Instant Replay in Football

I have been watching a lot of football this weekend (which is true for most weekends in the fall) and a recurring theme needs to be discussed. I think instant replay is important and should stay with football, because the officials make a lot of stupid calls and only replay has preserved the proper outcome of the game (remember the tuck rule game, imagine if justice wasn't served?).

The major gripe I have with instant replay is the fact that you never really know what's real until minutes later. I have seen a lot of exciting games, and sometimes you want to jump up and cheer for an amazing play (like an INT returned for a touchdown). But now I find that I don't really celebrate as much, you feel like you have to be reserved, there is a little bit of you that doesn't want to get emotionally attached to the outcome because it may be overturned by instant replay.

Last but not least, I do NOT believe that officials are sticking to the policy of NOT overturning a call without "indisputable evidence". I think they turn over calls all the time based on what they thick happened versus seeing a clear replay that would be considered "indisputable".

Shelby the Person?

While sleeping in this Saturday morning, I was thinking how great it would be if Shelby was more like a person. I mean she'd still look like a dog, but maybe be able to walk on two legs and talk. What would she say? What would her voice sound like. But really I wanted her to be a person this morning because it would be awesome to wake up and have her make us pancakes. I thought that was the funniest visual this morning, and I really did want it to come true. I also decided that if Shelby was a real person I would want to square dance with her. I am pretty sure we'd be on Letterman or some TV show like that.

Monopoly: Here and Now

As you may or may not know I am a huge fan of poker because it is "a game of people played with cards". For a similar reason I like monopoly because people's personalities really come out and everyone has a different idea on what is a "fair deal".

The original monopoly game was based on the streets of Atlantic City, well for the updated version each city in the US got to vote for their top 3 landmarks to make it into the game, and the landmarks were placed onto the board in order of which landmarks received the most votes!

Congrats to Fenway Park for becoming the "Park Place" of monopoly, sure we came in second to "Times Square" New York but that was to be expected based on population. A more important note is that Yankee stadium didn't make it on the board and therefore will be torn down in a few years :)



As expected Cincinnati is also not represented on the boardgame about the United States.

Some other interesting tidbits would be that the tokens are now "icons" of our culture (also known as product placement). These include McDonald's Fries, a Starbucks coffee, and a Toyota Prius (didn't know that existed), and a Motorola cell phone.

I just bought the game, I'll let you know if it plays the same.

Back from the Honeymoon

We are back from Aruba, which was absolutely beautiful. The weather was warm (90s or so) and sunny every day, but there is a constant wind (trade wind) which keeps it feeling a little cooler. Many people burn there because the UV index is almost always 10+ (it's 30 miles from Venezuala) and with the wind they forget how long they have been in the sun. The beach was beautiful and had a nice palapas (palm tree beach umbrella). I will post pictures soon. Aruba has beautiful white sand beaches and the food is amazing. All of the food is imported and I had the best steak from Argentina. In general the food is well above average, but a bit pricey (not too bad, worth the price for sure). Everything in Aruba is imported except for Aloe. They make their own aloe lotions. Population on the island is 71,000.

INTERESTING FACT: Downtown in the local shops you get buy all of the Aruba t-shirts and souvenirs you can imagine, the funny thing is all of these items were made in the US and imported into Aruba to sell to American tourists.

In general we saw many people from the US, the dollar is accepted everywhere and english is one of the main languages. There also were a lot of folks from Europe and S. America which made "bikini watching" on the beach interesting.

WATCH OUT: We rented a car for a day to see the island, it takes about 1 hour to drive the length of the island. We almost got in an accident because the traffic lights are amazingly short. We were 3rd or 4th at a major intersection and I just assumed it was going to stay green for us, at the last minute I saw that we were running the red light and sped up to avoid the on coming traffic. I think the lights last about 10 seconds or so. Only a few cars get through each time, but there really isn't much traffic.

BABY BEACH: You will hear a lot about baby beach but it requires a 45 min drive to discover that it is 1/2 a mile from a huge oil refinery and when we went they didn't have any bathrooms there. Baby beach is nice because the water is no more that 5 feet deep at all parts (it's like a little cove) but we enjoyed the "High Rise" hotel beaches so much it wasn't worth the hassle to rent the car and drive and be exposed to who knows what.

All in All Aruba gets a "must visit" rating. For comparison The Bahamas (Paradise Island) gets a "don't bother rating" and Hilton Head Island gets a "great to visit" rating, especially for nice beaches in the US, though the food was only OK.

That's all for now, post a comment already!!