I promised at the beginning of the year to make my blog personal, and looking over my posts from the last week, I really haven’t done so far. That’s because it’s actually been a very personal week for me. My grandmother suffered a heart attack, one of my cats had a scheduled surgery, and my other cat had to be rushed to the emergency room the next night with an ulcer on his inner eyelid. All three are now recovering nicely and life is getting back to normal. So 2008 is finally starting for me, just a week late!

I upgraded to the latest version of WordPress today.  Hopefully the transition will be seamless, but if you notice any problems, please let me know.  Thanks!

So another college football season has completed, and once again the Bowl Championship Series has failed fans with a dud of a championship game that protects the power conferences’ big money interests. LSU (the first ever BCS Championship Game team coming in with two losses, thus belying the argument that the regular season is a week-by-week playoff) completely dominated Ohio-verrated State in a match-up that most likely would not have occurred in a playoff system. What a joke.But perhaps there is a ray of hope. I read on Yahoo! Sports an AP story stating that the BCS is going to seriously evaluate a “plus-one” system which would effectively create a four-team playoff using bowl games for the semi-finals in time for the 2010 season. Now serious discussions of a playoff system and the BCS may sound like an oxymoron and should definitely be taken with a grain of salt, but even the mere mention of such consideration is a huge step forward. Apparently a sizable percentage of the major conferences are in support of such a system, with the Big Ten and Pac-10 notable exceptions. Those two conferences have a contractual relationship with the Rose Bowl and claim that such a playoff system would devalue that game. But even in the current system that contract doesn’t always play out, so by agreeing to the BCS in the first place they’ve already weakened their own argument.I suppose you can’t blame the Big Ten. Considering the current mediocrity of the conference (once again exhibited today), instituting a playoff system would effectively end its chances of bringing home a national title. At least the Pac-10 has USC. All joking aside, it’s very interesting to note that neither of these conferences have conference championship games, either.So let’s all hope that this slim glimmer of a hope is realized and that college football fans will finally be treated to a playoff that will determine a real champion.

Yesterday I posted on how relevant Network remains today and later that same night I hear on the news how Britney Spears is released from the hospital in the company of Dr. Phil. Everybody’s always playing for their share of the media, no matter at whose expense. Where does it end?

I watched Network for the first time tonight. Probably a film I should have seen a long time ago, but that’s neither here nor there; everybody I know, both inside and outside of the history, has a list of movies they should have already seen.The mark of a truly great film, beyond the technical elements of acting, writing, directing, production value, etc., is that it stands the test of time. This is all the more true when the movie deals with a topical issue; relevancy is hard to maintain. It’s scary watching Network to think that this film was made 37 years ago! If we consider that the media, societal and corporate cultures of Network were already in place during the seventies and then compare them to those of today, both the similarities and the progression are downright frightening.Perhaps we should all rewatch Network as a warning, to be cognizant of just how dangerously far we have already come and what may be in store for us in the future.