College Football Is Here...ALREADY?!

Can you believe it? We're not even a week to go until September and already college football is underway. Watching the first few minutes of "College Gameday" this morning, the experts were talking about Clemson and Alabama in the championship game...again. Ugh, same shit, different year.

I wish somethin could be done to fix the continuity problem that college football seemingly has; every year you can pencil in five or six teams to be in championship contention. Alabama, Ohio State, a second SEC school, a Big XII school, Notre Dame, and an ACC school. It's gets redundant and tiresome after a while.

Unfortunately, the current system is dominated by television, and as Daft Punk once said, television rules the nation.  But what if college football weren't held down by exorbitant television deals and ESPN? And it was a utopian sport without the shady recruiting practices and under the table deals (I assume they happen) that the big schools get away with more often than not?

A few months ago, I decided to totally revamp the system in my head. First, there would be a sixteen-team playoff to determine the national champion. Second, I would totally realign the conferences. How so? Well, let me explain.

Currently, the "power 5", as it's known, looks like this:

Atlantic Coast		Southeastern		Big Ten		Pac 10		Big 12
Boston College		Alabama		Illinois		Arizona		Baylor
Clemson		Arkansas		Indiana		Arizona State		Kansas
Duke		Auburn		Iowa		California		Kansas State
Florida State		Florida		Maryland		UCLA		Iowa State
Georgia Tech		Georgia		Michigan		Colorado		Oklahoma
Louisville		Kentucky		Michigan State		Oregon		Oklahoma St
Miami		LSU		Minnesota		Oregon State		Texas
North Carolina		Mississippi		Nebraska		So. California		Texas Christian
NC State		Miss State		Northwestern		Stanford		Texas Tech
Pittsburgh		Missouri		Ohio State		Utah		West Virginia
Syracuse		South Carolina		Penn State		Washington
Virginia		Tennessee		Purdue		Washington St
Virginia Tech		Texas A&M		Rutgers
Wake Forest		Vanderbilt		Wisconsin

with the other conferences in the Bowl Subdivision looking like this:

Conf USA		Independents		Mountain West		MAC		Sun Belt		American
Charlotte		Army		Air Force		Akron		App. St		UCF
Florida Atlantic		BYU		Boise State		Ball State		Arkansas State		Cincinnati
Florida Int'l		Notre Dame		Colorado State		Bowling Green		Ga Southern		Connecticut
Louisiana Tech		Massachusetts		Fresno State		Buffalo		Georgia State		ECU
Marshall		Liberty		Hawaii		Central Mich		Idaho		Houston
Middle Tenn				Nevada		Eastern Mich		LA-Lafayette		Memphis
North Texas				UNLV		Kent State		LA-Monroe		Navy
Old Dominion				New Mexico		Miami OH		New Mexico St		USF
Rice				San Diego State		Northern IL		South Alabama		SMU
Southern Miss				San Jose State		Ohio		Texas State		Temple
Texas El Paso				Utah State		Toledo		Troy		Tulane
UTSA				Wyoming		Western Mich		CCU		Tulsa

One of the first things I did was take the schools from the American Conference and add them to the Power 5, making it a Power 6 and shut up UCF fans who feel they're slighted from the national conversation. Second, I decided to put schools in conferences that geographically made sense; that means that West Virginia is out of the Big XII, and Missouri and Texas A&M are out of the SEC and back in the Big XII. Also, Maryland, Rutgers, and Penn State are no longer In the Big 10. I also decided to break up the northern schools in the ACC, which means Louisville, Pitt, Syracuse, and BC are out of that conference.

As for the American, I decided to completely obliterate the conference altogether since geographically it's all over the place. The three northeast schools, UConn, Temple, and Navy I decided to leave in. I also decided to add Pitt, Syracuse, and Boston College from the ACC, Penn State, Rutgers, and Maryland from the Big 10, and West Virginia from the Big XII. I also tossed in Army (natural rival with Navy) and UMass to make it twelve teams so a championship game could be played. The American now has all of the northeast's FBS schools in one conference; oh and the backyard brawl between WVU and Pitt is back. You're welcome.

As for Cincinnati, I decided to place them and Louisville from the ACC and place them in the SEC to replace Texas A&M and Missouri. The Big XII with the departure of West Virginia and the re-addition of A&M and Missouri makes 11 teams; they need a 12th. Why not Houston? Problem solved. The Big Ten now has a problem with 11 teams. Simple solution: add Notre Dame. Then you have the ACC who I split apart already. They've gone from fourteen to ten schools. But don't worry, I've got a solution. Hey, UCF. You know how you complain about being in an inferior league and not much recognition. Well, you and USF can take your petty "War on I-4" to the ACC. Good luck with that.

That leaves the Pac 12 as the only conference remaining. Truth be told, I was going to leave them alone, but then I realized that Boise State might complain that I had given preferential treatment to UCF for putting them in a power conference and not them. So at the last minute I added them and BYU to the conference.

So, here's what your new Power Six would look like:

								Atlantic Coast Southeastern Big Ten Big 12 Pac 10 American UCF Alabama Illinois Baylor Arizona Boston College Clemson Arkansas Indiana Kansas Arizona State Connecticut Duke Auburn Iowa Kansas State Boise State Penn State Florida State Cincinnati Michigan Houston BYU Rutgers Georgia Tech Florida Michigan State Iowa State California Maryland Miami Georgia Minnesota Oklahoma Colorado West Virginia North Carolina Kentucky Nebraska Oklahoma St Oregon Pittsburgh NC State Louisville Northwestern Texas Oregon State Syracuse USF LSU Notre Dame Texas Christian USC Navy Virginia Mississippi Ohio State Texas Tech Stanford Army Virginia Tech Miss State Purdue Texas A&M UCLA Temple Wake Forest South Carolina Wisconsin Missouri Utah Massachusetts Tennessee Washington Vanderbilt Washington St
								As for the other conferences, they would look like this after realignment:
								Mountain West MAC Sun Belt Conf USA South Atlantic Air Force Akron Arkansas State UAB East Carolina Colorado State Ball State Texas El Paso Louisiana Tech Ga Southern Fresno State Bowling Green New Mexico St Memphis Georgia State Hawaii Buffalo Tulsa Middle Tenn Charlotte Nevada Central Mich So Methodist Troy Florida Atlantic UNLV Eastern Mich Texas State South Alabama Florida Int'l New Mexico Kent State UTSA LA-Lafayette Marshall San Diego State Miami OH North Texas LA-Monroe Old Dominion San Jose State Northern IL Rice Southern Miss Appalachian St Utah State Ohio  Idaho Western KY Coastal Carolina Wyoming Toledo Tulane Liberty Western Mich
								The 16-team playoff would go like this: Winners from the Power Six conferences get an automatic bid, plus two winners amongst the other five conferences. Plus eight at-large bids. First and second round games would be on the campus of the higher seed, then the bowl system would fill in the other matchups. Until you get to the National Championship game at a pre-determined site.  Would this solve everything wrong about college football? Of course not, but it doesn't hurt to dream. As for this season, I'm going to try something I haven't done before: predict the winners of certain games. Since there are only two this week, I have two picks. No research or analysis here, just fling by the seat of my pants. This evening in Orlando, Miami and Florida renew acquaintances. Honestly, I think this could (and should) be an annual series, but it seems like one school keeps trying to duck from the other. I am a Gators fan, but not a "Tim Tebow is our lord and savior, and the world needs to revolve around him" Gators fan. And no fangirls, he isn't going to get called up by the Mets this season, so quit dreaming. You're almost as annoying as Rays fans (who I promise to get to in another post...someday). As for Miami, they have not even been to the ACC title game let alone win an ACC title...yet. Hopefully the game will be entertaining, but I have Miami in an upset.  The other game pits Arizona at Hawaii. My only thought on this is will I stay up to watch it? Probably not, but it would be nice to hear Rich Waltz (formerly of the Marlins and ow with CBSSN) again. Arizona wins a squeaker.  Enjoy your Saturday! CT

A Hashtag Game Played, And A Nerve Touched...

Early Monday morning, I participated in a hashtag game entitled "#RepublicansMakeMe." My response was simple and honest.  Apparently, I touched a nerve; over 34,000 impressions and counting. Well, for those of you who may be intrigued, allow me to explain.

As most of you know, I live in the Tampa Bay area of Florida and have been in this area for the better part of the last two decades, since my enlistment in the Navy ended. For most of the first ten years, I'd say living here has been somewhat enjoyable; I don't like it now.  A main reason for this is of course #FloridaMan, but another reason I've grown disgusted with Florida is politics, especially in the era, or error of Trump. Florida is of course the ultimate swing state politically (remember the late Tim Russert with his white board on the night of the 2000 election?), and the Tampa Bay area lies right on the ultimate swing vote region; the I-4 Corridor.

Now you don't need me to tell you that I-4 sucks. Orlando? Right on I-4. Disney? Just off I-4. Daytona Int'l Speedway? Not far from I-4. You get the idea. It's full of gridlock, headaches, and possibly road rage (which is a dangerous combination in and of itslef, #FloridaMan and road rage).

But that's the whole interstate, we're talking Tampa, which is he western terminus of the highway from hell. Here you pretty much have an even split between left and right, but by listening to "local" news-talk radio (and I use that term VERY loosely) it's rather one-sided. I haven't listened in almost three years because of this very fact. On said station you have two old guys (I guess they haven't retired yet) complaining about the left, followed by Mr. Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs himself, Glenn Beck (more on him later), then Rush Limbaugh, then Sean Hannity, then the former #1 morning FM personality now Trump fanboy Todd Schnitt. Then, if not preempted for Lightning hockey, it's Mark Levin, who beckons for the halcyon days of the Reagan administration and basically will call anyone who dares calls his show to disagree with him a moron and then proceeds to hang up on said caller. In other words, an insufferable murder of crows (as opposed to murderer's row) of right-wing talking heads.

So essentially in my mind, you have 16-hours plus of right wing (12 of those NON LOCAL) talk crammed down our throats all day courtesy of the iHeart (iHate Local) Radio behemoth. It's like Sinclair Broadcasting only it's radio and it makes me want to puke. Yes, I know that a radio station is not the reason to move from an area, but when you have to put up with listening to Trump clones all day and all night, enough is enough.

What's weird about all this was up until 2015, I supported the GOP. My stepmom grew up not far from where Reagan grew up in Illinois, and was an election official in the (predominantly Republican) precinct of  the town in North Carolina I grew up in. The Tea Party (and Sarah Palin) helped put a big damper on the GOP, and the eight years of Obama weren't as bad as Republicans made it out to be; in fact it was pretty damn good if I'm being honest I had my suspicions about Bush to be honest, but I was too naïve I guess to speak out about it, except one time.

In the year following 9/11, I noticed that the aforementioned radio station was heavily backing anything and everything GWB said. I called it into question on an internet bulletin board, only to get shot down by a nighttime radio host (and company douchebag guy) on the FM sister station. So after that I kinda kept quiet about everything. In retrospect, I shouldn't have. Remember Glenn Beck? Well, before he rose to nationwide "prominence" he was the PM drive host on said AM station I was talking about. In the days after 9/11 he basically gave a rousing rah-rah speech on his monologue. Next thing you know he's nationally syndicated under the ClearChannel national umbrella. The rest, as we used to say, is history.

Now, hindsight being 20/20, was that speech really a rallying cry to the folks stationed at MacDill AFB ( based in Tampa)? OR...was it an attempt by ClearChannel at the time to try to influence public opinion and policy? This goes back to BEFORE 9/11, to 2000 and the hotly contested presidential race. Where is GWB from? Texas. Where was ClearChannel located? San Antonio. Coincidence??? Did they stand to lose more if Al Gore won? Who knows...

But I do know this, the above is a primary reason I want to move to a more moderate area.

CT

Mission Accomplished (Part 3)

Hello again everyone. Seriously, the weather across central Florida this week has really affected my vibe; I have had little motivation to get much of anything, let alone this blog done. Suffice to say the "Sunshine State" isn't living up to her nickname, and all this rain needs to leave.

Anyway, this is the third part of this series of posts (the first two an be found here and here) regarding my system that I have used to chart songs over the years. Now at the end of yesterday's entry, I said that I had found a website that allowed me (and anyone else who's interested) to access old Radio and Records magazines from yesteryear. Well, up to a point. You see in 2006, R/R was bought by VNU media and integrated with Billboard Magazine's Radio Monitor to create a new chart based off Neilsen Soundscan data. Billboard would buy Radio and Records outright three years later,ad effectively ended the publication.

But the methodology used by Radio and Records up until 2006, Mediabase 24/7, would continue, and does so to this very day. I think I mentioned how they went about compiling this data in an earlier entry to this blog, I think it was called "Radio Days." Anyway, the points system I go by is based off those findings, with a few exceptions.

First let me explain how my system works. For every song that reaches the Top 40, a preset point value is assigned. For the first 25 positions (40-16), it works like a reverse points system (40 gets 1, 39 gets 2, and so forth). Then the system starts getting weighted heavily towards the top, like this:

15. 28 pts
14. 30 pts
13. 32 pts
12. 34 pts
11. 37 pts
10. 40 pts
 9.  45 pts
 8.  50 pts
 7.  55 pts
 6.  60 pts
 5.  70 pts
 4.  80 pts
 3.  90 pts
 2. 100 pts
 1. 125 pts

There are also bonus points awarded for chart longevity, and where they are on the chart. I'll explain it over the weekend. Basically, the longer the song is on the chart, the bigger the bonus. Also, the year is the actual calendar year, not from November to November monitored by publications (which would explain "Walk Like An Egyptian" grabbing #1 song of 1987 even though it peaked in December of 1986).

In this weekend's post, I'll go into detail what I have found out from these charts, as well as my rankings for the top song of each year since 1980. Until then, stay dry...

CT

Mission Accomplished (Part 2)

Hello again everyone. As you may have read in my post yesterday, I decided to embark a quite ambitious project where I decided to create a points system for the top 40  pop charts. Today, I'll explain how I came up with this system. Now yesterday I mentioned that I thought that "Everything You Want" by Vertical Horizon, despite not finishing a week at number one on a weekly survey, finished as the top song for the year 2000. To me, that made little sense. I thought to myself, "how can this be possible?" It was like winning the (then-called) Winston Cup in NASCAR without winning a race. So I thought, "why not combine the two?"

So, I decided to embark on creating a points system for chart performance. No, it was nothing official, it was something coming from a chart geek that I wanted to keep to myself at the time. At first, I it was somewhat primitive, positions 31-40 would get 1 point, 2 points for 21-30, 5 points for 11-20, 10 for 10, 20 for 9, 30 for 8, and increasing by 10 points up to 100 for #1. I also assigned bonus points for chart longevity, and at the time a bonus for high debut and biggest mover. No, this wouldn't be permanent as time would go on, and I had to miss a few countdown shows on the radio because of work commitments. At times I would take my notebooks of said charts and brought them to work; I still have those notebooks by the way.

Eventually over time, I would lose interest in these charts, primarily because "American Top 40" had a new host, and their methodology for tabulating their charts changed dramatically; going away from R/R / Mediabase 24/7 to USA Today for some whatever reason. But the message board I mentioned on yesterday's entry existed, so I could still keep tabs.

Then a few years ago, I found a breakthrough, when old issues of "Radio and Records" was found on a radio archive site, this one to be exact, and from there I could finally go to town on completing this list.

Tomorrow, I'll explain what points system I eventually settled with, as well as a few differences in R/R charts and the ones I used to compile said list. Until tomorrow...

CT

Mission Accomplished (part 1)

Greetings once again. Ever set out on a project that you had an idea of executing in your spare time, tweak some parameters of said project as necessary, and then accomplish said project? Well, that's what I have done over the course of at least the past decade. I may or may not have mentioned it on this blog before, but if I have, indulge me.

For as long as I can remember, which stretches back some 40+ years, I have had a fascination with the Top 40 charts and countdown shows; from "American Top 40" to "Countdown America" and later in my youth, the "Rick Dees Weekly Top 40."  And as such, I would listen to these countdown shows whenever I had the opportunity; up until 2004 when Ryan Seacrest took over for Casey Kasem.

In the year 2000, I came across a website that's still in use today, which keeps tabs on every song that has ever charted on the old Radio and Records magazine, now MediaBase 24/7. What I wanted to at the time was attempt to recreate every R/R top 40 chart, but doing so using just that website would be impossible as they only gave the week a song debut and it's peak position at the time. Fortunately for me, I came across a web board would allow me to fill I those holes. By the end of that year, I had a new motivation; the top song of that year, "Everything You Want" by Vertical Horizon, didn't reach number 1 on a weekly survey. I thought to myself, "that doesn't make much sense." And so, I decided to come up with a points system based off those charts.

Tomorrow, I'll go into detail as to how I came up with my points system, and what I eventually learned from it. Stay tuned.

CT

My Endgame

Hello, I thought I would create this post as a roadmap of sorts to future dreams/aspirations. So I seem like I'm going somewhat over my head, indulge me.

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you probably know by now that I am more than a little fed up with living in Florida, especially greater Tampa. Sure, the weather's nice in winter and the hockey team is good, but that's about it. #FloridaMan has made me lose almost what pride I had in this state. Combine the facts that our state is run by a Trump clone, a toxic at best radio scene (that I have refused to listened to since 2016), and general apathy about this region, and you can pretty much conclude that I want out.

Right now, I'm on disability because of my stroke two years ago, and other than somewhat regular visits to the VA clinic, I practically have zero life. I have been out on my own twice since my stroke; once to celebrate my birthday at Hooters, and the other occasion was to see "Avengers Endgame." I plan on taking a bus to St. Louis soon (I don't know when exactly), and I do have a few plans on carrying out while I'm there.

There is someone who I am talking to who I would love to see, but also I want to check out the area to see if I would like it. You see, the place where I was employed at, the Postal service, has their main facility right downtown; right across the street from Enterprise Center on one side, and Union station on the other. I want to investigate whether I can get back to working THERE (instead of Tampa; I have no car currently, and that place redefined toxic). If so, I could look at apartments in the area (looking around downtown or across the river in Illinois) and see if it could be possible to relocate there.

Of course, this is very preliminary and is speculative, nothing is being planned; yet. Just speaking about leaving Florida to existance...

CT