YOUNG AND RELENTLESS

Vista del Lago hasn't taken long to establish itself as one of the area's premier basketball programs.

The No. 2 Eagles, playing with their first senior class and coming off their inaugural varsity season in which they made the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV semifinals, are 14-1 and have won three tournaments, including the Senator's Cup division of the Max Preps Classic Holiday Classic at Torrey Pines (Dec. 26-30).

Vista defeated College Park of Woodlands, Texas, 72-52 in the championship game behind senior Hayden Lescault's 22 points.

Lescault scored 85 points in the four games and earned his third MVP tournament award of the season.

The 6-foot-4 guard was the top player in leading the Eagles to the Russ Peterich Classic title Dec. 3-5 in Santa Rosa and again at Folsom's Bulldog Classic Dec. 10-12. Lescault had 25 points in the Eagles' 79-77 double-overtime win in the championship game against Center.

In addition to Lescault, coach Jeff Bridges has back all his key players, including guards Kalib Smith and Jaqyai Wiley, post players Marques White and Demarcus Wishom and wing Michael Young.

Wing Spencer Hatten, who missed most of last season with an Achilles tendon injury, has been a huge addition, landing an all-tournament spot at the Folsom tournament.

JAMES LEGEND GROWS

As a Stanford scholarship recruit and the go-to player on Oak Ridge's nationally ranked girls basketball team, Sara James is getting all kinds of on-court attention this season.

The 5-foot-10 senior guard is facing double and triple teams and numerous gadget defenses in a bid to slow her down. Despite that, the returning Bee Player of the Year is averaging 23 points and 10 rebounds a game.

James also continues to amaze Trojans coach Steve White, who has coached her since her freshman season.

He called her 33-point performance in a 61-59 win over Atlanta's Westlake High Dec. 30 "vintage Sara James."

"She was getting manhandled and mugged and she responds with 33 points," White said. "Westlake had 6-4 and 6-3 players inside and a couple of really good guards."

She made them pay by making 10 of 11 free throws.

"Sara made some spectacular shots," White said. "She scored on putbacks, steals and transition baskets. What makes her special is how long and hard she works."

TURNER ENTERTAINS UCLA COACH

Sacramento's Josiah Turner, one of the top junior guards in the country, put on quite a show for the fans and UCLA coach Ben Howland at the Oaks Christian Holiday Classic in Southern California Dec. 28.

With Howland watching from atop the bleachers, Turner had a career-high 48 points, including the game-winning three-pointer from the top of the key at the buzzer to lead the Dragons to a 71-70 second-round win over Pasadena.

Turner made 17 of 30 shots from the field, including four three-pointers, and also hit 10 of 11 free throws.

Howland reportedly is strongly interested in the 6-3 Turner, who watched the Bruins play Delaware State the night before at Pauley Pavilion.

Turner, who is averaging 28 points, originally committed to Arizona State but re-opened recruiting during the summer.

VALLEY OF SUCCESS

One of the big early season success stories is what coach Mat Bradley is doing at Valley.

The Vikings won 10 of their first 11 games, including an 80-73 win over No. 12 Del Oro Dec. 22 and 76-75 triumph over Vallejo on Tuesday.

Bradley took over the Valley program last season and led the Vikings to a 13-15 record and a playoff appearance.

In 2007-08, he served as interim coach and did a commendable job at Pleasant Grove after Lance Corgiat resigned amid a players' revolt.

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT

Fans got their money's worth during the semifinals between No. 15 Yuba City and El Cerrito at the Hornet Classic Dec. 29 in Redding.

The two teams played through four overtimes with El Cerrito eventually winning 115-111.

Yuba City's Marquis Young kept the Honkers' quest for a win alive by hitting a 70-footer with 0.9 seconds to play in the first overtime.

WHO'S THE BEST

There's plenty of debate about who fields the area's top boys basketball league. But based strictly on won-loss records, the Sierra Foothill League dominated in November and December.

Six of the seven SFL teams had winning records and it went a combined 64-31. No. 5 Woodcreek and No. 14 Granite Bay led the way with 12-3 records.

The Cody Kale-led Rocklin Thunder, the defending California Interscholastic Federation D-II Northern California champions, went 11-4.

ANDY ALFARO aalfaro@sacbee.com Vista del Lago senior guard Hayden Lescault has earned three tournament MVP awards this season.

RANDALL BENTON Bee file, 2009 Sara James, right, of Oak Ridge,

YOUNG AND RELENTLESS

Vista del Lago hasn't taken long to establish itself as one of the area's premier basketball programs.

The No. 2 Eagles, playing with their first senior class and coming off their inaugural varsity season in which they made the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV semifinals, are 14-1 and have won three tournaments, including the Senator's Cup division of the Max Preps Classic Holiday Classic at Torrey Pines (Dec. 26-30).

Vista defeated College Park of Woodlands, Texas, 72-52 in the championship game behind senior Hayden Lescault's 22 points.

Lescault scored 85 points in the four games and earned his third MVP tournament award of the season.

The 6-foot-4 guard was the top player in leading the Eagles to the Russ Peterich Classic title Dec. 3-5 in Santa Rosa and again at Folsom's Bulldog Classic Dec. 10-12. Lescault had 25 points in the Eagles' 79-77 double-overtime win in the championship game against Center.

In addition to Lescault, coach Jeff Bridges has back all his key players, including guards Kalib Smith and Jaqyai Wiley, post players Marques White and Demarcus Wishom and wing Michael Young.

Wing Spencer Hatten, who missed most of last season with an Achilles tendon injury, has been a huge addition, landing an all-tournament spot at the Folsom tournament.

JAMES LEGEND GROWS

As a Stanford scholarship recruit and the go-to player on Oak Ridge's nationally ranked girls basketball team, Sara James is getting all kinds of on-court attention this season.

The 5-foot-10 senior guard is facing double and triple teams and numerous gadget defenses in a bid to slow her down. Despite that, the returning Bee Player of the Year is averaging 23 points and 10 rebounds a game.

James also continues to amaze Trojans coach Steve White, who has coached her since her freshman season.

He called her 33-point performance in a 61-59 win over Atlanta's Westlake High Dec. 30 "vintage Sara James."

"She was getting manhandled and mugged and she responds with 33 points," White said. "Westlake had 6-4 and 6-3 players inside and a couple of really good guards."

She made them pay by making 10 of 11 free throws.

"Sara made some spectacular shots," White said. "She scored on putbacks, steals and transition baskets. What makes her special is how long and hard she works."

TURNER ENTERTAINS UCLA COACH

Sacramento's Josiah Turner, one of the top junior guards in the country, put on quite a show for the fans and UCLA coach Ben Howland at the Oaks Christian Holiday Classic in Southern California Dec. 28.

With Howland watching from atop the bleachers, Turner had a career-high 48 points, including the game-winning three-pointer from the top of the key at the buzzer to lead the Dragons to a 71-70 second-round win over Pasadena.

Turner made 17 of 30 shots from the field, including four three-pointers, and also hit 10 of 11 free throws.

Howland reportedly is strongly interested in the 6-3 Turner, who watched the Bruins play Delaware State the night before at Pauley Pavilion.

Turner, who is averaging 28 points, originally committed to Arizona State but re-opened recruiting during the summer.

VALLEY OF SUCCESS

One of the big early season success stories is what coach Mat Bradley is doing at Valley.

The Vikings won 10 of their first 11 games, including an 80-73 win over No. 12 Del Oro Dec. 22 and 76-75 triumph over Vallejo on Tuesday.

Bradley took over the Valley program last season and led the Vikings to a 13-15 record and a playoff appearance.

In 2007-08, he served as interim coach and did a commendable job at Pleasant Grove after Lance Corgiat resigned amid a players' revolt.

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT

Fans got their money's worth during the semifinals between No. 15 Yuba City and El Cerrito at the Hornet Classic Dec. 29 in Redding.

The two teams played through four overtimes with El Cerrito eventually winning 115-111.

Yuba City's Marquis Young kept the Honkers' quest for a win alive by hitting a 70-footer with 0.9 seconds to play in the first overtime.

WHO'S THE BEST

There's plenty of debate about who fields the area's top boys basketball league. But based strictly on won-loss records, the Sierra Foothill League dominated in November and December.

Six of the seven SFL teams had winning records and it went a combined 64-31. No. 5 Woodcreek and No. 14 Granite Bay led the way with 12-3 records.

The Cody Kale-led Rocklin Thunder, the defending California Interscholastic Federation D-II Northern California champions, went 11-4.

ANDY ALFARO aalfaro@sacbee.com Vista del Lago senior guard Hayden Lescault has earned three tournament MVP awards this season.

RANDALL BENTON Bee file, 2009 Sara James, right, of Oak Ridge,

<p>Filed under: <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/category/iphone/" rel="tag">iPhone</a>, <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/category/ipod-touch/" rel="tag">iPod touch</a></p>Yesterday Mike pointed out some <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2010/01/05/ces-goes-down-to-the-docks/">iPod and iPhone docks seen at CES</a>, but our friends at Engadget have unearthed a steady stream of iPhone goodies at CES 2010. Here's a sampling:<br /> <div class="roundup"> <div class="col"> <ul class="pod"> <li> <h4><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/06/onstar-and-chevy-show-off-android-blackberry-and-iphone-contro/" title="Read OnStar and Chevy show off Android, BlackBerry, and iPhone control apps for Volt">OnStar and Chevy show off Android, BlackBerry, and iPhone control apps for Volt</a></h4> <p><img alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/volt-2010105-600-05_thumbnail.jpg" />Chevy and OnStar officially launched their suite of mobile applications for the Volt, set to be available for BlackBerry, Android, and the iPhone and set to deploy with the launch of the car itself sometime between the end of 2010 and 2011.</p> </li> </ul> <ul class="pod"> <li> <h4><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/04/tivit-promises-to-bring-mobile-dtv-to-the-iphone-and-other-wifi/" title="Read Tivit promises to bring Mobile DTV to the iPhone and other WiFi-equipped mobile devices">Tivit promises to bring Mobile DTV to the iPhone and other WiFi-equipped mobile devices</a></h4> <p><img alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/tivit-iphone-rm-eng_thumbnail.jpg" />Dubbed Tivit, the pocketable box is a said to be a bit smaller and lighter than a deck of cards and claims to stream television to a number of WiFi-enabled devices, including the iPhone...</p> </li> </ul> </div> <!-- /col --> <div class="col"> <ul class="pod"> <li> <h4><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/05/parrots-ar-drone-seeks-us-out-destroys-us-as-we-go-hands-on/" title="Read Parrot's AR.Drone seeks us out, destroys us as we go hands-on">Parrot's AR.Drone seeks us out, destroys us as we go hands-on</a></h4> <p><img alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/01/parrot-ar-drone-itw-00-sm_thumbnail.jpg" />Any device that supports 802.11 can connect to the drone to send controls to it and, interestingly, download video from the camera on the nose. The first such device is the iPhone...</p> </li> </ul> <h4>Also of interest:</h4> <ul class="other-reviews"> <li><a title="iLive storms back with 33 new iPod / iPhone-friendly audio products" href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/06/ilive-storms-back-with-33-new-ipod-iphone-friendly-audio-produ/">iLive storms back with 33 new iPod / iPhone-friendly audio products</a></li> <li><a title="iHome's new clock radios will ensure neither you nor your iPhone ever sleep too late" href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/06/ihomes-new-clock-radios-will-ensure-neither-you-nor-your-iphone/">iHome's new clock radios will ensure neither you nor your iPhone ever sleep too late</a></li> </ul> </div> <!-- /col --></div> <!-- /roundup --><p><a href="http://www.tuaw.com">TUAW</a><a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2010/01/06/dtv-flying-robots-and-car-control-more-iphone-goodies-from-ces/">DTV, flying robots and car control: more iPhone goodies from CES</a> originally appeared on <a href="http://www.tuaw.com">The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)</a> on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our <a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/">terms for use of feeds</a>.<br /></p><h6></h6><a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2010/01/06/dtv-flying-robots-and-car-control-more-iphone-goodies-from-ces/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry">Permalink</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.tuaw.com/forward/19305126/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email">Email this</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2010/01/06/dtv-flying-robots-and-car-control-more-iphone-goodies-from-ces/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry">Comments</a><br clear="both" /> <br clear="both" /> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:4b067d9932a432e713cd0a631f5f648d:EswZ7Vs89314LwRcQOs%2BMjiozgXZynPf4a0on7%2F2ynud5Y4%2BCeK9KxlLjrMmW604pzun0r3zBKat"><img border="0" title="Add to digg" alt="Add to digg" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/digg.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:98b41fbc131be008fa748c3a795726b3:GAzd0mkUMdKAdooX05GdNVj7BJCcHTWHUxbkSVkF7e7XHQMIlQLGTt9qxUKmz6L%2FGHwngQIVngWN"><img border="0" title="Add to del.icio.us" alt="Add to del.icio.us" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/delicious.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:20d9702a810481b5c0eb9cb2fb4fffe6:jKsTmVXhRchAoSqHo%2FKUUE778pm7UIjdEGlUy51lAryRuXUAS%2FtVKfP5asIkRocfuLyvD5qmbXXk"><img border="0" title="Add to Google" alt="Add to Google" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/google.png" /></a> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:ed636f4a3f561744cd242ac248d7250e:SQ2xOQXXA7M76XeaM6p5BEQamW%2FcEYU8qwhop1gBhO6Ac1h9odULHE57RZNtpDlWhJsTSmEm9gB5gQ%3D%3D"><img border="0" title="Add to StumbleUpon" alt="Add to StumbleUpon" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/stumbleit.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:072ab63b2b83508421f1ebd5b0fac0b0:XIxFnYGgtKmXMXYdALnHKlfZOsqjeuDnoiZdynAT5qG8C8IWt8N1txLN%2Fsinv8ojJJRAWLQB5e1CxQ%3D%3D"><img border="0" title="Add to Facebook" alt="Add to Facebook" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/facebook.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:eb2ebeaa1bdc2c1214431f1367762278:yZd4DK8wZuIcHwvZ0noIAhi0ilH0lqaE4rwwxmucy4vS6t2ZQxX2fPIdQdIOQi3F38GBXz6Bw3r5"><img border="0" title="Add to Reddit" alt="Add to Reddit" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/reddit.png" /></a> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:b37dbb87346ac1c5eb370e4ac059d753:xvZ6BMDVPSIwo5i5Nz49o%2Fjh3YbsDefNRVbI%2B3UT5%2FV1LKDVvcrcSQeye55jwTWKcoYxCZsQlf%2Fa4g%3D%3D"><img border="0" title="Add to Technorati" alt="Add to Technorati" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/technorati.png" /></a> <br clear="both" /> <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=9a12e466e8b248695ac6c32220965990&p=1"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=9a12e466e8b248695ac6c32220965990&p=1" /></a> <img alt="" height="0" width="0" border="0" src="http://a.rfihub.com/eus.gif?eui=2226" /><br clear="all" /> <img src="http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?kw=" align="absmiddle" /> <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=9a12e466e8b248695ac6c32220965990&p=64&kw=iPhone">iPhone</a> - <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=9a12e466e8b248695ac6c32220965990&p=64&kw=IpodTouch">IpodTouch</a> - <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=9a12e466e8b248695ac6c32220965990&p=64&kw=IPod+Classic">IPod Classic</a> - <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=9a12e466e8b248695ac6c32220965990&p=64&kw=Apple">Apple</a> - <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=9a12e466e8b248695ac6c32220965990&p=64&kw=iPod">iPod</a>

Sourced from: "The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)"

The blockbuster video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is about to get bigger. Microsoft announced an an exclusive expansion pack for the Xbox 360 at CES this evening, and also confirmed that the Project Natal motion controller will be released for the 2010 holiday season--the pricing was not revealed.

Update: According to Activision, the Modern Warfare 2 is a timed exclusive, available first on Xbox 360--in other words, not forever.

"2010 will be the biggest year in Xbox's history," according to Craig Beilinson, the Director of Marketing for Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division. Beilinson also cited the long list of exclusives coming this year: Crackdown 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Mass Effect 2, Fable 3, Halo: Reach, and the Modern Warfare 2 expansion.

Another new development revealed during Steve Ballmer's CES keynote is Game Room, a space on Xbox Live where players can create a virtual arcade with games from the classic days of Atari and Intellivision. Xbox Live members can invite friends' avatars to their Room and challenge them in said games, providing virtual gameplay similar to Sony's PlayStation Home. Microsoft plans to release a mammoth 1,000 titles for the Game Room over the next three years.

Microsoft also released unit sales figures for the console: 39 million Xbox 360s sold worldwide, with over 20 million Xbox Live members--during the week after Christmas, Xbox Live reached a record-breaking 2.2 million simultaneous users, with 1 new member joining the service each second. Since the original Xbox launched in November of 2002, 500 million games have sold, contributing to a $20 Billion Xbox ecosystem.

In a well-timed bit of counter-spin, Sony released unit sales figures for the competing PlayStation 3 console just over an hour before Ballmer's keynote. 3.8 million PS3s were sold worldwide during the five weeks of the holiday season, a 76% increase compared to the same time last year--a record for the console. Sony is also boasting 38 million registered accounts for its PlayStation Network.

So who's winning the console war? Given the number of footnote explanations in Sony's release, and the missing details from Microsoft's, it's still anybody's guess.

Sony's launching thirty-eight TVs. The best, the XBR-LX900, is a 3D-ready edge-lit LED set that goes up to 60 inches with 240Hz, Wi-Fi (for video services like Netflix), face detection (for auto-backlight dimming) and an anti-reflective panel. And Three-Dee.

I'd personally go with the XBR-HX900, which is 3D like the LX900, but it's got LED backlighting with local dimming. It's just smaller, only going up to 52 inches. The new "Monolithic" design language looks like classic Sony, but hey, it's really nice. They're available for pre-order tonight on Sony Style.

Stepping down further, past the warm comfort of XBR, 3D continues in the HX800, but you lose perks like built-in Wi-Fi. Or with the NX800, you can trade in 3D for Wi-Fi, and going further, 240Hz gives way to 120Hz, on down the line.

BRAVIA XBR-LX900 Series 3D HDTV
Available this summer, the BRAVIA XBR-LX900 series features integrated 3D functionality and screen sizes including 60 (XBR-60LX900), 52 (XBR-52LX900), 46 (XBR-46LX900), and 40-inch (XBR-40LX900).
The full HD 1080p (1920 x 1080) models feature Edge LED backlight, Sony's new Monolithic Design and Motionflow™ PRO 240Hz motion compensation technology, which helps produces smooth images in fast moving content such as sport and action movies. Sony's 240Hz technology also reduces the mixing of images of 3D content assigned to the left and right eyes, while the BRAVIA Engine™ 3 full digital video processor uses a collection of enhanced algorithms to significantly reduce noise, enhance overall image detail, and optimize contrast so every scene produces sharp, vibrant, life-like images.
The LX900 models also feature Sony's new OptiContrast panel. Designed with a clear surface treatment and a resin sheet sandwiched between the LCD display panel and glass plate, the OptiContrast panel minimizes the reflection and refraction of external and internal light producing deeper images with superior black levels even in bright rooms.

The models include integrated Wi-Fi for an easy connection to broadband home networks.  Once connected, users can access thousands of streaming movies, videos, music and more from Netflix, Amazon Video on Demand, YouTube™, Slacker® Internet Radio, Pandora®, NPR, Sony Pictures, Sony Music, and over 25 total providers through the Sony BRAVIA Internet Video platform.
Also, with the touch of a button, users can access the latest in news, weather, USA Today sports, Yahoo Finance, Twitter, Flickr photos, and FrameChannel through small applications called BRAVIA Internet Widgets.  The widgets can be uniquely positioned anywhere on the TV screen for a custom viewing experience.

The models also feature playback of personal content including digital pictures, video, and music through USB and DLNA® certified network connections.
Another new feature is Sony's Intelligent Presence Sensor with face detection. The sensor detects if you've stepped away from the TV or are not watching the screen and automatically dims the backlight. After an extended period, the TV will turn off if no one has re-entered the viewing area. Additionally, the Intelligent Presence Sensor's newly added Position Control feature detects a user's viewing position to deliver optimized video/sound balance, while the Distance Alert feature helps to keep small children at an eye-friendly distance.

The models also offer Sony's BRAVIA Sync™ for easy operation with other BRAVIA Sync devices such as AV receivers and Blu-ray Disc™ players, and TVGuide® on-screen channel guide.

BRAVIA XBR-HX900 Series 3D Ready HDTV
The XBR-HX900 series 3D ready (with the addition of Sony active shutter glasses and transmitter, both sold separately) full HD (1920 x 1080p) models feature Intelligent Dynamic LED backlight and Sony's new Monolithic Design.
The model's full-array LED backlighting improves contrast and dynamic range by local dimming that controls the LED backlight level by area so that detail is maintained in the dark areas, while other areas are driven near peak brightness. The technology reduces unnecessary light emission resulting in true and deep blacks compared to conventional LED backlit models.
The models also feature Sony's new ambient sensor that automatically optimizes the TV's color and brightness according to the room environment and lighting conditions for optimized settings.
Featuring screen sizes including 52 (XBR-52HX900) and 46-inches (XBR-46HX900), the model offers four HDMI 1.4 inputs, one component input, one composite input, one component/composite selectable inputs, and a PC input (HD15) with PC/TV picture-in-picture.
The models also feature:
Monolithic Design
Motionflow PRO 240Hz motion compensation technology
OptiContrast panel
USB Wireless-LAN adapter for easy wireless network connection (sold separately)
BRAVIA Internet Video and BRAVIA Internet Widgets
BRAVIA Engine 3 with Intelligent Image Enhancer
USB and DLNA photo/music/video playback

BRAVIA KDL-HX800 Series 3D Ready HDTV
Also 3D ready (with the addition of Sony active shutter glasses and transmitter, sold separately), the BRAVIA KDL-HX800 series will be available this summer in screen sizes including 55-inch class (54.6-inches measured diagonally) (KDL-55HX800), 46 (KDL-46HX800) and 40-inch (KDL-40HX800).
The full HD 1080p (1920 x 1080) models utilize a Dynamic Edge LED backlight with local dimming for improved contrast and dynamic range.
Other features include:
Motionflow PRO 240Hz Technology for Smooth Motion
Ambient sensor
USB Wireless-LAN adapter for easy wireless network connection (sold separately)
BRAVIA Internet Video and BRAVIA Internet Widgets
BRAVIA Engine 3
USB and DLNA photo/music/video playback

Sony also introduced several other new BRAVIA models with various features and screen sizes. They include:
BRAVIA KDL-NX800 series
Full HD 1080p (1920 x 1080) Edge LED backlit LCD
Monolithic Design
Motionflow 240Hz Technology for Smooth Motion
Integrated Wi-Fi wireless network capabilities (802.11)
BRAVIA Internet Video and BRAVIA Internet Widgets
BRAVIA Engine 3
USB and DLNA photo/music/video playback
Available in March
Screen sizes include 60 (KDL-60NX800: $4,000), 52 (KDL-52NX800: $3,400) and 46-inch (KDL-46NX800: $2,800)

BRAVIA KDL-NX700 Series
Full HD 1080p (1920 x 1080) Edge LED backlit LCD
Monolithic Design
Motionflow 120Hz Technology for Smooth Motion
Integrated Wi-Fi wireless network capabilities (802.11N)
BRAVIA Internet Video and BRAVIA Internet Widgets
BRAVIA Engine 3
USB and DLNA photo/music/video playback
Available in March
Screen sizes include 46 (KDL-46NX700: $2,600) and 40-inch (KDL-40NX700: $2,100)

BRAVIA KDL-EX700 Series
Full HD 1080p (1920 x 1080) Edge LED backlit LCD
Presence Sensor, Ambient sensor
Motionflow 120Hz Technology for Smooth Motion
BRAVIA Internet Video and BRAVIA Internet Widgets
BRAVIA Engine 3
USB and DLNA photo/music/video playback
Available in March
Screen sizes include 60 (KDL-60EX700: $3,900), 52 (KDL-52EX700: $2,800), 46 (KDL-46EX700: $2,200), 40-inch (KDL-40EX700: $1,700), and 32-inch class (31.5-inches measure diagonally) (KDL-32EX700: $1,100)

BRAVIA KDL-EX600 Series
Full HD 1080p (1920 x 1080) Edge LED backlit LCD
Ambient sensor
BRAVIA Engine 2
BRAVIA Sync
USB photo/music/video playback
Available in March
Screen sizes include 46 (KDL-46EX600: $1,900), 40 (KDL-40EX600: $1,400) and 32-inch class (31.5-inches measure diagonally) (KDL-32EX600: $800)

BRAVIA KDL-EX500 Series
Full HD 1080p (1920 x 1080) CCFL backlit LCD
Motionflow 120Hz Technology for Smooth Motion
Ambient sensor
BRAVIA Engine 2
BRAVIA Sync
USB photo/music/video playback
Available in February
Screen sizes include 60 (KDL-60EX500: $3,300), 55-inch class (54.6-inches measured diagonally) (KDL-55EX500: $2,400), 46 (KDL-46EX500: $1,600), 40 (KDL-40EX500: $1,100), and 32-inch class (31.5-inches measure diagonally) (KDL-32EX500: $800)

BRAVIA KDL-EX40B Series
Full HD 1080p (1920 x 1080) CCFL backlit LCD
Integrated Blu-ray Disc player
BRAVIA Internet Video and BRAVIA Internet Widgets
BRAVIA Engine 3
Ambient sensor
Ethernet input
USB and DLNA photo/music/video playback
Available in May
Screen sizes include 40 (KDL-40EX40B: $1,000) and 32-inch class (31.5-inches measure diagonally) (KDL-32EX40B: $800)

BRAVIA KDL-EX400 Series
Full HD 1080p (1920 x 1080) CCFL backlit LCD
Ambient sensor
BRAVIA Engine 2
BRAVIA Sync
USB photo/music/video playback
Available in February
Screen sizes include 46 (KDL-46EX400: $1,200), 40 (KDL-40EX400: $800), and 32-inch class (31.5-inches measure diagonally) (KDL-32EX400: $600)

BRAVIA KDL-EX308 Series
720p (1366 x 768) CCFL backlit LCD
Wi-Fi with USB adapter (included)
BRAVIA Internet Video and BRAVIA Internet Widgets
BRAVIA Engine 3
BRAVIA Sync
USB and DLNA photo/music/video playback
Available in March
Screen sizes include 32-inch class (31.5-inches measure diagonally) (KDL-32EX308: $530) and 22-inch class (21.6 inches measured diagonally) (KDL-22EX308: $380)

BRAVIA KDL-BX300 Series
720p (1366 x 768) CCFL backlit LCD
BRAVIA Engine 2
BRAVIA Sync
Available in March
Screen sizes include 32-inch class (31.5-inches measure diagonally) (KDL-32BX300: $500) and 22-inch class (21.6 inches measured diagonally) (KDL-22BX300: $350)

Bloodied girls in tight clothes rule! | Photo courtesy of Epic Slap, LLC

The Hammer comes out swinging this week! Thursday, see Youth in Revolt - with your very own Michael Cera & Miguel Arteta! If the line's too long, hike it up to campus for another youthful, revolting picture, when Melnitz Movies hosts Australian Oscar submission Samson & Delilah and director Warwick Thornton. Sunday, Fly Away back to the Hammer for youth in rescue of geese - with a young Anna Pacquin (sadly not in attendance)! If that wasn't enough Hammer, UCLA's Film & Television Archive comes out slinging, with a series devoted to Billy The Kid & Jesse James. All classics, although for some strange reason, they omitted Billy The Kid vs. Dracula...

If the Western is much too modern, the Egyptian features a glourious medieval programme, sporting the legends of Robin Hood, Henry II, King Arthur & George Romero! Ye simply must bring ye whole family Saturday, when the Renaissance Pleasure Faire brings their finest food & wares to accompany Ireland's finest animation, The Secret of Kells. If these lords & ladies be too chivalrous for thy preference, get thee to the Beverly! Antichrist will rip any sense of equality from your body, and if you make it to midnight, Santa Sangre will obliterate any sense of sense from your brain. For an ever-so-slightly less offensive approach to misogyny, the Nuart has Bitch Slap, which is exactly what it sounds like, just with bigger breasts & more blood.

Full list appears below. See you at the movies!

Which is why I used both photographs of her. | Photo courtesy of Epic Slap, LLC

All Week
The Bicycle Thief (1949) (Laemmle's Music Hall 3)
Bitch Slap (2009) (Nuart Theatre)
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) (Laemmle's Fallbrook 7)
White Ribbon (2009) (Laemmle's Playhouse 7) (Laemmle's Town Center 5)
Youth in Revolt (2009) (Laemmle's Playhouse 7)

Thursday 1/7
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) / Robin and Mariam (1976) (Egyptian Theatre) (Kings and Queens, Knights and Jesters)
Antichrist (2009) / Hour of the Wolf (1968) (New Beverly Cinema)
Avatar (2009) (Arclight Sherman Oaks) (21+ screening)
The Lovely Bones (2009) (Arclight Hollywood) (21+ screening)
Samson and Delilah (2009) (free event w/ director Warwick Thornton and educator and preservationist Robert Rosen) (Melnitz Movies)
The Thin Red Line (1998) (w/ special guests) (Aero Theatre)
Youth in Revolt (2009) (free event w/ Michael Cera and director Miguel Arteta) (Hammer Museum)

Friday 1/8
Antichrist (2009) / Hour of the Wolf (1968) (New Beverly Cinema)
Billy the Kid (1930) / I Shot Jesse James (1949) (UCLA Film & Television Archive @ Hammer Museum) (Two Western Myths: Billy the Kid and Jesse James)
Brothers (2009) / In America (2003) (w/ director Jim Sheridan) (Aero Theatre) (Jim Sheridan in America)
Conan the Barbarian (1982) (Regency Fairfax) (Insomniac Cinema Midnight Movie)
Fever Night (2009) (midnight screening) (New Beverly Cinema)
The Lion in Winter (1968) / Becket (1964) (Egyptian Theatre) (Kings and Queens, Knights and Jesters)
Sunset Boulevard (1950) (Nuart Theatre) (Cine-Insomnia Midnight Movie)
That Certain Age (1938) (Old Town Music Hall)

Saturday 1/9
The Beaches of AgnËs (2008) (weekend morning show) (Laemmle's Playhouse 7) (Laemmle's Sunset 5)
Bitch Slap (2009) (w/ Eric Gruendemann, Brian Peck, Julia Voth, Erin Cummings, America Olivo, Ron Melendez, and Minae Noji at 7:30pm and 10:00pm screenings) (Nuart Theatre)
Box-Ur Shorts Awards Night (New Beverly Cinema)
La Danse (2009) (weekend morning show) (Laemmle's Monica 4-Plex)
My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown (1989) / In The Name of the Father (1993) (Aero Theatre) (Jim Sheridan in America)
Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) (Sins O' The Flesh Midnight Show) (Nuart Theatre)
Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) (Midnight Insanity Midnight Show) (Warner Grand Theatre)
Santa Sangre (1989) (New Beverly Cinema) (New Beverly Midnights)
The Secret of Kells (2009) (w/ Renaissance Pleasure Faire) (Egyptian Theatre) (Kings and Queens, Knights and Jesters)
That Certain Age (1938) (Old Town Music Hall)
The True Story of Jesse James (1957) / The Left-Handed Gun (1958) (UCLA Film & Television Archive @ Hammer Museum) (Two Western Myths: Billy the Kid and Jesse James)
Valentino: The Last Emperor (2008) (weekend morning show) (Laemmle's Monica 4-Plex) (Laemmle's Sunset 5)

Sunday 1/10
The Beaches of AgnËs (2008) (weekend morning show) (Laemmle's Playhouse 7) (Laemmle's Sunset 5)
Body Heat (1981) (w/ Bobbie O'Steen and Carol Littleton, A.C.E.) (UCLA Film & Television Archive @ Hammer Museum) (Film Editing: The Invisible Cut)
Elvis '56 (1987) / Jailhouse Rock (1957) (w/ Elvis' 75th Birthday Celebration and Francine York) (Egyptian Theatre)
Excalibur (1981) / Knightriders (1981) (w/ Ed Harris) (Egyptian Theatre) (Kings and Queens, Knights and Jesters)
Fly Away Home (1996) (free event) (Hammer Museum)
La Danse (2009) (weekend morning show) (Laemmle's Monica 4-Plex)
Monsieur Verdoux (1947) / A New Leaf (1971) (New Beverly Cinema)
Tintenherz (Inkheart) (2008) (w/ free Cornelia Funke book for every child) (Goethe-Institut)
Paranormal Activity (2009) (w/ live commentary by director Oren Peli and producers Jason Blum & Steven Schneider) (Aero Theatre)
That Certain Age (1938) (Old Town Music Hall)
Valentino: The Last Emperor (2008) (weekend morning show) (Laemmle's Monica 4-Plex) (Laemmle's Sunset 5)

That's all for this week. Hail to the King, baby.

Compiled, as always, by Edward Yerke-Robins (and family!)

The Review at a Glance: ( max score: 5 ) Film: Extras: Audio/Video total rating:

( Max score: 100 )

78

Studio and Year: Sony Pictures Classics - 2004 MPAA Rating: PG-13 Feature running time: 101 minutes Genre: Documentary/History/Sport Disc Format: BD-50 Encoding: AVC (MPEG-4) Video Aspect: 1.85:1 Resolution: 1080p/24
Audio Format(s): English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, English Stereo Subtitles: English SDH, English, Hindi Starring: Greg Noll, Jeff Clark, Laird Hamilton Directed by: Stacy Peralta Music by: Various Written by: Stacy Peralta, Sam George Region Code: Free Blu-ray Disc release Date: January 5, 2010

"It doesn't get any bigger than this"

Film Synopsis:

From acclaimed director Stacy Peralta comes ‘riding GIANTS’, the story of big wave surfing. Breaking the mold of traditional documentary filmmaking, ‘riding GIANTS’ uses its dynamic, cross-generational approach to profile the lives and times of the intrepid surfers who, over the decades, have dedicated their lives to finding and successfully challenging the biggest waves on Earth.

My Take:

I’m not into surfing or extreme sports and wasn’t excited when plopping this Blu-ray in. Much to my surprise I really enjoyed ‘riding GIANTS’. It did what a good documentary should: it made me interested and captivated while educating me on a subject I knew nothing about, “Big Wave Surfing”. Giving a brief history of surfing, we end smack-dab in the 50’s and meet a crew of guys who, led by Greg Noll, started the surfing counter culture of Southern California. We also get a good reason to hear a lot of 50’s surfer rock (thanks Dick Dale!). From there we meet Jeff Clark who found the famous and dangerous Maverick's break in Northern California. This is where I got hooked. Watching these guys and their dedication, not only to the sport but to each other is inspiring. There is portion of the documentary where the guys were talking about wiping out and getting swallowed under these huge waves. It was filmed and edited such that I felt out of breath… It was pretty cool! Dogtown and Z-Boys skateboarder, Director Stacy Peralta really shows a passion and grasp on the subject. He ends us with Surfing's most famous personality, inventor of “tow-in” surfing, Laird Hamilton. Hamilton has surfed some of the most insane waves you will ever see. They are so big and fast he has to be towed into the wave by Jet Ski to have enough speed to catch it. To see him surf and own one of these waves is awe-inspiring. I really enjoyed this documentary and am excited to see more of Stacy Peralta. ‘riding GIANTS’ is well-paced, captivating and sure is narly, dudes.

Parental Guide:

Rated PG-13 for brief strong language.

AUDIO/VIDEO - By The Numbers: REFERENCE = 92-100 / EXCELLENT = 83-91 / GOOD = 74-82 / AVERAGE = 65-73 / BELOW AVERAGE = under 65 **My audio/video ratings are based upon a comparative made against other high definition media/blu-ray disc.** (Each rating is worth 4 points with a max of 5 per category)

Audio: 80

• Dynamics:
• Low frequency extension:
• Surround Sound presentation:
• Clarity/Detail:
• Dialogue Reproduction:

Video: 76

• Resolution/Clarity:
• Black level/Shadow detail:
• Color reproduction:
• Fleshtones:
• Compression:

‘riding GIANTS’ comes to Blu-ray Disc from Sony featuring 1080p AVC encoded video that has an average bitrate of 27.8 mbps and lossless DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio sound that has an average bitrate of 2.9 mbps.

With mostly archival footage, ‘riding GIANTS’ looked better than an up-converted DVD, however, I was expecting amazing visuals of huge waves and HD surfing shots that would blow me away. It didn't. It did do a good job with the resolution of the old and often non-pro footage. The newer filmed interview segments were over stylized and overly full of film grain, which I suspect was intentional so I can’t knock too much it for that. Colors and black levels were natural and consistent with the source material. All in all it's a competent release but not the visual stunner I was anticipating. The audio was good but again, the sources left it without much oomph. The voice overs were clear and not lost in the eclectic soundtrack. Never did the crunch of Soundgarden's "My Wave" or Dick Dales "Misirlou" overpower the mostly dialogue driven track. The music did sound really great, giving the track a dynamic it really needed. The effect channels were limited, but I did hear some waves roll by every once and a while. I was expecting the crashing waves to give my sub-woofer a workout or even a minor challenge, but other than the intro to the film, it was the low end in the soundtrack that utilized the LFE. Like the video, the audio was above average but nothing to show your system off with.

Bonus Features:

• Audio Commentary Director Stacey Peralta and Editor Paul Crowder
• Audio Commentary Track with Commentary with Writer Sam George and Surfers Greg Noll, Jeff Clark and Laird Hamilton
• (HD) Making-of ‘riding GIANTS’
• (HD) Fuel TV’s Blue Carpet Special
• BD Live Enabled

Final Thoughts:

Even if not the big blue Blu-ray experience I was hoping, ‘riding GIANTS’ is a winner. It made a fan out of a naysayer and kept my attention for its entire 100 minutes. Not packed with the most supplements I have come across, what it does have are quality- check out the audio commentary with Stacey Peralta and Editor Paul Crowder. After seeing this documentary I am going to be watching Stacey Peralta's, 'Dogtown and Z-Boys'. I am excited to see if he can pull it off again. This one is an easy rental recommendation and if you are a fan of the subject matter go ahead and grab a copy, you will watch it more than once.

Lee Weber AVS Forum Blu-ray Reviews

Reference Review System: Anthem LTX 500 1080p High Definition Front Projector Prismasonic HE1500R Anamorphic Lens Custom 1.3 Gain 128" 2.37:1 CinemaScope Screen Pioneer SC07 Receiver Pioneer BDP-320 Blu-ray Player (HDMI Audio/Video) Triangle Zerius Speakers (7.1) SVS PC13-Ultra Subwoofer

War has always been such a tremendously complex undertaking that every force waging it has sought to simplify and standardize. At the same time, this simplification and standardization is usually inimical to the kind of creativity needed to win. Finding a balance between the art and science of war has always been difficult, especially in an era thoroughly dominated by science in all major areas of everyday life.

Some critics charge that counterinsurgency has become a new “progressive” science of war rooted in an application of social sciences to conflict. While this charge has some truth, the real issue is that science is being substituted for strategy. Without guiding strategic direction, the temptation to elevate pat formulas and simplistic doctrines becomes overwhelming.

Alchemists of war

The “science of war” originated as a product of the Enlightenment’s positivist pretensions. Like many other human activities of the era, military thinkers assumed war could be mastered through the exercise of reason. They developed a set of ideas that delineated universal theories of war that changed over time and differing scientific paradigms. The common characteristic of the “science of war” is an idea that eternal, unerring common characteristics of conflict exist and can be utilized to reduce or eliminate the fog and friction inherent in conflict.

The Enlightenment gave rise to 18th century “geometric” school thinkers such as the English military theorist Henry Lloyd and the Prussian Heinrich von Bulow. “Geometric” strategists devised intricate means of calculating conflict, influencing the later French-Swiss theorist Antoine-Henri Jomini. Jomini, bitterly criticized by Carl von Clausewitz for simplifying war, nevertheless found a wider audience among his contemporaries than the more abstract Clausewitz.

By the end of World War II, massive automated systems had been set up to manage progressively larger aspects of the globe-spanning war effort.  Complicated mathematical equations were used to calculate repetitive aspects of combat such as aircraft loss ratios and the best means of beating the U-Boat offensive against the North Atlantic convey system. The science of war would come to dominate almost every aspect of Cold War defense.

The Cold War-era science that French general and theorist Andre Beaufre dubbed “total strategy” encompassed not only dueling nuclear forces but their connection to the actions of worldwide conventional air, land and sea forces, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies, and countless Third World proxies. Needless to say, the slightest slipup could lead to the devastation of entire nations. Computers came to manage many aspects of the nuclear effort, and civilian academics debating concepts of rational-choice theory replaced military strategists.

 

Science, Counterinsurgency, and Strategy

Critics of American counterinsurgency (COIN) theory have often charged that it is a new “science of war” rooted not in systems analysis or technobabble but “progressive” sciences such as anthropology or sociology (See Edward Luttwak, “Dead End: Counterinsurgency as Military Malpractice,” Harper’s, February 2007 or Gian P. Gentile, “A Strategy of Tactics: Population-centric COIN and the Army,” Parameters, Autumn 2009).  There is truth in this charge, though more so in the political than purely military arena. Charges to intervene in Yemen and ritualistic calls to pacify every “ungoverned space” with a combination of development and surgically applied force show that policy elites have misunderstood both the nature of counterinsurgency warfare as well as the relationship between operations and strategy.

The issue is not necessarily the merits of counterinsurgency or conventional warfare, but the substitution of science for strategy. The post-Cold War strategic vacuum of American grand strategy allows vacuous concepts and management-speak to take the place of detailed strategic plans and concepts. Everyone is favor of “smart power” and the “whole of government approach” for example, but no one agrees about how to properly implement such concepts.

Adding to the problem is the unpleasant fact that the more the Army necessarily specializes in counterinsurgency, the more attractive a notion the idea of a “global counterinsurgency” will be to policymakers. As Mark Safranski predicted in a review of David Kilcullen’s book The Accidental Guerrilla, even doctrines that eschew heavy foreign involvement can be co-opted by those looking for an easy fix for complicated issues in foreign policy (“The Kilcullen Doctrine,” Zenpundit, May 28, 2009). Most COIN gurus do not favor committing general-purpose forces to pacify foreign lands, but their wishes are meaningless if their political masters see COIN as a substitute for strategy.

Of course, a golden age of American strategy never really existed. The very structure of divided American government and fractious politics prevents the kind of centralized strategymaking seen in Bismarck’s Germany, the wet dream of many nostalgic devotees of realpolitik. Instead of Prince Metternich and the Congress of Vienna, America has Ultimate Fighting Championship.  The cable-TV screaming matches that dominate American political discourse are more important than careful policy papers in determining the future direction of American strategy.

Instead of accepting this reality and seeking to plan around it, Washington policy grandees instead of busy themselves waxing nostalgic for the beginnings of the Cold War and the resolute decision-making of figures such as President Harry Truman, foreign policy theorist George Kennan, and statesman and hawk Paul Nitze. If the military can sometimes be accused of turning strategy into gadgetry, fetishism of Cold War-era statesmanship turns American diplomacy into a worship of foreign policy as a rational science conducted by sober, pipe-smoking figures. Such figures are as relevant to contemporary American life as British Victorian-era period dramas. But unlike the hordes of middle-aged American women who flocked to see the latest Queen Victoria biopic, nostalgic policy elites cannot seem to grasp that their anachronistic heroes are (extremely fortunate) outliers of a bygone era.

Destruction and Creation

For the military, the quest for doctrine and training adaptive enough to create a military capable of carrying out complex conventional and irregular missions is likely to be a decades-long pursuit. It took thirty years for the Army to experience a post-Vietnam renaissance in doctrine and training that would eventually result in the lopsided victory over Iraq in the first Gulf War. But military needs will be ultimately driven by the nature of American strategy. And when strategy is absent, science, whether rooted in technology, operational art, or social science, will take over. So what is to be done?

One of America’s greatest (but little-known) strategic thinkers ironically found the answer in science itself. Air Force Colonel John Boyd busied himself with an expansive reading list after retirement, synthesizing insights from the emerging discipline complexity science along with the timeless lessons of classic military history. An iconoclastic figure, Boyd is known for declaring “If you've got one doctrine, you're a dinosaur.” While Boyd’s insights are often reduced down to the idea that one should simply be faster than the enemy, his real ideas were far more complex.

In Boyd’s paper “Destruction and Creation,” the widely read Colonel synthesized mathematicians Kurt Gödel and Werner Heisenberg’s insights in pointing out that inward-oriented efforts to force observed reality to mesh with internally derived concepts only increase chaos and destruction. It is impossible to determine the consistency and character of an abstract system within itself (See John R. Boyd, “Destruction and Creation,” September 3, 1976). Boyd noted that this had potentially dire consequences for rigid closed systems:

 

“The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that all observed natural processes generate entropy. From this law it follows that entropy must increase in any closed system—or, for that matter, in any system that cannot communicate in an ordered fashion with other systems or environments external to itself. Accordingly, whenever we attempt to do work or take action inside such a system—a concept and its match-up with reality—we should anticipate an increase in entropy hence an increase in confusion and disorder. Naturally, this means we cannot determine the character or nature (consistency) of such a system within itself, since the system is moving irreversibly toward a higher, yet unknown, state of confusion and disorder. …Furthermore, unless some kind of relief is available, we can expect confusion to increase until disorder approaches chaos— death.”

The human decision-making process, Boyd argues, deals with this conundrum through a constant dialectic of creation and destruction of mental patterns and perceptions in response to a changing and complex observed reality. We cannot escape from chaos, rather we are most successful when we embrace it by shattering the rigid mental patterns that have built up and then synthesize the new realities we observe to create a new understanding. Such a process of structuring, dissolving, restructuring, and dissolving again must be repeated endlessly.

Contemporary American strategic problems flow from the fact that we cannot adjust the ossified thinking of Washington D.C. to the constantly shifting observed reality of the outside world. A failure to match concepts to observed reality has amplified the already formidable entropy of the American political system. The corresponding failure to make strategy results in a search further inward towards the “science” of war.  Better strategy will come about only when the process by which strategy is made becomes supple, flexible, and less dominated by sacred cows and special interests.

Critics of American foreign policy often undermine their own case with conspiracy theorizing about the “military-industrial complex.” The real problem, however, is not James Bond villain-style secret plans and hidden agendas but basic human frailty. A largely homogenous group of people is not going to have all the answers to questions of war and peace because they are necessarily limited by their experience, specialization, and biases.

Widening the circle of discussion is a necessary step for improving American strategy. Largely absent, for example, from the uninformed debate about counter-terrorism measures in Yemen are regional experts who have studied, lived, or worked in the region. Another happy outcome would be the breaking of the political double standard that marks skeptics of intervention abroad as “unserious” and grants the aura of statesmanship to those who reflexively call to send in the Marines. Until the process of conceiving strategy is characterized more by “destruction and creation” than closed debate, the science of war will continue to substitute for realistic strategy.

oD-wide classification

Country: 

United States

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Conflict

Im looking to replace my receiver in the near future and am looking for something in the $600 to $1000 range. The ones that have caught my eye so far are as follows: Denon 2310 Denon 3310 Onkyo 807 Onkyo 876 Yamaha 863 Yamaha 1065 Each has something I like but misses elsewhere. I like the idea of a network receiver, especially for firmware upgrades, but is it worth the extra money? I love the heft of the 876 since I listen to a lot of music (jazz, blues, classic rock) and a good power supply is important but would I miss some of the newer features? A lower price means more $$ for a BD player. I live in a condo and have a 5.1 system, if that helps. I have a Xbox360, Sony SXRD TV (1080p), a Pio Elite DVD (DV-79)player and a DirecTV H22 satellite receiver. Looking to get an Oppo in the future. I'd appreciate any advice on which to choose and also any that I may be overlooking. Thanks

Friends, I can’t tell you how unusual this is: A classical musician -- a very famous one -- has spoken out in behalf of a very unpopular cause: Israel. For a story, go here. I am speaking of Evgeny Kissin, the 38-year-old pianist. He was born and raised in the Soviet Union, and in 2002 became a British citizen. He was a child prodigy. When we first knew him, he played in his red Young Pioneers scarf. He ditched that scarf long ago.

Kissin sent a letter to the BBC -- a phenomenally eloquent one -- blasting the organization for its “slander and bias” against Israel. He said that, listening to the BBC, you could hear echoes of “the old Soviet anti-Zionist propaganda.” When he became a British citizen, he explained, he was “inspired and proud to belong to the country of Winston Churchill,” whose contempt for anti-Semitism was total. He quoted a Churchill line: “There is no anti-Semitism in England because we do not consider ourselves more stupid than the Jews.”

A profound comment, to be reflected on.

Anyway, Kissin said that the BBC “had always been a beacon of light, of truth and objectivity to those of us behind the Iron Curtain, in the ‘Evil Empire.’” Yes, a famous artist actually used the phrase “Evil Empire,” without irony. Why wouldn’t he? He lived there (and in a privileged position, which is interesting). “Reaching out to far corners of the world, [the BBC] was the voice of a country which for us was a model of democracy and human rights.” And now? The Beeb has disgraced itself, with scurrilous coverage from the Middle East.

In writing his letter, Kissin stuck his neck out. The classical-music world, like the arts and academia at large, is not exactly friendly toward Israel. An anti-Israel stance is de rigueur and chic. Some musicians -- I think I have spoken before about Nigel Kennedy, the British violinist -- actually boycott Israel. I wonder whether Kissin will suffer any professional setbacks for his speaking out. He is famous and well-established, yes. But the arts world can be ruthless. I know famous musicians who you might think would be perfectly protected. But they keep mum on certain issues, lest they run into difficulty.

In any case, I bow deep to Kissin, somewhat stunned by his clarity and courage.

You could write about a Falun Gong practitioner, abused or killed by the Chinese government, every day. I have not mentioned any names in a while. May I mention that of Gong Hui? She died last month, having been thrown into the gulag during the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. I wrote about this run-up -- and the terrible things that went on -- extensively. If you’re interested in a relevant series, go to my archive and look under August 2008.

Gong Hui was a typical case. This report gives us the particulars: “In an effort to force her to renounce her faith in Falun Gong, guards at the camp placed Gong in solitary confinement for extended periods of time, deprived her of food and sleep, and forced her to stand for hours at a time. The guards also instigated non-practitioner inmates to beat her.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They’re all the same, these cases. The Chinese authorities are absolutely predictable and consistent in their brutality. Because of the sameness of the cases, we might turn away, lose interest. But that would be a shame, wouldn’t it? Individuals in cells depend on world interest.

In October, I had a conversation with Charles Krauthammer, in order to write a piece on him. (The article appeared in the November 23 National Review.) We were talking about political prisoners, and Krauthammer brought up his old editor, Meg Greenfield of the Washington Post op-ed page. Over and over, she ran pieces about Andrei Sakharov. Why? To keep him alive.

Dictatorships are hesitant to kill people in the international eye.

“Shhh . . . Mubarak is building a wall.” That is the title of an article by Khaled Abu Toameh, the great Palestinian journalist (and I do not use “great” lightly). Go here. Yes, Egypt is building a wall, along the Gaza Strip. Will it be accused of being an apartheid regime, denying the suffering Palestinians their rights? I would not hold my breath.

Some weeks ago, I wrote about Mark Helprin’s book Digital Barbarism. He warns about an overreliance on -- and addiction to -- our BlackBerries and the like. Thinking about him, I was interested in this article, which is about Stephens College in Missouri. I quote:

Dianne Lynch wanted to give the students of Stephens College a break from the constant digital communication that pervades their generation. So she asked them to put their phones and computers away and revive the 176-year-old school’s dormant tradition of vespers services.

 

On a bitterly cold December night, with the start of final exams just hours away, about 75 of Stephens’ 766 undergraduates grudgingly piled their cell phones into collection baskets and filed into the school’s candlelit chapel, where they did little but sit, silently. For an hour, not an iPod ear bud could be seen. There were no fingers flying on tiny computer keyboards, no chats with unseen intimates.

That was a remarkable hour. In Revelation, we read, “And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.” Half an hour. Hey, those Stephens kids did double that! (I would be proud of 15 minutes.)



Last month, I did a little writing about “Merry Christmas,” and I noted that many non-Christians feel perfectly comfortable saying “Merry Christmas” -- more than lots of Christians do. Readers sent in many examples, confirming this phenomenon.

Well, I was reading, in pre-publication form, Theodore Dalrymple’s book The New Vichy Syndrome, out in March. What a superb book, as you would expect from the author (who is the British doctor-writer also known as Anthony Daniels). I will say more about it later. Would you like an excerpt from a (long) footnote on page 44? Tony -- I mean, Dalrymple -- is talking about cultural “spinelessness”:

One example is the odious and unctuous American Christmas greeting of “Happy Holidays,” which seems to be prevalent in those parts of the United States with concentrations of intellectuals (a modern example of Julien Benda’s famous trahison des clercs). I doubt very much whether any Moslem, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, Confucian, Parsee, or animist has ever been offended by the greeting of Merry Christmas, and if he had he should have been told to go and boil his head. Compare this supposed sensitivity to the religious susceptibilities of others with the behavior of the staff of the Bangladeshi restaurant, owned and run entirely by Moslems in the little town in England where I live half the year, who shortly before Christmas put up decorations and handed out Christmas cards to all their customers wishing them a merry Christmas.

Of course. There is more -- in the footnote, and in the book. You will want to get your hands on it, I feel sure.

I wonder if you noticed this curious fact: Remember Richard Mellon Scaife, the conservative philanthropist who poured money into anti-Clinton investigations in the 1990s? He is a donor to the Clinton Foundation. (See an article here.) Ah, the problems -- and decisions -- of the rich. I hope to have such problems, and to be able to make such decisions, someday . . . 

I think I’ve related, in this column, one of my favorite stories: Years ago, Greg Norman and Washington mayor Marion Barry were at a party. At the time, Norman was the No. 1 golfer in the world, and one of the most recognizable athletes. When they met, Barry said, “What do you do?” Norman said, “I play golf.” The mayor said, “That’s great, I play tennis.” I adore that story.

And I thought of it when reading this article, which talks of one of my favorite golfers, Mark Calcavecchia. Last year, Calc played in a pro-am with Jerry Yang, the co-founder of Yahoo! He told his wife that Yang was a great guy. Yeah, said Calc, he’s like the chairman or CFO or whatever of Yoo-hoo. Calc was thinking of the chocolate drink, which he’s fond of. Was hoping maybe Yang would ship him a case or two.

Nice.

Care for a little language? You know how Yoo-hoo describes itself? As “chugtastic.” A very good word, I think.

Some more language? I was a little startled to see this headline: “Obama takes daughters for shave ice treat.” “Shave ice”? Not “shaved ice”? It makes sense, however. “Ice cream,” of course, used to be “iced cream.” A lot of us still say “candied apple” -- but “candy apple” is an evolution. Read a book from way book, and you’ll find “armed chair” -- “He retired to his armed chair” -- not “arm chair.”

And so goes the language . . .

In Monday’s Impromptus, I offered a name -- suggested by a reader: Welshman Ncube. He is a government minister in Zimbabwe. Another reader countered with a different name, also from Zimbabwe: that of the late first president of the country, Canaan Banana. I believe the second name wins.

Okay, I’m sitting in a Cracker Barrel in Gaffney, S.C. Mouthwatering menu, of course, lots of things fried. On the back page is a section of “Low-Carb” meals. And the second item, left-hand column, is -- I swear -- a half-pound bacon cheeseburger. Swear.

Gaffney is a lovable place. Its water tower is painted as a peach. (This is peach country. The water tower, like the Cracker Barrel menu -- but in a different way -- is mouthwatering.) The gun range in Gaffney is free. I mean, it’s a public service, like a library. You just bring your own guns and ammo. There is a person manning the range, keeping order.

Couple of more notes. Andie MacDowell, the actress, was born in Gaffney. And William Kincaid is buried there. Who’s Kincaid? He was principal flute with the Philadelphia Orchestra for 40 years. (From about 1920 to 1960.) He was one of the greatest orchestral players of the century. I’m told that his wife was from Gaffney, and was buried there. And he followed her.

Do visit Sadie Mae’s Café, if you get to Gaffney. The café is in a lovely old house. Sadie Mae is lovely too. She serves fried corn on the cob, fried green beans, other things. She’ll give you free samples of anything, called “tasters.” Generous tasters, too. There is an item called Mooie Gooies. And they are: egg-roll shells filled with cheese. Mozzarella (melted), I think. Sadie Mae’s salad has a wonderful dressing -- her own concoction. She said, “My husband calls it my ‘goop.’” And long live her glorious goop.

With that -- are you hungry? -- I think I’ll say goodbye, till next time.

 

 

---

<p>Filed under: <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/category/accessories/" rel="tag">Accessories</a>, <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/category/iphone/" rel="tag">iPhone</a>, <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/category/ipod-classic/" rel="tag">iPod classic</a></p><div><img hspace="8" vspace="8" border="0" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tuaw.com/media/2010/01/iluvappstationwithapp.jpg" /></div> It's CES time yet again, and that means that everybody and their business partners will be showing off iPhone and iPod touch accessories that do all sorts of crazy things, from the useful to the useless. Here's two interesting docks that Engadget has already seen at the big electronics show. The first, above, is <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/04/iluv-app-station-speaker-dock-rolls-with-its-own-alarm-clock-app/">a speaker dock with a twist</a> -- not only does it play your music and charge your iPhone as usual, but it comes with an app that will turn the whole thing into an alarm clock as well. It's called the iLuv App Station, and it'll be released in February at a price of $130.<br /> <br /> In the slightly more functional category, there's <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/04/sherwoods-rd-7505-receiver-and-inet-2-0-tabletop-pull-entertain/">the iNet-2.0 tabletop unit</a> from Sherwood, which combines an iPod dock with an 8" display that allows for internet radio streaming, the usual alarm clock settings, and a photo display. It's a pretty nice piece of tech to put on your nightstand, but the price may turn some folks off: it will retail for $300 later this year. We'll keep an eye out for more great iPhone/iPod accessories in the CES frenzy later this week.<p><a href="http://www.tuaw.com">TUAW</a><a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2010/01/05/ces-goes-down-to-the-docks/">CES goes down to the docks</a> originally appeared on <a href="http://www.tuaw.com">The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)</a> on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:35:00 EST. 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Artist Gines Serran "Union of the World: Monument to World Peace" is the largest bronze sculpture in the world based on classical mythology at 26 feet tall and 17,600 pounds, and it's coming to S...

The ratings were down but the buzz was not for the 2010 Winter Classic. How do we know this? Because the debates and discussions over the next venue to host the game started immediately after Fenway Park was officially revealed and continued through last weekend's Winter Classic postmortem.

It's now become a national pastime for puckheads: Speculating on the next city, town, state or province to get the jewel of the NHL regular season. It's like how MTV viewers used to debate the next "Real World" location, before the show sunk into self-parody (and the rise of Snookie.) It's like how all of geek-dom fantasy casts the next superhero sequels even before the latest one leaves the box office. (Yes, we know: Johnny Depp would make a great Riddler. We get it.)

So now we've got baseball blogs writing about hockey games and NHL insiders offering their speculation and even a growing chorus of dissenters that don't want the game on Jan. 1 due to the looming NFL/NHL conflict of '12.

Here's what we know to be true about the Winter Classic, going forward:

1. The Washington Capitals and the New York Rangers will be involved sooner rather than later, and the Pittsburgh Penguins will be back in the game soon, too. 

2. The Jan. 1 Winter Classic will remain a largely U.S.-exclusive affair, if not in teams than in venues. The U.S. ratings drag by having a Canadian team on NBC is something the NHL wants to avoid. Canada will have its own outdoor game; it might be part of a doubleheader on Jan. 1 or on a different day. Call it the Heritage Classic, let the Winter Classic remain in the U.S. and move on.

3. Everybody wants a piece of this cash cow, from Ted Leonsis to Jerry Jones. Which means the definition of "Winter" could be stretched at some point.

With that, here are 30 potential U.S. venues for future Winter Classics, ranked in order to probability and potential. (We'll leave the Canadian sites out, for reasons stated above.) Some are obvious, some are gambles, some are national parks. All of them should, in theory, help the NHL's Classic remain that way.

1. Yankee Stadium (New York, NY)

It's the last of the iconic baseball stadiums, even if it's about a year old. It's an instant sell; heck, just plug in Phil Rizzuto's voice where Harry Carey's was for the Wrigley Field promotional spots. The New York Rangers are the obligatory choice; opponents could range from the rival New York Islanders to the rival New Jersey Devils to Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals to a riskier choice for U.S. TV ratings: The Montreal Canadiens, hockey's New York Yankees, playing in the House That Looks Like The House That Ruth Built. The Stadium's college bowl game is a monkey wrench that may delay the game for years; but hey, maybe by 2014 the Islanders won't stink. Or in Brooklyn. One of the two.

2. Beaver Stadium (Penn State University)

The NHL is going to get Sidney Crosby(notes) and the Pittsburgh Penguins back in the Winter Classic post-haste, and that's fine: There shouldn't be some namby-pamby, altruistic rule that every League franchise gets an invite to the game before the Penguins get a second look. This has been a puckhead dream since the first Classic: a football stadium with a capacity of 107,282, within driving distance of several fan bases. The perfect matchup would have been Penguins/Flyers, but that'll wait. And hey, it's always going to be open on Jan. 1.

3. Target Field (Minneapolis, MN)

Kevin Kaduk of Big League Stew explains:

Hosting the next edition in the Twin Cities' new ballpark seems like a natural fit and you might even consider it a favorite at this point. Not only would it allow the NHL to schedule a Canadian opponent for the Wild, it'd also remind Minnesotans of what it was like to watch baseball outside the previous Opening Day.

Well, the Canadian opponent thing probably isn't going to happen, as the Wild will need a glamour franchise or Ovechkin-level star to shoulder the hype for this one. But the Winter Classic in the State of Hockey needs to happen, especially if that Dallas Stars-as-North-Stars vs. Wild dream Classic ever materialized.

4. New Meadowlands Stadium, (East Rutherford, NJ)

This brand-spankin' new facility will have a capacity of 82,500 and would serve as a way to bring the Classic to the New York if Yankee Stadium is unworkable from a scheduling perspective. Rangers vs. Devils in an outdoor game? It would fill the stadium like a Bruce show, if only because Devils fans could tailgate again.

5. INVESCO Field at Mile High (Denver, CO)

For those who enjoy "winter" in their "Winter Classic." The Colorado Avalanche would host, and the logical opponent would be the Detroit Red Wings, because lord knows their fans turn out when they're in Denver. The capacity is 76,125 for football; will they all chant "in-com-plete!" on every blown pass? Another option: Ovechkin and the Capitals at Mile High. Heck, the venue worked pretty well for another famous 'O' currently residing in D.C. ...

6. Coors Field (Denver, CO)

Holding just over 50,000 for baseball, it would serve as an alternative to Mile High and a more picturesque venue. But is Bud Light still the official beer of the NHL? Because they probably won't like the signage.

7. Heinz Field (Pittsburgh, PA)

Capacity is over 65,000, and Penguins fans wouldn't need a single ticket to be sold to an opposing supporter before selling out the joint themselves. It works weather-wise, it would have Crosby and Malkin, and the NHL would sell roughly the gross national product of Belize in black-and-gold Winter Classic gear. 

8. Lambeau Field (Green Bay, WI)

The frozen tundra meets the Winter Classic. Yes, they've done hockey there already with the 2006 Lambeau Field Frozen Tundra Classic, and by all accounts it was a success. The first non-NHL region on our list, we're not entirely sure what the proper matchup would be, other than the Detroit Red Wings probably being part of it. An iconic venue, and one that the NHL could market with ease. It's a slam-dunk if they can fill the building.

9. Cowboys Stadium (Arlington, TX)

It's winter in Texas right now, and it feels like it. But it doesn't always, and the NHL would run the risk have holding a "Winter Classic" in what's autumn weather for much of the Northeast. But this venue has gained momentum lately, as Jerry Jones craves the Classic. Stars blog Defending Big D breaks it down:

For a game like this, you could potentially get 80,000 hockey fans into the Stadium. But where would these fans come from? Past games have featured rivalry matchups between two teams that are geographically close; Chicago vs. Detroit, Philly vs. Boston. Even Buffalo vs. Pittsburgh had some matchup appeal to it. Who would Dallas face that would promise to get opposing fans into the Stadium? San Jose? Anaheim? I think for a game this big, you'd see a good turnout of Dallas Stars fans but not enough to fill Cowboys Stadium. I could be wrong, and I hope I am, but the NHL is going to want to ensure a sellout for a game that big. And they're going to want a rowdy, loud crowd.

There's also a little game called the Cotton Bowl that provides a wrinkle. Perhaps you've heard of it.

10. FedEx Field (Landover, MD)

Look, no one really likes FedEx Field, especially in comparison to the nostalgic palace of RFK Stadium. But it seats 91,704 and the Washington, D.C. metro area would pack the house for the right Classic matchup. Which would be Penguins/Capitals, Rangers/Capitals or -- and this is a longer shot -- Red Wings/Capitals.

11. AT&T Park (San Francisco, CA)

Kaduk mentioned this venue in his BLS Winter Classic review, and it piqued our interest:

I oddly enjoyed watching last week's Emerald Bowl being played inside the Land of Lincecum and the thought of the Sharks playing the Ducks against the backdrop of McCovey Cove is too enticing and beautiful to pass up. No, there probably wouldn't be any snow and the rain could wreak havoc on the rink. But there could be fog, which would be memorable in itself.

Again, it's not a Winter Classic weather-wise, and it would be a struggle to hold the game in a city that typically doesn't see freezing temps in January. But the San Jose Sharks and either the Los Angeles Kings or Anaheim Ducks at that venue? Yes please. 

12. Ohio Stadium (Columbus, OH)

You'd need the Red Wings in this game against the Columbus Blue Jackets to make it work, and attempting to stage a game in the 102,329-seat Horseshoe is daunting. But the weather should help and it's an iconic stadium for college football, which would be a nice respite from the NFL and MLB palaces. 

13. Central Park (New York, NY)

No, it doesn't work from a capacity or accessibility standpoint. But 5-Hole.net has a passionate response to the dozens of criticisms this venue automatically inspires, and its "getting back to hockey's roots" argument is an interesting one.

14. Busch Stadium (St. Louis, Mo.)

Another venue that would sell itself: Start printing up those St. Louis Arch-covered-in-icicles logos now. The weather would cooperate and capacity is 46,861 for standing room; bet the St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks could fill it. 

15. Notre Dame Stadium (South Bend, IN)

Talk about your iconic venues: The NHL could sell shamrock-based Winter Classic gear and then sell it again on March 17. Capacity is 80,795; no idea which teams would work in what would be a neutral site, but a commercial with the Notre Dame Fight Song is already playing in our heads.

16. The National Mall (Washington DC)

Like Central Park, the venue really doesn't work for a large-scale sporting event. But like Central Park, the scenery would be stunning and the "pond hockey" vibe might make up for it. Weather, however, would be a concern. As would any kickball games that are scheduled during the Classic's ice time.

17. Michigan Stadium (Ann Arbor, MI)

The Big House holds 106,201 fans; how many would come out for a chance to see the Red Wings in frigid temps? Play it as a double-header Cold War rematch between the Wolverines and Michigan State.

18. Caesar's Palace and/or another casino (Las Vegas, NV)

A crowd of about 14,000 fans watched the Los Angeles Kings and the New York Rangers play a game in Sept. 1991. The ice didn't fall apart in 85-degree weather, and it was played at night. The NHL has already shown an affinity for Vegas. But please, should this ever happen: No Chaka Kahn.

19. PNC Park (Pittsburgh, PA)

Aesthetically pleasing with a manageable capacity (under 40,000), this Pittsburgh Pirates ballpark falls behind other alternatives for the Penguins' next Classic, but shouldn't be dismissed entirely.

20. Comerica Park (Detroit, MI)

From Kaduk:

Hockeytown gets a bad rap for a lot of things, but the city's downtown stadium campus is a great place to hold a big sporting event. Get the Red Wings outside and let them show the sissy Lions how playing in the elements is done. 

And there you go.

21. Citizens Bank Park (Philadelphia, PA)

The Flyers aren't likely to get a home Winter Classic for some time, but this ballpark would be a tremendous host. Especially because the seats are within battery-tossing range of the rink.

22. Nationals Stadium (Washington DC)

A nice looking ballpark ... OK, it apes the No. 21 entry on the list pretty well. The Capitals have other, better options for a local game, but the food is great. (Ben's Chili Bowl would make bank during a Winter Classic.)

23. Progressive Field (Cleveland, OH)

Via Kaduk on the Stew:

The NHL would have to bus the Blue Jackets to play the Winter Classic, but you'd be guaranteed cold weather and a very underrated ballpark with lots of upper deck seats to provide good views of the ice.   

The Jake would be a fine option, seating 43,515 and obviously working weather-wise. But Ohio State is a tad closer to the Jackets' fan base.

24. Safeco Field (Seattle, WA)

An odd choice, for sure, and the Vancouver Canucks would have to be part of the game for it to work. But if you're looking to bring hockey to new markets, this would be an interesting location for a Winter Classic, provided it works with the weather. Or it would be a sparsely attended boondoggle with a great Space Needle-inspired logo.

25. Camden Yards (Baltimore, MD)

This still-lovely classic baseball stadium has been tossed around as an option for the Washington Capitals. Which is great and all, until you think about the torches and pitchforks headed to Ted Leonsis's house if the Caps did business with Peter Angelos before anyone in DC.

26. Soldier Field (Chicago, IL)

Considered a runner-up for the Wrigley Classic, it would be the choice if the game ever came back to Chicago. Which it won't for quite a while.

27. Somewhere in Alaska

Again, you want a winter aesthetic in the Classic, you go where the winter is. There isn't a giant professional venue for a game, but you do have 4,000-seat Mulcahy Stadium in Anchorage. Obviously the move here is to go Mystery, Alaska-style outdoor game. Two guess on who drops the first puck.

28. Gillette Stadium (Foxborough, MA)

The alternate venue for the 2010 Winter Classic, it seats over 68,000 in a modern stadium. Plus, by the time the Boston-area rolls around to another Classic, the NHL will be back on ESPN, so Bristol will love it.

29. Yellowstone Park (Wyoming)

If you're a back-to-basics, stripped down pond hockey fan, here's your venue. Build some eco-friendly temp seating in a picturesque place, invite whoever, and turn the game into a Bonerroo-type pilgrimage for puckheads.

30. Citi Field (New York, NY)

If Yankee Stadium. Giants Stadium, Central Park the stadium at Rutgers, all the minor league baseball stadiums, Liberty State Park, a barge on the Hudson and most of the front lawns in North Jersey are booked, there's always the new home of the New York Mets.

Filed under: Preschoolers, Kids 5-7, Fun & Activities, That's Entertainment, Music

76 Trombones by Dan Zanes and Friends

There are few true superstars in kids' music, but Zanes is one of them. And he attained that status with his trademark laid back, folky rock sound. He's the Dylan of children's music, not the Andrew Lloyd Weber, which is why a CD of Broadway show tunes seemed like a potentially risky departure for the Brooklyn troubadour. But he handles it beautifully, of course. He puts a very Zanes-y spin on classic from A Chorus Line, Annie, Peter Pan and more, transforming songs you're used to hearing as big and booming production numbers into very pure, roots-of-rock sounding fare.

The title track gets a little Dixieland sprinkled into it, while "Gary, Indiana," also from The Music Man, get a jazzy beat behind it. Peter Pan songs get rocked out, as the drum-driven "I Won't Grow Up" takes on an early Who sound and "I'm Flying" ends up feeling like it could be a Pixies track. The traditionally belted "Tomorrow" from Annie is given a much softer treatment here, as a bilingual Spanish-English ballad subtitled "Manana." Guest vocalists -- another Zanes trademark -- appropriately come from Broadway backgrounds, like Carol Channing on "Hello, Dolly," and Matthew Broderick on another Dolly tune, "Before the Parade Passes By." The best track on the whole disc, though, is possibly "I Am What I Am," from La Cage Aux Folles, which works wonderfully as an uplifting, believe-in-yourself number with just the right kind of message for kids. All in all, 76 Trombones makes a nice addition to the Dan Zanes canon.

Listen to "76 Trombones":

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Miracles happen, increasingly so in modern cricket with pitches that might have been prepared by Dorian Gray so young and unblemished do they remain throughout a Test, but with two days of the third Test remaining all the indications are that England and South Africa will decamp to the Wanderers next week all square and ready to shoot it out for the series.

There was parity, all but, on first innings, England eventually conceding a lead of 18 after an opening half hour every bit as frenetic in its tumble of wickets as that of the previous morning, so the chatter was of a further clatter throughout the day and a finish sometime today.

That idea was shattered by Graeme Smith and Hashim Amla, who between them compiled a partnership of 230, a Test record for the second wicket at Newlands, scored at precisely a run a minute. If England were burnt by the fierce sun, then they were grilled beyond well-done by this pair.

Smith, South Africa's burly bullish captain, has never lost a Test where he has made a century and today he biffed his way to the 19th of his career, his fifth against England. He resumes tomorrowon 162 with Jacques Kallis, the fellow who resurrected the first innings with his own century, ominously poised on 20. Amla, wristy and sinewy by contrast, plundered the offside, square of the wicket, to get within five runs of his eighth hundred when, after four hours, he was caught at short leg off bat and pad, giving Graeme Swann the second of two more wickets to his burgeoning collection but the only ones taken by England today.

The initiative had been seized, the runs coming at more than four every over for the duration of the alliance and at almost a run a ball during the afternoon when the attack wilted in the heat. It was classic smash-and-grab opportunism.

South Africa, at 312 for two, now have an overall lead of 330 and another session and a half to bat, perhaps, to make sure that the game is safe from any madcap England charge that would give them the series [354 for five is the highest fourth innings total on this ground so 400 plus, while unlikely, is a possibility] but with time still to bowl them out. The new ball is due but it could be too late now to impact on the result.

In this regard, in these conditions, it is South Africa, particularly in the form of Morne Morkel and Dale Steyn, who have the potency in terms of sheer pace to succeed, where England's seam attack has failed second time around. This, as with so many, is regarded as a 'new ball pitch', which implies a surface that tends to die but in reality is a direct criticism of the Kookaburra ball that tends to go soft early and suddenly.

While it remains hard, there is considerable bounce, and unevenness may play a part, made all the more dangerous by the pace generated by the mountainous Morkel in particular, compared to that of the England attack. The decline of Steve Harmison has deprived England of such a bowler and the search must continue for bowlers of genuine express pace. Currently there are no signs of any such appearing.

England stuck to their guns well enough during a trying day, and there were some intriguing contests, not least between Smith and Swann. Clearly, after the manner in which South Africa's batsmen submitted to him during the first two Tests, there had to be an imperative to take the attack to him, to unsettle his rhythm, and try and crack the shell of boundless optimism that drives his bowling.

Smith decided to sweep and occasionally seek the midwicket fence. Swann's counter was to bowl flatter, a point to Smith. Twice Swann's appeals for lbw brought no success, once on referral by England and once by the batsman. Swann seems infuriated by this, although his success rate with lbws, perhaps the highest percentage since the most common dismissal in Test history [run out and bowler-keeper combination excepted] was lbw Wasim Akram, is such that he ought not grumble too much.

The manner in which James Anderson and Graham Onions used the new ball was a poor reflection on their abilities, however. Onions erred on the short side, while Anderson's obsession with swinging the ball away from left handers has, in terms of simple muscle memory, deprived him of the facility to make it go the other way on demand. This is a serious flaw, his armoury deprived of a fundamental weapon, and unless he is experiencing some discomfort in his back which he is protecting, and which leads to a more open action, it will require some considerable remedial work in conjunction with the bowling coach Ottis Gibson if he is to regain his wrist position and rediscover the art that was the essence of him.

The early part of the morning belonged to Morkel. On 241 for seven, and Matt Prior at the crease with Swann, England might have nursed hopes of getting their noses in front. In the space of a few minutes, during which Swann and Anderson were taken at first slip from successive balls from Morkel, the notion was crushed. Only a last ditch charge from Prior, who made 76 and steered a last wicket stand of 32, got them as close as they came.

Singer, folklorist and teacher who was part of a famous American musical dynasty

Bess Lomax Hawes, who has died aged 88, was a member of one of America's folk music dynasties. Her father, John Lomax, was a folk-song collector who discovered the singer Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter, and became curator of the Library of Congress's folk-song archive, while her brother, Alan, travelled extensively, both in the US and around the world, in his quest to record folk music. Although overshadowed by her father and brother, Bess made a unique contribution as a teacher and folklorist. Her work as director of folk and traditional arts at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), in Washington, significantly raised the profile of folk music and established state folklorists across America.

Born in Austin, Texas, Bess was educated at home by her mother, who died in 1931. Her father remarried, and the family moved to Washington, where Bess assisted the composer Ruth Crawford Seeger with the music for her father and brother's songbook, Our Singing Country (1941). After an eight-month family tour of Europe in 1938, Bess studied sociology at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania. She then worked for the Office of War Information, and became involved in New York's emerging folk revival, appearing in concert in 1940 with Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie and, making his stage debut, Pete Seeger. The following year, Bess joined the Almanac Singers, the radical, loose-knit group whose other members included Seeger, Guthrie and Baldwin "Butch" Hawes, whom she married in 1943.

In 1949, she co-wrote the song Charlie on the MTA, in support of the Progressive party member Walter O'Brien's bid to become mayor of Boston. The song, about a man called Charlie who gets trapped on the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) subway, was later recorded by the Kingston Trio, and Boston named its fare payment system the Charlie Card as a tribute to the song.

Bess started teaching folk guitar to a group of local mothers and, when the family moved to Los Angeles in 1951, she developed this skill of teaching guitar, banjo and mandolin to large groups of musicians while working for UCLA's extension classes. She was a significant force in the folk movement in California, and although she sang at concerts and festivals, including those at Berkeley and Newport, she preferred to teach.

Bess taught folklore in the anthropology department of San Fernando Valley State College, and, in 1970, received one of the first MA degrees in folklore from the University of California, Berkeley. She made several films, some now released on DVD, including Pizza Pizza Daddy-O (1967), about African-American children's playground games, and Georgia Sea Island Singers (1964), with Bessie Jones, with whom Bess also co-wrote the classic folklore book, Step It Down: Games, Plays, Songs and Stories from the Afro-American Heritage (1972).

In 1975, Bess led a group of folk music performers at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall in Washington. So successful was her contribution that the festival's director, Ralph Rinzler, asked her to help organise the bicentennial festival in 1976. With the death of her husband in 1971, and her children grown up, Bess relocated to Washington and, with the bicentennial celebrations over, she joined the NEA as director of the folk and traditional arts programmes. There, she dealt with funding requests from vernacular musicians and community festivals, and travelled the country to support folklife projects.

She was the instigator of a successful campaign to appoint state folklorists throughout the US, offering to finance such posts for three years from NEA funds. Robert Cantwell, in his book about the American folk revival, When We Were Good (1996), described Bess as "the grande dame of the public folklife establishment".

She also created the NEA's national heritage fellowships, which annually recognised traditional performers and artists from across America. She retired in 1992, and was awarded the national medal of arts by President Bill Clinton. In 2000, the NEA created the Bess Lomax Hawes award for major contributions to the folk arts. Her autobiography, Sing it Pretty: A Memoir, was published in 2008.

Bess's three children survive her: Naomi is an anthropology professor, Corey a teacher and Nicholas a folk musician.

• Bess Brown Lomax Hawes, folk singer and folklorist, born 21 January 1921; died 27 November 2009

Hi all, I'm looking to replace the speakers from my Onkyo HT-S760 system on a budget. Mostly I'm happy with their sound, though the center channel occasionally sounds muffled. But, they're in my living room, and WAF is starting to become an issue. So, I've been on the lookout for smaller satellite speakers that won't be a downgrade in sound quality. My shortlist is basically down to: -Energy Take Classics -Mirage Nanosats I've heard the Nanosats, and liked them quite well, but I'm not quite ready to pull the trigger. I haven't heard the Energy Take Classics, but recently stumbled across them selling for $150 on NewEgg, which seems to be a ridiculously low price, so now I'm tempted to jump on them. The Take Classics are definitely an improvement in WAF over the Onkyo HTiB speakers, but would they offer any improvement in sound quality?

Did you know that we (editorial note: me) tend to wear our favorite 20% of our wardrobe, 80% of the time? (People who wear clothing, that is. I'm not including saucy nudists in today's wardrobe equation.) Those who worship at the altar of the jeans-that-fit-just-right and the trench that goes from staid funeral to the club should make room in their hearts (and closets) for new basics. Let's start by replacing that cratered, Swiss cheese-esque T-shirt: shall we?

 

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A diverse display for 2010
Economic recession and post-racial themes abound in Boston’s early 2010 theater repertoire.

NOT WEST SIDE STORY: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights comes to the Opera House.

Economic recession and post-racial themes abound in Boston’s early 2010 theater repertoire. Several companies’ line-ups include classics that will resonate for modern audiences — the ART highlights the relevance of Clifford Odets’s 1935 Depression play Paradise Lost. Meanwhile, Actors’ Shakespeare Project revisits Othello (March 10–April 11) in a post-racial America, and the Lyric Stage does Groundswell (January 1-30), a show about racial tensions in South Africa. Herewith, other meditations on multicultural and societal battles, both past and present, as well as celebrations of how far we have come.

LYDIA R. DIAMOND  | Underground Railway Theater/Providence Black Repertory Company; Huntington Theatre Company | January 7-31; February 19-March 27 | Playwright Lydia R. Diamond showcases two recent plays in Boston. The first, Harriet Jacobs, adapts for the stage the story told in Jacobs’s diary, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. The play premiered in 2008 at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre; Megan Sandberg-Zakian steps on to direct the first East Coast production as a collaboration between Underground Railway Theater and the Providence Black Repertory Company. Diamond’s 2009 play Stick Fly — which uses rough-edged comedy to tackle modern-day discomforts vis-à-vis class and race — rests in the capable hands of director Kenny Leon and the Huntington Theatre Company.
Central Square Theater [Harriet Jacobs], 450 Mass Ave, Cambridge | $35, $25 seniors, $20 students | 617.576.9278 or centralsquaretheater.org | Virginia Wimberly Theatre [Stick Fly], Calderwood Pavilion, BCA, 527 Tremont St | Cambridge + Boston | + $25-$60 | 617.266.0800 orwww.huntingtontheatre.org

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Speak no evil? Not Allen Iverson!
On how much longer he'll play:

"Until I can't be Allen Iverson on the court, until I can't dominate. When you look at the scouting report and my name is not the first name, you have to stop; then it's time to go. I don't want to be an old guy sitting on the bench for a championship team. I'm not coming off nobody's bench."

Sounds like something he might have said recently doesn't it? But it's not.

Iverson spoke those words to Sports Illustrated way back in April of 2007, a few months after the Philadelphia 76ers traded him to the Denver Nuggets.

At the time, Iverson also said:

"After being in Philly so long and not believing I would ever leave, the day I became a Nugget, I felt this was where I wanted to finish my career. All I see are positive things. I had a conversation with my kids [he has four in Colorado], and they said they love their school, love their classmates. Everything here seems so good."

Of course, a little over a year later, everything that had once seemed so good went to hell (and by "hell" I mean Detroit). Iverson is now three cities removed from where he once wanted to finish his career. Although he is back in the original place he wanted to finish his career, so he has that going for him...which is nice.

To his credit, Iverson stayed kinda-sorta true to his word. He's not sitting on the bench for a championship team. Or a good team. Or even a halfway decent team. However, he's not exactly dominating, and I doubt he's been the first name on any scouting report for a while. But at least he still has, you know, his pride.

Bonus bawful! Fill in the blanks on Iverson's infamous "practice" rant! [via the Basketball-Reference Blog]

For millions of commuters around the world, motorcycles are a compact and cheap way of getting around town in congested traffic. The Victory Vision is the absolute opposite - there's only been a handful of production bikes ever made that are bigger and heavier than this 400-kilogram, 1740cc American behemoth. It's built to eat up thousands of open-road miles with Harley-beating performance and buttock-coddling luxury - but in a surprise twist, this retro-futuristic mammoth can actually handle surprisingly well to boot. Loz Blain discovers how 10 days on one of the top five heaviest production bikes ever built can change your perspective on motorcycling in our video road test.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N81E5mZePtw&feature;=player_embedded

The Vision is Victory's clean-slate take on what a great American touring motorcycle ought to be; it's a shot across the bows of Harley-Davidson's Ultra Classic Electra Glide and a heads-up to Honda and BMW that America knows how to make a great long-range bike these days too.

Designed by famed chopper king Arlen Ness, it's a machine with a visual presence unlike anything you've ever seen. huge, broad, swoopy lines blend spaceship with hot-rod to frame the bike's gorgeous 106ci/1741cc v-twin engine. Like it or hate it - and these seem the only two options - the look is thoroughly unique and commands attention from onlookers young and old.

Let's dissect some of the numbers to get an understanding of what we're dealing with when we talk about the Victory Vision:

Dry weight: 849lbs / 385kg

Even once you've seen the physical size and presence of the Vision, this number still catches you off guard. With a full tank of fuel, it's well over 400kg, and just about double the weight of today's top sportsbikes. The only production bikes we could find that are heavier than the Vision are the Munch Mammoth, the Boss Hoss and the Honda Goldwing.

For this reason the seat is low and the bike's waist is narrow, to let you use all your leg power. Hoisting it off the side stand is quite an event, and walking-pace handling is a constant wrestle, but as soon as you get the Vision moving, it starts to behave itself admirably and turns into a very smooth and easy-handling bike.

It took me a good half hour to get comfortable with the weight of the bike, but once I got my head around it, it became a lot of fun to throw around.

Engine: 106ci/1741cc - 109 ft-lbs of torque, 92 horsepower, 5500rpm redline

The 50-degree Freedom motor is an absolute gem that forms the heart of the whole Victory range - most of the bikes get a 100ci version, but the Vision, the Vegas Jackpot and the Hammer all get this beefed-up 106ci variant.

It's American, Jim, but not as we know it. The motor has all the grunt, low-end and soul-stirring noise you'd expect from a big Harley - but it's a modern motor at heart, with overhead cams instead of Milwaukee's pushrods, and this lets it open up to a very impressive top-end when you really drop the hammer. It's all very Jekyll-and-Hyde, you can choose whether you want the bike to feel like a typical massive cruiser, or a hard-revving hot rod with steadily building power all the way through to redline.

The engine is stroked-out from the 100ci, with 108mm of piston travel against a 101mm bore. It's air/oil cooled and fuel injected - a nice EFI system that delivers instant and urgent throttle response without throttle sntach. It's a belt-drive system, through a 6-speed gearbox, the top gear of which is a comfortable touring overdrive.

The bike we tested had a 'nearly-legal' stage-one exhaust kit fitted, which gave out a very meaty sound that wasn't antisocial unless you wanted it to be - and it gave us a glimpse of just how enormous this bike would sound with something less friendly fitted. It's probably a good compromise; this is a long-range bike, and anything much louder could contribute to some serious ear damage if you spend a lot of hours in the saddle.

The engine dominates the riding experience - it's smooth yet raw, immensely powerful and full of character. Use low revs and you're king of the road, redline the thing and you're a power-hungry hooligan. Hugely addictive.

Fuel Tank: 6 gallons/22.7 litres

The Vision is a long-haul tourer, an Ironbutt bike, and as such it's got to carry enough juice to make a decent run between fuel stops. On a full tank, our theoretical range readout on the digital trip computer read about 450km, or around 280 miles - pretty impressive for such a huge bike, and significantly better than the Honda Goldwing GL1800, which tends to run out of puff around 210 miles.

Creature Comforts

The Vision is a luxury tourer with all the trimmings; our test bike featured heated handgrips and seats, a full-featured trip computer, gear position indicator, electronic cruise control, an HID driving light, an electrically adjustable screen and a four-speaker stereo system that adjusts its volume depending on your road speed.

All worked admirably - the cruise control is a must-have addition to any bike that's going to spend long hours on a freeway, particularly with speed enforcement such a high priority around the world these days.

The stereo has an FM radio and an iPod jack - a nice touch. It puts out an enormous sound; you can hear it reasonably clearly even through a full-face helmet at 100kmh. It also makes a brilliant static boombox if you're having a party outdoors - if you crank it up, you'll have the neighbours complaining from halfway down the street. Like we did.

The Vision comes in two editions - Street and Tour. Both have medium-sized side panniers on them, but our test bike was the Tour, which adds a giant top box to complete the luggage trifecta. All three are waterproof and lockable. They don't detach from the bike, a niggle which would end up being a annoying on longer trips, but there's a fair bit of room inside and the top box has a very handy internal light.

The fairing is gargantuan and offers great weather protection, particularly in the cold and wet. Raising the screen to its top position and flicking out the plastic side-wings, I was able to ride 50km in reasonably heavy rain on the freeway and arrive not only comfortable, but pretty much bone dry.

Of course the flip side to this is that if it's super hot, as it was for one 350km freeway stint I had to make at around 40 degrees celsius (104 Fahrenheit), there's not a lot of airflow to help cool you down. I could really have done with an air-con button!

How does it ride?

Surprisingly well, for something of its size. The Vision can really handle in the turns. Ground clearance is impressive given the width of the bike, and although the footboards touch down without too much effort, there's nothing scary about dragging them through turns. In fact, the Vision feels so planted that it becomes a bit of a sport to see if you can touch the footboards down on every corner and roundabout.

Even more remarkable is how easily this big Bertha steers - I've ridden older sportsbikes that took more effort to turn. Take this thing through a twisty road and you'll discover it's actually a heck of a lot of fun. The suspension is set up for pure comfort, so it gets a little bouncy and wallowy if you're hooning through bumps and dips, but in all it delivers outstanding confidence and fun for something so massive.

The brakes are twin 300mm discs at the front, and a further 300mm job at the rear. It's a semi-linked system, in that the front lever operates four of the six pistons in the front calipers, and the rear operates both the rear caliper and the middle pistons in the front one. The rear brake is fantastic, and does most of the work - but in the absence of ABS it's still prone to lockup if you're riding hard.

The front brake lever is one of the few outright disappointments on this bike - the feel is wooden and there's very little bite or stopping power until you wrap your whole hand around it and squeeze HARD. Perhaps Victory have chosen to dumb the front brakes down a little so as not to scare cruiser riders, who traditionally rely on their rear brakes - but this bike can really handle, which encourages you to push it a lot harder than most cruisers through the twisties. It deserves a front brake that's up to that style of riding.

Overall

The Vision makes a simply awesome long-range tourer. Its size is strangely reassuring once you're on the move, the riding position is supremely comfortable and natural, it's got a real superstar of an engine and it handles far better than it has any right to around the backstreets and twisties.

It's a sensational bike to take pillions on - not only will they feel safe and comfy, they'll feel downright special. The way everyone stares at the thing, you might too.

The tradeoff is that it's a bit of a pig if you ever have to ride it in heavy city traffic. Few are your lanesplitting options with mirrors this wide, so you've got to crawl along behind the cars, feeling the engine cooking your legs in protest as you scramble and strain to hold the thing upright - and at this point, the onlooker attention starts feeling much less flattering. If it wasn't for this deeply unpleasant side-effect, you could almost call the Vision a great all-rounder.

Starting at US$20,000, the Vision is a grand cheaper than a Harley Ultra Classic Electra Glide, and it outperforms and outhandles its American stablemate in just about every category. It's a whopping eight grand cheaper than the 2010 Gold Wing, which offers slightly superior performance and handling, but also has a turbine-smooth six-cylinder motor where the Victory sports a real heart-starter of a V-twin that oozes character and passion.

It's not a cheap bike, but in just 10 days I found it really grew on me. Even my sportsbike riding buddies, who were deeply skeptical at first, quickly changed their tune after a pillion ride around the backstreets, engine roaring, footboards dragging and classic rock belting out of the stereo. They all got off laughing like naughty schoolgirls.

And when I threw a leg back over my daily ride, a pretty substantial ZX-9R, it felt like an absolute toy. The clip-on bars felt like toothpicks in my hands, the four-cylinder engine felt bland and uninspiring, and the whole bike felt so damn light that I just didn't trust it to stick to the road. Now that was an unexpected side-effect!

Second opinion by Mike Hanlon

I have never liked big touring bikes. They handle, in the immortal words of the late Geoff Eldridge, “like a wheelbarrow full of walruses.” In my first day on the job at a motorcycle magazine back in 1976, I almost binned a Honda Goldwing whilst riding it for a photoshoot. It was the first time I’d ridden anything that large and I stuck it into a long sweeper at a fair clip for the benefit of the cameras, only to find it began gyrating slowly, bordering right on the edge of control. It was almost my last day on the job and although frames and suspension have come a long way in a third of a century, my mistrust of overweight motorcycles and their ability to become unhinged when you dislodge a walruss remains undiminished. In my mind, having a motorcycle that is never far away from threatening to samba you off the road, is like having a pet alligator – you can never be sure you won’t get bitten, and if you do get bitten, it could hurt a LOT!

Harleys, I forgive for their lack of ground clearance, poor handling and questionable reliability on the grounds that they’re not really motorcycles that can be judged by normal motorcycle standards and you can have fun on one at the speed limit. Somehow, along the way, Harleys became more than just metal and rubber and took on a mechatronic presence which transcends normal transportation measurements.

Oh, and the name – the magic of the name is unquestionable. It enables the marque to get away with reliability issues and archaic design that other manufacturers would simply not contemplate. For some reason, perhaps as a sign of rebeliousness, the Harley-Davidson name conjures a loyalty that is unprecedented in consumerism – how many registered brand names can you find tattooed on consumer chests, biceps, buttocks and breasts around the world – my guess is that 95+% of all brands and logos committed to ink on human epidermis on the planet would be Harley Davidson. That in itself is a clear indication that the Harley name means a lot more than an antiquated motorcycle brand to its consumers, and that companies going after Harley's market should proceed with caution. That said, Victory has done what the Japanese manufacturers seemingly could not do – though everyone builds a better motorcycle than a Harley, only Triumph has done so with originality well enough to create a viable marketplace for itself.

All of the Japanese manufacturers have Harley lookalikes which all do a better job of being motorcycles than Harleys do, but none of them wear the name or the badge. The Victory at least looks capable of creating a viable ongoing marketplace.

Such is my disdain for big fat motorcycles that I spent an entire 36 hour period in the presence of the Victory Vision, with my helmet and riding gear at hand, without even being tempted to throw a leg over it. It was only when Loz laid down the first cut of the audio for the video and insisted that it actually handled really well that I thought about trying it.

When I did eventually try it, I almost gave myself a hernia getting it out of the gate and I was standing at the lights in the first 60 seconds of my ride, feeling every bit of its 400 kilograms and thinking I was simply not going to enjoy it. Now let’s fully appreciate how heavy it is. I owned a Honda six – a CBX – a few years ago because I fell in love with the sound of the motor. It was so heavy, that I employed the services of an Ohlins MotoGP suspension technician to sort out the suspension for me so I could go around corners safely. The Victory Vision weighs 50% more than the CBX did.

The Victory Vision also weighs 33% more than Kawasaki’s six cylinder Z1300 of the 1980s, which frightened me more times than I care to remember. It is 50 kilos heavier than Triumph’s 2.3 litre Rocket 3, which was the heaviest motorcycle I have ever ridden that I could genuinely love – again, the motor of the Rocket 3 needs to be experienced to fully appreciate the meaning of the word “torque” and it is a point of difference worth compromising for. The Rocket 3 handles great until you drag something on the deck or hit a pothole while going hard, at which point it never fails to remind you that it could rear up and smite you in a moment.

I could go on. It outweighs by 15 kilograms the legendary Munch Mammut 2000cc, named after one of those gigantic prehistoric wooly elephants which gave meaning to the English word “mammoth.” It weighs exactly twice as much as the even more legendary Vincent Black Shadow, the original superbike.

Indeed, if you’re prepared to disqualify the likes of the Boss Hoss with its Chevy V8 motor, a motorcycle so eccentric that it doesn’t do anything conventional, including stop or go around corners, by my reckoning, the Vision is one of the three heaviest scale production motorcycles in history.

As I muscled the Victory out of town on a hot day through holiday traffic, everything the numbers said was being confirmed in my mind. Each time I had to stop at the lights, I checked the road to ensure there was no gravel there – anything less than a surefooted stance at the lights and the Vision would no doubt have arm-wrestled me into submission.

Yet, just 30 minutes later, I felt differently and far more kindly towards this huge lump. Once the lead zeppelin had cleared the city limits, and the motor had cleared its throat, I could immediately understand what all the fuss is about.

For starters, the big v-twin motor has loads of character with oodles of midrange grunt, and a wonderful snarl with each twist of the throttle. It spins harder than a Harley motor, has just as much charm, and when you stretch the trottle cable, something actually happens in the horsepower department.

Most significantly, it didn’t feel like it was going to wrestle me into submission when the roads, dips, bumps and potholes inevitably came along, and though I tried to induce those galloping oscillations, I couldn’t. Chalk one up to that massive frame as it has achieved what must be impossible for conventional tubular frames, cos no-one has built a big bike with a conventional frame yet which can handle acceptably in my book.

Without the feeling that I was only a good pothole away from yawing, lurching or samba-ing off the road and into the shrubbery, it was fun to ride, though each time I had cause to stop, I remembered why I didn’t like heavy bikes. The biggest fascination for me regarding the Vision was comparing it with the single track vehicles I have been writing a lot about recently. Check out this article on the convergence of the car and the motorcycle and you’ll see what I’m on about.

Comparing the Vision to a traditional motorcycle, it is clinically obese. Its fat arse makes almost any other motorcycle, be it a BMW K1300GT, Kawasaki 1400GTR, Yamaha FJR1300 or Honda ST1300, seem svelte and trim. Loz and I were discussing this at the end of a long day of shooting the Vision in the coastal region at the foot of Australia’s Great Dividing Range and we dug out the figures for the latest bleeding edge micro cars being touted by the world’s most advanced auto manufacturers – the comparison was illuminating indeed.

The Vision might be overweight for a motorcycle, but in comparison to any car, it’s tiny – slightly more than half the weight of the latest smart fortwo, a lot less than half the weight of the latest Ford ka, new Fiat 500, Citroen C1, Toyota Aygo and Hyundai i10 and close to one third the weight of established ecomobiles such as the Honda Civic and Toyota Prius.

The low weight of a motorcycle is the secret to its frugality. Most motorcycles are aerodynamic atrocities, and waste a lot of that advantage pushing air around, but when you realise that the Vision which threatened to crush knee ligaments and rip tendons off the bone with its 400 kg weight, is just a fraction of the weight of a micro car, you suddenly understand how wasteful we have been on the roads with our finite resources.

But the roads are becoming increasingly congested, and that’s why the world’s auto manufacturers are currently exploring narrow-track vehicles. By the time the world’s population begins to stabilise, around 2050, with around 50% more people than there are now, the world’s roadways will be so heavily congested that public transport will look good, and motorcycles will completely validated, economical, environmentally responsible road transport with the only viable point-to-point times in urban areas.

That’s not to say I’m ever gonna love a motorcycle like the Victory Vision, but comparing it to a smart fortwo and realising that in perspective, it’s a lightweight tandem two seat eco vehicle was … illuminating.

Mike Hanlon

Filed under: Preschoolers, Kids 5-7, Fun & Activities, That's Entertainment, Music

76 Trombones by Dan Zanes and Friends

There are few true superstars in kids' music, but Zanes is one of them. And he attained that status with his trademark laid back, folky rock sound. He's the Dylan of children's music, not the Andrew Lloyd Weber, which is why a CD of Broadway show tunes seemed like a potentially risky departure for the Brooklyn troubadour. But he handles it beautifully, of course. He puts a very Zanes-y spin on classic from A Chorus Line, Annie, Peter Pan and more, transforming songs you're used to hearing as big and booming production numbers into very pure, roots-of-rock sounding fare.

The title track gets a little Dixieland sprinkled into it, while "Gary, Indiana," also from The Music Man, get a jazzy beat behind it. Peter Pan songs get rocked out, as the drum-driven "I Won't Grow Up" takes on an early Who sound and "I'm Flying" ends up feeling like it could be a Pixies track. The traditionally belted "Tomorrow" from Annie is given a much softer treatment here, as a bilingual Spanish-English ballad subtitled "Manana." Guest vocalists -- another Zanes trademark -- appropriately come from Broadway backgrounds, like Carol Channing on "Hello, Dolly," and Matthew Broderick on another Dolly tune, "Before the Parade Passes By." The best track on the whole disc, though, is possibly "I Am What I Am," from La Cage Aux Folles, which works wonderfully as an uplifting, believe-in-yourself number with just the right kind of message for kids. All in all, 76 Trombones makes a nice addition to the Dan Zanes canon.

Listen to "76 Trombones":

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Enter to win this special Rhino.com prize package by commenting on this post. Only enter once and please remember to leave your email address in the text of your comment. Entries close at midnight on Wednesday, west coast time. Publicists: If you'd like to take part in Swag Tuesday on JMG, please email me.

This 76th Orange Bowl Classic showcases two of the top 10 teams in the country Tuesday night in large part because Georgia Tech and Iowa are lucky to have what so many other major college football programs do not.

(10 votes - 2 comments - 176 views)
A compilation video of all the classic fails from the year that was 2009.

<p>Filed under: <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/category/apple-corporate/" rel="tag">Apple Corporate</a>, <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/category/odds-and-ends/" rel="tag">Odds and ends</a></p><img vspace="8" hspace="8" border="1" align="right" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tuaw.com/media/2010/01/nokia_logojan410.jpg" />Well, you can't say the company isn't persistent. Nokia has already <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2009/10/22/ouch-nokia-suing-apple-over-iphone-tech/">sued Apple </a>over GSM patents, and last week Nokia filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission, which asked the commission to ban the import of Apple mobile products including the MacBook, iPhone and iPods.<br /> <br /> Now, our sister site, <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/04/nokia-asks-itc-to-ban-iphone-ipod-and-macbook-imports-files-a/">Engadget</a> reports Nokia has filed another <a href="http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/engadget/files/Nokia_Apple_III.pdf">federal complaint</a> against Apple, alleging that Curpertino is violating 7 more Nokia Patents. Nokia says these violations are all implementation patents, or features that differentiate Nokia products from the rest of the market. <br /> <br /> Nokia claims that the infringing technologies are present in the iPhone 3G, 3GS, iPod touch, iPod Nano and Classic, as well as the Mac Pro, the Mac Mini, the MacBook and the MacBook Air.<br /> <br /> Whew! Nokia wants a jury trial, and an injunction against Apple for allegedly violating the patents. <br /> <br /> Not to be outdone, Apple is already <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/11/AR2009121102186.html">counter-suing</a> Nokia from its earlier suits, claiming essentially that Nokia missed the boat on updating mobile phone technology and wants access to Apple patents, while slowing Apple growth.<br /> <br /> The big winners in all this will likely be the lawyers. Keep watching this space. We're following all the bloody details.<br /> <br /> [Via <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/04/nokia-asks-itc-to-ban-iphone-ipod-and-macbook-imports-files-a/">Engadget</a>]<p><a href="http://www.tuaw.com">TUAW</a><a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2010/01/04/nokia-brings-more-legal-complaints-against-apple/">Nokia brings more legal complaints against Apple</a> originally appeared on <a href="http://www.tuaw.com">The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)</a> on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our <a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/">terms for use of feeds</a>.<br /></p><h6></h6><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/04/nokia-asks-itc-to-ban-iphone-ipod-and-macbook-imports-files-a/">Read</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2010/01/04/nokia-brings-more-legal-complaints-against-apple/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry">Permalink</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.tuaw.com/forward/19302054/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email">Email this</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2010/01/04/nokia-brings-more-legal-complaints-against-apple/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry">Comments</a><br clear="both" /> <br clear="both" /> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:b1da06ddb1db3087f22a34285115d4e7:d2j8wlKAxO%2BpPSHKkgGlBrvhVl%2FMCDFzJ0yoLwUmjWNneJblKu6euaTeHvECa7PHTDDdM6nOf258"><img border="0" title="Add to digg" alt="Add to digg" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/digg.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:788b1eca92de9f28a16c888e7c7480c8:pDDJ1Ca2KEgxyY46gvB9ofYNwWBWOrD12EmxvrZ8OHCgc7cfBOMfB%2F4UuRuHGnp1s1carQVP7hzb"><img border="0" title="Add to del.icio.us" alt="Add to del.icio.us" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/delicious.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:464909c94f20a3766bda7d86d3df089d:m9kTlFFFQid3LkhvbdyMMkWN37YrvH%2F%2BOojwp8nx6bprO8KSuRoeIZca0iIzTulgFf%2BU0caeeP7q"><img border="0" title="Add to Google" alt="Add to Google" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/google.png" /></a> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:8dc869b91ff750f46111d7b36a56be0f:seM5StdNApif8joHOXfEZD9qtsKaHeCxYHUPit9d5G4LXbGxrbkeaj20R7JWX3yecNZd%2F6qWbt%2B0cg%3D%3D"><img border="0" title="Add to StumbleUpon" alt="Add to StumbleUpon" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/stumbleit.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:6372d9c987b5ef9b938c3bf06e7ccb4c:GrBOchWygti66IqGZmNzwBHpBhJxdOK1gjJvEUnm%2BhdujaEYfchsoevRpzOy%2BC6TVcLCEMbs2RLgXw%3D%3D"><img border="0" title="Add to Facebook" alt="Add to Facebook" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/facebook.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:fda9987591407f11076310d58da05ab7:NzOgW6FcFm6QBFvqgRbkdJ4LfHjBL0%2BKBpWtSqSIarkVZddDMnHgF1ZZXLrmxKxOGlksnf4j%2FGQ3"><img border="0" title="Add to Reddit" alt="Add to Reddit" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/reddit.png" /></a> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:2186e377859a8e3de095cd3b8cb8f4e8:x%2BdUE9wPT9tThllPhKDb1NmOxbGNDd6gbcUvrN3bjAYdZPeI%2BE5v5YGDisXQkfJTNY0L%2FY3GtB1t5A%3D%3D"><img border="0" title="Add to Technorati" alt="Add to Technorati" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/technorati.png" /></a> <br clear="both" /> <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=8f5b7146781670b1021d58956292cd16&p=1"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=8f5b7146781670b1021d58956292cd16&p=1" /></a> <img alt="" height="0" width="0" border="0" src="http://a.rfihub.com/eus.gif?eui=2226" /><br clear="all" /> <img src="http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?kw=" align="absmiddle" /> <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=8f5b7146781670b1021d58956292cd16&p=64&kw=Apple">Apple</a> - <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=8f5b7146781670b1021d58956292cd16&p=64&kw=iPhone">iPhone</a> - <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=8f5b7146781670b1021d58956292cd16&p=64&kw=IPod">IPod</a> - <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=8f5b7146781670b1021d58956292cd16&p=64&kw=iPod+Nano">iPod Nano</a> - <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=8f5b7146781670b1021d58956292cd16&p=64&kw=Unofficial+Apple+Weblog">Unofficial Apple Weblog</a>

Sourced from: "The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)"

As the calendar turns and all eyes are either cast in the past or into the future, the events of 2009 continue to fester for me in terms of how the lessons of 2009 don’t necessarily point to a clearer future in 2010 and beyond in MLB. When Game 1 of the World Series pitted two former teammates, both former Cy Young Award winners, neither of them wearing the uniform that they donned in their Cy Young Award winning season (and neither of them having reached their 31st birthday), the ugliness that has been lurking under the surface in terms of MLB and the disparity created in the current structure reared not just an ugly head, it revealed itself for all to see on a cold October night in the Bronx.

While fans in Cleveland were left to take the body blows from the national media (prodded on by FOX’s graphic titled “At Least You Have LeBron while showing both CC and CP Lee in their Cleveland uniforms), it was hard not to wonder if this seemingly chance occurrence was simply the appetizer for what is to come as MLB improbably gets less balanced and more weighted towards teams with bigger markets, with larger margins for error, and ultimately larger payrolls. The CC-Lee matchup brutally exposed the problems within MLB, where certain teams not only have to continue to be adept at developing young, cost-controlled players, but now have to hope that those players develop within the same timeframe allowing contention, if albeit brief contention. What prevents Josh Johnson taking on Ricky Nolasco in the Fall Classic (not involving the Marlins) or even a Tim Lincecum v. Matt Cain match-up in October (with those still playing for the Giants sitting at home) at some point in the future?

Gone are the days when prudent decisions made in baseball allowed teams to compete based upon their own decisions, and growing more obvious is the notion that teams have to compete with a laundry list of factors coming before anything even related to baseball. Much of the blame has been placed at the feet of the large market teams and on the shoulders of the Bud Selig, who has presided over the sordid state of affairs as the disparity among MLB teams to be growing instead of shrinking.

With that in mind, let’s go to the interview posted at MLB.com with Selig regarding how the league has weathered the economic storm of the past year and what kind of state he sees baseball in today compared to how he took it over:

“On the field, it was fabulous. A great year, beginning to end. We had more competitive balance. It was just a terrific year, under the worst circumstances since the Great Depression. That’s the point you have to keep in mind.”
--snip--
Selig’s tenure has been characterized by economic reforms such as revenue sharing and the luxury tax that are intended to improve competitive balance. With the wide variations among franchises’ ability to generate revenue, and without a salary cap, baseball’s economic playing field cannot be completely level. But the movement toward greater competitive balance has changed the competitive character of the game.
--snip--
“But the economic reforms have been remarkable. When you think of what baseball’s economic system was in 1992 and what it is today, nobody could have ever believed that we would have this kind of revenue sharing and the luxury tax. People talk about the system, it needs this and that, and I don’t deny that it needs some work. But I think of the pain that we went through in the 1990s and the evolution since then, it’s sort of stunning. I’m proud of the change.”

Truthfully, the most relevant sentences have been bolded by me, but Selig speaks extensively of the changes that have been made to the economic structure of the game from the time he took over in 1992 to where it sits today in the article and, since he brought up the comparison, let’s take a look at MLB Payrolls by team in 1992 and in the just-completed 2009 season:
MLB Payrolls – 1992
1) Mets - $44,352,002
2) Dodgers - $43,788,166
3) Blue Jays - $43,663,666
4) Red Sox - $42,203,584
5) Athletics - $39,957,834
6) Yankees - $35,966,834
7) Reds - $35,203,999
8) Royals - $33,643,834
9) Angels - $33,529,854
10) Giants - $33,126,168
11) Braves - $32,975,333
12) Pirates - $32,589,167
13) Brewers - $30,253,668
14) Rangers - $29,740,667
15) Cubs - $29,060,833
16) Tigers - $28,413,500
17) White Sox - $28,413,500
18) Padres - $27,584,167
19) Twins - $27,432,834
20) Cardinals - $26,889,836
21) Phillies - $23,804,834
22) Mariners - $22,483,834
23) Orioles - $20,997,667
24) Expos - $15,869,667
25) Astros - $13,352,000
26) Indians - $8,236,166
For comparison’s sake going forward, realize that the median salary in 1992 was $30,135,908 with 15 of the 26 teams (those below the A’s and above the Phillies) spending a number that was either less than 20% above that figure or 20% below that figure. The highest payroll represented a 34% higher payroll than the median and the lowest payroll (the Dick Jacobs-owned Indians, I might add) spent 72% less than the median.

MLB Payrolls – 2009
1) Yankees - $220,024,917
2) Mets - $142,229,759
3) Cubs - $141,632,703
4) Red Sox - $140,454,683
5) Tigers - $139,429,408
6) Phillies - $138,286,499
7) Dodgers - $131,507,197
8) Angels - $121,947,524
9) Astros - $108,059,086
10) White Sox - $105,287,384
11) Cardinals - $102,678,475
12) Mariners - $102,343,617
13) Braves - $100,078,591
14) Giants - $95,202,185
15) Brewers - $90,006,172
16) Rockies - $84,450,797
17) Blue Jays - $84,130,513
18) Royals - $81,917,563
19) Orioles - $79,308,066
20) Rangers - $77,208,810
21) Indians - $77,192,253
22) Diamondbacks - $73,800,852
23) Twins - $73,068,407
24) Reds - $72,693,206
25) Rays - $71,222,532
26) Nationals - $69,321,137
27) Athletics - $61,688,124
28) Pirates - $47,991,132
29) Padres - $43,210,258
30) Marlins - $37,532,482

The median salary in 2009 was $97,130,144 with 20 of the 30 teams (all below the Yankees and above the D-Backs) spending a number that was either less than 20% above that figure or 20% below that figure. The highest payroll represented a 56% higher payroll than the median and the lowest payroll was 61% lower than the median.

Is Selig correct in saying that there has been economic reform in the past 17 years?
Absolutely, but the change has not come in bringing the payrolls of teams much closer together, the change has come in an absolutely stunning increase in revenue, made obvious by the fact that that median salary has more than TRIPLED in 17 years. The issue that Selig fails to point out is that the revenue sharing and the luxury tax have not been able to prevent a still-evolving system that sways favor to large markets because of the exponential increase of revenue. In 1992, the Athletics and Reds counted themselves among the top 7 payrolls in MLB and 17 years later, they both find themselves among the bottom 7 payrolls in MLB.

What Selig assisted in creating is an unquestionable money-making machine (and let’s not be naïve enough to think that all of these teams aren’t making money hand over fist in some fashion), but also one that tilts the scales in favor of the large market teams where a larger population base has more or less equated into a larger payroll.

Prompted by Tim Marchman of SI.com’s suggestion that a 3rd team should be added to the NY-NJ area in an attempt to loosen the stranglehold that the Yankees and, to a lesser degree, the Mets have on simply buying the best players (or, more recently, trading for hefty contracts that teams were looking to unload, giving up only fungible parts, easily replaceable by simply paying over slot in future drafts), perhaps it’s relevant to examine the size of the markets in MLB and how they relate to 2009 payroll in the system currently in place. Using the Combined Statistical Areas and the Metropolitan Statistical Areas (with a little foray into the Great White North), here’s a more comprehensive look at population distribution among MLB cities and how many people are tied to each team, using the data from 2008 that takes into account neighboring cities for a truer sense of an extended metropolitan area’s population.

Listed parenthetically is where the teams that find those particular areas their home rank among the 30 MLB teams in 2009 payroll:
NY – 22,154,752 (Yankees #1 payroll, Mets #2 payroll)
LA – 17,786,419 (Dodgers #7 payroll, Angels #8 payroll)
Chicago – 9,793,036 (Cubs #3 payroll, White Sox #10 payroll)
Baltimore/Washington – 8,295,397 (Orioles #19 payroll, Nationals #26 payroll)
Boston – 7,514,759 (Red Sox #4 payroll)
San Francisco/Oakland – 7,354,555 (Giants #14 payroll, Athletics #27 payroll)
Dallas – 6,655,261 (Rangers #20 payroll)
Philadelphia – 6,398,896 (Phillies #6 payroll)
Houston – 5,829,620 (Astros #9 payroll)
Atlanta – 5,729,304 (Braves #13 payroll)
Miami – 5,463,857 (Marlins #30 payroll)
Detroit – 5,354,225 (Tigers #5 payroll)
Toronto – 5,113,149 (Blue Jays #17 payroll)
Phoenix – 4,281,899 (Diamondbacks #22 payroll)
Seattle – 4,087,033 (Mariners #12 payroll)
Minneapolis/St. Paul – 3,562,284 (Twins #23 payroll)
Denver – 3,049,562 (Rockies #16 payroll)
San Diego – 3,208,466 (Padres #29 payroll)
Cleveland – 2,887,492 (Indians #21 payroll)
St. Louis – 2,879,924 (Cardinals #11 payroll)
Tampa/St. Petersburg – 2,733,761 (Rays #25 payroll)
Pittsburgh – 2,441,464 (Pirates #28 payroll)
Cincinnati – 2,198,337 (Reds #24 payroll)
Kansas City – 2,070,544 (Royals #18 payroll)
Milwaukee – 1,748,818 (Brewers #15 payroll)
That would be 7 of the top 10 payrolls coming from 4 of the 5 biggest cities with an MLB team or teams, with the rest of the teams more or less falling in line with their payrolls being tied to the size of the metropolitan area which they cover. Sure, there are the exceptions (Baltimore/Washington with low payrolls at the top end of the population ladder, Milwaukee and St. Louis spending more than their population rank would dictate), but for the most part, the teams existing in larger cities have a built-in competitive advantage over team in mid-sized or smaller cities based in large part because of the size of their prospective customer base.

The problem with this set-up, in that the rich are able to get richer and the poor are left to attempt to build a better mousetrap to level the playing field, is that it shows no sign of changing. Very few teams have a chance to legitimately contend for the World Series from year to year because of the current system and the current make-up of MLB economics rewards the market of a team instead of the merit of that team.

What’s the solution?
Is it really to add another team to the Metro NY area or to Boston in an attempt to defray the base that the Yankees, Mets, and Red Sox draw from? Not even getting into the fact that the Steinbrenners, the Wilpons, and John Henry would cry bloody murder (louder and with more to back it up than Peter Angelos did when the Expos moved to DC), doesn’t that really just add another big market team to the mix?

So is the idea just to load up LA, NY, Boston, Dallas, Philly with another team to average these things out? If that’s the formula, where does it stop…4 teams in NY and LA, 3 in Chicago and Baltimore/Washington/Northern Virginia or just lumping a whole bunch of teams either into the megalopolis that extends from Southern New Hampshire down to Northern Virginia and to Chicago, Northern/Southern California, and Texas, since that’s where a vast amount of people live?

Rather, wouldn’t it be prudent to examine what makes the other pro sports in America able to avoid this disparity and, in turn, make them compelling…to find out how NFL maintains its stranglehold on the sporting interests of American and to find out how the NBA is able to offer a competitive balance based on the wisdom of a teams’ personnel decisions and not on the size of an individual team’s market?

It’s been beaten to death, I know, but the NFL playoffs this year boast Indianapolis, Cincinnati, San Diego, New England, Minnesota, Green Bay, New Orleans, Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, Dallas, and Arizona and the common thread among all of those teams has nothing to do with the size of Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Green Bay, or Minneapolis as metropolitan areas just as it has nothing to do with the size of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Dallas and their outlying communities. The common thread among all of those teams is that they’ve succeeded at drafting and developing players, fit them into a successful system, and allowed that system to foster winning to the point that market size or payroll has very little bearing on wins and losses. In the NFL, teams are rewarded for intelligent drafting and development and have the tools in place to keep their home-grown players to allow continuity to reveal the wisdom of their best-laid plans. If a team succeeds, it is because the Front Office made prudent decisions and because the players performed at a level that resulted in consistent winning. On the flip side, if a team fails year in and year out, it is largely because of shortcomings within their organization and not reliant on factors outside of football decisions.

In the NBA, the system is also in place to reward wisdom in player acquisition and development and the procedures are in place to foster that continuity that puts the onus of winning on the Front Office, the coaching staff, and the players as the league makes it easier for teams to retain their stars. The NBA features winning teams that build through smart drafting and player development (witness what the Hawks and Trail Blazers are currently doing) and watches teams intent on finding a way to “beat the system” by buying players on the open market (see Knicks, New York) flounder in the mess that they’ve created, unable to simply buy their way out of the mud. To put it in very tangible terms, I’m not sure if you’ve heard this yet or not, but the Cavs can offer LBJ more money in NBA salary than any other team, just as Toronto can offer Chris Bosh more than any other team, just as Miami can offer Dwayne Wade more money than anyone else this upcoming off-season.
Compared to the system in place in MLB, how alien is that concept?

In MLB, most teams now are left to rely on the idea that they have to develop players that arrive and thrive at the same time to open their window of contention, see if they can use their increased revenue brought on by winning to keep that window open a little longer (see the Brewers’ off-season signings as an example of how a team is trying keep that window propped until Prince Fielder heads to the East Coast after the 2011 season), and attempt to have everything go right for them in one magical year to vault themselves past teams without their constraints before they have to tear everything down all over again to wait for that next window to open.

How is it that every other league has figured out a way to reward prudent SPORTS decisions (not business decisions) by individual franchises, while Cleveland fans are left to watch two Cy Young winners under the age of 30 face off against each other in Game 1 of the World Series while another rebuild/reload/whatever is underway on the North Coast?

Don’t take this to be sour grapes (OK…maybe it is a little bit after seeing the events of 2008 and 2009 unfold in Cleveland), but how is it that Karl Malone and John Stockton are able to spend essentially their entire NBA careers in Salt Lake City (smaller than every MLB market) and little question exists that Peyton Manning will spend his NFL career in Indianapolis (larger than only Milwaukee among MLB cities) while the Twins struggle to convince Joe Mauer (a St. Paul native, no less) to ignore the extra years and zeroes on the check that awaits him in Boston or New York after this season to stay in Minnesota?

A solution to the burgeoning issue is needed and, while the owners may not have an interest in doing this as they all line their pockets, flush with the economic boon to the sport that has transpired since Selig took over, perhaps they should if they’re looking at the long-term viability as their sport to be viewed as much more than a imbalanced joke. Reason being, the public has taken notice of the current structure and if a Seton Hall poll from November 5th of this year is any indication, public perception about their sport is essentially a David vs. Goliath tale, with their popularity dropping since 1985, when it ran neck and neck with NFL as America’s most popular sport:

Sixty percent of Americans who follow sports feel that teams located in bigger markets have an advantage in producing winning seasons, according to a poll conducted this week by the Seton Hall Sports Poll. Twenty-six percent felt the bigger market teams did not have an advantage.

The polling took place this week as the New York Yankees, representing the nation’s biggest market, played the Philadelphia Phillies, representing the nation’s fourth largest market.

Seventy percent of fans feel that Major League Baseball should make a bigger effort to equalize revenue for all teams, as the NFL has done.
--snip--
“While occasionally a small market team like Minnesota or Tampa Bay will break through and win a division or a playoff round, the big markets continue to prevail in the later rounds, and the fans clearly link that success to the ability to generate bigger revenue,” noted Rick Gentile, director of the Seton Hall Sports Poll, conducted by The Sharkey Institute.

To be clear on this, what the public is looking for is not for every team to finish at or around 81-81 every season – what they’re looking for is a legitimate competitive balance. Competitive balance doesn’t mean parity, nor does it mean that each team necessarily has an equal shot at winning every year. Rather it means that the competitiveness of a team should be based upon the baseball decisions that a team makes and not decisions made where putting the best baseball team on the field falls somewhere down the list of factors.

If the Royals or Pirates draft poorly and are unable to develop their own talent, there’s no question that they should find themselves in the cellar; but if the Twins or Rays draft and develop talent on a consistent basis, that talent should coalesce as the team sees fit, not within the parameters of their market and their payroll. If teams make a roster decision via trade, the prevailing reason should be baseball-related, above all other factors related to revenue or payroll or attendance, in an effort to foster the continuity that the other sports have already figured out.

What has happened instead of seeing these prudent teams focused on development grow into perennial powers is that the larger market teams have made great strides in recent years that have improved their baseball decisions (the Raul Mondesi-to-the-Bronx days aren’t coming back) and that fact has put most other teams further behind the 8-ball as the large market teams have started to understand that they can’t just dole out every big contract while they build a team (well, maybe the Mets haven’t) and have started to develop their own young players. The issue arises however, when a team like the Yankees doesn’t see their young players develop like they’re supposed to or as quickly as they’re supposed to (using Chamberlain and Hughes as examples) and they simply plug those holes via FA (Sabathia and Burnett) or, more recently, by trade (Granderson replaces Melky) as trading their prospects does not affect the Yankees as it does other teams. In this New World Order, where young, under-club-control, cheap talent is the most desired commodity, the Yankees and Red Sox (just to name two) can use their prospects to trade for other teams’ desired commodities with the idea that once they enter the Bronx or Yawkey Way, the Yankees or Red Sox have them under their collective thumb in terms of negotiation.

On the flip side, the smaller market teams are forced to take calculated risks in an attempt to narrow the margin between the larger market teams and themselves. In these attempts, they expose themselves to monetary risks that have the capability to sink the team if the risky venture turns out poorly. Forget the idea that small market teams don’t want to “pay the going rate” or “pony up” for their homegrown stars, the simpler fact is that the likes of Boston and New York have the margin of error that allow them to buy their way out of mistakes. While Travis Hafner’s 4-year, $57M contract (signed in 2007) sits around the Indians’ neck like an albatross, paying “cash considerations” to the Cardinals to take Julio Lugo (signed a 4-year, $36M deal in 2006) certainly didn’t seem to have affected the ability of the Red Sox to give John Lackey $82.5M this off-season. As the Brewers are paying $7.15M of Bill Hall’s $8.4M salary in 2010 after designating him for assignment last season, and because a team like the Brewers is not able to simply absorb that cost without it affecting the rest of their operation, they work under a different set of guidelines than the large-market teams like the Yankees who are still in the midst of paying Kei Igawa $20M from 2006 through the end of 2011, yet happily committed to paying $423,500,000 to Sabathia, Teixeira, and Burnett last off-season, which ultimately resulted in their 27th World Series Championship.

On the surface, it seems that large market teams are rewarded for their market, not for their merit while the teams that call smaller cities home are left to attempt to find new ways to win. Apparently though, it depends on who you ask as Red Sox owner John Henry complained that smaller market teams aren’t necessarily interested in winning and using their revenue sharing money to win and are instead simply pocketing it. His idea is to remove the notion of revenue sharing and to instead institute a “Competitive Balanced Payroll Tax” system:

“If the Yankees and the Mets spend a billion dollars plus of their investment dollars to build new ballparks, they should be allowed to keep their revenues from that,” Henry wrote. “But if they want to spend $200,000,000 annually on payroll, they should be heavily taxed directly on that – and if they want to spend more than that, they should be even more heavily taxed. So should all clubs who spend heavily on payroll – to the extent necessary – to bring the system into balance.”

While Henry’s idea certainly has some merit, it still doesn’t correct the fundamental problem in the current system as the teams in MLB are playing on different fields when it comes to being rewarded (or punished) for their baseball decisions in the won-loss column. That is, the Phillies developed the likes of Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Cole Hamels, and Ryan Howard and should unquestionably in the mix for the MLB title. The problem is that the Phillies ran into a team in the World Series with an ace who cut his teeth in Cleveland, a 1B who came up with the Rangers, a 3B who was drafted by the Mariners, a LF who was originally a Royal, and a #2 starter who began his career as a Marlin. You could argue all day long about what circumstances put those players in the pinstripes last Fall (just as you could point to the Phillies’ roster for a former Indian in Lee and a former Royal in Ibanez), but the public has grown weary of the idea that it’s only a matter of time before every exceptional player in MLB becomes a member of the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Mets, or some other large market team.

So is there a solution?
Perhaps there is, and while I’m not calling for a return to the reserve clause or some sort of other form of indentured service, the 2 other major sports have figured it out to some degree, so there must be some way to do this to align consistency and competitiveness. Is it possible to satisfy the concerns of small market teams, quick to employ the “we can’t afford to take those risks to keep our homegrown players” card as well as the large market teams, who feel that they are lining the pockets of small market team owners who have no interest in competing, much less winning, so long as they are making money?

Going back to John Henry’s idea for a “Competitive Balanced Payroll Tax”, wouldn’t it make sense to use the funds created by this “tax” (and the revenue sharing number in 2009 was allegedly $400M that was “distributed from high revenue making clubs such as the Yankees and Red Sox to those at the low end of the spectrum, such as the Marlins, Pirates, Rays, and Royals”) to enable the smaller market teams to compete with the large market teams, in respect to keeping their homegrown players as members of their organization?

That is to say, if funds existed specifically to assist teams to keep their own players, it becomes less of an unbalanced field as to who can go out and “buy” the best players and more of an idea of developing the best players and keeping them to build around them and to allow them to congeal as a team as MLB teams once did. This idea shouldn’t take money out of players’ pockets however as the players should be fairly compensated for “what the market will bear” for their services, but perhaps a solution to that problem could be found.

A possible solution could go something like this – once a player hits Free Agency, allow said player to go out on the open market to see what deals exist for him out there. When the bidding has concluded and an offer sheet is signed by the player and his agent, his current team has 10 days to match the offer, much like Restricted Free Agency in the NBA. Now here’s where that pool of money created by the “Competitive Balanced Payroll Tax” come in – the player’s current team can decide to match the offer sheet while only footing the bill for half of the contract with the other half of the money coming from the pool of money created by the Competitive Tax Pool that John Henry argues for. To put that in tangible terms, if the Brewers wanted to match the Yankees’ 7-year, $161M contract offer from the Yankees last off-season, they would be responsible for $80.5M of the deal with the other $80.5M coming from the Tax Pool.

Thus, the large market teams can still bid for the services of the players they desire and, if their offers are matched, they have effectively ensured that the money that they pay into the “Competitive Balanced Payroll Tax” is going strictly for MLB players (not for other small market “expenses”) and the smaller market teams don’t have to assume as much risk in signing their own players to their contracts to keep them. The large market teams may not like the idea of bidding against their own money or subsidizing the contracts of players not playing for them, but their concerns about throwing money into other owners’ pockets would be allayed and they would be left to strive for the same excellence in player development that every other team would be chasing.

If teams don’t elect to utilize this Tax Pool to keep their own players, the onus is strictly on them for either not developing players internally compelling enough that they want to keep them or they are exposed for being more concerned with the bottom line than they are the product on the field. If a team develops players prudently, the machinations would be in place to keep those players as long as they wish to, with the players being compensated dollars equivalent to “what the market will bear”.

Certainly some teams would attempt to find ways around this structure by simply overpaying for young players or outspending other teams at a lower level in an attempt to develop their own players to take advantage of the Tax Pool. While that is a legitimate concern, it would bring a brighter focus on the need to create a worldwide draft or, at the very least, finalize some form of payment tied to draft position so teams with deeper pockets can’t pay over slot to select better players later in the rounds because they’re willing to throw more money at a riskier venture.

While some would argue that this would drive down salaries, I would argue the opposite and that, in the process, it could even indirectly even out the amount of risk large market teams would assume by signing Free Agents because of the escalating salaries that large market teams would be willing to dole out in an attempt to make even half of an offer sheet too daunting for another organization to assume.

For that, let’s take a look at the very real Joe Mauer situation in Minnesota and assume that the Twins don’t sign Mauer to a long-term deal this off-season. In the scenario, Mauer hits the open market with the Yankees and Red Sox both in need of catchers and salivating at the prospect of adding Mauer to their roster. Let’s say that after all of the negotiating, the Red Sox trump the Yankees’ best efforts by offering Mauer an 8-year deal worth $25M per year to come to Boston. In the newly proposed situation, the Twins would have the right to match the Red Sox offer, but pay only half of the salary with the other $12.5M annually being paid from the Tax Pool. If the number of $400M in revenue sharing being paid out last year is anywhere close to being true, subsidizing half of Mauer’s salary would represent only a drop (actually a little over 3%) in the Tax Pool bucket. In the end, Mauer gets paid what the market will bear, the Twins keep Mauer without assuming all of the salary risk, and the large market teams know that the money put into the Competitive Balanced Tax Pool is actually being used to foster competitive balance and not simply being added onto the bottom line of the small market teams.

Certainly, one would have to assume that the likes of the Yankees and Red Sox would counter this new set-up by increasing the size of their contract offers, in an attempt to make even half of their offer give smaller market teams pause in accepting the risk, even with the Tax Pool money subsidizing half of the contract. To put it in the Mauer situation again, let’s say that the Red Sox final offer came to 8 years and $40M annually in an attempt to scare the Twins away from accepting the risk associated with the Minnesota organization carrying the burden of a 8-year, $20M annual commitment. If the Twins decide to accept the risk, Mauer gets paid an even higher amount in the same manner as the previous scenario. If the Twins pass on the opportunity, Mauer still gets the money as he joins the Red Sox, who now have accepted a comparable amount of risk that small-market teams do in committing a large percentage of their payroll to one player and have essentially ensured themselves that they will continue to pay into the Competitive Balanced Tax Pool because of the annual salary necessary to net the player that they were willing to pay for.

Another argument that could be made is that it would severely limit the trade market because teams would not be willing to trade their own players with the machinations in place for them to have half of their own players’ contracts subsidized by the Tax Pool. I would argue that the opposite again may be true as trade values for pending Free Agents would actually skyrocket as not only would the soon-to-be-Free-Agent be traded, but also his status as a team’s own player and, as a result, the ability of a team to have half of that player’s next contract subsidized by the Tax Pool. That is, when the Indians traded Victor Martinez in July of 2009, they would be trading not only Martinez under his current contract, but also the right to have half of Martinez’s contract after the 2010 season subsidized by the Tax Pool, whether he would be a member of the Red Sox or whatever other team would have acquired him and those rights. Trades would be made for baseball reasons only and organizations would not be able to cite payroll constraints as reasons for making a deal, left to justify the idea that their team is better off with the trade completed.

A common misconception would be that the system would benefit only small market teams, but the use of the Tax Pool money wouldn’t be restricted from helping ANY team keep their own players. The large market teams wouldn’t be excluded from sharing in this Tax Pool, so if the Angels wanted to keep John Lackey and Chone Figgins this off-season, they wouldn’t be exempted from sharing in the Tax Pool (even if they contribute to it) as each player was a member of the Angels when they entered Free Agency. It would place a greater emphasis on player development and continuity with the idea that teams that made intelligent baseball decisions would field the best teams, regardless of how many people called their metro area home.

If the sport is so flush in revenue (and it is, as MLB has generated nearly $13B in revenue in the past two years), spread the money around to the players and to reward the teams that are prudent baseball minds, not business minds. Utilize the “Tax Pool” (or “Central Fund” or whatever you want to call it) and the shared profits in a manner that they’re supposed to be used, to even the playing field by not punishing teams for being in markets that are large or markets that are small, but rather for not making the best baseball decisions to put the best team on the field.

If all of the Tax Pool money isn’t used to effectively subsidize contracts, allow the remainder to be distributed evenly back to the 30 teams for “performance-related” expenditures, meaning that if a team like the Royals or Pirates don’t develop talent compelling enough to generate interest on the open market that they don’t get any more shared money than the larger market teams do. In doing so, it would place an even greater emphasis on teams developing their own players and creating the continuity necessary for ANY team to sustain contention, not just those with fatter wallets.

How this would affect salaries prior to the Free Agent process or arbitration hearings as well as how it would affect the movement of lower levels of Free Agents would play itself out over the course of time, but the familiar complaints from both the large and small market teams would be wiped away. No longer could John Henry say that small market teams aren’t using the shared profits of the league to create more competitive teams, just as small market teams would no longer to be able to cry foul that they were outbid by the “haves” while the “have-nots” were left lacking for funds to keep their homegrown players in an effort to consistently contend as the system is currently constructed to only allow a few teams to accomplish.

In the new system, the Rays could keep Longoria, Upton, Crawford, Pena, Shields, Garza, and Price as long as they’d like to without diminishing the amount of money that those players would receive just as the Phillies should not have to decide whether they have the wherewithal to keep Jayson Werth, who they prudently signed to a one-year, $850,000 deal back in December of 2006, when he becomes a Free Agent after this season.

Whether the math works or how the ultimate distribution of funds shakes out, it would certainly seem that the money is there to institute this modification on the use of funds for all of MLB to potentially benefit all 30 MLB teams. The caveat would be that the teams that it would benefit would be the teams that developed players and created an environment for players to develop as a cohesive unit into a perennial contender.

The modification would reward teams for the merit of their baseball-related decisions, not simply the market in which they made those decisions. It could potentially bring back the days when a player spent his career with one team (without compromising his earning power) and, more importantly, even the playing field to legitimately renew the idea that MLB wasn’t going forward with a flawed system weighted towards particular organizations.
While that may not represent the panacea, it would certainly represent a start.

If Sunday was all about No. 1 seed Kim Clijsters cruising to victory in the WTA Tour’s season-opener in Brisbane, the hype on Monday was most certainly about the triumphant return of Justine Henin.

The plucky Belgian, playing in her first competitive match since May 2008, dispatched the No. 2-seeded Nadia Petrova in straight sets 7-5, 7-5.

Wildcard Henin dropped just five points on her serve in the first set and only lost three points on her first service in the entire match.

Sure, the rust was there to be seen, but what do you expect from someone who hasn't played in a competitive tournament in 20 months?

The former Grand Slam champion exemplified the adage "form is temporary, class is permanent," breaking serve twice at 5-5 to allow her to serve out both sets of her one-hour 37-minute comeback. 

Henin later said that she often plays her best tennis in the tight situations, in case you hadn't heard.

Petrova, however, was not the only women’s seed to fall on day two of the Brisbane International, as Russian Alisa Kleybanova (seeded fifth) went down to compatriot Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-2 in the deciding set.

Fate was not as unkind to Aleksandra Wozniak and Daniela Hantuchova, who both secured their passage to the second round with wins over qualifiers Galina Voskoboeva and Ekaterina Ivanova.

Wozniak took just over an hour to beat the Russian-born Kazakhstani, capitalizing on Voskoboeva’s second serve and taking advantage of the break points that inevitably came her way.

22-year-old Wozniak could be in line to meet Clijsters in the third round if she beats Lucie Safarova on Wednesday.

Elsewhere, No. 3 seed Ana Ivanovic set up a round two encounter with Switzerland’s Timea Bacsinszky after knocking out Jelena Dokic, who hit almost a dozen double faults in 14 service games.

Warning shots to the seeded women’s players were sounded yesterday when No. 7 Melinda Czink was taken to three sets against unseeded Czech Lucie Hradecka, and eighth seed Iveta Benesova was dumped out by Andrea Petkovia of Germany.

Czink edged Hradecka 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, while Petkovic put a shaky start behind her to come from a set down to beat Benesova 6-7(6), 6-2, 6-1.

With the first round completed, Hantuchova may have the easiest path to the semi finals in the top half of the draw at the Brisbane International, while Ivanovic would not have to meet another seeded player until the finals following the defeats of Petrova and Kleybanova.

Clijsters will be third on the Pat Rafter court on Tuesday against home favourite Alicia Molik. The Aussie—once ranked as high as eighth in the world before retiring—has lost all three meetings with Clijsters, although the last of these was some nine years ago.

In the nightcap, Ana Ivanovic will face Timea Bacsinszky for a spot in the quarterfinals.

***

On day one of the women’s weaker field at the ASB Classic in Auckland, No. 1-seeded Flavia Pennetta beat American Jill Craybas two-and-four, and wildcard Kimiko Date Krumm brushed by Anna Chakvetadze, dropping only three games to the Russian.

Third-seeded Yanina Wickmayer will await the winner of Tuesday’s match between British qualifier Elena Baltacha and Romanian Ioana Raluca Olaru.

No. 7 Aravane Rezai will face Dominika Cibulkova in round two after the Frenchwoman beat Julie Coin 6-4, 6-3, but Spain’s Anabel Medina Garrigues became the first seed to fall with a two-and-three loss to Slovakian Magdalena Rybarikova.

The other four seeded players will start their season tomorrow, highlighted by No. 2-seeded Na Li’s first match of 2010 against Kaia Kanepi from Estonia.

Filed under: Preschoolers, Kids 5-7, Fun & Activities, That's Entertainment, Music

76 Trombones by Dan Zanes and Friends

There are few true superstars in kids' music, but Zanes is one of them. And he attained that status with his trademark laid back, folky rock sound. He's the Dylan of children's music, not the Andrew Lloyd Weber, which is why a CD of Broadway show tunes seemed like a potentially risky departure for the Brooklyn troubadour. But he handles it beautifully, of course. He puts a very Zanes-y spin on classic from A Chorus Line, Annie, Peter Pan and more, transforming songs you're used to hearing as big and booming production numbers into very pure, roots-of-rock sounding fare.

The title track gets a little Dixieland sprinkled into it, while "Gary, Indiana," also from The Music Man, get a jazzy beat behind it. Peter Pan songs get rocked out, as the drum-driven "I Won't Grow Up" takes on an early Who sound and "I'm Flying" ends up feeling like it could be a Pixies track. The traditionally belted "Tomorrow" from Annie is given a much softer treatment here, as a bilingual Spanish-English ballad subtitled "Manana." Guest vocalists -- another Zanes trademark -- appropriately come from Broadway backgrounds, like Carol Channing on "Hello, Dolly," and Matthew Broderick on another Dolly tune, "Before the Parade Passes By." The best track on the whole disc, though, is possibly "I Am What I Am," from La Cage Aux Folles, which works wonderfully as an uplifting, believe-in-yourself number with just the right kind of message for kids. All in all, 76 Trombones makes a nice addition to the Dan Zanes canon.

Listen to "76 Trombones":

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Filed under: Preschoolers, Kids 5-7, Fun & Activities, That's Entertainment, Music

76 Trombones by Dan Zanes and Friends

There are few true superstars in kids' music, but Zanes is one of them. And he attained that status with his trademark laid back, folky rock sound. He's the Dylan of children's music, not the Andrew Lloyd Weber, which is why a CD of Broadway show tunes seemed like a potentially risky departure for the Brooklyn troubadour. But he handles it beautifully, of course. He puts a very Zanes-y spin on classic from A Chorus Line, Annie, Peter Pan and more, transforming songs you're used to hearing as big and booming production numbers into very pure, roots-of-rock sounding fare.

The title track gets a little Dixieland sprinkled into it, while "Gary, Indiana," also from The Music Man, get a jazzy beat behind it. Peter Pan songs get rocked out, as the drum-driven "I Won't Grow Up" takes on an early Who sound and "I'm Flying" ends up feeling like it could be a Pixies track. The traditionally belted "Tomorrow" from Annie is given a much softer treatment here, as a bilingual Spanish-English ballad subtitled "Manana." Guest vocalists -- another Zanes trademark -- appropriately come from Broadway backgrounds, like Carol Channing on "Hello, Dolly," and Matthew Broderick on another Dolly tune, "Before the Parade Passes By." The best track on the whole disc, though, is possibly "I Am What I Am," from La Cage Aux Folles, which works wonderfully as an uplifting, believe-in-yourself number with just the right kind of message for kids. All in all, 76 Trombones makes a nice addition to the Dan Zanes canon.

Listen to "76 Trombones":

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Influential teacher, critic and pioneer in the field of film studies

'Why should we take Hitchcock seriously? It is a pity the question has to be raised. If the cinema were truly regarded as an autonomous art, not as a mere adjunct of the novel or the drama – if we were able yet to see films instead of mentally reducing them to literature – it would be unnecessary." The opening lines of the first book by the film critic and teacher Robin Wood, who has died at the age of 78, had a remarkable and lasting impact on the field of film studies both in and beyond academia.

Before he published Hitchcock's Films in 1965, there were – in English, as opposed to French – virtually no books on film directors, and few books of any kind that brought either rigour or sympathy to the analysis of popular cinema. The teaching of so-called "film appreciation" in Britain was confined mainly to a few pockets within adult education and teacher training. This was already starting to change, but Wood's work was a key influence in validating and shaping a new discipline.

His Alfred Hitchcock book brilliantly set out the case for treating even Hollywood cinema with the same analytical seriousness as classic literature, and he quickly followed it with books on directors as diverse as Howard Hawks (1968), Arthur Penn (1969) and Ingmar Bergman (1969), as well as jointly authored books on Michelangelo Antonioni (1968) and Claude Chabrol (1970). By the end of the decade, he was able to leave his post teaching English at a secondary school, which he had somehow managed to combine with all that writing, for the university sector, and he remained a prolific and influential film scholar.

Few academics have incorporated so much autobiography into their critical work: successive new editions of Hitchcock's Films, for instance, make connections between Wood's own life and his response to the films, looking right back to a repressive family background comparable to that of Hitchcock himself and some of the director's main characters.

Wood was born in Richmond, Surrey, and was the youngest child, by many years, of a conventional middle-class family against whose values he rebelled, first in silence, but in later life very articulately. After boarding school at Malvern, which he hated, reading English at Cambridge was a liberating experience: he was profoundly influenced by the Shakespearean scholar AP Rossiter and, above all, by FR Leavis. For the rest of his life, he would declare an allegiance to Leavis, identifying with his "outsider" status within the academy, and with his uncompromising critical ethos, rooted in close reading of the text.

After Cambridge, Wood took a succession of teaching jobs in Britain and Europe; in Sweden, he met and married a teacher from Scotland, Aline Macdonald. Back in Britain, he taught English at Dartington, then at Welwyn Garden City high school. The Woods had three children and seemed a happy family. Meanwhile, he had begun to publish articles on cinema, notably in the vigorous new magazine Movie, launched in 1962 to challenge the tired orthodoxies that still dominated British film criticism. The impact of Wood's books led, in 1969, to an invitation to teach at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and, in 1973, he took up a post at Warwick University, one of a series of experimental lectureships set up with British Film Institute (BFI) funding to introduce film studies to the university curriculum in this country.

His time at Warwick was productive, laying the foundation for what is now a major centre for film teaching and research. But Wood himself was unsettled, equally for professional and personal reasons. He saw his humanist values under attack from the aggressively austere film theory associated with Screen magazine; his marriage had by now broken up; he had come out as homosexual; and he felt the need to distance himself from the British culture he found so repressive.

In 1977 he returned to Canada, and soon established the parameters of a new life, shared with his partner, Richard Lippe. As professor of film at York University, Toronto, Wood made an impact on Canadian film culture comparable with his early influence in Britain, this time based equally on the inspirational effect of his teaching. In 1985 he and Richard, along with a number of his graduate students, formed an editorial collective to launch a new magazine, CineAction. Their own apartment was its editorial headquarters. Unlike many such idealistic ventures, it prospered, and still does after nearly 80 issues, scholarly and smartly produced, while retaining a radical cutting edge. Wood continued to share the editing, and to write extensively for it, until very recently. The magazine published a festschrift for him when he reached the age of 75.

Wood's critical output, over half a century, was extraordinary in its range, quality and sheer volume. There were new books, including two wide-ranging ones, Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan (1986) and Sexual Politics and Narrative Film (1998), but also a steady flow of articles, for CineAction, for other magazines and for works of reference.

While film studies, the discipline he had helped to establish, inexorably followed a familiar academic trajectory, becoming staidly respectable, a field for careers based on narrow specialisms, he remained the best kind of generalist, continuing, as he had from the start, to engage equally with classical and contemporary cinema, and with films from many countries, and to place them in a wider cultural context, informed by his expertise in literature and music. The clarity of his writing always ensured that he appealed to a wide audience. In 2006 Wayne University Press began reissuing his back catalogue of books, including the 1976 collection of articles to which he had given the characteristic title of Personal Views.

The opening of Wood's last book, a study of the Howard Hawks western Rio Bravo, published by the BFI in 2003, is typical of his insistentlypersonal style, and of the intensity with which he lived movies, as he did so much else. It describes how, being rushed to hospital in an earlier medical crisis, he found real serenity of mind in thinking about the stoicism with which Hawks's characters habitually encounter death.

He is survived by Richard, by Aline and their three children Carin, Fiona and Simon, and by five grandchildren.

• Robert Paul (Robin) Wood, born 23 February 1931; died 18 December 2009 Toronto, Canada,

K&L; Wine Merchants is seeking a highly talented Microsoft .NET Software Developer. This position is a full time position with K&L; Wine Merchants based in our Redwood City, CA location.

Microsoft .NET Software Developer

Qualifications:

We seek talented individuals who seek a software development role in a fast paced, dynamic, heterogeneous technology environment. Successful candidates will possess:

• 3-6 years experience in software development ideally with web/e-Commerce applications
• Development experience in a Microsoft environment including ASP.NET, C#, SQL Server 2005 for both web and client server business applications
• Experience with diagnostics and resolution of production issues and defects
• Detail oriented, very responsive and committed to quality
• Passionate about Microsoft technologies
• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or equivalent

Additional skills desired:

• Experience with ASP Classic, VB6
• Experience deploying web and client server applications
• Experience working with reporting tools such as SQL Server Reporting Services, Crystal Reports
• Experience working with Business Intelligence tools
• Experience in a retail environment, or with POS systems

Responsibilities:

• Primary duties include (but are not limited to): designing and developing enhancements or new features, deploying software revisions/new releases, and troubleshooting of production issues
• Collaborate with internal business users and external technology vendors
• Engage the external developers, network, or hardware vendors, as needed, to resolve issues
• Have a genuine interest in growing as a professional while growing with the company

To be considered, send an email to the reply address on this ad. Please include the following items with you response:

1) An introductory letter presenting your analytical and technical talent.
2) A complete, professional resume in Microsoft Word format.


K&L; Wine Merchants is recognized as one of the leading independent wine merchants in the United States. Since 1976, we've been selling the world's finest wines to customers throughout the United States by mail order (and on the Web since 1997). Our sales channels include walk-in retail, phone sales, and online commerce. All areas of our business are growing rapidly and the atmosphere is both exciting and challenging. We have stores in Redwood City (about 10 minutes north of Palo Alto), San Francisco, and Hollywood. We also sell thousands of different wines to customers across the country through our newsletter and Web site. K&L; has been featured in dozens of publications including Time, Money, Forbes ASAP, Smart Money, the Wall Street Journal, and The Wine Spectator.

To Apply

Email an up to date resume in Microsoft Word format to juleejohnson@klwines.com

* Sponsorship not available for this position
* No phone calls please
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* We will respond to only those resumes where we find a fit
* No third parties please

K&L; Wine Merchants is an equal opportunity employer.

Ok, here's the list of the movies I watched during the last three months of 2009. My final stats for the entire year are at the bottom, so if you'd rather skip the embarrassing details, feel free. Also, I don't want to hear any crap about not being in the Christmas spirit. I only list DVD's here (my own and from Netflix), and I watched many of my favorite Christmas classics on television (Holiday Inn, White Christmas, The Santa Clause, etc.).

Monster-A-Go-Go – not a good start to the quarter.
Psyched by the 4-D Witch – I didn't think things could get worse. I was wrong.
Two Thousand Maniacs! - Somehow, I'd never gotten around to seeing this cult classic. I was impressed with the barrel roll scene.
The Man & The Monster – Classic Mexican horror, about a man who sells his soul to the Devil and predictably gets way more than he bargained for.
Gruesome Twosome – Old lady has the most realistic looking wigs.
Blood Feast – Have you ever had an Egyptian Feast?
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken – Don Knotts classic. I love it.
Color Me Blood Red – An artist finds the perfect red. Interesting-ish bit of bondage at the end.
Country Cuzzins – Rene Bond. Enuf said.
Midnight Plowboy – More hixploitation. Fun but dumb.
How To Be A Serial Killer – This started out so promising, but fizzled badly.
The Incredible Mr. Limpet – Don Knotts as an animated fish, kicks Nazi ass.
The Girl Who Shagged Me – Misty Mundae couldn't save this mess. There's a part 2 to complete the story, but I won't even bother.
Old Boy – Memorable Asian horror. It does finally make sense at the end, which doesn't make it any less disturbing.
Sin Sisters – Misty Mundae is truly scary as the cold, psychotic half of the title duo. Surprisingly effective flick with a twist ending that completely blindsided me.
Night of Lust – Believe it or not, the film The French Connection was based on this nudie from France. Great jazz score.
Sleepy Hollow – Depp in this decent retelling of the Washington Irving tale.
Donnie Darko – Nope, still makes no sense. But I re-watch it periodically, much like Terry Gilliam's Brazil.
Images in a Convent – Nunsploitation. I have a dirty, dirty soul.
The Adult Version of Jekyll and Hide – Not a misspelling. Rene Bond again, in a nicely done, nicely twisted variation on the classic.
Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals – I've been slowly working my way through the franchise, and this is one of them.
A Dirty Shame – Funniest movie about sex since Orgasmo, starring Tracy Ullman.
House of Wax – Vincent Price at his best. Classic.
Night of the Hunter – Robert Mitchum wows, right up until Lillian Gish steals the show towards the end.
Zack and Miri Make A Porno – Sweet and funny, I liked this one enough that I'd buy it if I see it on sale.
Drag Me To Hell – The surprise ending didn't. Eh.
The Brown Bunny – I admit it, I watched this mainly for the non-simulated blow job by Chloe Savigny. Other than that, this movie is so dull that I fast forwarded through long stretches without missing anything.
Dark Habits – Nunsploitation. Didn't we already have this conversation?
Gladiator – Fun but formulaic. Overrated in my humble opinion.
The Haunting – The awesome original version scares with nothing more than sound effects and your own imagination.
My Bloody Valentine – An early slasher flick. Not being a big fan of the genre, I still enjoyed it.
April Fool's Day – Underrated 80's horror.
United 93 – This was very difficult to watch. The DVD extras includes pictures and bios of each passenger on the flight and I cried.
Satan's Baby Doll - Let's see... nymphet daughter is possessed by her dead mother in order to murder the rest of the family one by one. Not nearly as good as I'd hoped.
Star Trek – The new one. This was another 'Earth vs. Soup' movie. As long as I didn't think about it too much it was enjoyable.
Fritz the Cat – Does not survive the test of time, other than as a reminder that assholes are part of every generation. Oh, and cartoon animal sex is creepy.
Just the Two of Us – A 70's era grindhouse morality play, with lesbians and boobs.
Jason and the Argonauts – Skeletons swordfighting. Harryhausen FTW!
Flesh and Lace - A movie about an innocent and naive nymphomaniac. Ends with a shootout in a toy store.
Passion in Hot Hollows – For all the B and C grade crap I watch, this one stands out for having an actual plot, and for piling twist upon outrageous twist onto the story.
No Country For Old Men – As long as you remember that this was a Cohen Brothers movie, you won't be surprised by anything that happens. Quirky enough to win the Oscar, but I wasn't that impressed.
Macumba Sexual – There are five women in this Jess Franco movie, and in the first 10 minutes four get completely full frontal naked and the one that doesn't gives a beaver shot. Lots of man junk on display too. Not awful. The movie, I mean. You can make up your own mind about the man junk.
Trading Places – Ackroyd, Murphy, Curtis, Ameche and Bellamy. Need I say more?
The Pornographers – Japanese classic about a guy doing whatever it takes to support his weird family. Despite a couple of disturbing insinuations and the general subject matter, there's only one very brief boob on display.
The Toybox – This softcore sex movie turns into a murder mystery before ending up as a Sci-Fi alien monster flick. Weird.
The Joys of Jezebel – Jezebel persuades Satan to let her go back to Earth for revenge against her husband, who had her murdered for political expediency. Ambitious plot considering that this is really just another nudie movie.
My Tale Is Hot – Satan tries to tempt the “World's Most Faithful Husband”. Basically, this is one long vaudeville routine on camera with plenty of naked women on display. Includes one spliced in dance routine from the legendary stripper Candy Barr.
Clerks 2 – I'm still laughing at the ending of this one.
Uzamaki – Something is spreading through a small Japanese town, turning the residents into snails. Very atmospheric and creepy.
Bubba Ho Tep – Bruce Campbell as Elvis and Ossie Davis as JFK. If that doesn't send a thrill down your leg then there's something seriously normal about you.
Entrails of a Virgin – A gory Japanese flick. According to the director, the movie is like Crackerjacks: you get horror, plus you get sex. Quite a bit of sex. In fact, there's so much sex going on that the horror part gets short shrift. That's not a good thing, especially since the sex isn't all that hot.
Violence in a Woman's Prison – Another flick in the Emanuelle franchise, starring the stunning Laura Gemser. Typical WIP plot: evil warden, dykes and sadistic guards, etc.
Fangs of the Living Dead – Anita Eckberg inherits a castle full of distant relatives. And vampires. A lesson in intersecting sets ensues.
Women of Devil's Island – Old swashbuckler complete with an island prison for women, pirates, and gold.
The Defilers – Two hep cats looking for kicks decide to kidnap a young model.
Scum of the Earth – A look at the sordid world of naughty pictures and the ways that women were blackmailed into posing. If you've ever watched a Something Weird video, part of the opening soliloquy is the infamous “You're dirty, do you hear me? Dirty!” The whole speech comes from this movie.
Breaking Her Will – I did a complete review of this movie here.
Blood for Dracula – Andy Warhol's take on the vampire mythos. Campy, surreal and fun. The count needs virgin blood, and his local population has been depleted.
Dirtbags – A disjointed comedy based on the premise that instead of humans being intrinsically altruistic, they're opportunistically selfish. Some outrageously funny jokes, but definitely not for everyone. Odds are, you'll hate this offensive (to most everyone) movie.
Prime Time – Mediocre flick along the lines of Kentucky Fried Movie and The Groove Tube.
Brotherhood of the Wolf – This is on my all-time favorites list. Lush, gorgeous, mysterious, and unlike anything you've ever seen before. Highly recommended.
Brainiac – Mexican horror classic. This was the slightly goofy original Mexican version, as opposed to the re-edited and re-released American version, which is over-the-top goofy.
Freaks – Classic. If you've never seen this, your cinematic resume is sadly lacking.
Sex by Advertisement – pseudo documentary from the 60's (translation: excuse for softcore porn), most notable by being hosted by a “doctor” played by legendary porn actress Georgina Spelvin, before she got into the biz. The doc never gets naked, most everyone else does.
Career Bed – Mom will do anything, and I do mean anything, to make her daughter a star.
Office Love-In – more 60's softcore. Forgettable. Big surprise, eh?
Suburban Confidential – Another pseudo-documentary, this time about bored and neglected housewives.
Cat People – Star studded thriller, full of New Orleans atmosphere.
Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde – This is the 1941 release featuring Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner. I've seen many versions of this story, and watching performances like these brings out the depth of the characters like no other.
Silence of the Lambs – Best watched with a nice chianti.
Les Chic – Early 70's grindhouse flick, notable for a few reasons. 1. It was shot in San Francisco (surprisingly, that wasn't common), 2. It stars Rene Bond, and 3. Parts of it are positively hardcore porn, which I didn't expect.
Les Chic 2 – This 2002 remake/sequel features some of the original characters, but the story itself is new. The lead is still a 70's style swinger named Chic, but whereas the original had the self-confidence to pull off weird, the new Chic is more the likable loser type. This time, the hardcore scenes are lesbian.
National Treasure – Something about this movie left me unsatisfied. Maybe it was because the bad guy wasn't bad enough or consistent enough (shoot to kill one moment, “let 'em go” the next), or the chemistry between the leads didn't quite click, or that it felt like a whirlwind tour of American History: here is the National Archives, here is the Liberty Bell, here is... Instead of being historically important places (and I'm a history buff), they were reduced to just movie sets. The film was ok, but I wanted more.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor – Third in the franchise, and as happens all too often, each sequel falls short of the one before. Not bad, but not great.
Yojimbo – Another Kurisawa classic, this time based on a Dashiel Hammett story. A masterless Samurai encounters a town where two rival factions are poised to do battle. If that sounds familiar, it's because Sergio Argento made practically the same movie starring Clint Eastwood, and A Fistful of Dollars spawned the Spaghetti Western genre.
Renaissance Man – I love this Danny DeVito comedy.

76 movies for the quarter. Lest it seem that I do nothing except park myself in front of the television, I'll admit that often a movie will take me a couple of days to finish because I'll start watching at the end of the day and fall asleep part way through. I also watched maybe another 10 hours of TV total during the quarter, which included the aforementioned holiday movies and a couple of hockey games. So I love my movies, but I'm not much of a television fan.

For the year, I watched a total of 195 movies. Considering my count for this last quarter, it's pretty obvious that my movie viewing falls way off when the weather gets nice. Which is how it should be.

You can find my lists for the first quarter, second quarter, and third quarter by clicking on those links.

Once the star of renaissance and baroque music, this older brother of the piano has found a new home in hip-hop and pop

What is it? The simplest explanation would be that it's a piano, but with the strings plucked rather than struck, although the harpsichord actually predates the piano.

Who uses it? Chiefly associated with renaissance and baroque music, Bach remains arguably the master composer of the harpsichord. In modern classical music, Iannis Xenakis, Philip Glass and particularly György Ligeti radically redefined the harpsichord's function and playing. In the 1960s, the harpsichord had something of a resurgence in "baroque pop", thanks to experiments in instrumentation by the likes of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Left Banke.

A second pop resurgence for the harpsichord occurred, weirdly, in hip-hop, sampled in productions for Eminem, Cypress Hill, Outkast and others. We've compiled pop and classical Spotify playlists.

How does it work? Pressing a key causes a plectrum to pluck and then "dampen" one or more strings. In harpsichords where more than one string is assigned to a key, the second string will often either be tuned to a lower octave, or plucked close to the end of the string's sounding length (resulting in a twangier sound, similar to playing a guitar through a bridge, rather than neck, pick-up), although the player can usually control whether or not these subsequent strings are plucked.

Where does it come from? Hard to trace its exact origins, although the earliest historical reference is in 1397, for an instrument called the clavicembalum, invented by one Hermann Poll.

Why is it classic? It's an elegant, charming instrument. The strings are mechanically plucked and then muted, making the sound brittle, rattling and clipped, with no variation in dynamics, that makes the harpsichord sound more "formal" and precise than the more sonorous, romantic and ponderous piano.

What's the best ever harpsichord song? The Stranglers' heroin-hymn Golden Brown deserves special mention, although it has some fierce competition in the best ever baroque pop song stakes from Joanna Newsom's Peach Plum Pear and the Beach Boys' God Only Knows. Bach owns the classical competition with his Partitas, and Ligeti's Continuum takes it for the avant garde.

Five facts and things

The name harpsichord is actually an umbrella term for different instruments that evolved separately in Belgium, France, Germany, England and Italy over the centuries, and which are now referred to variously as virginals, spinet, clavicytherium, ottavino and archicembalo. The defining differences involve a number of strings and keyboards, length (and therefore pitch) of strings, as well as general shape and aesthetics.

The renaissance yielded some eye-wateringly beautiful and ornate harpsichord designs, but the modern age has brought us something even more lovely: LEGO.

Misintepretations Corner, entry no. 24876: The "harpsichord" in the Beatles' In My Life is actually a speeded-up piano. Lennon and McCartney asked George Martin if he could provide a baroque middle-eight, but the producer found that he couldn't play the piano piece to the required tempo. Speeding the tape up solved the problem, and resulted in the harpsichordy tone.

Want to create your own harpsichord hip-hop? There are royalty-free samples here.

Why do some harpsichords have two keyboards? The two keyboards, or "manuals", control different sets of strings. In some designs, the second manual might control strings tuned a fourth (four notes) down from the main keyboard. This allows the harpsichordist to switch to a lower register when required, which frees up the higher registers for a vocal accompaniment.

Zounds! What a crazy episode! I still don't know how I feel about all of "The End of Time, Part Two," the fourth and final 2009/10 special that took the place of a regular season, but in general I thought it was quite good. Again, Russell T. Davies gives us some wonderful lines--"Worst rescue ever!"--and shows us the Doctor at his most heroic and his most human. The fulfillment of the four-knocks prophecy turned out to be way more genius than anticipated. Wilf made a wonderful companion, I wanted more Donna, blah blah blah. Let's get to the meat of it.


And the meat of it is the regeneration. It was the most anticipated moment of the episode--and one they played with admirably, psyching the viewer out a couple of times--yet it was also the most problematic. They drew it out to the point where it became overwrought, and also to the point where it became the longest regeneration in the program's history. After the Doctor steps out of the glass chamber, he tells Wilf that "it's begun," implying his regeneration has started. However, instead of it being an immediate process like every other time he's regenerated, apparently he still has plenty of time to go visit everyone. Loved seeing these folks again--and learning about Mickey and Martha's shared future--but these aren't even goodbyes. He doesn't say anything to anyone. Instead, he does them favors. He saves M&M; from a Sontaran. He saves Sarah Jane's adopted alien son from getting hit by a car. He gets Captain Jack laid at Mos Eisley (how I cringed seeing a Fat Baby again!). And he creeps Rose out on New Year's Eve 2005. It was only about half an hour on BBC America (including really annoying and disruptive commercials), but it felt like weeks must have passed. Longest regeneration ever!

See, here's the thing. I can totally understand wanting to give this episode an epic feel. It's the end of an era with Tennant and series creator Davies leaving at the same time. But the problem is, by trying to make regeneration a tragedy instead of a celebration of life--the Doctor doesn't die, he survives!--it undoes everything the show, both classic and new, already established. Didn't Tennant's Doctor spend, like, an entire episode trying to convince Rose and her mother that he was the same person as Eccleston's Doctor, just with a new body? Didn't he regenerate in "Journey's End" but shuck off the face-changing part of the process like it was no big deal? And wasn't he psyched to meet the next Doctor in "The Next Doctor"? Heck, didn't Romana get to try on a number of bodies before deciding what she would look like when she regenerated in 1979's "Destiny of the Daleks"? So where did this "Even if I change, it feels like dying. I go away and some other man saunters off" nonsense come from? Well, the need to make it feel momentous, of course. And it is. But there's no need to overinflate the matter. We know Tennant's Doctor is the same as Eccleston's Doctor is the same as Tom Baker's Doctor. They're the same person. Regeneration isn't death, it's escaping death in order to keep living.

All of which means, to me at least, that even though the regeneration scene was touching, there were serious problems with the tone. "I don't want to go"? Well, he didn't go. (Plus, Tennant himself totally wanted to go!) Instead, he changed into a 26-year-old hipster with Eric Stoltz's face from Mask. How much better would it have been if he didn't know if he was going to regenerate, if he really thought he might die, and then he visits everyone and after tons of suspense he finally regenerates and survives after all, perhaps with the help of the Ood? In my opinion, that would have achieved everything Davies wanted without turning regeneration into something far heavier and more tragic than it actually is.

Still, while I had these issues with the end, I actually enjoyed the episode a great deal.

And now for some crazy-ass Doctor Who neepery!

Gallifrey and the Daleks are stuck in a time lock that removed the Time War from the timestream. Very cool. Even cooler that the Doctor is the one who created the time lock because the Time Lords, even in the old series, were always a bunch of arrogant pricks anyway. They even forced the Doctor to regenerate back in the 1969 serial "The War Games" as punishment for stealing a TARDIS and getting involved instead of adhering to their strict non-intervention policies. Most Time Lords are total bastards. But it still makes me wonder what happened to the Time Lords and Ladies who weren't on Gallifrey, not all of whom were assholes: Romana, K'anpo Rinpoche, the Monk, Drax, the Doctor's granddaughter Susan, the Rani, etc. Did they all get recalled to Gallifrey for the Time War? That would suck for them. It also sucks for the Doctor's old companion Leela, who married the Gallifreyan commander Andred and stayed on the planet. Whoops!

The biggest surprise of the episode, though, was the Doctor addressing Timothy Dalton's character as Rassilon. Hoo boy does that carry a lot of weight for those of us who watched the old series! Rassilon, as we first discovered in the 1976 serial "The Deadly Assassin," was the founder of Time Lord society. Along with another Time Lord named Omega, Rassilon discovered the principle of safe time travel and an inexhaustible source of energy in the form of the Eye of Harmony, basically a captured black hole under the city, that fuels it. He invented TARDISes and the time scoop and the Matrix and pretty much everything that makes the Time Lords what they are. But even Rassilon was kind of a dick, as we learned in 1983's "The Five Doctors." That's also where we learned that Rassilon, having discovered the key to immortality, isn't actually dead. So, unlike the Master, Rassilon wouldn't have had to be resurrected in order to lead the Time Lords in the Time War. All they would have to do is go to the Dark Tower in Gallifrey's Death Zone, where Rassilon sleeps in his tomb, and ask him. Being a total power-mad dick, I'm sure he would have said yes and created all the nasty things the Doctor mentions as the reasons for the time lock. Of course, it could also just be a common name on Gallifrey now. We've had a number of presidents named George, after all. But I prefer to think he's the real deal.

Also, the Time Lords would ever employ a tattooed ooga-booga psychic woman to counsel them. They've always been portrayed as a highly scientific-based society with no expressed religious or spiritual leanings. But if Rassilon is really the Rassilon of old, it makes more sense, since he's from the olden days, referred to in "The Five Doctors" as the Dark Time. It's certainly possible they were more superstitious and spiritually oriented back then.

Finally, who was the old woman who warned Wilf about what was happening and locked eyes with the Doctor in the big climactic scene? My girlfriend and I think it might be the Doctor's mother. (I suppose it could also be Romana, but I doubt the show would dive that deeply into continuity issues.) Anyway, I have a feeling we'll find out at some point.

See, I told you this would be an immense amount of neepery!

Anyway, goodbye, David Tennant! You were the best Doctor since Tom Baker and really made the role your own. I'll miss you a lot.

And good luck, Geronimo boy. You've got some pretty damn big shoes to fill. Also, please lose the bowtie.

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Gotta love the new debate on Tablets – it’s not about the CrunchPad, JooJoo or the Apple Tablet anymore.  It’s about whether we need any.  Joe Wilcox declared that The world doesn't need an Apple tablet, or any other.

Really?  Well, there was this other guy who famously declared:

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers

He obviously proved to be wrong, but somehow this mistake did not break his career: he was legendary IBM Chairman & CEO Thomas Watson, and the prediction goes back to 1943.  (Too bad the famous quote is likely incorrectly attributed to him – but it’s a better story this way)

I suspect Joe Wilcox will prove to be just as wrong as Thomas Watson (or whoever really said that…).  But I’m not going to argue.. cause I’ve done it a zillion times already.  Hack, I even own the Google search for situational device (but hat tip to Imran Ali who coined situational hardware).   Yes, Joe, the tablet will be a “middle product”, not a phone and not a full-fledged computer, either – and it’s all right. It does not have to be.

How many computers do you have in your household?  None of us would own a monster like the one on the pic – but then computers became personal, and we all got one – for the family. Then we got a few more – 2-3-5 computers are not uncommon in a household.  But what about your digital camera, iPod, iPhone, eBook Reader..etc?  We don’t call them computers, despite the sophisticated processing they all do. 

The Tablet won’t be a computer, either. Not in the classical sense of the all-in-one multifunctional machine.  It will be a lightweight, convenient browsing, reading device.  Perhaps a “passive” one – but the most comfortable form of consuming information lying in bed, in a lounge chair, perhaps on a float in the pool :-)   A situational device.  In fact many situational devices: one for the road, one for the couch, one touch-based, on driven by voice .. you name it.  We’ll have many of those.  Not because we need them. But because we can.  And that’s progress.

Related posts:

• CrunchPad, Netbooks and Vacuum Cleaners
• Oh, Joe, the world doesn’t need a Tablet? Really?
• The World Doesn’t Need Someone Telling Us What We Don’t Need In Tech

Brisbane International

January 3-9, 2010
Brisbane, Australia
Tier: International (joint event with ATP Tour)
Prize Money: $220,000
Surface: Hard/Outdoors

Monday, January 4, 2010

Play starts at 10:30 a.m. Monday on all courts (7:30 p.m. Sunday night here)

ORDER OF PLAY/RESULTS

Pat Rafter Arena
2. [3] Ana Ivanovic (SRB) vs. Jelena Dokic (AUS)
3. [2] Nadia Petrova (RUS) vs. [WC] Justine Henin (BEL)

Court 1 
3. [5] Alisa Kleybanova (RUS) vs. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (RUS)
5. [6] Aleksandra Wozniak (CAN) vs. [Q] Galina Voskoboeva (KAZ)
6. [4] Daniela Hantuchova (SVK) vs. Ekaterina Ivanova (RUS)

Court 2 
3. [WC] Casey Dellacqua (AUS) vs. [Q] Sesil Karatantcheva (KAZ)
4. Peng Shuai (CHN) vs. Agnes Szavay (HUN)
5. [WC] C Dellacqua / A Molik (AUS) vs. M Koryttseva (UKR) / D Kustova (BLR)
6. [4] K Jans / A Rosolska (POL) vs. M Czink (HUN) / A Parra Santonja (ESP)

Court 4
3. Lucie Safarova (CZE) vs. Anna-Lena Groenefeld (GER)
5. [2] A-L Groenefeld (GER) / V King (USA) vs. T Bacsinszky (SUI) / T Garbin (ITA)

Court 5 
1. Roberta Vinci (ITA) def. Sara Errani (ITA) 64 26 62
2. Timea Bacsinszky (SUI) vs. [Q] Alla Kudryavtseva (RUS)

                                *************************************

ASB Classic

January 4-9, 2010
Auckland, New Zealand
Tier: International 
Prize Money: $220,000
Surface: Hard/Outdoors

Monday, January 4, 2010

Play was scheduled to start at 5 p.m. Sunday our time (11 a.m. Monday New Zealand time). But rain delayed proceedings a little. Unfortunately, Laval's Stéphanie Dubois was unable to get through the final hurdle of qualifying, falling to Great Britain's Elena Baltacha in rather short order.

The girl in the spotlight here, Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium (she of the doping "scandal", suspension and subsequent rescinding of the suspension), is in the event as a wild card and got through her first match, but hardly routinely.

ORDER OF PLAY / RESULTS

CENTRE COURT
[3-WC] Yanina Wickmayer (BEL) def.  Julia Goerges (GER)  63 75
[1] Flavia Pennetta (ITA) def. Jill Craybas (USA) 62 64
[1] C Black (ZIM) / L Huber (USA) def. [WC] M Erakovic (NZL) / P Hercog (SLO) 63 76 (6)
Anna Chakvetadze (RUS) vs [WC] Kimiko Date Krumm (JPN) 
[8] Anabel Medina Garrigues (ESP) vs. Magdelena Rybarikova (SVK)
[7] Aravane Rezai (FRA) vs. Julie Coin (FRA)

Court 4 
1. Elena Baltacha (GBR) def. Stéphanie Dubois (CAN) 63 61 (Singles Q Final)
2. Monica Niculescu (ROU) def. Rebecca Marino (CAN) 64 16 63 (Singles Q Final) ****Marino dropped the first set 4-6, won the second 6-1. She went down a break 2-4 in the third, got it back, was broken right back again. She saved about three match points when Niculescu served for the match at 5-3, but ultimately went down.***
3. Alexandra Dulgheru (ROU) vs. Dominika Cibulkova (SVK)
4. J Goerges (GER) / T Malek (GER) vs. S Borwell (GBR) / R Kops-Jones (USA)

Court 6
1. Chanelle Scheepers (RSA) vs. Stéphanie Cohen-Aloro (FRA) (Singles Q Final)
2. Edina Gallovits (ROU) def. Julia Schruff (GER) 63 57 62 (Singles Q Final)
3. N Grandin (RSA) / L Granville (USA) vs. K Barrois (GER) / M Kondratieva (RUS)

<p>Filed under: <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/category/tuaw-business/" rel="tag">TUAW Business</a>, <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/category/podcasts/" rel="tag">Podcasts</a></p><div><img vspace="8" hspace="8" border="0" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tuaw.com/media/2008/10/zz0aad3453_telephone.jpg" /></div> <div>Our weekly talkcast (so called because you yourself can call in and talk with us live) is back on the virtual airwaves again this evening at 10pm Eastern, and the topic of the day is the topic of the year: we'll take a look at our top posts of 2009, from all the news <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2009/06/08/wwdc-2009-keynote-meta-liveblog/">surrounding last year's WWDC</a> to <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2006/09/19/how-to-keep-your-itunes-library-on-an-external-hard-drive/">our most popular tip of 2009</a> and all of the other stories on the site that floated your boat this (wait, we mean "last"!) year. And we'll of course talk about the year in apps, discussing both <a href="http://www.tuaw.com//2009/12/29/our-favorite-apps-stuff-that-stayed-on-our-phones-in-2009/">our favorite apps overall </a>and <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2009/12/31/our-favorite-iphone-games-of-2009/">our favorite games of the year</a>.<br /> <br /> Should be fun, so join us, won't you? To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the <a href="http://www.talkshoe.com/blog/index.php/the-new-talkshoe-a-message-from-the-ceo/">browser-only client</a>, the embedded <a href="http://www.facebook.com/r.php?referrer=112&app_id=9051855207&app_data=%26nextTsPage%3D%2Ftalkshoeapp%2Fcontent%2FviewCall.faces%2F%2F%2F%2FtalkcastId%2F%2F%2F45077">Facebook app</a>, or the <a href="http://download.talkshoe.com/TalkShoeSetup_macos.dmg">classic TalkShoe Pro Java client</a>; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the <a href="http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=45077&cmd=tc">"TalkShoe Web" button on our profile page</a> at 10 pm Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (take advantange of your free cellphone weekend minutes if you like): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *-8. <br /> <br /> If you've got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free Gizmo or X-Lite SIP clients; <a href="http://mediaminutes.net/TalkShoe/">basic instructions are here</a>. Talk with you then!<strong><i><br /> </i></strong><br /> </div><p><a href="http://www.tuaw.com">TUAW</a><a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2010/01/03/talkcast-this-evening-at-10pm-est-best-of-the-year/">Talkcast this evening at 10pm EST: Best of the year</a> originally appeared on <a href="http://www.tuaw.com">The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)</a> on Sun, 03 Jan 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our <a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/">terms for use of feeds</a>.<br /></p><h6></h6><a href="http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=45077&cmd=tc">Read</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2010/01/03/talkcast-this-evening-at-10pm-est-best-of-the-year/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry">Permalink</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.tuaw.com/forward/19300909/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email">Email this</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.tuaw.com/2010/01/03/talkcast-this-evening-at-10pm-est-best-of-the-year/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry">Comments</a><br clear="both" /> <br clear="both" /> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:24b76a83b75e37702d658d165d6e6baa:WXIQJh1mABJALqFsbeHzrCFoP%2FWarySlmPB%2B1I8FTsr07a%2F6%2Ft0fbUAuHTPFSLTJo%2B%2FVaEglnPje"><img border="0" title="Add to digg" alt="Add to digg" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/digg.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:34d301d928c5ab27d6dfc22e0573b13a:7qeK%2BoXkuVqwWbNBHddaRCaGYBFqwzvmwByqiECmUGWMdsCZYhzQJEXNyooTiS0PS2E5gnfm8c%2FI"><img border="0" title="Add to del.icio.us" alt="Add to del.icio.us" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/delicious.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:3e15d47513471c7b811efafc3a5f2ce3:PJigQueDoEcx64V6ZLH1i%2BJznJ4Y%2F5tKJAnK33rAes2Ql9BNsvEerUEp5ITJwTsjgrGXStrUTgIP"><img border="0" title="Add to Google" alt="Add to Google" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/google.png" /></a> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:921cf93f8b64f928be6ac52c5007d1a8:8s41N%2BQfQ8D1Fn7799VCNP5eHTp7jv6cI%2BWtO6vgEybZbSDrQkSMNvMMfq%2BAmzeA6RacUERV3tGLWQ%3D%3D"><img border="0" title="Add to StumbleUpon" alt="Add to StumbleUpon" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/stumbleit.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:a642c3cc27814cb11444f30078affb06:gg8fLAZsbbzjutkQ2ADY80ovdKHxJ38w1pM8EBywpG%2FufxW97h9pOqpkJIsQzaHxP3gLBZS9FIT8WQ%3D%3D"><img border="0" title="Add to Facebook" alt="Add to Facebook" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/facebook.gif" /></a> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:2d0aed6218878adf5eee4d7dd0e77559:8EhrssN%2B6utwcCdJzUPtlH5XQD12EV5DBmD81IBqkKAasrNWLeaYjqnY9pNjnBQgix39e2HPdFeN"><img border="0" title="Add to Reddit" alt="Add to Reddit" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/reddit.png" /></a> <a href="http://www.pheedcontent.com/hostedMorselClick.php?hfmm=v3:c6f370f6fe2c45167bea71a6830eb456:T9AxoWlT0xBm6x9%2Fg0qzyvBvH2lPWFcze6uU1mushsEtrE1k9jxh4cGPcl174nLvkFp1iyJ2gCKIdA%3D%3D"><img border="0" title="Add to Technorati" alt="Add to Technorati" src="http://images.pheedo.com/images/mm/technorati.png" /></a> <br clear="both" /> <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=cd6050806c50960459fc404b19818df3&p=1"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=cd6050806c50960459fc404b19818df3&p=1" /></a> <img alt="" height="0" width="0" border="0" src="http://a.rfihub.com/eus.gif?eui=2226" /><br clear="all" /> <img src="http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?kw=" align="absmiddle" /> <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=cd6050806c50960459fc404b19818df3&p=64&kw=TalkShoe">TalkShoe</a> - <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=cd6050806c50960459fc404b19818df3&p=64&kw=TUAW">TUAW</a> - <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=cd6050806c50960459fc404b19818df3&p=64&kw=Facebook">Facebook</a> - <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=cd6050806c50960459fc404b19818df3&p=64&kw=Voice+over+Internet+Protocol">Voice over Internet Protocol</a> - <a href="http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=cd6050806c50960459fc404b19818df3&p=64&kw=Mobile+phone">Mobile phone</a>

Sourced from: "The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)"

The Amazon elves that bring us coupons each month have probably been asleep lately. The company just released a new set of grocery coupon codes however it is not nearly as plentiful as in the past months. Nevertheless I will post them as usual in a list sorted by amount so it is more convenient to pick those with the best value. All coupons below expire January 31, 2010. The discount in parenthesis is what you will get if you use Amazon Subscribe & Save program. If you like these Amazon coupons, I also recommend you to check out these Amazon discount codes. The best part is that these codes don’t have an expiration date! Amazon coupon codes for January 2010 $15 off $49Kashi $15 off $49Kellogg’s 10% (25%) offGloria Jean’s K-CupsKCUP93O6 10% (25%) offAmy’s OrganicAMYS9376 10% (25%) offOrganic ValleyORVL3759 10% (25%) offSAMBAZONSAMB652I 15% (30%) offLavazzaLAVZ795I 15% (30%) offCaffe Appassionato Coffee CompanyCAFA5784 15% (30%) offMcCANN’SMCAN8I46 15% (30%) offFamiliaFAML8493 15% (30%) offZicoZICO3I74 15% (30%) offthinkThinTHNK8563 15% offGhirardelli 20% (35%) offEddie’s PastaEDDII836 20% (35%) offBaronet CoffeeBARO2548 20% (35%) offSweet LeafSWET9274 20% offAcai Roots 20% offThe Highland Tea Company 20% offRed Espresso 25% (40%) offTasty BiteTSBT9372 25% (40%) offGaea SpreadsGAEA8239 25% offOOBA 25% offNorth Country 25% offArora Creations 30% offHeidi’s Cottage Classics 35% offKIDStrong drinks 35% offTiger Tiger 35% offDilmah Tea 50% offBatavia Tea ...

I am looking to build a home theater system for my basement. I don't have the dimensions but it is pretty big. I will be listening to probably 60 percent music 40 percent movies. I want to listen to both pretty loud so I am scared of pushing my speakers too hard. I don't have a budget or anything because I just buy whatever whenever I have enough money and I come across a good deal. so far i have 5.0 energy take 5 classic speakers -140 2 polk vm30 speakers- 376 for both 2 asw-10 subwoofers from the speaker company- 160 for both That is a total of 7.2 but I plan on getting my energy center channel replaced with a vm 20 that I can get for 100 dollars. Now my question is what receiver should I get? I am looking at the sr607 but can that use Dolby Pro Logic IIz to play 9.2 or do I have to chose if I want the top front speakers to play or the rear speakers? Also if it can only do 7.2 can I use an amp to power the other 2 speakers? If it can't actually do 9.2 what receivers that are not way more expensive can? Also is is possible to connect 2 receivers or something to do 11.2? If I can do 9.2 I will by 2 Polk vm 20s and use those on top of my vm30s Finally I plan on buying a butt kicker lfes since I assume my 2 subwoofers will not be powerful enough for my basement.

Good news for movie fans: Friends of Poltergeist star Zelda Rubinstein have dismissed reports that the ailing 76-year-old is close to death. Last week, RadarOnline.com published a report suggesting Rubinstein — who played creepy spirit talker Tangina in Steven Spielberg’s 1982 cult classic — had been taken off life support after spending much of December [...]

Setting: The Joel Coliseum, on the campus of Wake Forest University, is the scene for the first annual Skip Prosser Classic as Chris Mack brings his Xavier Musketeers (8-4) south for an inter-conference battle with Dino Gaudio’s Wake Forest Demon Deacons (10-2).

Plot: The game is the last one before each team enters conference play. The Musketeers travel to Philadelphia on Thursday for a game with LaSalle. Wake Forest travels to Miami on Saturday. Both teams are un-ranked, but the Demon Deacons received votes in the most recent polls.

Sub-plot: The game is the first of a ten-game series between the schools both coached by Skip Prosser. The late coach led the Muskies from 1994-2001. Prosser then coached the Deacs from 2001 until his death in 2007. Current Wake Forest head coach, Gaudio, and Xavier coach, Mack, served as assistants to Prosser from 2001-04.

Flashback: Xavier leads the all-time series 1-0. The Muskies downed the Deacs in the second round of the 1999 NIT Tournament, 87-76. Xavier has made eight appearances in the NCAA Tournament over the last nine seasons including two Elite Eight finishes (’04 and ‘08) and a spot in the Sweet Sixteen last season. Wake Forest has made 21 appearances in the tournament with one Final Four showing, seven occasions in the Elite Eight, and 10 Sweet Sixteen showings.

Foreshadowing: Wake Forest has sent 26 players to the NBA including current pros—Tim Duncan, Josh Howard, James Johnson, Chris Paul, Darius Songaila, and Jeff Teague.

Sixteen X-Men have graduated to the league. Derrick Brown, James Posey, and David West currently earn paychecks from NBA teams.

Conflict: Xavier is 8-0 when scoring 70 points or more. Wake Forest averages 76 points per game while holding opponents to 62. The Musketeers average 78 and hold rivals to 66.

Terrell Holloway has been the engine of Chris Mack’s train. The 6′0″ sophomore point guard averages 10 points and three assists per contest. Holloway plays his best against the toughest opponents. Holloway scored 20 and dished out six assists in an 89-65 victory over LSU. Versus Cincinnati, Holloway scored 26 with four assists.

Jason Love provides the brunt of Xavier’s interior offense. The senior scores 10 points a game with nine boards. Kenny Frease got his first career start against LSU and responded with 12 rebounds. Jamel McLean had a double-double off the bench as the Muskies took a game from the SEC rival.

Jordan Crawford, Mark Lyons, Dante Jackson, and Brad Redford get it done on the perimeter. Xavier hits 41 percent from behind the three-point arc. Crawford leads the way with 18 points a game. Redford and Crawford share the team lead with 24 trifectas. Redford is 50 percent from long range. Jackson and Lyons combine for 14 points per contest.

Xavier’s long-range proficiency will be tested by the Deacs. Wake Forest is fifth in the land holding opponents to just 24 percent from outside.

Al-Farouq Aminu leads the way averaging a double-double per game. The sophomore scores 16 and grabs 11 per contest.

Ishmael Smith averages 11 points with five and half assists. The senior point guard has an assist to turnover ratio better than two to one.

C.J. Harris and L.D. Williams combine for 20 points per outing. Chas McFarland gets six points and six boards night to night.

Xavier will need to establish their ability to score in the paint. Love will be challenged. His jump hook has been unstoppable up until now. How successful will he be against the 7′0″ McFarland? Aminu and Crawford should be an elite match-up. Aminu has shown the ability to defend premier players. He held his ground against Purdue’s Robbie Hummel. Crawford will need to step up to the challenge.

Holloway versus Smith could decide the game. Which point guard can go the longest without foul trouble?

Redford has bailed out the Muskies with his ability to knock down threes. The sophomore might not get any open looks against the Deacs. He will need to adjust and use his upfake to get penetration for open shots.

Both teams have deep benches. Gaudio has nine guys getting more than 10 minutes every night. Mack has eight guys averaging 10 or more with Andrew Taylor playing eight minutes a game.

Resolution: Xavier holds an advantage from the free throw line finishing 68 percent to Wake’s 65 percent. The Deacs have been to the line 298 times. Xavier has made 296 trips to the stripe. The big difference is Holloway finishes 88 percent from the line while Smith finishes 38 percent of his free throws. Holloway has been to the line 44 times. Smith has been to the line 31 times. Xavier pulls out a close one with the difference coming at the line.

Pickin' Splinters

Antique Motorcycles - Classic Motor Cycle: 1976 BMW R75/6 - Classic Motorbike Collection - The place to find the finest classic collector motorbikes available. Jus At www.old-motorclassic.blogspot.com.

Well it is official. 2010 is here! Been pretty busy week.

Running to the hospital. Planning a birthday party. For one week, I have a 7,6 and 5 year old. And somewhere in there fit ministry.

So far 2010 looks good. That is like as in 2009, God is still in control.

(BTW the pic here is from a friend of mine who just a few days ago took this of the Grand Canyon)

The Winter Classic was great only downfall was announcing the USA team ... during the Winter Classic when the NHL isn't a primarily US market nor American % made up of players anyways . ... that rant will be later.