The most popular and divisive* issue of Sports Illustrated arrives in newsstands this week. Yep, the swimsuit issue. So I must ask:
* It's not really all that divisive, but for some reason there are people who write letters to SI complaining about the swimsuit issue and threatening to cancel their subscriptions. It's a long history of idiocy that's as old as, well, the swimsuit issue. It's annual; don't they know it's coming? I find it funny.
Showing posts with label common sense. Show all posts
Showing posts with label common sense. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Flags of our founding fathers
I don't have HBO -- if you don't care for Entourage, what's the point? -- so I finally got around to seeing the 7-part John Adams miniseries on DVD. I commend Tom Hanks and other, less famous producers for getting this remarkable story filmed and given the appropriate running time. Also appreciated: its accessibility to today's audiences.
Truth be told, though, the filmmakers could have gone the extra mile to make it even more modern. I waited in vain to hear actor Paul Giamatti say any of the following statements:
1. "Calm down, cousin Sam, and go back to your brewpub."
2. "Do not make me clench this pamphlet and smack some common sense unto YOU, Mr. Paine!"
3. "A late dinner will not be necessary, Abigail. I shall partake of the local Boston Market."
4. "Mr. Jefferson, the Declaration Committee would advise the removal of the words sacred and undeniable to describe these truths. Also of concern to us: your phrase always bet on black."
5. "I feel that I may suffer a cramp from signing my name in such a small space. No thanks to Mr. Hancock, that pompous, preening jackass."
6. "Fellow citizens, I regret that the First Lady and I shall be leaving Philadelphia for a new home in Washington City. Abigail praises your civility, and I have a great admiration for your cream cheese."
7. "Young John Quincy, you are the son of a President and have the makings of a President yourself. So remember this: do not go amongst the people and say 'Mission Accomplished' unless you truly mean it."
If you believe that other historically significant quotes were also left out of this miniseries, now is the time (and here is the place) to comment upon them.
1. "Calm down, cousin Sam, and go back to your brewpub."
2. "Do not make me clench this pamphlet and smack some common sense unto YOU, Mr. Paine!"
3. "A late dinner will not be necessary, Abigail. I shall partake of the local Boston Market."
4. "Mr. Jefferson, the Declaration Committee would advise the removal of the words sacred and undeniable to describe these truths. Also of concern to us: your phrase always bet on black."
5. "I feel that I may suffer a cramp from signing my name in such a small space. No thanks to Mr. Hancock, that pompous, preening jackass."
6. "Fellow citizens, I regret that the First Lady and I shall be leaving Philadelphia for a new home in Washington City. Abigail praises your civility, and I have a great admiration for your cream cheese."
7. "Young John Quincy, you are the son of a President and have the makings of a President yourself. So remember this: do not go amongst the people and say 'Mission Accomplished' unless you truly mean it."
If you believe that other historically significant quotes were also left out of this miniseries, now is the time (and here is the place) to comment upon them.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
There can be only two!
(Alternate title: TV's Heroes, and why you should still care.)
Like everyone else, I've been less than excited about the current season of this show, even before the Hollywood writers' strike drew it to a merciful close. While its early problems had to do with slow pacing and an anticlimactic finale, now the problems run deeper: too many satellite characters, too many storylines stretched thin, no real sense of cohesion.
But I'm not writing this to complain. I've been playing around with a theory about the show for a few months now, and the more I think about it, the more I feel that I'm right. For a TV series that has relied heavily on advertising taglines, I have this distinct notion that they will eventually borrow a page from Highlander and commit to the phrase "There can be only two!"
This is my theory: for whatever genetic and geographic reasons, the development of unique abilities will manifest in exactly two people in the world, giving each hero a doppelgänger. So far we know of the following pairs. (For a show that works in elements of time travel, power transfer, and resurrection, I'm not ready to accept that any of these people listed are necessarily dead.)
1. Adam Monroe (David Anders) and Claire Bennet (Hayden Panettiere) are indestructible, and each have shown that their blood holds curative properties.
2. Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar, pictured above, right) and West Rosen (Nicholas D'Agosto) each make you believe a man can fly.
3. Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) and his father Maury (Alan Blumenfield) can read and manipulate the minds of others.
4. Even the much-maligned twins Alejandro and Maya Herrera (Shalim Ortiz and Dania Ramirez) -- she of the virus and he of the antidote -- have previous generation equivalents in Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy, pictured below, left) and his late sister Shanti. Does anyone else think that the planned biological fallout is due to an active Maya, rather than some decades-old Shanti virus samples from a company lab?
This theory of course suggests that the showrunners have yet to introduce the doubles for any of the other heroes (alive or dead, of the older generation or current) and will have to do so soon or in the upcoming seasons. That last night's Volume 2 finale episode ended with a few minutes of Volume 3 -- entitled "Villains" -- may bear this out.
I feel my theory is validated by the fact that not a single power was repeated until the beginning of this second season. I believe this was intentional, as the first season was designed to introduce the people that will have to fight their counterparts by the show's endgame, and future volumes will shape this central conflict.
Final note: despite the potential excitement about what the showrunners could do in future seasons -- a live-action Superfriends and Legion of Doom holds great appeal -- it's a little sad that any hope I have for the show right now seems to be more my own creation than theirs.
Like everyone else, I've been less than excited about the current season of this show, even before the Hollywood writers' strike drew it to a merciful close. While its early problems had to do with slow pacing and an anticlimactic finale, now the problems run deeper: too many satellite characters, too many storylines stretched thin, no real sense of cohesion.
But I'm not writing this to complain. I've been playing around with a theory about the show for a few months now, and the more I think about it, the more I feel that I'm right. For a TV series that has relied heavily on advertising taglines, I have this distinct notion that they will eventually borrow a page from Highlander and commit to the phrase "There can be only two!"
1. Adam Monroe (David Anders) and Claire Bennet (Hayden Panettiere) are indestructible, and each have shown that their blood holds curative properties.
2. Nathan Petrelli (Adrian Pasdar, pictured above, right) and West Rosen (Nicholas D'Agosto) each make you believe a man can fly.
3. Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) and his father Maury (Alan Blumenfield) can read and manipulate the minds of others.
4. Even the much-maligned twins Alejandro and Maya Herrera (Shalim Ortiz and Dania Ramirez) -- she of the virus and he of the antidote -- have previous generation equivalents in Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy, pictured below, left) and his late sister Shanti. Does anyone else think that the planned biological fallout is due to an active Maya, rather than some decades-old Shanti virus samples from a company lab?
I feel my theory is validated by the fact that not a single power was repeated until the beginning of this second season. I believe this was intentional, as the first season was designed to introduce the people that will have to fight their counterparts by the show's endgame, and future volumes will shape this central conflict.
Final note: despite the potential excitement about what the showrunners could do in future seasons -- a live-action Superfriends and Legion of Doom holds great appeal -- it's a little sad that any hope I have for the show right now seems to be more my own creation than theirs.
Monday, December 03, 2007
The 8-PLUS college football playoff
This may not be the best season to suggest a college football playoff, seeing as how most teams don't seem to want to play for a national championship. But I still find it ridiculous that Hawaii, which finished off an undefeated regular season this weekend, had to hope the numbers work out for them to even qualify for a major postseason bowl game.
There's no reason for this. Humans and computers who rank Hawaii so low are idiots, plain and simple. This team has not lost a game. When you rank a school with 1 or 2 (or 3!) losses ahead of Hawaii, you're no longer ranking teams. You're ranking strengths of schedule, which has nothing to do with the players on the field and everything to do with athletic departments and university presidents. What kind of assessment is that? Please find a new job or recalibrate yourself.
This kind of faulty reasoning -- Hawaii hasn't lost a game, and you might let them play in January?! -- is why BCS-level college football so desperately needs a playoff system. The problem is, no playoff suggestion has ever galvanized the NCAA and other authorities to make a change. Frankly, that's because none of these systems are as good as mine.
I hereby introduce the "8-PLUS" College Football Playoff, by which at least 8 teams figure into a postseason bracket. Sounds complicated, but it's mind-bogglingly simple. Here's how it works.
1. There are 6 major (BCS) conferences: the ACC, Big East, SEC, Big Ten, Pac-10, and Big 12. So, in my system, each of the six conference champions receives an automatic berth to the playoffs.
2. Now the BCS rankings (as they exist now, though they could always use some tweaking) come into play. Give two at-large bids to the highest ranked teams that have not already received an automatic berth. This is how independent Notre Dame would likely make the field, were they having an exceptional year.
3. So, why 8-plus? Now we look further down the rankings to add any undefeated teams that have not already been invited. Obviously, an undefeated team from a BCS conference would already have an automatic berth (or, in cases too rare to explain, an at-large berth). So these slots would be taken up by teams from other conferences -- like Hawaii from the WAC this year.
4. As for seeding the 8-plus teams, let the BCS rankings serve as your guide again. All that computation should count for something.
Let's use this year as an example. Here are Sunday's final BCS rankings:
1. Ohio State (11-1)
2. LSU (11-2)
3. Virginia Tech (11-2)
4. Oklahoma (11-2)
5. Georgia (10-2)
6. Missouri (11-2)
7. USC (10-2)
8. Kansas (11-1)
9. West Virginia (10-2)
10. Hawaii (12-0)
As it stands now, Ohio State and LSU are assigned to play what they're calling a national championship game, and the other bowls' authorities get to pick and choose their participants based on who's left. This year the Rose Bowl opted for #13 Illinois and the Orange Bowl chose #8 Kansas, leaving #6 Missouri, for whatever reason, out of a BCS bowl. Whatever.
Under my playoff plan, 9 teams would theoretically vie for the 2007-2008 national championship, in this seeding order:
(1) Ohio State, Big Ten champ
(2) LSU, SEC champ
(3) Virginia Tech, ACC champ
(4) Oklahoma, Big 12 champ
(5) Georgia, 1st at-large team
(6) Missouri, 2nd at-large team
(7) USC, Pac-10 champ
(8) West Virginia, Big East champ
(9) Hawaii, undefeated
Now place them in a standard bracket, in which the Hawaii/West Virginia winner plays Ohio State, USC faces LSU, Missouri battles Virginia Tech, and Georgia takes on Oklahoma.
So who complains? I admit that 11-1 Kansas has a fair argument, but that one loss prevented them from playing for their conference championship. It seems somewhat unfair that a 2-loss Georgia team that also didn't play in its conference championship could make the cut instead, but really, this is a voting issue. And an anomalous situation, in my opinion. (With a playoff system in place, I should hope voters would start being more careful about which at-large teams most deserve the highest ranking.)
Now that I've explained my plan, let me point out the main flaw: location, location, location. At least 7 games must take place, which raises a simple question. Where do they take place? I think that the number of BCS bowls should expand from 5 to 7, and that the NCAA creates a system by which these 7 bowl locations take turns hosting a quarterfinal, semifinal, or final.
Any additional play-in games (#8 vs. undefeated #9, #7 vs. undefeated #10, and so on) should still receive a BCS bowl-level purse, but for convenience be hosted by the higher seed. While I can see how Hawaii might complain about having to play against West Virginia in Morgantown (to use a hypothetical example using this season's numbers), they still get to play toward a national championship, which is better than just getting to play Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.
Another concern is time; how would a playoff stretch an already lengthy college football season? It wouldn't. The bowl season is already at least 4 weeks long. Play-in games and quarterfinals can take place at the same time as those December bowls, with the semifinals and final game scheduled for January. The season gets no longer because the existing timetable is perfect.
I fully realize that I'm a nobody, but it doesn't take a background in university athletics to just possess some damn common sense. This plan works, and better yet, favors the monolithic BCS conferences in every turn. Were these conference's commissioners presented with such a plan -- and frankly, I don't care who tells them -- they'd have to see that a good playoff system doesn't have to take them out of their comfort zone. Get their recommendations, and who knows what could happen?
I don't even want the credit for this or any similar playoff system. I just want college football to start mattering.
There's no reason for this. Humans and computers who rank Hawaii so low are idiots, plain and simple. This team has not lost a game. When you rank a school with 1 or 2 (or 3!) losses ahead of Hawaii, you're no longer ranking teams. You're ranking strengths of schedule, which has nothing to do with the players on the field and everything to do with athletic departments and university presidents. What kind of assessment is that? Please find a new job or recalibrate yourself.
This kind of faulty reasoning -- Hawaii hasn't lost a game, and you might let them play in January?! -- is why BCS-level college football so desperately needs a playoff system. The problem is, no playoff suggestion has ever galvanized the NCAA and other authorities to make a change. Frankly, that's because none of these systems are as good as mine.
I hereby introduce the "8-PLUS" College Football Playoff, by which at least 8 teams figure into a postseason bracket. Sounds complicated, but it's mind-bogglingly simple. Here's how it works.
1. There are 6 major (BCS) conferences: the ACC, Big East, SEC, Big Ten, Pac-10, and Big 12. So, in my system, each of the six conference champions receives an automatic berth to the playoffs.
2. Now the BCS rankings (as they exist now, though they could always use some tweaking) come into play. Give two at-large bids to the highest ranked teams that have not already received an automatic berth. This is how independent Notre Dame would likely make the field, were they having an exceptional year.
3. So, why 8-plus? Now we look further down the rankings to add any undefeated teams that have not already been invited. Obviously, an undefeated team from a BCS conference would already have an automatic berth (or, in cases too rare to explain, an at-large berth). So these slots would be taken up by teams from other conferences -- like Hawaii from the WAC this year.
4. As for seeding the 8-plus teams, let the BCS rankings serve as your guide again. All that computation should count for something.
Let's use this year as an example. Here are Sunday's final BCS rankings:
1. Ohio State (11-1)
2. LSU (11-2)
3. Virginia Tech (11-2)
4. Oklahoma (11-2)
5. Georgia (10-2)
6. Missouri (11-2)
7. USC (10-2)
8. Kansas (11-1)
9. West Virginia (10-2)
10. Hawaii (12-0)
As it stands now, Ohio State and LSU are assigned to play what they're calling a national championship game, and the other bowls' authorities get to pick and choose their participants based on who's left. This year the Rose Bowl opted for #13 Illinois and the Orange Bowl chose #8 Kansas, leaving #6 Missouri, for whatever reason, out of a BCS bowl. Whatever.
Under my playoff plan, 9 teams would theoretically vie for the 2007-2008 national championship, in this seeding order:
(1) Ohio State, Big Ten champ
(2) LSU, SEC champ
(3) Virginia Tech, ACC champ
(4) Oklahoma, Big 12 champ
(5) Georgia, 1st at-large team
(6) Missouri, 2nd at-large team
(7) USC, Pac-10 champ
(8) West Virginia, Big East champ
(9) Hawaii, undefeated
Now place them in a standard bracket, in which the Hawaii/West Virginia winner plays Ohio State, USC faces LSU, Missouri battles Virginia Tech, and Georgia takes on Oklahoma.
So who complains? I admit that 11-1 Kansas has a fair argument, but that one loss prevented them from playing for their conference championship. It seems somewhat unfair that a 2-loss Georgia team that also didn't play in its conference championship could make the cut instead, but really, this is a voting issue. And an anomalous situation, in my opinion. (With a playoff system in place, I should hope voters would start being more careful about which at-large teams most deserve the highest ranking.)
Now that I've explained my plan, let me point out the main flaw: location, location, location. At least 7 games must take place, which raises a simple question. Where do they take place? I think that the number of BCS bowls should expand from 5 to 7, and that the NCAA creates a system by which these 7 bowl locations take turns hosting a quarterfinal, semifinal, or final.
Any additional play-in games (#8 vs. undefeated #9, #7 vs. undefeated #10, and so on) should still receive a BCS bowl-level purse, but for convenience be hosted by the higher seed. While I can see how Hawaii might complain about having to play against West Virginia in Morgantown (to use a hypothetical example using this season's numbers), they still get to play toward a national championship, which is better than just getting to play Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.
Another concern is time; how would a playoff stretch an already lengthy college football season? It wouldn't. The bowl season is already at least 4 weeks long. Play-in games and quarterfinals can take place at the same time as those December bowls, with the semifinals and final game scheduled for January. The season gets no longer because the existing timetable is perfect.
I fully realize that I'm a nobody, but it doesn't take a background in university athletics to just possess some damn common sense. This plan works, and better yet, favors the monolithic BCS conferences in every turn. Were these conference's commissioners presented with such a plan -- and frankly, I don't care who tells them -- they'd have to see that a good playoff system doesn't have to take them out of their comfort zone. Get their recommendations, and who knows what could happen?
I don't even want the credit for this or any similar playoff system. I just want college football to start mattering.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
NIT picking
Wednesday brought the announcement that the NCAA will buy the preseason and postseason NIT from the five New York-area universities who used to run those tournaments. Congratulations to both parties for avoiding litigation. I doubt this is kind of the natural accumulation of market share that antitrust law would allow, but whatever. As usual, my interests lie elsewhere.
It is time to fix the preseason NIT. And this is my plan.
There are 31 conferences and 8 independent teams in Division I college basketball. Ken Pomeroy includes the independents as a conference-like grouping and lists them all by conference RPI here. (You might as well open that page in a separate window or tab, because I'll be referring to conference RPI a lot.)
First, choose 24 teams, starting with one team from each of the top 16 conferences. That's 16 teams. Then split the bottom 16 conferences into two sets of 8 conferences, whose representatives will alternate from year to year. Those are the remaining 8 teams.
Second, divide those 24 teams geographically into 6 groups. Each group will have one team from one of the top 6 conferences: the ACC, Pac-10, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, and SEC. The remaining 3 teams in each group will be from mid-major or minor conferences and will be within a reasonable distance of the team from the top 6 conference. For example, if the representatives of, say, Conference USA, Sun Belt, and the Atlantic 10 were Charlotte, Middle Tennessee, and Richmond, then they might be put in a bracket with an ACC team like Wake Forest. But if those same conferences were represented by St. Louis, Western Kentucky, and Xavier, then it would make more sense to place them in a bracket with, say, Indiana of the Big Ten.
Third, each group of 4 teams would play one another in a round robin format, with the home team determined by the conference RPI of the previous season. So in the first example above, Wake Forest would host all three of its games, while Charlotte would play two at home, and Middle Tennessee would get to host Richmond. Where the round robin ends in a two-way tie, the winner of that matchup advances. If there's a three-way tie, the team with the highest conference RPI advances.
Fourth, each winner of the 6 groups would go to New York City. Then, of the remaining 18 teams, the two second-place teams with the highest conference RPI would advance with at-large bids. Of those 8 quarterfinalists, the 3-0 teams would receive higher seeds than the 2-1 teams, with ties broken by conference RPI.
This format sounds complicated, but it really isn't. All 24 teams would be guaranteed 3 preseason nonconference games, and 8 of those teams would get to play up to 3 more games. (The NIT champ already plays 6 games, so this is hardly a scheduling burden.) Teams from minor conferences would get a mandatory shot at some of the bigger programs, even though they would always have to play them on the road. And the top 6 conferences can hardly complain, seeing as they're repeatedly given the advantage.
It wouldn't take that much time, either. The 3 round robin games for each team (6 total games for each group, or 36 games total) could take place within an 8-9 day period, accounting for TV exposure and travel. Then the Madison Square Garden games could be scheduled the following Thursday, Saturday, and Monday. With consolation games, that's four matchups each day, a better value to the ticket holder than what the Big East tournament offers in the same venue.
It's worth noting that these games would probably take place in early November, after the World Series is over. The NBA and NHL seasons are barely underway, and the NFL only dominates Sunday. There's an opening for a major sports draw.
It is time to fix the preseason NIT. And this is my plan.
There are 31 conferences and 8 independent teams in Division I college basketball. Ken Pomeroy includes the independents as a conference-like grouping and lists them all by conference RPI here. (You might as well open that page in a separate window or tab, because I'll be referring to conference RPI a lot.)
First, choose 24 teams, starting with one team from each of the top 16 conferences. That's 16 teams. Then split the bottom 16 conferences into two sets of 8 conferences, whose representatives will alternate from year to year. Those are the remaining 8 teams.
Second, divide those 24 teams geographically into 6 groups. Each group will have one team from one of the top 6 conferences: the ACC, Pac-10, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, and SEC. The remaining 3 teams in each group will be from mid-major or minor conferences and will be within a reasonable distance of the team from the top 6 conference. For example, if the representatives of, say, Conference USA, Sun Belt, and the Atlantic 10 were Charlotte, Middle Tennessee, and Richmond, then they might be put in a bracket with an ACC team like Wake Forest. But if those same conferences were represented by St. Louis, Western Kentucky, and Xavier, then it would make more sense to place them in a bracket with, say, Indiana of the Big Ten.
Third, each group of 4 teams would play one another in a round robin format, with the home team determined by the conference RPI of the previous season. So in the first example above, Wake Forest would host all three of its games, while Charlotte would play two at home, and Middle Tennessee would get to host Richmond. Where the round robin ends in a two-way tie, the winner of that matchup advances. If there's a three-way tie, the team with the highest conference RPI advances.
Fourth, each winner of the 6 groups would go to New York City. Then, of the remaining 18 teams, the two second-place teams with the highest conference RPI would advance with at-large bids. Of those 8 quarterfinalists, the 3-0 teams would receive higher seeds than the 2-1 teams, with ties broken by conference RPI.
This format sounds complicated, but it really isn't. All 24 teams would be guaranteed 3 preseason nonconference games, and 8 of those teams would get to play up to 3 more games. (The NIT champ already plays 6 games, so this is hardly a scheduling burden.) Teams from minor conferences would get a mandatory shot at some of the bigger programs, even though they would always have to play them on the road. And the top 6 conferences can hardly complain, seeing as they're repeatedly given the advantage.
It wouldn't take that much time, either. The 3 round robin games for each team (6 total games for each group, or 36 games total) could take place within an 8-9 day period, accounting for TV exposure and travel. Then the Madison Square Garden games could be scheduled the following Thursday, Saturday, and Monday. With consolation games, that's four matchups each day, a better value to the ticket holder than what the Big East tournament offers in the same venue.
It's worth noting that these games would probably take place in early November, after the World Series is over. The NBA and NHL seasons are barely underway, and the NFL only dominates Sunday. There's an opening for a major sports draw.
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