Sports Sep 11, 2005
I live in the "New York Metropolitan area".  Actually, I live about 45 miles from NYC.  That sounds close.  It's not really.  But what sports teams are on my local TV stations?  The Mets, Yankees, Jets, Giants, etc.  I think it's weird that "the people who control what's on TV" only show the local teams.  What if I don't like the Giants (which I don't)?  Why should I pay more money for NFL Sunday Gameday just to watch the game I want?  (Note:  I think on-demand stuff will soon take over all media and we'll only see/hear what we choose.  Or maybe that's just my fantasy.)  And the other weird thing is that a lot of people in these metropolitan areas like the local team.  It's like our choices in sports teams are decided by our geographical location.  I guess it goes along with the whole "Root, root, root for the home team" but it's still sorta weird.  Think about your favorite sports team.  Even though a lot of us don't live where we grew up (not that there's anything wrong with that if you do), it turns out that our favorite teams are the local teams from where we grew up.  For me, I like who my dad liked.  And it's still that way.  Another funny thing about this is that we hate certain teams and even whole entire cities based on sporting events which may have happened years and years ago.  I won't even mention the Red Socks/Yankees rivalry, except to say that a vendor in Boston was selling a shirt that said, "I hate Jeeter.  I hate Rodriguez.  I hate..." and it had the name of every single Yankees player.  It's a sensitive issue.  I think of the city of Dallas, home to the Dallas Cowboys.  I hate the Cowboys and always will, simply because they used to be good in the 90s and they always beat my favorite team.  I feel the same way about the Atlanta Braves.  Weird. #sports
Cars are expensive Sep 11, 2005
Isn't it weird that cars are ridiculously expensive?  In 1991, my dad was looking around for a new car that was less than $10,000.  He found one, but it only had 3 wheels and was powered by a lawnmower engine.  Actually, it was a stripped down Toyota Corolla.  Not a bad car, but it seemed like it was slightly overpriced.  And you'd have to kill a person to get a car for less than $10,000 these days.  And the part that I don't get is why these prices aren't going down.  I mean, the whole idea of mass production and outsourcing and manufacturing things overseas is to make things cheaper.  And I understand that cars are a lot more sophisticated than they used to be, but shouldn't this technology be cheaper for the same reason?  But then I figured it out:  watch TV for 2 seconds.  The first thing you'll see is a car commercial.  Hmm.  Keep watching TV.  Then look at the newspaper.  And read some magazines.  And go to a concert or a pro sporting event.  What do you see?  Car commercials.  Sponsorship.  Advertising.  Try to watch a half-hour TV show that doesn't have a car commercial.  Go to a movie and see if there isn't a truck commercial.  Open a magazine and see if the first page isn't an article for the newest Ford or Chevy.  This is why my car is so stupidly expensive.  It's not expensive to pay some foreigner to design and build my car.  It's just a computer with some wheels and a device that makes its internal combustion engine extremely inefficient (conspiracy theory).  What makes it expensive is the billions of dollars spent on advertising the SUVs made by the same company that makes my car.  Hooray for SUVs!  (Actually they advertise my car just as much, but I have to blame-shift somewhere.) #entertainment