CleverDonkey.com …Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel

First of all, be prepared to pay attention. If you’re not in the mood to stay focused and track details and make logical jumps and not be spoon-fed the typical, ham-handed, Hollywood hoopla, then skip this movie and go see King Kong. However, if you’re in a thoughtful mood and want to be challenged, educated, and entertained, then go see Syriana.

It also helps if you have an interest in geopolitics and a healthy skepticism that causes you to wonder what the differences are between what the government says, what the news reports, and what reality is. Syriana tells a complicated story by following several key characters and showing their points of view as they interact, intersect, or pass in the night.

The backdrop of the story is the oil bidness and how the trillions of dollars involved end up causing oil companies to act as nation-states, and also causes the disenfranchised of the world to direct their hatred at the oil companies in the same way they hate fat, comfortable western nations.

The movie is a fictionalized story based on a non-fiction book by a former CIA agent who worked the Middle East beat back in the 80’s. The book is called “See No Evil”, by Robert Baer. I have not yet read the book, but plan to do so very soon.

The story borders on being opaque, and I had to lean over to Mynagirl more than once and whisper stuff like “Which brother is he?” and “Is that somebody we’re already supposed to know?”. But it gives you just enough of the story so that even though the blanks aren’t all filled in, you’re able to get the gist of it. I like that in a movie…challenge me to keep up and don’t feel you have to have some character exposit everything for the audience.

Along with its intricate plotting the film also has great acting and directing. George Clooney disappears into his role as a the CIA agent, sporting a full beard and a few more pounds that make him seem much more Everyman-y and much less Clooney-y. Then there’s Christopher Plummer – yes, that Christopher Plummer, from The Sound of Music – turning in a chillingly effective performance as a behind-the-scense string-puller. Matt Damon is also effective as the eager and idealistic consultant.

If you’re comfortable having a black-and-white view of the world, and you don’t want that worldview challenged, you should skip this film. Everything and everybody in this film is some shade of grey and while some of the characters are truly bad, none are truly good in the typical Hollywood sense. But if you have an open mind and are energized by challenges then this might be the movie for you.

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McCain’s Market

Heights Blvd at White Oak (6th)

Houston, Texas

http://www.mccainsmarket.com

I had been waiting. The fancy new stone shopping center put up in the Heights had been empty for almost two years, except for an antiques store that came and went. Then I was watching — coffee cups and cappucino machines appeared in the window. Finally! A good coffee place in the Heights! Maybe a Starbucks? Then a few days later, a Boar’s Head deli sign on the wall was visible… clearly this place was going to be more than just a little corner coffee shop.

Finally it opened! It took us about a week to get in there, but we finally stopped in today. Wow, what a place! Gourmet spaghetti sauces, Napa Valley buttermilk pancake mix with exotic syrups (boysenberry merlot!), a great cheese case, a few choice bits of produce (shallots!), fancy teas, chocolates (fabulous dark Parisian chocolate with orange peel!) unbelievable olive oil and fresh bread, and a deli case with… Prasek’s sausage from Prasek’s Hill Country Smokehouse in Hillje, Texas. This place is on the way to Engineerboy’s hometown of Port Lavaca and a regular stop for us when we drive there. The place is an authentic Czech wonder, with their famous sausage and true Czech kolaches (fruit kolaches, not meat). Alas, Jason, the proprietor at McCain’s informed us that they haven’t figured out a way to bring those kolaches up to the Market yet. But it was a great treat for Engineerboy to find the hometown delicacy of the sausage right here in the Heights.

The place is everything that new retail in the Heights should be — small and neighbor-friendly, with an unbelievable selection of fancy goods. I could easily migrate to a European model of stopping at the market on the way home every night for fancy yummies — tonight’s fare was a baguette, infused olive oil for dipping, fresh apples, and some incredible aged Wisconsin cheddar — along with Pomegranate soda and a decaf cappucino. Oh, and that dark chocolate with orange rinds in it. Yum! Engineerboy feasted on Prasek’s and buttered noodles along with Raspberry tea sweetened with cane sugar. Suffice it to say we were imminently pleased with dinner. And knowing that the place is open at 7 am on weekdays might make it a regular on-the-way-to-work kinda place.

I suspect they’ll be seeing a lot more of us.

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The producers of the short film clip “Broken” were nice enough to send me a review copy on DVD. There’s an interesting story behind this short film, as it was produced by independent film makers on a shoestring to serve as a demonstration of their film making skills, a sort of artistic audition, if you will. The difficulty on judging this piece stems from trying to figure out if it should be judged in the realm of Hollywood films (to which it aspires) or in the realm of shoestring, independent films (which it is). My only choice is to rate it both ways, so here goes.

Shoestring Film Rating (***½, grading on a curve)

If I had been shown this short film without having previous knowledge I would have assumed that it was from some schlocky new UPN/WB television series about spies. It’s got sort of an Alias-meets-Consipiracy-Theory-meets-Xena-meets-Seven kind of feel to it, but with cornier writing and acting. For a network television show or a Hollywood film, that would be faint praise. However, for something done in the manner of this short film, it’s actually very good. So, from the perspective of a couple of normal folks spending their own money to put something together, this film rocks.

Absolute Film Rating (*½, no curve)

However, if we ignore the origins of this piece, it comes in at a bit below average for Hollywood/network TV fare. The dialog and acting are sometimes okay, usually corny. The artistic direction is a bit trite with all the characters affecting the most obvious trappings of their stereotype. For example, the main bad guy’s schtick is he plays a harmonica, and the various henchpeople are tattooed, muscled, pleather-wearing, and/or cartoonishly menacing depending on the particular well-known caricature being attempted.

Overall Rating (**, combined rating)

So, if I put that all together I say that this is overall an average piece, but with flashes of talent, imagination, and drive that clearly demonstrate that the people behind it could probably step up to the major leagues. I think that was the purpose the producers had for this film, and in that I think they have succeeded. Consider that they went out of their way to locate this website, contact us, send us the DVD gratis, and continue to communicate to elicit feedback. They clearly want people to see and review their work.
They’ve even gotten a mention from Roger Ebert. They have also put a lot of work into their web site, where you can read more about their production of this film and its effects, and even buy a copy of you’re interested. In particular, if you have an interest in the making of film, the information on this site and on their DVD is incredibly interesting and entertaining.

For me, as a film aficianado, seeing people creating works like this is like a breath of fresh air. Yes, the film aspires to a lot of Hollywood cliches that I don’t find particularly compelling, but what it does it does well. It also shows that “cinema” is coming into the reach of the masses and it gives me hope that we’re moving to break the stranglehold that the big studios have on this type of entertainment. I urge Alex Ferrari and Jorge Rodriguez (the makers of Broken) to use this film as a Trojan Horse, allowing them to enter the gates of Hollywood film making, while allowing them to secretly bring their artistic sensibilities along for the ride and not be assimilated. Resistance is NOT futile!

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Nobody Goes to the Movies Anymore

There’s much ballyhoo and boo-hoo in the press these days about how movie theatre revenues are declining. Nobody “goes to the movies” anymore. DVDs are too prevalent and come out so quickly. Moviegoers just aren’t as excited about going to the movies.

One possibility is that the movie quality is declining. I know Engineerboy feels this way, at least in part. Make good, interesting movies that people want to see, and they’ll go to the theatres.

But that’s not entirely true. Sure, a theatre packed with Syrianas and When Harry Met Sallys and Full Metal Jackets would be great, and you might see more people — although some potential moviegoers may want more Dukes of Hazzards instead (which actually wasn’t a bad movie…). But the truth is, at least for people like Engineerboy and me, going to the movies is largely about the experience as much as it is the film content itself. Granted, if the only offerings at the Googleplex were Deuce Bigalow Three through Thirty-Three, we might take a pass. However, we’ll go to the movies even for a mediocre offering just to have a nice social afternoon escaping from reality, snuggling next to each other in the seats, and munching on treats.

But our urge to go for even a mediocre offering dims in the face of the waning experience that is “Going to the Movies”. Movie theatres could do SO much to improve the experience and pull people in, almost regardless of the quality of the film itself.

What the Hell are Squinkles?!

First off, improve the concessions. For some of us, this is almost the whole point of the “Going to the Movies” event… the fresh popcorn, the Milk Duds, the fountain Cokes. But movies no longer have “traditional” candy, I was informed… No Milk Duds, no Whoppers, no Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. About the only recognizable offering among the weird disgusting-looking candies were M&M’s. I’m sure somewhere at the corporate level a bean-head decided that evil alliances with sub-par candy providers were a good financial decision, and it may have looked really attractive on paper. But what 35-to-40-year-old has great memories of Squinkles at the theatre when they were a kid? I bet you if they just bought from the various vendors without regard for alliances and simply bought with the immense buying power they wield, they’d have a fully stocked display case of REAL candy that might make people actually want to come to the movies. But it’s a long-return payoff to improve the bottom line, unlike simply slashing your “treat” providers to UnknownCandyCo.

And improve the popcorn… I mean, the stuff they put on it isn’t even labeled as “Butter Flavoring”. It’s “Golden Flavoring”. If that doesn’t scare you, it should. It’s just flavored oil. Eww. There’s a classic theatre here in River Oaks from a boutique chain (Landmark Theatres) that actually has butter on their popcorn. I’m sure it’s messy and a total pain in the ass for them to maintain, but it’s SO exquisitely good. Makes going to a show there worth the narrow seats and only two or three screens.

So if the treats are any indication, the movie theatres just don’t care about you anymore. Just a year or two ago if you ordered a pretzel extra salty, you got one right from the spinning spindle — warm and decently fresh, with the salt baked ALL over that twisted little piece of bread. Last week when we went to the movies I ordered an extra salty pretzel and got a PLAIN pretzel in a disgusting perforated steam pouch and had to find the location of little salt packets on my own. I mean, could this place give less of a shit about the experience? They can’t even be bothered to bake the salt into the pretzels. And trust me, trying to get large hunks of salt to hold onto an already-baked surface is completely futile. AND distracting if you’re trying to watch a show. Similarly, I got tricked the other day into lusting after a “Cinnabon Pretzel” at our local Marq-E multiplex. It looked incredibly appetizing in the picture, hot and delicious with a cinnamon bun center with swirled icing. Knowing how yummy Cinnabons are, I asked for one. Same disgust-o perforated pouch, with a little TUB of COLD icing. Why does this make me want to come to the movies? It doesn’t.

In general the whole self-service aspect of the movies gets so infuriating that you do begin to ask yourself, Why am I here?. I have to butter…er….oil… my own popcorn. I have to salt my own puny pretzel. I have to get my own napkins and straws at the end of the counter, at this narrow space among the zillion other patrons. It does make one ask “Is this experience worth $30?”. As the theatres try to cut costs by streamlining their process, they forget that at some point the loss of customer interest just isn’t worth it.

Go for the Long Haul

Like many companies, the theatre chains are trying to improve bottom line by slashing basic services. This may work in the short haul but will not gain you long-term loyalty. And loyalty is what these guys need as home-based options get more advanced. I know theatre chains are bitching about movie quality, but they should take a hard look at themselves and decide what will entice people to the theatre instead of staying home. I mean, people still go to eat out all the time even though nearly everyone has a stove and oven. Going out is fun, and enjoyable, at the right restaurant. The theatre chains have to think of themselves as more of an “experience provider” than a “movie house” that can just shove any old thing at their patrons and somehow miraculously expect the patron to want to come back again and again.

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First off, to make good smoothies, you need a good blender. Being the Consumer Reports dork-heads we are, we picked the Braun MX2050, a steal at $50, and so far we have zero complaints:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004S9H3/104-4355104-1337505?v=glance&n=284507&v=glance

Second of all, no ice. Ice is grody in a smoothie. One makes a good frozen smoothie with frozen ingredients. Here’s my recipe that I’ve put together with some trial and error.

Marie’s Favorite Smoothie Recipe
Note: put the ingredients in the blender in this order for best mixing results.

• A handful of frozen strawberries — you can do ones from the freezer section, or once every couple weeks I buy organic ones and cut ’em up and freeze ’em in a big bag
• A good slosh of Kefir probiotic milk (enough to almost cover the strawberries) — it’s like yogurt but has a more liquid texture. You can use regular yogurt (plain or vanilla) but it will take the blender a LONG time to mix it and you might have to stop it, stir the ingredients, etc, because the mixture is too thick to blend easily.
• Half a banana. Mooshy is okay, you won’t even taste the mushiness. Beware of greenies, though.
• Large heaping tablespoon of SMOOTH peanut butter — I recommend Laura Scudder’s Natural.
• A bunch of honey. Try not to let the honey or the peanut butter touch the side of the blender, you’ll lose some of it to just sticking on the side.

Blend until smooth, and that’s about it! Many variations can be had (lose the peanut butter, add frozen pineapple, etc), but this one’s my favorite because it’s very protein-y. Sometimes I put some Stonyfield Farms organic Whole Milk Vanilla yogurt in on top of the Kefir to make it a bit thicker. But it’s good with just the Kefir.

Happy smoothing!

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Well, it all started with that Anna Nicole Smith ad. Once the media flap started, I had to hear what the big shakeup was about the food we feed our cats and dogs. If you’re interested, here’s the big site dedicated to educating you about all the alleged abuses by Iams: http://www.iamscruelty.com/. Iam’s counterpoint site with video’s of “inside the pet facility” is here: http://www.iamstruth.com. The videos are very heartwarming and well, from my perspective, a bit hard to believe. PETA is a histrionic organization to be sure, but I’m more likely to believe what they say they found — or at the least the general tone of it — than a “damage control” belly-scratching video that Iams put out after the fact.

But regardless, that whole dust-up gave us a reason to search out a new pet food. The dogs hated Iams, but I wanted to feed them something “healthy” so that’s all we gave them — I figured Iams must be healthy since it was the most expensive stuff you could buy at the grocery store. I meant, the dogs would snarf up cheap stuff from the store but that’s hardly the best stuff for them, right? So, once Iams was out of the picture we started on a quest for a healthy food that they’d really like. Engineerboy came across the following link that rated pet foods by their ingredients:

http://animalark.eapps.com/animal/PetFoods.nsf/$$PetFoodsByRating?OpenForm

There were several dog foods in the four-star range that we thought we might try and find, with a couple local retailers listed. We ended up settling on Canidae, which we can buy locally at the yup-scale “hardware store” Bering’s (really a fancy gifts / chocolate / gewgaw store, but it does have feed store – type stuff there). Canidae sure sounded good — the first five ingredients listed were Chicken Meal, Turkey Meal, Brown Rice, White Rice, and Lamb Meal. I mean, I’m a vegetarian, but I know that dogs evolved as carnivores and believe they should be fed meat. Those ingredients sure seemed pretty healthy for the hounds.

As a bonus, the dogs loved it as much (if not more) than any junk food cheap-o stuff from the grocery store, easily making its $45 price tag for a 40 lb bag worth it. Their coats look wonderful and shiny, and I think Biscuit the super-shedder might even be shedding a little less. One can hope. We also got their cat food, Felidae, and the cats seem to be snarfing that right up. Even our picky “can I please have wet food” tabby has calmed down a little and begged a bit less for the canned stuff, so that’s a miracle as far as I’m concerned.

As a side note, the PETA Iamscruelty.com site does not list Candidae Corporation responding to a survey saying that their organization doesn’t do animal testing, so I may give another of the four-star foods a try, since there is one listed (Azmira) that’s also on PETA’s list of pet foods that doesn’t do animal testing. I need to do some more research on that.

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From the perspective of science, evolution is a fact, in the same way that gravity is a fact. It can be observed through the fossil record, and the scientific community has no doubts that life on Earth has evolved over time. This again matches gravity, as scientists can readily observe that objects with mass do not float away from the earth and into space unless acted upon by an outside force.

The “theory” part of evolution has to do with the exact explanation of how and why organisms evolve over time. Nobody knows for certain the precise combination of factors that result in evolution over time. This again precisely matches gravity, where nobody really knows exactly and precisely how and why gravity works.

So, scientifically speaking, both gravity and evolution are described by “theories”, which are logical frameworks describing the behaviors, while also presenting possible or probable explanations for the phenomenon. However, the fact that the exact mechanisms behind gravity and evolution are unknown does not mean that they do not exist.

Also, science in no way excludes the possibility that evolution is guided by an unseen force or intelligence, any more so than it excludes the possibility that gravity is caused by individual angels assigned to hold every single person, animal, and grain of sand against the earth. However, while science does not exclude these possible explanations, it is not the realm of science to search for spiritual or supernatural explanations for phenomena. It is the realm of science to search for natural explanations to describe the world around us.

From my perspective, the following are true:

Evolution = Science

Creationism = Faith

Intelligent Design = Philosophy (or faith disguised as philosophy masquerading as science)

And here are some definitions used in the further discussion below:

Scientific Method: principles and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experiment, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.

Science: knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through the scientific method.

Faith: (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion (3) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof.

Philosophy: a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means.

There should be no debate about any of the above being taught in the appropriate venue. However, Creationism and Intelligent Design have as much place in a Science class as Evolution does in a Religion class. They don’t have anything to do with each other.

However, there is a constant hue and cry, mostly by conservative Christians, to either suppress the teaching of evolution in science class, or to include creationism and/or intelligent design in the same venue. One presumes that this is because many Christians reject evolution outright and so do not want it taught to their children. I fully understand the desire not to have one’s children indoctrinated with teachings that do not agree with one’s personal viewpoints, however it happens all the time, to everyone.

For example, I might think that all animal life is sacred. And yet in my child’s biology class, frogs are anesthetized and dissected for the study of life functions. It falls to me to explain to my child that although these procedures and teachings are condoned by the school and taught by their (authoritarian) teacher, they do not represent ultimate truths, philosophies, or behaviors that are condoned, accepted, or embraced in our family.

Similarly:

I might believe that our fates are controlled by the month of our birth and the position of the planets and stars.

I might not believe that the Holocaust happened.

I might believe that man never walked on the moon and that the whole thing was staged.

I might not believe that Oswald acted alone.

I might believe that the sun and stars revolve around the Earth.

I might not believe in the randomness of quantum physics.

I might believe in the Zionist Occupation Government.

I might not believe in capital punishment.

I might believe in gun control.

I might not believe that fractions will some day be important to me.

I might believe that we are “One nation under…Buddha…or under Elvis…or under Allah…or under L. Ron Hubbard…or under Yahweh…or under Vishnu…or under Zeus…or under Bikram…or under Jim Jones…or under Dogbert…or under David Koresh…or under Charles Manson…or under Beelzebub…”

Some of the above list will seem crazy to some of you, and some of it will make sense to some of you, and only some of it represents things that I actually believe. Nonetheless, every single child that goes through public school in America today will be taught about the above lists, and they will almost always be taught only one viewpoint.

So, what is a parent to do? Well, a parent should do what all parents do about such things, which is reinforce the beliefs and tenets of their family to their child, and to show through example that the teachings of the family are a good and strong set of beliefs.

Either that, or work to show that what is being taught in the public schools is somehow invalid or so controversial that it should not be taught. And, unfortunately, this can’t be done with evolution because evolution is sound science. Rock solid, in fact. Sure, there are knowledge gaps and conflicting viewpoints and controversial facets to evolution within the scientific community, just as there are with ANY OTHER AREA OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH. However, this doesn’t invalidate evolution just as it does not invalidate any other science, as long as the brutal filter of the scientific method is applied, which it is.

For example, astronomers recently discovered what they say is most likely to become the 10th planet of our solar system, nicknamed Xena. And the new planet also has a moon. Xena is larger than Pluto, and since Pluto is designated as a planet then it is assumed that this new planet will be, too. However, there are some who call for a reevaluation of what constitutes a “planet”, and that Pluto shouldn’t be designated as one because it is so small and should more accurately be referred to as a planetoid or even a large asteroid.

So, “scientists” can’t even agree on how many planets are in our solar system, and can’t even agree on what a planet is? This must mean that we must reject the sciences of astronomy and cosmology. Right?

Wrong. What this means is that as humanity gathers new facts and applies the scientific method to those facts we end up expanding and refining the realms of scientific knowledge. See these pages for a more thorough explanation of the scientific method:

WikiPedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

University of Rochester: http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_labs/AppendixE/AppendixE.html

So, lacking any valid reason for banning the teaching of evolution, some are now calling for the introduction of faith (creationism) and/or pure philosophy (intelligent design) into Science class. However, doing this would be a grave injustice to science, faith, and philosophy, because all would be diluted and diminished by this course of action. Faith and philosophy have no place in science class. Science class is for science. And evolution is good, solid science. Now, if a parent chooses to they can certainly sit down and talk with their child and explain how evolution does not match their beliefs, just as another parent can tell their child that just because their school makes them say the words “under god” that does not necessarily match their beliefs, either.

Now, I offer no argument against the validity of creationism or intelligent design, because none can be offered. Both are, at heart, matters of faith, and one cannot prove or disprove faith, one either has it or does not. One can also acquire faith as part of ones quest for understanding. I freely and humbly admit that I, as a puny inhabitant of a puny planet in a puny galaxy in a vast and unknowable universe, have absolutely no knowledge about the ultimate truths of reality. It is entirely possible that everything was created by an omnipotent being over seven days. It is also possible that the incredible beauty and diversity of the natural world was crafted by a guiding hand of unknown origin.

However, the pondering of these possibilities, while deeply valid, are not scientific pursuits, and so have no place in science class. I also find it noteworthy and compelling that while the teachings of the science of medicine state that the dead cannot return to life after three days, no one is calling for the banning of medical science classes, or for the teaching of alternate theories. Those who believe in the Resurrection of Christ accept it as a matter of faith and a miracle of God and do not quibble with the fact that it violates scientific knowledge.

Why is that? And why is medical science different from evolution? I could hypothesize that it is because medical science provides a very real, measurable, provable benefit to the lives of believers, and so they hypocritically choose not the challenge the science of medical theories out of selfishness, even though it is in absolute conflict with one of the core events of their belief system. But that would be an unprovable hypothesis, and my saying it, and even that fact that I might deeply believe it, would not make it true.

Update 11/8/2005 – The Kansas Board of Education voted to make it a standard that evolution be treated skeptically in their public school science classes. The Board also voted to rewrite the definition of “science” so that it is “no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.” I weep for our future, and hope that many brave colleges and universities opt not to recognize the diplomas generated by such a primitive, backwards, superstitious tribe of charlatans.

Update 11/9/2005 – Reaffirming my faith in America, voters in Dover, PA yesterday ousted eight school board members who had previously backed the reading of a statement in Science classes stating that evolution was “not a fact” and had “inexplicable gaps”. Huzzah, voters of Dover, PA, well done!

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The NFL has blackout rules that impact what games can be televised in which areas. If your TV provider does not broadcast within 75 miles of a city with an NFL team, these rules do not apply and your local affiliates can show any of the games available from their parent network.

However, if your TV provider broadcasts within 75 miles of an NFL city, you are definitely impacted by these rules, which are shown in complete detail at the bottom of this article. Functionally, the blackout rules work as follows:

Rule Number One: If the home team is playing at home, and does not sell out by 72 hours prior to game time, then the local affiliates cannot show this game. The purpose of this rule is to get more people to the stadium to watch the game, which benefits the team owner. You see, the NFL divides up TV revenues among the teams, but the individual team owners get to keep all their stadium/ticket/concession revenues.

Rule Number Two: If the home team is playing at home and manages to sell out prior to 72 hours prior to game time, and the local affiliate shows the game, no other NFL games can be shown on other channels while the home team game is on. I guess that this rule is designed to drive more viewers to the affiliate/network showing the home team?

The stated purpose of these rules is to preserve/enhance the revenues for the home team (Rule Number One) and home network affiliate (Rule Number Two). However, this is extraordinarily flawed logic. I’ll give you an example of similarly flawed logic – my mother used to work for the County Tax Assessor/Collector Office, which also handled license plates for the State of Texas. At one time vanity plates were available for about $25, and the state sold a whole lot of them. Some brainiac in the state government said, hey, if we charged $75 each, we’d make three times more money! So they raised the price to $75, and ended up with vanity plate revenues that were half of what they were at $25, because so many people stopped buying the plates at the new, higher price. This is exactly what the NFL is doing…driving away lifelong fans (customers) in pursuit of short-term revenue (instead of long-term profit).

MTVFL?

The NFL does not seem to understand that their short-sighted blackout rules, while perhaps improving revenue for a weekend, or maybe even a season, has the long-term effect of driving fans away from the NFL. You see, today the American consumer is inundated with entertainment options. Movies, TV, music, DVD, TiVo, Pay Per View, Movies on Demand, etc. And television now has 100’s of channels with thousands of programs, and although most are unwatchable (in my opinion), one man’s dreck is another man’s favorite show.

In the midst of this cacophony, the National Football League struggles to maintain viewership and relevance. However, all the mic’ed players and overhead cameras in the world will not change the one simple fact that people want to turn on the television and watch the team that they like. If the NFL would simply allow this to happen, things would be much better for them from a ratings and relevance perspective.

However, the NFL does not allow this to happen. I am a fan of the Dallas Cowboys, and I have been since I was a boy. I live in Houston, which once again has an NFL team (the Texans). There is absolutely no legal way for me to watch all of the Cowboy games on my television at home. I could buy a DirecTV Sunday Pass, but DirecTV still enforces the NFL blackout rules (described above). My local FOX affiliate has most of the Cowboy games on their broadcast schedule, however over the last two weeks, as the Cowboys have fought to make the playoffs, the blackout rules have forced FOX to not show the games here in Houston. This is because the home team (the Texans) have sold out 72 hours prior to kickoff, so the local CBS affiliate showed the Texans game, which meant the local FOX affiliate could not show the Cowboys game that was scheduled to be on at the same time.

Fan Apathy? Who Cares

There are two direct results of this. One is that I do not feel involved in the Cowboys playoff quest, because I didn’t see it. This means that I have had one more layer of my NFL-Fan tendency eroded away, making me a slightly less interested viewer, the same as has happened every single year for the last decade or so. The second is that my wife, who this season was on her way to becoming a football fan for the first time, has been “baited and switched” by being duped into caring about the outcome of Cowboys games, and then suddenly, as the Cowboys fought to make the playoffs and the games really mattered, been denied the ability to see the games.

These blackout rules do nothing but hurt the NFL and I do not understand why they cling to these outdated strategies. For instance, there is no way that I would ever buy a ticket to see the Texans play. This is solely because the cost of attending an NFL game is outrageous. If ticket prices were even close to reasonable (about ¼ of what they are now) I might think about it. But the Texans have been selling out nicely, so the NFL doesn’t need to worry about me buying tickets. I think I fit the mold of the average fan, in that not seeing my team on TV will never cause me to buy a ticket. The way the NFL will make money on me is through my value as a member of a desirable TV ratings demographic and through the few licensed products (caps, jerseys, etc) that I may buy. I can only presume that stadium game tickets are bought by either the very rich or the very rabid, and those people will go to the game regardless of if it’s televised. So there goes Rule #1.

Also, although I will certainly be a homer when it comes to the Texans, it is highly unlikely that I will ever become a die-hard fan. Maybe, but probably not. I get kind of insulted that the NFL thinks (seemingly) that if they force me to watch the home team, and deny me the ability to watch my preferred team, I will somehow become a revenue-producing fan-bot of the Texans. Not gonna happen. And denying me access to the Cowboys games on TV is certainly not going to make me watch and pay attention to a Texans game. So there goes Rule #2.

So why do these rules persist? Well, it’s possible that I have completely misinterpreted the whole situation, and severely underestimated the marketing savvy of the NFL while also severely underestimating the sheep-like tendencies of NFL fans. But I don’t think this is the case. What I think is that the NFL has been backed into a corner, squeezed between increasing costs (salaries, stadiums, etc.) and declining revenues (shooting themselves in the foot), and they are trying desperately to wring out every single penny of possible revenue in the short-term, while mortgaging their future by creating a passive, fair-weather fan base.

Winning Strategy: First Sow, Then Reap

It also seems that they have long-term contracts and agreements in place, with TV networks, players, unions, concessionaires, owners, etc, and these contracts do not give the NFL the ability to gracefully scale back their operations in the face of declining interest/revenues. It would be heartwarming to see the NFL lift the blackout rules and accept the resulting (temporarily) lower TV revenues, and to see the NFL owners agree to putting butts in the seats by offering true entertainment value, rather than by blackmailing the locals, and to see players agree to normalizing their salaries to match the new financial realities.

Lifting the blackout rules would certainly result in reduced revenues in the near-term, but it would, in my humble opinion, allow the NFL to preserve and expand their fan base, which would also preserve and expand their long-term financial success. Unfortunately all I expect from the NFL are higher ticket prices, another division realignment, more expansion teams, an 18 game season, the Super Bowl in March, and a butt-cam for the center.

All my rowdy friends are doing something else tonight.

Official NFL Blackout Rules

Glossary of Terms

• Franchised Market – television market (ADI or DMA) that has an NFL franchise (i.e. Buffalo, NY or Phoenix, AZ).
• Secondary Blackout Market – television market in the home territory (with station(s) having signal penetration to within 75 miles of the game site) of an NFL franchise that is subject to blackout restrictions.
• Early Game – Game with kickoff at 1:05 p.m. (Eastern Time).
• Late Game – Game with kickoff at 4:05 or 4:15 p.m. (Eastern Time).

Blackout Policy

To ensure an NFL club’s ability to sell all of its game tickets, and to make televised games more attractive to viewers through the presence of sellout crowds, the following policy is observed by the NFL:

For a home game to be aired locally in the franchised market and in any secondary blackout market(s), the game must be sold out 72 hours in advance of kickoff. If the game is not a sellout by the 72 hour cutoff, both the home franchised market and the secondary markets of the carrying network will air an alternate game.

Number of Games in a Market

With regard to the number of NFL games seen in a particular market on a Sunday afternoon, there are three different situations.

1. An NFL franchised market (i.e. New York, Chicago, Dallas, etc.).

On a week when the NFL team (or teams) in a market is on the ROAD Sunday, Monday or Thursday night or Saturday afternoon, the market will receive three Sunday afternoon games… two telecasts by the network with the doubleheader week and one game by the network with the single game week. When an NFL team in the market is playing at HOME on Sunday afternoon, the market will receive two games… one game on FOX and one game on CBS, regardless of which network has the doubleheader week. Unless 1) the home team’s assigned telecaster that day (CBS or FOX) is also on the doubleheader network and 2) the game is sold out 72 hours in advance. Then the three games would be the home team’s and two other games in the remaining early or late window.

All other television markets (including secondary blackout markets). Network affiliates in these markets will receive three games on Sunday afternoon, two on the doubleheader network (one early and one late) and one game on the single game network (either early or late).

Selection of Games to be Telecast Regionally

By network contract, all team road games must be telecast back to that team’s home territory (franchised market and secondary blackout markets).

Other than the above requirement, the televising network is the sole selector of which game(s) will be aired in all markets.

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So, Steve Carell has just burst onto the scene as a new major Hollywood film star. We knew him from The Daily Show, where we found him to be…enh. He was okay, but when he left we didn’t miss him. We heard that he was starring in the US version of the British TV show “The Office”, but never saw an episode.

Then one day a couple of weeks ago while watching another movie we saw a trailer for “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”. It looked pretty funny and so it was on our radar as a possibility, but we’ve seen thousands of funny trailers for movies that sucked, so I wasn’t too sure we’d go see it. But over time we kept hearing good buzz about the film, and the trailers kept getting funnier. So today we decided to go see it, and, boy, am I glad we did.

The movie is hysterically funny, and also a bit touching and heartwarming. Carell plays Andy Stitzer, who is, well, a 40-year-old virgin whose workmates find out about his…intactfulness…and decide to “help” him lose it. One of the best characteristics of the film is that it doesn’t mock or deride Andy’s virginity, and actually shows it to be kind of noble. Oh, it sure pokes fun at him, but in a natural way that seems to fit the oddness of an actual 40 year old virgin male.
Carell plays the part with perfect pitch, and walks a fine line between disturbed, lonely electronics store worker and lonely, inexperienced yet still nice and normal electronics store worker. As his “friends” give him advice and try to get him hooked up with an assortment of…um…”available” young ladies, Andy instead becomes enamored of Trish, who runs a store near his workplace. Trish is played with refreshing reality by Catherine Keener. In a wonderfully un-Hollywood move, Keener and Carell actually appear to be about the same age, and the character of Trish has three kids (and one of those kids has a one year old of their own, making Trish a “hot grandma” in the opinion of all of the male characters). I’m sure somewhere there’s a Hollywood exec who is sure that the role should have gone to Lindsey Lohan (who is 20) instead, to grab that key (and imaginary) Won’t-Plop-Down-$10-To-See-Anyone-Over-30 demographic.

Rant Directed At Hollywood Execs:

We know you think that 15-25 year olds are your key demographic. However, what you are missing is the fact that the reason this is your key demographic is because, as a general rule, younger people are not discriminating movie-goers and so you can still count on them for a big opening weekend as long as you have the right “names” and a big marketing budget. To put it another way, you can sucker teens into watching a crappy movie as long as you “spin” it the right way, and that can be done purely with dollars. Making something of quality, however, requires talent and inspiration, two things which you seem to no longer value. However, I predict that this film will do great at the box office, even though it’s Rated R, even though the two characters are 40+ and one is a grandparent, even thought it’s actually sweet and not stupidly shocking for shock value, even though it stars a no-name (by Hollywood standards), even though it’s directed by a TV guy, even though nothing explodes, even though there are no rappers in it, even though the denoument is…well, I won’t spoil it. This movie breaks all the apparent “rules” of Hollywood execs, so much so that I’m surprised it got made. But, oh baby, am I waiting for the attitude change that this film (along with Wedding Crashers and other films like it) will bring to Hollywood. I know you’re in the business to make money. But I think you’ll find that while it is hard work to find and nurture talent, it’s even harder work polishing turds, which is what you’ve been doing lately.
Anyway, back to Virgin. The supporting cast is also great, with virtually no false notes anywhere in the film. There are a couple of things I could have done without, but to highlight any of them would be to give them more weight than they deserve. But overall the film manages to be hilarious, touching, raunchy, and sweet in just the right proportions. I urge you to run out and see this movie and show Hollywood that making this film was a risk worth taking.

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Critical pans be damned. The Dukes of Hazzard was exactly the brainless, fun-loving, dorky, indulgent, hilarious, don’t-have-to-think-too-hard piece of cornball southern-fried guilty pleasure I was hoping it would be. After I couldn’t quit cracking up at the trailer, I knew I had to convince Engineerboy to take me opening weekend (he gamely obliged, sweetheart that he is). We’ve actually already seen it twice!

The movie is perfectly cast, the plot has good bones (but with some lazy writing in areas), and they went the absolute right direction with it in just makin’ it about what it is: hot rods and hillbilly silliness, and letting the cast shine at what they do best.

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