The Greatest Fireworks Show on the Planet

Thanks to my dad for the pic and my friend Emily for the video.

Every year the town of Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard puts on a fireworks display on a Friday night in late August.  And every year it's the best one I've ever seen.  Each year a little better than the last.  At the end they shoot so many off at once that you can feel the ground shaking.  Car alarms go off.  Babies cry hysterically.  Sometimes ash even falls in your beer.  It's just nuts.  Plus, it always features new kinds of pyrotechnic technology; lately often involving unexpected smaller explosions trailing the original bursts.  Here's a two part video of the finale.  The highlights are at the 28 second mark of the first one, and the 30 second mark of the second.

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Best Vineyard Day of the Year

Today is the best day of the summer on Martha's Vineyard.  This year it gets commemorated with "Cliffy's Fish N' Chips" t-shirts:

And because of the rain on Wednesday the illumination was last night, which makes it a pretty big 36 hours.

Also, if you're one of the six people still paying close attention to the Red Sox, you can click here to read my very uninspiring preview of this weekend's series in New York for CLNSRadio.

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Melky's numbers show the juice.

San Francisco Giants outfielder (and the MVP of this year's All-Star Game) Melky Cabrera was suspended 50 games yesterday for violating MLB's drug policy.  A quick analysis of his stats makes it seem pretty clear that he used steroids, beginning in the 2011 season:

It's fairly obvious Melky cheated.

- In 2010 he batted .255 with 4 HR and 42 RBI's.  The next year he hit .305 with 18 HR and 87 RBI's.

- For the first 6 years of his career, his full season averages were 144 hits, 27 doubles, 10 HR, 62 RBI, and a .267 batting average.

- The past two: 218 hits, 42 doubles, 18 HR, 89 RBI, .322 average.

Sorry Melky, the numbers don't lie.


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A couple recent blogs updated

1.  Dylan McKay and Kelly Taylor have joined Brandon Walsh and Andrea Zuckerman on the 90210 to Old Navy train:

2.  Nobody is accepting my theory for why the 2012 USA men's basketball team would beat the 1992 "Dream Team."  I would like to reiterate that my argument has nothing to do with the players themselves, only the difference in time.   These two video's support my case.  And even if you adamantly disagree with me and still think I'm nuts, watch them; they're awesome.

History of the 100M sprint Olympic gold medals:

The evolution of the uneven bars in gymnastics:

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Awesome Old Song of the Week: "Today" by The Smashing Pumpkins

This was probably my favorite song during my junior year of high school.  But the story I'm going to tell is from college.  Once a year my fraternity used to make signs promoting "Smashing Pumpkins" for one of our rush parties.  Sadly we never actually were able to book the band to come play at our lodge.  However, we made good on our promise by buying a bunch of pumpkins and letting the rushees smash them with a baseball bat one at a time, like a pinata.   It was always a big hit.

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"Winning" a silver medal

There's something about silver medals at the Olympics that inherently bothers me.  They're fine for races (swimming, track, cycling, etc.), things that are judged and given scores (gymnastics, diving), and any number of other events where there is a large field of contestants simultaneously competing against each other.  If a bunch of people throw the javelin and yours is the second farthest, that's great; you can go ahead and get excited about your silver medal.  But when it comes down to a final game/match and there's two people or teams competing head to head against each other for the gold, that's when it gets a little dicey.  I really don't like how in those cases the loser "wins" the silver.

The Japanese women shouldn't have had to put on happy faces.

Last week I watched the women's gold medal soccer game in which the U.S. narrowly defeated Japan.  When the game ended the Japanese were crushed; heartbroken by their loss.  Then a short while later they had to put smiles on their faces and "celebrate" their silver at the medal ceremony.  Nobody wants to be happy about something you've already achieved when a greater prize has just been snatched away.  It's just not the nature of competitive sports.  Imagine if after the Superbowl last year the Patriots had to go out on the field and accept a 2nd place trophy?  It seems unthinkable (I couldn't even write about it until a week later), but that's how the Olympics work.

So here's my suggestion: Play the gold medal game, but don't give the loser the silver.  Have them play again against the winner of what was previously considered the bronze medal game, for the right to truly "win" the silver.  Then have those two losers play another game in order to determine the bronze.  That way everybody who gets a medal earns it with a victory and goes out on a high note.


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Paranorman, Frankenweenie, and Hotel Transylvania all at once?

These three movies are all coming out soon, and they all look like basically the same thing.

August 17th, ParaNorman:

September 28th, Hotel Transylvania:

And on October 5th, Frankenweenie:

I'm sure they have different plots and stuff, but doesn't it seem like the market is a bit over saturated?

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