A couple of trades

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First: Former NLL Goalie of the Year Anthony Cosmo was traded from San Jose to Chicago for Matt Roik and a couple of draft picks. I originally thought that this was a strange trade for San Jose to make, since Cosmo is a much better goalie than Roik. But it’s not as if Roik isn’t any good at all, and San Jose now has two of the top three picks in this years draft, which is apparently quite deep, so this could turn out to be a good deal for San Jose. Chicago improved quite a lot at the trade deadline last year, and now having Cosmo between the pipes, they might pull a Minnesota and start contending earlier than anyone thought. It will be nice to see Cosmo play in Toronto again, since he hasn’t played here since The Trade.

Second: The Jays traded Matt Stairs to the Phillies on the weekend. I guess the theory is that the Jays are out of it and Stairs is 40, so (a) having him this year won’t make any difference, and (b) he’s too old to be of much value next year. Part (a) is right, but part (b) is hogwash. That’s what a number of other teams thought before last year, and he’s played two outstanding years with the Jays. He’s also a fan favourite and a good Canadian boy, so I don’t really understand this move. Ricciardi has made some pretty good moves this year (the Rolen for Glaus trade was good, and Marco Scutaro has been awesome), but this is the second of two that I don’t agree with.

More great pitching, more sucky hitting

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All season long, the Jays have pitched well, but just can’t get any hits. Halladay and Burnett have 16 wins each. Shaun Marcum was sent down to Syracuse recently, supposedly to work through his control issues. They decided to send him down because the Jays “couldn’t afford” to keep him in the rotation if they want to make the post season. This is silly — the Jays have so little hope of getting to the postseason this season that this move really makes no sense. Dustin McGowan wasn’t having a great season before getting injured, and what happens? Two more pitchers step up, just as McGowan and Marcum did last year. Jesse Litch is 9-7 with an ERA around 4.00, and tonight David Purcey pitched a complete game 5-hitter and struck out 11, and lost 1-0. Absolutely brutal.

I really hope that the Jays hitters do some serious batting practice during the off-season, cause this is ridiculous.

Gettin’ it right

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Major League Baseball is preparing to introduce video replay, so that the umpires can look at a replay to determine if a ball actually cleared the fence for a home run, or whether a ball that did clear the fence was fair or foul. This stems from a couple of issues they had earlier this season where the umpires clearly got the calls wrong. I think these are the only kinds of plays that they will be using replay for — not safe or out on the bases, not strikes and balls, and not whether a batter who checked his swing went around or not.

The best thing about this idea is that it will take away the whining by players, coaches, and fans about how they would have won the game were it not for that bad call by the ump. With video replay, the umpires bad call can be reversed if it truly was a bad call, meaning that if you lose the game it’s not because of the umpires, it’s just because you didn’t score as many runs as the other team, so quitcher whining.

I was going to make disparaging comments about baseball purists who probably won’t like this. I won’t because while I like the idea of using video replay, I don’t think it should be used for balls and strikes at all. That needs to be decided by a human. I can’t explain why, it just does. I guess this means that the whiners can still say that they lost a game because of a bad call. Oh well.

I wouldn’t have a problem if they also used video replay on things like whether a runner was safe or out. The only problem there is that they’d need to limit how often they did this, or managers would be calling for a replay ten times a game, which would slow the game down. Maybe only for plays at the plate, or maybe managers could not call for a review more than twice per nine-inning game. Maybe give ’em one more if the game goes into extra innings, and then another every five innings after that.

Some are concerned that this will slow the game down too much. As long as it’s not abused by managers wanting a replay of every other play, I don’t think this will be a problem. As Dan Shulman said the other day on the radio, either we wait while the umpires spend a few minutes talking and hope that they get the call right, or we wait while the umpires spend a few minutes looking at the replay and actually get the call right.

There is one thing that concerns me and one thing that confuses me. The thing that concerns me is that umpires will have a safety net. If there’s a bang-bang play at the plate, the umpire has to make a split-second decision on whether the running was safe or out. That decision, 99.99% of the time, is final. But if the ump knows that if he gets the call wrong, the replay will bail him out, he may not worry as much about whether he gets it right. OK, hang on…. before I even finished writing that previous sentence, I realized how ridiculous it was. If anything, it’s completely backwards. It’s more likely that umpires will not want to be shown to be wrong by the video replay, so they’re probably more likely to try to get the call right the first time.

The thing that confuses me is that they will start using this system on Thursday. Shouldn’t they be testing the crap out of it in the minor leagues first before implementing it at the major league level? You just know that there are going to be problems with the system for a while after it goes live for the first time — especially if it’s been implemented quickly. Do you want those glitches and mistakes to be made in September, when the most important games of the season are being played? Or worse, during a playoff game? I’d put it in place in the minor leagues now, and use that plus spring training next year to iron out the kinks before using it for real next season. Changes like this just should not be made mid-season.

The Olympics

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I love the Olympics. I can’t explain why, but I’m one of those people who doesn’t give a crap about most of these sports at any other time, but will happily watch them during the Olympics. On Monday night, Gail and I watched women’s 100m hurdles, 200m sprint, and gymnastics. The other morning while working out, I put the Australia-Japan women’s softball game on and kept watching for another half-hour after my workout because it was such a great game. I eventually had leave the game in the 9th inning to go have a shower and get ready for work, so I missed Japan scoring the winning run in the 12th.

Olympic sports I love watching:

  • gymnastics — gymnasts have to be graceful and artistic, but very strong as well. I particularly love the rings, high and uneven bars, and vault, and the balance beam is brutally difficult. We watched American Shawn Johnson (who looks like she’s 4’6″ and 75 pounds soaking wet) win a well-deserved gold medal the other day by nailing her routine on the beam. Even rhythmic gymnastics isn’t bad.
  • swimming — Not sure if it’s the swimming itself that I enjoy watching, or just watching how far ahead of everyone else Michael Phelps can get.
  • men’s 100m sprint — truly the fastest men on the planet. This Bolt guy is unbelievable — he put his arms up (which has got to slow you down) with 20m left in the race (i.e. he’d only completed 80% of it), and still set a world record. The Canadian in the race said that Bolt could probably do a cartwheel at the end of the race and still win.
  • beach volleyball — if you had asked me before it was added to the Olympics whether it should be there, I would have said unequivocally no. But I enjoy watching it. And not only because the women’s event consists of very fit women jumping around in bikinis.
  • diving and synchronized diving — synchronized diving is another sport that I questioned when I heard of it being added, but I still like watching it.

Olympic sports I don’t:

  • water polo — I watched part of a match last week, and it was more boring than soccer, if that’s possible.
  • BMX racing — Are you kidding? If this is in, where’s skateboarding? Or hacky sack? How seriously can you take a sport whose athletes include someone whose legal name is Kamikaze?
  • synchronized swimming — The first time I ever saw this, I thought it was a joke someone made up, like something you’d see on The Onion. I’m still laughing. Yes it’s difficult, and no I couldn’t do it, but come on.
  • equestrian events — the horses should be getting the medals here. Not that getting the horse to do these things is easy, but it’s the horse doing the real physical work (i.e. the thing that makes it a sport), not the rider. These events should be testing an athlete’s physical abilities (i.e. strength, agility, stamina, etc.), not the ability to control a horse.
  • race walking — I find it hard to watch these people with their butts wiggling back and forth and not giggle.

I have wondered for several years now why lacrosse is not in the Olympics. It was, back in 1908, and was then a demonstration sport in 1928, 1932, and 1948, but not since. Apparently to be considered, a sport has to be widely practiced in at least 75 countries (50 for women’s sports) over at least four continents. OK, this is probably not true for lacrosse. But I have a hard time believing that it’s true for beach volleyball, water polo, table tennis, handball, rhythmic gymnastics, trampoline, synchronized swimming or synchronized diving. When was the last time some roads were closed in your town for a big race walking event?

Movie review: The Clone Wars

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We saw the new Star Wars movie The Clone Wars last night. Before I write about this movie, let me say that I loved the original trilogy. I have watched the movies countless times and can quote whole passages from all three. When The Phantom Menace came out in 1999, Gail and I were there on opening day, even though Gail was six months pregnant at the time. I remember not liking the movie as much as I hoped I would (curse yousa, Jar Jar Binks), but almost feeling like I was betraying George Lucas and the original trilogy if I stated my displeasure. Others were not so concerned, and felt that Lucas betrayed them with the prequel trilogy. I think that’s a little strong, but either way, I liked the prequel trilogy less than the original one. The movies were good, but not up to the standard of the first three (though Revenge of the Sith was close).

Now, onto The Clone Wars. I knew that this was animated and that most of the voices were not done by the actors from the live action movies, so my expectations weren’t all that high. But I do not feel the slightest bit like I’m betraying anyone by saying that this movie sucked. The animation of the space scenes and robots was good, but the animation of people was really bad. The movement was really jerky, the lip syncing was terrible, and it looked like the animation hadn’t been finished yet — Obi-Wan’s beard consisted of a series of rectangles. Given the level of human animation in Beowulf, the animation in this movie should have been a lot better.

Now, in all fairness, there is a reason that the animation was so bad. This movie is essentially a pilot for a new cartoon series that will be appearing on TV next year. I guess they can’t spend zillions of dollars in animation for that, so they decided not to spend zillions on the pilot.

Anyway, back to the movie. The basic problem I had with it, aside from the animation, was that it was aimed at a younger crowd. Revenge of the Sith was violent, dark, and disturbing. It was so not aimed at kids that my kids have yet to see it, and I will not let them see it for a number of years. This one had lots of jokes, slapstick humour and even forgetful battle droids (though I never liked the battle droids in any of the prequel movies — either make them emotionless robots with no personality or don’t, they seem to be a bit of both). In this movie, one forgets a series of numbers told to him by another one. When I was six I would have complained about that — these are robots, they don’t forget stuff! There were too many attempts at humour, some funny, some not. I know that in a lot of action movies, people are making jokes while fighting for their lives, but it seemed like it was happening too often here.

As for the plot, weak. In The Phantom Menace, they mentioned that Tatooine is way out on the outer rim — so far away that Qui-Gon cannot use Republic credits as currency. Now, the Hutts control the critical shipping lanes around Tatooine, and getting them on the side of the Republic is crucial. Where do these critical shipping lanes go if the planet is on the outer rim? Anakin takes a padawan who calls him Master, but he complains in Revenge of the Sith because they won’t make him a master. And in Revenge of the Sith, he doesn’t have a padawan. Where did she go?

Also, if Anakin was on Tatooine, why didn’t he go and find his mother then, even for a visit? It would have been lovely — they could have barbecued up some womprat and had some blue milk. Ani, why don’t you call your mother more often?

Finally, Frank Oz didn’t voice Yoda. Nobody said “I have a bad feeling about this”. John Williams didn’t do the score. George Lucas didn’t even write it. Given all that, can it really be called a Star Wars movie?

Less than five minutes into the movie, Gail asked me “George Lucas sanctioned this?” and I have to assume he did. Maybe he didn’t actually watch it first. (Then again, this is the guy who created Jar Jar Binks.) My kids will love it, but we’ll wait until it’s out on video and then rent it for them. Neither of us can stand the thought of bringing them to the theatre to see it and having to sit through it again.

Fern 2008

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Last week was our annual trip to Fern Resort. It seemed a little different this year compared to last year:

  • The guys didn’t go golfing this year. Mike wasn’t there and Jerry is recovering from surgery, so me and Jeff decided to stick to the 5-hole course at Fern. I played once with Nicky and once with both Nicky and Ryan.
  • We didn’t go into the woods at all. There are several kilometers of trails in the woods, and you can rent bikes and pedal carts or just walk, but we just never made it there
  • Gail didn’t do any archery, which is something she loves doing at Fern. It just didn’t work out with the schedule.
  • Gail missed a day thanks to a migraine. Between lunch and dinner she stayed in the room with the blinds closed and a pillow over her head.
  • I played tennis four times, rather than the usual one, and entered two tournaments — one doubles (with Jeff) and one singles. Jeff and I won our first round match in the doubles tournament and then got beat in the second round. In the singles tournament, I got beat in the first round by some teenager (who was good enough that he didn’t even bother attending the clinic beforehand) and then lost again in the second round. Jeff made it to the finals but lost 3 games to 2.
  • the pool was amazingly warm — I just walked in, with no need to “get used to the water”, even for a few seconds. Ahhhh.

Some things were similar to previous years — I had fun playing four-way beach volleyball and water volleyball, the food was excellent as always (they had peanut butter pie twice this year), and Nicky got on stage again. Last year he helped out a magician, and this year he was called up to play Deal or No Deal for “Fern dollars”. He’s only six, so he didn’t really understand what the game was all about, so when they opened a briefcase and showed him $50 (the maximum prize), he put his hands up and said “Yay!” He was a little disappointed when they told him it meant that he didn’t win $50. The first deal offered by the “banker” was $15, and despite everyone in the audience yelling “No deal! No deal!”, Nicky took the deal. The “briefcase” he chose contained $15 anyway, so it probably wouldn’t have mattered, but he’s happy with the T-shirt we bought with his winnings.

We saw Jamie Williams perform again (man, he’s good), but this year he had a bit of a surprise — a couple of friends of his were in the audience, so he brought them up on stage and the three of them did a few songs together. This wouldn’t have been a big deal, except for the fact that one of them was NHL Hall-of-Famer Brian Trottier. The guy won six Stanley Cups, the Conn Smythe, Hart, Art Ross, Calder, and King Clancy trophies, and is considered one of the best ever to play the game — who knew he could sing, play the guitar, and write songs too?

Jeff brought his Jet-ski again this year, and Ryan and I had fun being pulled around on an inner tube at 25 mph. Nicky went for one ride and then was perfectly happy to spend the rest of the afternoon digging in the sand on the beach, so Ryan and I just kept going out for more Jet-ski rides. After Ryan was done, we untied the inner tube and Jeff took me out for a faster ride. I guess it’s been a while since I rode on a Jet-ski rather than behind one (several years), so I didn’t lean as much as I should have, so when Jeff took one corner particularly tight, I was launched. Jeff apologized profusely, but believe it or not, I thought that hitting the water at 30 mph was kind of fun. Having said that, I did lean a lot more into the corners after that…

Just like last year, when we left Fern we went north, and dropped the boys off at their grandparents’ places for the week. Another week of no lunches (well, just mine), no fighting at bedtime, no drop-off or pick-up… This is our second such week this year — the previous one was our movie week, but for this one, we want to get some more stuff done around the house. The kids are old enough now that we can get a lot of it done with them here anyway, but it’ll still be easier not having to stop for bedtime or be quiet after 8:00 or whatever. I would also like to get the forest grass cut at some point, but it just keeps raining…

The most overrated rock artists

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1. The Ramones. I simply do not understand the fascination with this band. Sure, Blitzkrieg Bop is a decent song, but that’s about it. The singer has a lousy voice, and all of their songs sound the same. People seem all excited about the fact that they only know three chords and aren’t great musicians, and this somehow makes them one of the classic American bands. I don’t see why. There are other punk bands who are actually decent musicians, and there are thousands of other bands out there that have no musical talent. What makes the Ramones different from them?

2. Queen. I like Queen. They’re good musicians, they have some great songs (Bohemian Rhapsody is a true classic), and I like the Greatest Hits album that I have. But I’ve listened to many of their other albums as well, and the songs that aren’t the hits (and even a few that are) just aren’t that good. Freddie Mercury was a great singer; in fact thinking about it now, he might be one of the best rock singers ever. Brian May is a very good guitar player, but there are better guitarists out there. Overall, Queen was a very good band, no question. But in 2007, a BBC poll declared them to be “the best British band of all time”, ahead of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin. This is ridiculous.

3. Radiohead. I’ve heard them described as the best band in the world right now. Again, I just don’t get it. “OK Computer” is supposed to be their best album and according to Wikipedia, “a landmark album of its time”. Rolling Stone and Time magazines both listed it among their greatest albums of all time — Spin magazine says it’s the number one album of the past 20 years. I listened to it a few years ago and just found it boring. Maybe it’s one of those albums that you hate when you first hear it but grow on you after a while, so perhaps I’ll give it another listen.

4. Rod Stewart. Sang a couple of decent songs in the 70’s, but ehhh.

5. Aerosmith. Tyler is a decent singer with a unique voice. The rest of the band are good musicians. They’ve got some good songs but as with Queen, I find that the non-hits are just filler. I got kind of tired of them in the 90’s when they did a bunch of “power-ballads”, culminating in the completely awful “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing”. And listening to someone as ugly as Steven Tyler singing about sex as often as he does is just creepy.

And the blind shall, like, totally see

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There’s a lot of talk around the world, especially at Christmas time, about the baby Jesus. We know about his parents, when and where he was born (though the “when” is a subject of some debate), and who his early friends were (cows, sheep, drummer boy, wise men). We also know a lot about the adult Jesus — his teachings, miracles, and of course his death (and beyond). But there’s twenty-odd years in between that we don’t hear much about.

Jesus must have been a toddler as one point, and he likely had tantrums like any other toddler, though my kids’ tantrums never caused plagues or rivers to turn to blood or anything. How do you give him a bath when he can walk on the bathwater? Gail and I have enough trouble with Nicholas thinking the world revolves around him; what if everyone else believed it did too? I’m guessing he’d win every game of “my dad is better than your dad”.

Here’s a scary thought — what about the teenager Jesus? Turning water into wine would make him popular at high school parties. Did he ever say “I don’t have to listen to you Joseph, you’re not even my real father”?

On the other hand, it would make grocery shopping a lot easier: “We’re out of loaves and fishes. Jesus honey, would you mind… that’s great, thanks.”

Thank you, thank you very much. You’ve been great. I’m here all week.

Fire Ricciardi and see ya Mats

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I haven’t written much about sports in a while, partially because lacrosse, hockey, and basketball are all over and not much is happening there. I missed a couple of weeks of baseball while on vacation, and returned to find (gasp) the Jays are pretty much out of the playoff picture. Not really surprising, and this just fuels the talk about whether J.P. Ricciardi should be fired as GM at the end of the season. I’ve been firmly in Ricciardi’s corner during most of his tenure as GM, but I think that experiment is over. We’re over 6½ years into Ricciardi’s “five year plan” that would see the Jays contending, and they have still yet to play a meaningful game in September (and it won’t happen this year). The pitching certainly isn’t the problem — AJ Burnett is finally healthy and pitching the way they hoped he would when they signed him (and it only took two and a half years to get there!), Halladay is Halladay, Litch, McGowan, and Marcum are pitching pretty well (when they’re not on the DL), and only four pitchers on the whole team have ERAs over 5.00, and none of those four has pitched more than 18 innings.

And then there are the hitters. Alex Rios is having a pretty bad year, and he’s leading the team in RBIs (49). Matt Stairs leads the team in homers with a measly 11. Nobody is hitting over .300. They are dead last in the AL in HRs, third last in RBIs, and fourth last in batting average. Compare that to the pitching stats: team ERA is second in the AL, they have the most complete games and the second-most strikeouts. They say good pitching will beat good hitting and I believe that, but to win a 1-0 game, you need to be able to score that one run. A team with good pitching and dismal hitting isn’t going anywhere in the post-season.

Is all of this Ricciardi’s fault? Is it his fault that half the team has spent time on the DL? Is it his fault that the hitters have forgotten how to hit? I suppose not, but he’s still responsible. He’s been running the team for almost seven years, and he’s got a far bigger budget than any of his predecessors, and the team hasn’t had a sniff of the playoffs the entire time.

I’m not sure what should be done with Cito. He came in mid-season and took over a team that wasn’t likely to make the playoffs, and led that team to probably their worst finish in four years. But if Cito had managed to fire up the hitters to the point where the Jays even hinted at contending this year, he deserved the coach of the year award. Just because he couldn’t do that doesn’t mean he’s no good — I’m not sure anyone could have. Given the team he had, I think Cito did OK. But if Ricciardi is fired, then whoever the new GM is will want to bring in his own guy, so Cito is likely to be fired too.

Over in the hockey world, Mats Sundin has still not decided what he’s doing next year. He’s an unrestricted free agent, and so he is under no obligation to anyone to decide quickly, but I’m kind of getting tired of the whole thing. The Leafs aren’t likely to do anything other than suck next season with or without Sundin, so I’m not sure why they are still pursuing him. They made him an offer, he hasn’t taken it, so just let him go. Thanks for all your contributions in the past, good luck wherever you go, buh-bye. He doesn’t owe the Leafs anything, and if he decides to sign with Montreal or Vancouver or New York or anyone else, best of luck to him. If he eventually calls up the Leafs and decides to take their offer, and they still have enough cap room left, great. I’m not against having Sundin back next year, but it’ll just make the team suck slightly less. It won’t make any difference in the long run.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

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Everyone is talking about Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and how fantastic it is and what a genius Joss Whedon is. I like a good funny as much as the next guy, so I checked it out last week and honestly, I just don’t get it. It was pretty funny (“Wow, sarcasm! That’s original!”), and Neil Patrick Harris was really good, but genius? I wouldn’t go that far.

Maybe I need to see more of Whedon’s stuff. I’ve never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, or Firefly. We did rent the Firefly movie “Serenity” and it was OK, but I thought the same thing at the time: “It was OK, but what’s the big deal?” I didn’t worry too much about Serenity since I figured you had to know something about the TV show in order to fully appreciate the movie. But Dr. Horrible is a standalone thing and while I enjoyed it, I still didn’t get the “genius”.