The year the NFL takes control of the business and treats it like a game

Week 3 in the NFL has bench marked a new standard in the business of football; the introduction of the soap opera. The NFL has long been a story of highs and lows, triumphs and failures, and comebacks of many kinds. We’ve had players guarantee win’s, “The catch”, “The miracle at the Meadowlands”, “The music city Miracle”, an undefeated team scratched from the record books with one incredible catch, but no drama has ever been induced and hand fed like the soap opera the NFL has scripted and puppeteered this year… The year the NFL takes control of the business and treats it like a game.

It all started very coy (cue the melodramatic music). March 2^nd 2012 began the unraveling of America’s love interest with Bountygate. The commissioner and the rest of the NFL systematically destroyed the team that America had grown to love, the team that overcame a natural disaster to win the country’s heart and hoist the Vince Lombardi trophy. The NFL had created this storyline over the past 7 years; they created a romantic story for all of the country to root for. It was organic; it pulled on the heart strings of all Americans. They took a team and a city that was fraught with despair and destruction, gave us a reason to believe in the good of humanity and gave us a hero to root for; just to tear it down. Now they have created a monster, a foe, for all NFL fans to despise… They gave us a reason to side with them. Over the past 8 months, like an abusive relationship, they have made us believe that they know what’s best for us.

This season is poetry in motion. If Bountygate was the Iliad, the beginning of the NFL season is the Odyssey. The NFL initiated phase 2 in its new plan to monopolize the country’s beloved sport; replacement officials. Simply put, the term replacement official is a bit of an oxymoron. One of the most powerful corporations in the world has replaced the very checks and balances that keep its company running smoothly. This would be like running a world class restaurant with McDonald’s cooks, sure they can operate a microwave and a fryer, but they can’t perfectly execute a porterhouse, couscous or any one of the five mother sauces. More importantly, why would you want them to even try? These poor guys have been called up to the big league without even the chance to succeed. The NFL has created a villain, one for us to root against and blame our beloved team’s shortcomings on.

The NFL’s answer? A referee God. They have placed a sideline Ref that’s lone job is to communicate with another Ref upstairs to oversee that the Refs on the field are reffing correctly. Huh? So the official’s final call is divulged from a source that the public does not see, hear or know? The NFL has taken measures to make sure that the NFL’S product is the one that is on the field. The drama that has ensued from the replacement Refs is exactly what the NFL wants. Their ratings are up, they are in the headline of every story come the beginning of the week and fan’s just can’t get enough. Remember William Hung? American Idol rode that train wreck as far as they could, exactly like the NFL is doing with the replacement Refs.

So when does the madness end? The NFL has constructed a very powerful case to leverage themselves in the negotiations with the real refs. While the NFL keeps reporting on its continued negotiations, they continue to get to point the finger at the Refs union and the replacement Refs. Want better Refs? It’s the union’s fault they haven’t agreed on anything and they have forced us to use replacement Refs. The NFL can’t afford to pay pensions! That’s absurd… especially with all of the money they are raking in with the ratings increase and resurrected interest in the NFL. I’m sure the government will be looking into this soon enough, since they have their nose in every other national sport.

With every flag thrown, call missed or close field goal decided, an anticipated meltdown ensues (see Belichik). Dramatic finishes, underdogs and hero’s are in the past, the NFL had to commit to a new storyline, one to resurrect this corporation in a down economy. The business of football is a 10 Billion dollar industry and the commissioner can’t let its share holders down. Touché Roger Goodell, I’ll be tuning in again this week to watch the drama unfold! 

Life's Decisions

Life is a series of decisions. A web, woven through your life by the decisions you make ultimately bringing you to your present existence. Every choice you make creates an outcome that can be altered by another choice. Your outcome on life, no matter how positive, can be altered and turn negative by one choice, one action or one event. However, the same goes to say that your negative outlook, your depressed state or your current juxtaposition; can be altered by one positive choice, action or event. Life is what you make of it. The richest people in the world can be void of love, happiness or righteousness; because they chose wealth and greed. The poorest families can be the happiest because they control their own state of mind.
The problem with this thought is that you and you alone control your decisions. Sure others can weigh in, provoke you or alter your views... But you alone control the power to start a series of positive actions to draw a positive path. You and you alone. That's a scary thought. Leaving me to my own devices. Leaving me with the power to change my life with just the thoughts in my head; with the power to make decisions and take action to either better my life or destroy it. Have you ever been in my head? Its a scary place, and that's a scary thought.
At the end of the day, life is a gamble. You take shots at what you think at the time will be the best outcome. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. The best part about this whole thing is that you are living... Your alive... With every positive outcome and triumph you feel the ecstasy of life; With every negative outcome and demise, you feel pain and sorrow. I know now that either way it doesn't matter... you feel something... You feel alive. The best advice I ever received was "When your up you never feel like its enough, and when your down, you never feel like you'll be up again." That's life. Feel it. Live it. Love it. Hate it. Prosper. Grow. Fall and get up.... That's life.

Education Crisis

The value of education in our country is sickening. I recently had a couple debates with friends and family members about this topic and thought I'd share my thoughts.

Our country was based on the fact that you can reach your dreams by being an American citizen. A free, unsuppressed, educated person that can do anything you put your mind to. Well our government has let us down on a number of things in my life time.... education being at the top of the list. Why are we one of the wealthiest countries in the world, yet one of the only to have to pay for education? Money, land, health and businesses are all things that can be taken away from you in the blink of an eye...... But no one can ever take away your education. Yet when we look at the priorities of our government, spending and implementation, how are they listed?...
1.Health care
2.Economy
3.War
We bailed out thousands of businesses with billions of dollars, we spend millions of dollars a DAY on a war, and we spend countless hours trying to put the pieces of our crumbling economy back together..... Whats missing on that list? Has anyone heard one word about the education crisis in our country? Because don't get it twisted, we have an education crisis.
Our kids are being dumbed down in an attempt to teach them things to past a standardized tests (i.e. FCAT) so that the schools don't miss out on federal funding. What about practical skills? Life skills? Why is teaching kids Algebra or Chemistry more important than teaching how to balance a check book or why eating fruits and vegetables are better than eating a BigMac? A lot of the problems in our country are a direct cause of this very issue..... If people were educated on credit, compound interest and how money works, then they would have known they can't afford a $250k house with an ARM at 5 1/2% with $0 down when they make $35k a year. If young people were educated on synthetic food, calorie intake and what sugar does to your body, then we wouldn't have an obesity epidemic on our hands that kills over 400,000 people a year... second only to smoking!

Why does every country in the world have free education except America? Why doesn't our country mandate more vocational schools along with public schools? All people aren't meant to go to college, I get that...the world needs ditch diggers. But I firmly believe that if a person has the drive and dedication to better their life, the last thing that should stop them is money. If you don't want to go to college and you want to be a mechanic or carpenter, great... we need plumbers too. You should have the option to go to vocational school and learn that trade instead of cramming chemistry down your throat..... But again, if you want to be a Doctor or Lawyer or own your own business.... you should be able to attain your goals and not have to worry about learning how to pass a test in the 4th, 7th and 10th grade so your school can receive money. You should be learning Anatomy, History and Economics.... things that will prepare you for college. Why do other countries make it mandatory to learn a second, third or fourth language, but not America? Did the people in the education system not believe the many, MANY studies on learning secondary languages in early education forces you to use other parts in your brain and actually make you smarter? I guess so, because I took my 2 years of spanglish and got a diploma like everyone else I know.

If we don't make a drastic change in our education system our kids will end up fat, broke drones that work in factories building other countries products because our labor is cheaper than labor in their own country.

Bet you can' just have one.....But you'll only get a few

There are some great marketing minds in the world today, but I can’t think of one Marketing firm better than the people at Frito-Lays. They are partly responsible for the obesity outbreak in the country today, and they are making money hand over fist while the people of America get fat. They designed big, colorful bags with seemingly healthy looking “baked” potato chips. They created new flavors like southwest ranch, parmesan and Tuscan herb, along with the old favorites of sour cream and cheddar, and barbeque.

But that’s not why they are the greatest minds in marketing, no, they are so ridiculously smart because they get us to pay almost $4 for an oversized bag of “baked” chips and when we open the bag, it’s only 1/3rd full. I haven’t seen this type of false advertisement since I reached into my first girlfriend’s shirt to feel those “c-cups” and came away with nothing but tissue and padding. It really is the only product in the world where we pay for more thin air then we do product. The owners at these chip companies have brilliantly thought of a way to have a huge advertising space anywhere a bag of chips lay, and make the consumer pay for the space. Think about the profit the company could rake in if they cut the cost of the bags…. those bags are so big I once saw a small homeless person cut open the bag and use it as a blanket! Ok, so I’m exaggerating a little bit, but nothing pisses me off more than when I open a new bag of chips and I have to reach all the way to the bottom of the bag to grab a few chips.

Think about this, you don’t see Coca-Cola only filling half of a coke bottle, no… you get a full coke and Coca-Cola pays for their advertising space themselves! So I say we all boycott the Frito-Lay company, and you can start by sending all of your un-opened chips to my house…. So I can do some more testing and research….. They’re just so good!!!!

Explaining No Internet

There have been many changes in technology during our lifetime, especially during my generation. Being a generation Y-er, we had the majority of the tech boom; Digital everything, C.D.’s, Cell phones, LCD T.V.’s, portable computers just to name a few. But the one thing that changed everything has to be the internet. Isn’t it crazy that we will have to one day, explain to our children, that there was a time in our life when we didn’t have the internet!

Everyone old enough remembers the time of no internet. Internet? We barely had computers when I was growing up! Looking around now, kids have computers with open access to everything and some schools give kids a laptop or personal desktops to work with all school year ‘round. When I was in elementary school we had maybe 20 apple CPU’s with monitors the size of Buick’s for the entire school. When we had “computer lab time”, which was about once every three months, we didn’t surf the net or listen to podcasts, no, we played Oregon Trail. Oregon Trail was great, watching our 1-D, black and white wagon move across a non-animated background like a puppet show with paper cut outs on sticks. Shoving that giant floppy disk in and typing in the MS-DOS code was the best part of the school year for me, even though the computer took half the class period to load the game up. They came out with an upgrade for Oregon Trail a couple years later, in all color with a bad-ass scene where you forged a river and hunted for buffalo and rabbits (I’m still waiting for a newer version where instead of people getting typhoid and bitten by a snake, they would get AIDS, Cancer from cell phone use and gunshot wounds….. and they would be driving in a wood panel station wagon instead of a horse drawn wagon)… Some will also remember other games like Number Munchers (the prime number game) and that math game where you had to figure out at what price to charge for your apples to make the most profit. Much cooler then getting to check your Facebook account all day.

My kids won’t even get to go through the awkward phase of dial up internet connection. Imagine not only trying to explain what a dial up connection is, but the noise they put with it…. Well first, you heard a dial tone, and then it sounds like someone is dialing one of 6 local internet numbers you chose based on your location. After that it sounds like your computer was connected to a heart monitor, flat-lines, and then has a pinball tournament while a slinky walks down a long stair case. Following the heart attack and pinball tournament you hear static for about 3 minutes, ranging from mildly annoying to the most annoying sound in the world. 12 and ½ minutes later and after what sounded like a space shuttle just left your computer, you heard those glorious words…… “Welcome, you have mail”. Why couldn’t they create a less annoying tune to go along with this process…Maybe some elevator music, Michael Bolton, Asia, or perhaps a recording of Rosanne singing the national anthem.

When my kids grow up I will have to explain that we had to call in our pizza order, record shows on a VCR, buy CD’S at the store, and find out what people are doing by actually asking them instead of reading it on Facebook, Myspace or Twitter. Get the popcorn and Capri sun, it should be an interesting bedtime story!!