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We lost a dear friend yesterday. Cait’s fish, Spike, passed on to the great fishbowl in the sky. It was not unexpected, as he hadn’t been right for months. That didn’t make the loss any easier for her.

He had always been an odd fish, but since the fall he spent most of his time curled up on the bottom of his bowl. While his brother Sparkle would swim around and eat his food as soon as we put it in his bowl, Spike just sat in the rocks. Each week when I cleaned his bowl, it looked like most of the pellets I had given him were still in the water.

In recent weeks, he took to taking occasional wild swims around his bowl, moving rocks around, smacking the glass, and zipping just under the water level. A few times I put a saucer over the top of the bowl because I feared he would leap out. Just as quickly as these jaunts would start, they ended, and he would sink to the bottom and flip over. He looked as dead as can be, but somehow kept going.

Until yesterday.

We disposed of him while Cait was at school. She didn’t notice anything was amiss when she got home, so we waited to tell her. Meghan noticed his bowl was gone as soon as she got home, so I took Cait aside and explained that Spike had been sick for a long time and had finally died. Her eyes got big, she asked what I had said, I repeated it, and then she burst into tears. I was not expecting that reaction at all, mostly because we had explained to her awhile back the Spike probably wouldn’t live much longer and she seemed to understand that. I figured she would be a little sad, but not beside herself.

She cried and hugged me. I told her she did a great job taking care of him and the fish I had when I was a kid didn’t live nearly as long as him. That didn’t help. Eventually she disappeared into her bed where she laid and cried for half an hour or so. Then, periodically for the rest of the day, she would get sad and start crying again.

I worked last night and when I got home she was on the couch with Suzanne, unable to sleep because of her sadness. Between her sobs she said she wanted to get another red fish and name him Spike, too. I asked her if she wanted to name him Spike II or Spike Jr. That got about a quarter smile out of her.

We’re lucky; we have happy kids. They get their feelings hurt sometimes, or overreact to small things because they’re tired or hungry. But this was our first real heartbreak, and it was heartbreaking to watch.

Fortunately, Cait has a friend from school over right now and seems as happy as can be. They bounce back quickly.

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So, I’m kind of late on this, since the BCS title game was Monday and all, but I might as well get it off my chest.

I think the BCS is a gigantic scam.

Now hold on. Before you go clicking somewhere else, thinking to yourself, “Of course it’s a scam. You’re just now seeing that?” allow me to clarify.

I’m a long-time BCS hater. I remember one night in late 2003, while traveling for business, I couldn’t sleep because I was so wound up mentally drafting an anti-BCS post. 1

The scam I’m talking about isn’t the one that your local internet blowhard likes to waste pixels on each December. No, I think the BCS is a massive PR scam to keep people talking about college football.

As popular as college football is, it’s easy to lose track of it over the holidays when most schools are done for the year and the NFL playoff race is the biggest story on ESPN. With the traditional New Year’s Day games either being moved back or neutered of their meaning, even that hallowed date has lost its luster.

So what better way to keep college football on the front pages and in the first five minutes of Sportscenter than to adhere to a system that is based on minimal logic and rigged voting? Even people who aren’t huge college football fans get sucked into the annual debate about whether there should be a different way to determine the BCS-level champ.

Again, I can already hear your criticisms. “That’s dumb. As stupid as the BCS is, there’s no way they devised it as purely a PR ploy. You turned 40 last year; you’re turning into an old man that buys into conspiracy theories, aren’t you?”

No, I’m not. Listen, I understand that the current BCS system exists for one main reason and one secondary reason: to make massive amounts of money and to placate the powers behind the traditional bowls.

But, after more than a decade of BCS play, with the constant criticism from the public and media, and with a healthy, five-week tournament determining the champion in what used to be called Division 1-AA, there has to be an explanation for why the BCS powers dig their heels in and refuse to budge.

I say it’s PR.

And I think even their tentative statements Tuesday about reassessing the current BCS format are a PR move. The day after a dull title game (unless you’re an Alabama fan, of course), what better way to keep people talking than to casually suggest you might listen to suggestions for changing the system? That doesn’t pin you down to actually making any changes. But it does keep the reporters, columnists, and readers interested.

Maybe they really will wise up and make changes to a broken system that has, too often, let the wrong team claim the #2 spot in the final poll. But I’m not going to hold my breath. I think it’s more likely we see the next, final, massive round of realignment, with the BCS-level schools kissing the NCAA goodbye and controlling football and basketball themselves.

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If most Americans can agree on anything, it’s that airport security is a pain. And it seems like most people realize for all the hassle you have to go through to board your flight, someone who really wants to damage an aircraft something still has plenty of opportunities to unleash their evil.

Bruce Schneier is one of the most outspoken critics of the measures we’ve taken to secure our airports since 9/11. This is a terrific look at Schneier and the security infrastructure we’ve built over the past decade.

To walk through an airport with Bruce Schneier is to see how much change a trillion dollars can wreak. So much inconvenience for so little benefit at such a staggering cost. And directed against a threat that, by any objective standard, is quite modest.

• Kurt Vile - 31
• Public Enemy - 20
• Neil Finn - 16
• Anna Calvi - 11
• The Long Winters - 10

Finally, the holidays are over. Meghan is back in school today, which means we get to work our way back into our normal routine. She reminded me last night that I utterly failed at the one thing I wanted to accomplish with her over the break: master tying her shoes. Oh well, she’s waited this long. It won’t kill her to put it off another month. She can read a 150 page book in a night, but she can’t tie her own shoes. I love the little contradictions in our kids.

Speaking of routines, our trash day changed last week. Our service now runs through the city rather than through our HOA. What makes it especially difficult is we had been a Monday pickup neighborhood since we moved here. So, for 8 1/2 years my routine every Sunday was to gather up all the trash in the house, load the dumpsters, and roll them out to street. The only hard part was remembering whether it was a recycling week or not. Somehow I managed to only forget that once, and it was the week before Christmas, which was a bad time to have an overloaded recycling bin.

Despite leaving myself many mental reminders, predictably I rolled out of bed at 7:45 last Wednesday, looked outside, saw all the other trash bins in our cul-de-sac out, and made a panicked dash to get ours out before the truck came. Only it didn’t come, since Monday was a holiday, so I looked doubly foolish. I figured that was payback for all the Monday holidays when I smuggly gazed at the neighbors’ bins while I was the only one who remembered there was no pick-up that morning.

Why am I sharing this? Because many times over the years I’ve thought about writing an ode to the Monday trash pickup. It’s perfect, in my view. You immediately get rid of any extra trash you accumulated from weekend entertaining or cleaning projects. You’re starting the new week off fresh. And there’s a built-in reminder, as you do you other Sunday evening preparations for the coming week.

Wednesdays are devoid of meaning or benefits when it comes to trash. I’m going to have to write it on the family calendar until it becomes second nature. If/when we move, I think going to a Monday trash neighborhood will be high on my list of desires in a new home.

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I have a ton of articles saved up from over the holidays to share. I doubt I’ll get to all of them, but I’ll try to get some of them out over the next several days.

I’ll start with this great Mental Floss article about how Columbia House made money on those crazy 11 albums for a penny deals. Back in the day, when several of us shared a large house in college, we would assign different apartment numbers to our address so we could have more than one membership going at a time. Brilliant, we were!

Columbia House and BMG had some fairly clever ways to save cash, though. Until 2006, the record companies had never actually secured written licenses to distribute the records it sent to club members. Instead, the clubs saved the hassle (and the expense) by paying most publishers 75% of the standard royalties set by copyright law. The clubs argued that since the publishers were cashing their discounted checks, they were submitting to “implied” licenses.

It’s also interesting to learn that Columbia House pressed their own albums from the master tapes. That explains why so many of their cassettes had those generic covers without any liner notes or lyrics inside.

I debated whether to wait another day to post my Colts thoughts. Good thing I got it out yesterday. Shortly after I posted it, the Colts let Bill and Chris Polian go. Smart move, and one that bodes well for the future of the franchise.

Cait and Lia went back to school today, so some assorted leftovers from the holidays.

It took less than two hours on Christmas morning for one of the sisters to break one of the other sisters’ toys. Fortunately, it was just a temporary break. This is the rest of our lives, right?

Meghan has always been strong willed and verbal, but we’re starting to get into the talking back phase, which I have a feeling I’m not going to enjoy. Before Christmas our newly washed guest bedroom sheets were lying on a couch in the living room after I had folded them up. I should have known better, because soon enough Meghan and Cait were messing with them. I yelled at them to get off the sheets and Meghan snapped back, “Well you shouldn’t have put them there.” While she kind of had a point, that didn’t make me any more pleased about her response.

We’re doing our best to limit time on the Wii, but over the break you kind of have to let the kids go nuts. Meghan is quite good at bowling. She loves Guilty Party. Cait is the first daughter to learn how to break serve on tennis. Watching Lia dance to Just Dance 3 is hilarious.

My favorite comment of the week came before Cait had mastered tennis. She was winning despite swinging randomly. WE later determined she wasn’t even watching the right player. After winning a point, she shrieked, “I’m so good and I don’t even know what I’m doing!”

Meghan is turning into a champion reader. She got two Ivy and Bean books for Christmas. By the time I got out of bed on the 26th, she had already read both of them. We picked up a pile of books at the library later in the week and within 48 hours, she had poured through them all. I’m not sure where she gets it. 1

Meghan has a birthday party for a friend later this week. Before Christmas, she went to a cookie party at another friend’s house. In both cases, not all the girls in their class were invited. This has caused an odd mix of parental pride and paranoia in me. I’m glad that Meghan has been picked to go to a couple exclusive parties. But then I wonder, are there parties she hasn’t been invited to? And why the hell aren’t people inviting my daughter to their parties?

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Me, on Sept. 6:

The franchise is built around #18. If he can’t perform, write off the playoffs and start hoping for something crazy to happen this season that puts the Colts in the Andrew Luck sweepstakes.

Funny how, back when the season started, there was so much joking about how the Colts should tank the season and go for Andrew Luck. A month into the season it was obvious that they were a bad team and that wasn’t so far-fetched. By November, talk of a perfect season echoed through central Indiana for the second time in three years. Although, instead of going for 16-0 as they nearly did in 2009, this time it was trying to flip that and go 0-16.

Just when they seemed like shoe-ins for the #1 pick, the decided to play with pride and win a couple games, putting that pick in jeopardy.

Fortunately the were inept enough Sunday to lose to another bad team and locked in the #1 pick.

People in other cities have asked me, “What do Colts fans think about the future? Are they ready to give up on Peyton?”

My answer is simple: going 2-14 proved to the fan base that it’s not just a matter of getting Peyton healthy again to get back into the AFC’s elite. While there will be some angst if Peyton is playing elsewhere next season, what happened this year opened a lot of eyes as to how much rebuilding is needed. It also helps that so many long term Colts are free agents this year. It’s the perfect time to start over.

There are two options: do you rebuild now or get stuck in the mediocre middle for a couple years hoping Peyton has some magic left in him. To me, the choice is easy: You start rebuilding today.

Here’s my plan. I don’t think it’s necessarily original and understand that some parts of it will be harder for Jim Irsay, who wants to make sure Lucas Oil Stadium is filled each Sunday next fall.

1) Draft Andrew Luck. No one is a sure thing, and even a prospect like Luck comes with questions. But he’s there, and the quickest path to NFL success is to have an elite quarterback. Robert Griffin III is a phenomenal talent, and who knows, maybe he lights the NFL up the way he did college football this year. But the fact is he had one elite year and has more questions than Luck.

2) Trade Peyton (assuming he doesn’t take matters into his own hands and retires). Someone out there will be willing to take a chance that his neck holds up for 2-3 years. Maybe it’s Miami or Washington. Jerry Jones’ ego might put Dallas in the running. Regardless, there are teams out there who will be willing to send multiple drafts picks to the Colts in exchange for Manning. While they haven’t drafted well in recent years, the Colts need as many draft picks as they can get to restock the roster.

3) New management and coaching. Bill Polian has built three successful franchises. But his massive ego is as much to blame for the Colts failures this year as anyone else. It’s time to thank him for his efforts and send him and his son Chris packing. Bring in a new GM with no connections to the existing roster that can make tough decisions about who to cut, who to resign, and who to draft.

Jim Caldwell might be a nice man, and he did a lot with a depleted roster a year ago, but it’s clear he’s not a coach the Colts can win with. It doesn’t matter whether the Colts go after a big name or not. 1 They just need a new coach.

4) Don’t let emotion get in the way when evaluating their free agents. I love Reggie Wayne. But is he worth the cap space it will take to sign him when he’s aging and the team probably won’t win for 2-3 years? Jeff Saturday has been a rock, but he’s at the age when offensive linemen break down.

5) Preach patience. With all the holes on the team, it’s going to take more than Luck to turn them around. Remind people that while the Colts turned it around in Peyton’s second year, that was because players like Marvin Harrison and Marshall Faulk were already on the team. This time the quarterback is coming first. Until he has an elite receiver, a decent running game, and a strong line to protect him, there’s only so much he can do. It would help a lot, though, if Luck does not suck.

It won’t be easy, but I see the quickest path back to success comes by making a clean break with the past.

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An expanded Stats post this week. The data I post each week comes from my Last.fm account, which tracks everything I listen to in iTunes (when connected to the ‘net) and Rdio. It does not pull in what I listen to on my various iPods. That’s just a long way of explaining that these numbers are imperfect, but do reflect what I listen to. Kind of like political polling, which we get to hear about nonstop for the next 10+ months.

With that in mind, I’ll share both my top 10 artists for 2011 and my normal weekly list.

2011

1 - Pearl Jam - 284 
2 - Dum Dum Girls - 209 
3 - Radiohead - 205 
4 - The White Stripes - 176 
5 - The War On Drugs - 174 
6 - The Clash - 171 
7 - Manchester Orchestra - 151 
8 - Crowded House - 136 
9 - Lykke Li - 135 
10 - Bombay Bicycle Club - 128

Weekly

1 - Robyn - 27 
2 - Kurt Vile - 23 
3 - M83 - 17 
4 - Dum Dum Girls - 10 
5 - Brendan Benson - 9

I promise to get back to some kind of normal schedule next week. But for now, another music-related post before I drop my favorite song of the year on your ears.

Have some iTunes or Amazon money burning a hole in your virtual pockets and thinking about expanding your music collection? Thanks to Rdio, I made a move back towards albums over the past year. Here are a few of my favorites, ones that I highly recommend if you are looking for something new.

Wye Oak - Civilian. The Baltimore duo has been critical darlings for some time, but on Civilian, they perfected their sound. As I mentioned in my post on the single “Civilian,” this is late night music that is perfect for the hours when the house is quiet and it can slowly sink into your head. What it lacks in power hooks it does not lack in power.

Dum Dum Girls - Only In Dreams. Their He Gets Me High EP featured my favorite song of the year, and was a sign of where the band was headed. But it was on this full-length release where the band separated themselves from the pack of retro/garage/surf pop girl groups. While the songs are perfectly crafted - at least three were in the running for my favorite of the year - it is lead singer and lyricist Dee Dee that sets the band apart.

Lykke Li- Wounded Rhymes. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. So honest and dark that I worry a little for her.

War on Drugs - Slave Ambient. An album that has grown on me steadily. So much so that I still work my way through it at least once a week, nearly six months after its release. It’s a druggy, mumbly, psychedelic piece of beauty that makes you want to jump in a car (or even on a train) and head somewhere in the great expanses of America.

Bonus Mention: Kurt Vile - “Smoke Ring for My Halo” I’ll admit, I have just started giving this one a second chance, after it appeared high on many critics’ year-end lists. A founding member of The War on Drugs, this has a similar feel to Slave Ambient. Some songs, in fact, could be swapped and fit in the other disk easily. While I prefer Slave Ambient, this one is growing on me. As several people have pointed out, their releases are somewhat analogous to the 1994 releases of Wilco’s AM and Son Volt’s Trace.

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