East Coast Chicago

Glee's All-Time Best Musical Number

2011-06-30T21:49:00.001-05:00

TV Line is running an awesome bracket... Glee's All-Time Best Musical Number. I picked the entire bracket tonight, because it was a lot of fun. I did it by memory, so maybe I would pick a few things differently if I listened to every song, but I think this is a good approximation. (This is the original bracket.)

Three thoughts:

The Solos region is definitely the weakest.
Unpretty / I Feel Pretty vs. Defying Gravity in Rd. 2 is ridiculous. Really tough match up.
Forget You vs. Marry You in Rd. 3 is a tough call!

Here's my filled out bracket.

Isolated Power

2011-05-20T13:41:00.000-05:00

It still baffles me how long it took me to understand the concept of isolated power. In theory it's a pretty easy statistic: SLG%-Average. Two numbers, one subtraction.

But there's just always been something elusive about it to me. That's really odd, because things like Wins Above Replacement or FIP (even xFIP) make complete sense.

Lately I've become accustomed to looking ISO more often. It's an important statistic to understand in baseball. Some of the best hitters in the league - like Jose Bautista and his ridiculous .456 mark or Ben Zobrist and his surprising .263 - rely on the statistic to be productive hitters. Florida's Mike Stanton is a top prospect because of what people expect from his ISO in the future (and his .284 now isn't bad either).

I think it's useful to look over a wide swath of data to understand the statistic better and looking at the ISOs from 2001-2011 is a who's who of the past decade.

Jim Thome - .297
Ryan Howard - .291
Albert Pujols - .289
Sammy Sosa - .282
Alex Rodriguez - .277

The list goes on with big, powerful, popular sluggers. (Well, popular being a relative term when it comes to Richie Sexson.) It's a good way of showing those players whose bat has "pop" for a lack of a better term and understanding it has definitely made my understand of baseball statistics more complete.

Inspired by: Isolated Power - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia after reading an article about Wily Mo Pena.

Ultimate teachings

2011-05-19T23:00:00.000-05:00

This summer I'm going to be playing in two beach ultimate rec leagues in Chicago. The one on Tuesday night is for more experienced players and then on Thursday I'm pairing up with a friend of mine in the beginners league.

I've been playing some sort of competitive ultimate since I was 16 years old. When you think about it that's a pretty long time. (10+ years!) During that time I've learned a lot from a number of different people. And one of the other things I'm still trying to get better at is teaching the game to others.

I think one of the greatest rewards in ultimate is sharing the game with a new player. Teaching someone to throw a strong forehand or to make a perfectly timed cut is a really satisfying experience for me. It's why, even when I was frustrated, I never quit being captain during my time at CUA. There was always a new crew of freshman to teach and watching them grow as players was something I always enjoyed.

This afternoon at that park on my lunch break it was like I was back at CUA teaching on the law school lawn. I demonstrated how keeping your arm level makes the flic easier to throw and how little motion is actually necessary to throw a Frisbee. (Trust me, if I can pull on a regulation field with T-Rex arms it's not the arm strength or length that makes the difference.)

I still don't know the perfect way to teach someone how to throw, but after 40 minutes over lunch I was pretty sure my friend is going to be just fine this summer. I'm also sure it's going to be a ton of fun. I love beach ultimate and the purity that comes with sand, surf, smaller teams and smaller fields. I'm glad that I'll have some people there to enjoy it with me and I'm glad I'm going to get to teach again.

Renewal Scorecard

2011-05-18T18:24:00.001-05:00

Up fronts week has concluded and thus we know what shows are coming back and which are leaving us before next season. TVLine.com has all the details. I'm excited to say that it's been a very good television season for my TiVo, as all but three of the shows I have a Season Pass to will be coming back.

Renewed:

Chuck - For a 13 episode final season
How I Met Your Mother
Big Bang Theory
Castle
Glee

Axed:

Mr. Sunshine
The Chicago Code
Life Unexpected

There are also a few summer shows that I'm going to be watching to occasionally fill the time including ABC's Rookie Blue, ABC Family's Secret Life of the American Teenager and ABC's The Bachelorette. Now, you might think that adding The Bachelorette as regular scheduled programming is a ridiculous thing to do. But two points in my favor: 1) It gives Laura and I another thing to talk about and 2) Ashley Hebert is the bachelorette. Ashley was by far my favorite bachelorette as I intermittently watched the second half of The Bachelor last season, so I'll give her a shot in the leading role.

Time to look for some new shows for the fall. Anyone got any good new shows? (Please don't have them be on Monday.)

Three season finales

2011-05-17T00:16:00.000-05:00

I watched the season finales of How I Met Your Mother, Chuck and Castle tonight as a busy final week of the 2010-11 television season kicked into high gear. I was surprised in the variety of quality the three season ending episodes delivered. (Thankfully none of them were series finales.)

Spoilers for all three shows after the jump. You've been warned. I even hid them from you.

The best of the night was Castle. I love Chuck and HIMYM, but Kate Beckett and crew just hit a home run with this episode. Nathan Fillon was great as Richard Castle and Ruben Santiago-Hudson did Captain Montgomery proud in his final moments. The episode gripped you right from the beginning and went on an emotional, well paced, hour long ride through many common themes of the show with a twist that was both hard to spot and completely plausible. The Castle-Beckett shippers are going to be upset that there wasn't more movement on the relationship front, but those three little words at the end of the episode have to give everyone hope that they'll finally get around to dating come season four. (Oh and that Castle graphic novel? It's happening!) I couldn't be more excited for season four.

In what might've been the series finale, but now it was just a super awesome season finale, Chuck also had a busy hour. Overall the show did a great job of setting up what should be a great season five. There's no way around it anymore, Chuck Bartowski is a spy. He doesn't need the intersect. (Though I hope he learns how to stay out of harms way.) Now they've got a boatload of money and need to find something to do with it. Why does anyone ever put on sunglasses on that show anymore? You have to know what the consequences are going to be. What I want to know is how are Ellie and Awesome going to be involved next season? Or maybe I want to know how Alex is going to feel about having an Intersect boyfriend? Or who really is behind all this? Having this be the series finale would've been incredibly dissatisfying. Having it as a season finale was awesome. Can't wait for 13 more episodes of Chuck next season.

Then there was the How I Met Your Mother finale. We were promised game changers. We were promised that the wait would be worth it. Quite frankly, it wasn't. The fact that Lilly is pregnant was nice and all, but it was completely transparent to everyone besides Marshall. (I mean, c'mon dude.) We still don't know if Barney is marrying Robin or Nora - though I have a strong opinion which he should choose. We're no closer to Ted finding the mother or actually having a relationship with a female character anyone actually likes and it feels as if the entire season went absolutely nowhere. It's frustrating to have watched that many episodes of a show and feel that the only characters that actually made any positive momentum in their lives were LAME. (And even that was pretty forced.) I firmly believed that HIMYM was the best show on television two seasons ago. Now it's good enough to stay in my TiVo rotation, but I won't make it a priority to watch it on Mondays next year.

What did everyone else think?

(P.S. I'm super excited that Rookie Blue is coming back this summer - June 16.)

Battle of the poorly done romantic comedies

2011-05-15T22:27:00.001-05:00

Last weekend I mentioned that I watched The Switch. Well, this weekend Laura and I watched How Do You Know? (From now on: HDYK) I really didn't expect much from either of these films. I mean I watched The Switch because it was $1.99, and heck, why not? (Well, now I know why not.) Laura and I picked HDYK because we needed a film that wouldn't require her to pay much attention while she worked.

Both of the movies were pretty darn terrible. But let's break it down in the tale of the tape. Five categories: Cast, Plot, Romantic Interactions, Ending and Bonuses. Yes, ending. Consider this your spoiler alert!

Cast: The cast of The Switch should've triggered my bad rom-com radar instantly. I'm not sure Jennifer Aniston has made a decent movie in the history of her film career. (No, really. What's her best flick since Friends ended? Probably, He's Just Not That Into You and that's an ensemble cast.) Jason Bateman has some decent credits to his name. And, to be honest, he's actually not bad.

On the other hand, what's HDYK's excuse? Reese Witherspoon, Jack Nicholson, Paul Rudd and even Owen Wilson are all good to decent actors/actresses. About 40 minutes in Laura asked me, "What is Reese Witherspoon doing in a move this below her?" Turns out I was thinking the same thing, but about the entire cast. Everyone seemed to be mailing this one in and just cashing the checks while waiting for something more stimulating to come along. So for doing the least with the most this round goes to HDYK.

Plot: Poor acting aside, the plot for HDYK is pretty standard fare. Girl is frustrated by life change and is with one boy. Another boy comes along. She waffles between them. She picks the new boy. Rinse, repeat. Oh sure, there's some mess with the law and a father to give the boy something to do along the way, but it was the movie equivalent of taking a Blogger template off the rack and adding a couple text widgets.

The Switch tried to live on the edge and goes stumbling off a cliff. First of all, there were these odd time jumps. (People like those!) They grabbed something off the girl has a child rack and then a little sprinkle of old friends. Throw in guy trying to grow up and a soothsayer boss and you've got a plot. The wrinkle was the addition of the alleged sperm donor. I found Patrick Wilson's Roland to be completely insufferable, but at least they tried something different. It was a little surprising that 1) It took Kassie so long to figure out it wasn't Roland's kid and 2) She didn't want to sue Wally at the end. I mean, switching sperm definitely seems like something you could go to jail for. Instead it becomes the fulcrum of a sweet romance. Sure...

For complete implausibility and ignoring the obvious logical inconsistencies throughout the movie, this one goes to The Switch.

Romantic Interactions: Like I said before, I couldn't stand Roland. I also didn't believe his and Kassie's relationship in the slightest. I mean, at least give the guy a chance. Then again, at least there was some connection (the supposed donation). I couldn't find a single reason why Lisa would want to be with Matty. Maybe she was trying to feel young. Maybe she really liked the fact that he had a 94 mile an hour fastball and made $14 million a year, but there was absolutely no connection.

I thought that the most believable relationship in either movie was the father-son bonding between Wally and Sebastian. It seemed like the two of them actually had something meaningful. Which is more than I can say for any of these romantic leads. Puppy dog Charles in HDYK was just awful at times. It seemed like Lisa would've been better off alone. But since everyone needed to pair up, let's give this point to HDYK.

Ending: Yeah for big happy families? At least The Switch has that going for it. In HDYK the fact that Charles' decisions has some consequences for his lying, jail-breaking father is sort of glossed over - though Jack Nicholson did the best acting of the entire moving on the stoop as he watches his son who first looks lost and lonely and then elated. We'll give this point to HDYK.

Bonus Points:

1 point to The Switch for the artificial insemination angle and finding some way to not make it absolutely horrible that Wally switched the samples while hammered.

1 point to HDYK for the ridiculous bus motif.

1 point to The Switch for Sebastian's picture frame collection.

Final Score: 3-3. In the end this is a match no one deserves to win. How either film could manage to be rated even 5/10 on IMDB shocks me. (The Switch is 5.9. HDYK is 5.3.) Find something else to do with your two hours. Anything will probably a lot more productive. And that is how the ultimate winner in this whole thing is Laura, who was smart enough to do work during the movie instead of really watching it.

iPhone Apps

2011-05-11T22:33:00.000-05:00

I'm a pretty big believer that what's on your iPhone says a lot about your priorities and the things that are important to you. Well, at least in your mobile life. So full disclosure, here's what I've got on mine right now.

Home Screen:

Standard Apps
Twitter for iPhone
Facebook
Scorecenter (ESPN's scoreboard app)

Second Panel:

Colloquy (IRC)
American Airlines
USA Today
Weather Channel
Yelp
IMDB
CTA / New York Subway Maps

Third Panel (Games!):

Angry Birds Seasons
Angry Birds
Settlers of Catan (Seafarers Expansion)
Cut the Rope
iOOTP 2011
Street Fighter IV
Crossword Lite
Words With Friends

Fourth Panel (Miscellaneous):

Instagram
Fandango
GameChanger
Simplenote
FanGraphs
Cover It Live
Shazam
Expensify

I've settled on the native Twitter for iPhone app on my phone for all my Twitter communication, which includes two separate accounts. I also ditched the New York Times app once they made most of the sports content - i.e. the stuff I read - hidden behind their pay wall. I also ditched FourSquare, because location based services are getting lamer, not better. Here's hoping someone figures out a way to fix it. Things like FourSquare still seem like a real untapped market. There's a lot of potential there, but no one has found a particularly interesting way to exploit it.

What's on your phone?

Doing nothing

2011-05-08T23:05:00.000-05:00

When I go into work on Monday someone will probably ask me what I did with my weekend. My answer will probably be, "Nothing really." I guess in some ways that's true. It's not like I flew to New York City or did anything particularly noteworthy or exciting. Instead I had a nice relaxing weekend at home. So what did I do? Glad you asked.

I watched two movies: The King's Speech and The Switch. One was $1.99 on Amazon On Demand this weekend. The other was an Oscar nominee and an absolutely riveting two hours. I think you can figure out which is which. But really, Colin Firth was outstanding and some of the shots in The King's Speech were just spectacular. More than once I found myself wondering, "How did they do that?" I still want to see Black Swan and The Fighter sometime, but I'm glad I started with Tom Hooper's film.
I read all of Nobody's Baby But Mine. It's from Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Chicago Stars collection of romance novels. Yes, I know what you're thinking. No I don't particularly care. This one was partially about football and particle physics. So gotcha! I blame Laura though, because SEP is her favorite romance author.
I played four hours of pick-up ultimate frisbee, two on Saturday and two on Sunday. Saturday I played in Lincoln Park in the rain. It was messy and wet, but a ton of fun. Sunday I played in the beautiful sunshine at Gilson Park. It was the type of beautiful spring day you'd kill yourself to be inside during. So I'm glad I went out. I was a little sore starting up on Day 2, but it was fun to play on back-to-back days for the first time in forever.
I created a spreadsheet of all the college basketball recruits currently committed to mid-major New York City schools for Big Apple Buckets. Since I had some time I also put together a spreadsheet for the Ivy League. I'll use both later this week to write blog posts about where schools are finding talent. (It's probably not where people think.) The most interesting side note that I found? The role of prep years and basketball academies in the recruiting process. This article by the Star-Ledger was the most information I found about the CJEOTO.
I watched seven hours of Mariners baseball. Seattle was playing the White Sox this weekend so all the games were on local television in Chicago. It would've helped if the Mariners had played better, but I did get to see Friday night's walk off and the team's first extra-inning game of the season. (A loss thanks to Brandon League's disastrous 10th inning.)
I caught up on sleep. (Always a good idea.)

So I guess I actually accomplished quite a bit. It didn't feel that way. It felt like a relaxing weekend at home, which is exactly what I needed. Here's to a great week.

Another Obama / Osama name fail

2011-05-03T22:44:00.000-05:00

A lot of news outlets seem to be having a problem with how similar Osama bin Laden and Barack Obama's names are. Tonight it was CNN's turn. Be careful nighttime copy editors!

Dancing Andrew

2011-04-24T23:09:00.001-05:00

I went back home to New Jersey for Easter. After Mass we took some photos. While my parents took some portraits of their four children, I used the time before and after to take candids. My favorite was of my brother Andrew dancing in the driveway.

Yeah for spring!

Enough to be dangerous

2011-04-18T22:40:00.001-05:00

Having dabbled a couple times with computer programming in my past I like to tell "real" developers that I "know enough to be dangerous." Basically, I can hack my way out of a box or follow a tutorial or, often more importantly, understand how hard a certain project is going to be.

I think it's a good skill to have when working with a lot of programmers in an office. One of the things I've been working on to support this is a project to keep some of my skills sharp. I've been playing around with Twython, which makes the Twitter API integrate more seamlessly with Python, and MongoDB - and thus PyMongo. Those tools, along with a little Beautiful Soup, are forming the backbone for a little project I'm working on.

I'm putting everything together one small step at a time. Since I'm doing it in my free time and I like sports so much at the moment I'm concentrating on Major League Baseball tweets. There's a lot of data available on MLB's website if you're A) Not going to do anything commercial with it. and B) Can figure out how it's structured. Tonight I created a roster updater which essentially pulls down a team's roster from the night before and updates my MongoDB to make sure I have the most recent players in the Majors and their correct injury status.

I'm enjoying tackling little projects like this and in the end I hope that they'll come together as one big project that really represents something pretty meaningful. I'm shooting for the end of June with my project, since it's a part-time thing, so that it'll be ready for the Trade Deadline. I'll keep you posted.

Ultimate Frisbee is back

2011-04-17T18:40:00.000-05:00

It was 50 degrees in Chicago today. (But it's going to snow tonight!) Still, that I meant that I finally got a chance to go play some Ultimate Frisbee over by Lake Michigan in Wilmette. And I got to go to the end of the Purple line for the first time ever to get there.

Once I got to the field I was a little nervous about how my legs would hold up. I've been running and biking at the gym for the past five and a half months, but I wasn't sure if that was going to be enough. Luckily the Evanston Ultimate group that I was playing with is a nice group of people. We started with 3-on-3 and moved all the way up to 5-on-5 as people showed up and the day progressed.

Thankfully, my legs did hold up. We played a game to 17 and then another one to 7 and throughout I felt pretty good. The first time I was really sprinting on offense was a completely different feeling than any of the leisurely jogs I'd been taking on the treadmill, but it wasn't impossible.

Last season when I started playing in the spring it was like I had never ran before. At least this year I think I've gotten a little bit of a head start. That's exciting. It means I won't spend the next two months playing myself into shape and instead I can concentrate on the other things in my game that might've slipped a bit during the six-month layoff. First and foremost? My mark. Have to get up higher and down lower and really prevent those break throws. Especially in pick-up games where one break can make a huge difference.

(Oh, and hammers. You can never have a good enough hammer.) Overall my throws felt good. Though I might've only thrown three backhands all game. A lot of wind meant a lot of flicks. They'll be time for those I guess. It's time for spring time ultimate. The forecast is 48 degrees on Thursday afternoon. Who's in?

The comfort of first choices

2011-04-06T21:45:00.000-05:00

I've found in life there are a lot of similar products. This blog could be written on Moveable Type or Wordpress, but it's here on Blogger. Often the choices we make in deciding between these similar options isn't really about "better," but comfort.

But where does that comfort come from? Well, for a blog platform it probably comes from repeated use. We find one that we liked the experience on at the beginning and we keep using it. But you have to start using it in the first place.

Well, lately I've adopted two new products - Notational Velocity and RoundCube. Both of them filled gaps in my life, but both have a number of competitors. For instance, when I set up a new email address I had three options. RoundCube was the one in the middle, so I picked it. That's as far as my thinking went. I guess I could change if I wanted to, but I'm satisfied with the RoundCube experience and thus I haven't gone anywhere else.

Notational Velocity came to me in a slightly different manner. I knew I wanted a notes program, so I sought the advice of some of my colleagues. They recommended NV. I tried it out. Turns out it's gosh darn simple to use and really makes keeping track of things a heck of a lot easier. (Including the idea for this post.) Also, because my friends have some knowledge of how NV works, they were able to hook me up with syncing to SimpleNote as well. Now not only do I have notes on my laptop, but on my iPhone as well. (Which comes in super handy when I come up with a new idea while biking at the gym or riding the El.)

But again I didn't try anything else out. I merely listened to my friends, read some online reviews and made a decision. One that I'm likely to stick with for a pretty long time.

The fact that both of the programs I'm discussing here are free plays into it a little bit. But there are other free note taking programs out there. Still, since I got to these first I'll probably use them until there's some sort of dissatisfaction in the user experience.

It's good to be first. It buys you a lot of leverage with the consumer. If you're not first you have to be worlds better. And that's a really tough thing to do.

Mariners are 2-0

2011-04-02T23:19:00.000-05:00

I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts, because the Mariners are 2-0. A few early season thoughts from watching the first two games:

Felix Hernandez was awesome on Friday night. He always give the Mariners a chance to win. It seemed like his fastball wasn't great and his curveball lacked a bit of bite, but he still managed to pitch a complete game and give up just two runs. He's developed into an awesome pitcher.
I know it's just two games, but Justin Smoak has looked really confident in the batter's box. He seems to be swinging the bat better than he did last season. If he actually hits then the Mariners lineup looks a lot better.
Speaking of players that look more comfortable, how about Chone Figgins? Maybe it is the move back to third, or maybe it is the fact that he's being more aggressive, but he's starting to mix things up again. He can be a really good secondary table setter at the top of the lineup.
Ichiro broke Edgar Martinez's Mariners record for hits on Saturday and fittingly he did it with two infield singles. That really sums up his career nicely. I love watching Ichiro play. I'm really glad he's on Seattle though, as he must be obnoxious to watch as an opposing fan. He has three stolen bases already this season. It's been fun to watch him terrorize the Athletics on the base paths through two games.
Jason Vargas pitched alright tonight. I'll take that all season if he can do it, but it struck me as a little bit of smoke and mirrors. Doug Fister will be much of the same. It's funny that the Mariners' #4 and #5 pitchers actually have more talent than their #2 and #3 pitchers. It's just a matter of health (Erik Bedard) and experience (Michael Pineda) there at the bottom.

I'm pretty excited for the season based on these two games, eventually the Mariners will lose, but it seems like this will be a young, fun team to root for that'll make my investment in MLB.tv totally worth it this season.

Hello Again

2011-04-02T08:59:00.001-05:00

So college basketball season ends on Monday night. Once "One Shining Moment" - the good Luther Vandross version - is sung I'll be doneish for a while. That's exciting. I covered 46 games in person this season and watched literally hundreds on television, so getting the chance to relax a bit on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon is a nice feeling. Also, not having to incessantly plan my calendar around games will be nice as well. I'm sure Laura will appreciate it.

It also means that I'll probably be writing in this space a bit more. I know I haven't written since January, but that's not because I don't have things to say. Au contraire. It's because I've just been way too busy writing blog posts for Chicago College Basketball.

I'm actually working on a new college basketball blog for next season, which is coming along for the ride with a few life changes, but I'll go into those in more detail when the time is appropriate. For now enjoy the bittersweet end to college basketball season. Here's Luther's 2009 version of "One Shining Moment." (Let's all just pretend that Jennifer Hudson's 2010 version never happend. Okay?)

March 2009

2011-01-19T21:26:00.000-06:00

I was going through my analytics tonight, mostly because I was bored, and I came across the fact that my archive from March of 2009 is the most read monthly archive on this here blog. I wondered why.

Back then it didn't seem like a particularly inspiring time in my life. But now, with 20/20 hindsight, I see that I was on the brink of a number of great things. In fact, if you read between the lines in those posts, you'll see someone brimming with potential that's about to discover things really do work out.

For instance, I wrote about coming close (in this case in relation to academics). Well, next quarter I'd get that 4.0. (Yeah, I was amazed too.) More importantly, I'd meet the people whom I've been working with since. Yup, that's what happened after my last first day at school.

And it just so happens that in one of those classes that finished that month - one of the ones I did get an A in - there was a girl. Her name was Laura. She's the answer to a lot of questions I'd been asking apparently. (Though I had no idea that was the case at the time.) I'd also like to note that I was right. You can find that smart, beautiful, wonderful girl. You just have to know where to look, get a little lucky and then deal with that tricky "Achievements" section. (Monasteries? C'mon.)

And there was this blog, Chicago College Basketball, which is where this photo came from. At the time the blog had a really dopey URL (http://ww.ootp-baseball.com/chicagobasketball) and a not much more than a reconfigured Wordpress site that I'd built myself. Now it's part of ChicagoNow - which didn't exists yet, gets at least 500 hits a day and looks like this.

See. All the pieces were there. I just didn't know where to look for them. It turns out things do seem to work themselves out.

Life Unexpected's Ends

2011-01-19T20:47:00.000-06:00

In another case of a shown that was canceled too soon, Life Unexpected went through its final episode on Tuesday night after two very quick seasons. The show didn't receive a back nine pick up and thus was forced to cram everything it possibly could into the final hour.

The show had great potential. It just got canceled too soon. Some critics have written that it reminded them of older WB shows like Gilmore Girls. I sort of see that. I thought it was on a slightly lower plane intellectually - in terms of the conflicts and references, but it had that same attitude and tone and wasn't afraid to take on tough topics. I looked forward to that hour of television every week.

The finale had to do a lot and they made the best of a bad situation by just getting to a believably point with each plot point and then launching to the place we would've inevitably gotten to some day. Unfortunately, this robbed of us of some important things. For instance, we'll never know how exactly Kate and Baze ended up putting their differences beyond them and realizing they were good for each other. We'll never see Ryan and Lux's relationship develop even as he wasn't in their house - which I think would've been fascinating, and we'll never get to see more of Kate and Lux - which finally felt like it was getting somewhere.

The team melodrama and the zany story lines, like the relationship with a teacher, were the things I had a tougher time dealing with. I guess with the ability to fill in the "color" in between those two years of broader stories I've developed a fantasy of what they show could've been. I'm upset that I missed that brighter picture.

Good bye LUX. You'll be missed.

Bears win!

2011-01-16T15:40:00.000-06:00

Congratulations to the Chicago Bears for advancing to the NFC Championship. Unfortunately they're going to be playing the Green Bay Packers. This means that we're in for a week of cliches about Frozen Tundras, Vince Lombardi, Mike Ditka, toughness, tenacity, heart and the bitter cold. It could be almost as obnoxious as the feet jokes that came before the New England Patriots vs. New York Jets game.

Still, it's fun that after the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup the Bears are in the competition for the Super Bowl still. Of course I don't think the Cubs or White Sox are going to be able to continue the excellent run. (Though the Bulls might apparently.)

The seasons of sports

2011-01-11T15:27:00.000-06:00

It seems to me that certain sports really benefit from the calendar. I'm going to concentrate on my favorite three - college basketball, football and baseball - here, but in general I think it applies universally.

You see, college basketball season, while being my favorite sport, occurs during my least favorite time of the year. It starts just as the weather is getting cold in October and lasts right until the spring starts to appear in April. That said, it does a great job carrying me through those long winter months - which I can't stand. But I wonder if it would be even better if it was played between April and August. (Of course that'd also make zero season.)

Football season is much the same, but since it's actually slightly longer, it's slightly sadder. The NFL season takes you from the hope and optimism of August to the crisp cold of the fall and slowly into the malaise of winter. In fact, just when you've about given up on the season (if you're a Bills fan) you find yourself thrown into the middle of the winter. Great! It's poor timing. Then again, I don't know how else you could time it. It'd be highly impractical to play football outside during the heat of summer. So that's what we have to do.

Then there's baseball, with the perfect rhythm. As the New Year comes people start analyzing lineups, thinking about pitching staffs and evaluating the remaining bargain basement pickups. As Groundhog Day comes and winter starts to think about ending, Spring Training is right around the corner. The game starts for real in April just as spring arrives in full force. Then it plays out throughout the summer at beautifully languid pace until it slowly dissipates into the fall. Oh sure, the playoffs go on for way too long - the World Series should end the second week in October - but other than that it's the perfect system.

Baseball is the sport that helps you realize the spring is coming and that these snowy winters don't last forever. The promise of a new season brings the promise of spring, warmer weather and days enjoying the sun instead of fighting the wind and the cold.

I welcome those days.

Winter Photos

2010-12-26T16:10:00.000-06:00

I took some photos outside in the winter wonderland that is New Jersey. Hope you enjoy!

I'm covering college basketball

2010-12-21T17:25:00.002-06:00

at Madison Square Garden. I can't really describe how excited this makes me. I was at the Northwestern game last night and I'll be there tonight when the Wildcats take on St. John's. Should be a great time.

Trapped in the '90's

2010-12-16T10:47:00.000-06:00

This is my last post about my trip to Buffalo, NY and I thought I should finish on my general impression of the city. The first thing I thought as we drove into it was, "Wow, I can't believe this is a major metropolitan in the same state, let alone the same country, as New York City."

You see, even in a few minutes, you get the sense that Buffalo has some how managed to put the city into a time capsule and keep it safely tucked away for 20 years now. Besides a few buildings downtown nothing feels "new." Though it seems like that might be changing, as there was new construction going on in the city as we were driving around.

The people that we interacted with were quite nice. The buffalo wings were delicious. Matt and I enjoyed wings at three different locations - at Anchor Bar, the home of the original wings; at Duff's, a place that came highly recommended and didn't disappoint; and at a local bar, for which including a pitcher of beer and two sodas and 30 wings we paid a grand total of $20. All three places were probably better than any of the wings I had ever tasted. The ones at Duff's were delicious and I enjoyed the spicy barbecue ones at Anchor Bar a ton as well.

Also, two things I never would've known had I not gone to Buffalo. The flagship store for New Era, and their corporate headquarters apparently, are in Buffalo. The University of Buffalo is actually pretty big. I'd bet their football stadium is bigger than Ryan Field at Northwestern.

Niagara Falls photos

2010-12-14T12:20:00.000-06:00

One of the things that Matt and I did when we got to western New York was to head straight to Niagara Falls. It was only about 35 degrees out that day, but we still got some really nice views on the U.S. side of the border. (No Canada because I forgot my passport!)

Looks cold, right?

The winding path by the falls

Rooting for the home team

2010-12-13T15:00:00.000-06:00

Looking out over Ralph Wilson Stadium from Section 314.

Before last Sunday I had never watched one of my two favorite professional sports teams play a home game. Which I guess is because I root for two teams that played hundreds, if not thousands of miles away from my hometown growing up.

I've seen the Mariners at Yankee Stadium (new and old), Camden Yards and U.S. Cellular Field, but never at Safeco Field. I'd seen the Bills play at the Meadowlands, Lincoln Financial Field and Heinz Field. But on Sunday, thanks to a generous early Christmas gift, I got to see my favorite football team, the Buffalo Bills, play at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, New York.

Buffalo took on the Cleveland Browns in a battle of teams that certainly won't be seeing the playoffs anytime soon, in the rain and the cold, which led to the smallest turnout of the season, and it was still great. Matt and I weren't smart enough to invest in some waterproof boots to wear at the stadium, so my feet were cold and soaked, but we stayed through the final whistle of the Bills' 13-6 victory.

Watching the team in person and the stadium was a sight. Ralph Wilson Stadium is so much simpler than the stadiums I've been too in the past, it really felt in perfect step with the surrounding area. Plus, I'd never seen so many different Bills jerseys in one place. While I wore my Jim Kelly throwback, there were jerseys of all sorts of players - including quite a few Terrell Owens ones - and some really sweet throwbacks. (The Thurman Thomas ones were my second favorite behind Kelly.)

You see things a little bit differently while at the field. Thankfully, Buffalo's defense learned to tackle somewhere between its game against Minnesota and the one on Sunday, and while the score might make the game seem lame, it was actually pretty exciting. Then there was this added bonus: When good things happened for the Bills I wasn't the only one cheering. We all got to sing Shout! thanks to the Bills' three scores.

I watched closely some of the players that have become my new favorites - Kyle Williams, Leodis McKelvin, Fred Jackson and Steve Johnson - and was really happy with what I saw. Williams has an amazing motor, which people talk about, but you really notice it in person. Also, Jackson seems to pop out of whole you'd never expect him too. (And Johnson allows for one liners like, "I'm glad God decided to let him catch that one." For an explanation see here.)

And even though it was raining and cold, when the day was over it was a great one. The home team won and, for once, that was the best thing that could've happened.

P.S. I'm getting to Safeco Field this season. I must.

Glee on the radio

2010-12-13T13:23:00.000-06:00

I recently got the car back and was able to start driving and listening to the radio again. Apparently they now play Glee on the radio. A few questions. Why? When did it start? Is it happening in every city? Is this considered Top 40?

A few Glee songs I'd recommend:

Forget You
Defying Gravity
Teenage Dream
Poker Face

I'd say those are my Top 4 right now. The Christmas music wasn't exactly spectacular. One big question: Why doesn't the soundtrack include the song from The Grinch? I had to buy Welcome Christmas, which I'd also recommend, separately from the Christmas Album. Seems a little ridiculous.