Happy Stinkin Holidays

I hate booger-freezing weather.  When the high of the day doesn’t break double digits, I always wonder what I’m doing in this area.  Heck, I work on the internet – can’t I move to San Diego and telecommute?

The drawback of course is the friends I don’t want to leave behind.  And my petition to get everyone to move with me always fails, too.

I guess from my drive home last night, some snow had melted off my shoes and puddled on my floormat.  Well, today I have a nice ice patch under my heels when driving.  It never occured to me that I need to salt the interior of my car.

We had about 5 inches of snow earlier in the week and I did a very poor job of shoveling.  I just did the back walkway to the cars.  Now, everything in the front is no longer soft snow, but solid ice.  You need your ice skates if you’re going to try to knock on our front door.  Thankfully it’s supposed to warm up this weekend.  I really hope it melts everything.  I’m done with this winter stuff already.

I did have one joyful moment this morning.  Since last Friday, one of my coworkers in my department has been playing Christmas music for the whole department to hear.  I am not a fan of this.  In my opinion – there’s only like 50 Christmas songs, just a million versions of them.  And to hear the same music over and over again gets annoying.  Especially since I find most versions so incredibly cheesy.

I cope with this distraction by wearing headphones and turning up my music loud enough to drown it out.  Another coworker asked me if I thought the Christmas music was too loud today, to which I replied it didn’t matter, I don’t listen anyway.  She then in turn took a poll of our department and it was found that most of us would prefer not to have the music played for all to hear.

Woohoo!

Score one for the scrooge!

Ok, I’m not a total scrooge.  I do like the Christmas season to some extent.  I just don’t like the fact that it starts the day after Halloween.  And throw in the fact that winter is just beginning and all we have to look forward to is several more months of freezing our bums off while it gets dark at 4:00, well, it just doesn’t always equal jolliness.

I know I’d be much more festive if I could be lying on a beach.

Buses

The other day I was driving down North Ave. near my house. This section of North Ave. is near highway-like. There are 3 lanes of traffic in both directions. The speed limit is, I believe, 45, although you’d be hard pressed to find anyone going that. Most travel at 55 or above. (Not me, of course.)

At one point, there is a single railroad crossing that is rarely used. In the five years I’ve lived in the area, I’ve only seen those tracks used once. I guess that doesn’t say too much, since it’s not like I sit by the tracks, timing the trains frequencies…but still.

So on this day, I was traveling behind a school bus in the center lane. There was also another school bus in the right lane. Traveling at 45+ mph, both of these buses had to stop at these tracks.

Now (and here comes the rant part), it seems to me that it would be a ton safer for these buses to just continue over the tracks at their highway speed (there is no bump, so slowing down is not required) than for them to stop. If a train actually was coming and the gates weren’t down, the momentum would certainly carry them over the tracks. But the worse part is I think there’s more of a chance of getting rear-ended in this situation.

Yea, I know everyone should be expecting the buses to stop at the tracks. But it’s also highly likely that a few cars back might not realize what’s happening. And it was especially so when 2 lanes of traffic had to come to a complete stop. I can stop ok slowing from 45+ to zero, but will that semi truck behind me be able to do so?

My rant is simply that there should be exceptions to this stopping at railroad crossings rule. This particular intersection is a case in point how stopping could be more dangerous than not.

A plea to the Baseball journalists

Keeping statistics in sports, particularly baseball, is part of the alluring draw to them. But using stats in comparisons has gotten out of control. I don’t know if it’s just been this season of baseball, or if I just finally noticed, but it’s driving me crazy.

My issue is this: journalists are using apples-to-oranges comparisons to try to make their stories more sensational.

I love reading stats. But the problem is, you can very easily take stats out of context by doing poor comparisons. And it’s easy to make stats appear any way you want them to. I’m tired of reading article after article of this misuse of stats.

Pitcher A gave up 6 home runs in his last 18 games while Pitcher B has given up only 1 home run in his last 2 games.

Huh? How is that a fair comparison?

Big Named Player batted .400 over a 4 game span 2 years ago, but now is only batting .167 in his last 6 at bats. He must be in a slump.

Ok, so these are a bit extreme, but it’s not too far off.

Here is a quick example. A comparison of the 2 pitchers in the White Sox – Tigers game on Tuesday night. The problem is they only look at Garcia’s last 3 starts versus Verlander’s last 6 starts. Why? Because the 3 starts before that, Garcia wasn’t doing as well and it would have made the comparison a lot closer.

All I ask is for equal comparisons. Compare the same stats over the same period of time or whatever unit of measurement you’re using. It’s the only way to really get a true comparison.

But that’s never going to change. The 3 people who read this blog don’t have any connections (that I know of) with big media journalists. Well, my uncle is a sports journalists for a Connecticut newspaper, but I’ve never read his column.

And even then, it won’t change, because drastic number comparisons look better and more sensational.

Q-tips

My wife, bless her heart, was at the store and knew we were in need of Q-tips. For whatever reason, the store was out of the name brand ones. Instead she picked up a 100 count pack for $1.00. Now, it had never crossed my mind that it was possible to make a bad Q-tip. Wrap some cotton on a stick – how can you screw that up? Well, this brand sucks.

First of all, the stick is like a pipe cleaner. You put any sort of force on it and it bends in half. Blow on it and it’s like a reed in the wind. Next, this brand should be fined for false advertising by calling these cotton swabs. It’s like they took a quarter square of rough toilet paper and wrapped it around the stem once. There is no swab. I can get my ears cleaner by finding a stick in the yard and using that.

So, I made a special run to the store the other night just to get real Q-tips. There are some things in life that you just shouldn’t substiute for the real thing.

oh the humanity!

Sara and I commute to work together most mornings. Today, BTO’s “Let it Ride” came on the radio and she asked, “Isn’t this a TV commercial?” ACK!

I understand that classic rock isn’t for everyone and I’m ok with that. But this is the danger that musicians face when selling out. Yea, I said it. Now, I’m not THAT old, but are young’ns only going to think of some of these classic rock songs as jingles? (I’m not referring to my wife in that last statement, although she is a month younger than I am.) So I fear for the Generation Yers, or Teenie Boppers, or whatever the next generation is called. It’s so easy to miss out on some great music of the past.

Not that I think “Let it Ride” is the greatest song ever written. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t crack my top 10,000 list. But that’s not the point. BTO’s “Takin’ Care of Business” has been in commercials before. Or a better example is the Cadillac commercials that use Led Zepplin’s “Rock & Roll” A great song cut up into 30 seconds – it just doesn’t do the song justice.

All musicians are inspired by someone who came before them. Music appreciators should take the time to listen to music past and present. That’s all I’m saying. With the internet, it’s never been easier. Amazon and other websites offer samples of millions of songs. And 99 cent downloads has made aquiring great music easier and cheaper than ever.

None of this applies to my wife, of course. She has me. She can tell you of the many times I’ve dragged her over to my computer to listen to a new song I’ve discovered. She’d also probably lament to you how I can remember a ton of song lyrics, tunes, and titles and yet I can’t remember to take the laundry out of the dryer.