Adam Sandler

Do you remember when Adam Sandler couldn't make a bad movie?  He had such a good run of movies for a solid decade with films like Billy Madison, Airheads, Happy Gilmore, The Waterboy, and Big Daddy.  But recently?  Lots and lots of garbage.  I stumbled across this the other day:

That's Sandler's Rotten Tomatoes scores for his most recent movies.  Other than an animated kid's flick, his best score was 20%, and somehow that was That's My Boy, which isn't saying much.  What in the hell happened to him?  Because I honestly don't know.

However, there is good news.  His next movie actually looks promising.  It's called Pixels and stars Sandler along with Peter Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister), Michelle Monagham (Tom Cruise's wife from the Mission: Impossible movies), and Josh Gad (the voice of the snowman from Frozen).  Here is its plot:

     "Video game experts are recruited by the military to fight 1980s-era video game characters who've attacked New York."

I'm in.  But judging by Sandler's recent track record, even this will somehow suck.

"Tyrion Lannister with a mullet?  Yes, please."

TV Ads

Last week, I wrote something along to lines of "Why does Coca-Cola bother advertising so much when they know we are already addicted to their product?" and that got me to thinking - does advertising really even work?  Seriously, when was the last time you bought a car because of an annoying local TV ad salesman boasted about his "low, low prices"?  Have you ever gone out and bought Coors Light because of their dumb ads where some dude retrieves beer out of an iceberg?  Or have you ever thought to yourself that you should buy a Hardee's/Carl's Jr. Mile High Bacon Cheeseburger because a hot chick in a stewardess outfit ate one in an ad?  I can honestly say no.

However, the fact that I remembered all of those examples is kind of the point of the company's ad.  But at no point has it ever swayed me to buy their products.  If I'm going to buy a car, I'm going to buy the one I like, not the one I see on TV the most, and the same goes for beer and junk food.  So, that brings up my question again - does advertising really work?  Once again, I'm going with no, but then again, these ads might not be trying to rope my demographic into buying their stuff.  I guess I will just have to wait a couple decades until those boner pill ads start making more sense.

"Horny?  Yes.  Hungry?  Not so much."

The Far Future of Hollywood

I'm truly worried about the direction Hollywood is headed.  Recently, they have made remakes of Robocop, Conan the Barbarian, and Red Dawn.  All three of those movies' originals are only a few decades old.  In the near future, we will getting remakes of Point Break, Bloodsport, and Naked Gun.  Once again, all of these are remakes of movies younger than I am.  Knowing this, what is going to happen in the far future of Hollywood?  In 30 years, are we going to see remakes of movies that came out recently?  Do we really need a remake of Twilight in 2040?  No, but that's mostly because the originals sucked.  What else are they going to remake that doesn't need to be remade?

Hell, they remade Spider-Man less than a decade after the first one came out.  Does this mean that we are going to see Harry Potter remade in the future?  And if they do remake the Potter series, are they going to make all eight movies?  That seems absurd!  Will we see The Hunger Games rebooted?  I hope not because I'm telling you now, if you haven't read the books, it doesn't end well (I hated the last book in that series).  Will Michael Bay's clone remake Transformers in the future?  Or how about some of today's funniest comedies like The Hangover (only the first one), Dumb and Dumber, or something like Bridesmaids?

Sadly, I am really scared for our children's movie-going future.  Not only will their options be to see either The Expendables 24 or Fast & Furious 51, they will probably have another Avatar reboot coming out.  Hollywood, please hire some original thinkers soon or our children will suffer....and me.

"Sly and Arnold's clones promoting The Expendables 24."

Sterling = Stupid

For a guy who was savvy enough to own an NBA franchise, Donald Sterling really is dumb.  After agreeing to sell the LA Clippers to the former CEO of Microsoft last week, Sterling has now changed his crazy racist mind and wants to keep the team and sue the NBA for banning him from the sport at the same time.  In other words, he is passing up $2 billion (with a "b") in favor of looking like an idiot and probably killing the value of the team.  What exactly is going on inside his head that makes him think that keeping the Clippers at this point is a good idea?  That two billion dollars will certainly not be there if he succeeds at keeping the team for another season and I will tell you why:

• 1)  No free agent will ever sign there as long as he is owner and his team will be made up of drafted players who will only play there until their rookie contract expires (and even then, I would be surprised if even they don't boycott from Day 1).
• 2) No one will pay to watch the games of a team owned by him, so he will be losing money like crazy through abysmal ticket sales.
• 3) No company in their right mind will sponsor his team while he is there because it will kill their company image, so once again, no money coming in from TV and arena sponsors.
• 4) The franchise will lose so much money as long as he is owner that the Clippers will be worth a fraction as much as it was going to sell for last week, so there goes that $2 billion dollars Sterling could have had if he wasn't such a racist idiot.

So, what does Sterling think he will gain by keeping the Clippers at this point other than to stroke his own ego?  Is a billion dollar loss worth that?  If the answer is yes to him, then it just proves that he is insane and shouldn't be allowed to own an NBA team and if I were his opponent's lawyers, that would be my first argument in court.  This whole situation is ridiculous and it keeps getting better/funnier with every word out of Sterling's racist mouth.  Do you know who isn't stupid?  Sterling's wife.  She is trying to get the court to overrule Sterling's stupidity and force the sale of the team.  You know, so that she doesn't lose billions of dollars unlike like her idiot of a husband.  Let's see what dumb decision he makes next (I'm crossing my fingers for an illegitimate kid from a black mother to come forward).

"Basically, he is Al Davis if he owned an NBA franchise and not the Raiders."

Straw Crazy

I love pizza.  I love pizza shops, not the delivery chains.  The pizza is just generally better and there are more specialty pizzas.  There is one I have been to a few times near Atlanta called Big Pie in The Sky - it was featured on Man vs. Food.  Two people have to eat this gigantic meat lovers pizza in an hour.  I did it with 4 other co-workers and we ate only 75% of it.  I tell you that a lot of pizza places have larger slices and with that comes larger drinks.  Good move for today's America - bigger is always better.  The cups for the fountain drinks are at least 32 ounces - you know the huge red cups I'm talking about.  The huge slices and huge drinks make the pizza shop experience great....but then they ruin it.  If you have giant cups you HAVE to buy giant straws.  The above mentioned pizzeria have straws that are not even as tall as the glass!  What the hell am I supposed to do with that?  Should I take the straw out of the glass after each sip?  Should I MacGuyver two straws together with some gum and a paperclip?  Or, you could spend the extra 4 cents and get straws that make fit the cups.  You tell me which makes more sense, pizza places.

"Even babies are intimidated by the size of that slice."

Snail Mail

I'll get right into it - why do big companies still rely on using regular mail to do business?  I requested a document from my mortgage company and they sent me an email saying that they would send the response in a letter in 10-14 days.  What the hell!!!  Just email me like a normal person.  The other day I paid my car loan by phone so I wouldn't have to deal with mailing a check.  They then sent me a letter of confirmation of the transaction - why would they do that?  Are they worried that someone else paid my bill?  Who cares - it got paid didn't it?  And if they sent it to via email, I could have just printed it out if they really wanted me to have a physical copy.  In the words of Mitch Hedburg, when someone sends stupid mail "it's kinda like saying 'Here, you throw this away'".

Are you telling me that as big as these companies are they cannot spend the money to maintain internet security!?!?  There is no reason why everything can't be done by phone and email.  Why these large companies would not want to do this and save time and money by not sending things via snail mail is beyond me.  Get it together corporate america - the Internets are here!

"The Internets - only used for porn since 1995."

NFL - No Fun League

The NFL warden, Roger Goodell, and the No Fun League has struck again.  This time banning the celebration dunk through the goal posts.  This makes no sense at all.  The NFL claims it is because you are using the ball as a prop.  Why would that matter - there are no game delays, they have fifty balls on the sidelines.  The only way this celebration is bad is if you mess up the goal post.  Here is an idea - instead of penalizing the player for dunking, just penalize them for BREAKING THE DAMN GOAL POST!  No one would argue with that, 15 yards for breaking stuff that isn't your is actually pretty light.  I think in protest all players scoring touchdowns should "shoot" 15 foot jumpers through the goal post.  Give me a break NFL - let's all have some fun.  It is entertainment after all.

"Way to ruin everything, Jimmy Graham."

Here's Your Sign....Language

Whenever there is a debate or high-profile speech or press conference, there is always a sign language person (sign languagist? signist? signer?) near the podium translating for the deaf.  Let me start off the bat by saying that if I was deaf, it would be super great to have that translator and it is a nice thing to do for that segment of the population.  That said, how many deaf people are there in the United States?  One million apparently.  And half of those are over 65.  There are 314 million people in the US, so that means that someone is paying someone to sign every political speech and debate to cater to .003% of America.  Why are we so interested in appeasing them?  Were there a lot of deaf protests at one point to cause this upheaval?  At this point, would taking away the sign language artist (nailed it) move the needle even a little?  If we are going to keep this tradition up, should we not also translate into languages for people in America who don't speak English?  A lot of Americans speak Spanish (37.6% of people) and even if a third of those can't speak English which is well over the .003% of the population, way more than of them than there are deaf people.  Based on that one third rule, we could also translate speeches into Chinese, Hindu, French, Tagalog, Vietnamese, German, and Korean.  Korean is the lowest percentage of America out of those at 1.1%.  That means if all political speeches have a Korean translator it would be helpful to three times as many Americans than having a sign language translator.  Let's save the tax payers some money (you know that has to be how they get paid) and cut this non-essential position.

"This is what we are paying for."

Movie Alien Invasions

Why do aliens in movies attack a planet like Earth for its resources when there are literally billions of planets in the universe they could pick that is not inhabited by a race that can fight back?  Seriously.  Let's say you are an intelligent species with the technology to travel between worlds and your species needs a new planet to live on.  What is your first thought?  Hopefully, you would suggest picking one of the billion of planets out there that are inhabited by a species that can't fight back.  If you are a movie alien, you would suggest invading Earth, just for the hell of it.

Let's take the alien from Oblivion.  It needs to use the Earth's oceans to create energy or something stupid like that.  However, why did it pick Earth?  There are billions of planets out there that have water and no pesky humans who could fight back.  Okay, let's say that maybe this alien can travel between worlds, but can't travel particularly far.  Well, according to a news story I found, there are over eight billion habitable planets in the Milky Way alone.  Why didn't it pick one of those planets?  As far as we know, none of them have an intelligent species with the ability to fight back and yet, this idiot picks Earth and meets its demise.

In Cowboys & Aliens, the aliens are mining Earth for its gold.  I'm sure you can find gold all over the universe.  Or what about Independence Day?  Well, I still don't know what they wanted, but I'm sure they could have found an easier target than Earth.  And don't even get me started on Signs, those were the dumbest aliens to ever travel the cosmos.

The only reason I could understand an alien species attacking Earth is because the resource it needs is us.  But even then, you had better be damn sure that the humans you are attacking can't shove some nukes up their asses.  All I'm trying to say is that if you are an intelligent alien race, you would never invade a planet for its resources if that planet's inhabitants have the ability to defend themselves.

"This guy was smart enough to be able to travel to Earth, but not smart enough to realize that every time it rained, your species is fucked."

No Free Refills

Why does Coke and all other drink products feel like they have to put "NO REFILL" on their labels?  At some point in history were there a bunch of people using old 20 oz. Coke bottles in McDonald's filling them back up at the soda fountain?  Who does that?  There is no need for the reminder on the label because anywhere you could possible get a refill would kick you out if you tried.  Maybe someone in our litigious society went to the bottling plant and demanded a refill and when denied he (definitely a dude) sued because the bottle did not specifically say "no refills".  If that is the case, it's very sad.  I like to think in response Coke put "NO REFILLS" in all caps as a small screw you.

In Conclusion, don't be stupid, you cannot just get free refills of anything you buy.  This is America and we will rub capitalism all in your face so just buy a new Coke if you want another one, hippie!

"At some point 'refill' used to be spelled 're-fill'.  Where did the hyphen go?"

Online Purchasing Destractions

Tons of people buy stuff online now - many more people research pricing and products online before they purchase something.  If, for example, you want a winter jacket you would go to a few sites and sort by men's jackets and maybe even by type or size.  What do you do next when the website returns a giant list of products that match your sort?  You filter them from lowest price to highest price because you are a normal human being.  Logic tells you that if you get some items that match your search criteria you are going to get one of the cheaper ones.  This begs the questions, why the hell is there an option to return your searched items form HIGHEST price to lowest?  Why would anyone want to see the most expensive stuff first, then get progressively more disappointed as you filter down past the high end stuff you can afford to the more economical choices.  Why would I care if Patagonia makes a $700 dollar jacket?  I'll just take the $200 jacket that everyone else in the world has.  I don't even want to know that any piece of clothing over $200 even exists.  In fact, it may as well not even exist given mine and the rest of mainstream America's finances.  So get with it online retailers, no one wants to filter your shit highest price to lowest.

"For $700 I would want something way cooler than this boring jacket"

NFL QBs Named Matt....

....suck.  For some reason, there are a lot of quarterbacks in the NFL with the first name Matt.  And all of them suck at playing the position.  All of them!  To prove my point, I made a list of these Matts.  Let's explore:

• Ryan - Matt Ryan has had some success in the league and even made it to the NFC Championship last year, but as a whole, his career has sucked.  He has one playoff win and since losing his best receiver this year, the Falcons have gone from first to worst in their division.
• Stafford - This guy was drafted first overall in 2009 and has had a so-so career to date.  Basically, he couldn't stay healthy his first couple seasons, has a 24-36 career record, and if he didn't have the best receiver in football (Calvin "Megatron" Johnson), he would suck even more than he does now.
• Schaub - The best way to sum up this guy is by this stat - he owns the NFL record for consecutive games throwing a pick-six with four.
• Flynn - Somehow he owns all of the Green Bay Packers' single game passing records which he translated into a huge contract with the Seahawks only to be beaten out by a rookie for the starting job, then was traded to the awful Raiders, lost the job again, got cut, went to the awful Bills, got cut, and is now on the Packers again, all in the span of two years.  Pure suck.
• Lienart - The only thing this guy has going for him is that he won the Heisman in 2004.  In 31 career NFL games, he has 800 fewer passing yards and 32 fewer touchdown passes than Peyton Manning has through 14 games this season.
• Moore - After seeing him on Hard Knocks last year, I actually came to like this guy because he is one goofy bastard, but that doesn't make him a good quarterback.  In fact, he has never been the starter for a full season and is a career back-up for the most part.
• Hasselbeck - This is the only guy who has started in a Super Bowl and actually had some pretty decent seasons with the Seahawks.  Also, I'm fairly certain he has more play-off wins than the rest of the QBs on this list combined (5).  However, he has basically been a back-up for the past two seasons which means he currently sucks.
• Cassel - Just like Matt Flynn, this guy translated one good season with the Patriots into a big contract with the Chiefs but sucked pretty hard when he got there.  He is currently the back-up in Minnesota and can't even beat out noodle-arm Christian Ponder.
• Barkley - If Barkley had gone into the draft after his junior season, he would have been drafted in the Top 5, but he stayed an extra season and fell all the way to the 4th Round the next year.  I feel like that should wrap up why he sucks pretty easily.
• McGloin - This guy currently starts for the Raiders and the Raiders suck.  The end.
• Simms, Blanchard, Brown, Scott - I grouped these guys together because I have no idea who they are, but they showed up in a search I did for QBs named Matt and I thought they should be included.  Considering I have never heard of any of them should tell you all you need to know about their suckiness.

That's 14 guys named Matt who "play" quarterback in the NFL and the only one who was any good is a 38 year old backup today.  In other words, if you are thinking about having a son who you want to play quarterback one day, for the love of the football gods, do not name him Matt.

"Instead, name him Peyton."

P.S.  I finished 9-7 with my College Football Bowl Picks and I couldn't be happier.  Sure, some of that is because Clemson won the Orange Bowl, but it's also because picking bowl games is a total crap-shoot and finishing above .500 is pretty impressive.  I'll take it.

Kicker Problem

Fantasy football is fun.  Really really fun.  It allows you to not only follow your team, but have an investment in almost every NFL game all season.  With fantasy football the Monday night Jaguars v. Bills game suddenly becomes watchable without having to bet a sizable amount of money on it.  Fantasy football also starts getting very competitive, with many hours going into draft preparations and at least several hours a week each week during the season researching players to add and cut.  With all of this time and commitment put towards the cause of proving our NFL player knowledge, why the hell do we leave any part of it up to kickers!?!

In my fantasy playing experience, kickers make up about 10%, if not more, of everyone's total points for the week.  That is putting 10% of your reputation in the hands of weenie kids who probably wear glasses and LARP in their free time.  Kickers are not respected by the NFL community, so why are they in fantasy?  If a stupid soccer player could do your job, then you shouldn't be on a fantasy FOOTBALL team.  The other issue with kickers is their randomness.  Because of this no one drafts kickers until the last round of drafts because they are so random and any kicker is basically as good as any other - it just comes down to opportunity.  Losing a match-up because of your kicker doing terrible or your opponent's kicker going crazy is maddening.  Leaving your team to chance just doesn't make good sense.

With that said, why don't we eliminate kickers from fantasy football.  They do no good except expose their owners for being lucky or unlucky.  Take the chance out of fantasy and keep building a moderate team an actual skill.

"How is this is swinging your Fantasy Football match ups."

Disecting One Small Playoff Issue

There are a lot of issues and pros and cons to the new college football playoff that will start next year.  Talking about all of them at once is a job for the pros who get paid to write long columns.  I want to address one issue, the playoff selection committee.  First things first, here is the committee.

I think people went a little too far against the computer system and wanted a human component.  Only one problem, humans are imperfect and can be affected by many other outside factors.  For instance, there is only one person with ACC ties versus other big conferences that have two or more.  How can that not be a disadvantage for the teams from the ACC?  All the members of the committee have had too much life experience with too many people not to be influenced by something.  This will be an issue not for just who will get in, but seeding also.  Honestly I would feel better about it if all the members were like Condoleezza Rice, she is probably the most unbiased member.

It is also going to be really easy to get mad at the committee when the choices they make don't go to their school.  What if there are 5 undefeated teams this year including Clemson and Clemson gets left out.  Dan Radakovich (Clemson athletic director and committee member) would be tarred and feathered by the Clemson faithful.  It is a terrible conflict of interest.

For all the faults, the BCS did provide the most comprehensive and in depth ranking system we have ever had.  It blended human rankings with statistics to rank the teams.  Why not ditch the committee and still use the computer rankings for who gets in the playoff and playoff seeding.

"OK, maybe she's biased too."

Why Can't I Get Out of Walmart?

Why the hell are the Entrance and Exit doors at Walmart the opposite from the rest of the country?  Everything in America is based on doing stuff on the right.  Drive on the right.  Emergency turn on the right.  First in flight was the Wright brothers.  So why does Walmart put their entrance on the left?  Now I am walking across people leaving to get in the store - and that is if everyone is doing it correctly.  I can only assume that this was done because of a multi-million dollar study designed to make everyone spend an extra penny thus making the owners billions of dollars.  Jerks.  Here is how I see it.  The executives figure that people are nervous/scared/embarrassed to go to Walmart because they are feeding the man and putting all little mom and pop shops out of business so before you go in they want to shake you up a little to forget those bad things.  They do this by making you run into people.  I would not be surprised if the supply closet also has 'women's restroom' on it just to mess you up even more.  When you get in the store you are disoriented into buying a 1,000 bars of soap instead of the one bar you needed.  It's .007 cents less per bar - how can you pass this up?  That is the thinking that running into people causes.  Clearly thinking people do not care about these things and actually consider how you will store 1,000 bars of soap.  Stupid Walmart.  I hate you.

"Idiots."

Don't Bench me Bro!

Being a college or NFL football coach has to get really stressful.  Your whole career is controlled by young kids playing a game.  Your career has a three-year shelf-life unless you are really good.  Even Mark Richt at Georgia gets second guessed all the time even though he has won 9 or 10 games at least for a thousand years now.  A few bad bounces and you go from hero to fired.  One of the easiest ways to lose games in any level of football is turnovers. 

Outside of QBs, the main culprits of this are when a running back fumbles because they touch the ball much more often than anyone else. You can teach guys how to hold the ball correctly and other techniques to prevent fumbling, and you can even go to extremes to stress how important it is to hold onto the ball, but sometimes fumbles happen.  That is when some coaches go off the rails and get mad at their players and sometimes even bench them for fumbling.  We have seen this in two big cases this year - Stephen Ridley for the Patriots and David Wilson for the Giants.  My question for the coaches is this: Do you think they want to fumble?  Do you think they weren't actively trying not to fumble?  They know how important every game is.  They get paid on their performance just like you except no one else can bail them out.  I would argue fumbling hurts the player much much more than the coach.  If that is the case and the player knows fumbling cannot continue to happen then why would the coaches bench their best players?  It makes no sense.  Ridley and Wilson are clearly the most talented and explosive backs on their teams.  By not using them coaches are hurting their teams' chances of winning.  The craziest part is they really haven't even failed yet - they haven't had time to!  They both got benched after one or two fumbles and then the coach assumes that it will continue.  Why not find out at least, it might be an aberration.  If they fumbled in the middle of the year you wouldn't bench them.  Makes no sense. 

So coaches, play your best players and if the turnovers get out of hand then bench the guy.  Until then, enjoy the good runs.  (I wrote this because I have both Ridley and Wilson on my fantasy team and it is killing me.)

"Butts - the number one cause of fumbles by idiots."

Peter King is Crazy

Every Monday Peter King, writer for Sport's Illustrated, writes his hallmark Monday Morning Quarterback column.  I like this column.  I like Peter King.  I also like advanced metrics.  This Monday's column made me not like all of those things - specifically the goat section.  This is what he wrote:

Goat of the Week

Greg Schiano, head coach, Tampa Bay. The choice Schiano had to make with 70 seconds left in the fourth quarter and a 16-14 lead over New Orleans, with a 4th-and-3 at the Saints’ 29, in a game in which neither team had any timeouts left: He could have punted and pinned Drew Brees at the, say, 10-yard line with 64 seconds left. Brees would have needed maybe 60 yards to get into Garrett Hartley field-goal range. Or he could have the August waiver signing from Buffalo, Rian Lindell, try a 47-yard field goal. If Lindell made it, the Saints would have had to drive for a touchdown to win the game. If Lindell missed it, the Saints would get the ball at their 37- and need 30 yards to be in field-goal range. Schiano decided to try the field goal. It was shanked. Brees went 54 yards, sweatlessly, to the winning chip-shot field goal as the clock expired. Bad decision by a coach under fire.

Here is my argument - who punts form the 29 yard line?  Has that ever happened?  I asked a few of my football friends what they would do and punt was the third option for everyone I asked.  Scoring a touchdown is so much harder than getting a field goal, even more so when you know that the Saints had only scored 13 points in the game.  I would maybe argue that they should have gone for it because even if you don't get it you are trading a shot at sealing the win for 10-15 yards of field position.  I also take issue with King slamming Lindell as a kicker.  He is older but this guy is a grizzled veteran.  Why have a kicker if you don't trust him to make a 46 yard field goal?  Now to Peter King's aid comes the dork patrol with win expectancy numbers:

"You can check out the nerd article here."

There is no way these numbers take into account all the factors involved.  The Saints had only one touchdown to that point in the whole game?  Why would Schiano expect one in the last minute?  Maybe some stat nerds kill the coach for the field goal attempt, but if he punted and got a touch-back or they scored anyway he would get much more heat.  Then again if the Bucs don't suck, no one cares.

ESPN...Sucks

I know with that title this post could be about 800 things from anything Tebow to ow they don't cover things they don't own the rights to.  This rant is more about the general appearance of the online presence of the worldwide leader.  Check out this screen grab:

Maybe I have not noticed it before but check out the top bar for scores.  Scores are probably a third to half of ESPN traffic, people wanting to check out the latest box scores or, if there are no games that day, see the schedules for the upcoming days.  The first one listed is MLB, a little odd now that we are in football season but it is every day so I give them a pass.  What is next most important (left usually being more important in any list since it is read first)...WNBA!!! What the hell!?!?  Are the games on ESPN? None I have ever seen. Is this because they are doing the Title 9 documentaries?  There is no excuse for the WNBA being ahead of NFL and NCAAF.  This cannot get any worse - what's next.  CRICKET!!!!!  Which way is up - black is white - cats chasing dogs.  No way 100 people click on that a week.  Out of those hundred people 88 of them are fishermen looking for bait tips (see what I did there - 88...Dale...nice).  How crazy is that to be on ESPN's homepage? This has to have been done because ESPN got blamed for not being multi-ethnic enough.  Now an executive can say "We love all sports - we even have cricket scores on our homepage!  Who can argue with that?"  Everyone you bastard.  Take it off and put a tab called "more NFL" - I guarantee is gets way more clicks than cricket.

Bus Stop?

One of the most annoying things that will happen to you five times maximum in your life is being stuck behind a bus at a railroad with no one else on the road and they totally stop!  They may even open the doors!  Why are they doing that?

Don't get too mad at them - it is actually a law.  Transfer your hatred from the bus to politicians (shouldn't be hard).  All buses must stop at all railroad crossing, even if there is no one on board.  In some places the bus has to open the doors and put on its warning lights!  Then, the law says motorists should not proceed until the bus is completely cleared of the tracks.

What is the point of all this?  If a train was coming how would stopping beforehand and opening the doors do anything - if it comes when you are on the tracks you are on the tracks?  Just stop if there is already a train.  You cannot really get rid of the chance of a train coming out of nowhere - which they never do.  The only point I can see is because it is a .000001% more chance of a lot of people getting hurt.  But then why make buses do the whole dance when no one is on board?  Aren't they just a big car at that point?  I don't get the extra precaution.  If it is so dangerous then buses should do this at all intersections.  I am sure that the law was the product of an over-ambitious politician trying to make news after an absurdly rare bus accident.

One more point, do school buses really think it is safer to got 15 mph UNDER the speed limit on the highway?  If everyone is going 65 mph then going 50 mph is very dangerous.  Just go the speed limit, bus.

"This seems the much more likely outcome when a vehicle stops for no reason."

The New Batman

If you haven't heard by now, Christopher Nolan has announced that Ben Affleck will be playing Bruce Wayne/Batman in the upcoming Superman sequel.  A couple of weeks ago, I put out a list of people who I thought would make a good Batman and guess what?  Ben Affleck was not on my list.  And based on what I've been reading, internet nerds are really upset about this casting.  However, after thinking it over I think Ben will do a decent job of it.

First, let's look at why Ben Affleck is being hated on for taking the part.  The biggest problem is that no matter who Nolan picked, nobody was going to live up to our expectations after Christian Bale's take on the role.  So that already puts Affleck in a bind.  Next, Affleck was really really bad is his only other movie based on a superhero.  You all know which movie that is.  Daredevil.  And he was really really awful in that movie so people are just assuming he is going to fuck this one up, too.  With those two strikes against him, I can see why people don't like him taking over the cape and cowl.

Now, here are the positives.  When he did Daredevil, it was in the height of his Jennifer Lopez days and people found those two really annoying and it probably made people hate anything he did at the time, even if that movie was terrible no matter what.  Next, has anyone watched his more recent stuff?  The Town and Argo are award-winning films and Affleck was great in those movies on top of the fact that he was also the director.  I really feel like he has grown up since then and his effort as Batman will be completely different from his effort as Daredevil.  Last, people freaked the hell out when Christopher Nolan cast Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Knight and do you remember how that turned out?  Yeah, Nolan knows what the hell he's doing so maybe we should give him the benefit of a doubt on this casting as well.

Oddly enough, Affleck might not be catching nearly as much shit as Michael Keaton did when he was cast as Batman back in the day and Keaton freaking nailed the part (and to make things ironic, fans were pissed when he didn't sign up to do a third Batman movie).  I really feel like we should give Affleck a chance.  Sure, he's not going to be as good as Christian Bale, but that was already a given no matter who took the role.  Plus, this is going to be a Superman movie with Batman in it, so maybe we are just blowing this out of proportion to begin with and should just chill the hell out and let Christopher Nolan do what he does, which is make incredible movies.

"This actually makes sense."