Disappointment Unlimited

I love our local library. I've been able to catch up on quite a bit of comic book reading (Ultimate Spider-Man) and read some that I've always wanted to but never had the chance (Watchmen, V for Vendetta). I've also been able to watch a few shows that I wanted to see (Lost). I've also been a bit disappointed. I'm a really big believer in being truthful in advertising. If you say that your product does something, or is something, I would greatly prefer that your product does or is that thing. That's why I was mildly frustrated with the people who produced the show that I borrowed from the library: Justice League Unlimited.

I've always been more of a Marvel guy than a D.C. guy. I'm sure that it's partially because the first comic that I started buying on a regular basis was the Amazing Spider-Man. From there, I went on to the the Incredible Hulk, the Uncanny X-Men, and Wolverine, among others. It's only been in more recent years that I've started getting more of an appreciation for the "Distinguished Competition." Mainly in the form of liking to read Batman, but also reading some of the Superman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Justice League stories. When I saw a disk that was labeled "Justice League Unlimited, Season 1," I was excited to see the Justice League crew in cartoon form and able to see it from the beginning. Boy was I wrong.

The animation was in a style that we've come to expect from the WB/D.C. studios that started with the animated series for Batman. The voice work was top-notch. We had Kevin and Jason from the Wonder Years. We had Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin, and Gina Torres from Firefly. The characters were many and diverse. We had the heavy-hitters (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern), the mystic (Dr. Fate, Zatana) and the lesser-known (Hawk, Dove) characters. The stories were interesting and mostly self-contained, but with an over-arching story that carried with it clues to where the show was heading. Unfortunately, that also included some information (or lack thereof) about from where the show had come.

You see, this wasn't what I would call a "pure" season one of the show. It had continuity that it had carried over from a previous show. There was some whole thing with Hawkgirl so that she was hanging out in some pocket dimension with Dr. Fate along with the fact that there seemed to be some unrequited love thing between her and Green Lantern. To top it all off, one of my favorite characters in the D.C. universe, the Flash, who is one of the major, flag-ship characters of the entire comics line along with being a founding member of the Justice League (Well, really, it was his predecessor, Barry Allen, who was one of the founding members, at least in the comics, but that's not important right now. Well, to you it's not important; to me it's a detail that they missed. Where was I? Oh, yeah: the Flash) doesn't even make a single appearance in the series besides the opening credits until the seventh episode of the series. How does this make sense?

So, to sum it all up: If you're looking for the Flash, expect to be disappointed until mid-way through the first season, and please don't mind the fact that they said it's a first season, but really it's not, and they don't completely explain the stuff that they figure you should already know because, after all, you watched the previous series that wasn't actually named Justice League Unlimited, right? I mean, why would you be watching this series if you didn't watch the first one? It's not like they said that this was the first season of a brand new series, right? Oh wait! They did. (Deep breath.)

My name is Jeff Kamp, and I approve this rant.

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Random Thoughts: Kutlass/Newsboys Edition

Recently, Anne and I went with some friends to see Kutlass and Newsboys in concert together, along with a third opening band whose name I have no desire to actually look up. I decided to do a random thoughts on the concert. I hope you enjoy.

• You know, I don't mind paying for parking when I'm able to get tickets for free. Have I mentioned that I like my employer?
• "Everybody remember where we parked."
• We find our seats and our group immediately segregates themselves by male and female. Welcome to the 21st century. You gotta love progress.
• The opening act is...interesting. Dude at the keyboard does a little "human beatbox" thing before doing a "power organ" thing. So, it seems like their musical influences are mid-'80s rap and ELO.
• And B.B. King.
• And Boxcar Willie.
• Kutlass was awesome!
• The guitarist for Kutlass likes doing this thing where he flips his guitar completely around his body by the strap. Kinda cool.
• I can just picture him practicing and someone comes up behind him, "Hey, dude, how's it..." *smack!* "..OW!"
• When did Billy Corgan become the lead singer of Newsboys?
• And when did he pick up the Australian accent?
• Thrumming bass? Check. Obnoxiously-bright light show? Check. Unable to discern any of the different parts of the music? Check. It's definitely a rock concert.
• I'm not sure why, but hearing the song "Something Beautiful" at 250 decibels seems to me to be a contradiction.
• "I could be wrong, sir, but I'm pretty sure your five-year-old son will have enough issues losing his hearing to his own music."
• And stop trying to hand the lead singer a box of Cap'n Crunch.
• Oh good. Another joke about how they're Australian.
• I don't know about you, but when I look at a platform that is raised ten feet in the air and is five feet in diameter while someone is frantically standing and drumming on it and say sarcastically to myself, "Oh yeah, that looks stable," I start to think that it's time to re-consider the gimmick.
• "If your ears aren't ringing, then I want my money back!" Don't worry, dude, I think you accomplished it.

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Trust Me, It's Broken

An epiphany is an interesting thing. It strikes you when you least expect it. For instance, my family and I had decided that we would go to a local eating establishment one day, and we were waiting to order when a thought suddenly struck me. It was very much like in the first Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book where someone has an idea to fix all the problems in the world. It would work. Everyone would get behind it, and then the world blew up. I had a very similar idea on a smaller scale. It wouldn't fix all of the problems in the world. Just one of the more disputed issues in the world of sports. Maybe that's why the world didn't blow up after I came up with the idea. At least, as far as I know the world didn't explode. I have an idea that would fix college football.

One of the biggest discussions every year is about the Bowl Championship Series in college football. Everyone except for the NCAA and the people directly involved in the bowl games hate the BCS. I've written about it being one of the biggest problems I have with college football. We end the year in a major sport where the champion may or may not be the best team in the nation. We're not sure because the teams that are out on the field for the championship are there because a computer decided that they're the best two teams in the nation, not necessarily because they've proven it on the field. Some have proposed that there be a four or eight game playoff at the end of the season. That doesn't appease the good old boy network that claims this would cause the regular season to be meaningless. I would say that the the BCS has caused the regular season to be virtually meaningless already considering that at the outset of the season, only ten teams have a legitimate shot at going to the national championship game. Why not make most of the season a tournament?

I started thinking down those lines after we had gotten our food, but I needed to flesh out the details a little bit. For one thing, I didn't know how many teams there are in division one football. When I don't know the answer to a question like that, I know what I need to do: Call Gudy. One of the benefits of being friends with a guy like Gudy is the fact that if I don't know the answer to a sports questions, most likely he does. I quickly called him from the cell phone. Here's a transcript of our conversation.

Gudy: "Hello?"

Me: "Hey. How many teams are there in division 1A college football?"

Gudy (without hesitation): "119."

Me: "How many games are in the average team's season?"

Gudy: "11 or 12."

Me: "Thanks. I'll talk to you later." Click.

So now I had all the information I needed. Just the numbers. Here's the details.

• The season would start with each team playing five games. They can schedule these games however they'd like. The could play against conference teams. They could play traditional rivals. This would allow us to still see the match-ups we care about every year: USC v. Notre Dame, Florida State v. Clemson, University of Minnesota v. North Dakota State University, Michigan v. Appalachians State. You know, all the traditional, bad-blood rivalries.
• At the end of those five games, we make use of the BCS computers to rank the teams. Not just the top 25, however. We go from one to 119 with the top nine teams having a first week bye.
• For the remaining seven weeks, the teams play out the bracket.
• If a team loses, they drop down into the consolation round. That's essentially what happens today anyway when you consider that it only takes one loss to drop you out of contention.
• For the consolation group, the top 30 teams participate in the bowls. That'll keep the good old boys happy.
• The two left standing at the end play for the national championship. Last one standing gets the crown.

So, there you go. The one downside of this plan is that the conferences become, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant. Unless you do something where, based on the final standings, the conferences get some sort of bonus for how their teams finished. The large advantages are nearly self-evident. Everyone, top to bottom, has a chance to win the championship and not just the teams that are fortunate enough to be in the top 15 at the beginning of the season. The bowl games are all still in play. In fact, you can preserve the rotating national championship locations that we have today between the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, and the Sugar Bowl. The biggest thing for me is the fact that the champion is decided on the field and not by a computer. It's also all done without adding any games to the schedule, which is another thing people have against a playoff system. To me, this fixes things, whether or not you wish to believe that it's currently broken.

P.S. It is currently broken.

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