Todd Merriman

Author Laura Kiniry offers her choices for “must-see locations forever linked with their movie roles.” It’s good list with a few obvious choices (Salsburg and The Sound of Music), as well as less obvious ones (Bodega Bay and The Birds). If I were to create my own list I think I’d have a hard time leaving Lawrence of Arabia off of it, being quite possibly the most distinctive visual epic, and I would add the old Vienna of The Third Man.

That obviously begs the question of what I’d remove. I think I’d drop Star Wars and Tunisia from my list because Lawrence of Arabia offers a similar landscape and the Tatooine sequences in Star Wars were clearly inspired by David Lean’s masterwork. I’d probably also remove Petra (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) because it is very much a “set” in the film. It’s not Petra in the movie, so feels more like a movie location than one where the actual place is central to the story (as it Vienna very much is in The Third Man).

Tropical Island Paradise | Yacht Island Design

I know this has made the rounds a bit, but I finally got around to checking out Yacht Island Design and their insane luxury yacht concepts. In reviewing their offering, I have a couple of observations:

1. I enjoy that their ridiculous, never-to-be made island yacht designs are based on a “Philosophy.”
2. I also like that they offer “Bespoke Yacht Island Design” — as if anyone who might fork over a few hundred million dollars to buy one of these would just purchase an “off the shelf” yacht island.

This is obviously absurd, but it’s also real. Which begs the question: Does the target market for this consist solely of the Saudi royal family and the Sultan of Brunei?

Move | Film by Rick Mereki

3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage… all to turn 3 ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food ….into 3 beautiful and hopefully compelling short films…..

Here’s a little something for the gluttons. AOL highlights its favorite places in the United States to wander around and gorge yourself on fine food.

This is one of the reasons why I enjoy Adventurous Kate. If she makes a list, it’s actually a useful one. Not only does she steer you from overrun destinations like Koh Phi Phi, but steers you towards other places you might have not otherwise considered like Koh Lanta.

In his latest column, “If I Ruled The (NBA) World,” The Sports Guy Bill Simmons returns to one of his favorite topics: how the NBA would be perfect if only he were in charge. His whole “Common Sense GM” thing is mostly tongue-in-cheek, but he goes to this well so often that you have to assume he believes there’s at least some truth in it. And admittedly it’s usually entertaining — parts rational solutions, cockamamie ideas, and willful ignorance of reality. And this latest column on the lockout indulges all of them.

Yet Simmons main problem is not that he has bad ideas, it’s that nearly all of them exist within a current system that is fundamentally flawed. He wants David Stern, the players and the NBA generally to embrace radical ideas but you can’t effectively do that if you’re stuck in the box to begin with. The best you can hope for is incremental improvement. It’s like the tax or healthcare systems in this U.S. Unless you throw the whole thing out and start from scratch, all you’ll get is change at the edges that does nothing to solve structural problems.

Here are a couple of things I know about the NBA (which incidentally are true of the NHL and MLB as well).

1. The NBA is nothing like the NFL.
2. There are not even close to 25 cities that can reasonably support a professional basketball team.
3. The NBA can do nothing to ensure competitive balance or that all of its teams are profitable.
4. The NBA Players Union has outlived its usefulness.

Let’s take a look at them one by one (after the break).

1. The NBA is nothing like the NFL.

Can we please dispense with this notion that the NFL is a model that the NBA, MLB and NHL can follow? The NFL is unique in almost every way. Its season consists of few games, all of which take place once a week, mostly on the same day. Each game (or Sunday) is by definition an event, and the NFL will always have a larger fan base because of this fact. There’s nothing eventful about game 47 on the NBA schedule or 118 on the MLB docket. It’s just much easier to be a casual fan of a sport that only has 16 games (plus post-season) and demands only one day of attention.

Because of its event quality, the NFL was made for television and therefore can demand a massive league-wide television contract the other leagues cannot. Looking at it broadly, the NFL is national and all other sports are regional. And so the NFL can divvy its pot more equitably than can the other sports where individual teams broker their own television deals. That fact alone makes the second truism of the NBA very real…

2. There are not even close to 25 cities that can reasonably support a professional basketball team.

The financial health of an NBA franchise is entirely dependent on local support. To aspire to profitability the team must sign lucrative regional television deals, attract corporate sponsors and fill its arena night in night out. There are just not many cities that offer the numbers and economic infrastructure necessary to meet these requirements. No matter how you try to game the system, teams in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Dallas will always have an economic advantage over teams in Memphis and Milwaukee.

Without addressing this problem the NBA faces one of two scenarios: 1) an endless relocation carousel among teams in the smaller markets, or 2) a number of teams that are simply incapable of making money and/or consistently fielding a decent squad.

In Simmons’ defense, he raises the issue and sort of advocates contraction and/or relocation of existing teams to major markets. In my opinion the league needs to eliminate a minimum of four teams, probably more. It’s the only way that you can provide a foundation that allows all of the teams to both be competitive and capable of achieving a return. Which brings me to point three…

3. The NBA can do nothing to ensure competitive balance or that all of its teams are profitable.

Every franchise is individually owned and operated. There is nothing the NBA can do to ensure their success, just as there’s no way for McDonalds to ensure all of its franchisees turn a profit. All business owners are capable of making bad decisions, throwing good money after bad, and on and on. All the NBA can do is establish the best conditions for the owners.

That’s what the lockout is about from the owners’ perspective. They want a better foundation. But no amount of trimming at the edges is going to have any demonstrable long-term impact. A hard cap, shorter contracts, all of it, does not solve the structural problem of operating teams in areas that are not suitable. They don’t ensure that some stupid owner doesn’t overpay a decent talent, only mitigates the problem when he does it. All these proposals don’t make it anymore attractive for some billionaire to consider buying the New Orleans Hornets.

And it certainly doesn’t ensure competitive balance because there’s nothing to prevent an owner from being miserly with the pocketbook (a la Donald Sterling). All something like a hard cap does is prevent a free-spending owner from spending freely. One can argue that maybe that helps create a league where any owner can put together a unit capable of winning, but it’s hardly a guarantee of that. It won’t stop players from leaving teams to go to others in places they find more desirable. If all the money’s basically equal, there’s not much incentive for Lebron James to stay in Cleveland rather than bail for Miami. A hard cap, shorter contracts, and maximum salaries just make that more likely.

Which leads directly into the fourth point…

4. The NBA Players Union has outlived its usefulness.

Player unions served a purpose when the players were essentially indentured servants. They’re not anymore; like actors in Hollywood movies, NBA players are the product. They’re the draw. They have all the power. All the union does, from my perspective, is limit that power. Why on earth would a players union agree to a limit on what Lebron James or Kobe Bryant can demand? How is that in those players’ interest? All the union does is drive up the salaries of their middling players, which is obviously great for Ben Gordon but pretty terrible for Dywane Wade.

I don’t get why star NBA players don’t make an issue of this. If I were them, I’d lock myself out, bust the union. In a completely free system, where owners and players don’t come to terms on arbitrary caps on salaries, what do you think Dan Gilbert would’ve offered LeBron James to keep him Cleveland? $30 million per year? $50 million? An ownership stake in the Cavs? In a world of independent contracts with no restrictions, you don’t think LeBron James could command that for a number of years and get it all guaranteed? Of course he could. And you know what? It probably would’ve been a good deal for Dan Gilbert. There’s no bigger draw right now than LeBron James. He guarantees you a spot in the playoffs. He makes your team relevant. By his mere presence he raises the overall value of your franchise.

Of course this kind of free spending seems at odds with the whole foundation for profitability thing, and maybe it is, but to me it’s a system that actually encourages ownership of a franchise, rewards good management and serves the players’ interest.

So what’s the solution?

Blow the whole thing up.

Imagine this: First contract down to 24 teams. Dissolve the union. No longer any need for collective bargaining. Every team owner is free to run their business as they see fit (if the league wants to do some kind of revenue sharing thing, fine). Every player can negotiate freely.

All of a sudden the NBA operates in the free market. Every player is a free agent and every team is able to come to terms with them individually. There’s no limit on what they can be paid or how they can be compensated. Equity in the franchise. Huge upfront bonuses. A lifetime pension. Guaranteed contract. All of it on the table. You know, just like in real life. And just like in real life as a business owner you don’t have to offer any of those things either. Sure, throw equity and guarantees at Dwight Howard, but Joel Anthony?

All of a sudden players are offered what they’re worth according to their potential employer, not some arbitrary agreed-upon rules. The true revenue-generating stars would command the big paydays they deserve while other players would earn whatever the market would bear. And if the second-tier player doesn’t like the offer he can try elsewhere. Really want a guaranteed contract that insulates you from being cut (or, you know, fired)? Well, have it at it. But there’s nothing that says you’re going to get it — unless you’re one of the very best players in the world.

Would a “system” like this give unfair advantage to Los Angeles or New York? Of course. But here’s the thing. They already have an advantage. Right now the Lakers can absorb the luxury tax and hold on to Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum — but only because those players can be paid some pre-set amount. In this world, there’s no cap on what anyone could be paid, and even the richest owner has to draw the line somewhere. Could the Knicks go out and get Chris Paul, Dywane Wade, LeBron James, Dirk Nowitzki and Dwight Howard? Absolutely. If the owner’s willing to bankrupt himself in the process. He’s competing with 23 other teams that can all offer whatever they want to each of those guys. To get all of them it’ll be huge guaranteed money, equity stakes, multiple years, and god knows what else.

But even if it does provide advantage to the bigger market teams, it offers opportunity for second-tier markets. They have more flexibility in putting together a very good, entertaining basketball team. Whereas today teams like Milwaukee have almost no shot at attracting a major star through free agency, now they do. And they’ll still have the ability to surround him with a strong supporting cast. With a smaller league, quality players are more easy to come by and, in a truly competitive market, ultimately cheaper to attain. Memphis won’t have to max Rudy Gay out $80 million, when they could have him or a  comparable player for less. And if they teams are smart they’ll have more roster flexibility because every guy on their team won’t have a fully guaranteed contract. (I should probably note that Milwaukee and Memphis would probably be contracted in my plan in any case.)

The whole thing is incentive-based. Without all the guarantees players are encouraged to work harder and play better to position themselves for the sort of rewards the very best players are likely to get. And management is incentivized to actually be smart about how they run their team — because there’s no hoping for the next CBA to bail them out from all of their mistakes.

Of course, this is all basically a libertarian pipe dream. But it works. For the players it’s a meritocracy. Some will lose assuredly, but excellence is rewarded and personal freedom is maximized. For the owners, it makes owning an NBA franchise more attractive because they’re not obligated to fork over some ridiculous percentage of their revenue to the players. They only have to manage for profit.

World’s Best Hotels 2011 | Travel + Leisure

The magazine has released its annual list of hotels that most of us are never likely to stay in — including top rated U.S. hotel Triple Creek Ranch in Darby, Montana, where cabin rates start at a measly $750 per night.

Photo: Triple Creek Ranch | Darby, Montana

World’s Prettiest Lighthouses | AOL Travel

I find lighthouses sort of irresistible. I think it’s maybe because they seem quaint and anachronistic and yet still serve a vital purpose even in our technologically-advanced age. No one seems to have come up with a simpler or more reliable way to signal vessels that land is approaching than a light on the shore. And there’s something comforting about that.

Photo: Cape Hatteras, North Carolina | By Razvan Orendovici

latimes:

How a city reached its limit with the Dodgers: Los Angeles’ love for the Dodgers was unconditional for four decades. But their grip on L.A. began to slip in 1998, and now their popularity is in free-fall. How did this happen, and can they get it back?

Illustration: Once known as a Dodgers town, the Lakers have become the team of preference in L.A. Credit: Paul Rogers / For The Times

Eight year-old me will always bleed Dodger Blue.

I was a very lucky kid. I grew up regularly going to Chavez Ravine for games with my father, mother and brothers. Sitting in the loge section just up from first base, I shared a transistor radio with my dad so we could hear Vin Scully. Even live, it wasn’t a Dodger game if you couldn’t hear Vin call the play-by-play. My whole life seemed like Dodger Dogs and Carnation Malts.

Since pre-school I had been good childhood friends with Ron Cey’s son. We played little-league together. I even went on a camping trip with him and his dad and got carsick on the way for good measure. I once ate spaghetti with Tommy Lasorda. I remember well The Big Blue Wrecking Crew, reveled in Fernando Mania, and cringed every time Steve Sax threw to first. Oh, and I was in the stands when Kirk Gibson hit his fabled shot.

No matter what happens none of that can be taken away.

Jack Kerouac’s On the Road | A Penguin Books Amplified Edition for iPad

I don’t have an iPad, but if I did this would probably be the first ebook I’d buy. Not because I’m some Jack Kerouac freak. I like his work well enough and loved On the Road, but I hardly consider him one of America’s great writers. This just seems like everything a book for the iPad should be.

It includes the original book, of course, but also tons of supplementary material including audio clips of the author reading a few chapters, pages from the actual travel journal he kept, “side-by-side comparisons of Kerouac’s famous original scroll draft and the published text,” and “pages from the journals Kerouac kept while on the road.” And much more, too much to mention.

But I will note the “Fully interactive map of the now legendary trips from 1947, 1949, and 1950 taken by Dean and Sal in the book.” Now that’s the kind of thing an ebook of this legendary novel should include.

8 Destinations for the Solo Traveler | AOL Travel

As with everything else, traveling alone has its pros and cons. Pros: No scheduling conflicts, you can choose every meal, not to mention grab all the glory of travel triumphs (and pitfalls) all to yourself. Cons: Safety is paramount, and there is the ever lingering feeling of loneliness that can turn a fabulous, delicious dinner into a slow form of torture.

AOL’s suggestions aren’t all that adventurous. I’m not sure even one would qualify as “exotic,” although you could make an argument for Singapore, I guess.

Still, there are some worthwhile suggestions. I can personally vouch for Norway’s solo travel virtues. When AOL writes, “Scandinavians love Scandinavia — particularly when they’re showing you around and lauding the delicious food and fascinating cultural scene,” they could not be more accurate. Despite stereotypes of stoicism, there is likely no more welcoming bunch than you’ll find in Norway. Conveniently, most of them speak better English than the average American. And while culturally it is notably homogeneous, the country is impossibly beautiful and varied.

Case in point: On a train from Bergen to Oslo years ago, I met a girl on her way from Lapland to Oslo to attend university. She had lived in the far north of the country her whole life and this was her first time away. She was on that train for six hours, she told me, before she encountered her first tree.

Yes, her first tree.

This wasn’t like the first time someone saw snow or the ocean. This was a tree. Trust me, there are a lot of trees in Norway. Timber is one of Norway’s primary natural resources. And yet, because this girl had lived all along in Lapland, essentially in the Arctic Circle, she’d never seen a real living one with her own eyes. Remember, she was on her way to college. She was eighteen.

Photo: Aker Brygge | Oslo, Norway | by The Wandering Chicken

Usually these sorts of articles are useless to all but the least experienced travelers, but this one actually has some worthwhile stuff buried in it. I found the section on finding “secret ways to book award seats on partner airlines” particularly helpful.

Or, more accurately, why is commercial airline travel still so slow? It’s a question I’ve often wondered about and fortunately Slate’s resident Explainer (in this case, Brian Palmer) has the answer. Or answers. Or at least some plausible explanations. 

There are apparently a number of factors. First among them: fuel efficiency.

Commercial airlines have slowed down over the last three or four decades. Today, flying from New York to Denver takes 19 more minutes than in 1983, and a flight from Washington, D.C., to Miami takes 45 more minutes than in 1973. The primary reason for such sluggishness is the cost of fuel. By the laws of physics, the increase in drag equals the square of the increase in speed, so even a slightly faster flight requires a lot more fuel. Hiking a plane’s velocity by 10 percent takes 21 percent more energy. Speeding up by 40 percent approximately doubles fuel consumption.

You would think advances in technology would offset this. We certainly should have more aerodynamic planes now than we did in 1973, right? Well, no. Not really. Fact is most planes in service are really pretty old or at the very least based on some fairly old designs. And unfortunately the Explainer doesn’t see that changing.

Manufacturers are technically capable of producing faster planes, but there isn’t much demand for them outside of the military. In 1961, American manufacturer Convair released a commercial jet that could reach Mach 0.91, meaning 91 percent as fast as sound. That’s significantly faster than current design speeds, which range between Mach 0.78 and Mach 0.82. Even though fuel cost less than 50 cents per gallon back then, few airlines were willing to give up fuel efficiency for the sake of speed.

So it comes back to fuel efficiency, I guess. Wouldn’t you think we’d be able to make a plane that is both faster and more fuel efficient? C’mon, rocket scientists!

But it’s not all fuel efficiency. Apparently air traffic is another reason.

Today, most bigwigs fly jets, and their gain is our loss: Not only are more planes using U.S. runways, but passenger jets must reduce their airspeed when they get caught behind a corporate CEO.

Does this make anyone else feel uneasy about the friendly skies? For some reason I get a Fifth Element image of planes darting this way and that.

Anyway, there’s also this, which is not really about the speed of air travel but our perception of it:

There have also been changes in the way airlines report flight times, which makes them seem longer than they actually are. When airlines started disclosing their percentage of on-time flights in the mid-1980s, they added a few extra minutes to the scheduled times to increase their apparent punctuality, a practice known as block padding.

This mathematically jujitsu has been obvious for some time to anyone that travels frequently. Mr. Palmer’s being generous when he says “a few extra minutes” — it’s more like an additional 20% on top of the actual flight time. Which of course makes on-time statistics generally useless at least as far as gauging on-time departure goes. I find most flights I take don’t get off the ground until well after the scheduled time but still manage to land on time and often early.

Click here to read the whole thing on Slate.

Everything is a Remix: Part 3 | A Film by Kirby Ferguson

The third installment of the the documentary series by Kirby Ferguson has arrived and it moves even further afield from the traditional concept of the “remix” to take on the act of creativity itself.

Click here to watch parts one and two.

What America Looks Like: On the Ohio River, Addicted to Pills | The Atlantic

This is a story about drugs, family and absence along a bend in the river. Travis Simmons is attempting to move past his addiction, and despite prison, parole, parents, and his devotion to his daughters, he cannot stay out of trouble.

The ongoing feature “What America Looks Like” on Conor Friedersdorf’s blog at The Atlantic has been consistently fascinating, and this installment is perhaps the best yet.

I’m one of those who feel Groundhog Day is a near perfect comedy. I watch the film anytime I come across it and inevitably find something new to enjoy. It quite literally gets better with each subsequent viewing.

Of course, for any fan, it took but one viewing to fall in love with the character Ned Ryerson and the actor who portrayed him, the great Stephen Tobolowsky. He steals every scene he’s in, quite a remarkable feat because he’s opposite Bill Murray in every one of them.

The other day I was listening to a recent Sklar Brothers podcast which included an interview with the actor. He’s every bit as funny and disarming as he is on camera. And while they didn’t discuss Groundhog Day, I was ecstatic to learn that Tobolowsky has his own podcast called The Tobolowsky Files. Needless to say it took me all of two seconds to subscribe.

I went back through the archives immediately to see if there was one concerning the film. Sure Enough, Episode 29 centered on the making of Groundhog Day. If you’re even a passing fan of the film, it’s a must listen. Tobowlosky recounts his experience (which he remembers rather fondly) and gives inside details about how the film came together, a true exercise in “guerilla filmmaking,” he calls it. He weaves story into story, mixing insight, humor and heart, giving the listener an understanding of not just what it was like to be a participant in that particular film but also a collaborator in the filmmaking process in general.

One of the more interesting tales involves the scene in which Bill Murray’s character Phil Connors finally comes to the realization that he is stuck in time. Let’s just say what appears on the screen is far different than what was originally planned (and shot) and that, as Tobolowsky says, the film is far better for it — in fact, might be the movie it is because of it. It’s an incredible look into how “small” changes can radically affect the entire tone and meaning of a film. And Tobolowsky tells the story beautifully.

Listen to The Tobolowsky Files Episode 29: The Classic at Slash Film or download it from iTunes.

Visiting 10 of the Most Interesting Abandoned Places on Earth | AOL Travel

Travelers looking for a getaway from the normal getaway should skip the sandy beaches to walk amid silent relics in Namibia, Chernobyl or an abandoned California gold mining town. These empty places may look like Scooby Doo set pieces, but they hold important clues to bigger mysteries about both the past and the future; the creep of urban decay and the necessity of memorializing tragedy. Sometimes history lives alone.

—Saira Bajwa, AOL Travel

Photo: Kolmanskop, Namibia | by Damien du Toit