Phils win, 3 1/2 to 1

Last night's sham of a World Series finale summed up the whole 2008 experience. The original game 5, which was called halfway through the 6th inning but which should have been called many innings earlier (or not played at all), picked up where they left off. Except for a couple of things. Momentum: dead. TV audience: dead. Fairness: dead. Spirit of the game: dead. Reputation of Bud Selig and Major League Baseball: wounded. Baseball is a great sport, regardless of the lack of interest by the video-game generation who find it too slow. What Major League Baseball (MLB) failed to "get" here is that what purists and fans have loved for decades and generations is the pace of the game. The beauty of NOT having a time clock. Picking up a game in the bottom of the 6th inning destroyed the pacing, and in effect the game and the Series. Congratulations to the Phillies who did enough to get a technical win. It's just a shame that Fox Network and MLB put advertisers' interests over the fans' love of the game. Typical.

Yesterday, Royal Caribbean announced they are cancelling their 2009-2010 cruise venture to South America on the Radiance Of The Seas. Economic woes, high cost of airfare and other issues precluded people from booking at what Royal Caribbean felt was a legitimate pace, so they decided to leave the ship in San Diego to do extended winter cruises to the Mexican Riviera. That's still one of my favorite cruise itineraries, so I'm not shedding a tear on this one. If you've never tried sailing from LA or San Diego, it's different than the Caribbean but very interesting and diverse, even though all the ports are Mexico. People get it in their heads Mexico is Mexico. That's like someone from Europe stopping in the United States on a world cruise, seeing only the port of Boston as an example, and saying "OK, now I've seen the United States." Not that Boston isn't a cool place, but had they done Boston, New York, Savannah, and Baltimore they would have had 4 different experiences, but still not actually seen America. That's why I say 3 or 4 ports in 1 country can still be quite a treat. Another example of this which always amazes me is people who fly halfway around the world to do a cruise from New Zealand to Australia. They may hit 5 of 6 ports of call in New Zealand, and the cruise ends in Sydney Australia, where they get off the ship and fly home. Not only did you not get to see Australia in general, you didn't even get to see Sydney except the taxi ride from the ship to the airport! How many times in your life are you going to be there? Once? Maybe twice? I always encourage people who are doing a life-changing trip like that to plan ahead and include additional touring before and/or after a cruise, to get it ALL on the first try. You may plan to go back, but what if you don't make it? You will have squandered the one opportunity you had, to see the highlights of different countries and cultures. Plan ahead on major trips, and feel free to ask for my advice and help. That's what I do.

Here's a story from the Aug. 31st New York Post that is a sign of our times, particularly when it comes to being a litigious society. For those of you who don't like big words, litigious means trials, lawyers and such. It seems Mr. Brian Hopkins, age 25, was severely burned in 2006 after he climbed onto the roof of an empty train at Boston's South Station at 2 a.m. It wasn't the climbing part that got him in the soup, though. Unfortunately for Mr. Hopkins, while on top of the train car, he grabbed what he thought was a rubber cable to pull himself up, and was instantly zapped by 27,500 Volts of electricity! Lucky enough for Mr. Hopkins, he lived. This past August, he and his lawyers filed a lawsuit against Amtrak seeking damages for his pain and suffering. Huh? He freely admits he was trespassing at the station, but here's where it gets interesting (a.k.a. incredibly stupid). Mr. Hopkins' attorney claims that Amtrak should have known that people trespass and climb on top of buildings, trains, etc. and therefore they should have parked their train in a less-accessible place, to protect society and in particular Mr. Brian Hopkins, age 25.

If I'm the attorney on Amtrak's side of the ball, I'd ask the Judge if we couldn't move the proceedings to the scene of the incident. I'd ask Mr. Hopkins to re-create the incident for us, and I might even give him a boost up on top of the train. I'd say "Mr. Hopkins -- the top of that train might be dirty, so here you go....stand on top of this nice, wet towel. Now if it please the court, go ahead and reach on up there again, Mr. Hopkins, and show us which wire it was you grabbed"

In nature, they call that thinning the herd...