Empty Bookshelf Reviews

The Phillies have been one of the few teams to not have alternate uniforms in the last 15 years; the White Sox have their solid black jerseys, the Diamondbacks have their solid red and solid black, and on and on throughout the league. The Phillies have had an alternate hat the last few years, but it's only worn during the three weeks of interleague games.



For 2008, the Phillies will have a third uniform which will hopefully go over better than their 1979 "Saturday Night Specials" which were worn only once. Basically, the new uniform is the home uniform minus the pin-stripes (and the right arm number) plus a new hat inspired by the 1946 design (the modern "P" is slightly different). Well, in terms of being really picky, the vertical strip on each pant leg is blue-red-blue with the normal home uniforms missing the stripe (would look too busy with the pinstripes) and the current away uniforms having white-red-white stripes on the outside of each pant leg. Notice the blue stroke around all of the copy, the blue-red-blue at the edge of each sleeve and neck as well. These details are reminiscent of the late 90's Blue Jays uniforms.

The verdict? I like them - I've always been a fan of the ill-fated, solid blue alternate hats worn for about a month in 1994 because the 1993+ uniforms have always been very, very red, with no other colors except the blue stars dotting the "i's" and the blue button on top of the hat. Blue's seen in the batting practice jerseys and hats, but they're definitely not the image of the team. I would prefer the brim to be solid blue to match the rest of the hat instead of being red, but it is an obvious throwback to the hats of the late 40's. (I think a better choice would be solid blue with the stylized logo of the current alternate hats but with a white "P" and red star to create a disturbingly complete symmetry between the home and alternate hats, but oh well - that combination would probably be a bit much, if not unnecessary.)



I guess it comes down to whether these new alternate uniforms are more interesting than the 70's/80's maroon design. The Brewers wear their wildly popular 80's uniforms on Friday night home games, and I'm sure that lots of Phillies fans would like them to do the same, but let's leave those for turn-back-the-clock games instead of being a normal part of the rotation. The 2008 Phillies Alternate Uniforms get four stars: they're obviously not a risky choice, and I'm sure lots of people will buy a replica when they're available, so good work to the design team responsble for not copping out and settling on just a solid red jersey with white pants to match pretty much every other team in the league.

If you're at all interested in uniform-related stuff, be sure to check out http://uniwatchblog.com, a daily-updated blog on the topic.

Guest Review! Kyle from notthegame.com weighs in on Madden 2008.



Madden 2008 is a bit of an enigma. In the last few years, on the new systems, Madden has been a sub par football game. This is typical for sports games on a new system as it takes game developers a few years to revamp the game engine, as well as improve graphics and features. The third year is typically the year when progress starts to be made. Take the PS2 versions, for example, in 2002 and 2003 the game redefined the way football games look but they didn't play that well, in 2004 the game took on a life of its own, and by year four in 2005, Madden reached its pinnacle. That lines the 360 version up for 2009 as the pinnacle of its success on the new systems.

Madden 2008, however, is a serious step in the right direction. This year, Madden has perfected the game play, improved already stellar animations, and added the features and options we have come to expect from the Madden franchise. If by next year, EA Sports can improve the presentation, get rid of the god awful radio announcer, and add some innovation to franchise mode, the game will reach a level never before seen.

That being said, here is a break down of this years game.

Graphics:

Madden has never really been known for its graphics and animation, but this year that is starting to change. Animations are now much more natural, as players will reach for balls and drag their feet on the sideline. EA Sports uses what it calls a "branching" system. Essentially, this allows the movements to transfer from one to another seamlessly. In 60 frames per second, the game runs beautifully, but since everything is so smooth, the occasional jump in animation between say, standing and falling, seems very out of place. All in all the graphics are very good, next year EA Sports needs to add some more presentation elements.

Sound:

The radio announcer sucks. It sounded like a good idea, but really he is just annoying and makes the game feel outdated (think Joe Montana Sports Talk Football), there is no reason why the biggest selling sports game of all time shouldn't have real announcers. The hits and the players yelling make the on field experience great, but the crowd is just "ok".

Gameplay:

Extremely fun and fast. The game plays with a ferocity that Madden hasn't seen in years. The hits, running, and catches are truly fun to accomplish, and the realism is outstanding. It is one of the few games where neither the defense or the offense dominates. Some games are commanded by defense, while others are controlled by electric offensive players.

The new superstar abilities is well implemented and really gives stars individuality on the field. If you try to tackle Lindell White high, forget about it. For big backs, you need to hit them low utilizing the new Hit-Stick 2.0. It is these little idiosyncrasies that really make the game shine. The gameplay is tight, but it does feel a little tired, as the plays have been the same for years now.

Features:

Franchise mode has some added options, most specifically the ability to relocate your team. Superstar mode has playable camera angles, but during the season there is not much to do other than play games, practice, and bitch to your agent. Its fun, but its not a fulfilling experience as you only get to play the plays with your player, so you don't development an emotional connection to your team.

Overall:

Madden plays great, looks good, and sounds horrible. In all, it is a good game, but there are times where I feel like I'm left wanting more. This years game is shaping up to be the penultimate game, with a little tweaking, next years will reign supreme.

8 K's out of 10. A Brett Myers.

KKKKKKKK

Dan: Uh, 8 "K's" out of 10? A "Brett Myers?" These aren't star ratings! How are we supposed to make sense of this? Let me do some math...

Indy-Pittsburgh Divisional playoff game-Most exciting football game of the year. With the Steelers threatening to put the game away with under two minutes left, (after a disputed non-interception call, an Indy touchdown to put the game within three, and Peyton Manning getting sacked on his own three-yard line on fourth down) Jerome Bettis fumbles at the Indy 1-yard-line. Indy recovers and the guy runs halfway down the field. He’s beaten everyone except Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger who’s run diagonally across the field to tackle the guy returning it, whose wife stabbed him in the leg the night before. With 17 seconds left, Mike Vanederjagt misses a 46 yard field goal which would've tied it. Pittsburgh goes on to win the superbowl.

Endy Chavez catch- Game seven of the Divisional series. Tie Score. Shea Stadium. Mets outfielder Endy Chavez goes back to save the game and makes the catch of the yea,r 3 feet over the fence to rob Scott Rolen of a two-run home run for the lead. If the Mets would have won that game, it would go down in the history books.

Tigers beat the Yankees- the underdog team with less than half the payroll dominates the Yankees, sending them home. The best part is Kenny Rogers (not that one) on top of the dugout spraying the crowd with champaign.

U.S. women’s curling team- I watched a TON of curling during the Winter Olympics. I know, I know… it’s boring. Well it can be, but it was always on, and I grew attached to the U.S. women’s team.

Ryan Howard hits 3 home runs in a game- MVP Ryan Howard carries his team to victory with 3 home runs and 8 RBIs in a game. Also of note is the Home Run Derby contest, where he demolished the competition in the last round, and finished by hitting the “hit it here� sign.

Dodgers hit 4 home runs to tie and one in extras to win- Surging into the playoffs, The Dodgers were losing in the bottom of the ninth, until back-to-back-to-back-to-back homeruns tied the game. In the 10th inning, San Diego was up by one run, until Nomar Garciaparra hit the game winning home run.

Travis Pastrana Motocross double backflip at X-games- I don’t usually watch the X-games, but it was on when I was working one night and I caught a ridiculous maneuver. As his competitors watched, rooting him on, Travis pulled off a motocross double backflip, something that’s never been done, and could’ve killed him.

Vince Young beats USC- In the College National Title Game, Vince Young singlehandedly beats the top-ranked team in the country (one with two heisman winners on it) on a fourth down with 18 seconds left by scrambling to the end zone.

UCLA beats USC- Arch-rival UCLA upsets top-ranked USC to block the University of Spoiled Children Trojans from making a third national title game in a row.

Miami beats Chicago Bears- The Miami Dolphins, a 2-6 team, and the franchise with the only unbeaten season in history faces off against the 8-0 Chicago Bears and comes up with a win. Only in the NFL.

World Baseball Classic begins- After Baseball was discontinued from the Olympics for some inane reason, Bud Selig and some other people created a once every four years world tournament. Bravo.

Kobe scores 81- Despite the fact that I'm not the biggest basketball follower, scoring 81 points in a game is a totally insane achievement.

Tiger hits a bogey off a roof- In a classic display of why he’s the greatest, Tiger Woods totally screwed up off the tee and hit the ball onto the roof of a nearby building. The placed the ball on the ground by the building, but still far off the course. To finish only one stroke over par's a strong achievement.

Agassi plays two classics at U.S. open before retiring- In his last tournament ever, Agassi gives us an unbelievably intense 5 set match, and then goes out in a tough four in the next round. I don’t watch a lot of tennis, but that five-set match was as captivating as anything I’ve ever seen. What made it all the more dramatic was that if he lost, his career was over. And when it finally was, he went out like a pro.

World Cup game- While the Finals game was great and intense (being decided by penalty kicks, and France's star Zidane headbutting that guy, and the Australian team came out of nowhere to advance to the second round, I think that the U.S.-France game was my personal favorite. The U.S. team lost its first game and looked terrible, but in their second game they managed to tie the second place France team that won all of its other games, save the Finals. Granted, the goal that U.S.A. scored was actually an "own goal" from the France team, but they played most of the game with only nine people. A valiant display from an overall underacheiving team.

Chinese people love their basketball. Playing, watching, talking about it, assuming that the black guy that's over here for four weeks is both an engineer and in the NBA (because he's black, duh). They love it the way the same way that noted friend of The Bookshelfâ„¢ (Josh) Calloway loves ginger ale.



So, naturally, the Chinese all-stars (pulled from the ranks of security guards, engineers, factory workers, etc, etc.) from the company want to play the Americans, who they assume are seasoned basketball veterans, being that they're Americans. So, here are the requirements for a successful intercontinental basketball dominance challenge:

1. It has to be Wednesday. Selective brown-outs make it so the court is only illuminated on Wednesdays. Let's say you have some sort of conflict that can only be resolved on the basketball court... and it's Thursday. You have to wait one whole week to get it taken care of.

2. You need a court with the gigantic, trapezoidal, official international basketball lane dimensions. Well, this is the only type you'll find in China, you're all set. And be careful, if the referee (see below) feels like calling offensive 3 second violations, and you're in for some embarrassment until you get used to it.

3. You need fans. The court is between two dorms which probably house 200 people combined. These fans need to bring a drum to bang on whenever the Chinese team scores.

4. You need groupies. When you've just missed two layups, airballed a shot from the arc, and you're out of breath only three minutes into the game, you need someone to tell you that you're "number 1 basketball star."

5. You need a referee. No, scratch that. You need someone who owns a whistle. Two older (in their 40's) whistle-owning guys who live in the dorms provided law and order (and a bafflingly inadequate grasp of the concepts of the backcourt violation and team foul) for our game.

6. You need to have at least 4 of 5 players who are taller than 6'2". Otherwise, the speed of the Chinese will overwhelm the rebound and layup differentials.

7. You need to figure out which Chinese player is the best and switch to a box and one zone to cause him to take shots with an exceedingly low chance of being successful. The four people in #6 take care of the rebounds resulting from these shots.

8. You need a time keeper who keeps time by his watch and yells when the 12 minute quarters are over. Also, he should speak no English; this way, the US team is unable to know how much time is remaining. More importantly, he should arbitrary add time to the fourth quarter whenever the Chinese team slightly closes the point differential. This way, what should be 48 minutes of basketball ends up being closer to 60 minutes.

9. You need a security guard to operate the scoreboard. Because he wouldn't let anyone else near it.

10. Most importantly, the US team needs an in-shape 40ish guy who plays basketball three times a week.



Game 3 of the LaFrance China vs. LaFrance US Basketball Series receives four-and-a-half stars due largely to the fact that we won the game and that games against the Chinese team don't end up with someone from one team wanting to fight someone on the other team, like most (if not all) other competitive-in-some-way basketball games in which I've participated. And how often does someone get to represent their country successfully without doing something stupid? Minus 1/2 star for the ungodly amount of running involved in basketball.

I guess I just don’t understand the point. U2 needed a single for their approximately fifth greatest hits collection. Rather than come up with a really good song themselves, they enlisted the help of a band that while good, just doesn’t seem like the right fit with U2: Green Day. Not that Green Day can’t play, but the two bands’ styles are just a little too different to mesh collectively, not unlike that time where about 16 different musicians got up onstage at the Grammys and butchered Lennon/McCartney’s “Across the Universe�. Paul’s probably rolling in his grave. …twice


Getting back to the matter at hand, they decided to make their newest hit something for the people in New Orleans . Instead of going the traditional route involving thoughtful lyrics about the condition of the area, or people’s struggles, they decided that the second half of the song should consist of the phrase “The Saints are Coming�, repteated over and over and over again, in a musical phrase that has definitely been taken from somewhere that I can’t quite place. They chose to debut this song at the reopening of the Superdome, for the Saints-Falcons Monday night game a few weeks ago, and it works perfectly as an opening theme song for the football team during games. I can’t imagine, however, that this song is going to be remembered at all in even one year’s time, and that’s a shame considering that this is all that two of the most prolific bands of the last 15 years could come up with. It’s almost like they weren’t trying.

They could very well have been trying something new though. This could be the start of product placement within the music industry. Well, I guess that’s not new… but maybe actually using the songs on the radio to promote something. It would be like the Eagles writing a song about how great the Philadelphia Eagles are, to get them pumped up, or AC DC writing a song for the Chargers (HA!), or Bad Company writing a song called “Bad Company� and using it at Enron meetings (BA-ZING).

And isn’t Bono’s thing Africa , anyway? Why didn’t they use the power of song to put together a group to raise funds for Africa …. Oh wait… I forgot… Well, why didn’t they do it again? A world-renowned, self-appointed ambassador to a far-off and underprivileged continent can’t be taking time away from that to help another cause, especially one that’s been nigh on forgotten by most of the world ( You know you’re lost in your own logic when you can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not). I mean, you don’t see Brangelina Polie out there helping America ’s homeless people, or fighting drug abuse, or all the millions of issues people here face every day. And that’s because they have character. They know that if they multi-task, not only do run the risk of reducing the importance of their cause, but they also reduce the importance of other, more useless celebrities. By doing double duty (I said Doody!... I guess that doesn’t work as well when typed out) when it comes to activism, you’re the one putting Rob Scheider out of a job. It’s on your head Bono.

What was I talking about? Oh, this dumb song. Like I said, it may be good for the football team, but call me cold; I don’t really care about the Saints. It was nice to see them play well, but not nice enough for me to listen to an awful song that could’ve been better.



One star for trying to bring some attention back to New Orleans , and making a song that they’ll be playing forever at Saints games. Minus four stars for making the rest of us listen to it, and possibly starting a trend of individually-made rock songs for a specific sports team. The last thing we need is a re-made version of “Benny and the Jets� about New York’s lesser football squad. We already have to deal with that annoying J-E-T-S cheer. That should be enough.

So here we are at the first of what may be a few reviews of our first milestone, 100 reviews. Not only is this the first review of this milestone, but of what could be very many milestones. We here at the Bookshelf like the word "milestone", and don't believe in Thesauruses. So here we go, our first hundred in a nutshell.

The first actual review happened way back in October of 2005... remember that time before the Steelers won the superbowl, before "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" movie, before Dick Cheny accidentally shot his friend while hunting, and before Bristol, United Kingdom celebrated the 200th birthday of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (actually April 9) by relighting the Clifton Suspension Bridge?

Dan's first review was aimed at complaining about post-game hype surrounding an extremely long baseball game. Of course our readers probably care about boring Astros-Braves baseball games as much as they seemed to care about my terrible review of the dictionary. Even though that picture was good, it was nowhere near the five star quality of this image. I too tried my hand at reviewing food, but it was an utter failure. On the plus side, my review of the letter to the editor is one of my favorites, and my first review actually got eight comments, including this link. The few following that grilled chese review focused mostly on music, my opinion of "Good Night, and Good Luck", a particular episode of Trading Spouses, and Dan's opinion of My opinion of "Good Night, and Good Luck". Dan also said that the Colbert report wouldn't last, which seems to have been proven false.

October seemed to be us finding our footing.





November saw Dan's Cleveland Trifecta, a diatribe against horses, a road that he liked, an episode of "Coach", and his complaints about how much he aches, now that he's an old man. I started the month strong with the Beth review, but struggled through the rest of it, with lame reviews like Thursday, a type of tooth"paste" that doesn't work for me, and an insightful, yet completely unnecessary complaint about my nosebleeds. My FAO Schwarz review kinda made up for them, but the highlight of the month involved Dan and I sparring about how Christmas is coming earlier every year, and something about me being a time-traveling sheep.

November didn't see much improvement over October, but the Christmas stuff was entertaining.




December got a bit better, even with a few less reviews. I busted out the old NES games, for a few reviews that I swear are not trying to copy off of XE, another personal favorite, Christmas Cards, Adam's first review, Dan throwing the hate down on Pitchfork media, and a suprising amount of people commenting on Roger Ebert's take on video games. The biggest advance in December was the pop-ins, that added added some clarity to our parentheses-obsessed-writing.

December was a highly engaging and entertaining month, even with only nine reviews.




2006 rolled around, and January saw Dan get political, review half of a book, not like warm winters a lot. I only contributed three of ten reviews that month, but all three of them were relatively alright, mostly because "Where In Time is Carmen Sandiego", and "The Simpsons" after season 9 is so easy to complain about.

January's topics fell off a little.




February, while being the shortest month, was also a monster for us, as far as number goes. A whopping twenty-one reviews. To be fair, 17 of them came in our envelope-pushing live superbowl reviews, the biggest stunt pulled in the history of reviewing anything and everything on a five star scale. The only other reviews of any substance were my Gauntlet Review of the Beatles albums, and Dan's digging up of our one-issue underground high-school newspaper.

Despite the big stunt, and two good reviews, February was kinda lacking.




March just plain sucked. Four reviews total. One by me. Three mega-reviews by Dan.





April was slightly better, with another of my top five of my reviews, Legacy of the Wizard. The other four I would give an average of 3 stars to, but since there were only four during the month, that's going to cancel out the Legacy of the Wizard bonus and take it down a half star.





For my money, May was our best month yet. Dan's contribution was the lengthy three-part TV landscape review. I threw out quality stuff with my Songs for Silverman, and Degree Navigator reviews. The shorter American Dreamz and Davinci Code video game reviews were serviceable, but my immense LOST season 2 review tops everything.





June fell off a bit. Four reviews total. Split two and two. Mine were based on a ridiculous news story, and anger at other people for coincidentally coming up with the same ideas as me. Dan tried to put everything into perspective by seeing how well the entire history of human ingenuity and artistry stacked up in the interstellar community, and complained a little about how the national geography of roadways isn't designed to suit his needs.





July was filled with the (I gotta admit my ignorance as to the relevance of this phrase... and wikipedia does nothing to help) Navel Gazing set. I was had for a few minutes by a Jimmy Kimmel hoax, and I thought the critics were a little too harsh on Shayamalan. Despite the mediocre numbers for the month, I'd give it a 3.5




This gives us a per-month average of 3 stars, which isn't too shabby.

In my first ever review, I reviewed the concept of this website. I claimed that we wouldn't be able to keep it fresh, that we'd run out of ideas, and that we wouldn't be able to stay somewhat funny at least. I believe my exact quote was "It has the potential to provide hours of entertainment for readers, and shape their lives for years to come. However, the downside is that it could get old real soon, and provide us with nothing but an excuse not to get real jobs."

Well, I think we've significantly proven wrong every single point that I just brought up. We have 29 categories, 19 subcategories, and even two sub-sub categories. We're still writing about reasonably different things, and while we may have slacked on the funny in recent months, we still bring the 'A' game on occasion. As far as my quote goes, I'd be willing to bet that we've provided maybe a few hours of entertainment for a handful of people, which probably did nothing to shape their lives for even the near fututre. On the upside, it hasn't gotten old, and we have gotten real-ish jobs.

For all of these reasons, I'm willing to up our star rating by half a star, over the average rating of 3. I've also realized that my method of calculating the rating might not be the best, so I'm gonna throw in another half star for a final rating of 4 stars out of five.



And for those of you playing along at home, yes, this technically is the 100th review and so therefore should be included. This review receives 3 stars for not having much to offer in the way of witty musings, and for having a faulty overall rating method, but for packing so many subjects and links into one review.

Longest. Title. Ever.



I'll try not to make this like Dan's "Half-Inventing Stuff" review, even though there are some thematic similarities.

What spawned the idea for this topic was actually two events hat occurred in the past month, both of which involved people doing things that I had already done. Chances are that both of these events might turn into "Nate Stories", and since I don't believe in editing for content, other than adding to it, just be warned.

So I got a disturbing call a few weeks ago. Nothing's wrong, and it wasn't sickening or anything... just upsetting. You see, my sister was at a Philadelphia Phillies baseball game. The fans (the few, the proud), the ones who don't like to throw batteries that is, (although maybe if J.D. Drew was around), have started a sort of tradition over the past ten years. Groups of people would come and buy seats in the wide expanse of the Veteran's stadium 700 level... that's right, back when stadiums had 700 levels. Up there they found the space to spread out, dress up in costume, and display large signs usually featuring the group's made-up name. This might sound a trifle confusing, so I'll give you the most prominent example, and probably the one that started the fad. Randy Wolf had just made his MLB debut and a group of fans were looking to come out to support the first of the crop of minor league pitchers that would eventually be considered the saviors of the franchise. (Over the next 6 years, through the ranks came Brandon Duckworth, Brett Meyers, Gavin Floyd, and Cole Hammels. This was supposed to be the rotation of the future, but Duckworth was a minor bust and was shipped off to Texas or somewhere, never to be heard from again.... update, he just started pitching for the Royals I believe and didn't do so well, and Floyd is back in the minors.) A group of fans looking to show support for Wolf showed up wearing wolf masks, with a huge sign that said "Wolf Pack". Whenever Randy struck someone out they all did a dance in unison that kinda looks like the lawnmower-starting dance. Eventually other groups began to crop up. What else was there to keep you interested in the upper deck and following a losing team? There was the Duck Pond (for Duckworth), the (Vincente) Padilla Flotilla (a group of guys in sombreros with oars pretending they were in a boat. Whenever he got a strikeout they began to row), once there was (Pat) "Burrell's Girls", and the most recent high profile incident was two competing groups out to support backup catcher Sal Fasano... yes a backup catcher. The groups paint their faces to match his trademark moustache and call themselves, "Sal's Pals" and "Fasano's Pizanos". Incidentally, Sal was apparently so overwhelmed with the cheering section that he once ordered them all pizzas.

What this has to do with anything is this: When my sister called me on the phone, she told me of the newest group of supporters, "Flash's Friends" or something like that. The Flash that they speak of is the new closing pitcher, Tom Gordon. How do they get the Flash from that? Well, he's nicknamed from the 1930s sci-fi serial character, Flash Gordon. But these "friends" didn't realize that, or I guess they thought that nobody would get it if they dressed up like Flash Gordon and his friends, because they decided to take it one step even further and dress up like the superhero The Flash, and his other superhero friends. It would be enough for me to say it was stupid that there are two jumps in logic to get from The Flash to Tom Gordon, and that people who aren't from the area probably wouldn't understand.... but my major problem with this is that WE DID IT THREE YEARS AGO. There is video and photographic evidence (see above) that not only did we use this gimmick first, but we used it better.

The people in this group had really shoddy costumes, most of them partially storebought, and there were people in the group that weren't even superheroes. So they did the costume thing poorly, the sign wasn't as good as ours was... and they didn't dance after strikeouts, but the biggest problem was that they didn't think their plan through enough. In order for the pitcher that they were supporting to actually be involved in the game, the team would have to be winning by less than four runs going into the final inning... lucky for them it happened and he came in, but by that time, most of them were tired of standing around in their costumes, and were partly disrobed by the ninth inning anyway. When they finally got on TV, they just like a bunch of half dressed-hooligans, not following through with the bit.

So all of these things led me to being not as affected by it. I suppose that my main issue with this scenario is how it made us look in hindsight. Not only was that experience very important for us, sort of serving as the capstone achievement of my highschool friends buffoonery, but we were proud of both the fact that we were the first ones that we had ever heard of doing this, and the fact that we actually followed through with one of our hair-brained ideas... and were mentioned by the TV coverage as the "Fans of the Game". This gimmick infringement would've definitely sullied the memory and sapped all of the originality from it.

As far as the second incident goes, a little more than a year ago, my friend Adam and I completed our senior video project. Capping off this twenty-six minute opus, was a perfect final sequence/shot, that when seen for the first time with the song that Adam had found, literally gave me chills (literally!), and made me want to watch it over and over and over. I knew that if nothing else in the entire thing worked, that this last part would win people over. You can see for yourself here... it'll probably give you a better idea as to what I'm talking about. The song is by a group called Thirteen Senses, titled "Into the Fire".

Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that song coming out of my TV a few months later, in the long-form ads for FX's second season of "Rescue Me", a show about firefighters. The song fit even more perfectly in that than it did in our project, mostly because of the lyrical contents talking about walking into the fire and such. Also, the ad came and went without much fanfare, and I'm sure that it won't be remembered in years to come.

Just a few weeks ago, a friend of mine was asking me for names of songs that she might like, and I passed along this title. Little did I know that hours later I would hear the song used in a montage of Jim Carrey's dramatic moments at the MTV movie awards, a show seen by millions of people per year, and aired about the same amount of times. I hastened to the internets to email my friend to say "THEY STOLE MY SONG!!!1!" The next day, I decided it wasn't a big deal, and pretty much let the whole thing go.... until about two days after that. I came home late and decided to catcha replay of the season premiere of The 4400, a summer show on USA that that somehow was the most watched basic cable series of last year (or at least last summer?). It was two hours long and started at midnight, and by the end was half asleep, when suddenly, I hear familiar piano chords. Chords I've heard hundreds of times. I couldn't believe it! They were pulling out the end-of-the-episode-montage, and using the song! I was impressed that they actually used the entire thing, and put it to good use, but it was probably the absolute strangest timing ever. Recently, I aslo found out that the song was used in the pilot of "Grey's Anatomy", a show that I've never watched, and probably never will, but is watched by millions and millions nonetheless. I guess I should just be glad they didn't use it on American Idol

It reminds me of how way back in 2002-2003, the new Coldplay CD came out, and the WWE/F was the first that I had seen to use a little-known song called "Clocks" to do an absolutely great film/video montage about one of their wrestlers, and my olympic hero, Kurt Angle getting a very dangerous neck surgery and training to come back for the fans and for his family. Soon enough, the song was EVERYWHERE, including the trailer for the movie Peter Pan and a sound-alike version for the New Jersey travel bureau, mostly because they couldn't afford the rights due to how much they suck. When I showed people the video, all impact was lost because the audience had no idea when this thing was made. The use of the song went from "complelety innovative and perfect", to "completely trite, cliche, and therefore worthless". The entire impression of how great the video was was tarnished by the fact that other people used the song after them, rendering it completely useless as any sort of art or entertainment. By that time people had gotten so sick of the song that they probably wouldn't even watch it just because of the musical selection alone.

What I'm getting at is that now I'm put in this position. This song stands poised to be the next "Clocks", used in every video that people can put it in, make its way to the radio and soon enough, be so engrained into our public consciousness that you wouldn't ever want to hear it again. In the event that I would show this video to someone in the future, the striking effect of the song is gone, because it devolves from "That's a cool song that I've never heard, but fits great", to "I see you jumped on the bandwagon too; way to be original, lame-o". Without having done anything, the value of the piece is decreased tenfold. Sure, you can say "We made this before the song got popular, scuzz-wad", but that's like telling a jury to forget a court outburst that's been stricken from the record via objection. You've already seen it, so there's no letting it go.

You could make the case that every person/group that uses the song in the same manner from now on is just copying off of a set television precedent and therefore should be subject to the same criticisms that I'd get, but it doesn't matter to them. The song is nowhere near its peak popularity, nor even into the public's SUB-conscious, and neither do the companies/groups care. If they continue to use the song, what is people saying "that's already been done before, dill-wad" going to do to them? They're in a position where if it fits, go for it, because it's not like the CSI audience is really going to stop watching or feel less inclined to see a Jerry Bruckheimer movie/show.

The people who would be watching my video would be people whom I know, or maybe people I just recently met, but in any case, probably people I want to impress, or at least show that I didn't go to Hollywood Upstairs Medical College. Having the most impressive part of the video be undermined because of a collective overexposure to the song is something that I would rather do without.

Of course, I could be totally overreacting, and in two years the song could be less remembered than Fastball's second single. I also suppose that I could always go back and change what song we used, but that would be like re-doing the end of "Return of the Jedi", a whole lot of work for something that wouldn't serve much of a purpose.

How does this relate back to the baseball game? Well, if these people/groups can use this song without knowing that I'd used it previously, and if these Flash's friends can go dressed like superheroes, what's to say that our attempt at 30 seconds of JumboTron fame hadn't been tried before, and done better? What if we were inadvertantly copying off of some other group even though we didn't know them, and had never seen what they'd done? That would just ruin the whole event for us, and the uniqueness of it.

Personally, I think we should fight these so-called "Flash's Friends", because three Frankensteins and a Spongebob are no match for teh Hulk, Superman, Flash, Wolverine, ummm.. Thor, and some girl with an exposed midriff.



Other People Stealing Your Ideas Without Ever Having Met You or Knowing that They Stole Something gets zero stars. It is somethig that will happen over and over in life, and it's best just not to notice it. The problem is that it gets to you when you no longer can honestly take credit for an idea you had and did, even though there's evidence you did it before the other person. Rather than feeling good about yourself that somebody else in a higher position than you thought of the same thing that you did, and feeling good about the fact that you're "on the level", you tend to feel like you've been devalued. The trick is to keep going and come up with something even newer because then you can just show that off to other people instead. Other People Stealing Your Ideas Without Ever Having Met You or Knowing that They Stole Something also makes us look inside of ourselves to determine whether we at any point were guilty of this, and if so make the necessary reparations to those we offended. I encourage all of you to think about this and what it means to you. Until then, Goodnight, and Good Luck, and take care of yourselves, and each other. I'm Andy Rooney... Jon?

Well.... it was a game. The Steelers did win. Other than that, the game was pretty boring. The commercials weren't all that great. The halftime show was kinda lame... not that i'm a huge fan of the rolling stones and all. I'd rate this game higher than the Ravens-Giants Superbowl, but lower than the Eagles-Patriots game... even with Brady winning and all.

In response to my own review about football...

As quickly as games get more interesting, they can just as easily slow baaaaaacckkk doooowwn. Hopefully the end will pick up a little bit.



There are 52 seconds left, and it just seems like the Seahawks aren't going to get it done. When the end seems so obvious, it gets hard to watch.

Wow. that was a game saving play if I ever saw one. I have to grade this two different ways.


Steelers get five stars.


Seahawks get none.

update.... steelers just pulled out the five-star touchdown play... i realize i'm just throwing out the five-stars and possibly devaluing them... but whatever... see Dan's review below about trick plays