With a new PSL bowling season fast approaching, I made it my goal to get back into the groove on the lanes – whatever groove I ever had, that is. I’ve gone bowling about 6 times since I quit my “serious” league back in September, and fortunately, I’ve been steadily improving each time. I’m starting to consistently pick up my spares, especially right side spares, which is a huge factor in my average continuing to improve. With Megan and Meadows picking up their own shiny new equipment, and Samantha bowling with consistency, we should do pretty well this year.

Anyway, last night was ridiculous. I bowled the best game of my life. My first game was unreal (for me, at least) as I began with a 6-7-10 split. I took out the 6-10, and settled for a 9. Then a slight miracle happened…I struck out. 11 consecutive strikes closed out a new high game for me (279). John, the Arsenal manager who was watching, recommended that I throw an extra ball before I started the next game to see if I could hit 12 in a row, so I tossed a 12th ball down the lane. It was the first ball that I missed the pocket with, but in all of it’s Brooklyn glory, all of the pins kindly fell for me. I’m not sure if I’ll ever throw 12 strikes in a row again, but it was exciting. It’s sort of depressing to think that I might never top that game unless I roll a 300, but I’m still pumped for the new league to begin.

“Nine-dash Heroes” – our team name inspired by one of Davis’ many nicknames – hits the lanes January 15th. Here’s to a fun season, and hopefully our third consecutive PSL championship season (summer kickball, fall softball, winter bowling?).

It’s been a while since I saw a commercial so hilarious that it actually caused audible laughter from me. Luckily, the Snuggie commercials are here to help introduce a little chuckle in our sometimes difficult times.

Have you seen this ridiculous thing on TV yet? It was curiously funny when they showed people wearing it around their house, but when they show the people in Snuggies around a fire and cheering at an athletic event, I lost it. Wow, is it bad…

Get yours today!

Okay. I received this team photo of the 2008 Steelers the other night when I was at the tour, and the designer in me immediately screamed, “what the hell?”.

I felt embarrassed for the Steelers. I’ve received Ravens team photos in past years, and I even picked up the Browns team photo this year at the Ravens/Browns game in Cleveland. Both are of impeccable quality compared to the Steelers photo. It’s not like the actual photography is bad or anything. I’m even okay with the idea that the Steelers organization thought that it would be a great idea to shoot the team in one location and Photoshop them onto an old Heinz Field photo background. I mean, maybe the weather was bad or something and there was no time to reschedule. Whatever. What I’m not okay with is the execution of the whole thing.

Now, you’ll probably have to roll over to the Flickr page where I have the scanned image hosted to see the details, but think about this stuff as you chuckle.

1. Lighting. If you’re going to superimpose the team into a location different from your team photo shoot, please at least create common lighting by paying attention to shadows. Seriously. If you look at the background, the light is coming from the southwest and the sun is still high (see how the shadows are cast on the scoreboard from the Heinz Field sign). The lighting on the team is straight-up indoor shooting with the lighting coming from both sides, probably slightly above head level, as evidenced by the shadows cast off of the players onto the coaches’ white polo shirts.
2. Shadows. Whoever photoshopped the team onto the background obviously has no idea about light and the shadows cast from different lighting. He or she has no idea about how distance affects the way a shadow is cast. In fact, I’m not even sure if that person knows how to apply a drop shadow in Photoshop. It looks like the shadow was created with the brush tool and someone with a twitch. Regardless, it was applied with no effort. The soft shadowing that surrounds the players on the bottom make them look like they’re floating. Note to designer: these guys would be sitting on the ground. That means the shadows should be shorter in distance and hard because of the object that is casting the shadows has a close proximity to the surface. Plus, I understand that the photographer gave you conflicting lighting to work with, but at least go with the shadows that the sun would create. That means that the guys standing in the back row shouldn’t have any shadows at all. Or are they so team-oriented that they are constantly surrounded by a noticeable aura of black? Maybe I should be asking Andy Lizanich as he’s the one with the most noticeable glow. Also, the shadows are way too soft, and don’t have nearly the level of variance that should be there. Floating people…so frustrating.
3. Outlining. This might be the only thing our little Photoshop “expert” might be capable of. Congratulations. We always need outliners here at my job to trace t-shirts and camis. Now stop embarrassing yourself and get a less high-profile gig.
4. Creating cohesion between the background and the faked foreground. This is where the real observation and detail shouldn’t be ignored…if you’re a good designer…because this is where some of the magic happens. If the players are sitting on grass, would the lines where the players’ asses meet the ground be a perfect curve? No, you moron. The grass would create a textured meeting point. Copy some grass, scale it and put it over their gold asses, shoes, etc. Apply to the floating footballs as well. Also, if you want two Steelers helmets in front of the team, please don’t just clone one and leave it at that. Please change some of the details, so it doesn’t look exactly the same. The only thing that looks convincing on the picture is the damn helmet in the grass. I guess that’s why the designer just copied it. I think that was actually shot on the grass.

Although, maybe I’m being too hard on this person. It’s not his fault that he was given a task way out of his league. It might not be his fault that the art director was a moron and hired a skill-less putz with no observation or technical skills. It’s also probably not his fault for deciding to ignore the lighting and match it to the background. I could see if this was some small-time company with no budget for marketing, but this is a NFL team. No matter how small of a market your team is in, you should be able to get better workers than this. It’s an embarrassment that an organization with as much of a successful history on the field can’t pull it together to get the damn team photo right. I know most don’t care and won’t notice, but for me, this is ridiculous. Note to all employers: Stop hiring awful designers. All they do is surround us with awful design…and people are accepting the crap as the norm. Stop it. Seriously. Stop. Help make the world at least look better.

Last night was pretty fun. I mean, everyone knows I’m not a Steelers fan, but having an opportunity to tour their practice facilities and even participate in a punt, pass, and kick competition on their indoor practice field made the night pretty cool.

I headed over straight from work since their headquarters is basically right next to AE’s home office. We had about a half-an-hour to just play around on their indoor field. Since I throw a football about as accurate as Jordan Palmer, and the punting game was going to be all luck (pinning the ball as close as possible to the goal line without going into the end zone), I just practiced kicking field goals…and man, was it fun! I’ve never tried kicking field goals, but I always assumed that – as a soccer player – it would be pretty natural. During our warm-ups, I was able to hit the short stuff with ease (<30 yards). I moved up to 40-yarders with ease, as well, but I started missing once I set up at the 40-yard line. Since that would be a 50-yarder, I wasn’t really bummed about missing from there. I had the distance by at least 5 yards, probably more, but I just kept pushing the ball right. It was still fun, regardless. I could’ve practiced kicking all night…

I ended up doing awful in the pass, punt, and kick competition, though. My inexperience with throwing a football (other than a Nerf when I was 10 years old) showed as I couldn’t hit the dummy once. Pinning a ball via punt from the 30 is really difficult, as well. My only effort ended up bouncing into the end zone. Then my field goal kicking competition ended with me missing a seemingly easy 25-yard field goal. It really wasn’t a big deal, though. The prizes were cheap vinyl footballs with the team signatures printed on it. I wanted to win, but only for the pride. Hopefully I get drawn to go again next year. I’ll be practicing up.

After the competition, we checked out the locker room and ate in the team cafeteria. The locker room was pretty cool. It was simple, but it was neat to see each players’ locker. I thought it was sort of ironic how Hines Ward had some Bible verse about not being vain and staying humble or something…then in his second locker, he had a poster of himself. Troy Polamalu had a bunch of religious stuff, and Big Ben had a little photo of who I presume are his grandparents. Willie Colon had a bottle of Patron in his locker…I wonder if that’s to deal with all the blame he receives when Ben gets sacked. He and Heath Miller both had crazy masks hanging up, too. Not sure what that was about.

The night ended with a brief appearance from Mewelde Moore. He was a replacement for Deshea Townsend, who couldn’t make it. I got a photo and an autograph from Moore on this year’s team picture, which is what I’m going to complain about in my next post after I get it scanned. It’s dreadful. All-in-all, though, it was a fun night. It’s not what I wanted to win when I entered a raffle for tickets to the Dallas game this coming weekend, but whatever.