Oof The Quick

Thundersnow

2011-02-02T18:07:00.004-06:00

3 oz. rice soju
juice of 1/2 navel orange
juice of 1/2 lemon
0.75 oz. simple syrup
0.5 oz. egg white
3 drops Angostura bitters

Shake vigorously over ice. Pour very slowly through strainer into chilled cocktail glass.

Fruit juice should be around 1.5 oz. total.

Gladwellian musings on love and infinity

2010-03-25T12:48:00.001-05:00

There are as many even integers as there are integers.

We're used to being able to see a collection of objects, line them up, and count them all. But the even integers and the integers are infinite sets, and infinite sets can't be counted in the same way as finite sets. No matter how many elements of the set you've collected and decided to count in the traditional sense, there are always more elements to be counted. (All of the math here should be taken as a vast oversimplification.)

Georg Cantor showed how to compare the size of different infinite sets. The even integers and the integers are equal in size because their elements can be put into a one-to-one correspondence with each other. Why I'm writing about this, though, is because Cantor solved the major headache of infinity in mathematics by redefining infinity from the ground up.

Cantor said that something is infinite if you can remove a portion of it and what remains is just as large as the original. That, and not the fact that you'll always have more elements to count, is the definition of infinity.

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I've struggled with the definition of love, and the connection between love and logic. I didn't understand why logic can poke so many holes and yet love does not diminish. But perhaps that is the purest definition of love. When logic gives you reasons not to, but you still care every bit as much about the person. Love is that infinity.

I can't wrap my head around transfinite math, and that's okay. It's beyond real-world perception. I can't wrap my head around love, either, and maybe that's okay, too.

Am I writing again?

2010-03-03T08:53:00.001-06:00

"I am not a religious man, but I find there is no contradiction in my mind when I say that God is within these walls."

Shamrock & Coke

2009-03-15T01:42:00.006-05:00

This infused vodka took me three days to make, although the vanilla beans may not really need that long to contribute their flavor. My first test batch (in smaller quantity) was way too minty, so I reduced both the amount and time for the mint.

Shamrock Shake vodka

Supplies:

two 1-liter glass bottles (I used these)
Fine mesh strainer
Funnel

Ingredients:

1 liter of decent vodka (I used Smirnoff)
6 vanilla beans
1 teaspoon of dried spearmint

Procedure:

Place vanilla beans in glass bottle.
Fill bottle with vodka, close bottle, shake vigorously, then set aside.
Shake a few times per day for three days. (Not sure how much the shaking really matters.)
After three days, add mint to bottle, close bottle, shake, then set aside for three hours, shaking occasionally.
After three hours, set up the strainer (to catch the mint) above the funnel above the second (empty) bottle.
Slowly pour the vodka from the first bottle through the strainer (into the funnel and second bottle). The goal is to transfer the liquid to the second bottle with as few solid bits as possible, and the strainer's job is made easier if you keep as much of the mint in the first bottle as possible. (Pouring slowly works well enough that I have no interest in using a coffee filter, paper towel, cheesecloth, etc.)
Store at room temperature.

Interesting when sipped. My preferred concoction, however, is...

Shamrock & Coke

Do you really need instructions? Take glass, add ice, add desired amount of vodka, add Coca-Cola. Drink. Tell your friends how awesome it is. When they respond unenthusiastically, pour yourself another one.

UCL quarterfinal draw - English odds

2009-03-13T09:55:00.007-05:00

The sun rises in the east, and all four English clubs make the Champions League quarterfinals. Now that we're here, what are the odds of none of the four facing each other in the quarters? What are the odds of all four being placed in the same half of the bracket? I'm sure I could find this on the web somewhere; I do my best thinking in the shower, however, so the numbers below are brought to you by Johnson & Johnson shampoo and Dial soap. Let's dive in...

I'm mainly going to consider how to group 8 teams into 4 pairings, without regard for home and away legs or position of the pairings in the bracket. There are 8! ways to arrange 8 objects in order, except we don't care about the 4! ways in which the 4 pairs can be arranged, and we also don't care about the 2! ways in which each of the 4 pairs can be ordered. This can be expressed as

8!
--------------------
4! * (2!2!2!2!)

which equals 105. So there are 105 possible pairings for the quarterfinals. (Note that I've ignored the position of the pairings in the bracket, and I'll continue to do so for the most part.)

Starting over, if we only consider each club as English or not, there are three cases for possible pairings:

EE EE xx xx
EE Ex Ex xx
Ex Ex Ex Ex

Case 1 has each English club facing another English club. Within this case, each English club may face any of 3 opponents, although once that selection is made, the other all-English matchup is determined. Likewise, there are 3 possible matchups for the 4 non-English clubs. There are 3 * 3 = 9 pairings with two all-English matchups. Please note that if Case 1 occurs, there is only a 1-in-3 chance that both all-English pairings will be placed on the same side of the bracket.

Case 2 has exactly one all-English matchup. Selecting this matchup requires choosing 2 objects from 4, and there are 6 possibilities. There is also exactly one non-English matchup, for which there are also 6 possibilities. We then know the clubs for the remaining two games, although there are 2 possibilities for selecting which English club will play which non-English club. There are 6 * 6 * 2 = 72 pairings with exactly one all-English matchup. Please note that if Case 2 occurs, there is a 2-in-3 chance that the all-English matchup and the non-English matchup will be on opposite sides of the bracket.

Case 3 has no all-English matchups, so that each pairing includes one English club and one non-English club. For each English club, we need to select the non-English club it will play, which is simply arranging 4 objects in order. There are 4! = 24 pairings with no all-English matchups.

Note that 9 + 72 + 24 = 105; two different methods, same result.

A couple of calculations to sum up:

Chance of at least one all-English matchup in quarterfinals:
81/105 = 77.1%
Chance of all English clubs being placed in the same half of the bracket:
9/105 * 1/3 = 2.9%
Chance of Liverpool knocking out Chelsea:
(no math required)

In Closing: Fah Who For-aze, Dah Who Dor-aze

2008-12-25T00:00:00.001-06:00

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Well, that was fun! Let's close it out with some Dr. Seuss:

Welcome, Christmas, bring your cheer.
Cheer to all Whos far and near.
Christmas Day is in our grasp
So long as we have hands to clasp.
Christmas Day will always be
Just as long as we have we.
Welcome, Christmas, while we stand
Heart to heart and hand in hand.

Merry Christmas!

Day 12: The Most Ridiculous Thing I've Ever Done

2008-12-24T08:00:00.004-06:00

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Early in the grade school years, at my birthday party in February, my friend Andy gave me the space Lego set Shuttle Craft. And so it began. Space Legos were the perfect toy for me -- I have a gift for three-dimensional awareness, I was starting to become mystified with astronauts and outer space, and there was something magical about the way that just a few hundred nondescript little blocks could transform into something much more than the sum of their parts, and in an infinite variety of ways.

My Lego collection grew rapidly, but my hunger for Legos grew at an even higher rate. I had already taken to studying the Lego catalog as my bedtime reading, and there simply weren't enough events in the year where I was guaranteed to get more Legos. One year in March, with my birthday just behind me, I realized that it would be Christmas before I could expect to receive more Legos. But my Lego mania knew no bounds, and December was further away than I could stand to wait.

On a sunny March afternoon, I sat down at home at my little wooden desk, took out a sheet of red construction paper and some Crayola crayons, and wrote a letter to Santa Claus. In true kindergartener fashion, this letter obeyed no rules of letter writing. Most of the letter consisted of the list of Lego sets that I wanted for Christmas; when I ran out of room wherever I was writing, I found a blank spot on the page and continued with the next item on the list. But this wasn't merely a wish list. I told Santa that I couldn't wait until Christmas, and I did so with these words:

"SEND THEM NOW OR I'LL BLAST YOU!"

That's right, I made a threatening bluff to Santa Claus, just because I didn't want to wait nine months for Christmas to arrive. So when I handed this letter to Mom and asked her to mail it to the North Pole...what could she have thought? I mean, perhaps it's funny now, but if your supposed little angel threatens a munificent stranger who brings joy to kids all around the world...out of mere impatience...I mean, how the hell are you supposed to deal with that?

Mom probably did the best thing -- she took the letter and told me she mailed it. Then about a month later, Mom suggested to me that maybe it wasn't very nice for me to have threatened Santa like that, and that perhaps I owed Santa an apology. Overcome with the feeling that I may have screwed myself out of presents, I sat down to write Santa another letter, this one on light blue construction paper. I apologized to Santa for threatening him, and I told him I could wait until Christmas to get my presents. Then I used the rest of the sheet of paper to list all of the other Lego sets I hadn't been able to fit into the first letter.

Shortly thereafter, my parents told me the secret of Santa Claus (his suit is laser-proof), probably so they didn't have to deal with this shit anymore. And as we know, that went well.

Day 11: The Snapparellas

2008-12-23T08:00:00.005-06:00

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Throughout my whole life, Dad has been an anchor to me in the cognitive sense, because he serves as my first estimate of where I may end up, and who I may become, in the future. Dad's a lawyer, so in seventh grade when Mr. Downey gave us an assignment to write descriptions of our life at various distances into the future, I naturally decided that I would have become a lawyer, too. (I think I did my undergraduate work at Princeton before moving on to Harvard Law. Go ahead, it's okay to laugh.)

Dad is also quite the storyteller, so that's something I've always shot for as well. I try, but it turns out I'm more like the Horace Grant of entertainment -- I'm usually good for a tip-in at a critical moment, but I'm not going to average 30 points per game or knock down six 3-pointers in one half. Maybe storytelling is just one of those things that skips a generation. And I'm okay with that. Dad is a great storyteller. I still have all my hair.

Dad's best storytelling was something that no one outside our immediate family ever got to hear. Dad had created a family named the Snapparellas, and as our family grew, so did the Snapparellas. As our family comprised me, Ben, Teddy, and Allison, our respective counterparts in the Snapparella family were Snoopy, Snappy, Rooty, and Zooty. (In a very "Peanuts"-like sense, I'm not sure we ever encountered Mr. or Mrs. Snapparella.)

The Snapparella kids were not the most socially adept. At one point Dad drew a series of cartoons, similar to "Goofus & Gallant", that highlighted the differences between us. For example, one cartoon showed me swinging a 9-iron, with the caption, "Robin goes for the green in two." The opposite panel had a similar caption, "Snoopy goes for the green in two," showing Snoopy with a finger up each nostril.

Listening to stories about the Snapparellas became a holiday tradition for our family. Each winter, we would have a few nights in the lead up to Christmas where we kids would each grab a blanket and stake out some space on a couch in the family room; Mom and Dad would put on a pot of coffee and dim the lights; and Dad would spend close to an hour telling one chapter of that year's story of our family and the Snapparellas. The centerpiece of the tale was usually Snoopy's annual attempt to catch Santa Claus.

Snoopy obviously never learned the secret of Santa (that he has bodyguards, whom he considers expendable -- seriously, the most important person on the planet is really going to jump down a billion chimneys and not have someone else go in first?), but that didn't stop Snoopy from concocting some rather amazing traps over the years, things that put Wile E. Coyote to shame. One year Snoopy used miles and miles of string, not just to set trip wires all over the house but so that when anyone was caught, everything in the house that could possibly make noise would go off at once. I don't remember exactly how this plan fell apart, but it wouldn't surprise me if a household pet were involved.

Mom adds: "What I liked was how Dad would think out the stories in detail ahead of time and he would leave a cliff-hanger for the next night. But what I really thought was cool was you and Ben (maybe Teddy, too, although I think Dad may have stopped telling the stories by then) would try to guess and tell your own versions of what was happening in the story."

Snoopy carried out so many plans that I have a hard time separating them in my memories from the general ridiculousness of all the cartoons I watched. (Did Snoopy really ice down the roof of the house so the reindeer would skid off when landing?) But there must really be something to the mystique of trying to catch Santa. On Christmas Eve in 1986, when Teddy was just four-and-a-half years old, he woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Teddy decided that he would catch Santa on his way back to bed. He finished up in the bathroom, and then headed right back to bed, completely forgetting what he had intended to do. It turned out to be his last chance, because the very next year, Teddy learned the truth about Santa (he knows when you're on the can).

Day 10: While You Were Sleeping

2008-12-22T08:00:00.004-06:00

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On Christmas Day a few years ago, while Allison was still in high school, one of her friends -- a boy -- came over to the house to give her a present. As the white room (capitalized?) served not only as our center of Christmas operations but also as, well, the room with what was technically our front door, the rest of us retreated from the room when Allison's friend arrived to give them some privacy. All of us, that is, except for Dad. No, he wasn't being overly protective like Teddy and I were. Dad was asleep.

I should point out that this kid was a friend of Allison's boyfriend, so even though he obviously had a crush on her, nothing was going on in that room. He gave her a toy from a Pixar film, they chatted for a while, he left. All the more reason why it was so wrong, later, for Teddy and even Mom to riddle Dad with innuendo about what had taken place in that room while he was asleep.

Mom: "I can't believe you were sleeping right there the whole time."
Dad: "Wait, a boy came over to give Allison a present?"
Teddy: "Oh, he gave her something, all right."

This went on for a while. I'm trying to get them to stop: "Come on, this isn't right...it's his little girl...I mean, it's--"

And then something in my head clicked. "Dad...Dad...I'll tell you what he gave her."

"He gave her the one-eyed monster."

Day 9: Early To Bed And Early To Rise

2008-12-21T08:00:00.007-06:00

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It is now four sleeps until Christmas. Wait, don't I mean days? No, I mean sleeps. I realized long ago that the most difficult part of waiting until Christmas wasn't the days, during which I could play with my brothers, but it was having to clear my mind and fall asleep each night. Thinking about the Lego sets or Sega Genesis games I was hoping to receive, well, it kept me up at night! So I was painfully aware of how many times I needed to conquer those thoughts and get to sleep.

On the last day, Christmas Eve, I would find my excitement peaking, and the puzzle-solver in me realized that if I could achieve that last sleep earlier, Christmas Day would effectively arrive sooner. So I started to go to bed early on Christmas Eve. Really early. What was surprising about this is that it actually worked -- as I resolved to do, I did fall asleep earlier. What was not surprising is that, as a consequence of falling asleep earlier, I also woke up earlier. Much earlier.

Like everyone has, at one time or another I've made the joke, "I didn't know there was a five-o'clock in the morning." The truth is, of course I knew there was a five-o'clock in the morning, I just didn't know it was soooooo long. What was I supposed to do at 5:00am on Christmas morning? I couldn't do anything that made noise, because I would wake people up, and as a kid I had very few things in my repertoire that didn't involve making noise. So I did the only thing I could think of: I read. And what I decided to read was the dinosaur book.

Our dinosaur book -- out of print, but if you're interested, ISBN 9780307137647 -- stands out because of its vivid drawings; its timeline at the bottom of each page that, across the entire book, spans the entire Mesozoic Era; and its depiction of all dinosaurs as cold-blooded...yeah, so it's a little dated. It seems it has just the right amount of science nerdage to keep me mildly captivated through the entire book...which would take me a surprisingly long time to get all the way through. Perhaps I would daydream in the middle of the T-rex battle scene.

These days I still get teased on Christmas Eve -- "It's 9:30, shouldn't you be in bed?" -- and on Christmas Day, Mom may ask whether I read the dinosaur book. I keep it at my place these days, so when I'm out at Mom and Dad's for Christmas, I don't have that option. If I want reading material, I have to choose from among whatever has accumulated at the house over the years -- classic literature and books on programming. Hmmm...maybe Allison has something I could borrow. Harry Potter once fought a dinosaur, right?

Day 8: Whose Turn Is It?

2008-12-20T08:00:00.005-06:00

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When we kids were younger, and Christmas was still mostly about the presents, Santa made sure that each one of us received just about the same number of presents. This allowed us to open presents one at a time, and to go in order, and remain balanced throughout the day. One year I even noticed that my presents were discreetly labeled "R1", "R2", and so on, presumably so Santa could keep count.

(This seems like a good point to mention that Santa Claus obviously believes in making every Christmas a Green Christmas. Santa has one of the most comprehensive recycling programs the world has ever seen, in which decorative shirt boxes and other hard packaging materials are reused year after year. This was most apparent the time that I received a present that had "B11" marked in the bottom corner. Even wrapping paper is passed down from year to year, being used for a slightly smaller package each time, when the present opener preserves the paper. I tend to do this, and sometimes it means I spend 15 or 20 seconds unwrapping a gift. Teddy responds to this by finding the biggest present he can and staring at me while he tears the paper to shreds in two seconds.)

With a balanced number of gifts for each kid, it was natural for us to pick an order and stick to it. To this day we still go roughly from youngest to oldest, although Mom and Dad are part of the regular rotation now. In fact, I think Dad gets more presents than anyone these days -- easiest to amuse means easiest to shop for.

We've changed things up over the years, but most often we each open one present before breakfast -- usually this is around 10:30am, once everyone has woken up/showered/arrived -- then do the rest of the presents after breakfast, followed by stockings at some point later in the day. Mom told us that when she was growing up, Santa left their stockings in their bedrooms so they could go through them as soon as they woke up, but I like stockings at the end -- it's like a cool-down period, not too many surprises. Even though Santa wraps just about everything, even in the stockings, we kids often get the same things -- "Mmmm, chocolate Santa." "Yep, got one of those already." -- or things that are really obvious -- "Sweet, contact lens solution!"

If we get too off-track during the opening of presents, Mom will chime in with, "Whose turn is it?" (The odds of Mom saying this on Christmas are even greater than the odds of Mom saying, "I'm sorry you didn't get any Legos this year, but, you know, you didn't ask for any!") When Mom asks, "Whose turn is it?" she is really saying one of two things:

"I know it must be one of you kids' turn, but even if I knew which one of you it was, it would take me three tries to say the right name, so just figure it out on your own and go grab a present."
"Dad, we handed you a present two minutes ago, before you started telling this story, and it's still sitting unopened in your lap. Please open it."

When the unopened presents start to dwindle in number, Mom sometimes regroups them by recipient, which is really so she can direct things to make sure that everyone opens his or her last present together, in the last round. Family lore tells that Teddy receives fewer presents than anyone else, but I think this is blown out of proportion because of the one year in which, after a Mom gift regrouping, there were more presents left for the dog than there were for Teddy. (In fairness to Teddy, the dog hadn't started yet.)

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My many years as a certified math nerd (a phrase which returns 9 exact hits on Google) allow me to state that the odds of two parents and four kids making it through over two decades of Christmases without anyone being very sick at the time...those odds can be precisely quantified as "ain't happening." On that note, I'll turn it over to Allison:

"One of my favorite stories is the time Teddy had the flu on Christmas. Ben got out of the shower and walked out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist, and Teddy didn't think he could make it to the bathroom in time, so he said, 'Ben, give me your towel,' and Ben goes, 'No, what are ya, goofy?' and then Teddy proceeded to throw up on the floor right in front of him. Ben had just recently gotten his video camera, though, so he filmed the whole day of us unwrapping presents so Teddy could watch it while he unwrapped his that night, once he was feeling better."

Day 7: You Will Eat Way Too Much Food...In Bed

2008-12-19T08:00:00.008-06:00

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As the Grinch learned, Christmas doesn't come from a store. And it's a warm feeling to give a gift that someone will enjoy, when that gift can't be found in any store. In this sense, some of the best presents I've been able to give have been Mom's cookies.

Each winter when I was growing up, Mom made about three freezers of cookies. I've since learned that a "freezer" is not an internationally-accepted unit of volume, but let's just say that Mom would make several dozen...of each of perhaps 10 different types of cookies. Molasses, peanut butter, chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin. Those chocolate cookies that are spooned out in balls but flatten as they bake, producing a cracked powdered sugar finish. The sugar/butter cookies in multiple cookie-cutter shapes. Peppermint cookies that actually have two pink- and white-colored strips wound around each other like a candy cane. My all-time favorite, almond ball cookies. And fudge...I'm talking about real, you-may-want-to-sit-down fudge.

Mom would put a few of a particular cookie into a baggie, then pack several baggies of different cookies into a Christmas-themed paper bag or foil tray. Decorative ribbon? You bet. Each teacher, for any of us kids, got a package, and if you were a principal, receptionist, coach, or teacher's aide, you usually scored a mini-tray of your own. As I got older, I started making the recipients list myself, and it grew each year. My senior year of high school, in addition to my teachers, I gave cookies to the school nurses, the counselors' assistants, the librarians, and the captains of the soccer team. Even when I got my first real job, in Fort Wayne, I went home a week or two before Christmas so I could bring back cookies for my bosses.

Every thank-you note read exactly the same way: "Thanks to you and your mom for the delicious cookies! I ate every last one of them the very first night."

The only reason I personally focused on quantity is because I already knew they were sinfully awesome. The question was how many Mom would let me have. Per day.

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Tonight we're going to Little Szechwan!

Almost every year, usually just a few days before Christmas, our family has dinner at Little Szechwan. We get several dishes, which we all share, and which we choose based on a combination of (1) our imperfect memories of what we liked before, (2) a desire for variety and balance, and (3) whatever sounds really good. Perennial favorites include beef with orange peel and kung bao shrimp, and we usually decide on everything else and then order a mu shu appetizer with whichever meat we didn't cover in our other dishes. The appetizers usually also include potstickers and, recently, those mini barbecue ribs. Maybe two orders of the ribs. The best name for a dish, in my mind, was Men Chu Beef -- Ben once picked this out from the specials menu, but I can't recall what it tasted like. Teddy still mocks me for once ordering a fish item. Wasn't that with the ginger sauce? That was pretty good!

While they've never served us a duck that was still smiling, Little Szechwan was where I first discovered green tea, warm towels, and fru-fru drinks (back in the day, Dad might order a mai tai). And it could have been at Little Szechwan that Allison had to explain to Mom the right way to read the fortune in a fortune cookie.

Shrimp with velvet sauce is sounding awfully good right now.

Day 6: 'Tis Better To Give

2008-12-18T08:00:00.012-06:00

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For years, Mom has attempted to motivate us by saying, "If Santa doesn't get a list from you, he probably won't bring you anything for Christmas." In the extreme, I think it was either Teddy or Allison that once gave Mom a Christmas wish list so long it required a staple. I'm not sure which of these practices came about first -- perhaps it's like the chicken and the egg. But Dad made it incredibly easy for Santa by declaring each year that all he wanted for Christmas was socks. In fact, he probably could have opened packages of white socks all day long and been satisfied.

A few Christmases ago, Dad received a pair of blank VHS tapes -- if you've ever wondered what the letters "VCR" used to stand for, it had something to do with these "tapes" and the flashing numerals "12:00" -- which excited Dad because he could never find a blank tape when he needed one. A little while later, while Dad was in the bathroom, someone (it seems like something that either Ben or Allison would have suggested) decided that we should re-wrap Dad's blank tapes and give them to him to open again, just to see whether he would notice. We four kids sprang into action, with the grace of a ballet and the precision of the Blue Angels. I even think we had to make a new tag. All this accomplished, and Dad was only going #1.

So Dad opened the tapes, for the second time, and paused...and then said, "Great, more tapes!" And by that point none of us could hold in our laughter any longer. The thing is, I still don't know whether Dad ended up disappointed that he didn't actually get four tapes in all.

I'm pretty sure it was either Ben or Allison who made the suggestion, because they each have a history of gift hijinks. A few years ago, Allison opened her last present under the tree, and it was a pair of red slacks from Gap. Mom looked at Allison for a few seconds, and then asked, "Who gave you those?" It turns out Allison had bought them for herself and wrapped them for fun. I think she even snuck the package under the tree just a few minutes before she opened it.

Also, one Christmas when she was still really young, Allison signed her gifts as being from "Allison Claus." To this day I only borrow that phrasing when it seems entirely appropriate, lest I diminish its brilliance.

Ben, not to be outdone, once gave Dad a manually-altered card that read, "It's A Boy! Birthday!"

Perhaps, then, my gift to Allison last year wasn't so out of character for our family after all:

Day 5: I...Love...Crêpes

2008-12-17T08:00:00.009-06:00

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There's nothing like gathering a family around the warming glow of a fireplace...but in a pinch, a television will do. Back before it was shown in a 24-hour loop, my family watched A Christmas Story every year, usually just a few days before Christmas. We also had VHS recordings of "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" and "Frosty The Snowman," but those were more like OnDemand -- we kids could watch them whenever we wanted. All wholesome entertainment that the entire family could enjoy together, although as the years went by, we moved on to other things.

Several years ago, I arrived at the house in the early evening on Christmas Eve. Teddy, home from college, immediately asked me whether I had seen the South Park movie. I hadn't, and Teddy said we should go rent it. That night. So he and I watched the South Park movie on Christmas Eve. And then twice on Christmas Day. We even tried to get Mom to watch it one of those times, but she walked out about 10 minutes in, during "Uncle Fucker." Not quite the family film.

A couple years later, Teddy got Mom and Dad a DVD player with surround speakers. We got them a few DVDs as well, and on Christmas night, after Teddy set up the system, we all watched Spiderman. Maybe there's deeper symbolism here because Dad used to read Spiderman comics to us boys from the Marvel Masterworks reprint books, but let's just say that it was a good movie and we all watched it together.

Watching A Christmas Story was the closest thing we had to a family movie tradition, until a few years ago, in the aftermath of Anchorman. Teddy and Dad declared this the greatest movie ever; I first watched it when I was out at the house recovering from thoracic surgery. As in, chest and lungs, i.e., the exact part of your body that you wouldn't want to be in excruciating pain while watching Anchorman for the very first time. During the Sex Panther scene I had to dig my nails into my thigh, because that was less painful than my otherwise-uncontrollable laughing.

Anchorman begot Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby. The year it was released, Teddy announced that he was getting Talladega Nights from Netflix and we were watching it on Christmas night. And it had its moments. Last year, Teddy went with Semi Pro, which had fewer moments. And this year, we'll be watching Step Brothers. I could not have lower expectations for this movie. And yet, it's a holiday tradition, and I do look forward to it with excitement.

I wouldn't be surprised if Mom, Allison, and Tiffany have fantasies of hunting down Will Ferrell with a Red Ryder BB gun.

Day 4: Music Makes The People Come Together

2008-12-16T08:00:00.009-06:00

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My parents' house -- which sits on a lovely corner property and is on the market -- has a few storage spaces that are more heavily camouflaged than Waldo in a candy cane factory. And once within, these storage spaces are such effective hiding places for presents that, on more than one occasion, Mom has given me a present that she originally hid so well, she couldn't find it at the time she intended to give it to me. Also, though, there's just a lot of stuff in there. My first grade class wrote a weekly newsletter using carbon paper, and I'll bet somewhere up there is a stack of every "Lovi Local" in which I was ever published. Four kids times a lot of years equals a whole lot of precious memories.

Somewhere, among those precious memories, is the program for a holiday recital that we four kids put together for Mom and Dad. Last weekend, before I told her I was writing these stories, I asked Mom if she knew where to find the program, because I really don't remember much about this concert. It was obviously centered around the piano, and I remember we put up a few decorations, but what else? Would I have tried to play a Christmas song on the oboe? Or the recorder? How old was I at the time anyway? Had I started taking blues piano lessons yet, so that I would have done an improvisational version of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town"?

What does seem to be well-known about this family concert is that Ben dressed up as Santa Claus, and Allison was terrified of him. No one really knows why Allison was so afraid of Santa, but it was pretty serious. When Allison was a few years old, and she realized that Santa was going to come into our house in the middle of the night to deliver the presents, she freaked out. She absolutely would not have it. Mom and Dad had to put a note on the outside door telling Santa to leave the presents in the garage.

++++

Every year during Thanksgiving weekend, I would inaugurate the Christmas season by putting on side B of Bing Crosby's White Christmas album and dancing to it. It's worth noting that my entire knowledge of dancing, at this young age, came from the "Zoot Cat" episode of Tom & Jerry, so I really hope there is no video of this. Once I became, you know, "grown up," I decided this tradition was no longer befitting of someone of my maturity. Once I became actually grown up, I decided I wanted to hear the album again, so I picked up the CD and brought it out to the house for Christmas.

I still can sing along with every word on side B of that album. I remember every musical cue, every harmony, even how long the pauses last between songs. I feel calm and happy when I listen to it. It says "Christmas" to me in a way that not even a clever closing sentence could.

Day 3: No F---ing S---, Lady

2008-12-15T08:00:00.010-06:00

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Intro: The 12 Days Of Christmas Memories
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Closing
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When I was a kid, it was easy to delight me with presents. When I badly wanted something that I couldn't buy for myself, unwrapping a package and seeing the object of my desire within was as good as it gets. As I got older, in my teenage years, what I wanted for Christmas wasn't something you could wrap and put under a tree (or at least, from the shape of the package, it wouldn't have been much of a surprise). And as I continued to grow up, once I had the money to buy things for myself, it became harder to wow me with a present. Because I was more aware of the world, it also became more difficult to get me a present that I wasn't expecting. (Books don't count.)

In 1988, Dad first got me a calendar for Christmas. (This paragraph is still background.) It was a golf calendar -- I didn't have a calendar up in my room before then, so it was functional. The following year, Dad said, "Screw it, you're getting old enough, let's put some titties on that wall." Okay, I'm sure he didn't say that, but for the next several years, I found a swimsuit calendar under the Christmas tree. These were solid gifts, although back then I didn't have a lot of girls visiting my bedroom.

(Because I never tire of telling this story: I got a particular problem on the AP U.S. History exam correct because of Cindy Crawford. She once said that she was the second most famous thing to come out of DeKalb -- after barbed wire -- and this allowed me to rule out a possible answer on a multiple choice question, only because it involved DeKalb and would have been even more famous than barbed wire if correct. And I never would have carefully read every word of a Cindy Crawford interview if I hadn't gained a respectful admiration for her, due to her presence on my wall for all of 1993. Thanks, Dad!)

My sophomore year of college, I received a homemade gift to put on my wall. Even the wrapping paper was homemade, from several sheets of computer paper printed with images of Lego sets. Inside the box was a calendar, printed on the computer and then laminated. It had the usual layout to hang from a punched hole at the top, with the calendar for the month on the bottom page, but for the top page, each month's image was of a famous Lego set or a Lego theme.

I'm not sure I'm explaining this well enough. I had a Lego calendar!

Want pictures?

I had a calendar where October was Camouflaged Outpost!

Teddy and Allison helped my parents put these together (the initials are on the back are theirs). Ben got one, too -- his theme was movies, usually with a defining quote. Die Hard was on there with the Jon McClane quote, "NO FUCKING SHIT, LADY!" Intriguing selection -- "Yippie ki-yay" would have been the standard choice, but I think this has more punch. I'm sure Alien made an appearance, although there are so many quotes to choose from that I'm not sure which it would have been. "Game over, man!" "They mostly come out at night. Mostly." "Get away from her, you bitch!" Really, there's not a wrong choice in the bunch.

So...yeah. A Lego calendar!!! But to my chagrin, the year had to come to an end sooner or later. On to a more boring 1998, then, right?

Day 2: Come On Down

2008-12-14T08:00:00.013-06:00

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Intro: The 12 Days Of Christmas Memories
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Closing
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For many years now, Santa Claus has left a present for each of us kids in our bedroom. Strangely, we wouldn't discover this present until the middle of the day, after all the other presents had been opened. This has even continued into recent years when we don't live at home -- apparently when Santa sees me when I'm sleeping, he thinks it's in the blue room. (Should that be capitalized?)

I thought it would be a nice treat to have Santa give my parents this same type of plus-one present. But seeing as how I couldn't get an appointment with the big man -- apparently "tall for an elf" is not a compliment -- I had to take matters into my own hands. And so it came to pass that last year, on Christmas afternoon, after all the other presents had been opened...Allison, Teddy, Tiffany, and I invited my parents to come on down:

"You're the next contestants on The Price Is Right!"

Our host was "Allison Bob Barker," Teddy was our prize model, Tiffany was our overenthusiastic third contestant -- she bid five hundred dollars on a six-pack of Dr. Brown's -- and I was the man behind the curtain, er, couch. Mom won the first pricing game, which earned her the chance to play the minigolf game Hole In One (Or Two)...or however many tries it actually ended up taking her; I blame the groundskeeper for leaving the carpet so long. Her winnings included some peppermint dipping spoons from Crate & Barrel; being a good son, I would later consume half of them.

[As I wrote this, it became obvious to me that the game we should have given Mom is Cliffhanger, with Teddy as the mountain climber.]

The item up for bid in the second pricing game was a large box of Mike & Ike's. Tiffany bid eight hundred ninety dollars. Dad, not surpringly, was closer without going over. And at this point we brought out...the Plinko board. Allison had constructed a ping pong ball Plinko board out of foam board and push pins, and mounted it on Ben's old tripod easel. There were only two landing zones at the bottom of the board, labeled 1 and 2 for the two different prizes available. Dad was given one ping pong ball to start, and he won a second by correctly guessing the price of one of those 99-cent cans of Arizona iced tea. You know, those cans that have 99¢ printed right on the side? Dad begrudgingly guessed 99 cents. So the intent was for Dad to use his two ping pong balls to win the two prizes. Out of solidarity with Mom, I'm sure it was, he needed more than two tries to do this. But eventually he claimed the two prizes, cashews and a bag of coal.

Day 1: It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Legos

2008-12-13T08:00:00.013-06:00

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Intro: The 12 Days Of Christmas Memories
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Closing
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One year in the mid-80's, I had my eye on Robot Command Center. While it's not like this was the coolest Lego set ever -- that was the earlier Galaxy Commander (drool...) -- it was still a big deal to me. I used to read Lego catalogs before going to sleep at night. Every night. And as I was just a kid, the only way I was getting my hands on this set was through the grace and will of Santa Claus. It was only that year, though, that I had learned the secret of Santa Claus (I think Just For Men names it "Jolly White"...and yes, this will be a recurring joke, where I mention the secret of Santa Claus and then make up something else in parentheses). As I was still flush with this knowledge, it was kind of obvious why our family drove to Toys 'R Us on an early December evening. And as I was also a know-it-all...

When we arrived at Toys-R, I probably did my usual thing -- walk down the long games aisle...look at a few things, especially the electronic chess sets behind the glass...and then book it across the back of the store to the last aisle on the far side of the store: the Lego aisle. I don't know how to describe the Lego aisle other than...well...it was kind of like the scene in Rush Hour 2 where they raise the curtain and Chris Tucker gets to choose from all the...well, let's just say that if Mom ever lost me in that store, she knew where to find me. So I spent my usual several minutes looking at the box for Robot Command Center, opening the front flap that revealed the pieces within and more alternate creations on the inside cover, and checking out a few other sets as well. Eventually my parents wandered over with my brothers and dragged me to other parts of the store. Later, as we're about ready to head toward the exit, I get smart-alecky and decide to prove that I know what's under Mom's coat at the bottom of the shopping cart. I reach in and move the coat, and sure enough, out peeks Robot Command Center. My parents, obviously annoyed at me, scold me and then take it back to the Lego aisle and leave it there. We go through the checkout without it, and we leave the store.

Holy crap, they're serious. Did I really just screw up Robot Command Center? But then, of course, before we can drive away, one of my parents "forgot something" in the store and goes back for it. And they deny, deny, deny, but something goes in the trunk of the car. And wouldn't you know it, on Christmas morning there's a present tucked toward the back of the pile that is of a suspiciously right size. The morning rolls along, the pile shrinks a bit, and I decide to make the move for my mystery box. I give it a little shake, and I hear that sound.

Know what Mom says? "Oh...it's not time for that one yet."

The 12 Days Of Christmas Memories

2008-12-13T07:59:00.013-06:00

Each day between now and Christmas, I'll offer up some of my favorite memories from Christmases past with my parents, my brothers Ben and Teddy, my sister Allison, and recently Teddy's wife Tiffany. My siblings will help me out a bit, my hazy recollection will hinder me a bit, and somehow I'll embroider it all together. I'll strive to be somewhat poignant, somewhat funny, and somewhat concise, which should ensure that I achieve none of those three.

I think I'm writing this for my parents but not to my parents; I need to pretend my reader doesn't already know these stories, because otherwise it would feel like my parents are staring at me the whole time. Also, I'm totally going to link to this from Facebook.

These stories are in no particular order, except that on the first days I'll probably write the ones that seem the easiest to write. Feel free to heckle me as I go.

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Day 1: It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Legos
Day 2: Come On Down
Day 3: No F---ing S---, Lady
Day 4: Music Makes The People Come Together
Day 5: I...Love...Crêpes
Day 6: 'Tis Better To Give
Day 7: You Will Eat Way Too Much Food...In Bed
Day 8: Whose Turn Is It?
Day 9: Early To Bed And Early To Rise
Day 10: While You Were Sleeping
Day 11: The Snapparellas
Day 12: The Most Ridiculous Thing I've Ever Done
In Closing: Fah Who For-aze, Dah Who Dor-aze
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Deadspin Commenter Nickname of the Week

2007-09-18T13:57:00.000-05:00

Another in the short list of "things that I won't stick with long enough to be funny" -- my first ever Deadspin Commenter Nickname of the Week. No one has created this user nickname yet, as far as I know, but it passes both tests: funny (you did watch it, didn't you?) and staying power (Heather Mitts...nuff said).

Rob Stone's Pimp Hand

With a nod to FH's Dave Warner for the phrase and a huge "we're better off for having known you" to Awful Announcing for the video.

Adrian Peterson, a fantasy keeper league steal

2007-08-17T20:29:00.000-05:00

I base this on less than one half of a preseason game against the Jets, but Adrian Peterson is going to be phenomenal in Minnesota. I rarely watched him in college because, you know, fuck the Sooners. But against New York, Peterson could not be tackled by just one defender. He gained most of his yards after contact. He used the Madden juke move to hit the hole behind left tackle with no loss of speed. I would be scared...but the Vikings' passing game instills so little confidence that I'm willing to bet Minnesota will complete no passes farther than 10 yards downfield during the game in Chicago. Every team the Vikings face is going to put eight in the box and let Tavaris Jackson pretend like he's going to throw downfield. Peterson is still going to get plenty of yards -- and unless this preseason game is grossly misrepresentative of running ability, AP will be starting by October -- but the Vikes should have sent their QBs to Rex Grossman's Sex Cannon Training Camp in the offseason. There's only so much enjoyment you can get out of a 6-10 season that hits the under 12 times.

One area in which ESPN is still miles ahead of its competition: highlights background music. Fox's music tries too hard. One area in which Fox has the chance to separate itself from its competition: getting Pam Oliver more quality reps during the regular season. Pam has looked like an all-star on the sidelines during the preseason. I'd like to see Fox given the opportunity to have Pam interview the players that just sit on the bench when their unit is off the field, as well as starters that have been pulled late in blowouts.

Rui Costa 2, Copenhagen 1

2007-08-14T16:06:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the liveblog at Portugoal, I got to witness (sort of) Freddy Adu's debut for Benfica. Adu came on as a sub in the 36th minute after Luisao was injured (not totally unrelated to Copenhagen's goal, I gather). Fortunately for Benfica, Rui Costa dominated the game, scoring both of his team's goals in the 2-1 victory. Unfortunately for Adu, Rui Costa plays Adu's favorite position, central attacking midfielder. It's great that Adu is playing in Europe, and in a Champion's League qualifier, but I'm guessing he played as a wing forward today. Seems like he had one somewhat dangerous flick header, one overly ambitious bicycle kick, and little else of note. Quite the unconvincing team effort today, it seems

In other UCL qualifying/USA news, it was DaMarcus Beasley's sub that scored the late winner as Rangers edged Red Star Crvena Zvezda (should I have heard of them before?).

Premier League Week 1: West Ham - Man City

2007-08-11T10:20:00.000-05:00

The Premier League is underway! Who knows how long I'll keep this up, but Week 1 is like the first day of school -- I arrive way early, drenched with enthusiasm, trying to do every last thing I think I want to do. Eventually, I just do what I have to do. So we'll see.

Breakfast: Three-egg omelet with dill, prepackaged ham slices, orange bell pepper, and organic tomatoes. I'm learning as I go -- eggs by themselves should be cooked over low heat, but I think omelets demand higher heat because the rest of the ingredients are cold, and it would take for-freaking-ever over low heat. With kickoff less than five minutes away, up goes the heat, baby. Oh, and Twinings English Breakfast tea.

First Half

City starts out dominating the midfield. While I detest the lack of attacking possibilities that a lone striker offers -- think France playing two holding midfielders at last year's World Cup -- playing five in midfield when your opponent insists on four is a sure way to control possession. West Ham plays rather carelessly, giving away the ball at seemingly every opportunity. Petrov takes several shots from distance, and they're not bad shots, they're just not on goal. I'm impressed by how well-timed almost every challenge is and by how dangerous almost every cross is -- the Gold Cup and MLS have lowered my expectations. After a well-timed tackle on Boa Morte, the ball pops straight to Hamann, who releases Elano down the middle of the pitch with space to run at the West Ham defense. Elano directs Bianchi to his left, then simply runs around the defense to the right, plays a firm, curving ball perfectly back across between the keeper and Ferdinand for Bianchi to slide home from three yards out. 1-0 City. A rather simple goal, and poor defending by Upton to let Elano get around him, but watching Elano on the ball here was like watching Jason Kidd run a fast break.

West Ham looks to have settled. Bellamy is spending way too much time on the left wing, and any advantage he may have over Corluka in speed is more than compensated for by the Croatian's size. I used to think Bellamy was tall, but that could be because he's just insane. Bianchi clearly doesn't speak any English, and I have to wonder how team chemistry overcomes a language barrier. I can't think of an office job in which fluency with the predominant language isn't absolutely required, so I really don't know what it's like to be able to do your job without perfectly understanding your coworkers. Some chances for West Ham, some nice dancing in the box by Boa Morte, but it must be frustrating for the West Ham supporters to watch each attack wasted without a quality attempt at goal. Surely enough, they boo at the halftime whistle.

Halftime beer: St. Peter's English Ale. I'm a huge fan of St. Peter's Cream Stout, but in keeping with today's theme, I'm going with this English pale ale. My first thought was, "This smells like MGD." Seriously, this is a beer that should not be served directly out of the refrigerator. Much better aroma after it warms up a bit and other flavors have a chance to contribute. Decent beer, but I'm not spending $3.49 a pint to drink decent, so no repeat purchase on the horizon here.

Second Half

Live-blogging takes commitment. This is in no way live blogging. Beer + open laptop = less attention on a not-totally-enthralling game. West Ham uses all three subs at the break, and creates better chances in this half, including a great diagonal, lofted pass to the endline by Zamora to...some guy...who rifles the ball across the face of goal, just missing Ljungberg, who really just had his weight on the wrong foot to be able to react in time. City get a second goal after some great work by Onuoha sets up Giovanni in the right side of the box to bury a low shot inside the far-post. Wow, I have no tolerance. This is ridiculous. Cheaper this way, but still ridiculous.

Checking other scores...whoa, Spurs lose late at Sunderland. Hey, it's Week 1, I'm motivated, I'll stick around for the highlights. And Derby gets a point! At home, but still, it's Pompey, so not bad. Ohhhhhh...Tottenham, that is a weak goal. Four minutes into stoppage time. Way not to mark the guy right in the middle of the box.

Well, fun start to the Premiership. It's a rare Saturday that I've had a good breakfast and gotten tipsy before 11:00a.m. We'll see how long I can keep this up.

Chuck Norris

2007-07-25T16:01:00.000-05:00

"Chuck Norris is the fire in which we burn."

Some of my coworkers were discussing "Chuck Norris Facts" and how the Chuckster doesn't seem to get any older. The above was my spontaneous, and hopefully original, contribution. It also made me wonder exactly where that Star Trek: Generations quote came from. A guy named Schwartz, naturally.

Why Johnny Mnemonic is awesome

2007-07-21T10:41:00.000-05:00

Johnny Mnemonic is awesome, and it goes far beyond Keanu Reeves's performance. The best parts, though, can go unnoticed for the first several viewings. That's why I'm here.

With about 15 minutes left in the movie, Takahashi holds a gun and a katana while confronting Johnny, who is unarmed. The two slowly circle around each other, except the space is rectangular and narrow, so they practically have to squeeze by each other to switch sides. Now that is good filmmaking.

Trust and Parenting: why men are less likely to forgive adultery

2007-04-18T17:58:00.000-05:00

Several of my female friends, under the influence of a few drinks, have argued that they would find it easier to forgive their boyfriend or husband for having sex with a random stranger than for having a close emotional friendship-relationship with another woman. I pointed out that this argument would still require, you know, actually forgiving the guy for sleeping with another woman. I can't imagine any reason to forgive a woman for cheating on me, and yet my female friends admit that they would forgive a man for just about anything.

I think the opinions above are representative of men and women in general: Men are less likely to forgive a woman's adultery than women are to forgive a man's. I wanted to find something biological, something instinctive, that could contribute to the difference. I think this is it:

A man needs to know that the child he is raising is actually his offspring.

When a couple has a child, there's no question who the mother is. The identity of the father is only in question to whatever extent the woman is not trustworthy. If a man knows that his wife has been unfaithful to him, he may wonder whether he is really the father of his wife's child. A woman faces no such uncertainty; if she gives birth to a child, she's the mother.

I know that a man can be a great father to children that are not his, but doing so is not proactively Darwinian -- it does nothing to pass along the man's genes. For a number of reasons, the genes that led a man to have his own children were more successful than the genes that led a man to help raise others' children instead of having his own. If a man is going to be monogamous, then, it wouldn't surprise me if he has an instinctive need to know that he is the only person his wife is going let knock her up.

Bo Ryan, AP Coach of the Year

2007-03-18T18:42:00.000-05:00

It's official -- to me, at least. Bo Ryan will be the AP Coach of the Year. Year after year this award goes to a coach whose team bows out early in the tournament. Funny, I could see the award coming weeks in advance, and yet I still thought Wisconsin was a good pick to cover in the second round.

[UPDATE: Billy Gillispie won the real award. Here's a surprise -- Texas A&M lived up to its 3-seed, losing to 2-seed Memphis in the Sweet 16.]

College sports can't do math

2007-03-10T20:06:00.000-06:00

This is the dumbest thing I have ever seen in the history of officiating. Miami made a shot to take the lead, and the ball went through the netting with at most 0.2 seconds left. The officials checked the replay and discovered that the clock started late after the preceding free throw, about half a second late, which means that more time should have elapsed. Not less time. And yet they added time back to the clock. How the fuck does this go unnoticed? By the announcers, the coaches, or...oh, wait...the officials themselves?

Someone's getting suspended for this.

Northwestern: "If only we had talent"

2007-03-01T00:09:00.000-06:00

On Monday I wrote to John Gasaway about Northwestern's oddly high two-point field goal percentage. On Wednesday I watched with a critical eye from the nosebleeds in Welsh-Ryan. What did I learn? Basically, I learned what the Princeton offense looks like. [For anyone that knows me, this was a "brownies" moment. And for anyone that doesn't know me, it has nothing to do with weed.] I never learned, though, exactly how the Princeton offense is designed. So everything below is written as if I had never heard of the Princeton offense.

[Note that what I did learn came from the first half, as the second half turned into shooting practice for Roderick Wilmont and a fast break clinic for Northwestern. Only one of those was surprising.]

During the first fifteen minutes of the game, excluding a single five-foot hook shot from Tim Doyle, Northwestern took exactly two types of shots: three-pointers and driving layups. If a player didn't have a clear path to the rim, he didn't try to score from inside the three-point line. As layups go, Northwestern missed a lot of them, but they still shot 22-for-38 for the game on two-point attempts (this would include some jumpers after Indiana relaxed their perimeter defense).

Northwestern's offensive sets rarely kept a player in the low post. I recall Kevin Coble truly posting up no more than a couple times, and whenever Tim Doyle started in the post, it was usually so he could gain a physical advantage for getting back out to a high-screen position. Most of the time there were four players on or outside of the three-point line and a fifth player in the high post, by one of the corners of the free-throw line. To free up a three-point shooter against man-to-man defense, Northwestern primarily used screening handoffs and high screens off the ball. Most plays started with a pass into the high post followed by the passer cutting down the lane. They ran backdoor cuts, but most layup attempts came from a player getting an edge on his defender and just going to the rim.

I was surprised to find that Northwestern rarely ran into trouble with the shot clock. The only forced shot I can remember turned out to be a tip-layup. So why does Northwestern shoot so many three-pointers? Because their shooters display a Grossmanian lack of discrimination. If one of their shooters had his feet set and no defender immediately in his face, he took the three. Very few attempts were wide-open looks.

I can rationalize Northwestern's offensive actions: They look for a layup attempt or a three-point attempt; they take the first decent opportunity they're given, because they assume that a forced shot to beat the clock will deliver less than the 0.82 points they average on three-point attempts. As I said, I can rationalize it, but I don't know that Bill Carmody or any other Pete Carril disciples think of it in the same way.

Another guess is that Carmody doesn't have a backup plan. No coach expects his team to shoot under 30% from downtown, but it's not like changing up the offense can create more of the type of two-point shots they want to take. If the layups are there, they're there. If not, they can change what they do to use more of the area inside the arc, or they can keep jacking up threes. With the lack of talent on this year's team, Carmody may have felt a midrange game wouldn't have been any more successful than their current three-point game. Can't say I blame him -- I wouldn't be surprised if Northwestern's 50% on two-point attempts came from 60% on layups and 30% on jumpers. Why take 0.6 points for a two-point jumper when you can take 0.8 or 0.9 for a three-pointer?

[Okay, now you can pretend I've heard of the Princeton offense, because I'm about to make some random but related comments.]

Georgetown. I'm not at all surprised that they lead the nation in two-point field goal percentage. I (gleefully) watched them beat Duke last year when Shelden Williams perplexingly guarded his man out beyond the three-point line, and the Hokies Hoyas ran so many backdoor plays they had to put "NSFW" on the link to the game recap. So we know Georgetown likes to go to the hole. [Wow, I'll stop.] What does surprise me is how few of Georgetown's shots get blocked. I would think that block rate would increase as shot distance from rim decreased. Roy Hibbert helps, of course. But maybe I should watch a Georgetown game (ya think?) to see from where they actually take their shots.

What second chance points tell us about the relative importance of rebounds

2006-12-29T11:53:00.000-06:00

Today Big Ten Wonk opined that defensive rebounds are more important to defense than offensive rebounds are to offense. As everything comes back to Points Per Possession (PPP), I wondered whether teams score more points after an offensive rebound than they do on an average possession. This is difficult to track down because "second chance points" don't always appear in the box score. Only eight of Illinois's box scores to date have included second chance points. The numbers below are PPP / PPrP (the latter being Points Per rebounded Possession, calculated as second chance points divided by offensive rebounds). The first set is Illinois's defense (the other team's PPP) and the second set is Illinois's offense.

11/19 Florida A&M 1.04 / 0.80
11/21 Savannah State 0.53 / 1.40
11/25 Bradley 1.03 / 1.08
11/28 Maryland 1.01 / 1.11
12/06 IUPUI 0.86 / 1.00
12/17 Belmont 0.70 / 0.80
12/19 Missouri 1.06 / 1.22
12/21 Idaho State 1.10 / 1.18

11/19 vs. Florida A&M 1.39 / 1.16
11/21 vs. Savannah State 1.26 / 0.77
11/25 vs. Bradley 1.08 / 1.20
11/28 vs. Maryland 0.92 / 0.95
12/06 vs. IUPUI 1.27 / 1.25
12/17 vs. Belmont 1.06 / 0.78
12/19 vs. Missouri 1.11 / 1.29
12/21 vs. Idaho State 1.30 / 1.62

The weighted averages on defense are 0.91 / 1.07 -- Illinois gives up 0.16 more points per possession on opponents' offensive-rebounded possessions than on opponents' possessions overall. The numbers for Illinois's offense are more difficult to grasp. I think the weighted averages of 1.16 / 1.10 are misleading, due to early-season rebound fests.

As Wonk often observes, offensive rebounding and defensive rebounding are different skills. Lumping the two together is like using assist-to-turnover ratio -- it provides some insight, but the two aren't that intimately linked. But my point is that if a team's (take a deep breath) offensive marginal points per rebounded possession exceeds its defensive marginal points per rebounded possession, then its offensive rebounds are more important to its offense than its defensive rebounds are to its defense. And if Off mPPrP < Def mPPrP, then its Drebs are more important to its defense than its Orebs are to its offense.

In Illinois's case, right now I'd say that defensive rebounds are more important to the team's defensive consistency than offensive rebounds are to the team's offensive consistency. [It's great to change the question while giving the answer.] We know what's going to happen from game to game when Illinois gives up a defensive rebound -- the other team gets a small boost on the continued possession. When Illinois gets an offensive rebound, though, we really have no idea what's going to happen from game to game.

Appealing a suspension should not be a negotiation

2006-12-20T01:22:00.000-06:00

Carmelo Anthony was suspended for 15 games, and now he may appeal his suspension. He must be thinking like Cher in Clueless: "Well, some teachers are trying to low-ball me, Daddy. And I know how you say, 'Never accept a first offer,' so I figure these grades are just a jumping off point to start negotiations."

I once had a professor that told his students that a request for a regrade would open the exam up to any re-evaluation, not just on the issue for which the student thought he was unfairly graded. The insinuation was that a student could end up with a lower score after the regrade.

A 15-game suspension is not inherently unfair. What Anthony's representatives would argue is that it is unfair in the context of the collective bargaining agreement and case law (the league's past disciplinary measures). As the appeal should be handled by a neutral party -- thanks, AP writer, for failing to mention who would handle a prospective appeal -- the NBA Office of Discipline (that would look so great on a business card) would present its own argument. Who's to say whether 15 games is actually an insufficient punishment, and that the arbiter of the appeal could order a longer suspension? [*cough*Stephen Jackson*cough*] I get the feeling this would never happen in the NBA, but we don't hear anything from the players that think, "You know, I got off light, I'll shut my mouth and do the time."

Maybe the NBA could end up where the English Premier League is. On a corner kick in the waning moments of Saturday's match against Sheffield United, Wigan's Lee McCulloch freed himself from his defender with a punch below the right eye. The referee didn't catch it, but the TV cameras did. The FA charged McCulloch with violent conduct, meriting a three-game suspension, and he accepted the suspension. Perhaps this is because the FA gives players under 48 hours to respond. Good luck drafting an argument based on case law in that time. And the FA deals with more extreme cases in the same way: "This is what you did. It was bad. If you can possibly justify it, tell us now, but...I mean, come on."

I know little about NBA case law, but I do remember Michael Barrett clocking A. J. Pierzynski and getting only 10 games (6% of the MLB season...and he didn't appeal). Hockey players fight all the time and usually end up with just a game misconduct. But basketball is different. Closer. More intimate. And case law may not be as applicable here. Fighting is bad, and David Stern wants it out of the game. Why shouldn't Carmelo's actions cost him 18% of the NBA season? Why shouldn't it be more? Is there anything in the CBA that actually supports fighting? What Carmelo did was bad. I know he was egged on, but if fighting is bad, how can he possibly justify what he did?

[Update: Carmelo decided not to appeal, and Marc Stein did mention who handles which appeals.]

We were going to redshirt this guy?

2006-11-28T18:59:00.000-06:00

It's halftime of the Maryland-Illinois game, and I have one question: We were going to redshirt Brian Carlwell?

BC (yes, I've already nicknamed him) looked really raw against Georgia Southern, but a mere two weeks later against Maryland he looks like he belongs. He showed good awareness and control under the basket on both ends. My only complaint is that he dunks just like my high school classmate Carl Claxton: jump straight up, pause in air for split second, dunk by placing full body weight on rim. Better is this: jump at rim, dunk immediately without hanging on rim.

Give me three inconsequential wishes

2006-11-16T22:24:00.000-06:00

If I were given three wishes, but I could only wish for changes of negligible consequence...

Michigan State center Goran Suton would do nothing on offense but set baseline screens.
No NHL team other than the Detroit Red Wings would be allowed to wear red pants with red jerseys. Carolina, stop fighting it; embrace the blue-green Whale. Phoenix...you're freaking Phoenix. No hockey team in Arizona has a claim to anything.
The Boston Red Sox would sign Sammy Sosa.

Is the 1 seed a better team?

2006-11-14T20:48:00.000-06:00

SI.com's Don Banks wrote this piece pointing out that earning the top seed in a conference is no guarantee of a Super Bowl birth. He's right, although he fails to state that the top seed still has a heck of a better chance to make the Super Bowl than any other team. But have 1 seeds actually played to a level that says they're better than other playoff teams? Is the regular season champ really the best team?

1 seeds have a first-round bye, and second-round games significantly favor the teams with a bye week, but there is no bye-week effect on third-round games. For the 1 seed, third-round games are always at home, but does the 1 seeds' winning percentage exceed that which we would predict from home field advantage alone?

Since the playoffs first admitted 12 teams in 1990, 1 seeds have won 62% of their third-round games (16 of 26). During the 2002-2005 regular seasons, home teams won 59% of their games. Based on this alone -- and this is the level of complexity I would like to see in a weekly lead item for a major sports website -- I would suggest that, on average, 1 seeds have played third-round playoff games as though they were slightly better than their opponents.

Look how simple that was! I didn't even have to take a jab at Peyton Manning's laser-rocket arm.

Other stuff:

Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day: risible -- it's pronounced RIZZ, but it means capable of getting a RISE out of people through humor. I get the feeling that risible refers to actual humor, as opposed to laughable's derisive connotation. My attempt: "Futurama occasionally and unexpectedly paperclips a moment of poignancy to the denouement of a thoroughly risible episode."
I was going to compile with a "Were you really paying attention?" quiz on 2006 sports trivia, but all I could come up with was this: "What was the St. Louis Cardinals' regular season record?"
Mike Tanier's last Too Deep Zone article was so awesome that I now want to see a distribution graph for each running back. Eventually we'd get to the point where we'd say, "Ahman Green? Yeah, he's a :: whoosh :: runner." [Making the appropriate hand motion.]

First thoughts on the Freshman Album Theory

2006-11-08T23:43:00.000-06:00

Actual (yet fleeting) sports content alert! I wonder how Tom Izzo's conditioning program compares to Bruce Weber's. I also wonder why Bruce Weber doesn't take advantage of his team's potentially superior conditioning by running teams out of the gym in the second half when playing with a lead. Last year's Penn State game was the college basketball equivalent of Martyball.

Brief follow-up on last week's note -- I accidentally clicked a link that took me to Big Ten Wonk's March 2, 2006, entry, in which Wonk used Hegelian to describe the existence, or perhaps the perpetuation, of extreme home field advantage in the Big Ten. Unfortunately, I now have even less of a clue about the word means. At least as Wonk uses it.

This week Wonk broke out quite the arsenal of big words, although I attribute this in large part to my Freshman Album Theory. The sophomore album of many bands fails to match the quality of the first (i.e., freshman) album. I believe this is because most bands spend at least five years writing and performing their music before they get to release an album with a major record label. Over these years a band has ample opportunity to write for quantity and choose for quality -- the band learns what songs are objectively good and has enough to choose from to put together a solid album. After the album's release, the band goes on tour to support the album, and then may take time off to celebrate newfound popularity. Suddenly the band realizes the label wants to release another album in six months, giving the band just four to six weeks to write new material for the album. The band faces an uphill battle to capture in such a short time the same creativity and quality that went into the first album.

Wonk undoubtedly spent much of September and October putting together his alphabetically-sensitive preseason walk-arounds, meaning he had ample time to include references to all sorts of philosophers unknown to those of us with conservative arts degrees. [Grammar doesn't accommodate that type of NOT statement. Besides, it's election week. Anyway, you understand me.] I doubt that similar references will be as frequent when Wonk has to generate a new post daily over the next five months. Although perhaps that entry from
March should make me think again.

Of course, I expect the references to indefatigable columnists and oracular bloggers to remain consistent throughout.

The two winners for this week, along with what I think they Wonk is using them to say:

epistemological = challenging the accepted explanation for what something means (used mockingly)
Manichaeism = a philosophy that explicitly divides the world into good and evil (used to emphasize the extremes-with-no-middle-ground nature of the beliefs concerning prospects for Michigan's season)

Wonk's inspired use of the word adverbial deserves special mention: "describing stylistic inclinations, not level of performance."

John Clayton hearts the Raiders

2006-11-02T14:53:00.000-06:00

Each Thursday ESPN.com publishes John Clayton's "First...and 10" column, which previews 11 of the weekend's NFL games. In any given week there are at least 13 games with 26 teams playing, meaning that each week not every team that is playing is included in the column. Last year I found it funny that Clayton continued to leave the Bears out of his column, even though they were on their way to a first-round bye. So this year I've kept track.

As weeks 3-9 of the NFL season include byes, only four or six teams per week were excluded from the column for those weeks. In the second half of the season, five games and ten teams per week will be excluded from Clayton's column, but at least things can't get much worse for the Texans than they already are. From the column's standpoint, at least.

Through the first nine weeks (eight games) of the season, here is how often each team was included in the column, and how often each team was chosen for the first/headlining game:

Team	Included	First
DAL	8	2
SEA	8	1
CIN	8	0
OAK	8	0
PIT	8	0
TB	8	0
NYG	7	2
PHI	7	2
ATL	7	1
BAL	7	1
CAR	7	1
DEN	7	1
JAX	7	1
NE	7	1
DET	7	0
MIN	7	0
NYJ	7	0
IND	6	3
SD	6	1
STL	6	1
ARI	6	0
BUF	6	0
CHI	6	0
KC	6	0
NO	6	0
WAS	6	0
CLE	5	0
GB	4	0
MIA	4	0
SF	3	0
TEN	2	0
HOU	1	0

Some of this has to do with a team's opponent as well as the team itself; the Bears made the column for their first six games but were left off for their last two, home dates against the 49ers and the Dolphins.

The usual suspects appear toward the bottom: Texans, Titans, 49ers, Dolphins, Packers, Browns. The Colts lead in headliners, followed by the Terrell Owens Experience in the NFC East. Perfect teams include the Steelers and Seahawks (last year's Super Bowl participants), the Cowboys (all T.O., all the time), the Bengals and Buccaneers (last year's two division winners for which, in PFP 2006, Football Outsiders predicted a significant drop), and...

The Oakland Raiders?!? This can't be entirely opponent-based, because here were the Raiders' first four games:

vs. SD (no byes this week)
at BAL (no byes)
vs. CLE
at SF

It's gotta be the Shell. Art Shell has some kind of power over long-serving NFL columnists, and I think I know what it is. Judge for yourself.

As for the second half of the season, I predict the Bears will finally make the headliner game at least once in November, and probably twice: at the Giants in week 10 and at the Patriots in week 12.

Also, this would be quite possibly the lamest excuse for a suicide pool, but next week I very well may start picking a game I think will be excluded from the column that week.

Conflicting opinions are to be embraced

2006-11-02T11:56:00.000-06:00

That's right, the Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day is back. Although this time without hyperlinks, because (1) I'm lazy, and (2) if you can't find Wonk's blog or a dictionary site, I'm amazed you found this one.

The past two seasons of Illinois basketball provide a handy illustration of how continuity can coexist happily alongside change. (How Hegelian!)

For those unfamiliar with this theme of mine...Big Ten Wonk has a penchant for using roughly one word per day with which I am unfamiliar (for whatever that's worth); and whether intentionally or not, he uses the word in a manner outside its traditional meaning.

Hegel was a scientist of philosophy, and I get the feeling I'd need about two semesters to understand his theories. I think basically what he was saying was that contradictions and implications on reality should be explored to reach a more comprehensive understanding of the original concept. So while Illinois lost Deron Williams, Luther Head, Roger Powell, and Jack Ingram, which everyone would expect would make the team worse, their defense was just as good the following year.

Or something like that.

Let's just say I'll never use the word Hegelian on my own.

Recipe: Korean BBQ shrimp stir fry

2006-08-27T13:46:00.000-05:00

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes (excluding rice)
Serves: 2

Ingredients:
1/2 lb. 41-50 count precooked shrimp
1 orange bell pepper
6 oz. snap peas
4 oz. mushrooms
cooking spray
1/2 cup Trader Joe's Korean Style BBQ Sauce
rice

Preparation:
From largest pieces to smallest, after preparation: shrimp, bell pepper, snap peas, mushrooms.
Cut shrimp in half.
Chop bell pepper into 2/3-inch squares.
Cut snap peas in thirds.
Finely dice mushrooms.

Cooking:
Preheat frying pan at medium-to-high heat.
Cover pan with cooking spray.
Add shrimp. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add bell pepper, snap peas, and mushrooms. Cook for another 3-5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Once all ingredients are hot, but while snap peas are still crunchy, stir in sauce. Cook for 1 more minute, then serve over rice.

Let me explain this in plain English...um...

2006-07-25T17:01:00.000-05:00

Sammy Sosa can't believe he was not included in a list of five Chicago Cubs "Hometown Heroes."

That's great, Sammy. Whom would you bump from the list?

Ernie Banks -- Hall of Famer; number retired by Cubs
Ferguson Jenkins -- Hall of Famer
Ryne Sandberg -- Hall of Famer; number retired by Cubs
Ron Santo -- number retired by Cubs
Billy Williams -- Hall of Famer; number retired by Cubs

The Cubs have only retired the numbers of four players, and all four of those players made the list. The Cubs also have had only four players in the past 50 years that spent more than two years as a Cub and were elected to the Hall of Fame, and all four of those players made the list. So when you pull off one of those, Sammy, I'll listen to you.

Not a good year to receive AP Coach of the Year votes (and why Bruce Weber still rocks the house)

2006-03-31T15:35:00.000-06:00

I got a chuckle out of how this year's AP Coach of the Year vote recipients' teams performed in the NCAA tournament, with respect to their seed:

Roy Williams, North Carolina (29 votes, -1 round*)
Jay Wright, Villanova (15, -1)
Bruce Pearl, Tennessee (11, -2)
Bill Self, Kansas (7, -2)
Thad Matta, Ohio State (5, -2)
John Calipari, Memphis (2, -1)
Karl Hobbs, George Washington (1, 0)
Ben Howland, UCLA (1, +1 or more)
Al Skinner, Boston College (1, 0)

*[I'm defining this as the number of games a team wins in the tournament minus the number of games the team is originally (i.e., ignoring upsets) supposed to win within its region based on seeding. Anything in the Final Four is a bonus, even for 1-seeds, because in theory the Final Four should be all 1-seeds.]

So of the teams with the top six vote-getters, not one lived up to its seed in the tournament.

Last year, you ask?

Bruce Weber, Illinois (54 votes, +1 round)
Mike Krzyzewski, Duke (6, -2)
Al Skinner, Boston College (5, -1)
Lorenzo Romar, Washington (4, -2)
others (3, unknown...because some AP writer decided these votes weren't worth mentioning, and now they've vanished into the mists of antiquity)

In 2004 the teams of the top two vote recipients, Phil Martelli (29, -1) and Eddie Sutton (13, +1), were cast as the 1-seed and 2-seed in the same region.

And as it's not quite 5:00pm, here is how the teams of each of the past winners performed in the tournament, back to 1985:

2006 Roy Williams, North Carolina 3 seed, -2 rounds
2005 Bruce Weber, Illinois 1, +1
2004 Phil Martelli, Saint Joseph's 1, -1
2003 Tubby Smith, Kentucky 1, -1
2002 Ben Howland, Pittsburgh 3, 0 (although the loss was to 10-seed Kent State)
2001 Matt Doherty, North Carolina 2, -2
2000 Larry Eustachy, Iowa State 2, 0
1999 Cliff Ellis, Auburn 1, -2
1998 Tom Izzo, Michigan State 4, 0
1997 Clem Haskins, Minnesota 1, 0
1996 Gene Keady, Purdue 1, -3
1995 Kelvin Sampson, Oklahoma 4, -2
1994 Norm Stewart, Missouri 1, -1
1993 Eddie Fogler, Vanderbilt 3, 0 (although the loss was to 7-seed Temple)
1992 Roy Williams, Kansas 1, -3
1991 Randy Ayers, Ohio State 1, -2
1990 Jim Calhoun, Connecticut 1, -1 (Laettner I)
1989 Bob Knight, Indiana 2, -1
1988 John Chaney, Temple 1, -1
1987 Tom Davis, Iowa 2, 0
1986 Eddie Sutton, Kentucky 1, -1 (11-seed LSU)
1985 Bill Frieder, Michigan 1, -3 (8-seed, and eventual champion, Villanova)

Sure, the higher a seed a team has, the more games they have to win to live up to their seed. Still, in the past 22 years, Bruce Weber is the only AP Coach of the Year to lead his team to additional victories beyond validating their seed. In fact, only two the past thirteen 1-seeds led by an AP Coach of the Year validated their seed with a trip to the Final Four.

Even in politics, two wrongs still don't make a right

2006-02-01T16:58:00.000-06:00

Today U.S. Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.) took the floor of the House of Representatives to condemn the treatment of his wife, Beverly, at last night's State of the Union address. Great job, Bill. Here's why this was a political stunt, pure and simple.

"House rules bar demonstrations in the galleries." This is Rep. Young's 18th term in the House; I'm sure both he and his wife are aware of the rules. This is also George W. Bush's sixth State of the Union address, and he's held office for five years; I think the entire nation knows how his administration feels about letting people do things in their own way. Additionally, it isn't too far-fetched to suggest that Rep. and Mrs. Young knew that anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan had been invited to attend, and would likely attempt to make an unspoken statement of some kind (which she did).

Putting all this together, Mrs. Young showed up to the State of the Union address in a shirt that would undoubtedly be censored, just so her husband could feign outrage the following day to drown out any backlash over Mrs. Sheehan's arrest (although I'm surprised they actually arrested her...it's not like this was the Final Four or anything).

I have no problem with the message on Mrs. Young's shirt -- "Support the Troops Defending Our Freedom" -- but there's a difference between wearing a symbolic ribbon and wearing a shirt with text on it. There are times to make an overt statement, and last night was not one of those times. All attention at the State of the Union should be on the president, and any attempt to draw attention away from the president during the event is inappropriate. I believe the motivation for Mrs. Young to wear her shirt came in part from the desire to cancel out the impact of anything Mrs. Sheehan might do, but that doesn't justify it. Doing something wrong isn't the way to make something else right.

The treatment of Intelligent Design

2006-01-25T17:37:00.000-06:00

Is the theory of Intelligent Design held to abnormal standards by the scientific community?

ID exists in the environment of today, and that environment that can be characterized by multiple, distinct dimensions. These dimensions include time (the year 2006) and field (biology). The comparison of ID to the early years of evolution theory holds all dimensions constant save time. The inherent uncertainty in reliance on historical records presents a challenge in our development of a full understanding of the environment of evolution theory in its early years. Any comparisons we may yet draw will suffice only to describe how the environment may change along this one dimension -- a partial derivative, so to speak, with respect to time.

It is certainly valid to consider a comparison that holds all dimensions, including time, constant save the field of study. To what standard are other scientific theories in their early stages held in the present day? How does the treatment of ID compare with the treatment of new theories in anthropology, seismology, or quantum physics? In other words, what is the partial derivative with respect to field?

Additionally it can be asked whether the treatment of a proposed theory represents a continuous function at the point in question, which is (2006, biology). Is ID held to the same standard as other new theories in biology, or does ID have a different value than other theories at that same point do?

Does the theory of Intelligent Design receive abnormal promotion from its supporters?

In the present day there are undoubtedly individuals and groups whose passion for their own theory, in their own field, is as great as or greater than ID proponents’ passion for ID. How does ID compare to other theories with respect to the following:

production of for-profit books and other items in support of the theory;
appearances in mainstream media reports; and
funds allocated for research and awareness?

If ID does receive abnormal promotion, there are two possible reasons why. First, ID’s proponents may have ulterior motives. The terms “for-profit” and “awareness” hint at this possibility. Second, ID’s proponents may feel that ID is more important, socially and culturally, than other new theories. Quite simply, why? Why is ID so important that it should be thrust into the public consciousness prior to the development of a scientific core of evidence?

I lack the knowledge and means to provide a thorough answer to the questions above. Even so, I believe that ID is not science; that ID’s proponents want it to be given the weight of science; and that they promote it as if ID were better than science. ID's supporters treat ID as a sociocultural phenomenon that cannot be bothered with the deliberate pathways of science. Is it any wonder that ID has received a backlash from the scientific community, even without that community holding ID to a higher standard?

Worth the stretch

2006-01-19T22:20:00.000-06:00

Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day for Thursday, January 19:

lacuna (luh-CUE-nuh) n. An empty space or a missing part. (more)

At first glance, I thought this word would describe a sexual position to be used during a full moon. Or maybe a combination of the two. Guess I was wrong. Bonus points for the add-an-"e" pluralization, though.

A defining characteristic of a Wonk Word Of The Day is its debatable usage. Is it too much of a stretch to use an anatomical term to describe a player's failure to contribute? The fact is that any difficult word that appears in a discussion about sports is probably a stretch simply because it appears in a discussion about sports. At least when Wonk does it, he uses a word that's so far beyond the sports landscape that it's obvious he knows what it really means. Even if it's not always a perfect fit, sometimes it's more descriptive to grasp at a distant comparison than to use a more common, accepted, boring turn of phrase.

Plus I'm always in favor of learning a new word.

Superstition ain't the way

2006-01-18T02:56:00.000-06:00

sports fan : superstitious :: dog : licks self

It only takes one. One event so "traumatic" that it forever alters the way you think.

The sports fan in me wasn't superstitious until Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS. I was at home, lying down on my couch, for the first seven innings of the game. Then before the top of the eighth, I sat up. I don't blame myself (wait, that's not 100% true), and I don't think that I caused events a half-mile west along Addison to happen as they did. While Big Ten Wonk has mentioned the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, I think sports fans fall somewhere between Vulcan logic and fantasy. Between causality and coincidence lies superstition.

Superstition happens after just as much as it happens before. When Illinois coughed up a 17-6 lead in the blink of an eye, I thought to myself, "Should I have waited until the TV timeout to start eating my buffalo wings?" When Charles Tillman fell down on the second play from scrimmage, I tried to figure out what I should have done differently. Superstition means second-guessing as much as it means preparing.

I don't really think that I caused any of those things to happen. I understand the concept of the butterfly effect, but I believe that chaos outweighs anything I could do. [The random -- yes, apparently it is random, on a quantum level -- nature of interactions of atomic and subatomic particles means that nothing I would be likely to do could be "heard" above the "noise" of randomness by the time it reached the subject of my attention.] That's the scientific rationalization. But I do second-guess myself all the time. Yes, James probably should have made that jump-hook. But if I had been standing up at the time, would it have gone in?

I'm used to being in control of much of what goes on in my life. My brain constantly evaluates how I do in these matters. I try not to care about the things that I don't control, but with sports, I have decided to care. Caring leads to evaluation, which leads to second-guessing. I don't second-guess whether I should have been sitting in a different seat when Vanderjagt pushed that field goal attempt into immortality. But I do wonder whether Shaun Pruitt would have hit those free throws if I had only used my straw rather than drinking straight out of my water glass.

It's More Fun Being Green

2006-01-11T00:09:00.001-06:00

It's like professional wrestling, in a slightly more noble setting.

Medieval Times: Dinner and Tournament is a journey to a time and place that may not have existed. Brave knights, Andalusian horses, Dragon's Tail soup, an arena full of weapons, and a dungeon full of implements of torture. Courage. Treachery. Skill. Intrigue. Romance. Oracles. Spotlights. Reverb.

You get the idea.

Above all else, it's a performance, from start to finish. All employees -- whether king, herald, bartender, or wench -- remain in character throughout. They all need to play their roles to create this world for the audience. The audience, in turn, has a part to play...but not necessarily a role. Cheering when you're supposed to doesn't, in itself, convert you from an observer to a participant in this world. Many adults that return to Medieval Times, though, have found one true way to play a role -- supporting the Green Knight.

First, a little background. There are six knights, each identified by his colors -- Red, Black-and-White, Yellow, Blue, Red-and Yellow, or Green -- and each representing a fictional kingdom. Each knight and kingdom has its own backstory, for anyone paying close enough attention. Unique among these is the wicked Green Knight, who hails from the kingdom of Leon, a land known for its liars, cheats, and charlatans. The inhabitants of Leon are unsavory and belligerent characters, despised by the other citizens of the realm, and openly mocked by the king's servants and guards.

A great number of audience members are children, awestruck by the spectacle and indifferent to their knight and kingdom affiliation. Many adults are indifferent as well. But a few adult guests, returning visitors no doubt, request to sit in a particular knight's section. And no one requests the Yellow Knight.

Supporters of the Green Knight are free to play a role that casts them directly into the world created at Medieval Times, time and time again. Adults cheer the Green Knight with passion and devotion that border on the surreal. Whether this is due to an us-against-the-world mentality, or perhaps a desire to play the bad guy, I don't know. Through this role, though, we as adults transport our emotions into this fantasy world, even as our eyes and body remain rooted in reality.

The Green Knight benefits from this expression of emotion as well. All knights salute their supporters, but the eyes of the Green Knight betray the rush he feels when showered with affection. The other knights' supporters came to cheer the spectacle; the Green Knight's supporters came to cheer him. He's Hulk Hogan on horseback.

It's more fun being green. No matter who you are.

A half-assed running diary of the Fiesta Bowl

2006-01-02T17:46:00.000-06:00

My pledge to you: This post will contain no analysis of the game itself.

During a pre-game interview, Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel hands sideline reporter Jack Arute a collar stay. My immediate reaction: "One collar stay?" Later in the broadcast, Arute is shown head-on, sporting one sharp-looking point and one awful-looking point on his collar. Did he really need two collar stays and used just the one that Tressel gave him? Did he just need one, but the one Tressel gave him didn't fit his shirt? And is ABC so business-casual that not one off-camera employee is wearing a shirt with collar stays? Is there no VIP wearing a suit today? Couldn't an intern run out to the nearest shopping mall? Shouldn't the hotel concierge have been able to track down a collar stay this morning? And what did Arute do to his shirt in the first place to screw up the collar?

Quite the flashy graphic on the roles played by Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn. My favorite part? They misspelled the last name of head coach Charlie Weis (added an extra "s"). There are 8,643 unemployed college grads in Cook County, Ill., alone that would love to earn $12 per hour as a spell- and fact-checker for ABC Sports. Doesn't a major telelvision network understand the benefits of interns?

Late in the first half, Arute mentions that Ohio State's top three linebackers have been growing their hair long in tribute to Pat Tillman. All well and good...except that Bobby Carpenter, A.J. Hawk, and Anthony Schlegel originally made an agreement not to cut their hair until they won a national championship...as reported by ABC on their September 10, 2005, broadcast of the Texas-Ohio State game. Selective reporting doesn't get any better than this.

Well, it took Brent Musburger until the third quarter to mention that A.J. Hawk is dating Brady Quinn's sister, Laura. And it took another ten minutes for the announcers to stop talking about it. We've seen a pre-recorded clip with Hawk; a replay of Laura's anguished reaction in the crowd when Hawk sacked Quinn a few moments ago; a pre-recorded clip with Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith; and a sideline interview with Laura, in which she admitted her protective instinct as an older sister, as well as the 21-7 deficit faced by Notre Dame, has her pulling for the Irish.

Ever play the "Which celebrity does he/she look most like" game? Well, it's not really a game, but I find it easier to use a well-known person as a starting point and then modify as appropriate. For example, one of my friends looks like Dina Meyer except about 5'4" with darker, straighter hair. I used to think that another of my friends looks like she could be Brady Quinn's sister. Now that I've seen Brady Quinn's real sister, though, I can no longer use that comparison. I broke even this weekend, though, because after seeing a friend's blond highlights, I decided he looked like he could be the bad guy in a Die Hard movie. My brother was the only one to get that.

Abrupt ending in three, two, one...

The Validation Of Data Analysts - A Change Is Coming

2005-12-24T16:28:00.000-06:00

Basketball TV broadcasts frustrate me when they present statistics like this:

"Offensive rebounds: Michigan State 9, Wisconsin-Green Bay 9."

The broadcast team presents statistics to give the viewer an understanding of how teams or players have performed. If the above statistic were presented, though, the viewer would likely take away the message that the two teams rebounded equally well on the offensive end (and, therefore, on the defensive end, too). While each team did secure the same number of offensive boards, Michigan State did so in only 25 opportunities (22 missed FG, 3 missed FT) while UWGB did so in 41 opportunities (35 missed FG, 6 missed FT). This statistic would convey a much stronger message:

"Offensive rebounding percentage: Michigan State 36%, Wisconsin-Green Bay 22%"

In the past couple years, Ken Pomeroy, Kyle Whelliston, John Gasaway, and others have evaluated players and teams using statistics that measure efficiency (usually named "possession-based stats" or "tempo-free stats") rather than "totals" that depend in part on the number of opportunities a player or team has to obtain them (points, rebounds, assists, etc.). Mainstream media, meanwhile, have continued to focus on totals. Or is there some other explanation for Bracey Wright's selection to the 2004-2005 All-Big Ten first team?

The old guard of sports-talkers is vulnerable to the new breed of data analysts. Dick Vitale's skill as an analyst lies in watching players and teams perform and passing judgment on their ability to compete against other players and teams. I won't dispute his skill in this regard. What data analysts have taught us, though, is that there are tools that predict success with greater accuracy than Dick Vitale. Or just about any other analyst who insists on using his own judgment of specific situations and performances without considering the value of overall statistics.

I refer to Dick Vitale, Bill Walton, Charles Barkley, and others like them as "sports-talkers" because (1) the word would have an entirely different meaning without the hyphen, and (2) their most important skill lies in their ability to perform on live television when they have nothing to say. Data analysts can show so many things through statistics, though, that they would almost always have something to say, even without relying on mentioning J.J. Redick.

Data analysts threaten sportswriters more directly. Sportswriters can make their mark as a reporter (Chris Mortensen), an analyst, or a writer (Bill Simmons). I don't have a good example for the sportswriter-analyst because I really can't think of one. Sportswriters break stories or produce feature articles, or they entertain readers through their writing. Data analysts have a niche waiting for them, because they can make their mark through analysis alone.

The key to writing as an analyst is clarity. An analyst's purpose in writing is to convey to the reader the meaning of the analysis. If the reader can't understand the message, the analyst has failed. Beyond that, it's all good, as long as the analysis is sound and the matter holds significance for the reader. Just because Gasaway, as Big Ten Wonk, is entertaining doesn't mean he has to be to get his point across.

ESPN.com has recognized the analyst niche and begun to fill it -- Pomeroy and Whelliston have, quite recently, joined the payroll. Sportswriters that masquerade as analysts are now officially endangered. Thankfully, most sportswriters are true reporters as well and don't feel threatened. Grant Wahl and Luke Winn from SI.com each endorsed the aforementioned data analysts in an online column earlier this month. And sportswriters like Bill Simmons (not such a large group, is it?) are writers first, so they're not going anywhere, either.

I find the articles from Wahl and Winn encouraging because they signal a shift in the attitude of mainstream media. It's only a matter of time before television broadcasters start citing effective field goal percentage, rebounding percentage, and points-per-possession in their pre-game analysis instead of things like "Shoot The 3; Avoid Foul Trouble; Run, Run, Run." From there it's a hop, skip, and a jump to seeing these figures show up in box scores and in mid-game analysis.

Statistics have analytical and predictive value that rivals and often exceeds the judgment of even the most talented individuals. The next time you read or hear someone disregarding statistics in favor of personal judgment, without any sort of qualification, consider the source and his motivation. Self-preservation is a powerful instinct.

Microwave squares

2005-12-18T18:32:00.000-06:00

When my mom reheats a mug of coffee in the microwave, she'll mike it for 12 seconds, or 16 seconds, but not something "normal" like 15 seconds. This works for longer times, too -- I've seen her mike frozen vegetables for something like 2:43. I'm not normal, either, because when I wanted to mike something for 2 minutes and 30 seconds, I used to enter 1:90. The microwave that today I own seems to only accept whole increments of 30 seconds, which disappoints me. In any case, here is a math problem I came up with while waking up on Saturday morning.

The display on a microwave contains four digits, two for minutes and two for seconds (mm:ss). Because there are only 60 seconds in 1 minute, the number that can be read from left to right does not represent the true number of seconds that will be counted down by the timer -- 210 (2:10) represents 130 seconds, while 210 seconds can be represented by either 330 (3:30) or 290 (2:90). If the displayed number is one or two digits only, then the displayed number and true number of seconds will be the same (i.e., this is the trivial or uninteresting case). When the two numbers are different, they still may share interesting properties in some cases...

For what three- or four-digit displayed numbers are the displayed number and true number of seconds both perfect squares?

Curious about the can

2005-12-17T23:42:00.000-06:00

I have three questions about the bathroom and related activities:

Why do some men wash their hands before doing their business in the restroom? Or am I the weird one for even asking this question? I've done it a couple of times, but only if I've just eaten and I know there's something on my hands that would get smudges on my clothes. So is this also the case each time I see someone wash his hands first? I'd really like to ask a total stranger why he does this -- not someone I know, because I'd have to talk to him again afterwards -- but I've never felt comfortable sticking around until the guy comes out of the stall. And having a conversation with a total stranger who's in a bathroom stall is something I don't do while sober. Actually, there's a better reason to stick around until he's done -- to see whether he washes his hands after as well.
Do you leave the toilet seat up or down? When you replace the toilet paper roll, do you have it roll forward (pull over the top and down the front) or backward? I know what I do (down; forward) but I'm not qualified to tell you that you're wrong if you do it differently. I wonder, though, whether there's a correlation between the two. Are people that leave the toilet seat up more likely to have the toilet paper roll face forward than those that leave the toilet seat down? And so on. This is the kind of research I'd do if there were 87 hours in the day.
What goes through a dog's mind when his owner cleans up after him with a plastic bag while taking a walk? I can imagine just about anything:

"My owner is one sick ____."
"Hey, leave that! I was marking my territory! Kind of like what you do with your dirty clothes."
"As long as you're going to pick up after me, would you mind cleaning my _______ with your tongue, too?"
"If I had known this stuff was so desirable, I wouldn't have eaten it all these years."

Boxing Day -- not quite brownies, but close...

2005-12-14T12:54:00.000-06:00

Just now I discovered the true meaning of Canada's Boxing Day. And I don't mean in the sense of how the Grinch discovered the true meaning of Christmas. I mean in the sense of why the day is named Boxing Day. It took me so long only because I never drove myself to resolve the uncertainty I felt when considering the name. "Why is it called Boxing Day?" is a question easily displaced by "How many strips of bacon can I have?" and "What do you mean, we're out of batteries?" It wasn't until today that the true meaning was shoved in my face.

The day has nothing to do with prizefighting, as I may have supposed in my early years. The day has nothing to do with Chinese anti-imperialism, as I may have speculated in high school. Boxing Day has to do with the practice of attending church on Christmas Day and leaving the distribution/receipt/opening of gifts (depending on whose story you believe) until the following day. The name arises from the boxes that contain the gifts.

Now that, my friend, is a lightbulb moment.

To do list...

2005-12-09T17:20:00.000-06:00

Things to do in the near future:

Put up links to this blog's archives. You know, for all my readers. Which leads me to wonder, in today's increasingly virtual world, do people invent imaginary online friends?
See that someone gets jail time for the thousand messages my spam mailbox has received in the past 24 hours for "The Bouncer."
Find the web's best-formatted single-page listing of all World Cup matches (this will have to do until the Sun-Times devotes a full page to it next summer), print it out, and thumb-tack it to my cubicle at work. Right next to my inspired diagram for Feature Group traffic. Ah, Microsoft Visio...it is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up...I mean, finding out if your company has a corporate license. But after spending an hour in 2002 fruitlessly trying to put my own spreadsheet together -- unfortunately, even conditional formatting has its limits -- I'm willing to let sports websites do the work for me this time around.
Decide whether I should stop listening to the latest Jamiroquai album before I feel the need to officially declare "Starchild" my current favorite song, which would pretty much guarantee that I'd stop liking it within the next month. From another perspective, though, it could be my fourth favorite song on the album -- like an ACC team that finishes way back in conference, but everyone knows they still have a shot to win the national title -- so I should be in the clear.
Go see Aeon Flux before I get talked out of it by the reviews I haven't read. [And yet somehow I know what they say. Damn news website leads.]

At least we have Ghana

2005-12-09T15:09:00.000-06:00

It's the World Cup, baby! Today's draw...could have gone better for the United States. Making the second round shouldn't come cheap, though...and in Group E, it definitely won't.

Group A - Almost History

Poland was one ping-pong ball away from facing Germany in the opening match (!). After being drawn first from Pot 3, Poland was to be placed in one of the two remaining spots in Group A, A2 or A3 (Ecuador had already been placed in A4). Alas, the historic match-up was not to be. Germany will likely reprise its opening match from the 1994 World Cup, an instantly forgettable 1-0 victory over Bolivia, when facing Costa Rica in Munich on June 9.

As the host nation, Germany should run away with this group. Second place will earn a spot against England, with a chance of Sweden, in the second round.

Group B - The Afterthought

Barring some remarkable performances from Paraguay, this group's top spot should come down to who can score the most against Trinidad & Tobago. England and Sweden should reach their end-of-round match with six points each, leading to a meaningless 1-1 draw in which Wayne Rooney and David Beckham strive desperately to avoid yellow card suspensions.

Group C - 9, 6, 3, 0

I'm calling it now -- someone will win the Argentina-Netherlands match. It won't really matter, though, because each of them will make it to the final eight, and neither of them can face Brazil until at least the semifinals. I'm also calling this now -- the Ivory Coast-Serbia & Montenegro match will have more red cards than any other in this tournament. Think about it -- two teams coming in with no points; an African team that has probably turned on its manager (they qualified over Cameroon, so they may as well follow in the Indomitable Lions' footsteps); and, as Turkey didn't qualify, I think S&M has what it takes to be the 2006 sending-off champ.

Group D - Even Portugal Can't Screw This Up

Mexico must be happy. Iran and Angola, meet Jared Borgetti's head. This is why it's good to be seeded...especially when the only threatening team in Pot 4, the United States, can't be placed in your group. But Portugal must be even happier. After being overwhelmed in the first half-hour by the United States and giving up a weak goal to South Korea to choke their way out in 2002, the Portuguese have received valet parking and a red carpet on their way to a round-of-16 defeat.

Group E - And I Like The Chicago Bears' Chances, Too

It's not a true Group of Death -- unless Ghana turns out to be really good, that is -- but it does have the Czech Republic, ranked second in the world, and Italy, against whom I'll be amazed if DaMarcus Beasley doesn't get injured. (I just can't imagine the Azzurri letting him run by them for 90 minutes without incident.) If the United States knew they would end up with this draw, they would have been much more upset about missing out on a seed by one lousy point.

The path to the second round for the United States is clear -- don't lose either of the first two matches, and then take Ghana out behind the Holzhütte (bastardized German for woodshed). No injuries. (Claudio, J.O'B., this means you.) No suspensions. (Entire backline, this means you.) Donovan actually converting a breakaway. Keller playing as out-of-his-mind as Friedel did four years earlier. Gooch frustrating strikers. Beasley driving defenders insane. And McBride justifying my jersey purchase.

Group F - Ronaldinho reminds me of Tori Spelling. There, I said it.

Brazil's offensive depth -- all-world Robinho (which is pronounced Rob-EEN-yo, not ROB-in-ho...) probably won't even start -- could be the best thing to happen to Australia or Croatia, because even the Brazilian subs will still be able to light up Japan at the end of the group stage. Whoever takes second place in this group will end up being one of those "Wow, I didn't realize they made the second round in 2006" teams. You know, like Paraguay in 2002 or Paraguay in 1998. [Hmmm, maybe Paraguay won't be quite the walk-over I think they will in Group B.]

Group G - Even France Can't Screw This Up

Repeated heading, yes. But, seriously -- Switzerland, South Korea, and Togo? France should thank their lucky stars that they've been handed a waterslide to a penalty shootout with Italy in the quarterfinals. [Did that Bill and Ted's reference fly by too quickly?] I would like Togo's chances to go through -- if the three teams other than France all play to draws, Togo could advance by knocking off France, who will likely have wrapped up the group by then, on the last day of group play. However, after getting embarrassed by Senegal in their first match in 2002, France simply can't blow this game against another African unknown...can they?

Group H - The Big East Conference

Seriously, folks...this is West Virginia in a BCS bowl. Except if the conference got to send two teams.

I've never been a believer in Spain, even though I'd be surprised to see them fail to advance. I'm not much of a believer in Ukraine, either, even though they were the first side to qualify from Europe. As usual, I have no idea what to expect with Tunisia or Saudi Arabia. (That should reflect on them, not on me, I hope.) But as the group winner gets Brazil in the quarters and the runner-up gets France in the next round, this may be one of the groups whose games I don't stay home from work to watch. [After all, that's what live web updates are for.]

Choosing among outcomes, not methods

2005-12-06T23:39:00.000-06:00

On Tuesday FIFA announced the eight teams, out of the 32 that have qualified for the World Cup finals next June, that will receive a top seed in one of the eight groups. After round-robin play within the groups, the top two teams from each group advance to a 16-team single-elimination bracket to determine the World Cup champion. Being seeded allows a team to avoid facing any of the other top seeds in the group stage of the competition, giving the team a more certain path to the second round.

The seeds are determined using a method that is dictated in general terms by FIFA guidelines. The specific implementation of those guidelines, though, is up to the Organizing Committee for each World Cup. The fine-tuning of these guidelines is announced at the same time as the seeds -- the Committee does not announce in advance the specific criteria it will use. This makes sense from the standpoint of event promotion, because the seeds would no longer be a mystery once the criteria were announced. Of potentially greater importance, it also allows the Committee to select a set of criteria that produces the most desirable set of seeded teams.

FIFA is running a business, so it would like to make decisions and take actions that produce the largest profits. Certain teams have larger fan bases with larger potential television revenues, so it would be beneficial to smooth their path to a longer stay in the tournament. And in the 1994 World Cup, two of Italy's first-round matches were played as relative home games, in Giants Stadium just outside of New York City, which boasts a huge Italian population. However, allowing economic and other off-field issues to override other measures of teams' relative quality on the field would make for very bad press. Given the choice, then, the Organizing Committee would prefer that the seeds turn out as desired by economic considerations alone, while using a method that utilizes only performance-based measures.

This wasn't as complex a problem as it may sound, at least this time around. Of the eight seeds, one is given to the host nation, in this case Germany. A second belonged to Brazil, unquestionably the strongest team in the world. There are another 10 teams that could reasonably have been seeded (Argentina, Czech Republic, England, France, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, United States), so there is a relatively limited set of potential outcomes.

[If you're thinking of a number, and it's 210, you're probably as big of a dork as I am.]

There is also a relatively limited set of methods, or selection and weightings of criteria, that are available for use in determining the seeds. Because the seeds will be definitively determined by the method chosen, the Committee knows the outcome that would result from each method. This means that the choice for any particular method is really a choice for its resulting outcome. The Committee is really choosing among outcomes, not methods.

Rather than comparing the possible methods to determine which is the fairest, the Committee can rank the derived outcomes in order of their projected economic value. Starting with the most favorable outcome, the Committee can proceed down the list until it finds one that is associated with a method that will withstand scrutiny.

This time around, if the Committee had decided to give slightly more weight to FIFA rankings, the United States would likely have displaced Italy as the 8th seed. However, if the Committee had incorporated the teams' performance at the last three World Cups (as the Committees for 1998 and 2002 did), instead of just the last two, Italy may have finished even further ahead of the United States (in 1994 Italy made the final, while the United States lost in the Round of 16). The Committee may have had a choice among several methods that all produced the same outcome -- the same set of seeded teams -- and settled on a method that caused the United States to finish a close 9th, rather than a distant 9th or 10th, with an additional selling point being that the method was only a slight tweak from that used at the previous two World Cups. [I'm probably understating the political desire to maintain consistency over time, as significant change is always subject to greater critique than maintenance of the status quo.]

When the outcome of a particular process is automatic, any choice involving modification of that process is effectively a choice among the potential outcomes. The seeding of teams at the World Cup finals is such a process, so an analysis of the choice of methods is not complete unless it considers the possible outcomes as well.

The Supermen among us

2005-12-04T23:05:00.000-06:00

This Saturday afternoon I saw a firetruck back into its station. Traveling south on Ashland, Engine 30 briefly sounded its siren to stop traffic and then did a big S-move, positioning itself at a 90-degree angle to the street. The driver then hurled the engine, starting from a standstill, backwards across the street and through the doorway at over 20 miles per hour. I had two simultaneous thoughts: "Wow, I can't believe he did that!" and "That was pretty impressive." I guess I was awestruck. I'm not saying I was 15-point-comeback-against-Arizona awestruck, but I think that's the right word to describe those two quotes.

I don't know why the fireman driving the engine sped into the station. Maybe he wanted to clear the street as quickly as possible to allow traffic to continue moving. Maybe he had backed in the engine so many times that speed wasn't a concern. And maybe it just doesn't faze him at all because driving a truck in reverse pales in comparison to racing into a burning building.

I'm not saying firemen are my heroes. When I was little, my heroes consisted of astronauts, football players, and anyone that carried a lightsaber. And, of course, my dad. [Who occasionally carried a lightsaber.] But firemen are among the heroes of our society as a whole, and I certainly recognize and admire them for what they do. And when I think of heroes, I imagine that everything they do is extraordinary, even the most basic aspects of life. When a football player reads a book to kids, he does the evil wizard's voice perfectly. And when a fireman backs his car into the garage, he does it at break-neck speed.

It helps us believe. We rarely get to see a fireman do what makes him so special. So when we get the chance to see him do something completely ordinary, it bolsters our faith to see it done in an extraordinary way. Knowing that a potential hero can do what we probably couldn't do when it comes to ordinary things gives us hope that he can do what we almost certainly couldn't do when it comes to matters of life and death.

I'm glad I got to see what I did on Saturday. The older I get, the less I tend to rely on others. It feels good to be reminded that there are people in the world that can do the things I can't do, and that they're out there waiting to help me if I need it.

Bring back symbolic dreams

2005-11-25T12:14:00.000-06:00

My high school reunion is tonight. Naturally, then, last night I dreamed about...being at my high school reunion. Sure, it had the usual dream elements -- my Indian friend looked surprisingly like Katsumoto from The Last Samurai, for example -- but aren't dreams supposed to be more symbolic than this? If I'm anxious about seeing people I haven't seen in ten years, shouldn't I dream about being parked under a 9th-inning pop-up that is taking forever to drop out of the sky? If I'm nervous about what I'm going to say in the 15 seconds that I talk to people I wasn't friends with in high school, shouldn't I dream about going to a job fair? I guess I should be happy, at least, that I didn't dream about being at my reunion and suddenly discovering I was naked.

Hey, maybe that is what I should wear.

Immutable Cartoon Law #17

2005-11-17T22:25:00.000-06:00

Breaking open the main gate of a zoo simultaneously frees all large, non-aggressive animals, causing them to escape within mere seconds and run wild through the town.

On the day they were handing out brevity...

2005-11-17T17:15:00.000-06:00

Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day for Thursday, November 17:

two-graf

Well, folks, this is a first...I was unable to find the answer to a question on the internet.

I hope you were sitting down for that.

I gather the above term is used to convey a sense of brevity. It's commonly used as an adjective -- among the links I found -- but Wonk used it as a noun, or at least one of those other-type-of-word-used-as-noun things. Furthermore, Wonk preceded the word with "money," used as an adjective. Sort of a linguistic cross-up (which was a sweet play in Madden '92 when you had a fast third wideout, or just decided to put your halfback in the slot by running the shotgun with your normal offensive package on the field...although technically it was a pick play and should have been illegal...but then again, this was the game in which you could review and overturn pass interference penalties).

However, I could not find one reference that explained the true meaning of the term or its origin. I was going to ask this guy -- because (1) he's a journalist, and (2) he used the term last month in a way that implied he once learned its origin -- but his latest post mentioned how he is currently too busy to respond to e-mail. See, sometimes when a person writes stuff like that, a reader notices and decides not to send him mail he won't read! Kind of like how neurochemicals work.

From what I can tell, "two-graf" comes from print media; from a grid-like arrangement of content; and from the need to fill a small area that remains after the more important content has been arranged. And so far, it's my leading candidate, among Wonk Words Of The Day, for the Underutilized Inigo Montoya Quote Award ("I do not think it means what you think it means").

Of course, Faulkner once criticized Hemingway for hardly ever using a word that required the reader to look it up in the dictionary to see if it had been used correctly. Yes, I happen to know just about everything that is not the answer to a Trivial Pursuit question. [I knew you were wondering. See?]

One actress to bind them

2005-11-16T21:54:00.000-06:00

Aragorn, son of Arathorn, was a brave fighter, a compelling leader, and an honorable man. An all-around smart guy, I would say. But I'm still trying to figure out what he saw in Arwen.

Granted, it has been several life-ages since I read The Lord Of The Rings. But in the books Arwen was a character with virtually no depth. Her role in the movies is oddly beefed up, but there is still no explanation of why she and Aragorn fell in love. And for some reason, Peter Jackson decided to cast Liv Tyler as Arwen, to whom this Brian Griffin quote certainly applies: "I leave more personality in tightly-coiled piles on the front lawn."

I have no issue with Aragorn's fidelity to Arwen -- aside from being the right thing to do, it's completely in character for him. But don't you think he must have been struggling for a while after meeting Éowyn? And not just because she iced the Witch-king. Aragorn will be king -- which of these two women seems more like a queen?

Something tells me that when Aragorn became betrothed to Arwen, he was still of the young mindset, "Hey, I landed an Elf chick, I could definitely live with this." For his sake, I just hope there really was more to it than that. Personally, I'd rather be Faramir. Yes, he was almost burned alive by his own father, but he also lived out his days with Éowyn. I'd say it was worth it.

And in retrospect, maybe casting Liv Tyler was the best possible decision. After all, there are few actresses that can successfully portray a porcelain doll.

Vodka defeats the king of the beasts

2005-11-14T16:52:00.000-06:00

As I never can recall what nittany means, one would think I'd use Wonk's review of Penn State as an excuse to unravel the mystery of the word. But a mere 30 seconds of online research has reminded me about Pennsylvania's Mount Nittany. So much for that.

However, always one to rise to the occasion, Wonk came through with a gem that, mysteriously, was among the subjects I discussed while at Lemming's on Friday evening. [Brief review of Lemming's: Good draft beer selection, nice "atmosphere" with local artists' work on the walls, but poor actual atmosphere -- the smoke all but wafts out the front door.] Already aware of one use of the word -- the drink with vodka and lime juice -- I learned of another. Wonk has now introduced me to a third.

gimlet adj. having a piercing quality. (more)

Extra credit to anyone that can elegantly use this word in reference to something other than eyes.

For fantasy aficionados (of a sort), I also stumbled across one more meaning. [My favorite Lord Of The Rings-related joke is the Tolkien version of "Why did the chicken cross the road?" from the e-mail that circulated in 1996. Good luck finding it online, though -- it must have split off rather late in the forward evolutionary tree.]

Painting a picture with words

2005-11-11T12:22:00.000-06:00

Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day for Friday, November 11:

limn (LIMM) v. illustrate. (more)

My spidey sense told me there was something funny about this word. Sure enough, I looked into its origins and discovered it was first used in 1948, mere months after the widespread distribution of the board game Scrabble.

Yao makes me feel small

2005-11-10T20:09:00.000-06:00

If you've ever wondered just how tall Yao Ming is, I think I can explain it to you. You know those green Gatorade bottles that you see on the sidelines at NBA and NFL games? I have one of them that I use to water my plant. [You can order them directly from Gatorade in packs of four for about $10, including shipping.] Anyway, I know how big it is. And tonight, after Yao picked up his traditional second foul of the game before reaching the first TV timeout, he sat down on the bench and was handed one of these Gatorade bottles.

It looked like a normal person holding a salt shaker.

Yao is 7'6", which means he probably sleeps sideways on a king-size bed because he has to, rather than for the novelty of it.

Yao is so tall that ESPN is now televising Rockets games in "expanded widescreen format" -- 16:12.

Yao is so tall that he was born on September 12th and 13th.

Yeah, that's a good one to go out on.

Memories of Welsh-Ryan Arena

2005-11-10T17:39:00.000-06:00

Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day for Thursday, November 10:

semiotic adj. indicative...? representative? noteworthy? I think I had a better feel for this word before I looked it up. I'm not even sure how it's best pronounced.

Rather than continuing to be puzzled by this word, I'll talk about Northwestern. Specifically, their team (Dan Shanoff's sleeper? I got a laugh out of that after reading Wonk today, NU has some work to do) and their arena. Actually, I'm done talking about their team, so let's move on to my four distinct memories of Welsh-Ryan Arena...

Age: really young. Event: college football pre-game band show. Which band: not sure. Take-away: really loud.
Age: 17. Event: regular season high school basketball game between Deerfield and New Trier, both elite teams at the time. Highlight, objectively speaking: A New Trier player hit a three-quarter court shot to beat the buzzer at the end of the third quarter. Lowlight: New Trier won. Upside: Deerfield lost.
Age: 18. Event: my high school graduation. Support for the argument that being memorable is more worthwhile than being good: My parents still mention the girl whose graduation speech was about her ratty old gym shoes. Recessional: the song from the last scene in Star Wars. That's right. For one moment in time, I was cooler than you.
Age: 19. Event: women's volleyball game between Illinois and Northwestern. Total attendance: not many. In practically empty gym, seat location chosen: front row, on the baseline. (No reason.)

We are living in a rectangular world

2005-11-09T21:41:00.000-06:00

Using the power of deductive reasoning (although power may not be the best word, considering how long it took me), I arrived at the hypothesis that the floor in the corner of my living room is slightly slanted, causing my end table to lie slightly slanted as well. To test this hypothesis, I proposed to place a sphere on top of the table and observe whether and in which direction it rolled. Naturally, I expected prompt results. Sure enough, within fifteen minutes I was able to conclude that I do not own anything in the shape of a sphere.

How is this possible?

Now I know why I used to keep all those superballs in my "random stuff" box. Now I know why I used to keep a random stuff box to begin with. It's not a matter of cost, because the contents of my entire random stuff box could have been replaced for under $20. It's not a matter of nostalgia, because my random stuff was either nondescript or so old that I forgot why it would have had meaning. It's a matter of convenience -- of having that random piece of junk on hand just when I need it.

I think it may be too late to start up a new random stuff box. The only random stuff I encounter these days has some company's name printed on it, and it usually has a real function (refrigerator magnet, ballpoint pen, four-door sedan) that detracts from the ability to make-believe.

In some ways I long for the days when I built towers out of inverted 2-oz. plastic cups instead of filling them with modified Jell-o.

What does it all mean, Basil?

2005-11-09T13:26:00.000-06:00

Today's Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day is another Wonk favorite:

oracular (or-ACK-yuh-lurr) adj. obscurely prophetic. (more)

I think Wonk focuses more on the ability of subjects (fellow bloggers and other writers) to deliver prophetic analysis and commentary, rather than the tendency to do so in an opaque and puzzling manner. Of course, I understand the statistics and methods being used, so perhaps to the less mathematically inclined, the methods used by these analysts may be inscrutable.

At the very least, though, I think we can be sure that Mark Tupper is more than just a sentient program.

Feedback inflation

2005-11-08T21:17:00.000-06:00

"A+++++++++++++++++++++++++"

Let's get one thing straight. The only time this many plusses should appear after an A is in a Christmas Story fantasy.

Feedback on eBay should answer two questions:

Were you generally satisfied with the transaction?

What -- product quality, communication, delivery, packaging -- if anything did you find to be most noteworthy about the transaction?

Anything else -- like ALLCAPS, +++++++, or !!!!!!!! -- is equivalent to Amanda Peet's nude scene in The Whole Nine Yards. Unprovocative, purely distracting filler that has no reason for being there and signals everything is about to go downhill. If you appreciated how quickly I paid, just say so. If you want to kill Yanni Go-Go, just shoot him. And if you want to make a sequel...don't.

Rebounding really is one for all and all for one

2005-11-08T19:10:00.000-06:00

Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day for Tuesday, November 8:

congeries n. a sum total of many heterogenous things taken together. (more)

And get this -- it's used with a singular verb.

Congeries is the Rickey Henderson of English grammar.

[Most players either bat left and throw left or bat right and throw right. There are a few that bat left and throw right. And then there are Rickey and precious few others that bat right and throw left.]

My favorite grammatical anti-Rickey is the way in which Europeans (or probably all non-Americans) describe the actions of sports teams: "Chelsea sit comfortably atop the Premiership." One of my many pet peeves about American sports is how teams such as the Miami Heat and Utah Jazz are used with singular verbs. "The Heat rides a three-game winning streak into tonight's game." No. Please. Plural verbs for all. "The Jazz are coming to Chicago this Saturday, and I will be there." Ah. Better.

[By the way, today's runner-up: Obeisance. But I actually knew that one.]

Princess Leia's big risk

2005-11-07T21:25:00.000-06:00

Princess Leia took an excessive risk, one that jeopardized the entire Rebel Alliance, as highlighted by a scene that should have been rewritten to make her ignorant of the situation instead.

"They're tracking us."

After Han, Luke, Chewie, Leia, and the droids escaped from the Death Star, Leia asserted that the Imperial forces allowed them to leave because they were tracking the Millennium Falcon, hoping to be led to others in the Rebel Alliance. She suddenly dismisses this belief, however, even though she has no reason to risk leading the Imperials to their quarry. As the only person onboard to know the location of the rebel base, as well as the person on whom Han was counting for payment, Leia held all the cards. If she suspected they were being tracked, she should have insisted that they land the Falcon and board another ship.

Switching ships was not a dominant strategy, but as the Imperials had no other leads on the location of the rebel base, there was no immediate need to reach the base and analyze the data carried by R2-D2. A delay if not being tracked would be a minor nuisance and would be greatly outweighed by the risk of having the base destroyed if indeed being tracked, given that Leia felt the tracking to be relatively likely (at least enough to mention). Everything that had been shown about Leia's character, to that point, indicated that she was astute enough to understand these risks and take the precautionary route.

And yet she allowed them to proceed to the rebel base, to where the Imperials did indeed track them. This out-of-character moment could have been avoided by simply removing the relevant lines of dialogue and focusing on Leia's hope that a weakness could be found, once the Death Star plans were analyzed. Ignorance isn't flattering, but it's easier to justify.

Of course, the rebels did find a weakness, which they were able to exploit, in part because the Death Star had to maneuver around a planet to get a clear shot at the moon on which their base was located. Quite ironic that the Death Star, which was designed solely to house a laser capable of destroying a planet, had to wait because a planet was in its way. [Yes, Alanis, this is irony.]

If you use it enough...

2005-11-07T09:38:00.000-06:00

Because I was actually familiar with every word used in today's Big Ten Wonk post, the Word Of The Day will be a Wonk favorite:

indefatigable adj. showing sustained enthusiastic action with unflagging vitality. (more)

I believe the intent of the word is to emphasize passion and dedication, not endurance. Unfortunately, an alternate definition -- simply "tireless" -- is much more readily assumed by the unfamiliar reader upon first encountering the word. At least, that's how I first interpreted it last spring. What the word has going for it, though, is that it's slightly obscure enough to make one wonder, "Is that what it really means?"

Even the little people count

2005-11-07T00:49:00.000-06:00

It's a cool feeling to write to a mainstream-media sports journalist and get a response.

In almost all cases, because of the volume of comments these people receive, the response is limited to one sentence, two tops. I'm aware of at least three types of responses along those lines:

1. The "briefest of acknowledgments, in case this reader is crazy" response. For example, a couple years ago I decided to write in to John Buccigross about hockey at the University of Illinois. However, I accidentally sent four copies of the message because I did something wrong with Web Mail. On the plus side, it does show that Bucci cares about his readers. Or at least his own safety.

2. The "I'll keep it in mind" response. This can occur when one actually has something concise, unique, and of interest to say. For example, I thought Jayson Stark's "Useless Info Dept." column could have run this question: "Who is the only player in major American sports who will be the last player in his league to wear a particular number, even though that number is not retired for him?" The answer: Mariano Rivera (Jackie Robinson's number 42). Never ran in the column, though. I think I've only encountered one mention of this by anyone, anywhere, in the several years since it became fact...so I guess no one really cares about this, no matter how unique it is.

(Speaking of which...something is either unique or it isn't, right? Are there degrees of uniqueness? And shouldn't unique have a much weirder-sounding nominalization, like uniquity?)

3. An actual response, despite its brevity. This usually only occurs with lesser-known writers that can actually spend the time to read all of their mail (i.e., definitely not Bill Simmons). The funny part about these is that they're usually one-liners -- like what you'd say in a men's room to complete strangers, never intending to speak with them again.

The funniest response I've ever received, though, is the kind of thing that no professional writer should ever send to a complete stranger. Unless, I guess, he realizes that he's not a big enough writer that anyone would take notice, even if what he said got out. Believing as I do in the sanctity of private communication, all I will say is that the subject of our discussion was Tiger Woods, and in a mere 2.5 sentences the writer used prick and a-hole in referring to the prominent golfer.

I still laugh at this.

There's at least one other category of response -- the detailed, well-considered response -- that I have witnessed on occasion. However, I'm still trying to understand what Aaron Schatz wrote. Still, I appreciate the effort, and maybe one day I'll really understand why successful third down plays are inherently more valuable than successful first down plays. (Rereading it, I think I'm almost there. Almost.)

"The Hawkeyes of Iowa"...actually sounds cool

2005-11-04T13:03:00.000-06:00

Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day for Friday, November 4:

synecdoche (sin-ECK-duh-kee) n. A figure of speech substituting a more inclusive term for a less inclusive one or vice versa. (more)

To get a better feel for it, I recommend reading the full definition/explanation, to which I've linked. It's a cool word and concept, and it would break some 12-year-old's heart at the Scripps National Spelling Bee. I mean, I'll probably never use the word in writing because of its unfathomable pronunciation. Conversely, I don't know how a kid, no matter how much home schooling he or she has had, could spell this based on the pronunciation. [Like country of origin is going to help.]

The metaphor of POY balloting

2005-11-03T12:05:00.000-06:00

Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day for Thursday, November 3:

ratiocinative (rash-ee-OSS-in-ay-tiv) adj. Marked by methodical and logical reasoning; based on exact thinking. (more)

I still think Bracey should have left school after his freshman year.

Warren needs to get nasty

2005-11-02T08:32:00.000-06:00

Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day for Wednesday, November 2:

irenic (eye-REE-nik) adj. Promoting peace; conciliatory. (more)

Kind of like Cerrano for the bulk of Major League 2.

Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day

2005-11-01T11:08:00.000-06:00

Coinciding with the start of a new season for Big Ten Wonk, here's the inaugural Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day (messy acronym, so maybe I'll come up with a different name for it) for Tuesday, November 1.

ukase n. An authoritative order or decree. (more)

Jury's still out on preferred pronunciation. I'll pretend I'm my little brother and go with the definitely-wrong "yoo-KAH-see."