Category: my thoughts on

By David G. Firestone

The Rio Olympics have concluded, and all I have to say is THANK GOD! We have been hearing about the Olympics all year, but none of what we were hearing prior to the games was good news. Between human rights violations, corruption, shoddy construction, Zika, infrastructure failures, water quality issues, and a lack of security, I knew these games would be interesting, but I got tired of hearing about them

Fast forward to the actual games, and the stuff that was going wrong was entertaining. Before I discuss stuff that happened during the games, I’d like to thank the media for their wonderful coverage of the games. Seriously, in a time where race relations are in really bad shape, and gender equality should be a thing but isn’t, how could you have coverage that is clearly racist and sexist? Seriously, how did the media do such a great job at offending EVERYONE while covering the games? Vox summed this us better than I ever could, check it out.

That aside, when the games did get started, the television coverage was awful. NBC, I don’t know if you know this or not, but we have something called “the internet” which gives us the capacity to learn the results of events before you tape delay them. We also have something called a “DVR” where we can record the event so we can watch it. Why would you tape delay the games in this day in age. Seriously, WWE finally figured this out, why can’t you? I was getting updates on the games sent to my phone from two different apps, CNN and EPSN.

So we have a bad location, bad infrastructure, and bad television coverage, to start with. Then we have a pool that turned green for no real reason, a swimming pool that gave certain swimmers an advantage, PED issues, questionable officiating, cupping, and Ryan Lochte. The sad part is that there was a lot of great stuff that happened during the games, but almost all of it is ignored because of the off-field issues.

I wish I could say this was an isolated incident, but it seems that this is happening with every Olympic games. Furthermore, it’s getting to the point that the host city loses so much money, that finding new venues is getting tougher. I genuinely, believe that there may never be another Olympics held in North America during my lifetime. These cities don’t have millions of dollars sitting around to lose on the Olympics. I’m wondering if the rules will be changed to make the games profitable to the host cities. It would be an improvement over the current system.

To the surprise of nobody, because of all of the issues I touched on, the games were a ratings failure, and advertisers aren’t happy. TV ratings are bad, and now comes the speculation that the television deal will change. People are going to wonder where should the Olympics go, I’m wondering where COULD the Olympics go. The contract is costly for networks, and they don’t want to pay that much for bad ratings.

I don’t watch the Olympics, and I couldn’t care less about them, and all I can say is that I’m happy they are over.

By David G. Firestone

So far…this week SUCKS! Aside from an Xfinity Series race at Mid Ohio, there really wasn’t any racing to watch. So after a racing-free weekend, I knew Monday was going to suck. Let me explain how my day was yesterday. After waking up earlier than normal because of a Comcast technician visit, I was expecting the Post Office to deliver two packages. Well they only delivered one, and didn’t leave a slip for the other. The tracking info states that the package is “ready for pickup” even though I have no way of getting the package without a slip.

I have officially lost all respect and all trust in the USPS. I can’t understand how a group who exists solely to send mail and packages can fail so badly at sending and delivering mail and packages. Even if they had sent me a slip, I would still have them redeliver the package. If I had to pick it up, I would have to go to the Evanston Post Office, which is the most disorganized post office in existence. I have never been to a worse post office in my life. I’ve been to a post office on an Apache reservation in rural Arizona, where the nearest town was 20 miles away, and had better service than what I get at the Evanston post office.

So with that in mind, I braced myself for the Comcast visit, and to my utter amazement, it went off without an issue. I get that customer service has been an issue with Comcast, but I have to say that I haven’t had a problem, my service is great, and everything usually works. When it doesn’t Comcast is really good at taking care of the problem.

When it comes to tech support, I don’t go in angry. One of the biggest mistakes that people make is going in angry and impatient. I calm myself down and work with the tech, and most of the time, it works out well. There is the odd time it doesn’t work, which happens, but yelling at the phone rep doesn’t make anything better, and will only make things worse. Let the person who knows what they are doing fix your mistake. IF they are asking questions, it’s because they need to diagnose the problem. Once the problem is diagnosed, it can be fixed.

With that out of the way, I had time to do laundry, and have dinner. I’m typing this at 3 AM, and I’m just going to finish this, and go to sleep.

By David G. Firestone

I wanted to discuss luck in the form of color for a second time. I’m not a die-hard John Force fan, but I’m a drag racing fan, and I have enough respect for the history of the sport to see what his is to the sport. Something I discussed just after Castrol left him as a sponsor was if the switch to blue cars from green would be detrimental. I don’t care what anyone says, we are all superstitious. We all have things we do that we think make us better at everything.

When I interviewed Jack Beckman in January, he had a quote concerning this subject that I think applies to Force. I asked him about his helmet visor design, and in the course of his answer, he said “…I’m a big proponent of doing anything that you think will make you perform better. If you think a red glove will make you drive better than a blue glove, it will. It’s psychological more than it’s mechanical.” I’m wondering if a green colored race car is John Force’s red glove.

John Force has 145 national event wins, 141 came with Castrol on the side of the car. For almost 30 years, the two were inseparable. Where you saw Force, you saw Castol. Green was an integral color on John Force’s cars for many years. When Castol left, and Peak signed on in 2015, the car shifted from green to blue, and Force didn’t seem to adapt as well, though that could be attributed to his switch from Ford to Chevy. In 2016, Force looked to be heading nowhere fast, until the Western Swing, where he got a new sponsor…Realtree!

Suddenly, green is now the dominant color on the side of Force’s car, and for the first two races of the Western Swing, The Mile High and Sonoma Nationals, Force looked like…well…John Force. He didn’t sweep the Western Swing, but that is forgivable since his daughter had been taken away via ambulance due to a crash. He wasn’t in the right frame of mind to race, but again, it’s understandable.

I think that John is better with green on his car, because throughout his career, he has had a lot of success with green cars. I’m not saying he should dump Peak as a sponsor, but something shoud change if he really is better with green on his race cars instead of blue.

Also, I’m going to return to my article yesterday, concerning the cancellation of the Hall of Fame Game. I’ve heard a number of people come out and say that the Hall of Fame Game isn’t a big deal, and to stop blaming Roger Goodell for everything. Let me explain a few things. At no point in my column last night, did I ever blame Roger Goodell for what happened. For the various issues that I discussed, I blamed those responsible.

Blaming Goodell for the cancellation of the Hall of Fame Game is like blaming the CEO of McDonald’s for your drive through order being wrong. If you get a medium fries instead of the large fries that you ordered, Steve Easterbrook isn’t to blame, its the minor failure of a low-level person at the franchise you visited. The issue is that the seemingly minor failures of these lower level workers, at the Hall of Fame, at 1iota, and at AT&T Stadium have caused national embarrassment for the league.

On The Herd, the situation was described as “like having a dinner at a nice steakhouse, and having the desert not being up to par.” Well the thing about that is that the desert can ruin what was otherwise a great meal. This is especially true if you chose the restaurant because you like their deserts. The same goes for football. If you are a die hard Colts or Packers fan who attended the game in person, your dinner was seeing Tony Dungy, or Brett Favre being inducted, and your desert was supposed to be the Hall of Fame Game. The fact that the desert was “not up to par” spoiled the weekend for many people

If you weren’t going to go to the game itself, but really wanted to watch it, your desert was spoiled, as was mine. This would be bad for a local telecast, but a nationally televised game with two teams with devoted fans and long lineages makes things worse. It’s not Goodell’s fault, it’s not even the direct fault of the NFL, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t upset about how things went down last night. It might not seem like a big deal to some, but to the fans it is a big deal. It might not seem important that the desert wasn’t up to par, but when a sub par desert ruins a good meal, it is important. The NFL needs to learn quickly that the fans are their source of income, and if they aren’t happy, then that income will go away quickly. Let’s hope this stops becoming an issue.

By David G. Firestone

I would normally not do two My Thoughts On in a week, but I have something I want to discuss tomorrow, so I’ll talk about this now. I’m not a die-hard NFL fan, but I do watch football when I can. I was looking forward to watching the NFL Hall of Fame Game between the Packers and the Colts last night. I imagine a lot of people were looking forward to it as well. So imagine our surprise when we found out that the game had been canceled, due to “poor field conditions.” Apparently, the field had been painted prior to the game, and the paint had hardened and congealed, thus making the playing field unsafe.

Who is in charge at the Pro Football Hall of Fame? The Pro Football Hall of Fame has ONE MAJOR FOOTBALL GAME per year, and they can’t get the field properly prepared for it? Who is in charge of the grounds crew? The one football game at your stadium that anyone cares about has to be canceled because of bad turf conditions? I would fire the entire grounds crew and hire new people! Above and beyond that, this directly resulted in the cancellation of A NATIONALLY TELEVISED NFL BROADCAST, but more on that later.

I’d like to say a few things to the NFL. You have not had a great off season in terms of public relations. A lot of people aren’t happy with the NFL right now, and though it could be argued that the league has had a great week, this more than ruins it for many people. This also could not come at a worse time, in terms of television. In case you haven’t noticed, The Olympics are happening, and they are more of a ratings grabber than the NFL preseason. You owe your fans, ESPN, and your sponsors a sincere apology, and a serious explanation.

You are the most popular spectator sport in the country, yet there are times it seems like nobody is really in charge, and you are making procedures up as you go along. You’ve already cost yourself, ESPN, and your sponsors a lot of money this weekend. If I want amateur hour, I’ll go to Open Mic at The Comedy Store on Wednesday. I don’t want amateur hour, I want professionalism. I could understand if severe weather delayed the game. I could even understand if severe weather the night before damaged the field, thus rendering it unplayable. But when you have a whole year to prepare for an event, and you fuck it up at the eleventh hour by doing something that could have been done a long time in advance, there is no excuse.

I experienced this lack of leadership and organization first hand at the NFL Draft on April 28^th. I discussed that I had a seat filler ticket, and that there were more fillers than seats. What I DIDN’T mention was how amazingly disorganized the check-in procedures were. I had received my tickets on April 11, through a company called “1iota” which bills itself as a free ticket site for fans. They have tickets for Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Voice, The VMA’s, Live with Kelly, GMA, The Chew, and The View. They also have deals with a number of celebrities including Alica Keys, Carol Burnett, Dennis Rodman, Emmitt Smith, Jessica Alba, Meg Ryan, Miley Cyrus, Kieth Urban, Pete Rose, Tony Hawk, and Yakov Smirnoff. They aren’t exactly dealing with small time people…except for Yakov Smirnoff.

When I went, I was expecting a professional check in, with people who knew what they were doing, and what was going on. It’s a pretty reasonable expectation, but in practice, it wasn’t anywhere near professional or organized. Nobody I talked to knew what was going on, there were too many seat fillers, and not enough 1iota personnel, organization wasn’t anywhere to be found, and the whole process was needlessly complicated, and overly aggravating. If I knew then, what I know now, I would have gone to Draft Town, which should have been called “Corporate Shill Town,” and skipped the ticket line entirely. I had fun at Shill Town, but the ticket process was rage inducing. As a result of The NFL Draft, I will NEVER USE 1IOTA AGAIN FOR ANYTHING! They could pay me to take the tickets, and I will tell them to fuck off!

I’d also like to refer to Super Bowl XLV. This took place four days after The Blizzard of 2011. Because of the storms, work inside the stadium wasn’t finished in time, and as a result, 500 people who had purchased Super Bowl tickets had to be turned away. Again, there was more than enough time to make sure that this was done right. AT&T Stadium had been selected in 2007. The only events that took place between January 15 and February 6 were stadium tours. That means that the stadium crew had more than enough time to make sure everything was ready by the time the game was ready. Even with the blizzard, which took place on January 31-February 2, there is no reason that this shouldn’t have been an issue.

Why is this an issue? Because the NFL, like most companies, especially sports leagues is CONSUMER DRIVEN! If the consumers aren’t happy, you are going to lose money! The NFL has shown that they don’t care about fans, but want their money. Yet, without the fans, you have no money. You would think that the most popular fan sport would do everything to keep the fans happy, but the NFL doesn’t seem to care that their main source of income isn’t exactly thrilled with what has been going on.

I’m really hoping that when football resumes on Thursday, there won’t be major issues…but I’m not holding my breath!

By David G. Firestone

Just a short article this week. I love writing The Driver Suit Blog, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I need a break. As such, starting this Saturday, I’m going to take my annual summer sabbatical. I need a chance to decompress and get away from the hectic pace that is writing The Driver Suit Blog for a while, and summer in Chicago is the best time to do it.

I will have Monday Videos, Throwback Thursdays, and Friday Features ready to go, but I’m not updating the Paint Scheme Tracker, and Grades, nor will I do My Thoughts On. I will do my annual Route 66 Nationals article. Route 66 will be the 800^th Funny Car race in NHRA history. I plan on doing my usual thing, and having a great time. I’m not just going to be sitting idle for July, I have a number of things planned and ready to go. I don’t know for sure if I’m going to post a recap, but I might. I haven’t decided as of this writing.

Can someone explain to me why the week before vacation is the longest week of the year? I get the time goes slow when you are waiting for something fun to happen, but the slow week really sucks. My shifts at work are going to seem longer, and the week in general is going to seem longer. But the end result is worth the wait. See you in August!

By David G. Firestone

For the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to move forward to 2017. It might seem a little early, but if I’m going to be able to successfully implement any changes to formats, I need to be able to have enough time to figure out how and when I’m going to implement them. As such, I’m going to discuss what I’m working on and have decided as of right now.

Currently, there are six postings in a week. Monday has videos, Tuesday has My Thoughts On, Wednesday has the Paint Scheme Tracker, Thursday has Throwback Thursday, Friday has the Friday Feature, and Saturday has the Paint Scheme Grades. When it comes to the format, I’m not going to change anything, as I really like this current setup. But there will be minor changes to the formats themselves.

Monday videos will remain unchanged in their current format, and production setup. I’m happy will they way things are going, and there is no need to make any changes in this respect.

Tuesday has My Thoughts On, and these have always been subject to how I feel as a person. Sometimes they are light-hearted, sometimes, I’ll discuss a serious issue. I’m not going to change this much either. Also, they are subject to how I feel physically, and if I’m not feeling well, I’m not going to write one.

The Paint Scheme Tracker and Grades will remain in their current slots, but I’m eliminating the A+ grade in favor of just an A. This will make the final grading much easier. This new change will debut with Wednesday’s edition of the tracker, and the Saturday edition of the Grades. It should also be noted that if there isn’t a Cup race scheduled for the weekend, I can’t do a Paint Scheme Grades, as I don’t have enough material.

Throwback Thursday will remain in place. Yes I realize that it’s not popular to have a Throwback Thursday anymore, but I don’t care. The only change I’m going to make is that I’ll be a bit more descriptive with my grading.

The Friday Feature will still be here, but I’m going to take a few different directions with it. One change I’m going to do is that I want to start doing more on design, not uniforms. I’ve got a couple design columns that I’m working on. The other change I’m going to make is that Reel Reviews is making a comeback in 2017! But there is another change I’m making in that there will be two subsets of Reel Reviews, Movies and Books. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, and now I’ve got a plan to make it happen. Reel Reviews are not easy to do, in that they take three times as long as normal columns. But I do want to do them, and I’m going to make sure they get done next year.

I should also mention that I can definitely say that I have a Friday Feature for every Friday through the end of the year. This includes the Paint Schemies, and the Paint Scheme Leaderboard. The Schemies and the Leaderboard will also return for 2017. Though most of what I discussed may or may not be set in stone yet. I look forward to seeing you all for another great year!

By David G. Firestone

People wonder why I don’t watch a lot of television. Truth told, I really don’t. I watch documentaries, and the news, and auto racing, but other than that, I really don’t turn the television on all that much. After what I experienced this last week, it should be easy to understand why I wouldn’t watch that much TV.

Last week, I decided to watch the Isle Of Man TT races. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating, that I’m not big on motorcycle racing. I promised myself this year, I would make a more concerted effort to try and watch more racing. So I wanted to watch the race. I couldn’t figure out what channel the Isle of Man TT was on. After a few minutes on Google, I discovered that the races were being televised on a television channel called “Velocity.”

Velocity bills itself as a car guy network. Almost all programming is devoted to either restoring or customizing cars. The bulk of their prime-time programming is car customizing reality shows. I tried to watch some of these shows, and was quickly reminded why I hate reality television shows. Reality TV is the worst genre of television EVER! Every one of these shows are fake. These shows have fake drama surrounding them, and the endings are predictable.

While these reality shows are bad by themselves, Velocity has found a way to make it worse. Every commercial for upcoming episode I saw, the ending was spoiled in the commercial! Not that it really matters, every ending is the exact same. The car they are either customizing or restoring is finished in time, regardless of the drama, and the customer loves it. But if you insist on watching these shows, you will know the ending of the show before it airs.

Why would you spoiler alert the show in the previews? What sense does that make? I understand you want to show the cool car, but in doing this, you have really taken any and all incentive to watch the show away. Don’t show the end, just show the basic plot, and you’ll be able to draw more viewers.

The other thing I noticed about these reality shows on Velocity is that they are all the same show, but with different people and different locations. The plot-lines and production values are exactly the same, and I’m willing to bet that if you took the title cards out of the shows, you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. Again, this isn’t the middle of the day, this is prime-time! Why wouldn’t you have more unique programming during prime-time, instead of the same show with different titles?

I really wonder how Velocity stays a television channel with a total lack of creative programming, no original ideas, and spoiling their shows during previews. I haven’t seen their viewership numbers, but I can’t believe they are that high. It shouldn’t come as a shock that Velocity is owned by Discovery Media, which also owns TLC. So the company that brought us Cake Boss, Jon and Kate Plus 8, 19 Kids and Counting, Toddlers and Tiaras, and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo bring us Velocity as a television channel, and Velocity is no less intellectually barren than the above-mentioned shows.

People wonder why I don’t watch much television, and the above should show why. I do watch TV, but I don’t watch reality TV. I really hate that television has been reduced to this. I wish reality TV as it is now would go away, and never return.

By David G. Firestone

It’s very rare that we lose an icon on the level of Muhammad Ali. It’s even rarer that an athlete transcends his sport and his culture like Ali did. There have been plenty of great boxers over the years, there are many more coming. Ali had somethings that those other boxers didn’t.

Though his detractors called him “brash” and “arrogant,” he said what he had to say, and stood for what he had to stand for. He refused to serve in the army in Vietnam. His quote can be considered legendary when he said that he had“no quarrel with them Vietcong…My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me n—-r, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape or kill my mother and father…. How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail.”

As a result of that inspired quote, and the inspired reasons behind it, he lost his boxing licenses, he forfeited his titles, and spent time in jail. Ali was never a man to back down from what he believed in, and appealed the decisions, and won. In the ring, he was an innovator. With a lifetime record of 56 and 5, Ali is considered one of the greatest boxers of all time. His nickname “The Greatest” is proof of that.

Out of the ring he was as good a statesman as he was a boxer. His anti-war ideals were supported by large numbers of people. His pride in himself made him a respected figure. He became the most famous man in the world. His love for peace was such that as tensions between Iraq and the US were escalating in 1991, he traveled to Iraq and met with Saddam Hussein to try and release American hostages. When Parkinson’s Disease robbed him of the ability to be Ali, he could have given up hope, but he decided to be the poster child for Parkinson’s. In this sense, Ali was more legend than human…and at the same time, more human then legend.

The only thing that can and should be said in the end is that we really have tragically lost an American icon.

By David G. Firestone

I’m going to discuss the Ghostbusters trailer controversy. I’ve got a few things I’d like to say about it. Please read the whole of my opinions before you comment, since this is a big issue with this trailer.

I watched Ghostbusters growing up. I remember the movie, but I was never a super fan of it. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t my favorite. I’m 34 now, and one thing I don’t do is get nostalgic over reboots and remakes of classic franchises from when I was a kid. So when I heard about this new Ghostbusters remake, I thought it sounded interesting. Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig are two great actresses, though I’m admittedly not as familiar with Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones.

I watched the trailer wondering what new direction the franchise would take, and if it was really as bad as everyone says it is. I got my answer, and yes it is. You can’t fault the on-screen talent with this one. The problem lies with whoever it was who made the trailer. The dialogue was difficult to listen to. The jokes were not funny. The CGI looked decent, if a little over the top. As open minded as I was about this trailer, it did not impress me.

This is not a minor issue. Trailers are how many people judge if they want to see movies or not. When you have a bad trailer, people automatically assume that the movie is bad. This movie had a budget of $154 million, and if the movie is a quarter as bad as the trailer makes it look, the movie probably won’t break even.

Again, this has nothing to do with the female leads, if it ever did at all. The on-screen talent did a decent job, but the trailer as a whole looks bad. A question that is being brought up is will I go see the movie. I’m going to wait for some reviews to come out, so I’m not saying yes, and I’m not saying no. But I sure hope the movie is better than the trailer makes it look.

By David G. Firestone

After the opening lap wreck that took place between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, I would love to be a fly of the wall in Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team right now. I would love to know what is going on with that team right now. I’d love to know what Toto Wolff and Nikki Lauda are thinking, and what they are saying behind closed doors. I’d bet that at team headquarters, from the outside, it looks like they are closed, but really, there are just meetings going on.

I’ve been reading what has the team website says what was “said” by Wolff, Hamilton, and Rosberg said concerning the start of the race, and I’m willing to wager money that all four versions were heavily edited. Both of them blame each other, and Wolff calls it a “racing incident.” I beg to differ, I think both drivers are equally to blame in this wreck.

You could make the argument that Hamilton was being too aggressive going into turn 3, but at the same time, you could also argue that that Rosberg aggressively blocked Hamilton going into the turn. Lauda says Hamilton is to blame, but the fact that he was being aggressive should shock nobody. He was not having a great season, and he finally looked like he had everything ready to go. Rosberg blocking does come as a bit of a shock, but being the championship leader, he wanted to protect his lead. The actions aren’t that shocking, but the result was.

What troubles me most about this is the fact that the two teammates seemed to be on better terms than years before. It actually seemed like Rosberg and Hamilton were doing well as teammates, and were working well. Now it looks like that has gone to the wayside. There needs to be a “clear the air” meeting between the two. Going into that meeting, nobody is right, nobody is wrong, just clear the air, and focus on the rest of the season.

While we are on the subject of controversies, let’s discuss the Manchester United game…or lack thereof. The game was canceled because a “bomb” was found near the stadium. A controlled detonation was performed, and it was revealed that the “bomb” was a training device, accidentally left by a private security firm. I was reading an article today that the security firm that is rightfully being blamed for the fiasco, and as a result, will likely be fired from the team, and lose business. I give him credit for admitting that his group was responsible, and taking the blame.

People said that the reaction to the bomb scare was an overreaction. Was it? Remember that back in November, a series of suicide bombers attacked Stade de France, in the suburb of Saint-Denis during a Germany/French friendly football match. The fact that a suspicious-looking item, which had all the outward appearances of a legitimate bomb should have prompted a full evacuation of the stadium, and canceling of the match. In this day in age, no chances should be taken with public safety.

Let’s hope that for the next few weeks, there aren’t too many more major controversies in sports as happened last week.