Saturday, March 04, 2006

If only Tequila

I wish it wasn't NyQuil. Tequila (the other Q drink) would be preferable, but somehow I have managed to become sick. Again. Oh well, sick happens.

NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement

Look, wealthy teams, I know that it isn't fair that you should have to give up more of your income to other NFL teams, but perhaps some of your popularity comes from your rivalries to the other teams you help? Both the owners and players make a ton of money in this sport and on all fronts they seem very stingy. I think I would propose some major changes however. First off, I would reduce the pay of the players. Second I would increase the allocation of player money. Third, I would increase the monies that go into the NFL retirement program.

Many of the big name players do their own financing but many don't or don't even do it effectively. So to the first point, reducing pay, I am not talking about a major deal here, but a limitation to a percentage of the salary cap. So for instance, the most any given player can make in a year would be 8% of the salary cap, so this year that would mean that a player could only make 8% of $94.9 million. That is the sum of their prorated signing bonus, incentives and base salary so that there will be no trickery here. Today's $94 million is given all to the players and that accounts for 54% of a teams allocation. I would like to see the difference of what the players want to current placed in a NFL 401(k). Plus the players can contribute some of their money into that as well to create a cushion for them when they are finished.

To do away with the salary cap, and the money sharing in the NFL would destroy everything that I have come to love about the game. We will lose the aspect that on any given Sunday, our team could win. We would lose these battles of equals and the power of groups of heros to emerge. We would lose the aspect of good team management to create forces were all teams start on equal footing. We would lose American Football and they would lose a lot of viewership.

I may build one of these

This one falls into my friggin' awesome category. Something about it just makes me giddy, but what really gets me is that in the end it turns out to be a good looking guitar. I will have to think about what other things I could build into a guitar...

Toilet Seat Guitar

Our Cell Phones suck!

This is probably one of my longest running rants about living in the U.S. Our cell phones really suck. Part of the other things that I have seen on web sites like Engadget, Gizmodo, and Engadget Mobile only whet my appetite for a phone that will provide all the functionality I want in a tiny, sweet looking package. I would love to see better cameras, faster data networks, bigger displays, bluetooth, good processors, applications, coverage, etc. I think the only thing we have right is battery life. Even the general style does not live to the Geek that drives me. Think of the Geek as similar to the Fast, only it has a pocket protector and a more demonic voice. It desires the pinnacle of technology in ones pocket to provide connectivity where ever you are.

But on the plus side, it looks like someone is trying to do just that. I hope that it takes off, and I might even considering using my dollars to purchase into it.

Source of rant: normal life and Engadget Mobile: Wired profiles Sky Dayton and the birth of Helio

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy Bday!
Aaron, you forgot one thing in your football post, you are a Lions fan. The Lions can't win on any given Sunday. They could before Millen, but not now.

Unknown said...

Sometimes I live in an idealistic world. It seemed like there were some teams last year, that should have just not played. How about Any Given Sunday for 85% of teams?