Homeward bound

Saw the new Indiana Jones film last night. I won't spoil the plot for you, but I will say it lived down to my expectations. It was as if they had a meeting and put around a dozen potentially good story ideas on a blackboard, then said "Let's use all of them!" What they wound up with is a bunch of major plot developments that occur out of nowhere and frequently make zero sense in the context of the overall story. Some action scenes are well done, others insult your intelligence. One in particular involving the new "young Indy" character basically tuning into Tarzan is beyond absurd.

Also, is there some reason two characters spend the entire second half of the movie wearing leather jackets in the South American jungle? Doesn't look all that chilly. They've made Indiana Jones into a cartoon character. Fred from Scooby Doo always has his ascot, and Indy only wears two outfits - leather jacket or suit with bow tie and glasses when he's teaching. Crystal Skull's not unwatchable, but it's clearly not in the class of the other three.

We may get instant replay in MLB. To me, anything that gets calls right is worth waiting for a couple of minutes. You can't use this for balls and strikes, but if it means we never see a Don Denkinger moment from the 85 World Series again, bring it on.

Hard to argue with any of the names Dennis Dodd puts forth as the coaches on the hottest seats in college football. I was amazed Syracuse, Arizona and UNLV didn't fire their coaches last year. No SEC coach is higher than Vandy's Bobby Johnson at 3, but look who the next hottest seat in the league supposedly is - Steve Spurrier at 2.5. Dodd thinking Spurrier's job status is less safe than that of Phillip Fulmer or Sylvester Croom is nuts. He should be at 1.

At least a few times a year, someone in my profession says something that makes me embarassed to be in the same field as them. Mark Madden's show on ESPN 1250 in Pittsburgh gave me one of those moments yesterday. Absolutely disgraceful.

The guy who's always on the radio and TV hyping his ID theft prevention company had his identity stolen. Sign me up!

I'm traveling back to Florida today. It'll be good to spend some time in Tampa as well as at my home in Gainesville (and yes, I still have one). I probably won't blog until Tuesday unless something really huge happens between now and then. I hope you have a great holiday weekend.