Many people hate their profession.  It’s a common theme among the work force here in America and probably around the world.  This is all well and good, but it is the societal norm.  So, who cares?  I’m not going to waste my time talking about that because everyone already knows and experiences it on a daily basis.  Let’s switch our thinking around on this one.  What actual profession is hated by other people?

Let’s backtrack for a second here.  The other day, I parked my car outside of my apartment.  It was past six o’clock, so I didn’t need to feed the parking meter.  I have an early class at an off campus location, so I have to leave in the morning before the meter maids come.  Of course, the meter maids always come at different times.  It’s almost like a game of chicken.  How late can I sleep in and still avoid the parking ticket?  A game, yes, but a dangerous one.

Last Wednesday, I lost this game.  I walked out of my apartment as that devilish white car, marked “Parking Authority”, pulled up to my lonely black Alero.  I already knew it was too late.  Running over there and trying to reason with her would do me no good because we all know that meter maids have no souls.  There is no reasoning with them!

I let her write the ticket without saying a word to her.  I didn’t want a lecture on how I needed to put quarters in the big grey machine.  I pulled it off of my car and drove to class, wondering why anyone would ever want to be a meter maid.  Do kids grow up and say to themselves, “What is the job where I would get the most opportunities to piss people off, with no possibility of repercussions to me?”  No, I don’t think so.  Someone has to do this job, though.

I’ve always wanted to get a job interview for a meter maid position, just to see what it would be like.  Do they make you torture small babies or kill kittens?  Or do they simply ask you questions to determine whether or not you would be a fan of Adolf Hitler on facebook?  I can’t be entirely sure, but I assume the interview would involve something like one of those two things.

My roommates and I have pondered for a long about a way that we could get back at meter maids.  We haven’t really come up with anything (that is, anything that is legal), but we have developed a defense against them.  In a complicated world, sometimes less is more.  Elaborate schemes don’t usually work, so we thought, “why not keep it simple?”  Thats what we do.

In order for this plan to work, you do need to get a parking ticket.  Yes, I know, you don’t want to do that, but if you’re going to get one at some point you might as well give it a shot.  Whenever you park, don’t put change in the meter.  Just grab that old ticket and place it on your windshield.  Sounds like it won’t work, right?  Well, my roommates and I have done this easily 20 times and only got an additional ticket once (Scroggs got greedy and tried to make it two days in spot… )  I’ve seen it in action.  I have sat and watched meter maids drive up to my car, stop for a second, and then drive right past. They are too lazy to get out of the car and check the ticket.

I can honestly say that watching that happen is one of the most beautiful things on Earth.  You have no chance of ever getting back at these people.  They’re almost untouchable.  All you can do is use their own laziness to your advantage.

They may never know that they are being bested, but I do.  Every time I walk out to my car and I don’t have a ticket, I smile a little bit on the inside.  You can never win the war against the meter maid, but you can win some battles.

Screw you meter maids.

I don’t know how businessmen do this…  I am in Chicago for a fencing tournament this weekend.  I have my own hotel room, which is nice, but somehow unfulfilling.  I have never stayed in a hotel room by myself before so I figured it would be awesome.  I can watch TV as loud or soft as I want, I can take a super long shower and not have to worry about someone waiting for their turn.  Even the thermostat is at my mercy!  So, why is this not awesome? I don’t know, but I am sure I would be wishing that I had my own room if I had someone else in here with me.  Always want what you don’t have, right?

Anyway, I am in Chicago for the night, which is pretty cool.  It’s one of those cities that you just go to and you have a good time.  The unfortunate part in all of this is that I am here for fencing, so I can’t really go out and do the things I would normally want to.  I can’t complain, though, the entire trip is on Wayne State’s dollar.  Which brings me to my next point: being a collegiate athlete is absolutely sweet.  You play a sport that you love and you get to go sweet places like New York and Chicago for free.  I’m always down for a free trip.  Heck, I’m always down for a free t-shirt.

Free t-shirts are an amazing phenomenon.  You can ask someone to do something for you or go somewhere and most times, they’ll probably say no.  If that is the case, you would think, “Oh, they just don’t want to do  that,”  but is that truly what is going on?  You can never be sure.  I have seen people (including myself) do things that they would never do in a million years simply because of the fact that a free t-shirt is involved.  Ask me to enter a pie-eating contest and I will tell you “no” every time.  Mention that I get a sweet free t-shirt and we might just have a deal!

Deals…  People are obsessed with deals these days.  There is even a TV show called Deal or No Deal that somehow stays on the air.  I’m sure the super hot girls have something to do with it, but still, why do we care?  In fact, why does anyone ever watch a game show like that.  I understand game shows that take some type of skill or knowlege to succeed at (Jeopardy, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, etc..), but something that is complete luck?  Why do we care?  I am a culprit of this too, don’t get me wrong.  I like watching Family Feud, I’ll admit it.  There is something about how bad people are at that game that fascinates me.  No real skill is involved, you don’t need to be smart to be good at that game, but it’s still interesting to me.  It probably shouldn’t be, but what can I do?   Call me stupid, bu sometimes  I just want to know the number one answer to “what is something you should never mention to your inlaws” or something like that.

Inlaws are a scary, scary thing to me.  I don’t even have any yet and I am already afraid of them.  Is that bad?  Probably, but there is nothing that I can do about it.  All of  the horror stories I have heard and the movies I have seen don’t exactly brighten my view on this matter, either.  Meet the Parents didn’t shed a warm light on the possible experiences I could face with my inlaws.  I’ve always wondered if that is just an American thing?  Do people in foreign countries where arranged marriages are practiced have better relationships with their inlaws?  You might think they do or don’t, but I have no idea.  The mystery of the inlaws is probably common worldwide.

Alright, alright, enough of that.  Rambling on is always fun, but it gets to a point when I know I should stop.  I am going to enjoy the rest of my night in my big hotel room by myself.  I’ll probably watch some college football or a movie and pass out on this unnecessarily large bed.  The hotel’s breakfast ends around 10 AM, so I will awake promptly at 9:30 and head down for some food and a good newspaper.  Life is good.

On Saturday, I streamed the United States verus Honduras soccer game on my laptop.  The US team needed to win that game in order to secure qualification to next summer’s World Cup in South Africa.  Down two goals to one in the second half, a team that had been playing without much heart suddenly picked up it’s game.  With two second half goals, the United States beat Honduras and sealed a World Cup berth. Relieved and excited, I turned my attention away from internation soccer and attended to whatever it is that I do when I’m not watching sports.  Obviously, I was pleased that our country had made it to the world’s biggest stage for the sixth straight time.  The US team was finally coming into it’s own and playing well together.

All was well in the world for me.  I woke up yesterday morning with no homework to hurry through, no tests to cram for.  I only had a few things to do and the rest of the day would be to relax.  I opened up my internet browser and checked out the headlines on my home page, ESPN.com, like I do every morning.  Everything appeared to be normal.  Playoff baseball news, some football articles, and even something about NASCAR.  None of those are what caught my attention, though.  The headline that grabbed me read “US Forward Davies in Critical Condition after Car Crash.”

A twenty-two year old kid who was a rising star for our country’s soccer team. Charlie Davies had become a solidified force for the American attack.  I had watched him play, just a few nights prior, and now I might never get to see that again.  I read the article quickly, I had class in Livonia about 25 minutes from the time I got online.  Davies was involved in a one car accident in which one of the passengers in the car was killed.  The driver and Davies survived, but not without serious injury.  He was taken to the hospital where he underwent over 5 hours of surgery.  He was listed in serious, but stable, condition following his surgery.

I had to leave for class, but when I got back to my apartment, I went back to see if more details had been reported.  Sadly, the news was not good.  Charlie suffered two broken bones in his right leg, a broken bone in his left elbow, a severely lacerated bladder, and fractured facial bones.  His recovery time is estimated at six to twelve months, pretty much assuring that he will not be playing in next year’s World Cup, and possibly ending his soccer career.  It just goes to remind you that life will strike you down just as quickly as it can bring you up.

A salute to the injured Davies during the 9th minute of tonight's game.

The United States had a game tonight against Costa Rica that didn’t mean all that much, that is, until the US found it had something more important than winning to play for.  Davies friend and fellow US forward, Jozy Altidore, issued a request to US soccer fans.  He asked them to all send Charlie get well wishes and to do something special for him tonight during the game.  Davies wears jersey number 9 for his country, so during the 9th minute of the game earlier tonight, the United States supporters all held up cards with “9″ on them.

It wasn’t that the United States didn’t have anything to play for tonight before Davies was injured.  If they won, they would be the top team in North and Central American soccer.  It’s always good to beat Mexico at their nation’s most beloved game.  For those of you who don’t watch soccer, when the US plays in Mexico, they get bags of human feces thrown at them.  Needless to say, the teams do not like eachother.  With that in the back of their minds, the Americans took the field.

The first half was played pretty well by both teams, maybe with the Americans outplaying the visitors slightly.  However, the scoreboard didn’t show this.  Costa Rica scored two goals within four minutes of eachother sending the US in at halftime down 2-0.  I figured that we were headed for a lacklustre game and would have to settle for being second in the group.  This was alright with me, though.  Beating Mexico in the standings is not a make or break thing for the US soccer team.

Davies and Altidore are the future of US soccer.

And then, they proved me wrong.  In the 72nd minute, Michael Bradley (the son of the US Head Coach, Bob Bradley) scored a goal to cut the deficit in half.  Momentum had begun to swing and the US was rolling.  In the 80th minute, they had won a corner and looked for the late equalizer, but instead wound up down a player.  US defender Oguchi Onyewu tore a ligament in his knee and had to leave the game.  Things looked doubtful again for us, but in the last minute of the game, magic happened.  The US once again had a corner kick, but this time, Jonathon Bornstein got his head on the ball and knocked it into the back of the net.  The US team raced onto the field to celebrate an epic comeback (The US hadn’t come back from 2 goals down since 1995).

As a group of United States players piled on top of one another in pure ecstasy, Jozy Altidore lifted his number 17 jersey up to reveal a familiar number 9 jersey underneath.  I don’t think Hollywood could have written a better ending.  Get well soon Charlie.

My friends and I have taken the plunge.  What plunge is that, you might ask?  Well, my friends… the plunge into “old-man” – hood.  We are becoming grandpas, basically.  Tonight we are holding our first ever game night at Franchina’s apartment.  Now, if you think about that, how lame does that sound?  It will be a bunch of twenty-one year old dudes and maybe a few chicks playing a board game on a Tuesday night.  Not exactly a scene from American Pie or Animal House.

My friend Jim and I in the near future.

We’ve decided that we don’t care, though.  Call us old, call us lame, but when it comes down to it, board games are just awesome.  I mean, can you honestly tell me that you don’t have fun playing a game of taboo or pictionary with your friends?  For those of you who claim that you can… you obviously suck at life.  No offense, but it’s true.

Now the question becomes, “what game do we play?”  There are so many quality board game options out there, it’s hard to choose which one to play.  My friends and I were discussing this over BDubs (Buffalo Wild Wings for those of you who don’t know).  It was Free Wing Tuesday, so we all were gorging ourselves on chicken wings flavored with wonderfully delicious sauces when the idea came up.  It’s funny how great ideas always arise when you are eating food…  Back to the selection process, though.  Whenever you are choosing a board game to play, there will always be that one person who brings up my least favorite game of all time: Monopoly.  I hate that game because it is the most boring thing ever created on earth.  I’d rather sit through a three hour lecture on rocks than play a full game of Monopoly.

This will be me in no time.

Of course, my friend Steve brought it up right away.  Luckily for me, most of my friends share the same hatred for any type of Monopoly that you can’t play on a large fry from McDonalds.  So that demon of a game was quickly vetoed and we moved onward in our discussion.  Several other quality games were brought up, but a lot of them weren’t good for larger groups of people.  Who wants to sit there and wait for 10 other people take their turn in Clue?  I would just guess that it was Colonel Mustard in the Library with the revolver every time.  Maybe I’d get lucky once and nail it on the head.

Eventually, we narrowed it down to three or four games that would be fun to play with large or small groups of people.  You never know who is actually going to show up to something as thrilling as game night, so we decided to play it safe with our game choices.  Taboo, Cranium, Trivial Pursuit, and Pictionary are all in the running for tonight.

When we arrive, the final vote will be cast and game night will be set.  We will officially cement our status as old people tonight, and you know what?  I don’t care… I can be cranky and get away with it now.

Another school week in the books for this guy, thank the Lord.  Why not kick the weekend off with a blog?  I am currently procrastinating from my homework, so maybe I should get paid while doing so…

Playoff baseball has started and I can’t help but wonder what could have been.  The Detroit Tigers roared into September with a 7 game lead in the American League Central Division, but here I sit on October 8th, wondering how they failed to get a crack at another World Series run.  As I watched that game on Tuesday night, I was texting back and forth with my father.  He has been a Detroit sports fan for his entire life and you can tell.  He always seems to have a negative outlook on the chances that the Lions, Tigers, Wings, or Pistons have in any given situation.

Can't help but wonder what could have happened had the Tigers got the job done.

Now, myself being a young, naive child, I always criticized him for this.  I would always ask him, “Dad, why are you so negative?  Why do you always say that the (insert Detroit sports team here) are going to mess this up?”  I always had so much faith in my team… I had to believe that they could do it, right?  They were MY TEAM!

Now, many years later, I am beginning to see the world of Detroit sports through my father’s eyes.  No longer do I feel that youthfully innocent faith in my team.  I don’t always believe that they can win, anymore.  In fact, a lot of times I think the exact opposite.  How sad it is that I have been pummelled into this frame of mind by constant disappointment and failure on the biggest stage.  Don’t get me wrong, I have seen three Stanley Cups, three NBA Championships (1 that I can remember…), and one college football National Championship during my lifetime and I am ever thankful to able to say I witnessed them.  However, with all of the great acheivements that have come our way, there has been much more heartbreak.

Let’s just keep it recent, here.  Obviously, the 2009 Tigers collapse and fail to make the playoffs still weighs heavy in my mind, but it isn’t the worst.  Merely a year ago, the Detroit Lions, whom I have never even witnessed win a playoff game, became the first team in NFL history to go through an entire season and lose every single game.  My father and I have always joked about the Lions being the worst team ever, but never, not in a million years, did we think they would actually turn out to be just that.

The Tigers (although they had the World Series run in 2006) have been a sub-par team for the majority of my life.  The Lions haven’t won a championship since the year before my father was born.  They haven’t had a playoff game since I was in 4th grade… haven’t won one since I was four years old.  Michigan just had its worst season in school history, going 3-9, snapping the nation’s longest bowl game streak in the process.  They just lost to Michigan State for the second year in a row, to add insult to injury.  The Detroit Red Wings, the team that has always been reliable for me, even let me down last year.  With a 3-2 series lead against the NHL’s golden boy, Sidney Crosby (the kid who’s playoff beard puts all of Canada to shame) the Red Wings choked in a Detroit style that we have never seen them take on before.  I always thought that if the Wings could get into the Stanley Cup Finals, it was a lock to bring Lord Stanley home.  This is no longer the case, though.  Even the most reliable of my sports teams has fallen victim to the flu  that infects this city’s sports teams.

There are countless other examples I could throw out there (2005 and 2006 Detroit Pistons, 2006 Michigan Wolverines, 2006 Tigers, 2001 Red Wings, etc…) but it almost hurts too much to even mention them.  Maybe one day Detroit sports teams will become reliable, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon.  My father tried to teach me at a young age to harden my heart against hoping that they would do something extraordinary someday.  I always thought he was being an unreasonable, grumpy old man.  Now, I know what he was trying to teach me.  He was attempting to have me see the truth, so I didn’t have to go through the pain and suffering that he did.

I know what you tried to do for me Dad, but I think that the only way for people to know the horror that is Detroit sports is to experience the heartbreak for themselves…

Living in Detroit these days, you don’t find much to cheer about.  The long winter is approaching quickly and economic relief appears to be avoiding us like an ex-girlfriend.  The rest of the nation looks at us with downcast eyes, while we look up for answers.

We may not find them in the 2009 American League Pennant Race, or our beloved Detroit Tigers, but why not lay back and enjoy what we can?  Today the Tigers are playing the Minnesota Twins for a chance to win the American League Central Division for the first time in over 20 years.  The last time they won the division was a few months before I came onto this earth in December of ‘87.  Needless to say, I want them to win the division today…

The game started at 1:05 PM and of course, I had class from 11:45 til 3.  I happened to have tests in both classes, so I ended up getting lucky and got our at around two.  How often can you say it’s a good thing to have two tests on the same day, back to back?  I’m going to guess not very often.  I’ll take it today, though.

So, I finished my second test and walked back to my apartment at a mildly brisk pace.  I’ve come to realize that no matter what you do, whenever you are trying to get somewhere fast, there will always be a boat-load of people walking extremely slowly in front of you.  You then find yourself in the dilemma of whether or not to be that guy who walks really fast around people on the grass next to the sidewalk, or to just sit back and take it.  Being the dedicated sports fan that I am, I swallowed my pride and speedily navigated around the people walking at a zombie-like pace.

When I made it back to my apartment I stumbled over some shoes, but made it into the living room with biting the dust.  I plopped down on the couch and put up the old footrest.  Some well deserved relaxation time, in my mind.  Or so I thought.  When I turned on the Tigers game, it was the top of the 3rd inning and the Twins had just scored 3 runs.  Not time to panic, but with the way the Tigers have batted this season, getting down early doesn’t bode well.  The next inning, the Twins scored another run to push their lead to 4-1.

And now we are live.  It is the bottom of the fourth inning and the Tigers have men on 1st and 2nd with two outs.  Let’s see if Granderson can come up with a clutch hit to bring in a run.

He managed to draw a walk, which loads the bases.  Ramon Santiago is coming up to bat.  It would be nice if he could blast one out of the park here…  I won’t get my hopes up for that, though.  I’d be happy with a single.

Nope.  He pops up to the catcher with the bases loaded… might come back to haunt us.  Let’s hope we can get a 1-2-3 5th inning here now.  Robertson looks a little tired, but hopefully he can give us another inning or two.  You know he’ll always have enough energy for gum time rally cry, though.

A 9-pitch, 1-2-3 inning for Robertson: just what we needed.  Now lets hope we can get the bats going here to put some runs on the board.  The Twins starter, Baker, has thrown a lot of pitches, so hopefully we can get to him before they go to their bullpen.  Plus he just looks like a douche.

The inning started off nicely, Magglio hit a nice liner into right field for a single.  The next batter, Miguel Cabrera grounded into a 6-4-3 double play.  Carlos Guillen followed him with a walk, which brings up Marcus Thames.  This brings me to the topic of Rod Allen.  If you don’t know who Rod Allen is, you should.  He is the color analyst for Fox Sports Detroit Baseball, and the unintentional comedy that he brings to the game is classic.  There is even a Rod Allen drinking game based on some of the ridiculous things he says… but back to the game, unfortunately.  Thames struck out looking for the 3rd out of the inning.  Let’s hope the defense can hold up.

I have fencing practice at 3 o’clock, but I am considering skipping it if the Tigers show me signs of life here…  I know my fencing coach doesn’t read this so it’s all good.  Another 1-2-3 inning for the Tigers, but that won’t matter if we don’t start scoring runs soon.

The Twins have turned to their bullpen, bringing in right-hander John Rauch.  He’s got a really wierd tattoo on his neck.  I think it’s an olive branch or something? Dunno.  But now he’s out of there because Granderson (a lefty) is coming up to bat.  It’s crazy how much strategy goes into a baseball game.  When I was a kid I could never have guessed that swinging a bat at a ball could get complicated at all.  I was wrong.

Well, the Tigers are in another jam here… I think I am going to fencing lol.  There are two runners in scoring position with no outs.  Maybe me watching and writing about this has jinxed them.  Let’s hope that if I leave they score a ton of runs and take the crown!

Comcast did eventually come through for me…  With all of my complaining and whining about how Comcast had jerked us around, they did come out and install everything right after the semester started.  I was probably a bit unfair in my assessment of their customer service and the education level of the people who work there…

In all actuality, the blame for me not receving cable as fast as I wanted to really fell on my apartment building.  It wasn’t cable ready and that just made things a mess, apparently.  When the people from Comcast did come out, they did a good job and got things set up pretty quickly.  When all was said and done, they did a good job and everything has remained in working order.  They even gave us HBO for free for the year since it took them so long to get everything set up over here.

I was reading my blogs the other day and realized how large of a rant I went on against Comcast and felt a little bad.  So this is my apology Comcast… I am sorry.  You guys are alright.

Let it be known, however, that we have recently ordered a DVR from you guys. You told me it would be here on Wednesday next week, so I would hope that you keep your word!  Otherwise, I might have to rescind this apology…

It has been a while since I have been on here… I think the 21 credits I am currently drowning in might have something to do with that, but I will do my best to keep writing on here as often as I can.  I’ll do my bet to make it a good one.

Sitting in my discussion class for European History today, I was faced with a situation that I am sure most of you have been in at some point during your high school or collegiate career.  My teacher is a nice woman, probably in her mid thirties as a gradute student here at Wayne.  I have the class with a friend, so I always have someone to talk to if the class gets boring.  We don’t get an excessive amount of homeowkr or anything like that, either… Sounds like a pretty good situation to be in, right?

Well, sometimes there are just things that go wrong in a class that you can’t account for with ratemyprofessor.com or scheduling classes with a buddy.  You can never control who else is going to be in your class.  In this case, it isn’t anyone specific that I have known before or anything like that.  No, this class is the first time I have ever encountered this person, but I already do not like him/her (I’ll keep you guessing on that, just in case someone from my class stumbles upon this…)

This person is around the same age as me, so on a first glance basis, they appear to be alright.  However, after a few class periods I have reached the conclusion that he/she is the dreaded “know-it-all” of the class.  Usually, you are lucky enough to escape a class without having to deal with this type of person for an entire semester, but every now and then, you get screwed.

Screwed… is what I am.  The teacher will speak or ask a question and who always has the answer? He/She does.  If someone else is giving an answer or bringing up a point, he/she feels the need to interject and add his/her opinion.  (This whole ” his/her ” thing is getting annoying, so I’m just going to go with him for purposes of convenience for me and you.)  I understand that if you are smart and are a good student that you will know your stuff, but you have to draw the line at some point.  There is a difference between participating in class and being a straight up dick.  This person is the latter.

On more than one occassion I have heard them scoff at someone’s answer like they were an idiot or something.  I mean, come on…  Are you that cool or better of a person because you know the exact year the Protestant Reformation started?  No, you are not.  The person has even interrupted the teacher several times to make a point of their own, which usually has nothing to do with the main discussion.  I’m pretty sure my mother taught me better manners than that.  For some people though, their opinion is obviously the most important topic to cover.

I’m not sure why this bothers me so much or why I even care, I guess, but it just did.  Some people are just really rude and it bugs me.  We get it, you’re smart.  This is college, most people aren’t idiots… they just realize that they aren’t the only person in the room.

I find that I notice a lot of things.  Now, when I say I notice things, that doesn’t mean they are important things.  In fact, I also find that the things I do happen to notice are rarely significant.  This seems to be a bad thing more often than not, but what am I supposed to do?  It is the way I am wired, apparently.

Sometimes it’s like I am the guy from the TV show ‘Psych’, except not nearly THAT observant.  Bare with me, though.  I will walk in a room and meet everyone, but ten minutes later I could not match a face with a name if my life depended on it.  However, I could probably tell you what kind of shoes they had on or where their brother goes to school, just completely useless information.  It’s a curse, I tell you.

I started thinking about this today when I was at the gas station purchasing the greatest of all drinks, Arnold Palmer Ice Tea.  It figures, great thoughts always start with something as wonderful as Arnold Palmer.  Anyway, back to where this idea came about.  I was standing in line behind a girl who was very chatty.  She had asked the attendant for a pack of cigarettes, and proceeded to listen to the attendants scolding lecture about how cigarettes are bad for you.  Now, I don’t know if this girl knew this woman or if the attendant just felt the need to pass on her judgement of the young ladies life.  The girl who purchased the cigarettes just sat there and claimed that she didn’t inhale them.  However unlikely that may be, I felt like the attendant had no place to tell her what to do with her life.

So, the girl left and I went up to the counter.  I wondered whether or not she was going to scold me for drinking Arnold Palmer because he was a racist.  She did not… but the thought crossed through my mind, regardless.  And then it happened.  I payed my dollar for the 99 cent beverage and waited for my penny in change.  Whenever I get that penny, two things go through my head:  Do I keep this penny, only to wonder why it is in my pocket later on?  Or, do I put it in the “take a penny, leave a penny” thing.

Do you see what I am saying?  Why do I even think about these things at all?  Who cares???? It’s a penny!  But there I was pondering this question as the women who liked to scold young people about their habits shuffled through the cash register for a single coin.  I thought about over the years how many times I have actually taken a penny from those things.  Probably never.  So why do I leave pennies in there?  I don’t know.  I also thought about if there were people who did the exact opposite of what I do.  They always take a penny,  but never leave one…  What kind of sick human being would do that?  I am not sure, but I bet that they exist.

I drove home, wondering why I even took the time to think about that kind of thing.  I talked to my mom for a while on the trip, trying to figure out what I am going to do with this semester of my life.  The penny thought left my head and I turned to more important things for a while, but I always wonder why I do think about that stuff.  Call it ADD, call it whatever you want, but thats the way my brain works.  I am forever cursed to ponder the least important things in life.

Where to start here…   How can you pick your favorite movie of all time?  I mean, I feel like I have seen a million movies during the course of my lifetime, the choices are just too numerous.  I mean, maybe I could pick my favorite movie from a certain genre or category of film, but I don’t know if the task of choosing an all time favorite can be accurately done.  In order to do this, I am going to pick a genre and choose my favorite movie from within it.  Eventually, when I have chosen enough categories, I may compare them all and choose my ultimate favorite movie, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Since I have a softball game today, I am in the sports kind of mood, so I thought I would start out choosing my favorite sports movie of all time.  Even having narrowed it down to just sports movies, the task still feels monumental.  Just off the top of my head I can think of twenty or thrity great sports movies:  Remember the Titans, the Rocky movies (1-4, not 5, and Rocky Balboa is ok…) , Miracle, The Perfect Game, For the Love of the Game, Hoosiers, and countless more that I won’t make you read.  You also have to bring into account the sports movies you loved when you were a kid.  Angels in the Outfield, Little Giants, The Mighty Ducks, The Sandlot, and several others were all movies that I loved as a kid and still love to this day.

So let’s start narrowing this down, then.  Although the Rocky movies (1-4) are all amazing, I don’t think I can make any one of them my favorite sports movie of all time.  The training montages do get me pumped up to go out and do stuff, but still, I don’t think I can say any of them are my favorite.  I could say something similar about movies such as Remember the Titans and Hoosiers.  They are both great movies, but I never played football or basketball beyond pick-up games.  I can’t say I ever really wanted to, either, so how could I make a movie with those sports my favorite?

Now, that isn’t to say that my favorite sports movie has to come from soccer, track, or fencing, the three sports that I really have concentrated on in my life.  I don’t think I can name a soccer movie that rivals any of the movies I have mentioned previously.  The Big Green was a good movie when I was a kid, but no longer lives up to the greatness I remembered it possessing.  Goal is a good movie about professional soccer, but I can’t justify putting it in the same conversation as some of the greats…  Track and field is a sport that I doubt there is a good movie about, at least none that I have ever seen or heard of.  Fencing is a European sport, much like soccer, which isn’t glorified in the States.  It doesn’t get much exposure, so it does not surprise me that I have never seen or heard of a fencing movie to date.  There are movies that have fencing in them, but none that are directly centered around it.

Anyway, back to the selection process.  It is hard for me to do this, but I believe it is necessary for this to be an accurate representation of my favorite sports movie.  I have to cut out all of the kids sports movies… I know that it sucks, but it has to be done.  I find it hard to look at myself in the mirror and say that the Sandlot isn’t my favorite, but hey, this calls for tough decisions.  Sorry Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez, I know that you had more baseball skill in your pinky finger than I do in my entire body but it still isn’t enough.  The same thing with Rookie of the Year.  When Gary Busey goes out on the mound as Chet “The Rocket” Steadman, I have to admit I get a little pumped.  In the words of the Rocket himself “The have to is what you use when you’re afraid… The have to is what’s inside, where the fear lives.  Everybody is half win and half lose.  The have to that wins is fearless.”  How can you not get pumped when Gary Busey rambles on like that???   Maybe those movies could make a run for my favorite kids movie someday.  We shall see.

Back to the selection process.  By eliminating football, basketball, and kids sports movies, I have left myself with a more managable task.  That pretty much leaves me with hockey and baseball movies, pretty much, to come up with my favorite.  This isn’t an easy task, but I am going to have to throw out hockey movies now.  I know, I know, Miracle is a quality film and I love it to death, but I just can’t pick it.  If you read my blog about the greatest sports moments in US History, the United States hockey team defeating Russia in the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics Semifinal round was the best.  This isn’t the real world, though, this is movies.

Baseball is what I am left with here.  I can’t say that dissapoints me, though.  There are plethera of great baseball movies our there and one of them definitely deserves to be my all time favorite.  Which one though?   The Natural, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, and A League of Their Own are all up there in the universe of the best baseball movies.  However, only one can stand alone.

A League of Their Own is a great film, but doesn’t stack up to the rest. Sorry, but there is no crying in baseball.  The Natural is also an all time great, but for some reason I cannot call it my favorite.  That leaves me with Bull Durham and Field of Dreams.  Both of these movies star one of my favorite actors, Kevin Costner.  Now, each movie is different in it’s own way.  Field of Dreams is like a fantasy movie with sports thrown in the middle.  Bull Durham is about a veteran’s stint on a minor league baseball team to teach an up and coming talent to become a major league player.

Each movie has it’s own ups and downs, but I have to say that I love both of them.  Bull Durham finally has to be the one that falls though.  There is just something about “Field of Dreams” that just catches your imagination.  It’s a movie about second chances and what we choose to do with them, and most importantly, what we are willing to give up for others in our lives.  You can almost get lost in all of the depth the film brings to the table.  I love this movie and I am proud to call it my favorite sports movie of all time.