'The Happening' ain't, at least for me.

                

Let's clear the air before I start. I didn't go to see The Happening to bash it or its creator.

 I like M. Night Shyamalan. I thought Sixth Sense was a fine movie (although not as good as its contemporary Stir of Echoes), and by the time  I saw Unbreakable I left the theater a Shyamalan fan. I felt Signs was moving and at times frightening. I thought The Village was beautifully done but empty of suspense. Lady in the Water . . well, let's not speak of that atrocity.

So I went into the movie with a feeling of promise, a hope that Shyamalan had righted his ship and was back on course. I marked the date on the calendar, arranged for sitters, rearranged work schedules, and made a date with Lisa to see it on the day of its release.

What an awful disappointment. What an awful movie.

The premise is right up my alley, an apparent 'end of civilization' event that forces a small group of survivors to try and outrun the plague and fight for their lives. To say more would require a spoiler warning, but don't worry: you'll figure it all out a few minutes into the movie.

I felt like I was watching a campy John Waters film. While they watch people die horrific death the actors run around saying 'Oh No!' with no more emotion then if  they'd stubbed their toe. Still others face death while reciting mathematical questions, or mumble grade-school science text while the world crumbles around them. The deep marriage crisis is about as mature a situation as you'll see - if your love life is permanently frozen in  freshman year of high school.  The'enemy' causing the plague can either be seen as unique or laughable, depending on your point of view. Given the material, I vote for laughable.

Zooey Deschanel is completely wasted in her role, very visibly handcuffed by her part, while Mark Wahlberg does such an awful job I wondered aloud if he was hamming it up on purpose. If he read the script, he just might have thought it was appropriate.

[argument for intentional camp: Mark, aka Marky Mark, tells someone he's feeling 'good vibes', prompting Lisa to start humming his mega-hit 'Good Vibrations']

Aside from the fact that the conflict just ends, without any action taken to stop it or any resolution, I take umbrage with Shyamalan's preachiness. He displays the flagrant bias of the East Coast, showing West Virginians as hicks and the residents of Nebraska as militia members, while Philadelphians (!) are depicted as polite and civil citizens. And naturally, the plague is caused not by our direct actions or by nature, but because mankind is a natural threat to the earth and must be removed.

 Five minutes into the movie he focuses on a quote written on a blackboard, a quote which gives away the movie, and it's so blatant and idiotic a clue I laughed aloud. At that moment I swear I heard campy music in my head  - an exaggerated bit of musical fanfare - or God forbid, Shyamalan actually included it in the film.

Yikes.

Two stars out of four. I'd have given it 'one' but the man can still direct and frame a shot; he just can't write. Out of a hundred, I'd give it 32.

Ken Griffey and On Base Percentage

                           

I'll spare you reviews of 10,000 BC and Alien Vs. Predator - Requiem. All I have to say on the subject is thank God I didn't pay to see or rent them.

Still no phone by the way, and now my cable is whack-a-doodle, shutting off and turning on for no reason. I think the storm did a doozy on my line somewhere.

Thanks for all the condolences regarding Lisa's Great Uncle.

* * * * *

Meanwhile I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate Ken Griffey Jr on becoming only the sixth man in history to hit 600 home runs in Major League Baseball.

I'll save the fawning tribute for his eventual retirement, which sadly is not that far off. But the achievement has set off a flurry of pro-Griffey articles, and in response my favorite lurking spot (Baseball Think Factory) has lit up with commentary calling Griffey overrated.

[Keep in mind the folks at BTF are (largely) stats freaks, virulent left-wingers politically and socially, mildly tolerant of the PED implicated players, and cynics to boot. It is in their nature to disagree with the mainstream, and frankly they do so with style and panache.]

A recent thread has argued convincingly that Barry Bonds was a superior player to Ken Griffey, even prior to his alleged PED use at the turn of the century.

They have a point. Bonds was a great player, combining speed, average, power, and great D in left field. Bonds clearly outclassed Ken as a stolen base threat, but in the world of sabermetrics stolen bases are dismissed with a snort. OBP - on base percentage - is where the new center of the universe lies.

Take a look at this comment from the site:

Bonds 1989-98 versus Griffey 1990-99 (Griffey's best 10 consecutive years vs Bonds' 10 years prior to PED use)

Total WARP3 (adjusts for defense and position, though it is BPro's defensive rating)
Griffey 96.0
Bonds 124.7

Best Five Seasons
Griffey 12.8/12.2/11.4/10.8/10.5
Bonds 15.4/14.7/13.8/13.7/12.1

WARP3 is a proprietary statistical formula that stands for Wins Above Replacement Player, in thiscase revision 3.

"Replacement Level" can be thought of like this: take your average lounge singer. Replace her with your tone-deaf Aunt Mildred onstage and you've gone below 'replacement level'. Replace her with Celene Dion and you're (dramatically) above replacement level. Drop in another plain jane singer and your right at an even keel.

Now bear in mind a team with a full complement of replacement players is mathematically awful and expected to produce no more than 25 wins; that isn't realistic, and for that reason among others I find the math (but not the concept, which fascinates me) less than all-impressive.

Still, the math is clear: based on these and other detailed formulas Bonds walks away on top.

But wait.

A vast amount of Bonds worth is rightly attributed to his on base percentage, which was greatly (duh!) increased by drawing more walks than anyone in history. Valuable? Darn tooting. But in some situations is a high OBP a determent to a player's worth?

This is dangerous ground. Dusty Baker was crucified for criticizing some high OBP players for 'clogging the bases'. He sounded stupid, but he may have had a point.

Say you have two sluggers. Both are blessed with speed, defense, great power, and average. Both play for lousy teams and are the only legitimate hitting threats in the lineup.

Player A has a OBP of.380. Player B has a OBP of .320.

This might be an extreme example, because to my eyes Player A kicks B's behind, but those numbers came out of the air.

Let's say player A walks a lot, a realistic assumption given his OBP. Sure he gets to first base significantly more often than Player B, but he is no doubt stranded there just as often when his weak-hitting teammates step to the plate.

Meanwhile, playing for an equally lousy team, player B garners fewer walks. Instead of taking pitches he is attempting to drive the ball whenever he can, albeit with a corresponding drop in average and OBP.

All things being equal, we can guess that B manages to get a few hits with all those extra swings, and that some of them drive in runs. Those are runs that would not be created strictly by OBP. At the very least, the rise in productivity brings the two players to a level playing field. Or not. I could be wrong.

The weakness here, some would say, is that it would fail to account for the fewer times B gets on base and later driven home. My answer is that is that the whole concept is tied to the surrounding lineup - a pure example of a team statistic if you will, and that we have a reasonable expectation that the .220/12/64 hitter behind him isn't going to do much damage.

Mathematically I have no idea how to put this concept, let's call it Adjusted On Base Percentage (AOBP) to life. You would need to study a batters OBP and the slugging percentage of those around him in the lineup. So you'd need to come up with a baseline - the league's average slugging percentage would probably do.

At the league average the batter's actions are neutral in the equation. If his teammates perform above league average  there is no advantage to swinging away. In such cases, OBP is of great worth and should be valued as such, and therefore his AOBP would be higher.  If his teammates are below average OBP is not as important, and his AOBP would be lower than his OBP.

How the average would be calculated . .well, that's beyond me. In the morning this whole idea will probably seem foolish to me, but right now it seems worth considering.

Thanks for reading.

Tags: baseball

What's up with my phone you ask?

For anyone who's wondering what happened to my home phone, the line went dead during Saturday's storm and still isn't working. My phone service is through Time Warner, and while they've been very helpful none of their troubleshooting has worked. I guess I'll have to call out one of their service techs tomorrow.

Anywho, for all you busybodies - yes, I did pay the bill. :)

If you need me email, and if it's an emergency (such as the passing of Lisa's Great Uncle Lee today) then call on my cell.

- Dan

Forget my basement - I was one of the lucky ones

Even as I wrote that post about the water in the basement I knew there were people a lot worse off. Heck, the front page of the Journal-Sentinel had a  picture of people canoeing down an intersection not more than a couple miles past my place of employment.

When I got to work my story was put to shame. One guy had three feet of water in his basement; many more had some degree of flooding and the mother of one of our employees had to pull out the wall-to-wall carpeting in her rec room. My friend Tre chimed in with news that a co-worker of his had 41 inches in his basement, while his own garage took in an inch. My daughter's had school cancelled when their cafeteria flooded badly enough to make the news. A customer told me her newly finished basement near Sherman Park had been destroyed, costing her all the electronics in her rec room, damaging her electricity and sending her to room in a hotel overnight.

I guess I can thank my lucky stars my situation wasn't much, much worse.

Wisconsin was hit hard, and the news out of Wisconsin Dells was staggering. Lake Delton is a popular attraction around that resort community.

Or rather it was. It jumped the banks and flooded a local river, draining the lake down to the bottom in a matter of minutes.

We're not talking a pond here, or a lagoon. This is a decent size, decent depth lake. It was large enough to support beach resorts and the locally famous amphibious Duck rides. Now it's gone, completely gone, and people are mourning their sole source ofrecreation and income.

Along the way, the Lake took out four large 'dream' vacation homes along the banks.

What a mess. And more rain to come this week . . . Hope everyone is well and stays dry.

This isn't YaYa's greatest dance

As long as we're talking about dance, here's a goofy makeshift excuse for camera time from YaYa, circa the 16th of May.

and a few moments later, after pleading for me to film her again and bugging me to death, this goofy alphabet 'dance' - could there be a more blatant camera hog?

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YaYa's 'Enchanted' dance recital 06/08/08

Last month you saw that LuLu had her dance recital, one Lisa also participated in. I may or may not have mentioned that Lis also works (in exchange for free tuition for YaYa) at the dance studio of her childhood dance instructor.

Today was their dance recital. Lisa was in two dances and YaYa in one. No still or motion photography is allowed during the recital but I'll try to post clips of YaYa's performance when the professional DVD arrives.

The theme of the show was based on the Disney movie 'Enchanted', and YaYa danced a duet as a mouse. Unlike the other recital this is a more home style, low key affair, despite being held at Alverno College. For that reason Lis had to improvise much of the girl's costumes herself, including the ears.

I was a bit worried about the dance. YaYa had only been at the school for a few months and was rusty, but I worried for nothing. She came out beaming,  standing as tall and as perfect as a statue, her face animated with joy. The girl has a natural thirst for the limelight and even a stranger could see that she was soaking it in. She even sang along with the song that was playing! Her footwork was less than stellar, but again, chalk that up to the limited time she had and a smidgeon of my genetics. It was more than balanced out by her smile onstage.

Afterwards, roses. A yellow one from me (just to be different from the one I gave Lisa)

and a red one from Lisa's Mom and Step-Dad. (I asked my family not to come, not out of anger but becausethey had been forced to miss LuLu's show, and I did not need her to feel slighted if they came out in force for YaYa's)

Lisa favors the other studio but acknowledges that at this one duets and solos are routine, which is something right up YaYa's alley. So we'll see if she returns there in the fall.

Good job girl!

This Weekend Sucked

It started out swell. Lisa took the girls swimming (Lump too) on a gorgeous sunny day, while Smiley and I went rummage sale shopping and hit Home Depot to work on the kids project of the month.

Then it started to rain.

YaYa was (by that time) at a friends house and her friend's Mom called and asked me to come pick her up before supper. As I was loading up the van tornado sirens went off in my neighborhood for the second day in a row.

Tornado's are rarely an issue in Milwaukee. In Dodge and Walworth Counties yes - hell, they should change their names to Kansas and Oklahoma already - but not here, and not by the lake.

["Didya ever hear tornado sirens on back to back days?" Socialist would ask me today. "Yeah, me neither. Not in thirty years"]

I burned rubber getting to the friends house, grabbed YaYa and headed home, narrowly missing a drenching rain. I had the TV tuned to the local ABC affiliate and went outside on the front porch for a looksie.

Soon both YaYa and LuLu ran out "Dad, we have to get to the basement. Now!"

"Relax," I said. "The storm will pass. We'll be ok."

"No, the man on TV said to get to the basement. Let's go. Hurry!"

I am not one to shrivel in the face of a storm. It is my strong and certain conviction that I will eventually perish from obesity, which oddly brings a sense of karmic peace to my encounters with the occasional  quote 'danger' unquote. Still, it'd be a pretty lousy example for me to say "hey, ignore the legitimate figure of authority who only has your safety in mind. Come join me as I fly a kit in the rain!"

So we packed off for the basement. We got a bushel together first. A few diapers and wipes, baby formula and bottle, some books to read, a notebook and pens, a crucifix, stuffed animals and some snacks, and went downstairs.

We huddled in the basement bathroom, really  pretty close quarters. YaYa read a Junie B Jones book, the baby crawled around beaming her new surroundings, Smiley stretched out on a bench I'd moved in there and tried to take a nap, and LuLu conversed with me. They were all well behaved for the duration of the tornado warning, some 45 minutes or so. It was actually kind of a sweet experience.

Yeah, the baby's holding onto a vacuum brush. Relax, it was right out of the box, brand new, and despite the permanence of a photo, she had it for all of 3 seconds before I grabbed it out of her hand.

Of course the minute I let them loose - the very minute - LuLu broke YaYa's music box and YaYa punched her in return. Smiley jumped in to back up LuLu and exchanged a few swings, and the whole kit and kaboodle came running to me to tattle.

The rest of the day - the rest of the weekend really, went to hell right then. I noticed water coming into the basement. This is not the 'Lion King' water, which as you may recall was caused by a neighbors damaged gutter system (that area remained bone dry through all that follows). This was a seperate leak caused, in part, by water backing up in the back yard and filling our cellar door steps.

I was/am not alone. My place of employment had significant flooding, as did Chris' Dad's house, Socialists, and many many more. 3.1 inches of rain/hour were coming down at one point (it rained ALL night).  I read newspaper stories of people swimming across intersections and I personally saw a  . .hmmm.. I guess it would be a manhole cover, although it seemed mighty small for one, pushed up by the force of water and unleashing a stream of water across a road. Lisa's place of employment gathered customers and staff together in a break room, angering a lot of customers, and she came home early at my request to lend a hand. So yeah, the weather did a number on a lot of people.

Who cares, you know? The whole dang town could flood so long as my digs remained dry. That didn't happen. The whole family (minus Lump) got into the act of cleaning up the basement and surprisingly even the kids proved helpful. I did however scold them for treating one stretch of the basement as a slip and slide - God knows what infections are now awaiting them.

Socialist came over today to loan me a pump and talk over plans to install a sump pump in the basement. [once again, a last minute call for help answered on the spot; thanks man]

As I write this it's pouring. But I"m sore from lifting and dumping a score and more of 12 gallon shop vac canisters (I misplaced the drainage hose for it and had to lift and dump it into the utility sink),  I've got cuts and scrapes everywhere, I'm probably half on my way to gangrene :) and I'm done. For tonight I'm going to ignore it all and act as if I was a 75 year old cripple who not only isn't aware of water in my basement, but is blissfully unable to even go downstairs to check.

Ahhh . . peace.

My Nephew's Graduation

Ok, ok. I've tried and failed to upload the video of my nephew's speaking role at his grade school graduation. But . . I had another idea in the shower a moment ago - thank you Axe deodorant body wash for your inspiring scent of Lava manliness! - and I'll try that over the weekend.

Meanwhile, I shall comply with my sisters wishes and post about the event.

[It was held at his school's church at six in the evening, and let me just be honest: I'd forgotten that private school ceremonies often take place during Mass. There's nothing like 8 hours of work followed by a two hour Mass to make you wish you'd run off and joined the Merchant Marine years ago. Plus YaYa was a royal pain and had a handful of hissy fits during the event. What fun!]

Ok, all complaining aside, it was a heck of a graduation. There were slide shows, the entire class sang songs, there were awards, there were 'dream boxes', there was a little bit of everything. Frankly, I'm  left wondering what these kids will do for high school and college graduation. Anything that can or should be done (in front of your parents at least) they've already tried.

[My nephews dream: to be a graphic artist. My dream: that he cut his hair]

Here I am with my Godson

Here's his Mom

 

w/

his sisters

w/ his Great-Great Aunt Mabel

These next few refused 'red eye reduction'. 'Twas not intentional folks.

My sister with her Godson.

w/ my folks

w/ his teacher

w/ a girl (name?) who mopped up in the awards category

I have no idea who this is. I just thought the smile was cute, and I figured since he had two pics with her she must be someone of importance . . .

Two attractive girls and he chooses to hug a guy. Hmmm....

Just kidding. The school held a party for all the kids after the event and then the class loaded into a limo and headed out for ice cream.

 

Ok, on Sunday last his Mom held a family celebration for him. I made some of the cupcakes.

If you've been paying attention you'll be able to pick out three of my kids at the table. (answer: going clockwise from the boy with his hand by his face: the first two and the second to last)

w/ my Dad and my Dad's Aunt Diane

w/ my Godmother and her husband (Uncle George and Aunt Jackie)

and with a bunch of his friends from school

It was a good time and a nice reward for the guy. Here's looking forward to celebrating another graduation in four years!

On nothing in particular

What an odd city.

This afternoon tornado sirens were going off, fierce winds attacked everything in sight, the sky blanketed the land with darkness, and rain fell in sheets.

A few hours later it was in the 80's (F) and bright and sunny, without so much as a gust of wind.

Huh.

Anyhow I took Lu and Lump outside to play in the front yard for a few minutes. All was well and then, like flipping a switch, Lu started wigging out when her flip-flop fell off her foot..

"Pick up my shoe! Pick it up now! Arrrrgggghhhh! Pick it up now Daddy! I hate you! Pick up my shoe!"

Booyah, off to bed with some words between the front door and her bedroom. The worst part? It took place in full view of the folks we believe called us in as a daycare. In my valiant attempt to continue civil relations I jokingly asked him if these fits would end by the time the girls were twelve. 'Give me some hope,' I said. He laughed and said they would, then he went inside to poke a pin in my voodoo doll.

That last parts just supposition tho'.

Work continues to be a subject verbotten here, but I will say that this morning I attended the inaugural meeting of a steering committee for our business district. With a 1.5 million dollar (starting) budget we have a lot of decisions to make, and the state DOT (Department of Transportation) says that the physical changes they'll implement on our behalf will stand for a quarter century or more. It's a legitimate way for me to leave a mark on the city, even if I wind up selling apples on the street corner when the new owner says 'see ya!'.

I always go into those meetings feeling insecure. I sit down with politicians and business owners and I think "What the hell am I doing here? I'm just the dorky kid from high school, the kid who'd nearly have a panic attack when you went around the room introducing yourself on the first day of class. Now it's 16 years later and I'm sitting here with the cool kids - oh crap!"

And then it starts and at some point I say something, or object to something, and a roomful of people nod and run with my idea. And no matter how many times that happens, or how many times folks ask me to join these committees, I always let out an inner 'yee haw', as if I've managed to pull the wool over their eyes one more time.

Man, I've got some 'core' issues.

* * * *

Today of course is the 64th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy. To all the living survivors of that event, thank you.

Flakes - A review

My sister is chomping at the bit for me to post about her son's graduation, but I can't figure out how to upload the video of him speaking at the ceremony so she'll just have to wait.

Flakes is a fun little film by the director of Heathers. Zooey Deschanel stars as  a struggling artist who is in love with the manager of a local cereal bar, a place where folks go to buy a single bowl of obscure breakfast cereals in the morning.

Her boyfriend is essentially Dante from Clerks. He's employed beneath his ability and potential but content, even if he argues otherwise. Unlike Dante he has a girlfriend who is happy to push the issue and urge him to do more in life. This leads to friction between the two, and in response she takes a job with the rival cereal shop across the street and hi jinks ensue.

It's a cute little film, quirky and happy, with a genuine and sweet love shared between the two main characters. If there is a flaw worth mentioning it's that the end is a little Disney-esque. I don't mean it's sugary sweet; rather the third act seems to come out of nowhere to end the conflict, in direct opposition to the gradual and well crafted lead-up throughout the movie.

78 out of 100 or 3 out of 4; take your pick. (with a slight reduction in the scoring if you happen to be too old to laugh at a female lead who's name, in a movie completely devoid of sex is Ms. Pussy Katz.)