Nancy Drew

I saw the Nancy Drew movie yesterday, and it was surprisingly good! I read many of the books when I was younger (at least a decade ago), so I only remembered that she tended to get herself into tough situations, and her father was a lawyer. My officemate re-read one of the books yesterday morning, and assured me that the books were actually horrible in that people reacted in totally unrealistic ways. The movie kept true to that theme, and was very enjoyable because of it.

Overall, it was quite hilarious. Many funny things happen as this awkward girl from a small town tries to adjust to living in LA. There is also suspense in trying to determine what the solution to the mystery is. The audience can make a few guesses just because there are only so many characters involved, but you don't know until near the end which guess is right. Although it does have some short suspenseful moments, it's definitely appropriate for older kids since there is barely any actual violence, and common sense tells you that the main characters will be OK in the end.

As a former Nancy Drew fan, I was very pleased with the movie. I was worried that it would be horribly cheesy, but it really wasn't. Even if you never read Nancy Drew, you should definitely watch this movie because it has a good story and actually keeps you interested the entire time.

I recently found out that there are some old black and white Nancy Drew movies. I wonder how those are?

SI's best football uniforms

Sports Illustrated just released their Best College Football Uniform List to counteract their worst football list of last week. I can easily agree with some of the uniforms that are there, such as USC and Texas. But it seems that their definition of "best uniform" is primarily based on whether or not they have a dark muted color, and the level of boredom the uniform causes you (the more the better). Apparently the blue Notre Dame uniform is infinitely better than the green Notre Dame uniform.

So what truly defines "better" for these uniforms? I would wager that a good uniform would be defined as using the school's colors wisely, being pleasing to the eye, and having a modern look. Obviously I don't work for SI. My main wonder is why Michigan made the "best" list and Delaware made the "worst" list. Granted, Michigan's uniform is slightly more pleasing with the gold over the yellow, but the differences are not vast enough for one to be in the top 10 and the other to be in the bottom 10. Maybe if there were only 20 teams in college football I'd buy that, but we all know the truth of that statement.

Also, how could someone call a football uniform one of the best when there is no school logo on the helmet? Half of those uniforms could belong to any team with those general colors.

I wonder how they chose their rankings from 1 to 10 after determining their top 10. As far as I can tell, they were drawn out of a hat. Or maybe 10 people were ranked in their order of importance and they each got to choose who were the top 10 and bottom 10 based on their personal order. I was hoping that the best uniform list would be different enough from the worst uniform list to shed some light on their formula, but as I've elaborated on above we had no such luck. Although I think they nailed Texas and USC as being great uniforms, I have no idea why they ranked USC at the bottom of their "best" list.

I wonder if SI is stuck in the past enough that anything that appears "classic" is obviously "good." Maybe SI needs some new blood. Or maybe they just need to hire more women in general (and I don't mean in a bikini context). But that's another topic altogether, I suppose.

If I was choosing a team to cheer for based on uniform alone, I would choose Clemson (worst list, #7) over Wofford (best list, #6) any day.

Is that the worst you can find?

Sport's Illustrated has released their Top 10 Worst College Football Uniforms, and I have to say that I'm rather disappointed in SI, and quite pleased with college football.

Overall, the uniforms they show are not that bad from either an aesthetic point or a school spirit point of view. Some of them are indeed God-awful, like Delaware, Notre Dame, Air Force, and the old Oregon uniforms. But apparently SI has a thing against too much of one color. Did they miss the point that it's all about school spirit and being proud of your school colors? Yes, many of them could be better designed, and its apparent that most of the uniforms have probably been around since the late 90's, but most of them don't look that bad. I think a proper title would have been "Oldest-Looking College Football Uniforms."

As far as the new Oregon uniforms go, I like them. Coming from a school that is orange and maroon, I have to say that they did orange well. They have a nice modern design over the shoulders, and don't have too much of any color (which should have made SI happy!). It's a nice young look, which is great for a college team.

Sure, I may not be a fashion designer, but I guarantee the people that wrote that SI article aren't either.