Of course, The Godfather is a great movie and not much needs to be said there. It was nice seeing it on the big screen as it came out several years before I was born. I could really observe some of the interesting lighting and shading effects in the scenes that I wouldn’t pay much attention to on my 29 inch TV, which made for a better experience.

But what I really found most interesting was certain elements of the dialogue, namely the addressing of Michael Corleone. Being named Michael myself, I pay attention to when people call me “Michael”, “Mike”, or even “Mikey”. Corleone is addressed as all three during the movie.

Some observations:

Corleone’s brother and friends predominantly call him “Mike” when addressing him but “Michael” when talking about him. This is similar to how the same type of people address me, although many also tend to call me “Mike” when talking about me. It is a casual peer thing, and I would feel uncomfortable if friends called me “Michael” and I don’t remember the last time my brother addressed me as such.

Corleone’s girlfriend/wife Kay addresses him as “Michael” almost 100% of the time. Normally, I don’t object to women calling me “Michael”. It doesn’t carry the authoritative tone of a man’s “Michael”, unless it is used in an state of anger or annoyance. Some female friends have even taken to calling me “Michael” all the time. At first it’s a little strange, but I get used to it. It becomes something unique to them. Some even mix it up in the same conversation. A Hooters waitress I am familiar with, for example, said “Hi, Mike” and “Bye, Mike”, but referred to me as “Michael” when she asked if I wanted another drink. When it comes to women, as long as they don’t call me “asshole”, I usually go with the flow.

Although women can address me as “Michael”, I usually ask boyfriends and male friends of my female friends to address me as “Mike”. I think there is a bit of an authoritative, dominant tone to a male calling me “Michael” that I don’t like, unless that person is in an actual position of power over me such as a boss or unfamiliar with me such as a doctor. For a casual male acquaintance (such as a friend’s boyfriend) to call me “Michael” after I correct them is a power show to me and I take that as an offense.

Likewise, in The Godfather, Michael Corleone’s sister’s husband Carlo addresses him as “Mike”, even as he is begging for his life in the final scenes. He never uses an authoritative tone with his sister’s brother.

Corleone is also addressed as “Mikey” by his brother Sonny several times. I have a few friends that call me “Mikey” and although it’s rare, I’m cool with it, as long as I am very familiar with that person. It’s the friendliest addressing and the one that requires the most familiarity and closeness.

Michael Corleone is addressed as “Michael” by his father 100% of the time. There is a hierarchical tone to this address. Don Corleone is not Michael’s friend. He is in a position of authority as his father. It is also a sign of respect that he is instilling in his son by addressing him solely by his given birth name. In my case, my parents call me both “Mike” and “Michael”. It’s usually pretty random, although my mother tends to call me by my full name when she is mad but I’m sure that is a typical mother trait for every name.

Anyway, just a quick post on something I noticed. If you are named Michael or if you know anyone named Michael, what are your observations and addressing patterns?

I, on the other hand, always have been a big sports fan. There is always a sporting event on television in my apartment, even if only for background noise as I pen another missive. That’s my thing.

During the holidays I travel across the state to go to my parents’ house, as my apartment is either A) too messy or B) too small for a family gathering. As expected, while at my parents’ house their rules apply, to include their TV preferences.

That’s why I’ve always hated the fact that the NBA puts their best games of the year on Christmas Day. It is the one day of the year when I am outvoted on what to watch. In my parents’ house, the NBA will always lose to “Coming to America”, “Pirates of the Caribbean”, Sponge Bob SquarePants, or 24 hours of “A Christmas Story”.

And call me crazy, but there is no way I’m being antisocial on Christmas. I’m not burrowing off into a room with a TV to watch hoops while the rest of my family joyfully celebrates the holiday throughout the rest of the house. I enjoy seeing my parents, playing with my nephew, and having human interaction too much. Shaq and friends can wait until the day after Christmas.

I’m glad NBA players and coaches are finally speaking out against the NBA’s annual Christmas Day schedule. Sure, they are probably speaking on behalf of players and staff who, because of the games, don’t get to spend time with their families on Christmas Day. I know I am way down the NBA’s concern chain, and I am probably even the sports fan minority, but in my world, if I spent Christmas with the NBA, I wouldn’t see my family either.

(According to urban dictionary.com, the word kaboobies means: “so magnificent and grand that the word boobs is an understatement. they are round and beautiful. also highly bouncey. when exposed you hear all the angels sing. they are sure to make all who witness this lovely sight, shed a tear”. The spelling isn’t the greatest, but the meaning is definitely clear.)

Besides those key life moments, my Dad has also supplied me with quite a bit of fatherly advice and wisdom. I’ll admit, that’s probably typical of most dads, but as you can see by the aforementioned high points, I like to think my Dad is a bit unique. Not only has he imparted on me such important mantras as

• Lying only makes things worse.
• Practice situational awareness.
• Republicans take money out of your right pocket and Democrats take money out of your left.
• Drive as fast as you want as long you don’t endanger the safety of others (Ten speeding tickets later, I’m kinda re-thinking this one, Dad.)

but he has also taught me valuable lessons through a series of stories, anecdotes, and situations. A few years ago, I wrote about one of these stories – a fable about the bat of G.H. “Babe” Ruth – but there are many more.  I guess I could say life with my Dad has been like living in a religious text, albeit without the angels, demons, saints, sinners, calamities, and deities.

The first story I remember my Dad telling me was about how his childhood was permanently scarred by a disgusting oral medication. According to my Dad, when he was a wee lad he had the not-so-uncommon habit of chewing on inedible objects. Unfortunately for my Dad however, this common habit caused an uncommon oral infection which could only be cured by the most awful tasting purple paste known to man – and little kids (possibly Gentian violet?). To this day, I have no idea how true this story actually is, but do know my absolute fear of the purple medicine meant my parents never had to worry about me developing the bad habit of gnawing on pen caps, pencils, toothpicks, twigs, and other assorted inedibles.

Another story I remember well involves my Dad, salami, and Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Juan Marichal. Like most kids growing up in New York  City way back in the mid-20th Century, my Dad was frequently treated to a day at the ballpark. During one of these trips, probably in either 1962 or ’63, my Dad and several of his friends went to the Polo Grounds to see the hometown New York Mets take on the San Francisco Giants, who left New York several years earlier.

According to my Dad, at some point during the game, he and his friends were leaning over the upper deck railing over looking the Giants bullpen, which was in fair territory in the oddly shaped stadium. Then, kids being kids, and for whatever reason, my Dad decided to toss a piece of salami over the rail and into the Giants bullpen. Down the salami floated, until landing unexpectedly on the foot of the future Hall of Fame hurler. Needless to say, by the time Marichal looked up to identify the culprit, my Dad and his friends had scattered. After hearing that story, and seeing the Ron Artest melee in Detroit a few years ago, I’ve never had the ambition to toss food or any other object on to a field during a game*. I fear the players and the repercussions far too much.

(I have to make the distinction of “during a game” versus “after a game”. After FSU defeated the University of Florida in 2001, I was among the thousands of fans who threw oranges on to the field to celebrate FSU’s entrance into the Orange Bowl and the National Championship Game. But that’s comparing salami to oranges – totally different.)

The third story my Dad told me that may or may not be true involves a man I mentioned briefly in the Babe Ruth bat post, the “inventor of the bungee cord”, Arthur J. Bungee. Although he never went to Yale or Harvard, my Dad is a smart guy. He watches Jeopardy almost every night, reads the newspaper from front to back, and supposedly spent time as a kid reading encyclopedias. So when I asked him who invented the bungee cord, and he answered “Arthur J. Bungee, during World War II, in order to preserve rubber for the war effort”, I had to believe him. He even elaborated on the tale by telling me Arthur J. was a U.S. Navy sailor who used his new invention to help slow down planes as they landed on the aircraft carriers. Seemed logical enough for me.

The final lesson that my Dad taught me in my formative years was to stick it to The Man for as long as possible. Especially if you think The Man is screwing you over. Way back in the early 1980s, when New York City was upgrading their extensive subway system, the powers that be in NY City public transportation decided to raise the tolls across the bridges to pay for the underground subway construction. As my Dad didn’t ride the subway, he didn’t think it was very fair that above-ground travelers had to pay for the transportation benefit of below-ground travelers. So he decided to stand up to The Man and not pay the added fee.

Being that my Dad worked nights, and there weren’t many people on the roads when he was traveling from our house on Long Island to his job closer to New York City, he concocted a plan to hand toll booth attendants handfuls of pennies and nickels and then, while the attendant was busy counting the change, he would casually pull through the toll. Legend has it, my Dad grew quite good at this technique. So good, as a matter of fact, that he not only caught the eye of the authorities, but also the news media. Soon his popularity became a double-edged sword.

On one hand, the attention meant my Dad was featured in a write-up in New York Newsday and people were rallying to his cause, including my elementary school librarian, who told me to tell my Dad to keep up the good work. On the other hand, the attention meant the cops knew exactly who my Dad was. Knowing all my Dad’s information, it wasn’t long until the henchmen of The Man started calling the house and scaring my Mom, who not only had me to worry about, but was also pregnant with my brother. So needless to say, with his family in mind, and after fighting for as long as he could, my Dad gave in to The Man and paid the hated toll.

As you can see, my Dad has taught me a lot of things, from the meaning of kaboobies to when and how to fight the system. I definitely wouldn’t be the man I am today without lessons from my Dad.

Happy Father’s Day.

With each new tool, website, or social network staying in touch gets more complicated.

For example, I have family members I can only reach via phone, friends I only talk to via email, Twitter friends, Facebook friends, organizations I follow only on MySpace, a boss who only reads my office reports if they are printed out, and folks I text on a regular basis.

As to be expected, the use of communication tools often varies on generation. Younger friends, family members, peers, other people in my age bracket or younger tend to be more online. I don’t expect my grandfolks to be on Twitter any time soon.

Then there is the frequency of how often people check their communication platform. Although almost everyone has email, that’s doesn’t mean they check it. Same with voice mail.

Of course I make things exponentially more difficult by having multiple accounts on many of these platforms. I have four personal email addresses (I’ve only dropped two since I started emailing in 1996), four work email address on various servers and networks, two Twitter accounts, two MySpace accounts, and one Facebook account. And my phone, which has a Facebook and a Twitter app.

All I am missing is the firepit to send smoke signals.

Communication tools have also vastly changed the dating game. I remember back when an hour long conversation meant girl and I may have a few things in common. In the last two years, I haven’t dated a woman who didn’t rely heavily on text messaging.  I think the days of the hour-long phone call are long gone. I was getting good at that.

Calling now seems awkward. Like I have to really know someone first or they have to be expecting my call. Or maybe I have to text to let them know I am going to call.

Apparently, I am supposed to text a woman a lot sooner than I was supposed to call. There used to be a 24-hour rule on calling. Not that I was that great at following that, but do I text first now? What is the “correct” time I should wait before texting?

The last thing I want is to be this guy:

One of these days, I going to go Thoreau and be reachable only through mailed postage. Either that, or I am going to end up like the bad guy in Wes Craven’s Shocker and live in the grid.

Maybe I am old-fashioned, but I actually like giving people things. Things they can touch and feel. Things they can put on their dresser or mantle or table or counter. Things they can say, “My son gave me that.” So count me out for the Mother’s Day social media extravaganza.

That said however, I wonder if helping out on Mother’s Day is only the beginning for Facebook. Maybe they have bigger plans for other holidays.

Think about this: every year people all over the world pour through their address books, rolodexes, and other assorted files for the names and locations of people they will send Christmas Cards to. They’ll buy the cards, the envelops, the stamps, the labels, and probably even pay for Christmas pictures of the kids to send as inserts. Then there is the hassle of going to the post office and all it entails.

What if Facebook partnered with Hallmark and did all that for you?

I know I am not the only person whose Facebook friends constitute 90% or so of the people I would send Christmas cards to. Save for my grandparents, my mother, and a few other second cousins here and there, everyone I know is on Facebook. I shouldn’t need to have all their addresses stashed away somewhere only to be dusted off once a year.

Here is what I think Facebook should do to make my Christmas card sending season easier:

1. Create a code that crawled through my friends’ profiles and let me know whose addresses are already in Facebook.
2. From those friends, generate a list so I can check who I want to send a card to.
3. Show me a menu of 6-10 Christmas card formats and allow me to select one.
4. Provide me a box to type in a message to all or if I choose, I can type separate messages to each.
5. Ask if I want to include a picture from my profile (especially handy for those folks with kids).
6. Ask if I want to input my address if it is not already in Facebook so other can send me cards.
7. Forward me to the Hallmark.com check out page.

(If they wanted to be really fancy, they could also alert me if any of my friends adds their address after I sent out my cards. Then I could have the option of going through the card sending process specifically for that person.)

It’s just that easy. I won’t have to write addresses, lick envelops, or even go to the post office.

See, recently my nephew had a dilemma. He was too cool for a high chair, but a wee bit too short to belly up to the table and get his grub on.

So the Scrubbings kin folk scoured the innertubes and bought him a booster seat.

Now he is a happy camper.

Meanwhile, over at ScalpEm.com, my place for FSU sports news, we’ve been exploring the practices of the Florida State Athletic Department’s own booster seat, the Seminole Boosters.

Unfortunately, my thoughts on the Seminole Boosters are far different from my opinion on the Lil’ Scrubbings Booster.

So travel up the Nung River, go deep into Cambodian territory, and check out my Apocalypse Now-themed post on the true worth of the Seminole Booster program. I remember the horror.

A Journey Into The Heart of Booster Darkness

One of the guilt trips I often face is that I don’t think I clean my place frequently enough. When I was growing up, my mother would clean the whole house every Sunday. Like Mr. Clean meets the Tasmanian Devil, she would whip through four bedrooms, three bathrooms, two living rooms, a dining room, and kitchen like she was on a mission from God. A mission to annihilate all dust, dirt, and dog hair from the face of the planet Earth, or at least her house. Sure, I’d help her out at times, by vacuuming my own room and maybe even cleaning my bathroom, but that just meant she had time to juggle a load of laundry or two while cleaning.

Since I’ve been in my own place, sans roommate, since 2003, I’ve assumed the role of chief, cook, and apartment cleaner. Although being chief of my place is simple enough, the other two roles have been a work in progress. While I am slowly but surely cultivating my culinary competence, my cleaning capability still has much to be desired. At least by the standards my mother instilled in me.

(Good thing she is scared of heights and I live on the third floor of my complex!)

So in order to make myself feel less guilty for not scrubbing the bejesus out my apartment every weekend, I’ve convinced myself I don’t have to. First of all, it is only me in the place. How dirty can I possibly make the carpet in a room in rarely go in? Why clean a tub I never use? And why clean when I can go out?

Now I’m not saying my apartment is nasty. Far, far, far from it. I like to think on the average bachelor scale, I’m in the middle, leaning toward the above-average percentile. Not quite the epitome of order and neatliness, but far from your average frat house or male-dominate college apartment (seriously, I have a friend whose college apartment had a bag of another dude’s hair nailed to the ceiling, a sink full of dirty pots and pans, and the crusted remnants of a thrown chocolate cake smeared on his living room wall).

But here is my dilemma: I live in a nearly 1000sq ft apartment. If I were to clean the whole thing, wall-to-wall, top-to-bottom, inside and out, how long would that take? Three hours? Six? Maybe 12? I have psychological hang-up due the potential time commitment.

What I need to do is find my Effective Cleanliness Range (ECR) and then plan my cleaning accordingly. For example, if it takes 5 hours to do 1000sq ft, that’s 200sq ft per hour. That’s my ECR.

Since I can’t change my ECR without reducing the quality of the clean (can’t do that!), maybe I could change the time spent cleaning. I could clean an hour a day, perhaps after work in the evening. But I know that won’t happen. If I was disciplined enough to do something for an hour a day after work, I would be at the gym working out – something I haven’t been dedicated to in the last year.

So here is another thought: what if I moved to a smaller apartment? Using the same ECR (200sqft/hr), I could obviously clean a smaller apartment faster. Something to think about.

Another thing to think about is the fact that one day I hope to buy my own house, condo, or townhome. Again assuming it is just me and I don’t have any roommates, and my Russian mail order bride has not yet arrived, what is the breaking point at which my ECR would be insufficient to clean the whole place in a week? That would be my Maximum Effective Cleanliness Range (MECR).

Since I’m at work for 40 hours a week and asleep for roughly 42 hours a week (6×7), that leaves 86 hours to get my clean on. Add in the “getting ready for work” time (10 hours a week), the driving to and from work (another 10), and the time needed for food in and food out (10 hours a week)  and I’m down to 56 hours.

If I kept up my ECR of 200sq ft per hour, my MECR could feasibly be 11,000sq feet before cleaning overwhelmed my need to eat, sleep, or work. That is one big house. Of course, keeping that house at level of cleanliness would completely eliminate my ability to get my boogie on.

And we can’t have that.

You know, instead of moving, maybe I should stay where I’m at, stop writing, stop figuring out inane formulas, and actually start vacuuming. Especially on Sundays.

My mom would prefer it that way.

Anyway, like I was saying, I had the fam all huddled around on this great day of thanking. We had the wee tykes, the elders, the kin folk, and the rest. And we did what everyone else does.

We  consumed cranberry sauce, swallowed succatash, gummed gravy, bit biscuits, masticated mashed potatoes, put away pickles, nibbled on noodles, chewed on cheese and mac, polished off pie, devoured dessert, and took in some turkey.

That’s why I consider myself just a normal average guy.

So using alliteration, what did you do thanksgiving day?