Panthers Vs. Vikings

Yesterday I went to the Panther game with my old friend Granville. I hadn't been out to the stadium in a couple of years and I got two tickets way up in the sky on sale through a promotion I found via the team's Twitter feed. I was unaware that upper deck tickets are now $57 if you include the Ticketmaster ass spelunking. I got mine for $32 each which is a reasonable price. Maybe there would be fewer empty seats in the upper deck if the tickets didn't cost almost $60 each. That just seems like a lot to me.

As you can see, we are way up high



It was fun as any trip to the stadium is for an NFL game. NFL games are always fun for me. They feel like an event. Early on I did have a nice chuckle watching the defensive unit players each do their individual dance as they came out of the inflatable tunnel. Maybe it would have been less silly if the stadium was more than half full and we were able to make a bunch of noise. Nothing rocks quite like an NFL stadium when the stands are full of pumped up fans. We aren't there yet with this current roster. The Panthers will make a playoff run someday with Cam Newton at the helm and I can't wait to be there for a couple of those games.

One unique thing about this trip to Bank of Ameria Stadium was the ending. The Panthers set the kicker, Mare, up for pretty much a chip shot of a field goal that would have likely sent the game into overtime. He missed it. He is catching a lot of heat for it but if you've played golf sometimes the chip shots are the hardest. I've always had a special sympathy for kickers. First the jocks in the broadcast booths and at the studios laugh at them and don't think they are real players. Those guys are dicks. Secondly, what other player in sports essentially comes on the field only when points are on the line? Not even goalies have that much pressure so leave these fucking guys alone.

When Mare missed that kick you could feel the energy leave that stadium. Before the drive that put the team into a chance at overtime the crowd was getting kind of ugly. You could hear drunk guys getting angry and people who weren't drunk and angry began scanning the crowd, looking for the potential fights (there weren't any). Then a couple of excellent plays put the Panthers back in the game and then elation took over which was then quickly supplanted by grief and denial when that kick sailed wide left.

The same view as before but only different

Las Vegas Indy Crash

One of my favorite Youtube activities is searching for good amateur footage shot at NASCAR races. This weekend's Talladega footage from the stands was as boring as the race. After coming up snake eyes with Talladega I thought I would search for amateur footage of the fatal Indy car crash. I did find a couple.

This one is long so I linked around the wreck started.

Mark Twain Prize

I don't get it. Last night Will Ferrell received the 14th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Last year it was won by Tina Fey. The first twelve recipients of the prize included giants like Jonathan Winters, Richard Pryor, Bob Newhart, Lily Tomlin and George Carlin. And Bill Cosby. I just don't see where Tina Fey and Will Ferrell fit on this list. They are both in their 40s. Seems to me if you are going to give someone a hall of fame type of award you should have a lifetime of work to consider.

It's not that Ferrell and Fey aren't funny and ground breaking (at least Tina Fey is ground breaking). They may eventually put together 30 or 40 years of work that would then qualify them for the Mark Twain Award. Since they seem to give the award to living funny people I think once they give this award to Mel Brooks, The Smothers Brothers, Albert Brooks, Woody Allen, Harry Shearer, Robert Klein and Robin Williams then we can consider comedians like Ferrell and Fey.

Playing with Layers

I have been using for a while now an image manipulation program called Gimp. This son of a bitch has been using layers for a while now and I finally grabbed a book about digital photography and gave layers a whirl. I really like how you can take two layers, change one and tweak the opacity to blend them together. Very useful I have found when adjusting the sky in scenic shots. The two pictures below I darkened the sky and adjusted its contrast to bring the clouds out more.


Torch Lake before manipulation



Torch Lake after manipulation



The view from Empire Bluffs before manipulation

The view from Empire Bluffs after manipulation

I Hate when Games Bullshit

I first saw this while playing NBA Jam on the old Sega Genesis gaming system. My friends Chris and Granville played that game head to head a lot and found that if one player pulled too far ahead then his opponent could pretty much sink shots at will for a few minutes until the game equalized. When this happened you could tell because one of them would should how the game "is bullshittin!" The scoring rubber band wasn't a game killer because it kept the games close and didn't seem to come into play at the end. We had a lot of fun with that game for a while at the old apartment. We started allowing ourselves one created player per team and eventually try to see who could come up with the most offensive name for his player. Big Fucker was a favorite along with Bearded Whitemon. I won with a wonderful name that still to this day offends the uninitiated.

Recently I have been playing the most recent Tiger Woods game. Two problems with it have killed the career mode for me. First is the hole placements. For some reason the hole on some greens will be on the severe slope of a green. So, if you lag the ball up and it stops rolling a few inches from the hole, which is what you are trying to do most of the time on a longer putt, the ball then rolls back down to your feet or goes on past the hole and rolls off the green. I true difficult pin placement will put the hole right next to a ridge that will punish a bad putt. You are not supposed to punish a good putt. I have seen this problem addressed on the Game FAQs message board so I know it's not just me.

I am not sure if the hole placement is the game bullshitting or a glitch. What is bullshit is the scoring on Sunday by AI opponents. Recently while leading going into Sunday I have watched my lead evaporate to an AI player who is having his best day of the tournament on Sunday. I'm not saying this never happens but it should not be the norm. You can see what I am talking about when you look at the leaderboard of the Players Championship from May. No one had a real big day on Sunday. So, what happens in the Tiger Woods game is that with the most difficult pin placement of the tournament where I am having to really play well to just score and maintain my lead a couple of players shoot a Thursday type score and I end up in the top five. It's frustrating because in a real golf match when you go into Sunday with a lead you are generally playing to maintain your already established lead. But in Tiger Woods you're forced into taking chances and playing aggressive golf because you have to score just to catch back up. What happens when you take chances with difficult Sunday pin placements? That's right, you play bogey golf. It's bullshit.

So, pretty much all this Tiger Woods is good for is head to head play with friends. I do that like once a every few months.

Is he Serious?

I had to share this. Only on eBay would someone attempt to sell an outdated broken digital camera for $30.00.

Failed Baseball Player Melanie and I went and saw the movie Moneyball during our staycation last week. We both enjoyed the film. The question that seems to arise about every baseball film is where does it measure against the rest of the baseball films out there. It's no Bull Durham but it definitely hurdles over the silly of Field of Dreams. I don't like Field of Dreams because it doesn't play fair. The reason it doesn't play fair is brought up in the recent episode of Bob Costas' show on the Major League Basebal Network, it's all about men wanting to play catch with their fathers. It couldn't be more manipulative.

What I did like a lot about Moneyball was mentioned by Billy Beane during the Studio 42 show. He though it really captured the feel of the clubhouse of a major league baseball team. I was happy to hear that because when I was watching the movie it felt realistic to me. As someone watching a movie like that where what you are seeing feels real you never really know if what you are watching is a hell of a good fake or a close representation. It's nice to have a gut feeling ratified by someone who has been there. Michael Lewis, the author of the book Moneyball, which is the basis of the movie, mentioned that about Bull Durham. I think it was Lewis that said this. There were four panel members: Brad Pitt, Michael Lewis, Billy Beane and Jonah Hill. Jonah Hill, who I like, was really out of his element as a member of his panel. He looked a lot like a student trying to pass a test when Costas asked him baseball related questions. Maybe he was just nervous, there were some heavy hitters in that room.

During the interview Costas said something about Billy Beane that I thought was unfair. He called Billy Beane a failed ballplayer. I would say anyone who can make a major league roster for six consecutive seasons is not a failed ballplayer. His major league career could be seen as a failure but if you are good enough to make a squad, even if in three of those seasons you have 10 or fewer at bats, you are not a failed ballplayer. He made the show six times. How many of us would give a testicle to put on a major league uniform once? Someone like Beane is in a unique position when compared to those of us that never played competitive baseball after they were 21, he ws in the game as a player and after his career as a player ended he found a way to stay in it. Sure, his playing career didn't pan out but he is still in the game and that is all most of those want who have baseball dreams, just to be around the game. He even had at least one great game. On April 29th, 1986 Billy Bean went five for five, hit a home run and drove in four runs. Three of those hits came off the great Ron Guidry. Not putting together a long major league career is not a failure. I'm sure Beane still thinks about what could have been all the time. Shit, I still daydream about the last game I played in high school. If I had just gotten under that last ball that was a single down the line... At least Beane went five for five against the Yankees once. He's soared a lot higher than millions of us.

Today Dad and I went driving around Antrim County again just to see what we could see. We had discussed going up to the Central Lake area and then heading over to see the view from Dead Man's Hill. Instead we got a little turned around and ended up south ofLake Charlevoix. I noticed a sign advertising a ferry up the road. I was completely unaware a ferry still was running in this part of the world. It's called the Ironton Ferry. It costs $3.50 to cross. I had never ridden on a car ferry before. That made the day worthwhile by itself. I think ferries were pretty common up here for a while. There is an old ferry site on Clam Lake right down the street from my Dad's land. Now both points are lake public access sites.

Once we were headed northwest towards Charlevoix I saw a state park that might afford us a nice view of Lake Michigan and hopefully the tip of Leelanau County to the west. The park is called Fisherman's Island State Park. Turns out we didn't have to enter the park in order to get down to the beach. This part of the shoreline was covered with slate and you could see where slate had been carved out for use in construction, maybe? Like I know what the hell you would use slate for. According to Wikipedia it has been used for roofing shingles Sounds good to me. This area was beautiful. The lake was very shallow here. It appeared to me you could walk about a hundred yards out before you would be forced to swim.

Our next stop was a small burg called Norwood which gave us a nice view of the north tip of the Leelanau Peninsula. Further down we stopped at Barnes Park in Eastport which offered a another grand view of the tip of Leelanau County and also the Old Mission Peninsula.

Pictures!!

Lake Charlevoix

From 2011 Michigan

Ironton Ferry

From 2011 Michigan

The view near Fisherman's Island State Park. This is my favorite picture from today You can see the slate under the water near the shore.

From 2011 Michigan

The tip of Leelanau Country from Norwood

From 2011 Michigan

Empire Bluffs

Today Kevin and Tina took me on another tour of the sites of Leelanau County. We've done this three times since I first came back up here after a ten year absence back in 2007. The first stop was a place I have been to before the Treat Family Farm. It's an old farm that has been purchased by the government and is now part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. You walk across a field and up a bluff and find yourself a couple hundred feet above Lake Michigan. It's a stunning view. Our next stop was the Empire Bluff. I had never been to it before. You are even up higher and the view of dunes is even more impressive. I really liked the light coming through the clouds today I took a picture that a gazillion other people have but to me it looks like a painting. I am digging it.

Strawberry Fields Forever, Take One

This is probably my favorite bootleg track. It's different in over presentation but it's still recognizable when compared final version of the song. When John Lennon brought song to the studio it was essentially finished, all the lyrics and melody were there. As the recording process went on they played with the structure and added all the crazy shit. I don't prefer take one to the finished version but I think it stands nicely on its own because it's just the four boys and George Martin playing a song. Straw Take One by zzazazz