4 months to Bloomington

This Monday, the great Luke Ski announced the comedy music schedule for Marscon 2010 held in Bloomington, MN the first weekend in March.

Unlike last year, I am very pleased that the former Twin Cities group the Nick Atoms were named the guest of honor as they are doing one last show together. It is also FTW that Schaffer the Darklord and Throwing Toasters (along with the podcast winning radio show Dr. Floyd) will be making their first Marscon appearance traveling from NYC and LA respectively for the show.

However, there will also be artists at Marscon whose music and personality clash with me which is starting to become more common than I want it to be as people who are considerably younger than me are joining our group of friends and are making music.

This chart reflects my personal opinion of the artists currently on the schedule.



I can not thank enough the great Luke Ski for his hard work in bringing awesome music to the convention and for the convention itself for allowing it to become the place to travel in March to see many of the best artists in comedy music perform.

Go Yankees?

From what little baseball playoff talk I have heard this year, most people agree that they want someone other than the Yankees to hoist the trophy once this seemingly endless playoff end. In the three sports where playoffs are best of 7 series, I am getting increasingly disgusted by how games are spread out in an attempt to maximize tv ratings usually at the expense of the quality and integrity of the games.

As I posted last year, since there is no personal team that made the playoffs, I am rooting for the Yankees to win the title since they were the best team in the better league for the 2009 season and because I picked the Yankees to beat the Phillies for the title after picking all six division winners correctly. (Yes, even St. Louis. I got a lot of flack stating in March that the Cubs were only going to win 85 games and not make the playoffs.)

I had in the past rooted for the underdog in the playoffs but for a while it got to the point in baseball where the lesser teams would win playoff series and titles as explained in the chart:



I used the 20 games above .500 barrier to determine whether or not a division winner is in my opinion worthy of a title. When looking at past regular season records, I confirmed that from 2000-2006 five of the seven champions either failed to win a division title or 91 games.

Also from 2000-2008, only 2001 had two league champions that won 91 games and its division and in two of those years, 2002 and 2006, neither team had won 91 games or its division title.

I am very pleased that 2009 marked the first season since the current format was established in 1995 that the two wild card teams and the one division champion that did not win 91 games, St. Louis, all lost in the first round.

Family Circus style driving, part 6

Heading to my sister's house in Frankfort is easier than it used to be after the North-South tollway (now called the veterans tollway) was extended south to interstate 80. Before, I had to take the Tri State Tollway, exit at 95th and Harlem and drive 12 miles on the street. On average taking this route saves me 10 minutes which for me is well worth the extra $2 in round trip tolls.

Last month while driving there with my wife and daughter, my wife told me it was the first time she was in a car that correctly exited from interstate 355 to interstate 80 toward my sister's house. I asked her what she did wrong and she stated she took interstate 80 the wrong direction and only discovered her error when she saw the next exit three miles down the road.

Having done that earlier in the year myself at the 355/55 exit as I posted about in the summer, I can understand even if this exit is simple with traffic going left exits left and traffic going right exits right. However, she told me she did that three different times.



And she just told me she as I was putting this entry together that she would be ok driving home tonight from the Park West theatre (about 30 miles from my house) if necessary. Er, ... no.

Non championship sports part 3

As the days get shorter and the chill starts to be felt in the air, it is time for the NHL season to begin. As with the previous two charts, there is one team that has gone significantly longer without a title than any others. Here is a chart showing their title odds since winning their last title in 1961:



Due to expansion, adding teams from the World Hockey Association which folded in 1979, continuing conference and division changes and even a couple of teams folding, the odds changed 7 times in 16 seasons. Since 8 teams from each conference made the playoffs each year, working out odds from uneven number of teams in divisions was unnecessary.

Unlike the Lions who went 0-16 last year and the Cubs who for most people were a disappointment in 2009 in spite of my correct prediction in March of an 85 win non playoff season, the Blackhawks are many experts' popular pick to win the conference and cup title for 2009-2010. Four players from that team were on the cover of the ESPN magazine hockey preview issue. They have come a long way from being a city joke less than 2 years ago. My only concern about the team for this upcoming season is their goal tender who can struggle against good teams as long as they remember the same thing most NHL fans know. Shoot high against him.