Tell me if I'm being overly cynical here.

The Super Bowl is being televised this year by CBS. The halftime show is being performed by The Who. The Who announced their set list today. It included "Pinball Wizard", of course, as well as "Tommy". Obvious choices.

The other three songs?

"Who Are You?", "Baba O'Reilly" and "Won't Get Fooled Again".

OK, class, what do those three songs have in common? That's right, they are the theme songs to the three biggest shows CBS has: CSI, CSI:NY and CSI:Miami.

Nice to see that the band has agreed to turn the halftime show into yet another commercial for the network's programming.

Is it time for Penguicon yet?

I got the first hug at 2:00 Friday afternoon from twoofdtm and the last one almost exactly 48 hours later from cathshaffer, and in between I got to spend 42* hours with dozens and dozens of friends and acquaintances and people that I hope to put into the first category.

* The missing six hours were because I had to leave Friday night to cover the Pistons game.

ConFusion and Penguicon always tend to have good Guests of Honor - heck, Penguicon has had Wil Wheaton three times now - but there's something special when you get a group of friends together. The gold standard is always going to be CF 2008, with the terrible trio of scalzi, justinelavaworm and Scott Westerfeld. This year, though, was pretty darn close with yuki_onna and s00j. Their combined concert Saturday night was fantastic, and I wish there had been twice as much room space so two times as many people could have seen them.

(By the way, having Cat and s00j as GoHs this year was strange, but in a good way. I don't know either one of them personally - I met Cat briefly at Penguicon last year and I had seen s00j perform twice in Ann Arbor in 2009 - but aiela and I share many, many mutual friends with them. That didn't really change this weekend, although I did get a hug from Cat after telling her what a great job she did as a GoH, but there's still more of a connection to them than to most GoHs.)

(Also, if you have never seen s00j perform, and she is going to be within 50 miles of you, go. renniekins and hannunvaakuna had never seen her before the Saturday afternoon show, and they were both enchanted. We saw both of her shows Saturday, and several people agreed that if she had announced she was going to perform a third show at 9:00 Sunday morning, singing pages of the phone book, we would all gotten out of bed and attended.)

So the Guests of Honor were great, but the people ... I can't ever remember spending so much time with so many different people in one weekend. I'd make a list, but I'd forget someone important. There were at least 35 of my LJ friends at the con, and a bunch more from Twitter and Facebook. There's a few things I have to mention, though:

* Staying up until 4:00 Saturday morning and having a truly wonderful time.
* Our Fourth Annual Saturday Night Noodles Dinner - this year with zoethe , theferrett , skyflame and Kate. (No, marcy_italiano, we did not take them the scenic route!)
* Finally getting to see Rennie's engagement ring and getting to congratulate her and telling M what a smart man he is.
* Hearing Scalzi give Rennie some very touching marriage advice.
* earthgoat  wearing the red shirt on Saturday and then wearing that dress.
* Buying baby oil for sheryl67  so she would take off the damn clown makeup!
* Trying to find an inflatable pool to go with the baby oil.
* Seeing Coral, Little B and Big B ... three immense pools of awesomeness in tiny bodies.
* Shooting pictures of shadowriderhope's latest amazing con outfit.
* The return of the hottest steampunk pirate-hunters alive, the crew of the S.S. Zepherus.
* Jessi doing a great job as ConChair.
* Seeing a friend who is a photographer for the Detroit News and that I also know through my movie friends - she was there taking pictures of Cat's last panel for the newspaper. Newspaper are like the internet, but on paper. Strange, I know.
* Hearing bluelucy talk about planning her wedding with atdt1991 . We have so many happy couples in our circle.

Thanks everyone for a wonderful weekend. I hope to see most of you again in May, if not sooner!

The pictures are here.

These two movie posters are done with pictures I took ... I find that cool.

These were taken while I was shooting on the set of "The Message". Those pictures are at picasaweb.google.com/stareagle/TheMessage, but here are some extras:

Brit Hume on Tiger Woods, 1/3/2009

"Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person I think is a very open question, and it's a tragic situation for him. I think he's lost his family, it's not clear to me if he'll be able to have a relationship with his children, but the Tiger Woods that emerges once the news value dies out of this scandal -- the extent to which he can recover -- seems to me to depend on his faith. He's said to be a Buddhist; I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.'"

Most losses, one season: 16, Detroit Lions, 2008
Most losses, two seasons: 30, Detroit Lions, 2008-09
Most losses, 40-game stretch: 37, Detroit Lions, 2007-09

My top 5 events covered of the decade, barring anything crazy happening in the second half of the Pistons-Bulls game:
1) Ron Artest vs. the Palace.
2) Justin Verlander's no-hitter.
3) 2006 Tigers postseason.
4) 2004 NBA finals.
5) LeBron's 48-point playoff game.

Others: Tigers going for 120, Lions going for 0-16, Shock winning 3 titles in 3 arenas, Shock-Sparks brawl, Big Shot Rob, Stephen Curry beats Wisconsin, Padraig Harrington's putt to win the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills, Tiger Woods shooting 66-66-66-66 to win his 50th PGA Tour event at the Buick Open.

How Not to be Seen
Originally uploaded by Dave Hogg.

"Mr. Nesbitt has learned the first lesson of not being seen - not to stand up. However, he has chosen a very obvious piece of cover."

*piano explodes*

Seriously, there's a piano sitting in the middle of a vacant lot in downtown Detroit. There's a great short story begging to be written here, called "Urban Mozart".

I'm huge on Swedish YouTube!

When I go upstairs to the bedroom, Storm quite often races past me and leaps into a cardboard box that is sitting on a ledge next to the top of the stairs. She then flops onto her side, ready for petting.

This afternoon, she did just that, and I swear she was already in mid-leap before she realized there was 17 pounds of Kai already filling the box. Neither Angie or I can remember Kai ever being in that box, but there he was.

Storm hit the air brakes, lowered the flaps and somehow ended up just short of the box, with only her nose hitting Kai. She proceeded to chew on the edge of the box under Kai's baleful stare, then slunk away to find a new spot.

Well, I got a source to confirm it last night, and now AP has gotten another one, so we're officially reporting that the Detroit Shock are leaving after 12 seasons, three championships and seven straight playoff appearances. As of 2010, they will play in Tulsa, be coached by Nolan Richardson and well, not be Brittany's favorite sports team anymore.

I've covered the team since their first game in 1998. It was a valuable source of income, but it was also one of the most enjoyable teams I've ever been around. I'm not a big fan of the original coach, but you couldn't ask for a nicer group of players - Korie Hlede, Cindy Brown and the Aussie trio of Rachael Sporn, Sandy Brondello and Carla Porter. The team had some early success, but then struggled as the original coach made some divisive decisions.

She was eventually replaced by Greg Williams, a wonderful man who had done great things for women's basketball ... and who was an utter disaster. The Shock quickly turned into the league's worst team, and Greg was fired when they got off to a 0-10 start in 2002. He was replaced by a man that no one could have ever pictured coaching women's basketball, Bill Laimbeer.

The Shock finished that season 9-23 and the people at Palace Sports & Entertainment were ready to fold the team, but Laimbeer talked them out of it. He thought that, with the additional of a couple more players, he could turn the team around in a hurry. He already had Deanna Nolan and Swin Cash, and he got Ruth Riley in the dispersal draft and Cheryl Ford in the college draft. Given that nucleus, he turned the Shock into the best franchise in the league. They won the 2003 title, added two more championships in 2006 and 2008, and were one jumper away from the 2007 titles as well.

By 2009, Cash and Riley were long gone and Nolan and Ford were battling injuries. Even Laimbeer left early in the season to go after an NBA job. They lost a key player, Plenette Pierson, for the season from an injury suffered in the opening moments of the opening game, but Rick Mahorn and Cheryl Reeve kept the team battling, and they came agonizingly close to a fourth straight Eastern Conference title before losing to Indiana.

But this season always had the feeling of a farewell. The economy had wrecked the crowds and the death of Bill Davidson meant that the team had lost its biggest supporter. And now that's official - Tulsa gets our team.

On a professional level, this is going to cost me a significant chunk of money every summer, but that's the least of my cares at the moment. I'm going to miss the people. Rick Mahorn, for all of his ferocious reputation, and Cheryl Reeve are great people who have devoted so much energy to this team, and they both deserve much better than to be cast aside for Nolan Richardson.

With one or two exceptions, the players have been the most media-friendly group of any team I've covered. In a locker room containing the likes of Katie Smith, Taj McWilliams, Cheryl Ford, Deanna Nolan, Alexis Hornbuckle, Plenette Pierson and Shavonte Zellous, you could also get cooperation, and intelligent quotes. That holds true throughout the history of the team, starting with the people I mentioned, and going through Astou Ndiaye-Diatta, Wendy Palmer, Jennifer Azzi, Jae Kingi, Pee Wee Johnson and many others. And of course, Ruth Riley and Swin Cash, two of the nicest people I've met in sports.

But there's a very personal reason that I'll always have a spot in my heart for the Shock - my step-daughter Brittany. When I started dating her mom in 2003, Britt was understandably wary of another person trying to replace her dad. I didn't have a lot in common with an 8-year-old girl, but she liked basketball, and she quickly grew to love the Shock. This wasn't just basketball, these were girls, just like her! She was in Nashville for the end of the 2003 season, so she didn't get to experience that title, but she was in the stands at Joe Louis Arena in 2006, and she was back again at Eastern Michigan in 2008.

She was a fan of the team, but there were always three players that stood out for her - Ruth Riley, Swin Cash and Deanna Nolan. She still has copies of the pictures she got with all three at a Shock open practice - she's very proud that her arm and shoulder are in the picture on Ruth's Wikipedia page.

She was sad when Ruth went to San Antonio, and even sadder when Swin went to Seattle. She refused to go to the first Seattle-Detroit game after the trade, because she couldn't stand the idea of seeing her heroines playing against each other. This season, she did go, and got a big hug from Swin before the game, which made her month.

And until the last day, she always loved Tweety. She wore her autographed #14 jersey to school on Friday - the white one, as opposed to the autographed blue #14 jersey she also has - and it was really hard for me to break the news to her last night. She's got other interests now - boys, marching band, Homecoming dances - but she was still crushed to find out that her team was leaving.

I got the nickname "Doc Shock" from some of my colleagues, because I was the only person that covered the team every year, and because I cared about it. It was meant teasingly, but I always took some pride in it. I still want to write a book about the history of the team, and maybe I'll do that now.

So yeah, I know the jokes, but I'll miss the Shock. Thanks to everyone involved for a great 12-season run, and for those of you still part of the team, good luck in Tulsa.

LCROSS's final three tweets before hitting the moon:

“And what's this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ownge', 'Round', 'Ground'!"

"That's it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it'll be friends with me?”

At some point tonight, the Milwaukee Bucks will probably play a lineup of Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Ersan Ilyasova, Andrew Bogut, Michael Redd and Carlos Delfino. That would be five players from five different continents - Africa, Europe, Australia, North America and South America, respectively.

The Tigers just released a statement from Miguel Cabrera:

No, Miguel, it isn't just a personal matter, and it isn't just a matter of your family's privacy. It's a matter of your decision to spend Friday night and Saturday morning drinking extremely heavily, and how that decision affected your ability to perform Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.

Friday night, the Tigers played horribly in an 8-0 (that's a score, not a Muppet smiley) loss to the White Sox - a game they needed to wrap up the AL Central division title in time to set up their pitching rotation for the playoff series with the Yankees.

Their star player, Miguel Cabrera, decided to atone for the team's performance by going drinking with some friends from the White Sox (and possibly other Tigers) in Birmingham. He got home at 6:30 am, and was reportedly talking so loudly on his cell phone that he woke up his children. His wife tried to take the phone away from him, and there was a scuffle. She called 911, and he was taken into custody because he was "uncooperative and incoherent".

No charges were filed, but he managed to blow a spectacular 0.26 on the breathalyzer. He was released into the care of Tigers officials at about 8:30 am. Less than 11 hours later, with obvious scratches on his face that he blamed on his dog, he had a horrendous game, and he wasn't much better on Sunday.

Yes, boys will be boys, but you have to expect more from a player that is getting paid $153 million over eight years to be the star of your team.

I've covered a lot of odd things in my 20 years working for AP.

Until today, I had never seen a baseball player having to be held back from charging his own dugout.

In the eighth inning, with the Twins leading the Tigers 8-2, Minnesota reliever Jose Mijares somehow decided that the teams were in a beanball war and threw a pitch high and behind Adam Everett. There were numerous reasons why that was a stupid thing to do:

1) While one player from each team had been hit by a pitch and another one had come close to Marcus Thames, there was nothing at all ill-tempered about the game. There had just been some bad pitches.

2) If there is a beanball war going on (which there wasn't), you throw at the opposing team's GOOD hitters. You don't throw at one of the worst hitters in the American League.

3) If there is a beanball war going on (which there wasn't), and you feel the need to hit someone, you aim at their waist or lower. You never throw the ball near someone's head for obvious reasons.

(Yes, the word "beanball" technically means hitting someone in the head, but the phrase "beanball war" has come to mean any situation where the teams start hitting each other intentionally.)

4) If the Twins and Tigers are in a beanball war (which they weren't), and a Twins pitcher decided he needs to hit a Tigers batter, you do NOT pick Adam Everett. Not only is he, as mentioned earlier, one of the worst hitters in baseball, he's also one of the nicest guys in baseball. Oh, and he played last season for the Twins. I suspect if you surveyed the Twins and asked them to pick their favorite opposing player, he'd finish near the top of the list.

5) Most importantly, if you are going to throw at a batter, you never, ever, ever throw high and behind them. If a player sees a ball coming at them, their natural instinct is to duck away from the plate. If the ball is aimed behind them at shoulder-blade level, they can very easily duck their head right into it.

Ignoring all those rules, Mijares threw the pitch. Twins manager Ron Gardenhire immediately went to the mound and dressed him down, but everyone in the ballpark knew what was coming next.

Sure enough, on the first pitch of the next inning, Jeremy Bonderman threw at Delmon Young's legs, hitting him on the back of the right knee.

Young was furious, but not at Bonderman. He got up and immediately started screaming and pointing at Mijares - his own teammate. Luckily, some of the Twins got to him before he could charge his own player.

Of course, given the rules of baseball, three Tigers got ejected: Leyland for complaining about the original pitch behind Everett, Bonderman for hitting Young intentionally, and Tigers catcher Gerald Laird for telling the umpire what he thought of the whole thing. No Twins were ejected, although no one would have blamed the umpire for throwing out Mijares.

Gardenhire was so angry that, as soon as the game was over, he called Leyland to apologize and then told the media that the entire situation was Mijares' fault and the Tigers had done nothing wrong. Several Minnesota players said they would have been equally angry with Mijares if they had been in Young's place, and that the Tigers were blameless.

Weird. Very, very weird.

Roman Polanski:

1) Pled guilty to charges of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl.

I don't care how long ago that was - he's gone on to live a luxury because he didn't want to serve the punishment for a crime that he pled guilty to committing.

I don't care that there might have been judicial misconduct that took his plea agreement off the table. He could have filed an appeal, just like every felon that doesn't have the luxury of friendly Europeans to shelter him from the law.

I don't care that the victim thinks this should be dropped. I do feel bad that she's getting dragged into this again, but that's Roman Polanski's fault. If he hadn't done this to her, she wouldn't be in the spotlight. Famous people shouldn't get breaks from the legal system because their fame brings public attention to their victims.

I don't care that he's "suffered enough already." Yes, he's had to live in the lap of luxury and travel the world. He couldn't pick up his Oscar in person. Boo hoo.

I don't care if other Hollywood legends feel bad for him. How would they feel if he had done it to their kid?

Justice is supposed to be blind. It certainly shouldn't be making decisions based on the movies it likes.

As many of you know, Britt is a freshman at Royal Oak High School, and she's in the marching band, so the football team has become an important part of her life.

And, boy, are they awful.

They went 0-9 last season. This year, they started the season with a 57-6 loss at home, and followed that up with a 57-0 loss on the road. Tonight, in their third game, they are losing 44-0 at halftime.

They don't even have a JV team, so there is almost no realistic prospect of getting better in the near future, and because of the size of the school, they have to play a Class A schedule. In back-to-back weeks later this year, they have to play Clarkston and Lake Orion, probably the best two teams in Metro Detroit. To put that in context, Lake Orion beat West Bloomfield 49-21 last week, and West Bloomfield is currently beating Royal Oak 44-0 at the half.

At what point does this cease being a positive experience for the kids? I know that winning isn't everything, but this isn't a matter of losing. This is ritual humiliation.

John McCain is calling on Rep. Joe Wilson to apologize for shouting "liar" at the President during tonight's speech.

Is Senator McCain also going to call on himself to apologize for all of the disrespectful/untrue things that he, Sarah Palin and his campaign said about Obama in 2008? As much as I think it was wrong for Wilson to do that, I certainly don't think John McCain has the right to demand an apology for anything.

Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor on why he had Michael Vick's name on his eye black in Saturday's game against Navy:

"Not everybody's the perfect person in the world. I mean everyone kills people, murders people, steals from you, steals from me, whatever. I think that people need a second chance, and I've always looked up to Mike Vick, and I always will."

Everyone MURDERS people?!?

This is either the greatest thing in the history of the Intarwebs or the worst:

This needs a little setup. It was the 2006 NHL playoffs and the Anaheim fans had booed the Canadian anthem at the previous game. So the series goes back to Edmonton:

Reading Michael Lombardi's "Blue List" - top 10 (or so) players at each NFL position, and his "Almost Blue" list - the next group. The Lions have 1 Blue (Calvin Johnson) and 1 Almost Blue (Jason Hanson).

Two players that are good or great. And one of them is the kicker, who is hurt. Matt Millen may be gone, but his destruction lives on.

I had to skip several social opportunities to watch THIS? It was 10-0 Browns before the local broadcast got a chance to introduce the Lions offense. It was 17-0 before The Savior, Matt Stafford, completed his first pass ... well, to the right team, anyway.

I love my job. Not as much during preseason football.