes as much sense as Beowulf having sex with Robert Fulton at the First Battle of Antietem...

Lebron James

Am I the only person on Earth to notice that Lebron James only has two moves? He either [A] tucks the ball under his arm and three steps (roughly 1/3 the length of the court) his way between defenders from behind the arc or [B] just sweeps defenders out of the way using his non-dribbling arm. Call me bitter because the Pistons have struggled in this series, but seriously, if the officials didn't give him a free pass to commit offensive fouls like he does adultery (that's just conjecture, but c'mon- he's Lebron James!) he'd be at best a 20-10 player, and the Cavs would have lost in the first round to the Wizards.

In conclusion, I love watching Lebron James play any team in the league except the Pistons- then I hate him. With a passion.

A New Hobby

I'm out of school, and I have a sweet job where I really only work about 30-35 hours a week, max. Also, when I say work, I mean be at work, where I have an incredible amount of free time. Furthermore, I'm really close to giving up golf. I don't want to spend the time practicing that I would need to play really well, and I don't have that much fun playing if I'm not playing very well, so I either need to play all the time, or not at all. If I decide not to play, I'm left with something like 80-100 hours of free time a week, all of which I can't spend watching tv. So, I'm open to suggestions as to books to read, hobbies to undertake, things to learn, or totally sweet flash games or internet sites where I can waste time, lots of time.

Also, don't recommend surf fishing. I'm already on that.

Enjoy your urban sprawl, losers.

Hay-lo!

Is there any game footage? No. Do I have any idea what is going on? No. Do I have a raging mega-huge boner from watching this trailer? Ummm... yes!

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

I'm now officially moved up to the Outer Banks, although I can't move into my apartment for another two weeks. Until then, I'm crashing at a friend's house. I don't think that there is anything that is harder or sucks more than packing everything you own into a truck, but also having to pack it so you can get to the things you'll need for the next two weeks since you can't really unpack it.

I'm also now an official salaried employee, so I'll be doing cool salaried things. You know, like taking extra long lunch breaks and skipping work whenever possible. I'll even steal office supplies if I need them, which probably, I won't.