TY MCCARTHY

Week 15 – 2022

The College Football National Championship Game Presented by Dr. Pepper has come and gone with Georgia finally going home with the trophy. After a 2020 season and year that was… dare I say… unprecedented… 2021 was a bit more precedented.  The top four only contained one surprise entry this year, Cincinnati. The Group of 5, have been on the cusp of a playoff spot for so many years, but Cincinnati…

Week 15 – 2021

To quote my favorite play, You Can’t Take it With You, “Well Sir, here we are again.” The path we took to get here was unusual, to say the least, but I’m back with a peak at what the College Football Playoffs would have look like if it would have been expanded to eight teams. In a year unlike any other, our end result was quite familiar. Not only our winner, Alabama, a very familiar face, the…

Vexillophile: Episode 1.1: Variations on a Theme

Today is flag day in the United States. Last year we looked at the history of the United States flag, today we’ll examine a few of its variations. We know that the US flag is one of the most recognizable symbols in world, 2nd only to the Coca-Cola logo. How we view the flag speaks more about our worldview. After-all, it is just a piece of fabric, but like the dollar, its strength is not in what…

One night I asked my roommate to do something small in our apartment. Super small. Something that would be super easy, barely and inconveniencefor him. Turn on a light. I said very politely, “Could you turn on that light for me.” And he said no. Maybe he didn’t hear me, so I asked again. “Could you turn on that light for me?” This time with a high inflection, and a look of childlike innocence.…

Star Wars: Episode 4: A Thing That Happened

Trafalgar Square commemorates the 1805 British naval victory in the Napoleonic Wars, in the aptly named Battle of Trafalgar, which took place of the coast of Cape Trafalgar (which is near the Strait of Gibraltar in Spain.) It’s just down the street from both the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace. Making it one of London’s most popular tourist destinations for people too cheap to buy…

The Invisible Man – How to Reboot A Series

In 2019 Disney made a live-action remake to its classic animated 1992 film Aladdin. While it wasn’t a box office flop, it still lacked a certain… je ne sai… nope… I know what it lacked. It was lacking originality, uniqueness and flare that made the first film a classic. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand what Disney is doing. They are riding the wave of nostalgia straight to the…

Jesus Walks Part 2: Amy Grant

Songs have long been a part of religious and cultural celebrations and rituals. The Old Testament is full songs with forgotten melodies, but the lyrics remain in the Psalms. The New Testament mentions songs being sung by the early church. Fast forward some more centuries and the church is filled with the songs of monastic chants. But the game changing moment for Christian music came in the 18th…

Fixing the Primary System

America is a foundry of innovation. If there is a problem we fix it. Americans invented the mouse pad, Segways, weed eaters, and the swivel chairs. We get things done. But creating something new to solve a problem is one thing. The process about adjusting a product or process already on the market is another. The Gap changed their logoand there was hell to pay. Coca-cola’s “New Coke” was so bad…

Week 15 – 2020

What if the College Football Playoff were eight teams instead of just four? Here is what that might look like.

Taking the final position of the College Football Playoffs Rankings, the top eight teams would play in a single elimination tournament. The New Year’s Six would rotate on a set schedule, allowing each bowl to host a first round and semifinal game. The location would be known in advance…

The Truman Show 2

No one:

Hollywood: Let’s make a sequel to The Truman Show!

As far as I know there isn’t going to be equal made. But if there was, what would it look like? In a world of reboots, prequels and sequels, why not? Let’s unpack the different ways Hollywood would create a Truman Show 2.

The main problem with these is, we don’t need a Truman Show 2. Hollywood is literally giving us things no body wants,…