Mindless Diversions

The NHL and NFL re-seed teams as they move through the playoffs.

The NBA and NCAA basketball do not, opting for a bracket system.

MLB, because of its limited playoff pool, don’t really face the issue (though they certainly have their own issues with seeding).

NCAA football… well, NCAA football is still using the bowl system.  Let’s just pretend that silliness doesn’t exist.

Which approach is right?

First, let’s make sure we all know what we’re talking about here.  Leagues that re-seed guarantee that the highest ranked team plays the lowest ranked team, the second-highest ranked team plays the second-lowest ranked team, and on and on through all rounds of the playoffs.  So, in the NFL, the #3 seeded team plays the #6 seeded team in the opening round.  If the #6 seed wins, they play the #1 seed in the following round.  If the #3 seed wins, they’ll play the #2 seed while the #1 seed plays the winner of the #4/#5 matchup.  Leagues that use a bracket system have set brackets that are static.  Should an upset occur, match-ups don’t change.  So, in the NBA this year, we see the #2 and #3 seeds face off in the second round while the #4 and #8 teams play each other.

As I see it, here are the pros and cons of each system:

Re-seeding Pros/ Bracket Cons:

• The best teams are assured of an easier route, something they theoretically earned as a result of their regular season performance.  In a bracket, a worse team might have an easier route to advancing than a better team.
• You are less likely to see “flukey” results, as weaker teams will have to beat the best remaining competition at every turn in order to proceed.
• It seems more “fair”.  Why should the Heat, the #2 seed, have a tougher second-round opponent (the third-seeded Pacers) than the #4 Celtics (playing the eight-seeded Sixers)?

Bracket Pros/ Re-seeding Cons

- There are a wide variety of logistical and scheduling issues, as matchups often can’t be set until all series are completed.  This means travel schedule and hotel reservations can become problematic.  This isn’t really an issue for fans, but can prove a burden for the league and theoretically could impact the scheduling of games, which does impact fans.

• Fewer upsets.  Fans love upsets (or at least claim too… ratings numbers seem to indicate otherwise).  You are less likely to see Cinderella teams make deep runs in the NCAA tournament if they keep having to play the best competition.  Of course, the LA Kings are disproving this right now, making a run to the Stanley Cup finals as a #8 seed, but hockey lends itself to such things.
• March Madness brackets are made possible only using the bracket system.  Goodbye pools if a re-seeding system is employed.

So which system is better?  I personally prefer re-seeding.  It just seems silly to me that many of the supposed benefits of achieving a higher seed disappear once the first round is over.  And as much as I enjoy individual game upsets, I prefer to see the best of the best play each other for the title.  An NBA finals matchup between the Heat and the Thunder would be more exciting and compelling to watch than a Cinderella matchup between the Sixers and Jazz would have been.  What do you think?  Are there pros and cons to either system I’m ignoring?  Is there something about specific sports that lend themselves better to one approach than another?  Is there a third alternative out there (perhaps in soccer) or one someone is willing to propose?

EDITED to fix some formatting issues.  No content changes.

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It’s really sad how, in the last week, we’ve lost two of the biggest Disco Icons. Donna Summer and Robin Gibb.

In playing Disco songs the past couple of weeks, I’ve never really talked about the genre itself and what made it so likable (and, I suppose, hateable).

It was upbeat. It was happy. It was easy to dance to… which made it easy to want to be a better dancer than all of the people who found it easy to dance to. It was sexy. It was drug-fueled. It was hedonistic. Even as the counter-culture eschewed dance music, Disco delighted in it. Even as prog rock was experimenting with abstract music, even as country rock was finding its feet (and anger), even as Led Zeppelin was changing damn near everything… Disco had 4/4 time and was upbeat and happy and easy to dance to.

It was counter-counter-culture.

Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby” is a step above Make-Out Song? Above? Beyond. Her “Last Dance” was Disco’s “Don’t The Girls All Get Prettier At Closing Time”… except a woman was singing it. Her “Heaven Knows” was Disco’s sweet and straightforward love song. I think my favorite (today, anyway) of hers is I Feel Love.

Her gorgeous voice over synthpop… Ladytron before Ladytron and La Roux before La Roux.

The Brothers Gibb have given us so much as well… I won’t be able to do a better job eulogizing Robin Gibb than Brian Doherty did over at Reason so I’d ask you to read his post.

We’ve all heard the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever over and over again (and, if you haven’t, you *SHOULD*). The Robin song that I think is the best example of all of the above things said about disco is his “Juliet“. The album version (from the 70′s, where he still had all of his falsetto powers) is at the link there, but if you want to see how happy the song is capable of being, you need to watch this (sing along!):

Thanks, guys.

So… what are you listening to?

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Given the insanity of the last weekend and the insanity of the coming weekend, we’re going to kick the can of Bookclub down the road one week.

So if you’ve already watched “Momentum Deferred” and “Dream Logic”, I apologize. We’ll talk about it next Tuesday! If you haven’t, hey, three-day weekend to help you catch up!

Of course, if we want to explore Fringy concepts in the comments, this is a good place to do it as well.

As always, here are the ground rules: nothing that we have seen so far is considered a spoiler, anything that we have not yet seen should be considered a spoiler. Crazy nutbar speculation is *NOT* a spoiler, but confirming or denying said confirmation would be.

Here’s my idea for spoilers: please rot13 them. That’s a simple encryption that will allow the folks who want to avoid spoilers to avoid them and allow the people who want to argue them to argue them. We good? We good!

Sorry about this! We’ll be back on track next week!

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I’ve been spending more time with Max Payne 3 (I’m in chapter 4, now) and that has me thinking vague and unfocused thoughts about the Ronin thing going on. One of the most interesting parts of the heroism portrayed is that Ronin are not good people. They prefer good people, of course… but they are not, in and of themselves, particularly Good. (Mentioning this thought to Maribou, she said to me “Just because you’re on the side of the angels doesn’t make you an angel.”)

I’m sure that I don’t have to tell you about how Ronin are Samurai who had lost their masters were supposed to commit ritual suicide. The ones who didn’t (as that’s a pretty tall order), became Ronin– Masterless warriors who rented their swords out to the highest bidder. Their honor was considered gone and they were not held in particularly high esteem. Well, on a general social level, anyway. A bodyguard is never held in higher esteem than when you need one (and there were a lot of lords who needed one). There’s a famous Ronin story in Japan about The 47 Ronin. These were 47 Samurai who found themselves masterless after their own master assaulted a corrupt court official and, failing, had to commit ritual suicide. These 47 Ronin waited about 2 years before getting revenge and killing the corrupt official, turning themselves into the police, and then committing ritual suicide themselves. Heavy. Anyway, this story is one that, however well documented, has become a Myth. It’s an idea about National Character, heroism, revenge, and honor that resonates even across cultures.

Well, for our culture, we generally have to change a few things. The masters of men are much more subtle. Sure, they have jobs and bosses… but I’m reminded of the old joke about the old West. An English Lord was riding through and he came across a cowboy or blacksmith or barber or something. “You! Where is your master?” “Ain’t been born yet.” So, when telling the story about a Ronin to an American audience, the Samurai’s family is usually killed. Indeed, in the original Max Payne, Max’s family is killed by a group of druggies high on a synthetic drug (and Max makes it his new mission to put an end to the drug ring). The game goes on to have Max avenge his family, no matter where the story took him (and it took him quite a few unsavory places… including the halls of power).

Well, in the 47 Ronin story, the Ronin forced an end to the story by committing hara-kiri. The American version of Ronin, however, don’t tend to do that. Max Payne 3 tells the followup story to Max Payne and, so far, it’s doing a much better job than Max Payne 2 did. (Don’t get me wrong, Max Payne 2′s gameplay was amazing and improved on the decidedly awesome gameplay of the first… it’s just that the story didn’t hold up quite so well.)

You’re a lot older, a lot greyer, a lot more cynical. You’re a bodyguard for a family of vapid rich folks who have made so many enemies that they can’t keep track. It’s just a job. You spend your nights (early mornings) after work getting drunk and taking painkillers and looking at a picture that, so far, the game hasn’t shown me.

Max is not a good person anymore… but he prefers good people.

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Well, I’ve just seen two chapters in a row where good things happened to the characters that I liked and that’s making me really, really tense. So-and-so was just arrested at the tavern. I imagine that this is where the excrement is airborn.

I’m also getting ready to go over to my local Blast Area for the WWE PPV tomorrow night. Ah, I’ll relax in Vegas. Sure.

I’m also preparing for the Bookclub for episodes “Momentum Deferred” (which is as awesome as it sounds) and “Dream Logic” (which, sadly, is not).

So… what are you reading and/or watching?

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I’m still playing Max Payne 3 (making occasional pit stops into Zen Pinball)… and getting ready to conclude a 4th Edition game tonight.

So… what are you playing?

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I’m a little past finishing the first chapter of Max Payne 3, and I find myself reminded of the movie Man on Fire.

It’s a Samurai game… well, a Ronin game. We’ve got our Ronin who is hiring himself out and he’s waiting to find his purpose. I’ve not yet found the chapter where Max finds his purpose quite yet… so he’s still Ronin at this point. I tell you what, though. They’ve already established that, when he does? Hell follows.

It feels like a game that will be finished rather than one to be abandoned… but don’t they all at this point? I’ll keep you posted.

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Holy cow, is today Friday already?

Indeed it is.

Well, summer is more or less officially here, kinda. Maribou’s classes are behind her, her grades are in (As, natch), and work is doing this weird “eye of the hurricane” thing where we know it’s going to get crazy any minute now… but not yet.

So, tonight, we’re going to have cocktails.

Saturday, we’re going to be running our errands and our D&D DM will *FINALLY* finish up our storyline we’re running in 4th Edition… and, if we have 15 minutes at the end of the night, we’re going to dust off our old Harry Dresden characters and get ready for Colorado Springs and maybe we’ll figure out what’s *REALLY* going on with all of those green crosses popping up all over town…

Sunday will be spent doing chores around the house and an internal debate will be held to see if we want to go to the WWF PPV at our local blast zone on Sunday Night. Because, seriously, it’s been a rough week. Sitting at home and doing nothing has serious upsides too.

So… what’s on your docket?

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