What's my motivation?

Is money really the great motivator? I asked some people at work, "Once you received a raise, did that motivate you to work harder, just as hard, or less?". Four out of five said, "What the f%$& is a raise?" The fifth person said "A%&hole". So maybe that study didn't work out as well as I'd hoped.

How about when it comes to sports? Do you think baseball players are motivated by new contracts? There has been much discussion about the increased productivity that baseball players have in their 'contract year'. (The 'contract year' being the final year on their current contract. If they perform well, then they are rewarded with a larger contract once the season has finished.) The crew at Baseball Prospectus and ESPN have dug into this subject well.

But what happens once the player signs his lucrative contract? What happens to his performance then? I've decided to take a look at what has happened this year to all of the MLB players who had signed, re-signed, or extended their contracts before the season began (with their new money beginning this year). I'm going to narrow the study down to those lucky 22 batters and 23 pitchers whose new contracts average over $7M a year.

Below are two tables (in picture format because the HTML kept screwing with my spacing). One for the batters, one for the pitchers. It'll work best if you right click and open them as a new windows or tabs.

For all players, I've listed their final 2007 stats and their projected (using stats from 5/15) final 2008 numbers. Batters show home runs, runs batted in, and production (OPS, or on-base percentage plus slugging percentage), plus various miscellaneous stats. Pitchers show earned run average and walks+hits per inning, plus the "misc" column. If the numbers go up for the hitters, it's a good thing. If the numbers go up for the pitchers it's a bad thing.

Oh yes, and you'll notice they're color coded too.

Batters:



Pitchers:



You may notice a lot of red and a tiny bit of blue.

Red = Large decline in production or serious injury (20 or more days) during season.
Pink = Small, but noticeable decline in production.
Gray = Generally equal to previous year.
Light Blue = Small, but noticeable increase in production.
Blue = Large increase in production

So let's run the numbers.

Pitchers: 2 had a large increase, 1 had a small increase, 6 remained similar, 3 had a small decline, while 11 had a large decline. 48% large decrease, 61% noticeable or worse decrease.

Batters: 0 had a large increase in production, 3 had a small increase, 2 remained similar, 3 had a small decline, 14 had a large decrease. 64% experienced a large decrease, 77% experienced at least a noticeable decrease.

(Now some may question the logic behind all of those reds in the pitchers section, since many of them are for injuries. Here's my answer, if you pay someone $8M and he can't even show up to the game, that is a decline in production.)

It looks like pitchers are a less horrible investment. Let's look at those batters results again. Technically no one has excelled beyond their contract year and less than one out of four have been able to reproduce it. But almost two-thirds of them have experienced a massive falloff. Even including the pitchers, 56% of the players receiving massive new contracts have experienced immense decreases in their production. Only 31% have even been able to reproduce what they were signed up to do.

So why is this? Four factors come to mind.

1. Money (or Losing the Love or Collapsing Under Expectations?)
I'm of two minds here, and it really doesn't feel like the cliche. Observe.

I am all for more equal distribution of wealth, but something seems to happen to public figures when they get their big payday. I used to call it "selling out" back in my school days, but it's not as simple as that. Musicians, artists, and writers often go through a large change, not necessarily when they make their breakthrough, but when the big payments start coming in. I'm not being romantic when I say that struggling through poverty is its own inspiration. What many musicians/groups write after their succe$$ is irrelevant and/or passionless.

What does Bono have to say (that he doesn't already say in public) musically once he's worth over $100 million dollars? What does Chris Martin have to say about love now that he's married to Gwen P? What new thing do the Rolling Stones have to say about anything? The heart of rock and roll stops beating when you can comfortably obtain anything you desire. At least back in the 60s and 70s a lot of popular musicians hit rock bottom with carloads of drugs which then inspired them to at least spew out something weird.

And don't get me started on filmmakers. That's a separate all-day rant. The best films have come when their directors are at an emotional crossroads (Fellini, Scorsese, Coppola, Kurosawa). I'll have to remember to post about that sometime too.

But that's the communist in me. And he wonders, what happens to those players who have put up career years at the exact time that is most beneficial for their banking account once they've gotten paid for it? Is the passion still there?

And then there is Hank Steinbrenner. A complete blowhard buffoon. He embarrasses himself every time he berates his team and the mythical press eats it up. But recently his rant about the Yanks not playing like they're actually earning their money got me thinking...

I've been a manager of an office team. And if you, reader, have too, think about where he's coming from. If you give one of your employees a 10-20% raise due to great performance and then his work performance drops precipitously, what would you think? What if you TRIPLED her salary and her performance crapped out? And what if that was your money you were giving away? How would you respond?

Some folks, like many MLB owners and GMs would bring down some pressure. Or, optimistically, I believe that some of the young players would put pressure on themselves to earn that great money. Like maybe, Robinson Cano? But that still doesn't explain Andrew Jones. Or Eric Gagne. Or Gary Sheffield. Or Eric Byrnes. Or Tom Glavine. Or Dontrelle Willis. There goes the optimist...

2. HGH/Steroids (or Wow, there are a lot of 800-lb. gorillas in the room.)
Okay, let us just get it out there. There are a lot of names on those above lists that were either on the Mitchell Report or rumored (during this offseason) to have been on some sort of chemical support. And it's likely that those names we've heard are barely the tip of the roidberg.

Let's take the contract-year scenario. You're a young player who is convinced that you're not earning a competitive salary. Your contract is ending and you could get signed up to a new one when the season is over. It's time to perform your best. The season is long and you're feeling achy and rundown in August already and you're only 26. And maybe this is your one chance to get to a better team and get what should be coming to you. The guys around you are taking things, including a bunch of future Hall of Famers. And no one even knows how to test for this stuff yet...

There's the temptation.

A similar situation arises with the veteran player. You not only want to stick around longer, but benefit from the buyers' market that you agent keeps telling you about. And your body's having a difficult time even making it to the All-Star break.


And now that you've gotten your new contract and due to all of the movement towards new testing...Maybe it's time to get off the juice. Funny things seem to happen when you withdraw muscle building chemicals from your body. Injuries. Decreased stamina. Less strength. Erectile dysfunction.

3. Complete coincidenceIf you take a close look at individual circumstances you might be able to find separate situations that are causing each problem, thus rendering this possibly overreaching theory meaningless.
Some of these gents may be switching leagues, from American to National or the other way around. This means they face all new pitchers, new strategy, and lineup structure. Sounds good right? It happens sometimes. So, out of how the 22 batters, how many switched leagues? 1. Out of 23 pitchers? 4.
Switching teams. This means new teammates, new managers, and a new system. It takes time to adapt. That's always factored into reasonable expectations. Out of 21 batters (having subtracted Cabrera who'd switched leagues), that's an entirety of 5. And out of the 19 remaining pitchers, that makes 4. We're still left with 73% of the batters and 65% of the pitchers were resigned by their same team. With the same manager.
But they're getting older! One year older. But that's a good point, Imaginary Reader. And we'll look at that with #4.
4. An idiotic bunch of signingsOK. This is the core of it to me. Many of these signings were downright bizarre. Not necessarily the fact that these guys were picked up, but the amount of money offered.
Let start with what we can politely term the super veterans.
Tigers - Todd Jones was never particularly reliable, even when he was reliable. He has no power, he's been losing his control over the previous several years, and he's stopped keeping the ball on the ground. Gary Sheffield has been injured non-stop for the previous three years. His shoulder's been held together by an act of will as he whips through the most violent swing in the majors. And, oh yeah, they expect him to play in the field too. Kenny Rogers. Kenny Rogers? Most folks expected him to have retired this season. He's an old 43. The three of these guys combined are getting 29M a year.
Braves - Glavine and Smoltz. Both injured. Who's surprised? Glavine fell apart last year so the signing seemed to be romantic good will to return him home. Smoltz has been pitching on borrowed time for the last two years. Must be why they signed him for only one year. But for 14M?!
Sox - Did anyone expect Curt Schilling to play this year? He luckily escaped a potential suit from the team when he showed up injured right after signing that contract. That's a free 8M that he gets for the bloody sock.
Now I'm just going to go through the rest randomly --
If I say "Jake Westbrook" and you say "Who?", I say "Exactly". It might sound mean, but this is important. One of the aspects (as the A-Rod contract drama taught us) behind paying a guy big paper is that he'll bring asses into the seats. He'll sell t-shirts to men and women. Bibs for babies. So, I say, "Jake Westbrook"?
Andruw Jones -- Wow. This one is no fun to watch. Maybe if he'd signed with Boston it would have been a little amusing. The guy wasn't one of the top 50 outfielders last year and wasn't in the top 20 the year before. Why in the world would you pay him more than all but 10 players in the league? He's not getting any younger or leaner. Admittedly, no one thought it would get this bad.
Eric Gagne -- See "Andruw Jones".
Dontrelle Wills -- The Marlins are starting to look like the smart ones as they sit in first place.
Eric Byrnes -- I suppose one All-Star year gets you 10M. And with six you get eggroll.
Jose Guillen -- I don't even know what to say about that one. He's being paid 10 times what he's worth. Maybe one day, he'll beat up that one Royal fan and they'll have to move the team to Vegas. That would be worth some money to somebody.
Posada and A-Rod -- Yankees got swindled on both, but there's arguably no better option around. But that's still more money being spent on them than the entire payroll for 4 different teams.

------------------------------------------------
So there's a catch to this whole long post, which will completely negate most of what you've just sat through. Two catches actually.
One, a visual trick. The shade of red used is the most vibrant color and stands out more than any of the other colors. The way it bleeds together makes tables look more negative than they actually are. Except for Andruw Jones.
Two, a small sample size. They're a quarter of the way through the season. Some of these guys will pick it up over the rest of the season. Except for Andruw Jones. And I'll need to come back to this same group at the end of the season. Ichiro will hit over .300. Ryan Howard will go yard 40 times. A-Rod might even do both. Smoltz will be converted back to a great closer again.

It's difficult to say how I actually feel about all of this and about baseball in general right now. The big money and the numbing PE Drug issue push me away. The NBA's beginning to look interesting now. Heck, maybe I'll follow the NHL next year just to spite MLB. Actually, that's pretty sick. Forget that one.

I'll check back in with you about this at the end of the year. Maybe, I'll have to eat my words with a side of crow. And I'll regret all the things I've said about all of these guys. Except Andrew Jones.

BASEBALL RANT COMING THIS WEEK!

Research and rancor currently in progess...

Disclaimer 01

A note on my previous post. You know, the one about Jack White. I had a co-writer on that one. Johnnie Walker. In his green label suit, he thought it was terribly important to publish that post last night.

As an apology to those readers who found it silly or ill-structured, and expecting something more highbrow, I have written a haiku:

Behold my haiku
Completely self-reflexive
Words made of letters

Thanks.

The New Rock Giant

The following is not based on any empirical nor scientific evidence but instead is backed by hubris and bluster:


Thanks to the speed of the news cycle as well as the overmarketing of assumed 'cool', our culture has a great deal of trouble permanently defining an active entertainment or art figure as a great, legend, or giant. We see a movie that we like, but then we watch it shoved down the populace's throat on the internet, TV, billboards, and trailers. It gets covered in People, Entertainment Weekly, and that annoying color section in the Sunday paper. We see this gorgeous girl in that movie and suddenly she's on the cover of InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Maxim, Esquire, and GQ. Then the movie winds up tanking at the box office or the director is revealed as a pedophilic shoplifter. The girl backs into a mailbox with her Mercedes and the cops find two guns and an eighth of blow in her glove box.


But I'd like to buck this trend. Not the cocaine in the glove box trend, but rather the slaying of giants. In my previous post, in my highly critical way, I billed Daniel Day-Lewis as a giant. And now I'm here announce another one.




Mr. Jack White.


I have always been a fan. The first four White Stripes albums have provided so much joy in my life as I sit through traffic, slog through work, run on the treadmill, and daydream on the weekend. After Elephant, I labelled him a Genius. Then the next two White Stripes albums were released and the first Raconteurs album came out. I still held him in the same high regard, knowing that there's no one else out there who wields a bluesy ax and cinematic songwriting skills like he. But nothing really blew my hair back.


Then The Raconteurs' Consolers of the Lonely was released in March. And I have changed my mind. The man is a giant, standing astride North America and Europe, rocking the Atlantic and, by proxy, the Pacific.


Yes, he has been dubbed brilliant by way too many rock writers and pundits. And he recently was on that dreadful Rolling Stone cover with the aged Jagger and Richards. But I don't care. He is not attractive yet he gets magazine covers. That is awesome. Can I get a "what-what!" from my fellow Homelies?

You see, after numerous failed “Would you like to make the sex with me?” advances on the ladies, some of us men realize that it would all be so much easier if we were hot. So some of us (Group 1) sharpen our drunken wit, cultural banter, and facial hair. Maybe use a little more soap under the pits. Others (Group 2) apparently grow blue eyes, wear tight pants on stage, and obtain music skills from the gods. Group 1 calls Group 2 jerks and thieves, unless of course Group 2 can rock. And then all is forgiven, until they start collecting our, er, Group 1’s girlfriends. Jerks.

Anyway, I am not one to listen to albums, new ones especially, more than once a day. Afraid of numbing myself to the brilliance, I limit the love. But I just can't help myself with this one. Consolers of the Lonely is the first album I've been excited about and listened to endlessly since American Idiot. Green Day are also giants, but that's for another blog and when I am more sober.

How did I know that it was love at first listen? Well, I knew that it was good when I found myself rocking out in my office, with the door open. And I wasn't even remotely self conscious. But when I was rocking out, I wasn't doing the air-guitar thing. Now that I've seen other people air-guitar, I've realized how stupid it looks. So instead of that, when I drop my pants and jump on my desk, I play the air-Jews'-Harp. That doesn't look stupid at all.


To sum up my thoughts about The White Stripes briefly. Brilliant. In more depth? I saw them at the El Rey in '02 and realized that I finally found a white guy who can cop blues tunes and not be boring or annoying, but rather add something to the blues tradition. His version of Son House's Death Letter Blues is powerful and exciting to behold. The White Stripes are just two, he and Meg White. On the drums, Meg frames his art. She makes him muscular. By being tiny, their sound is tremendous.






So when he started this Raconteurs group, I was not entirely comfortable with this shift away from minimalism. It's a whole band. With a co-writer, co-singer (Brendan Benson) too. But because Jack is a giant, it works.




Here he is with fiddles, organs, keyboards, horns, cowbell (or is that a spoon in an empty glass on that one song?), and backing vocals. And a bass guitar. Their first album is a whisper but this new album is a bellow. They conjure up the entirety of Classic Rock Past and do it better.






On a side note, since when is Ron Jeremy coaching the Orlando Magic? It's nice to see him get some work, though. Wow, this economy is weird.




So with Consolers of the Lonely I won't bore you with a review of every song. I'll just list the highlights.

Consoler of the Lonely - I kept hearing the last minute on the radio, 3 times in 3 days, and was like, “Will someone PLEASE tell me who this is?! When did 98.7 start playing classic rock?” The whole song is good but that last minute is one of my favorite rock minutes ever.

Hold Up - Remember how exciting it was to hear U2 actually rock out for 20 seconds on "All Because of You" (or maybe you don't because the other 3 minutes were poo)? Well the Racs actually sustain that very rock-out for an entire song.

Top Yourself – Should have been called “Tup Yourself”. Spellcheck seems not to know “Tup” but Iago of Othello-fame certainly does. Great relationship-breakup lyrics.

Many Shades of Black – They do an Aerosmith-type ballad BETTER than Aerosmith.

Rich Kid Blues – A real highlight. Why? Because it goes BIG. REALLY BIG. And check out the second verse when Jack shreds his voice to the point that he sounds a lot like the young Bono.

Carolina Drama – Reviewers have referred to this as Dylan-esque. Well. If every well written song gets referred to as “Dylan-esque” I’m fine with that. But this one does have structural hints of his Desire album with the swampy mood of Time Out of Mind. Aside from specifics, the intensity of the story makes my heart beat out of time even after a dozen listens.

All of the other tracks of high quality as well, especially the second single Solute Your Solution which sounds like White Stripes with a bass guitar. Now I do realize that Benson is part of this team and he does help bring a different angle to the songwriting. But the sound is all about Jack.

I promise I'll ponder Benson's influence a little more. But only if they release a third album.

There Will Be DANIEL DAY LEWIS

Daniel Day-Lewis has been in only 5 films over the last 15 years. And maybe that's a good thing.

He has a screen presence like no one else alive. Its very intensity and power threatens to overwhelm a film because everyone and everything else pales next to him. In There Will Be Blood the fabric of the universe ripples around his every move. Other characters are pulled towards him or ejected away. He's in every scene because he must be.

His being is well used in Gangs of New York as well, since no one in their right mind would ever expect tiny Leo DiCaprio to survive him. You expect Bill the Butcher to eat him right there on screen. Swallowing him without chewing.

His Daniel Plainview, an oilman, threatens to consume the entire film in Blood. But he doesn't. The film is technically sublime. Johnny Greenwood's (of Radiohead fame) score is excellent and unusual. The editing is sharp for a 160-minute film. And the Cinematography is stunning, even drifting towards the experimental in the humbling derrick fire sequence. Under PT Anderson's grip, Day-Lewis does what he needs him to in order to fulfill the script (very loosely based on Upton Sinclair's Oil!).

But what is the script exactly? Is it a story or a stunt? In the very first sequence, Plainview is at his most sympathetic and in the final sequence he has become unbearable. And every scene in between, sequentially, pushes him further and further down into darkness. Almost a reverse character arc. A graph to illustrate:

The result? For me it was a direct emotional reaction. After a while, I didn't care what happened next. That can be argued as a success, in that Anderson got such a reaction by carefully constructing a monstrous character. Or it can be argued as a failure. A story needs two sides to exist, the writer and the audience. If the writer turns away his or her audience, then one's left with just a guy shouting at the wind.

I hesitate to qualify the final product as a success or not. The very fact that I couldn't care less about where the film was going (after the final scene with Henry), doesn't chalk up as a good thing to me. But Day-Lewis's strong depiction of Plainview as a paranoid narcissist -- mixing all of the feared (projected?) qualities of the real life two Dicks (Nixon and Cheney), along with a crippling whiskey habit, and a self-perpetuating need to bludgeon the small and weak -- proves excellent. Also, Anderson's continuing exploration of father-son struggles has become more detailed with each new film. Finally, the aforementioned exemplary craft that went into the film creates a detailed small universe unique to modern cinema.

But of what worth is a lavish dinner if it loses all flavor before you're done eating? This goes for the performance behind Planview as well. The sheer power and skill illuminates his character far beyond what can be written on the page. Yet as he descends to the almost ridiculous (I believe Variety referred to it as "slapstick") ending, this viewer was propelled away like so many of the film's characters. And I was left desiring one of those milkshakes that Plainview talked about.

And I didn't want to share it with anyone...

Where in the world is thekrav?

Hey, whoa! A post!

I’ve been getting a lot requests for pictures so here are two.



That must be what you're looking for, right?

To review the last four weeks: I’ve been doing a lot of working for The Man. I keep going to the gym and keep injuring myself in unique ways, though I’ve now gone two days without new hurts.

Let’s see, what else has gone on? I’ve shared my zombie script with a German director-buddy. It’s been so effective that he’s stopped talking to me.

Actually, that’s probably not entirely true.

I’ve been sitting in a lot of traffic, listening to a lot of good music. Not watching too many movies. Not much writing going on. The neighborhood is still annoying. It’s Mothers’ Day next Sunday. I ate pancakes this morning.

Hmm, nothing exciting.

I wonder what I should post…









Wait a sec. I WENT TO EUROPE!

Ah yes, the land of the metric-system. (Have to keep in mind mL, cL, and L when buying liquor.) The weather was largely predictable, London was gloomy, but not that much rain. Amsterdam was rain-free.

London is fantastic. Like NYC, the city has a never-ending, over-whelming, roller-coaster, edge-of-your-seat, feel-good-romp, hyphenated-hyperbole amount of things to do. And most of them are free! Like LA, the place is humongous. If I hadn’t already been to Scotland, then I’d wonder if there’s more to UK than London. Of course Londoners don’t think so.

Lots of great food: Italian, Greek, French, Middle-Eastern, Indian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, and American. Note the missing “British” listing. Speaking of which, when you’re in London go to Paul, the French bakery next to St. Paul’s Cathedral. No I’m not asking you to go. I’m telling you. It’s a real French bakery, do you need any other reason to go?

Amsterdam, easy to get to lost, easy to get hit by girls on bikes, difficult to get any sleep. Jason and I stayed in a “hotel” that’s likely a nominee for one of the worst in the world. At least one of the worst in Europe. Hotel Rembrandt Square.



It’s probably not the fact that the water-heater shakes the entire floor every time someone in the building washes their hands that affects my opinion. Nor that the staff unlocked our door to let the next sucker into our room an hour before check out. Nor that the guy at the counter offered me four other people’s drivers’ licenses during checkout before he found mine. Maybe, we held it in such low esteem was because of its location. Maybe? I dunno.

See, the building was built somewhere around the 18th century or so. And though sometimes a business has to go with whatever structure currently exists, who thought it was a good idea to put A CLUB on the ground floor of an old wood building? And who the crap thought to put A HOTEL on top of the club in the 200+ year old building? This is what I thought about that person:



The club spins tunes from midnight to 3am during the week. We stayed on the top (5th) floor. We could have held the dance party in our room it was so bloody loud. Like someone had their stereo speakers right up against our windows. So there was no sleeping until 3:30ish and in the morning-ish we had to share a shower with a half dozen other people. Not literally of course, because that would actually be kinda fun. But it becomes an issue when a stranger is planted on the toilet, powering out their morning constitutional, then takes a steamy shower and then…one probably would decide to skip the whole morning shower idea. Hey it’s the Dutch, so who needs to bathe? You can’t smell much in the coffeeshops…….er…library in the early afternoon anyway.

Oh yeah, Jason and I went into Club Smokey (the 1st floor club) and guess what? IT SUCKS. Yeah that’s right Club Smokey. You suck. Stop playing your music loud. You’re nothing but a low rent over-priced cigarette-smoke-filled straight sausage festival that scares off any female standing upright. Jerks.



Okay, I’m done with that. Amsterdam was really fun aside from the hotel debacle. The food was awesome, including some great Turkish/Lebanese grub. The architecture is lovely, but occasionally tilted sideways when close to the canals. Maybe the buildings took too many trips to the coffeeshops. Not that I would know anything about Amsterdam coffeeshops, besides the fine music that they seem to have played inside.



The Van Gogh Museum was excellent and, actually, very moving. Its design leads visitors through Vince’s life and by the end one gets a really good idea about what was coursing through that amazing noggin of his. In one of the Old Kerks (or New Kerks, there are a lot Kerks in that town) there was an amazing Afghani art exhibit that was smuggled out under the Taliban’s metaphorical nose.

The Red Light District is still there and was a real highlight. Don’t take any preconceived notions to that place. Just see it and take it in for what it is, fellas.

Overall, it was great. The dollar sucks, but we should all just get used to that now. I had a lot of great drinks, including the sweet nectar of Absinthe (yum) and killing Scotch with JK (that was a separate night and don’t mix Absinthe and Scotch, I’m serious and lucky to still be typing. This happened on a separate trip to Scotland, but I’m going to stop typing now because that is a tangent and this parenthetical has gone on way too long). Heard some good dance tunes, including at 2:55am when I was trying to sleep and…okay, I’ll stop. We attended a great play, The God of Carnage. We attended great dinners and Passover Seders that went on for hours. Got to sightsee and be idiot tourists, while ogling women from foreign lands – I mean, c’mon we’re Americans. I was able to be far away from home, but so close to the pulsing breathing World. And I got to hang with my ultimate homey, my bro.

That’s it. Here are some more selected pics.

Sometimes Amsterdam looks like this:


Often Amsterdam looks more like this:


Journeys can sometimes be sources of wisdom:


We like the night life. We've got to boogie. With Greeks.


London is beautiful. I'd like to go back there someday.

And more pics:

I'm ready to go back. Who's coming with me?

Lands of Questionable Cuisine

This year of transition continues...

In a few hours, I'll be off to London. On Monday, Jason and I will fly to Amsterdam where we'll stay for 3 nights. Then we'll fly back to London for the rest my trip. I return to this country on the 21st.

I expect to be online during much of this voyage. There's a rumor that the British have access to the Internet. Frightening thought, yes, but true. This means I can drop snippets of the trip right here on this blog. Due to the chance that I may be imbibing local drinks, don't expect the best grammar.

We hope to have pictures too, but probably not too many from Amsterdam that are appropriate for American public display. It's just that I hear that their coffeeshops have really good coffee.



Also, photography is not allowed in the Red Light District -- not to be confused with the Blue Light District, which is the clearance aisle at K-Mart.

Sorry. There's a good joke to be had, but that wasn't it.

For those readers who have been to L-town and A-dam and have tips for good travel and good times, please DO share either here or in an email. Don't worry, no suggestion is too base for me, except maybe spending $25 on fish and chips.

Cheers.