TV review: Babylon 5 Season 3
After the consistently high quality of season 2 of Babylon 5, season 3 does not quite live up to high expectations. During the beginning of the season, I found myself wondering where the direction of the storyline was going and having second thoughts about if this is a series I wanted to continue to watch. It hit a low point with the episode “A Late Delivery from Avalon” where King Arthur makes an appearance on Babylon 5.
Immediately following that episode which is about half way through season 3, the series picks up and returns to the more consistent quality of season 2. By the time “War Without End” starts you know something special is happening and the low point of just three episodes earlier is all but forgotten. The two part “War Without End” and the season finale “Z’ha’dum” are truly great television and reminded me why I am watching this series.
The season definitely ends on a high note and leaves me wanting to complete this great series despite some bumps earlier in season 3.
Rating: 8 out of 10.
College Basketball Rankings
Several times in the past three days I have heard something approximating the following said on ESPN: “I don’t think that Duke is the best basketball team in the country but they deserve to be ranked number one.”
I don’t understand this reasoning. In my book, the only reason a team deserves to be ranked number one is if they are the best team, otherwise what is the purpose of the rankings? The statement from above alludes to the fact that the rankings may simply be some way to break ties among power conference teams with the fewest number of losses. Duke, UCONN, Pitt, Oklahoma, and Wake Forest all only have one loss but pollsters think Duke is the best team out of those five. Is North Carolina with two losses better than all five of those other teams? If so, then they would be deserving of the number one ranking.
Food euphemisms
As I experience a wider variety of food, I have noticed that some words used to name a food are not always the original or most common name of the food. I’m intrigued by the fact that these food euphemisms exist. By this I mean the fact that some foods need to be given alternative names because of the perception that less people would eat that food if its original name was used. Below are a list of several food euphemisms that I could think of.
Sweetbreads
Neither sweet nor bread, but the thymus gland or pancreas of a young animal, usually a lamb or calf, just doesn’t sound as tasty.
Chilean sea bass
This fish really has no relation to a bass, but it sure sounds better than calling it a Patagonian toothfish.
Foie gras and escargot
If you call something by its fancy French name, then maybe people will feel refined when they are eating goose liver and snails.
Sunchokes
Everyone has warm feelings about the sun. But everyone might not have those same feelings about Jerusalem, which may be why Jerusalem artichokes were renamed.
Canola oil
Renamed to mean “Canadian oil, low acid” because you can understand why rapeseed oil just wouldn’t sell.
Squab
It’s just a pigeon. The same bird that populates major cities across the globe.
Book review: Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney started life as a web comic on funbrain.com and was published by Abrams in 2007. Not quite a children’s book, not quite a graphic novel, an editorial review on Amazon.com describes Diary of a Wimpy Kid as a “novel in cartoons.”
The book is the fictional diary a middle school boy named Greg Heffley. I quickly found myself laughing out loud at the day to day document of the main character’s life, which centers around his struggles at school and his relationship with his siblings. The author really hits the mark when it comes to conveying the thoughts and rationalizations of a 12 year old boy. While it seems clichéd to say that a young adult book can be enjoyed by anyone from the ages of eight to eighty, Diary of a Wimpy Kid is for anyone who remembers what it was like to be a 12 year old boy.
Rating 9 out of 10.
English Soccer in Las Vegas
I usually go to the sports book at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas one Sunday a year during NFL football season. I make sure to arrive before 10am local time before the first game of the day starts. On a recent trip, I arrived shortly after 9am and was amazed to find that there was hardly an empty seat in the place.
My first thought as to why it was so busy was that there must have been an NFL game that had started earlier than scheduled. My second thought was that I had incorrectly set my watch to the local time in Vegas and that the games had started already. Neither of those thoughts were correct.
There was a “football” game that had started already, but it wasn’t what I thought. They were broadcasting English Premier League soccer. The big Arsenal vs. Liverpool showdown packed the house at 9am on a Sunday in Las Vegas. Not only were they broadcasting the game on the big screen tvs, but the casino had begun accepting wagers on English soccer matches this season, something I never thought would happen. I know that betting on soccer is commonplace in Europe and on the internet, but it shows just how much of an impact English soccer has made in this country to have Las Vegas not only accepting wagers on English soccer but also drawing large crowds because of it.
The ability to bet on English soccer in Las Vegas is further proof that sports fans in the USA are beginning to recognize the appeal of the “beautiful game” and the high quality of competition that the English Premier League offers. Either that or everyone in the casino that day was a tourist from England.
Media Double Standard regarding the NFL
Another effect of the unfairness of NFL divisions and playoff eligibility, which I wrote about yesterday, is to expose the double standard that the sports media applies to the NFL as opposed to other sports.
College football uses a system that is broken to determine its national champion. The entire sports media gets all up in arms every year at this time to go out if their way to tell the public just how messed up the system is. But not a single critical word is uttered in the national media regarding how unfair the NFL divisional format is. In fact, on today’s episode of The Sports Reporters, Howard Bryant’s parting shot was an attempt to justify the NFL’s misguided playoff eligibility. After stating in an earlier segment that “a monkey playing cymbals can make the playoffs in the NFL once every five years. The rules are set up to do this,” Bryant argued that the 11-5 Patriots had no right to complain about not making the playoffs because they had a weak schedule and had only defeated one playoff team. Hello Mr. Bryant, the 8-8 Chargers beat zero playoff teams during the regular season!
This just goes to show that while members of the media are quick to ridicule various aspects of sports, the NFL is treated as some sort of sacred cow that gets a free pass from the media. Steroids in baseball? Outrage is cried by the media. Players are stained for life by the media. Steroids in the NFL? The media reports it then ignores it. When is the media going to wake up from its love affair with the NFL to see that it has just as many flaws as other sports.
Home Dogs
This weekend’s NFL Wild Card playoff games feature something interesting about the matchups: all four home teams are underdogs. This means that most people think all four of the Wild Card teams are better than the division winners they are playing. This situation is further proof that the existence of divisions are unnecessary and counterintuitive to the goals of a playoff. The goal of a playoff is to pit the top teams against each other to determine who is the champion of the season. So explain to me why the 8-8 San Diego Chargers deserve to compete for the championship while the 11-5 New England Patriots aren’t good enough to compete for the Super Bowl? The Patriots, Jets, Cowboys, and Buccaneers each have records better than the Chargers this season. The Broncos, Texans, Redskins, and Saints all have the same record as the Chargers this season. That puts the Chargers somewhere between the 16th and 20th team ranked by regular season record. By regular season record, the Patriots rank tied for 7th.
I’m not a Patriots fan, so I’m not arguing that “my team was robbed.” I’m a sports fan arguing for fairness when it comes to determining eligibility for the postseason. The existence of divisions makes the playing field unequal when it is possible to have an 8-8 team in the playoffs and an 11-5 team not in the playoffs.
Book review: The Real Lincoln by Thomas DiLorenzo
The Real Lincoln by Thomas DiLorenzo shatters the illusion that Abraham Lincoln’s motives for fighting the Civil War were due to some noble idea of freeing the slaves. Lincoln was a dictator. His true agenda involved the expansion of the powers of the federal government with himself as ruler.
The aim of the book not really about Lincoln the man. It is more about how the powers of the federal government grew due to the Civil War, and the abuse of that power. The Civil War was used as an excuse by the government to ignore the Constitution and infringe upon the liberties of citizens and states. Those abuses continued throughout the Reconstruction period following the Civil War, and state governments have never since regained certain powers that they had before the Civil War.
The author makes clear and believable arguments that remove the rose colored glasses that Abraham Lincoln is usually seen through.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10.
