What's the difference between a pitbull and a hockey mom?

A pitbull pees on the rug.

A hockey mom thinks spilling 5000 barrels of oil per day into prime fisheries and pristine wetlands is only a start.

2Scott2Review: WWE Extreme Rules 2010

The internet seems to be generally underwhelmed by Extreme Rules, and I don’t understand why – I thought it was a good show, a nice rebound from a decidedly lackluster Wrestlemania. So, in an effort to correct this imbalance, I’ve decided that what the internet needs is my review of Extreme Rules. I’ve got a beverage, I’ve got some snacks, I’ve got Extreme Rules on the dish divver, and apparently I’ve got nothing better to do, so let’s do this.

The show opens with the WWE show opener, now safely sans-Hulk Hogan and sans-Ric Flair, followed by a video package hyping the show. I’m not sure how necessary this is, given that literally every single person watching at this point has either already bought the show or already gone out to a bar/restaurant to see the show, but WWE loves to get maximum use out of their video packages. I take the opportunity to enjoy some snacks.

Three minutes into the show we go inside the arena. HHH’s music hits but he doesn’t show. We then go backstage, where H and Sheamus brawl for a while, before Sheamus bashes H several times with a pipe. This angle was supposed to be done on Raw the previous Monday, but was derailed because Sheamus got stuck in Europe. I think it actually works better here, with H’s injury more proximate to the match. H is examined by trainers, and meanwhile ShoMiz comes out to the ring.

I’m a Miz fan. Ever since 2007 on ECW, he’s been entertaining as hell, and him with three belts is an amazing sight. Big Show with two belts looks like a normal man with one belt; Miz with three belts looks like most other wrestlers would look with eight belts. Miz says that they’re the greatest tag team in history, which was previously the gimmick of Jericho and Big Show, and also of Miz and Morrison, so it’s natural that Miz and Big Show make the claim. Miz puts over how Bret Hart is now obligated to announce live on Raw that they’re the greatest team in WWE history, another angle that got reshuffled because the roster got stuck in Europe.

Eventually Teddy Long comes out, and he and Miz go back and forth in a pretty good promo that would have been better if they hadn’t tried to talk over each other so much. Eventually we end up with ShoMiz facing a three-team gauntlet match – gauntlet match, that’s extreme! – where any team that beats them gets a tag-title shot on Raw the next night.

Wait a minute, a PPV match against the champions, for a No. 1 contender’s slot in a match on Raw? What is this, 1998? How’s this for a novel concept: If you beat the champions on PPV, you win the titles. Why not just have the gauntlet match be for the titles, or have the title match later in the night? Maybe this is another angle that got reshuffled and the gauntlet match was originally supposed to be on Raw last Monday, but the way this happened was just weird. Plus it completely telegraphed the ending – make the arrogant heel champs defend their titles in a gauntlet match and the result could go either way – maybe their arrogance is their undoing, maybe they connive and cheat and end up beating all comers and earning mega-heat from the crowd. But making the match for a No. 1 contender’s slot is basically a way of saying, “Go get a drink, the only thing you care about in the next fifteen minutes is the identity of Team #3.”

Team #1 is K-Kwik and Johnny Nitro. As usual, Backlash begins with a Wrestlemania rematch. This match is okay, but doesn’t last long. The match ends when Morrison refuses to release a headscissors on Big Show while hanging outside the ring and gets disqualified. Yes, the first match at Extreme Rules ends with a DQ.

Team #2 is MVP and Mark Henry. Henry, after a Decade of Dullness, finally blossomed as ECW Champion, and seemed poised for big things when he moved to Raw last year. Then, WWE Creative did nothing with him for six months, before sticking him in a team with MVP, another person who a lot of people expected a lot from before Creative lost his number. Now they get to job to the Tag Team Champs every so often, sometimes on PPV.

This match had a good storyline, where Big Show is on the floor recovering from John Morrison’s hold, leaving Miz on his own to fight off two men. Miz takes a lot of punishment. Big Show eventually recovers, but is dumped outside on the floor again when he comes in to break up a pin, allowing MVP to hit his finisher on Miz. At this point, I have to assume the ref blows his spot, because rather than continue tending to a disabled Mark Henry, he runs over to the other competitors where he watches clear as day as Big Show reaches through the ropes and knocks out MVP. Rather than calling for another DQ, the ref shoos Big Show as if he never saw the punch, then counts the pinfall when Miz covers MVP. The announcers even try to cover for him, saying “I’m not sure the referee saw that.” Good match in terms of storytelling, marred by the ref’s fuckup on the ending.

So now Show has been choked out by Morrison, dumped outside again, and Miz was just hit with MVP’s finisher, and here to pick the bones are the Hart Dynasty, TJ Wilson and Harry Smith. Two months ago their main schtick was to talk about how they were so much better than losers like Bret Hart and Davey Boy Smith; now they’re accompanied to the ring by Bret Hart with nary a word said. Sometimes it’s weird to watch wrestling with a memory.

The NuHarts knock Big Show off the apron, hit a springboard Hart Attack on Miz, and they’re the No. 1 contenders. This “match” was so short that I actually did a full blow-by-blow recap, and I did it in one sentence. Exciting if you’ve been waiting months to see the NuHarts finally triumph over ShoMiz, otherwise meh.

Next we have a backstage segment where Todd Grisham reports that HHH is injured, and Sheamus looks threatening. Some good heel spinning by Sheamus, where he talks about “If HHH is too scared to fight me,” while holding the pipe he just used to incapacitate him.

Next match is Punk-Mysterio, our second Wrestlemania rematch of the night. This match was one of the reasons why I bought this show, and it doesn’t disappoint. Punk-Mysterio was the second-best match at Wrestlemania, it’s only real drawback being that it was far too short. This match fixes that. Punk and Mysterio have a very, very good match here. Ironically, it’s during the wide shot before Rey’s entrance where you can best see that the Extreme Rules stage is a giant straight-edge X symbol.

Just as the bell is ringing, we get one of my favorite parts of the show. Michael Cole mentions how the wrestlers were stuck in Europe as a segue to thanking fans who bought the show in Europe. He says “They’re watching all over Europe tonight in places like the United Kingdom on Sky Sports, Canada, uh, of course Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, uh, all the other places around the world here tonight watching Extreme Rules, live.” So to recap, here’s Michael Cole’s list of places all over Europe:

• The United Kingdom
• Canada
• Uh
• Of course, Australia
• New Zealand
• Fiji
• Uh
• All the other places around the world

Michael Cole, thankfully not a geography teacher.

The only “extreme” stipulation here is that if Punk loses, he gets his head shaved. Punk and Mysterio trade short control segments, while Matt Striker tries to explain/sell Straight Edge to Cole and King. “It makes you feel wonderful when you’re pure, Jerry.” Punk’s facial expressions and body language as a heel are just awesome. His frustration whenever Mysterio kicks out, his selling of Mysterio’s offense, are incredible. About half-way through the match, Serena and Fake Kane interfere one time too many, and they get ejected from ringside. Finally, Mysterio hits a 619, but before he can get off the apron he is assaulted by a hooded Straight-Edge Society member from under the ring. Punk hits the GTS on an insensate Mysterio and gets the win.

There are conflicting reports as to the identity of the hooded Straight-Edge Society member, who reappeared on both Raw and Smackdown this week. Early reports, from people familiar with WWE storylines and plans said it was Joey Mercury, who has long been rumored to rejoin WWE as a part of the SES storyline. Later reports, from people in attendance at Extreme Rules who actually saw the guy, say it was FCW champion Alex Riley. Joey Mercury later made his re-debut in WWE in a dark match before this week’s Smackdown taping.

After an ad for Raw the next night and a shot of National Guard servicemembers in attendance, we move on to the Crime Time break-up match, Shad Gaspard vs. JTG in a strap match. I had no expectations for this match, as I’m not sure there was ever a Crime Time match I was a big fan of, but this was surprisingly good. Relatively short, but this was a pretty full show, and when you’ve got Punk-Mysterio, Edge-Jericho, Cena-Batista, another world title match, and a HHH match on the card, not to mention Randy Orton’s entrance and time to replay all those video packages before every match, Shad-JTG is not going to get a lot of time. If there was an Undertaker entrance to fit into the show, this match would have been bumped entirely.

Watching the match for a second time, the crowd is totally dead, they couldn’t care less, but I still find the match entertaining. There’s some vicious beating from Shad, and some fun use of the strap by both men. It’s not a five-star classic, but it’s better than any previous match I can remember involving either of there two.

Shad comes out first, wearing tights, which looks weird at first. JTG comes out next, and he kept the gimmick in the split-up. Shad I guess got the time-share in the Hamptons. Toward the beginning of the match, Matt Striker asks King about the strategy of a strap match, based on his years of experience in every type of match, and King doesn’t know how to respond.

JTG wins by secretly touching three turnbuckles behind Shad’s back, then hitting his finisher before Shad can touch the fourth. Not the most imaginative ending, but how many ways are there to touch four turnbuckles?

Up next is an ad for the KFC Double Down, which I paid PPV money to watch. In case anyone is wondering, the Double Down isn’t very good. Next, Todd Grisham says HHH has nerve damage, and won’t be able to fight Sheamus.

The next match is Randy Orton challenging World Heavyweight Champion Jack Swagger in an extreme rules match. First we need a five-minute video package to explain why we should care about this match, as if “Randy Orton challenging World Heavyweight Champion Jack Swagger” didn’t already accomplish that.

Matt Striker mentions on commentary that Randy Orton has had six world title reigns in his career so far. That’s the number that Steve Austin had in his entire career. Cole mentions that “everyone who’s ever cashed in Money in the Bank” has done so against an incapacitated opponent, confirming that TNA champion Rob Van Dam no longer exists in history. Sometimes it’s weird watching wrestling with a memory.

This match is fairly slow and plodding for a while, typical of an Orton match. Shortly after it starts to pick up a bit, Swagger takes a pair of headshots from a garbage can that are frankly hard to watch. I just saw Jack Swagger lose about 50 IQ points, while Striker excitedly yells, “Ooooohhhhh, brain pudding!” If in 10 or 20 or 30 years Jack Swagger can’t speak straight, or is in a wheelchair, or has Parkinson’s symptoms, or goes crazy and kills his family and texts his neighbor that the dogs are in the enclosed pool area before hanging himself from a weight machine, I’m going to remember this match. Those headshots are that brutal.

Orton jobs clean to Swagger after a gutwrench powerbomb, but gives him an RKO after the match. Sheamus comes out while Orton is making his way up the ramp, as if he was going to confront Orton over how he jobbed clean to Swagger but didn’t do that for Sheamus at the Royal Rumble. Instead Sheamus goes to the ring and demands that either HHH come out to fight him or the ref declare him the winner by forfeit. Backstage, Todd Grisham tells us that HHH will not be able to compete tonight, but is interrupted by H leaving the trainer’s room on his way to the ring to compete. Shocking, I know.

The storyline for our third Wrestlemania rematch of the night is that H has “nerve damage” in his left arm, which means that he holds that arm still, whenever he’s not using it like normal. The announcers can’t decide whether the nerve damage is causing HHH great pain, or numbness. H has no problem lifting Sheamus for a spinebuster, but then can’t lift him for a pedigree.

This match is a street fight, which is totally different from the previous match, which was extreme rules. I personally think it would have been better as a no holds barred match, or maybe just no disqualification.

Sheamus controls most of the match, taking advantage of H’s injury, and eventually kicks him in the head so much that H can’t fight back and Sheamus gets the pin. There is very little back-and-forth as H sells the injury. The match never really gets into a rhythm – whenever Sheamus beats on HHH, he steps back to admire his work, and whenever H beats on Sheamus, he stops to sell the injury. Very slow, very methodical. Not exactly boring, but neither is it entertaining. Maybe a big HHH fan would hang on his comeback segments and get sucked into the storyline of the match, but it left me cold.

After the match, trainers come put to help HHH to the back, and just when I was thinking, “Come on, Sheamus has to come back out and kick him again before the get to the back!” Sheamus came back out and kicked him again. Supposedly H is going to be off TV for a while now.

After about a hundred replays of that last kick to the head; a segment of trainers loading H onto a stretcher that lasts longer than any of the tag matches that opened the show; an ad for Judgement Day, which is now called Over the Limit; a plug for the band; and a backstage interview with Edge, it’s now time for Beth Phoenix vs. Michelle McCool in an Extreme Makeover Match for the Women’s Championship. An “Extreme Makeover” match means there’s a table of cosmetics at ringside. The only real reaction I have to this match is that I’m disappointed that Mickie James was released.

This match is pretty standard “garbage wrestling,” with the competitors hitting each other with weapons rather than trying to wrestle. In this case the weapons include a broom, a mop and bucket, ironing boards, and the aforementioned table of cosmetics. And that phrase “rather than trying to wrestle” makes it at least marginally better than most Michelle McCool matches. In fact, of all the matches at Extreme Rules, this is the one with the most weapons use. It’s basically weapons, weapons, weapons, weapons, Beth Phoenix reverses the Styles clash into her front slam, pin.

Next up, after an ad for the Wrestlemania DVD and a backstage interview with Chris Jericho, is the Edge-Jericho cage match, the fourth Wrestlemania rematch of the night. Watching this match live, I was bored to tears. It was slow, plodding, uneventful, and unending – it seemed to go on forever. Watching it a second time, early on the story is good – Jericho refuses to enter the cage until Edge beats him up outside and throws him in, then Jericho tries to climb up over the top whenever Edge isn’t holding him down. But after a couple of escape attempts, we get to the slow, plodding part. Edge hits Jericho, then both men sell for a minute. Then Jericho hits Edge, followed by both men selling. It’s supposed to raise tension, but instead it just bores me. They haven’t done enough to get me emotionally invested in this match before skipping right to the both-men-play-dead part. Also, the announcers keep trying to put over Edge’s achilles injury, but after the H match it just feels old.

At one point, after refusing to enter the cage, after trying to climb out four or five times, just a minute after trying to claw and scratch and squirm his way through the door, Jericho incapacitates Edge and actually leaves the cage through the door. He walks down the steps, but before actually stepping off the steps onto the floor he decides to go back into the cage and beat on Edge some more, which is so completely opposite from the entire psychology of everything Jericho has been doing up until that point that it turns the whole thing into kind of a farce. Two minutes later he’s back to trying his damnedest to escape.

Just when you think the match is going to pick up a bit with Edge’s comeback segment, it turns into a long drawn out Edge-tortures-Jericho segment, where Edge hits Jericho in the leg and then taunts him for two minutes before hitting him again. Finally Edge hits a spear and this match mercifully ends.

Don’t try this at home, watch the draft tomorrow, hey we’re in Baltimore, Cole plugs Over the Limit, and a video package replay cause apparently they have time to kill?, and it’s time for the main event, our fifth and final Wrestlemania rematch of the night, Cena-Batista Last Man Standing. This I thought was a great match, the best of the night. One of the better LMS matches I remember.

At the start, it takes until after the entrances and ring introductions and opening bell before the crowd remembers they’re not supposed to like Cena, so they chant “Cena sucks,” for about 15 seconds. It’s almost funny.

Cole mentions early on that Batista is a six-time world champion, and Cena is a nine-time world champion. Steve Austin was a six-time world champion in his career, and The Rock was a nine-time world champion. Cena and Batista are now the equals of the biggest stars of the Attitude Era, at least in terms of title reigns, and Cena at least seems set to far surpass them. As mentioned before, Randy Orton is also a six-time champion, with many more to come. Chris Jericho is also a six-time champion. Edge is a nine-time champion. And of course there’s HHH, the thirteen-time champion. That’s three Steve Austins, two Rocks, and a Hulk Hogan, all still adding to their lists of titles.

This match is a bit slow to start due to the match type – there’s a lot of Batista waiting while the referee counts, which at least makes more sense than the waiting for no reason in other matches. It doesn’t feel as slow as Edge-Jericho because at least there’s something happening, the referee’s counting. After a few minutes they get into more of an even back-and-forth fight, and then they go for some weapons. One guy lets out a single lonely “holy shit” chant attempt when Batista Irish whips Cena through a barricade. At one point, Batista is dismantling the announce table, and Striker starts saying, “This is the Batista I like! This intensity!” Batista stares for a moment, then throws a TV monitor at him.

At a certain point in the match, about the time of the F-U through the announce table I’d say, though possibly as early as the Irish-whip through the barricade, you think each move is the end, yet the competitors keep getting up. There’s a good four or five moves in a row that you think is the end, except the match just keeps going. Very well done by both men. The eventual ending has gotten a lot of flak, but I thought it showed ingenuity, and allowed the face to taunt his helpless opponent, which is always a good spot. It at least has the virtue of being unique. I just wish the tape hadn’t broken so much, the application ended up looking a bit clumsy.

All in all, a good to very good show. Match by match:

• ShoMiz vs R-Truth and John Morrison in one-third of a Gauntlet Match – Some decent action, but too short to be anything much.
• ShoMiz vs. Mark Henry and MVP in one-third of a Gauntlet Match – Good storyline, huge ref blunder, again very short.
• ShoMiz vs. The Hart Dynasty in one-third of a Gauntlet Match – Literally two moves.
• CM Punk vs. Rey Mysterio in a Wrestling Match – Very good match, these two work very well together.
• Shad Gaspard vs. JTG in a Strap Match – Surprisingly good. Short, but entertaining.
• Randy Orton vs. Jack Swagger in an Extreme Rules Match – Slow to start, picks up towards the end, but my main takeaway from this match is, Jack Swagger, protect your head!
• HHH vs. Sheamus in a Street Fight – Kind of slow, the whole injury storyline didn’t work any better than it ever does, the main highlight is how many times HHH gets kicked in the head at the end.
• Beth Phoenix vs. Michelle McCool in an Extreme Makeover Match – Better than most Michelle McCool matches, but that’s not really saying much. Nothing to this match other than the weapons, but at least it’s something. With Mickie James out of work and Natalya not wrestling, WWE literally doesn’t have enough women who can wrestle to put together a one-on-one match. So we get this match, literally Beth Phoenix wrestling with a broomstick.
• Edge vs. Chris Jericho in a Steel Cage Match – Very slow, very long, intermittently nonsensical. My least favorite of the night.
• Cena vs. Batista in a Last Man Standing Match – Very very good, best match of the night. Good action, big spots, innovative ending.

All in all a good show, and a full show – eight matches, even counting the tag team gauntlet as one match, and the last match ended literally two minutes before the three-hour mark. I highly recommend seeing it if you can.

Surprise Dinner

As I mentioned before, the other day for dinner I made some meatballs in tomato sauce. The next day, I made another bag of meatballs in the leftover sauce. There wasn't enough sauce leftover to cover the meatballs as they were heating, so I added some water. I also added some butter and some parmesan cheese to the sauce, and cooked off the excess water until I had a nice saucy consistency. The next day, I added the leftover sauce/butter/cheese to some cans of Chef Boy-Ar-Dee I was making, along with more butter, more parmesan cheese, and just because I had it and thought it'd be tasty, I melted about six or eight slices of provolone cheese into the sauce.

So yesterday, I had all this sauce leftover (there's a lot of sauce in Chef Boy-Ar-Dee) and no more pasta or meatballs to put it on, so I just heated the sauce in the microwave and dunked slices of Italian bread into it.

Now, remember what's in this stuff at this point: A mixture of two kinds of tomato sauce, butter, parmesan cheese, and provolone cheese, left overnight to let the flavors meld and then heated. It was sticky and gooey and cheesey and I was dipping bread into it.

It wasn't until today that I realized that what I'd made was a fondue.

Quick Review: A Plate of Meatballs

Since I blogged my dinner yesterday, I thought I'd do the same today. Tonight, I took some meatballs out of the freezer, put them in a pan with some tomato sauce, waited for them to get hot, and ate them.

Mmmmmmmmmm, meatballs.

Final Grade: A-

Security Cluelessness

I mentioned this quickly on Twitter, but it keeps sticking in my head so I had to give it a longer treatment. I don't know why it stuck in my head like this. Maybe because it's one of the most wrongheaded technology articles I've seen since the last time I read Lance Ulanoff. Maybe because the writer works for the Thompson-Reuters corporation, and you know how those people are.

This article by Felix Salmon talks about many of the security measures we all find so annoying when dealing with our online accounts, and refers to them collectively as "security theater" as if they did no more good than making airline passengers remove their shoes and get rid of their bottled water. The specific things he mentions as being security theater are:

1. Having to change his password regularly
2. Having to delete old emails
3. Account security on his bank's website
4. Not being able to read his password as he's typing it in

Let's take these one at a time...

1. Having to change his password regularly - This is the closest Mr. Salmon comes to making a point. But first he misleads his readers about why companies use forced password changes - he claims that making people change their passwords is useless because a hacker won't wait to exploit a stolen password, but this is not designed to thwart hackers. The reasoning behind making people change their passwords regularly is that people tend to tell other people their passwords, or else use the same password everywhere they need one, and if you make them change it you can mitigate these factors - after a month or 90 days or whatever, that person and/or other company will no longer have your user's current password. The downside is that it disincentives people from using strong passwords - why take the time to memorize a complicated password when you can only use it for two months anyway? Some companies make people change their passwords often, and also place restrictions that force people to use strong passwords. This combination seems to me to be begging people to write their passwords on a post-it note and stick it to their monitor. Personally I don't make people change their passwords unless there's a particular need. I think it's better to make people use a strong password and let them keep it for a while. But that's a decision I made based on my company and my specific circumstances.

2. Having to delete old emails - Reuters gives employees extremely limited email storage space, forcing the employees to delete old messages to stay under the storage quota. Salmon again misconstrues what this is designed to accomplish - he goes on and on about how cheap disks are these days, forgetting that 1. Highly-available redundantly-stored server storage space costs a bit more than a Caviar Blue from Newegg, 2. Electricity to power that highly-available redundantly-stored server storage 24/7 costs a pretty penny, 3. A building to house that highly-available redundantly-stored server storage costs a bit as well, 4. Paying IT people to setup, maintain, and repair that highly-available redundantly-stored server storage costs money, but most importantly 5. Email (non-)retention policies like that have almost nothing to do with the cost of storing old emails, and almost everything to do with potential liability, ie, how much incriminating evidence do you have on-hand once the subpoenas start arriving. Just think how much better off Microsoft would have been if they'd been able to tell the DOJ "Sorry, it's our long-standing policy to delete any email more than a month old, you're free to anything from the last 30 days though." Even the Bush White House learned that lesson.

3. Account security on his bank's website - He had trouble filling out the security question on his bank's website, misread a prompt or two, ended up having to call their customer support line to get himself straightened out, and sees this as a reason why bank website security is a waste. He says that the cost of paying the support people to get him straightened out is more than the money saved by the security. First of all, exactly what is his alternative to security on a bank website? Here's a list of names, click yours and you're in? I don't get that. Second of all, the cost of paying people to help customers figure out how to enter both a password and the name of the street they grew up on is not an automatic cost of security, it's a cost of having customers who can't figure out how to answer two different prompts correctly. Does it cost banks a lot of money to have support people standing by to help people who can't figure out the web interface? Sure. Does it cost more than it did twenty years ago when there was no web interface and every single customer needed a support person just to do everyday banking? No, of course not. Thanks to online banking, banks these days need fewer tellers, fewer physical locations, and only enough phone support people to get customers onto the website, rather than enough to help every customer do all of their banking. And again, what's the alternative to having security measures on bank websites? I'd honestly love to hear that.

4. Not being able to read his password as he's typing it in - As anyone who has ever typed a password knows, when you type it in you can't read along, the characters are masked. This is done so that if someone is watching over your shoulder, they can't read your password. Mr. Salmon makes no actual argument against this practice other than calling it "idiotic," but the site he links to posits that a person behind you could simply watch the keyboard as you're typing and get your password that way, and anyway there's hardly ever a person standing behind you when you type a password. Apparently whoever wrote that has never tried to decipher what someone is typing merely by watching the keyboard, or had to unlock anything while someone stood by and waited for it, or shared an office where co-workers could see their screen all day, every day. The writer seriously suggests offering a checkbox so the user can choose whether or not to mask the password, as if any user ever would choose security over convenience. Users want ease of use, period. For example, Felix Salmon just said he wants to be able to get into his bank account online without any security getting in the way! That's why you need security people to worry about security.

So, to recap: Mr. Salmon is correct that changing passwords regularly will not prevent a hacker from exploiting a stolen password, but woefully off-base in that he thinks changing passwords regularly is a security practice aimed at preventing hackers from exploiting stolen passwords; He vastly underestimates the short-term cost of email storage space, and seems to not acknowledge or not be aware of the existence of the long-term cost, while misconstruing email storage limits as having anything to do with storage costs; I have no idea what he wants his bank's website to do to secure his account; and he wants anybody within ten feet to be able to read your password.

I... disagree.

Quick KFC "Double Down" Review

So KFC has come out with their already-infamous "Double Down" "sandwich." (Straight quotes, then scare quotes there.) For anyone unfamiliar with this new item, it consists of bacon and three kinds of cheese (swiss, monterey jack, and cheese sauce) sandwiched between two chicken breasts, your choice of Original Recipe or Grilled. I got Original Recipe.

Now, in my mind a sandwich is stuff on bread, thus my use of scare-quotes above. I think if you've decided that the problem with sandwiches is the presence of bread, somewhere you're fundamentally misunderstanding what a sandwich is supposed to be. Bread is more than just a means to hold tasty stuff, it's integral to the taste and texture of the food. Just imagine taking a plain hamburger patty, slathering it with ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, and cheese, and slapping it on a plate. It'd be a gooey, disgusting mess. Put that same combination on a bun, and you can open several different multi-billion dollar restaurant chains. So whenever someone tries to up the ante on a sandwich by getting rid of the bread, I'm skeptical.

The two chicken breasts in the Double Down are the same boneless chicken breasts KFC has been selling on their own for several months at least, so if you've had one you've already had 99% of this sandwich. And you already know one huge problem with this sandwich, which KFC has cleverly managed to turn into two huge problems: These breasts are dry as hell. Maybe on a real sandwich slathered in condiments that could be dealt with, but here not only is there nothing but a little cheese sauce to add moisture, but there's two breasts, with twice the dry.

Another thing you already know if you've had the KFC boneless breast is that this sandwich isn't nearly as large as you'd think: In terms of circumference it's smaller than most fast food burgers, about the size of the dollar burger from McDonalds. Obviously there's a lot of meat here, but not as much as the pictures make you think. This isn't a heart-attack-in-a-box, at least not any more than a Wendy's Baconator or a McDonalds Double Quarter-Pounder With Cheese.

Now that we've dealt with the breasts, let's get to the rest of the sandwich: Well, there isn't much else. Two slices of cheese and a slather of cheese sauce, and a strip or two of bacon. Honestly, eating this I forgot there was bacon on it except when it got caught in my teeth. These cheese was tasty, but even three cheeses wasn't enough to make up for the dryness of the breasts.

In the end I pulled off one of the breasts, and just ate one breast with the cheese and bacon. That was okay, if messy, but still a bit dry. How would I fix the Double Down? I'm glad you asked:

1. Get rid of one breast.
2. Put it on a roll.
3. Add more bacon, so you can actually taste the bacon.
4. Add either more cheese sauce or some mayonnaise, to help cover the dryness of the breast. Alternately, figure out how to cook a boneless breast so it doesn't wind up half-way to a hockey puck. But hey, how can KFC be expected to make a decent fried chicken breast, it's not like "Fried Chicken" is in the freaking name of your restaurant.

Final Grade: C-

A Fucking Test For TwitterFeed

I published two posts on this blog today. The first one, The HCR Shit List, never made it over to Twitter via TwitterFeed. The second one, "Maximally Pro-Choice", went over almost immediately. I theorized that is may be the word "Shit" that is causing TwitterFeed to shit the bed, so this is a test of that theory.

ETA: Looks like no, this post went up immediately. So no idea what happened to The HCR Shit List. Guess it's just one of life's mysteries.

"Maximally Pro-Choice"

Following up on my previous post, there's a special group of people I want to highlight: There were 64 Democrats who voted for the Stupak coathanger amendment in November - well, there were 219 Democrats who voted for the Stupak amendment in November, but that was after it was already inserted into the bill. There were 64 Democrats who voted to insert that language into the bill. Of those 64, 37 went on to support the bill through all three votes in March. In other words, if these 37 Democrats had only found it within themselves to not explicitly make women second-class citizens, they wouldn't be on my list. They are:

Joe Baca CA-43, Sanford Bishop GA-02, John Boccieri OH-16, Dennis Cardoza CA-18, Christopher Carney PA-10, Jim Costa CA-20, Henry Cuellar TX-28, Kathy Dahlkemper PA-03, Michael Doyle PA-14, Steve Driehaus OH-01, Brad Ellsworth IN-08, Bob Etheridge NC-02, Bart Gordon TN-06, Baron Hill IN-09, Paul Kanjorski PA-11, Marcy Kaptur OH-09, Dale Kildee MI-05, Jim Langevin RI-02, Michael Michaud ME-02, Alan Mollohan WV-01, Richard Neal MA-02, Jim Oberstar MN-08, David Obey WI-07, Solomon Ortiz TX-27, Tom Perriello VA-05, Earl Pomeroy ND-AL, Nick Rahall WV-03, Silvestre Reyes TX-16, Ciro Rodriguez TX-23, Tim Ryan OH-17, John Salazar CO-03, Vic Snyder AR-02, John Spratt SC-05, Bart Stupak MI-01, Charlie Wilson OH-06

I understand a lot of people want to forgive and forget this vote, as I did for other votes against the bill in November, because these people voted for the bill in March. SEIU is running ads in six congressional districts to thank those Representatives for supporting health care, and four of the six voted for Stupak. Stupak himself, once he was bought off with the President agreeing to issue an Executive Order just for him, came up solid in speaking against the Republican motion to recommit, which was basically his original amendment from November. Tom Perriello seems to be a particular favorite around Left Blogistan: He's on the short list for OpenLeft's Better Democrats slate of endorsements, and on the We've Got Your Back ActBlue page created by DailyKos's Adam Bonin. Commenters compare him to Alan Grayson, who voted for the health care bill while wearing an American flag tie. (537:20 in this C-SPAN clip.)

On one blog where Tom Perriello was cited as an example of exactly the kind of swing-district Democrat people should be supporting, I commented stating my reluctance after his Stupak vote. Another commenter stated that "you can't expect Dems in red districts to take a maximally pro-choice position." So now allowing health insurance to cover an entirely legal medical procedure is a maximally pro-choice position? Bullshit. Voting no on Stupak is the very definition of minimally pro-choice. Maximally pro-choice would be making free, no-questions-asked abortions available at every post office. Maximally pro-choice would be legislating that no doctor could be licensed in any field unless they were also certified abortion providers and offered abortion services at their practices. Maximally pro-choice would be making the abortion pill available over-the-counter in vending machines and using government subsidies to keep the price down.

Simply not voting to make abortion unavailable to any woman who can't afford an additional rider, or any woman who is prevented from making her own insurance purchasing choices by her employer, controlling/abusive partner, parent, etc. is not anything like maximally pro-choice. It is incredibly minimally pro-choice, and Tom Perriello and these rest of these 37 so-called Democrats, and indeed all 64 D's who voted for the amendment, couldn't even scrape together the guts to stand up for that.

The obvious question is, why give folks like Dennis Kucinich and Betsy Markey a break for their votes against the bill in November and not give the same break to Tom Perriello and Earl Pomeroy? Well, Kucinich et al literally got a do-over; the house had to pass the health bill a second time, and they came out on the right side that time. The Stupakers got no such chance; because of their vote, we got the Nelson abortion language in the Senate bill, and that executive order, and they have done nothing to repair that damage.

If they all helped to pass a bill that, say, removed the Nelson language and repealed the Hyde Amendment banning federal funding of abortion services, then I would say fine, all is forgiven. But until something like that happens, good riddance. Either women are full and equal citizens of this country, or they are not, and this group emphatically voted 'Not.' Supposedly they did this because they can't survive in their districts while supporting equal rights for 52% of the population. Great, then this vote should have helped them, they don't need my help.

The HCR Shit List

This is a list of 74 members of the House of Representatives who will get no support from me in whatever race they're running this year thanks to their votes in the recent health care reform effort: (methodology after the list)

• John Adler NJ-03
• Jason Altmire PA-04
• Mike Arcuri NY-24
• Joe Baca CA-43
• John Barrow GA-12
• Marion Berry AR-01
• Sanford Bishop GA-02
• John Boccieri OH-16
• Dan Boren OK-02
• Rick Boucher VA-09
• Bobby Bright AL-02
• Dennis Cardoza CA-18
• Christopher Carney PA-10
• Ben Chandler KY-06
• Travis Childers MS-01
• Jim Cooper TN-05
• Jim Costa CA-20
• Jerry Costello IL-12
• Henry Cuellar TX-28
• Kathy Dahlkemper PA-03
• Artur Davis AL-07
• Lincoln Davis TN-04
• Joe Donnelly IN-02
• Michael Doyle PA-14
• Steve Driehaus OH-01
• Chet Edwards TX-17
• Brad Ellsworth IN-08
• Bob Etheridge NC-02
• Bart Gordon TN-06
• Stephanie Herseth Sandlin SD-AL
• Baron Hill IN-09
• Tim Holden PA-17
• Paul Kanjorski PA-11
• Marcy Kaptur OH-09
• Dale Kildee MI-05
• Larry Kissell NC-08
• Frank Kratovil MD-01
• Jim Langevin RI-02
• Dan Lipinski IL-03
• Stephen Lynch MA-09
• Jim Marshall GA-08
• Jim Matheson UT-02
• Mike McIntyre NC-07
• Mike McMahon NY-13
• Charlie Melancon LA-03
• Michael Michaud ME-02
• Walt Minnick ID-01
• Alan Mollohan WV-01
• Richard Neal MA-02
• Glenn Nye VA-02
• Jim Oberstar MN-08
• David Obey WI-07
• Solomon Ortiz TX-27
• Tom Perriello VA-05
• Collin Peterson MN-07
• Earl Pomeroy ND-AL
• Nick Rahall WV-03
• Silvestre Reyes TX-16
• Ciro Rodriguez TX-23
• Mike Ross AR-04
• Tim Ryan OH-17
• John Salazar CO-03
• Heath Shuler NC-11
• Ike Skelton MO-04
• Vic Snyder AR-02
• Zack Space OH-18
• John Spratt SC-05
• Bart Stupak MI-01
• John Tanner TN-08
• Gene Taylor MS-04
• Harry Teague NM-02
• Charlie Wilson OH-06

I put this together more for myself than anything else, to refer back to as we approach the election and I get more and more fundraising appeals. Anyone on this list will get a polite reply explaining exactly why I won't be supporting them this year. Some of these people I gave money to in 2008. Some of these people are running for Senate seats, or running for Governor of their state, rather than running for reelection in the House. The best outcome in every case would be for them to lose a primary to a real Democrat.

I don't buy blue dog excuses about "voting their districts" and how "at least they're better than a Republican." How are they better than a Republican? Being a Democrat is about more than just voting for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. Health care reform was the Democrats' signature domestic issue of 2009-2010, and on that issue, these people were exactly as bad as Republicans. You either vote Aye or you vote Nay, and they stood athwart history and voted Nay. Good riddance.

There were seven total health care votes I looked at, four from November and three from March. They are:

• 2009 House Roll Call 884, Passage of the odious Stupak-Pitts coathanger amendment.
• 2009 House Roll Call 885, Passage of John Boehner's amendment to scrap the entire bill and replace it with a resolution in support of the color orange, or something.
• 2009 House Roll Call 886, Motion to Recommit and send the bill back to committee.
• 2009 House Roll Call 887, Final passage of the House health care bill.
• 2010 House Roll Call 165, Passage of the health care bill the Senate had passed last Christmas.
• 2010 House Roll Call 166, Motion to Recommit on the reconciliation bill of amendments to (somewhat) fix the Senate bill.
• 2010 House Roll Call 167, Passage of the reconciliation bill.

I did not look at the roll call vote of passage of the revised reconciliation bill after the Senate parliamentarian edited it down, as that passed rather perfunctorily and everyone who voted against it had also voted against the bill when it originally passed the House. Indeed, even out of these seven, I eliminated three from consideration: Roll Call 885 on a "substitute amendment" offered by Orange Julius, got zero Democratic votes. I decided to throw out the votes on passing the bill in November, 886 Motion to Recommit and 887 final passage, because anyone who voted against that bill got a second chance to do the right thing when the Senate bill was voted on in March. There are six people who benefit from this second chance: Brian Baird WA-03, Allen Boyd FL-02, Suzanne Kosmas FL-24, Dennis Kucinich OH-10, Betsy Markey CO-04, and Scott Murphy NY-20.

There are also three people who would be on this list if they were still House Democrats: Eric Massa NY-29 voted against the bill in November and has since resigned in disgrace. Parker Griffith AL-05 hit the trifecta of voting for Stupak, for the motion to recommit, and against passing the bill, and has since gone ahead and switched parties. Anyone else on this list is welcome to emulate one of these two. Jack Murtha PA-12 voted for Stupak, and sadly he passed away in early February.

Richard Blumenthal thoughts

I find myself unsure as to how Richard Blumenthal will perform as my new Senator.

Blumenthal has been the state Attorney General for as long as I've been aware of such an office, and I've always thought he did a great job in that role. I've often compared many of the lawsuits Blumenthal has brought as Attorney General to suits brought by the ACLU - Even when I disagree with them and think they're going too far, I'm still glad they're doing it, because it's almost always for a cause that deserves to be heard. Blumenthal would file a suit at the slightest whiff of injustice to Connecticut citizens, and I thought that kind of over-zealousness by our Attorney General served us well.

How he'll do as Senator may be another matter, though. Blumenthal, based on observing his performance as my state's AG for the past 20 years, loves the spotlight, loves to be on-camera, on-screen, the focus of attention. To steal an old joke, the most dangerous place in Connecticut is inbetween Richard Blumenthal and a news camera. Now, is this craving for media attention a means by which he seeks to forward the issues he's pursuing? Or the flipside, how much of his laudable over-zealousness as AG is just a bid to make news, to insert himself into whatever story is in the headlines this week?

My question is, between the issues and the attention-seeking, which is the means and which is the end? I'm not sure myself, I think they both happily aligned in the same direction in his role as AG. It may in fact be why he's been so reluctant to pursue other offices, turning down entreaties to run for governor in 1998, 2002, 2006, and 2010. But what happens when those two goals are no longer aligned? What happens when the best way to get exposure and screen time is to go along with whatever sell-out party leadership is selling today? Will he continue to be a strong advocate for justice, or will he be angling for a speaking slot right after Harry Reid at the press conference?

I keep waffling on which I think it'll be, it depends on whether I'm feeling particularly optimistic or particularly cynical at the moment. We won't really know until over a year from now, in any event. But it's the one thing that worries me about Blumenthal in the Senate.

Well, that, and who'll be the new AG?

Thank you, Chris Dodd

Chris Dodd, my senator, one of the few really good representatives left in the mess that is the US Senate, is retiring. I know a lot of people are happy about this, because replacement candidate AG Richard Blumenthal is polling about 30 points better than Dodd was, so this means the seat is safe for Democrats. But I can't be anything other than disappointed, because it comes at the cost of having Chris Dodd in the senate.

Everyone has been hammering Dodd for the past year or two, because he was on the senate Banking Committee when the global financial system hit the fan, and because he got a mortgage. Some have slammed him for owning a cottage in Ireland, where his family hails from. Many have slammed him for his 2008 Presidential campaign, as if campaigning in the Iowa caucus showed disloyalty to Connecticut. Somehow that didn't hurt Joe Lieberman in 2006, but IOKIYAR.

I still believe that Dodd would have won reelection. Even in the polls where he trailed Rob Simmons, Simmons was still only getting around 40%. Anger towards Dodd for stupid shit like having a cottage, or having a mortgage, or the deep betrayal of campaigning for president in another state, would only have decreased as time passed. In the end, Democrats would have come home, and Dodd would have won a close one.

But Dodd didn't want to have that fight. He didn't want to spend resources that can now go to other competitive races, he didn't want to be a potential drain on other Democrats running in the state, and he didn't want to run the risk of losing the seat to the Republicans. And, after three decades in the Senate, he didn't want to have to spend a year fighting for his political life. And in my opinion, after the service he did not only for Connecticut but for the country during those three decades, that's his right to make that decision. If he wants to take some time to relax and watch his girls grow up rather than fighting and clawing for votes, I can't complain. He gave me thirty years.

Chris Dodd has been my senator since I was two years old. For as long as I've understood what that meant, I've been proud to have him as my senator. I don't know what Richard Blumenthal will be like in the senate. There may be times in the next six years, when Blumenthal makes some dumb mistake, or caves on an important issue, that I curse the day Chris Dodd gave up his senate seat, and curse Chris Dodd for not fighting it out. Maybe that day will never come, because Blumenthal turns out to be better than anyone can imagine. But either way, I wanted to take this moment to say, Thank You, Chris Dodd. Thank you for your service, thank you for fighting to improve this country. Even when nearly every Republican and even most Democrats fought against your efforts, it was still heartening to see someone making the fight. I'll miss that.

About This Whole Decade Thing

When I first saw a few people saying "The decade begins in 2010, I don't care what some people insist..." I assumed that it was just people who were still bitter over being wrong about when the 21st century began, arguing with straw-man versions of the folks who were right, who stopped arguing with them in 2001. But later I actually saw people arguing, for serious, that just like the century didn't begin until 2001, the decade doesn't begin until 2011.

Let me say this to those people: Stop it. You're making those of us who were right about the century look bad.

Whether you're talking about the century or the decade, it all hinges on which decade or century you're talking about. The whole issue with the century was that they were numbered. The 1st century A.D. began with the year 1, therefore the 21st century A.D. didn't begin until 2001. If you're talking about the 1900s, that's a different century than the 20th century A.D. The 20xx's obviously began in 2000, while the 21st century A.D. didn't begin until 2001.

Similarly, if you're talking about the 202nd decade A.D., indeed the 202nd decade A.D. doesn't begin until 2011. But no one has ever referred to the 202nd decade A.D. When people say "the decade", they're talking about the 201x's. And indeed, the 200x's are over, we're now onto the 201x's.

So to recap: "the decade" of the 200x's is over. The new decade, the 201x's, has begun. Anyone saying otherwise: Stop.

And anyone trying to complicate matters by talking about "the first decade of the 21st century" I say: Shut up. Why are you trying to throw gasoline on the fire?

Giants 2009 Season Post-Mortem

I was just saying earlier tonight that if the Giants beat the Eagles tonight, they'd be in the driver's seat for the division title. In fact, if they won out they'd win the division, they controlled their own destiny. And they promptly gave it all up.

After the Jacobs fumble that put the Eagles up 14-0, I was reminded of Ryan Parker's song about last year's Christmas gift. "They bumbled and fumbled the playoffs away, Now they get to sit home and watch Philly go play." I have to hand it to the offense, though: They didn't make it look pretty, but they did their job. They put 38 points up on the board. When an NFL team puts 38 points on the board, it's not the offense's fault if they lose. The defense was a joke tonight, they let the Eagles offense do whatever it wanted all night, gave up touchdown after touchdown, gave up a 60-yard TD fifteen seconds after the offense had stormed back and retaken the lead, on a plat that just made the defensive secondary look like ineffectual fools.

This offseason, the Giants have some serious deficiencies to address. First, they need better players int he defensive secondary. The D-line has good players, and the linebackers are a pretty solid group, but they can't make up for the awful play of the DBs. Second, somebody has to teach the receivers other than Steve Smith how to catch the ball. Third, someone needs to teach Mario Manningham how to get his feet inbounds. If only there were someone on the Giants coaching staff who believes in football fundamentals and has a history as a wide receivers coach...

Fourth, do changes need to be made to the coaching staff? I'd say at a minimum a new special teams coach wouldn't be a bad idea, kick coverage this year has been awful. After that...

Should offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride be replaced? He's often a favorite scapegoat when the Giants underperform on offense, indeed at times his playcalling is awful, and the Giants doo seem to settle for field goal attempts far too often. On the other hand, the Giants did score 38 points tonight, and in their previous five losses they scored 27 against New Orleans, 17 against Arizona, 17 against Philadelphia, 20 against San Diego, and 6 against Denver. Other than the Denver game, the offense has been at least okay. So I end up leaning towards leaving things as they are right now. With a solid defense, this offense can win a lot of games.

Should defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan be replaced? I have to say I don't know. On the one hand, it's only his first year, he may improve with more time in the job, and the defense has been decimated by injuries, not exactly giving him the optimum chance for success. OTOH, injuries happen, you have to deal with them, and while certainly the pass rush has been hampered by the fact the opposing QBs have approximately twelve open receivers on every play, he's gotten remarkably little pressure from a D-line group that includes Justin Tuck, Osi Umenyiora, Mathias Kiwanuka, and Fred Robbins. And 2007 was Steve Spagnuolo's first year as coordinator, he certainly didn't need a year or two to get the hang of the job.

Amazingly, even after all of this, it's not out of the question that the Giants still might make the playoffs. They play very weak teams the next two weeks, and Minnesota in Week 17 will probably already be locked into the number 2 seed in the playoffs and may be resting their starters, making that game less competitive. Heck, they could still win the division: Dallas will probably lose at New Orleans next week, if Philly loses one of their next two to San Francisco or Denver, then Dallas beats Philly in week 17, we're back to the three-way tie, though the Giants don't hold the division record tiebreaker over Philly anymore, now it would come down to record against common opponents. At the least they're in the running for a wild card. But they're not going anywhere with this defense.

OldBlog

So I imported posts from 1Scott1Blog, scottbutlerblog.blogspot.com. I started that blog in September 2008, when there was a lot of stuff going on in terms of politics and I occasionally felt the need to say something. Soon afterwards we found out my father was dying, and I didn't really feel like saying anything, so it just kind of sat there.

Reading it again now, I really ilke the Tom Brady post, even if it turned out to be not entirely predictive. And I stand by everything I said about the remarkable event that was the MSNBC coverage of the 2008 Democratic Convention. That was amazing.

Anyway, here it is.

Survivor Series 2009

Decent show. Liked Kofi going over, liked Beth Phoenix dominating for her segment. I have no interest in Undertaker, but I realize I'm in the minority there. The way Michaels just superkicked the crap out of H right to start was great, as was Cena's reaction.

Can you tell I really don't have anything to say but I wanted to put up another post to test the layout?

So I made a blog.

I'm really jumping on this web 2.0 thing with both feet. I'm also on the twitter machine: http://twitter.com/scottbutler5

Maybe next I'll get a MyTube or a FacePage.

Tom Brady's Career is Over

There have been some that have compared Brett Favre's current situation to what Joe Montana did in the early 1990s, leaving the team he was synonymous with to end his career with an also-ran. There is a quarterback currently reliving the end of Joe Montana's career, but it's not Favre. It's Tom Brady.

Scenario 1: Picture it! San Francisco, CA, January 1991. The San Francisco 49ers hosted the New York Giants in the NFC Championship Game. The Niners, lead by Joe Montana, already a legend and according to some the best QB ever, had won the Super Bowl the previous two years, four in the previous decade, and were on the verge of the fabled Threepeat. The Giants had already lost to the 49ers during the regular season, and had lost their star QB to season-ending injury.

Outcome: The Giants beat the 49ers in a great game decided in the last minute. The Giants won Super Bowl 25, Joe Montana missed virtually all of the next two seasons, never played significant time for the 49ers again, and his career eventually sputtered out in Kansas City.

Scenario 2: Picture it! Glendale, AZ, February 2008. The New England Patriots are the designated home team against the New York Giants in the Super Bowl. The Pats, lead by Tom Brady, already a legend and according to some the best QB ever, had won the Super Bowl three time in four years, as well as all 18 games they played that year, and were on the verge of cementing their dynasty with an undefeated season. The Giants had already lost to the Patriots during the regular season, and had lost their star tight end to season-ending injury.

Outcome: The Giants beat the Patriots in a great game decided in the last minute. And now Tom Brady will miss this entire season.

So I'm calling it: Brady is done as a Patriot. Just you wait. In a year or two, I'm gonna look like a genius.

Either that or I'll have to delete this post.

Someone Remind Me It's Football Season, Part II

I forgot Monday Night Football.

Note to Pizza Hut

If you're going to blanket the airwaves with ads for your new pasta dishes, it would be nice if your restaurant sold pasta dishes.

Actually, two notes: If you're going to blanket the airwaves with ads for your new pasta dishes, it would be nice if your restaurant sold pasta dishes, and your website sucks.

--

So Pizza Hut has been advertising for a while now that they now sell pasta dishes. They looked like they might be good, but not enough to get me to go out to a Pizza Hut and get some. Lately they've been heavily pushing their bacon macaroni and cheese. So after seeing Tyler Florence on the Food Network making bacon macaroni and cheese, I finally wanted some badly enough to go to Pizza Hut.

First I tried to order through their website, where there was a discount on first-time web orders. The Pizza Hut website makes you jump through so many hoops in order to get an order in - I eventually gave up after they said that I would have to provide my driver's license when I picked up my food. I'm not getting carded for macaroni.

So I went out to the nearest Pizza Hut in a huff. After waiting about ten minutes for someone to take my order, I attempted to order some pasta, only to be informed that they had no pasta. Great. That was certainly worth the trip. Makes me feel like Pizza Hut has its act together. And makes it very likely that I'll buy more pasta from them in the future. Mission Accomplished, guys!

A Momentary Decrease in the Net Entropy of the Universe

So MSNBC has replaced Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann with David Gregory as the host of their big-event election coverage. Meh. Color me unenthused. Gregory isn't any worse than a lot of other newspeople I guess, but I have no interest in watching him on TV. The one thing he can do on a show to make me more interested is to get out of the way and let the other people talk.

But I'm sorry to see this change for another reason: The MSNBC coverage of the Democratic National Convention was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. The entire thing was such a mess that I couldn't turn away. Look at the combination of factors that came together on MSNBC for four nights:

• It started with Olbermann, who has found his niche - as well as an ever-increasing audience - by sharing his opinions on-air and continues to go with what works for him.
  
  
• This enboldened Matthews to speak more freely of his opinions.
  
  
• Matthews tended to sometimes go on a little long with his opinions, to the point of sniping on-air at Olbermann - and at off-screen producers about a minute before that video begins - when they tried to move the show along.
  
  
• Some genius at MSNBC decided it was a good idea to put them outside, at the train station, leading to prolonged segments of Matthews and Olbermann making faces while a train whistle drowned out anything they might have tried to say, to the point where they couldn't even toss it to someone else because the whistle wouldn't stop long enough.
  
  
• There were also frequent communications problems between the hosts outside and correspondants and guests inside the convention hall, when they did manage to introduce them.
  
  
• Speaking of being drowned out, the Rachel Maddow cheering section frequently interrupted the discusion panel. (You can skip to 1:15 in that clip if you don't care what they're cheering about)
  
  
• Speaking of Maddow, she and panelmate Pat Buchanan don't exactly agree on much, and they had a few contentious interactions during the week, including when Maddow said flat-out that she thought Buchanan hated her (3:30 in) and Buchanan didn't deny it.
  
  
• And if you thought you had Buchanan figured out, in a sure sign of the apocalypse, he showered effusive praise on Barack Obama for his acceptance speech on the last night of the convention. It got him a Maddow-like cheer from the live crowd.
  

So for four nights, we had news hosts spouting their opinions about everything that came up, Matthews and Olbermann sniping at each other, Maddow and Buchanan sniping at each other, trains drowning out the hosts, the Maddow cheering section drowning out the discussion panel (when the hosts managed to introduce them), video problems cutting off folks inside like Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw (when the hosts managed to introduce them). There was open praise for particular politicians and performers spreading like a virus: From Olbermann and Maddow, who that's expected from; To Matthews, who said of Obama's speech "I've been criticized for saying he inspires me, and, ah, to hell with my critics," (and got a Maddow-like cheer); To Michelle Bernard, who wept and called it "The most amazing evening of my entire life," and said she was glad to be alive to see it; To Eugene Robinson, who said Michelle Obama's speech filled him with pride and made him think of his wife, mother, and sister; To as mentioned before Pat Buchanan of all people, who not only loved Barack Obama's speech, but got so swept up in talking about Michelle Obama's speech that he even talked about how much he liked seeing conservatives' devil incarnate Ted Kennedy that night. And all of this is just what happened between 7pm and midnight (Eastern time), let alone what went on the rest of the day.

All of this gave the overall impression that everything was breaking down, like the collapse of normalcy. It was like watching the increase of net entropy in the universe, live on cable TV. It was awesome, almost as good as the speaches. It was enough to keep me from watching the convention on C-SPAN like I usually do.

There was a similar vibe during the MSNBC coverage of the Republican convention, though a bit more subdued with Olbermann not there live, panel lineups juggled a bit, and a somewhat more mixed crowd, politically. Clearly MSNBC was frightened of the compelling television they had created, so they shuffled the lineup, and now they're doing it again. We'll see if the new setup can be as compelling as those four days in Denver.