More proof that I was completely cut off this weekend was that I didn't even know that Virginia Tech accepted their invite to the ACC on Friday. I learned of this while reading of Miami's jump to the conference, announced today.

I should care more about this given that I live in Big East country, but I really don't care all that much. I care more from the perspective of how this may change the BCS than from how the area teams will deal.

The BCS thing is interesting, in that if ESPN.com's Ivan Maisel is right, there's no real guidelines on membership in the BCS system. This suggests that the Big East could be the tick on the BCS hide, sucking money out of the deal while their inadequate teams get pounded in BCS games. I can't see the other conference members of the BCS going for this, so I'm sure they'll find a way to jettison the Big East.

I assume that'll happen because the only way the Big East gets to stay is if they can con Notre Dame into giving up its Big East in all but football status. Outside of a Papal bull, I don't see this happening. Other schools that may come in to the Big East aren't going to help where football is concerned - the only one that's been mentioned that actually has a viable football program is Louisville. And in their case, viability is a sometimes thing.

But the Big East is really going to need two schools to keep an 8 team league going, and they face having to do this in time for the 2004 season. UConn is supposed to join in 2005, but I suppose the league could try to get them in a year early. That'd mean some serious schedule work and serious mea culpas to the MAC, as UConn is playing four of their members that year. The Big East would also have to get Louisville shaken loose from C-USA by then, too. It's not going to be pretty.

Where the BCS is concerned, one idea I was mulling was making the last BCS member position a "float" between the Big East, C-USA, and Mountain West, with the game spot going to the highest ranked conference champ of the three. The team that gets the spot gets to be in the BCS administrative cabal for the year (more if they keep gaining the spot).

There's also talk about adding another bowl, though I'm not sure if the BCS folks want to water down the product that much. I'd assume they'd rather add another at-large bid to get another team from, say, the Big XII or Pac-10.

The other interesting part of this is that the ACC is stuck at 11 teams, one away from getting to hold a title game. Seeing dollar signs, they're going to try to get that changed, and may very well succeed. Should they not, expect more poaching. C-USA only has 11 teams as well, so they're ripe for plunder. The ACC could make their own play for Louisville, or perhaps go for a weaker sister to balance things out. East Carolina or South Florida would make the most sense here. The other possibility would be taking Central Florida from the MAC, where they are a very odd fit. In the case of the Florida schools this would be a very abrupt promotion, and probably unrealistic. East Carolina could probably make it work, as they've been nationally ranked before, have a reasonably sized stadium (43000, and from the looks of things they could expand pretty easily), and play a pretty decent non-conference schedule which gives them some prep (for 2003, West Virginia, UNC, and Miami).

Actually, Navy is still an independent. Maybe the ACC can go for them. (And to think I typed that with a straight face)

Or the ACC could try to get South Carolina to jump from the SEC. That'd be ugly, though I suppose the SEC could then, say, poach Southern Miss from C-USA. Or something like that. The mind boggles.

Gabe Kapler? On the Red Sox? Huh?!?!?!?

(Apparently, the Sox bought his contract late last week after Kapler got his unconditional release from the Colorado Rockies).

My first notice of this was today when he hit a laser into the Monster seats, his SECOND home run of the game. In his first two games with the Sox Kapler is 7 of 9, 2 HR, 7 RBI. They should trade him now, hopefully for some bullpen help.

I was in Maine this weekend, meaning that I missed both the Sox 14 run outburst in the first inning of Friday's game and their bullpen collapse during Saturday's game (Sarah's folks just moved and haven't gotten their dish hooked up yet, probably for the best with Saturday's result). The Sox are apparently moving Kim (BK, not Sunny) into the bullpen, which couldn't hurt. He couldn't to any worse than the current group... could he?

Pretty run of the mill weekend in Maine. We were supposed to go to a wedding that wound up not happening (don't worry, won't happen with me, because Sarah would hunt me down and kill me, and my family would give me up in a second). So we spent Saturday in Bangor, where I came to the realization that I don't think I've ever been there without making a visit to the Wal-Mart. I'm not sure what that means.

It was warm but thankfully less hot than when we went up on Friday. Same is true back here now, but the combination of the temperature change and location change was nice. At some point we'll have to have more like a week up there to do some of the touristy stuff that I've never done and that we never have time to do in a weekend.

With the upcoming July 4 holiday, I've discovered that I'm not really getting a day off. We're in our flex time here at Babson, meaning I get Fridays off in June and July. But we work longer hours (and get less time for lunch) Monday through Thursday. Rather than give us an actual day off for the impending Friday holiday, we just get to work our "regular" hours this Monday through Thursday. I know, poor me.

Oh, the one "highlight" of our drive back was in my finally winning money on a Maine State Lottery scratch ticket. It's become a custom that, either on the way up or way back, we stop at the rest area on 95 in Kennebunkport. At both there is a scratch ticket machine for suckers like us (the money theoretically goes towards education, so I look at it as a charitable donation). So if we've got a spare buck or two we'll take a shot. I have never won anything in all the trip we've done this. So today I tried to break the streak by waiting until I was back in the car to scratch the card. That was the key, apparently. My winnings? $1. Breaking even is better than nothing, I'm telling myself.

To talk about what I did yesterday, I have to go back to Tuesday night.

Sarah came home complaining that our car was at it again, making some sort of metallic dragging/grinding noise. So we went out and just in reversing out of the space, the noise commenced. Odder still, for something that sounded a lot like a dragging tailpipe, there was nothing dragging.

That did it. Time to get a new car.

As you may remember, our current ride is a 1999 Kia Sephia, a car that's won some sort of industry award as Shittiest Car Ever Produced on the Pacific Rim. We're at the point now where we've just about put as much money into the car in repairs as it's worth. We'd been mulling a purchase, but needed the prospect of even more repairs to get us moving.

After looking at a number of different cars, we settled on the Toyota Corolla. We'd read hardly a negative word on it, and it seemed to be in our price range. Helping in that respect was Mass Buying Power, a consortium that negotiates price breaks on items for its members (businesses, schools, etc.).

So we wound up going to the Toyota dealership in Wellesley and bought a Corolla, unexpectedly getting an '04 as the '03s were gone. It was all very simple, the only real oddity being how Toyota sets up their options packages. To get the side impact air bags and ABS we had to choose from a specific subset of models, for example. And you couldn't get those and a sunroof - at least not from the factory. The dealer could put the sunroof in. Not that we were looking for one.

In any case, we did all that and were told that, for what we wanted, it could take up to 4 weeks depending how quickly cars currently in transit get out here. Turns out, though, that the dealer found a car meeting our specs in the area. So somewhere in southern New England there's a silver Corolla that we'll be driving by early next week.

Oddly enough, that dragging sound was gone when we pulled out of our space here at Babson to go to the dealer. We assume that a rock or other construction debris (there's quite a bit going on both on and near campus) got lodged in something and was making that noise. In the end, then, the thing that forced our hand with the new car probably was never a problem to begin with.

And we wound up getting $1000 on the trade in, which is more than we expected based on Blue Book values for our crate.

With that done, we had the afternoon free. It being the first real summer day of the year (temps in the low 90s, and humid), there was talk of going to a beach or other spot, but Sarah wound up taking a nap. I started looking at wedding rings and some other wedding-related jewelry, and in mentioning this to Sarah upon her rising we decided to head over to the Jeweler's Exchange in Sudbury to look at wedding rings.

(You may remember that this is the same store I got her engagement ring)

It was actually a nice afternoon for a drive, and Sudbury is a good distance - not too close that you don't get the benefits of a drive, but close enough that on a hot day you don't wind up sweating yourself out.

We went in and started looking at the plain bands. I found my ring in about 12 seconds - very basic yellow gold, millgrain bands along the sides. Sarah looked at several bands, but wound up needing something that more complimented her engagement ring. Should have seen that coming. For as bad as it could have been, though, it wound up being OK. It's not like the whole thing is covered in diamonds.

Price was OK - probably not as much of a saving as they advertise, but a little better than what I'd seen retail elsewhere.

All in all, we did our part to get the economy going Wednesday. Not that we can do anything like that again until about 2015.

I'm on the new Blogger now, and going back to my post last week from the PowerBook I now think that I was accessing the new Blogger interface rather than getting strangeness based on the computer.

I am using the new interface now, and it's OK. I still don't have the buttons that allow you to bold, italicize, or make links. I can do that manually, but it's a hassle.

On the plus side, the new system apparently catches when you try to preview your post and the HTML is messed up - as it did when I forgot to close the link below.

In related computer news, the folks at whatsbetter.com have their new server up and running. It's very fast - go check it out!

So the Bay State's first Krispy Kreme opened in Medford today. About this I have only one thing to say.

I don't get it.

I've had Krispy Kremes. I've had them fresh. I've had the "Original Glazed" and a few other flavors besides.

Woo hoo.

Part of this comes, of course, from growing up in Dunkin' Donuts land and being very accustomed to their style of doughnuts. But then there's the other part, the major part for me, that unless $50 bills come shooting out when I bite into them, I'm not going to get all that excited about doughnuts. Feel free to take my space in line.

I will say, though, that I am dismayed at how Dunkin' Donuts caved in and started using the shirt boxes rather than the shoe boxes for their doughnuts. While not iconic to the level of, say, the Coke bottle, there's a certain identification that came from the squat rectangular box that is now gone.

The more important local news is that Mike Sullivan, former BU Icedog, is now the head coach of the Boston Bruins. This makes him the second BU hockey player to get a head coach's job for the coming season (the other being the Islanders' Steve Stirling). The main difference between the two men, for me at least, is that I've seen Sullivan play. He was a senior during the 1989-90 campaign where he captained a Frozen Four team (losing to Colegate in the semis) from what had been, in the two years that I'd been at BU previous, a train wreck. Stirling played at BU from 1968-70.

I suppose Theo Epstein's hiring as Red Sox GM softens the blow of having someone a year older than me land the Bruins job. I just hope that Sullivan gets to keep it for more than the 14 months or whatever the average life span of a Bruins head coach is now.

In related sports news, the ACC-Big East thing just gets odder. Will the ACC make offers to Virginia Tech and UConn? Will the Big East counter by taking on schools like Louisville, Xavier, and Marquette? What will the Florida Attorney General's office be able to accomplish in all of this? Shouldn't the leagues just merger to form one big 23 school super-conference? Or how about letting each school decide how badly they want to sell out their students to chase athletic success and form two conferences based on that?

My personal hope: we spend a couple years of sound and fury signifying nothing and everyone stands pat. Once again, only the lawyers will win. Ha ha!

It's Monday, I can't think of anything coherent, so you get mental chop suey - a little of everything.

* The campus center dining area has been doing theme lunches on Thursdays. Last week was "South of the Border" week, with a hot entree item of roasted chicken and garlic mashed potatoes. Apparently, the border we're south of is in fact the US-Canadian border. Today's hot entree item: burritos and tacos. Of course.

* Going back to Saturday and Scott's response, I suppose my lack of trust in the pharmas is more of a generalized distrust of big business in general, made more palpable by how critical the pharmas are to ensuring healthy living so for many people. I understand that the process of creating drugs isn't exactly cheap or quick (once, a long time ago on a planet far far away, I did study health law), but I do wonder about motives and such from time to time, though not in any organized way. I certainly don't lump them in with big tobacco, who's decades of shady dealings and lack of basic human understanding will hopefully lead to an eternity of fire and being poked with sticks for the appropriate people.

* I've now finally heard this "Bring Me to Life" song that some of the folks at left have mentioned repeatedly. It's a little over-wrought but not too bad. I am dismayed that they feel the need to "feature" someone, but am glad that it's not Ashanti. I'm not crazy about how there are 3 or 4 different vocalists during the chorus, too cluttered. After reading the lyrics I can see where some folks put a Christian spin on it, but I wonder if that's going to be the new musical trend - songs with what may or may not be oblique references to God. That may actually be a fun game to play with old songs. I can't suppose I can put a Trinitarian spin on "Baby Got Back," can I?

* The folks over at whatsbetter.com reached their target figure for getting a dedicated server, thanks to all who helped out. Now if you'd just be so kind to actually pay the money you pledged. Remember, "Elmo knows where you live."

* I would love to know what sort of record the Sox have against the Phillies in interleague play. I'd be surprised if the Carmine Hose have won even a quarter of the games they've played against them. Can't we play the Mets? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?

* The weather report that got me cranky last weekend has now completely fallen apart. After a lot of rain over the weekend, it is now sunny out. We may even have sunny days for most of the week! Maybe the UN finally got their weather machine fixed.

After reading about Julie's reactive airway and the new drug Xolair, which will help severe asthmatics by preventing an early step in the cascade of reactions that cause asthma (though at a $10k/yr price tag that may or may not get covered by all insurers), I had to reflect a little bit on my quarter century with asthma.

I have what I consider a fairly typical condition where asthma is concerned. It's triggered by the usual stressors (physical activity, extreme air temperatures, some allergens), causes a fair bit of wheezing, but rarely gets to the point where I couldn't ride out an attack (though there have been exceptions, such as the time I had a severe attack while walking in cold January air, forcing Shawn DeVeau to run and get my inhaler - thanks again, by the way).

I've often wondered why my asthma showed up when it did. You would think it'd be there all along, but I was pretty much unaffected until I was 8 or so. From that point on I've always been taking something to help me breathe.

This was a bit of a problem early on, given that the medications weren't all that effective. The first drug I was on that seemed to work reasonably well was Marax, though it tended to be of more use in reaction to an attack than in preventing them. I was on this for quite a while, to the chagrin of the first respiratory physician I saw, as it was well beyond being state of the art when I finally stopped taking it.

(Marax also contained ephedra, a banned substance for athletic competition. Rick DeMont lost an Olympic medal in 1972 because the USOC didn't make the connection when he listed it as a medication he took to control his asthma. Probably for the best that Massachusetts didn't do random urine testing during my football days).

From Marax I went on a pill and inhaler combo. As helpful as the pills were, the inhaler was the first medication that radically changed my life. Up to that point I still had to deal with attacks as they happened, which made me less interested in doing anything that would trigger one. With the inhaler, I could not only deal with attacks much faster, but could also take the medicine beforehand to head them off or make them less serious.

I thus entered a 10 or 15 year period where almost all of my asthma medications were administered by inhalers, as I wound up going off the pills and combined my fast-acting inhaler with inhaleable steroids. These worked much better than the systemic ones, delivering the steroids directly to the tissue that needed strengthening.

I have to admit to not being a very good inhaleable steroid user. Too easy to get off schedule, and more often than not they cost more than the simple co-pay that the fast-acting inhaler went for. I know, I shouldn't have put the money in front of my health, but as most of you probably know college is not a time where you have a lot of disposable income or the good sense to put what disposable income you do have towards something useful.

I lumbered along with the inhalers for some time, probably longer than I should have. It's easy to rely on them too much, ignoring management of the condition and focusing on just stopping attacks. I muddled through some medicine changes and a couple of doctor changes before the second life-changing prescription.

That came when my current doctor put me on Singulair, a once a day pill that's a leukotriene receptor antagonist, meaning that it blocks the receptors that the leukotrienes would normally bind to as a step in the development of an asthma attack (at least that's how I parse it from the physician's information, which is apparently written in Phrygian).

So while I don't understand the science behind it in anything more than a surface way, I do know that it keeps me from having attacks. I'm rarely even wheezy now, even when working out or doing things outside during allergy seasons that would previously have triggered things (Singulair is also used to combat hay fever).

I'm rarely one to gush about these sorts of things, and have some pretty deep suspicions about the pharmaceutical industry overall, but the change here is too dramatic to not go a little ga-ga over.

It does give me reason to pause, however, when thinking about the kid I was when all this started. What would have happened had Singulair been around back then? I was a pretty active and athletic kid; what if I was able to keep that up and develop like so many of today's elite athletes with asthma? There are a million things in a lifetime that have an impact on how you live your life, but I can't help but think that this particular "what if" would have resulted in me being a completely different person today.

Whether that's good or bad I don't know. Probably both.

The difference between the US and Canada: media coverage of American Idol focuses on how the kids are integrating into the Hollywood scene and what they're wearing, while media coverage of Canadian Idol takes a sociological and psychological look at the group mentality.

This post comes to you live from a PowerBook G4 using OSX and the Safari browser. It's pretty damn cool, even if there are some odd issues with using Blogger (for example, the interface comes up differently for different people, even though we all use Blogger to post).

The computer itself kicks ass except for the keyboard, which is too small. Then again, most keyboards are too small for my hands.

Anyway, it makes me want to upgrade my own set up. Considering I went 10 years with the Mac Classic, I should be able to go until 2009 or so before getting something new. Boy, would that suck.

So not even 24 hours after I gripe here about how we're likely screwing the planet up and mention climate change, I read that the White House has cut a bunch of stuff about that very topic out of an EPA report that's supposed to be released next week. Everyone who's surprised, stand on your head.

For whatever reason, I'm beginning to draw a connection to this topic and smoking. In both cases, you have people who hold a very consistent "need more study, not enough data" line. And in both cases, many of those people seem to have the backing of a large, monied, powerful industry. Am I over-stating things? Probably. But it's sticking in my head.

I'm sure Christine Todd Whitman is enjoying this, as the report is the last big thing that'll come out of EPA before she steps down. I'm assuming W will appoint the CEO of OmniPave to take her place.

In a completely unrelated note, if you're really bored, feel free to check out Mark Across America under the "other stuff" heading. You'll see the thrilling details of which US states I've been to. Well, the details aren't that thrilling. And, to be honest, it's not all that detailed. But hopefully it's an amusing diversion for you.

Proving that fortune can favor more than just the brave, the same afternoon I lament my book reviewing skills the Bruce provides a link to Amazon World, a blog that chronicles some of the more, uh, interesting book reviews from that site. I've linked to it at left in the "other stuff" category for your perusal.

"Content" note: if you've been clicking on the "other stuff" links you may have noticed that my Recent Reads aren't so recent anymore. It's not that I've stopped reading, but rather that I'm trying to develop some pages that give a fuller picture of my reading history. It's going OK, but with two problems:

1. I'm trying to be as comprehensive as possible with regards to what I've read, but the time between reading and writing makes it hard to give meaningful commentary. For example, I'm working on a page with all the John McPhee stuff I've read, but I realize now that it's been years since the actual reading. The good news, at least for McPhee, is that his stuff is short enough that I can re-read without taking too much time. That was not the case for Tom Clancy (it doesn't help that I'm beginning to share Sideshow Bob's view on Clancy's work).

2. I'm not all that happy with the commentary I'm giving. Not sure if it's just a lack of practice or an erosion of skills due to heavy doses of sarcasm, but it's not always flowing well.

In any event, I hope to have this thing up and going in the next couple of weeks.

So in our last good day for a while, the student affairs softball team took on a combined marketing/MBA team in our Babson summer softball league. It's a little different from the one I played in at BU, as there's no real rule regarding gender, no officiating so to speak, and we're playing on an actual softball field rather than a chunk of a larger turf field.

Student affairs was able to claim a 7-5 victory, even with yours truly on the mound (or, it being an actual softball field, in the circle). How I wound up pitching is somewhat of a mystery, but given that half of our team was located or recruited five minutes before we started I should be glad we were all playing the same sport (though one of our members was wearing golf spikes). Thankfully it's a no walk league, so my more hideous pitches didn't hurt too much (had this been the BU league that uses the mat to record balls and strikes, the score would have been something like 28-27).

It may even be too much to call this thing a league. There are 8 or 9 teams, but each team only plays twice. There's some mention of a title game, but I'm not sure how that's going to work out. I can easily see there being more than two undefeated teams.

One of the more deceptive things about playing on the field was the outfield fence. It's 200 feet at the lines and 210 to dead center. After having many balls hit that far in BU that went for long outs, it was hard to shut off that voice that was telling me to let it rip. As it turns out I went 1-3 with a RBI, a solid base knock. My two outs were ground balls each, pitches I shouldn't have swung at. Having not played since August 2001, I'm a little restless at the plate.

Perhaps it's a good thing I've not been playing, as even our lone game has caused my Achilles tendon problem to flare again. I think I may have actually goosed it a little bit last weekend, but that could he hindsight talking. I do have about a month until the next game, so plenty of time to get it back to form.

It's raining again. And no, I'm not talking about the Supertramp song. The rain we're getting here is much less metaphorical.

According to the weather.com forecast for my zip code, we can expect at least a 30 percent chance of precipitation from now until next Thursday. And seeing as it probably won't be snow (at least if the predicted temps hold out), we're talking rain. Unless hail counts as precipitation. Hadn't thought of that.

In any case, I continue to think that we've caused some fundamental change in the weather. I know that ranting about the weather is one of life's more futile gestures (not that it has kept me from doing so before), but considering how we went straight from record snowfalls to cool and damp with the very rare foray above 70 degrees, it's hard not to gripe.

For all I know, the earth is going through one of those epochal climate changes, and all the gasses we've put into the atmosphere have done nothing, but I can't help but feel this is all our fault. Perhaps I'm just letting the natural pessimism of the region get to me.

Well, the Ryan Rupe era in Boston took a real hit last night as the former Devil Ray gave up a three run homer that proved the difference in a 4-2 loss to the Chicago White Sox. At least he was smart enough to do this on the road.

My favorite news from yesterday: the EU has banned imports of prairie dogs from the US thanks to this monkey pox thing. And just what sort of market has been disrupted? According to an AP article:

"EU officials said about 1,000 prairie dogs are imported into the EU last year, mainly to the Netherlands where they are sold as pets or zoo attractions."

Zoo attractions I can see. But pets? If this is what legalized hash smoking gets you, I may be back on the War on Drugs bandwagon.

Going back to Friday for a sec, I actually had the chance to call my first "fraught" in the wild when Brandon Lyon took the hill for the save. Turned out it was called for naught, as he had a very quiet ninth. Now, had it been this guy, I think my fraught call would have stood.

Not a bad ball game last night in the inaugural meeting between the Sox and Astros, helped by it being a Sox win. Oddly, the crowd seemed more against Jeff Bagwell than Jimy Williams, as Bags got booed a bit while Jimy got pretty consistent cheers. Not sure what the crowd had against Bags; it's not like the trade was his idea. Neither got the sort of heckling that Trot Nixon did, based on his failure to drive anyone home the night previously when he was up with the bases loaded in the extra innings against the Cards.

The biggest boos, of course, came with the highlights of Clemens' milestone. I didn't boo, but I didn't clap, either. I'm actually more annoyed that the Cards don't seem to be giving the Bombers much of a fight.

It was a horrific night for baseball, a 90 minute rain delay (though there didn't seem to be any rain for about half of that time) that led into a night of temps in the low to mid 50s, wind in from right field, and swirling mist. It was like something out of April. Or October.

Last night was also the Boston debut of Ryan Rupe. You probably most remember Rupe from his Tampa days, where he plunked both Nomar and Shea Hillenbrand, and thus provoked Trot Nixon's bat to "slip" and make a fly-by of Rupe's head. Rupe was one of the first (if not the first) players acquired at the start of the Theo Epstein administration.

Speaking of which, the park is looking pretty different nowadays. It took me a while to realize that a lot of the wall behind the bleachers is now gone. I'm sure it provides a nice city view for the folks in the upper deck. One one side of the main scoreboard there is now an auxiliary board that transmits a whole host of information about both hitter and pitcher, from almost full hitting stats (no OPS) to a pitch count, speed and type of pitch, strike percentage, and even a history of pitcher versus catcher (if there is one). You can tell the roto-geeks are in charge.

The scoreboard is also gives player pictures and items of interest. They tend to be less interesting as the game goes on. The first couple of at bats you get good stuff, then it's things like the player's draft info. By the time you get to the fourth or fifth at bat, it's becomes statements such as "Likes fudge" or "Drives a pick-up truck."

Oh, the Sox now also have a pre-game that rivals the Myrtle Beach Pelicans for length. Not quite so many opening pitches (there were 4 or 5, and they were still "ceremonial" first pitches). No crab races, sorry to say. I also missed my first attendance quiz in quite some time. I think they were doing a "tickets sold" quiz, but that's just the conspiracy theorist in me talking.

Most of my baseball watching today was of the event that ESPN billed as "more ping, less bling," the College World Series. I don't really follow college baseball, but I enjoy watching the series. One of these days I'd like to go out to Omaha for it.

Ok, so you may have read or seen a story about a Babson student being investigated for allegedly creating a fake airline. His story is that he was trying to sell leftover seats on flights to Hawaii.

While I'm not supposed to say anything other than the student did go here last year and is currently not in summer classes, I would note that such a business would not be beyond Babson students. We've got a strong reputation for entrepraneurism for a reason.

I daresay this isn't how the school would most like to get publicity. So, as a service to the college, a short list of generally-positively seen alums:

Craig Benson, governor of New Hampshire
Arthur Blank, founder of Home Depot and owner of the Atlanta Falcons
Ernesto Bertarelli, skipper/owner of America's Cup holder Alinghi

(I said it was a short list. I'm sure there are others, I just don't have them off the top of my head.)

A whatsbetter.com update: they're up to $725. That's over $100 since I mentioned their predicament! I'd like to think I had something to do with it (or, I suppose more correctly, that you had something to do with it).

A happy confluence tomorrow, as I have my first summer Friday off and don't have to go on any sort of quiz related trip. I don't know what I'm going to do with all this extra, non-flying time. Well, I do know that I'm going to the Sox-Astros game tomorrow (weather permitting). I'm very happy to be there for Jimy Williams' homecoming. I wonder if he and Dan Duquette will get together for dinner while the 'Stros are in town?

The Astros are, for whatever reason, the first National League team I ever felt positive about. I think it had something to do with their ugly uniforms of the late 1970s and the double-whammy of Nolan Ryan and J. R. Richards. Can you imagine what that rotation would have been like if Richard didn't have his career cut short with circulatory problems?

Anyway, I was rooting pretty hard for Houston in 1986. I don't think it would have felt any better for all that to happen against them, though.

Then, of course, there's the whole Bagwell thing. I think the Sox would have screwed things up with him one way or another, and more than one person has argued that you can't judge the trade that sent him to Texas for Larry Andersen after the fact. Except that it was a pretty big screw job, and how can you ever rationalize that?

This is a lot more about the Astros than I thought I would write. Go figure.

Kudos to Allyson and Scott for passing along the information that Mr. Freeze (aka John Henry Williams) will be plying his "trade" for the Selma Cloverleafs of the Southeastern League of Professional Baseball. Sadly, I can't link you to the Cloverleafs website as it's down. I could link you to the SELPB web site, but it sucks too hard.

I need you folks to do a couple of things:

1. Vote for the MLB All-Star Game rosters. We don't have the fun of a semi-organized movement to vote for all Twins and Expos, but there are still plenty of deserving players on both teams to vote for. I'm entertaining myself by not voting for anyone from Milwaukee (which isn't too hard) and trying to get Rocco Baldelli on the team. I know, someone with such little plate discipline may not deserve to start the game, but how can I turn my back on a Rhode Islander?

So get over to the league website and use your 25 votes!

2. Give money to whatsbetter.com. Perhaps the best of the rating websites (Am I Hot or Not? will never recover from being represented on TV by Lorenzo Lamas) is facing extinction unless they can come up with $1000 to buy a dedicated server.

They're at $596 as of this writing. If the Internet public can give enough money to give some woman a boob job, we can certainly cough up some dough for a site that's seeking what in this universe is best. Besides, you can get some advertising or other benefit from giving to whatsbetter.com; it's not like the boob woman is going to give you a free grope.

3. I need verification. At the end of Pardon the Interruption yesterday, Tony Kornheiser said that John Henry Williams got signed by another minor league team. As of now I've seen no news item to back that up. Anyone who can provide one will be in my debt. I'm hoping he's playing for a team around here so I can go and throw ice cubes at him when he takes the field.

OK, trip report time.

The travel Both flights, Boston to Cincy to LA, were pretty much unremarkable. Taking of from Boston, though, I did get to fly near the city and pretty much right over the Babson campus. So the visuals were pretty cool.

On the way back (LA to Cincy) the movie was How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, not a bad movie if you watch it as I did:

1. No sound.
2. The assumption that Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson's characters (and their character's friends) all suffer from some sort of behavioral problem.
3. You don't watch more than two minutes at a time.

I did like the way the director made sure to show that the film was fiction by having the Knicks not only beat the Sacramento Kings, but score more than 90 points doing it. It's like something out of science fiction!

I also ate a lot of pretzels on the plane. Many, many pretzels.

My first LA moment came in seeing the LAX tower with its distinctive canopy. Like some of the other stuff I saw over the weekend, I thought it would be bigger.

The training This went about as expected, some fairly new stuff related to promoting College Bowl and how they work with ACUI and some repetitive stuff regarding how to run a tournament.

It was during this that I think I hit upon the significant difference between College Bowl and the other formats/tournaments that make up quiz bowl in general. College Bowl presents itself as a lower-cost campus program (as compared to a band or a movie or something) that will offer something different to the campus community at the time or times of most use to the campus (over a weekend or even as games played over the course of the semester, like intramural sports).

Given that most of the rest of quizbowl is aimed at existing teams and at student groups that may not have as much money as, say, a campus programming board, you can see where some unease may develop. And while there is room for improvement in College Bowl, it's also important to realize that pretty much everyone who's running your regional tournament is a volunteer. Take it easy on them if something goes amiss; it's not like you never made a mistake while moderating or keeping score.

It would be helpful if regions took better advantage of their player alumni, many of whom maintain an interest after their playing days are over. I hope to take very strong advantage of this (a not-so-subtle warning for those of you who are in the area).

Probably the best thing about training was getting to meet the other new coordinators, some of the ACUI people, and the College Bowl staff. It's always nice to put names with faces and build some relationships.

I would also note that the College Bowl staff knows how to cook. We had a great social on Saturday night, highlighted by a marinated salmon cooked on grilled cedar planks.

Sightseeing Didn't get a chance to do as much of this as I'd hoped, but we did out a little Sunday evening.

First stop was Rodeo Drive, which (like the LAX control tower) was smaller and less impressive than originally thought. The line-up of high-end boutiques was impressive, but for atmosphere Newbury Street in Boston is nicer (I think it's the trees). Some parts of Rodeo are also really fake looking. There's a walking section called North Rodeo Drive that we determined was the EPCOT mock-up of Beverly Hills. There was also a rustic Italian-looking shopping area which was really out of place.

We then went down to Hollywood Boulevard to see the Kodak Theater, Grauman's Chinese Theater, and just walk around. We got to see part of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was pretty cool for being laid out in no particular order. Some pairings were kept together (George Burns and Gracie Allen, for example), while others were broken up (Bud Abbott and Lou Costello are about a block apart). My favorite juxtaposition? Marilyn Monroe being next to Arsenio Hall.

The other odd thing is that some people have more than one star. Eva Marie Saint, for example, gets two. Apparently, one is for TV and the other for film. Seems like overkill.

Grauman's was pretty cool, but it's an odd mix of prints. How does Whoopi Goldberg rate immortalizaion?

We couldn't get into the Kodak, so we walked around it and the mall that's attached to it. That seems like a very southern California thing: a mall attached to the home of the Oscars.

We drove by some other sites, like the La Brea tar pits and the Capitol Records building, and drove around Melrose before stopping at Tommy Tang's for dinner. Tang is a well-known Thai chef (I'd not heard of him, but enough others had to make it clear I was the uninformed one) with a couple of LA-area eateries (he's also had a PBS show and sells sauces retail).

While I was a little worried about getting shellfish on the sly, I have to say this was an excellent call. I played it safe with some fried rice, but got to taste some other entrees that were phenomenal. The best one I tried was halibut in a chili sauce that was incredible - great use of the chilis for flavor and moderate heat.

Otherwise, I didn't have that much time to see other things. I'd hoped to get out to a Dodgers game, but they played in the afternoon (and lost to the White Sox 10-3, so I didn't get to see the crowd leave early, either).

So it was a pretty good trip. I'm just glad I don't have to go anywhere for a while.

I'm back from LA, and I have to say that I am completely knackered. I've been up since "3:45 am" (I'm using quotes for PDT times, as I spent the entire weekend pretending I was on EDT, putting me back - for three days - on my old college schedule of going to bed between 2 and 3 am and getting up between 9 and 10 am). I think it was more the travel than the time switch that's thrown me off, but it still doesn't change the fact that I'll be asleep about 8 seconds after my head hits the pillow.

That won't be for a few hours yet, as I'm at the new Wellesley Public Library, which just opened a couple of weeks ago. I may not be huge fan of the town, but they know how to build a library.

Some quick hits on the trip:

* Having now finally flown into LAX in the daytime, I think I now have some idea of what is meant by sprawl. I've heard about it, but couldn't appreciate it until we were on approach and it was LA as far as the eye can see. With all due respect to current residents and the once-and-future Angelino Joe Wright, living there would drive me batty. Too much everything.

* There was also this weird passive-aggressive urgency. People seemed to always have somewhere to go or something to do, but weren't all Type A about it. They never stopped talking about it, but it wasn't in your face. Also, everyone seems to have at least 2 jobs due to the cost of living. It's the first time I've felt lucky to live in the Boston area where that's concerned.

* It was overcast the entire time I was there, though there was some burn-off in the afternoons (I'm told it wasn't smog, and I'll give the locals the benefit of the doubt). So much for sunny California!

* Whose bright idea was it to put sewage treatment and electricity generating plants near the beach? Saw that today as we were taking off.

* Consider today's route: LA to Cincinnati to Boston. Consider you also have two planes: the Boeing 737 and its big brother, the 757. Which would you fly on which leg? If you had the 737 making the run from LA to Cincy, there's a job waiting for you with Delta. I suppose we have Southwest to blame for this.

* It was a little strange to get back from dinner last night only to have Sportcenter giving results from their Sunday Night Baseball telecast. I suppose I could get used to it (that and NFL Sundays ending early enough that you can get a late dinner after the ESPN game).

* Strange confluence I just made up: I was staying in the West Valley last night. I've read the book The Dreyfus Affair about a baseball player who comes out as gay while playing for a major league team in the West Valley. Last night, the play Take Me Out, also about a baseball player who comes out, won the Tony for Best Play. Sppoky. OK, not really.

So now that I've mentioned Mt. Atlanticus twice, I should give the story behind the reference: my weekend in Myrtle Beach at the NAQT high school national championships.

We'll start with the tournament, which saw 62 teams from around the country vie for the title. The event was held at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center, which is fairly new. The Radisson Plaza that's attached to it is something like five months old. Both are well appointed, though the hotel restaurant and coffee bar are on the expensive side (the bar has a very agreeable happy hour, though).

Newness aside, it is a terrific venue. Having the hotel connected to the tournament site is very helpful, as it removes the whole transportation issue. It is a short shuttle ride from the airport, and is a doable walk to a number of attractions: both of the main streets that run the length of the city, the tourist mecca of Broadway on the Beach, Coastal Federal Field (home of the single A Myrtle Beach Pelicans), and, of course, the beach.

The only real problem is that some of the game rooms weren't optimal. A couple were really not suitable, others merely unusual. To my mind, though, this doesn't necessarily justify returning to a college campus. I would echo Joe's thinking on this point. For those who said a move away from a collegiate site would spell doom, you are profoundly wrong. The convention center costs more, but what you get in return in terms of logistical help is worth it. I think back to the snafus that plagued the HSNCT that I volunteered for at Georgia Tech. They would be incredibly unlikely when working with event professionals.

I would also echo the sentiment that if NAQT wants to keep going back to Myrtle Beach, I would be more than happy to keep being brought in to volunteer.

And it seems that the teams liked the event, even with the slowness of rounds 7 through 10 due to power matching. I think the high school teams are more able to handle the delays, as they're more usual in high school events (thinking of my debate years, where we spent a lot of time waiting for power matched rounds to be scheduled). There was some confusion on just how the matching was being done, and for the future it would probably help to be as clear as possible on this. It does open things up for kibbitzing, but at the same time it removes the mystery. If you can justify your system, you can at least agree to disagree. Not that the coaches will like it.

Speaking of which, one of the major changes from high school to college is the disappearance of the coach, and I have to think we're better for it. Too many of the coaches have a stage parenty vibe, often sacrificing logic in an attempt to jail house lawyer a win out of a loss. I will say that many of the coaches were just fine, but the ones that weren't tend to stand out.

OK, the rest of the weekend. Went to see the Pelicans play the Frederick Keys on Friday night, an experience that JQ describes to the point where I can't really add anything else. Well, we did have a very late dinner at a place called Grandma's Kitchen. I literally think the tables we ate at were taken from some grandmother's kitchen.

Saturday during the day we did get to see the Thunderbirds do some of their flying acrobatics, as they were in town for an air show. I think I now understand the appeal of air shows, as it was an awesome sight. Seeing them on TV does not compare to seeing them live, even if it is just walking back from lunch.

Saturday night was NIFL, of course, and I think I've spoken to that enough. Though I will say that the bankruptcy thing I mentioned appears to have actually been a gag that one of the attendees worked up based on our group's participation in the game.

After finishing up Sunday we went for lunch at an Italian place which apparently had tourist pricing in effect. Food wasn't bad, just overpriced. We then returned to the hotel to make plans. Someone had a coupon book, and we quickly hit upon our destination for the night: Mt. Atlanticus Minotaur Goff. How can you resist a name like that?

But first, a trip to the beach. We spent a little time walking, a few people had a quick dip. We then walked down to Mt. Atlanticus, past what appeared to be every single college senior in South Carolina. It was like Spring Break, but slightly more restrained. There weren't any balcony jumpers, at least.

We passed a lot of tourist crap, but also some old-style arcades that reminded me of Salem Willows back in the day. We didn't go back, but it was an interesting juxtaposition against the clubs, t-shirt stores, and henna tattooists.

Mt. Atlanticus itself was an interesting mix of the cheesy, crappy, and average. It was a great idea but perhaps lacking on the execution. They used some of the same Swiss Family mini-golf architecture as everyone else, with the thatched roofs and hut-style construction. There were fake beasts (dragons, sea serpents, etc.) around, but they didn't really sell the theme.

The actual goff was OK. Joe said pretty much all that need be said about that. I did appreciate the non-traditional ball colors, as members of our octet were able to play pink, black, and flesh-tone balls. I went with lavender myself, based on the review that sold us on the place.

I wound up using my NIFL hat money to get a T shirt, which is fairly non-descript but does feature the goofy name prominently.

Then it was Indian food and the walk home. Myrtle Beach and Indian food don't seem like they would go together, but it was pretty good. A little slow, but we came in just around closing, so they were probably already wound down when we showed up.

Not much else after that. Went to bed, got up, went back to the airport, and then home. I actually moved my flight up significantly (left at 10:30 am, originally scheduled for 7:40 pm) and surprised Sarah at work. I thought she'd appreciate it more; she was a bit miffed as I'd put myself in the air without her knowledge, thus preventing her from tracking my progress and making sure that I got home OK. I won't be doing that on my next trip, a jaunt to LA this weekend for some training with the CBI folks.

Today was our divisional end of year extravaganza, which would normally get a passing comment at best. Except this year I won the closest to the pin putting competition! Clearly, my round at Mt. Atlanticus paid off.

Given the weather we putted inside one of our gyms, so we had to navigate 40 feet or so of sport court, some of which was wet from the earlier balloon toss competition (my boss and I placed third, and my office-mate won the bake-off, so Campus Life was representin'!). My first putt was very short (not surprisingly, it's a very fast surface), but the second one sailed true (or as true as possible given the various unlevel parts of the floor) and wound up an inch or so from the cone. I went early, so I got to watch another 20 people or so try to top it. One person tried the croquet thing, hitting my ball and the pin in the process, but alas her ball went richocheting away. You don't get the same stop as you do in, say, curling.

Anyway, for my trouble I got a spiffy winner's pin and a $25 gift certificate to City Sports, a local sporting goods emporium. And I won the rest of the day off (OK, everyone got that, but still).

As a Red Sox fan I suppose I should weigh in on the Hillenbrand for Kim deal. My initial reaction was that I'd rather have traded Hillenbrand for a real pitcher, which resulted in my being told that Kim is indeed a real pitcher. Like many Sox fans my only real memory of Kim were his pair of World Series dingers.

He's apparently a pretty good pitcher and is young enough to develop. Rob Neyer seems to think we snookered the D-Backs but good, and he's certainly more astute on baseball than I am. But, as a Sox fan burnt by pitching trades going back to Mike Torrez, you'll excuse me for continuing to have dubious feelings about this.

Kim is supposed to start tonight against the Pirates, but the game's delayed. Hillenbrand is 1 for 7 in his first two games for Arizona. I know, it'll take a while to see how this pans out.

A new addition to the links at left is the new blog for Scott Monty, who holds the distinction of being the only person in the BU group who was not a member of BUCB (though we did rope him into service as a replacement Gerbil from time to time). Scott's comments and thoughts on some of the stuff written here have often been better than what inspired them (not to put any pressure on him!). His impending fatherhood should add a different set of entries to the mix, though I'm sure he'll lapse into the same discussions of pop culture and American life that the rest of us hit upon, too. Welcome, Scott!

As hard as it is to believe, there are actually a few things I failed to mention about the NIFL experience:

* Continuing on the skill front, neither team seemed to have a kicker worth a darn. Houma opened the game with an on-side kick, or what appeared to be one, and continued to do this all game. Now, as I mentioned earlier, kickoffs that hit a roof impediment resulted in a mid-field placement. But when one of these on-side kickoffs resulted in Myrtle Beach having a first down on the Houma 15, I had to wonder if this really was strategy.

On the Myrtle side, their kicker was listed in their program as being a "low ceiling specialist." Not your usual kicking qualification, but appropriate for the venue. Unfortunately, he wasn't a "extra point and field goal specialist," as he had pretty equal numbers of kicks score, miss, and get blocked. A promotion saw a lucky fan get to try a 40 yard kick, and if the fan hit it they'd get both an ATV and a roster spot. Most of the time I would think the latter prize an announcer's light-hearted joke, but in this case I have to think there was a contract standing by.

* Towards the ends of both halves, a convention center representative had to be paged to unlock the locker rooms. During the first half, they had to be paged twice.

* The Sting Rays have an official team dentist and official team chiaropractor. I think there are still spots open for official team herbalist, faith healer, aromatherapist and mentalist.

* The Sting Rays play in a conference that includes teams in Evansville, Wheeling, Ft. Wayne, and Knoxville. Calling it the Atlantic East seems at best optimistic. It is at least better than either of the conferences that use Pacific in their name, given such coastal team locations as Omaha, Billings, Bismarck, and my personal favorite, "Show Me." They play in St. Charles, Missouri (natch).

Sorry to have dropped off the blogosphere of late, but I was back in Myrtle Beach this weekend helping out at the NAQT High School Championship Tournament, which will merit its own recap in due course. However, I have to first address the most surreal event of the weekend, which is saying something considering I spent most of last night putting 18 at something called Mt. Atlanticus Minotaur Goff.

I am speaking of the National Indoor Football League tilt between the Myrtle Beach Sting Rays and the Houma Bayou Bucks.

Now, I like to think of myself as being geographically astute, but I shared the question that many of you probably have now: Houma? Houma is apparently a city located 57 miles southwest of New Orleans, a positional fix taken of their tourism site. That same site noted that the city is "[s]urrounded by the lush bayous, wetlands and swamp formed by the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi River Delta," making sound like the sort of place that was fighting spontaneous cholera outbreaks into the 1970s.

I will say that I was surprised to find that there was any land 57 miles southwest of New Orleans. I figured that at that distance, any freestanding structures would be rooted to some sort of barge or oil platform. But it's apparently a very real place that has a lot to offer... though the Bayou Bucks home games are listed on the tourism site's events page, making me think that the bar to being listed as a special event is set low.

(To forestall those who accuse me of Houma-bashing, I freely admit that this is all first impression. I'd be happy to write glowing things about your locale if you'd host me for a week or so.)

Getting back to the game, the Sting Rays play in the Myrtle Beach Convention Center. It is somewhat fitting for this league that they have a team (and, really, probably more than one) play in a space that is otherwise dedicated to flower shows and national gatherings of bathroom fixture salespersons. Impressively (for the convention center) the field and seats all fit nicely into one exhibit hall with room to spare. That is if you don't count the ceiling, which was low enough to cause kicks to hit various girders and speakers (which, on a kickoff, put the ball at midfield).

We bought what I took to be the cheapest seats available, with a face value of $10 but actually sold for an impromptu group discount rate of $7. While we could have easily found ourselves into more expensive (and less populated) areas that offered seat backs, we stayed put, sort of self-quarantining ourselves from locals who were there to root for loved ones, honor a business sponsorship, or cut three hours off of a community service sentence.

The NIFL field would be familiar to anyone who's seen an Arena Football game: 50 yards long, end zones truncated by hockey boards (though there's no ice set-up for the convention center), and narrow goal posts hanging from the roof. Unlike Arena ball, there are no nets. This led to several field goal and extra point attempts landing among the crowd, resulting in (as in Arena) a lucky fan getting a souvenir. One of our group got so lucky, but was asked to donate the ball back during the game by the owner. Apparently they were afraid of running out of balls during the game. A scoreboard malfunction led her to dismiss our hero, considering one good scan of the crowd would let her find him later if needed.

Myrtle Beach took to the field wearing blue jerseys and a blue-green helmet that is apparently the city color; the minor league Pelicans of the Carolina League also feature the shade prominently. Houma had a blue and gold ensemble going, thus furthering the spread of metallic hues apparently inspired by the Tampa Bay Bucs' pewter helmets.

The field itself appeared to be on its fourth legs, after a life as part of a major college football field, a Czech second-divison soccer team's pitch, and practice turf for the Sri Lankan national field hockey team. The turf in the back of your average perv's El Camino is less worn out.

The sparsity of the crowd and seediness of the proceedings were immediately thrown into tumult by the night's ceremonial ball hand off, performed by former Bengals and Bucs head coach Sam Wyche. The appearance of someone with at least a modicum of pro football legitimacy alternately stunned and enthralled us, and we gave Sam a rousing ovation, which he recognized. Sadly, he left soon after handing the ball to the Houma kicker.

Considering that Myrtle Beach recently replaced its coach, my theory is that Sam came around cold calling for an interview and got the handoff job as consolation for being too late.

The other sad thing about Sam's handoff was that it probably ranked in the top quarter of plays if they were ranked by skill of execution. I used to think that, with over 110 division 1-A college programs, there would be a sea of at least proficient players out there who could populate leagues such as this. Either I was dead wrong about this, or most of those players gave up on the dream and went into auto sales.

Consider this: in a sport known for a wide-open passing game, Myrtle Beach ran the ball on every play of its opening drive. This did lead to a field goal, but you got the sense that the coach wasn't all that confident in his QB, or his wideouts, or all of the above. Houma's offense didn't fare much better, but they did at least seem to think that going to the air could lead to something.

It was also telling that a number of players on both sides listed no college affiliation, suggesting that the either were high school players working a summer job that they hoped the NCAA wouldn't notice or that they weren't quite at the level to hook on to any of the thousand or so programs in the NCAA, NAIA, NJCAA, or CIAU. Some players listed something called "Powsom" as an affiliation. Considering that a web search leads to only 4 sites split between Belgium and the Netherlands, our theory that it is actually a huge misspelling of Towson looks better and better.

I will note that my characterization of the level of play was colored greatly by the game's second half, in which Myrtle Beach failed to score after putting up 30 points in the first half. They apparently lost a running back and their best reciever during the game, so I should cut them some slack. Houma, on the other hand, only managed to muster 97 yards of offense, perhaps a record low total for the indoor game. They capitalized on turnovers and a kickoff return for TD to get the win.

Outside of the game there were some of the usual trappings of minor league sports, such as the blaring music between plays and the ministrations of a PA announcer who was trying to pump life into a crowd that was clearly pining for the fjords. The Sting Rays cheerleaders, or dance team, or jail bait, put their heart and soul into every routine, often using both of the moves they were taught. I shouldn't be too hard on the girls, though. They came over unbidden when we went to take a group photo after the game and asked if we'd let them in the photo, too. Hard to believe that sixteen or so guys would assent, but that's just the sort of gentlemen we are.

The other moment to remember would be how two of our group wound up on the chain gang after a third member went to the PA guy to ask for a shout out to NAQT based on our large group. I don't know exactly how this transpired (I was hunting down sustinance and souvenirs), but it did make first downs, on the occasions they occurred, that much more exciting. I fear to think what would have happened had the game had the expected level of offense; the tournament would have lost a third of its moderating crew from all the cheering.

Speaking of that halftime hunt, I was successful in getting a hot dog, but not successful in getting a hat. They apparently didn't have any hats. They had t-shirts, but only up to XL. I'm not sure they have a real good grasp on sports marketing or the size of the average indoor football fan. Given what my hat purchases have done to the Daytona Beach Breakers, the Chesapeake Ice Breakers, and the two Arena teams that have called Hartford home, not having hats may have been a strategic decision.

But it appears that my killing power may be on the rise, as there are reports of the NIFL filing for bankruptcy given "cash flow problems," a term which seems misplaced given that it suggests that there was enough cash that it actually flowed at some point. In any case, the ESPN.com article on this isn't loading. It's either in limbo between initial post and archiving, or it was of such scant interest that it got purged to make room for Indonesian badminton scores. Either way, it's apparently a good thing I got my NIFL experience when I did.

Sadly, this does scotch plans to place an entire six-team division in Boston. So much for the Back Bay Plutocrats and the Allston-Brighton Grit. I suppose they can wait for af5 or the New NIFL (to be shown on Spike TV, of course).