Here's about a week's worth:
1) I heard a radio spot this week that cracked me up. It was an announcement from the IRS warning about a particular spam e-mail scam. At the end it said something about "cracking down on these crooks". Again, this is from the IRS. Too rich.
2) I'm pretty jaded on the politics of politics, but this election is at least going to be interesting from a sociological and historic standpoint. That said, I'm still pretty jaded on the politics of politics. I'd be less so if it weren't so political. Speeches, running mates, ads, whatever. It's all politics.
3) So good to have college football back! Unless you're a Michigan fan, at least. I was watching the Phillies game yesterday, but Michigan/Utah was on so I flipped to it during commercials. At one point I actually heard the announcer, speaking of the Michigan quarterback, say "Really a nice job by Threet of getting up after that hit." Really, when not being hurt is a victory, there could be trouble. And on their next play -- a punt from their own end zone -- they took a delay fo game. Somehow I'm not convinced that their punter was trying to audible. Anyway, Michigan would be pretty good if they could just not play a first game, but I'm not sure how they can get around the math on that one.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to Beijing
Actually, a couple funny things.
1) As noted in a previous post, 12 year-old girls on a world stage don't constitute something that I can really laugh at anymore. It just feels (too) mean. Particularly in light of that fact, though, there's something pretty amusing about the alleged age scandal. What kind of "sport" is it an advantage to be younger? Can you imagine if NFL teams were trying to sneak as 15 year-olds onto their rosters? Or how about a 12 year old kid standing in to face a Brad Lidge slider? Really (and I actually mean this), it's a shame for the people involved (assuming innocence, of course), but you have to admit it's good entertainment, right?
2) It's not funny at all to me, but the actions of certain Americans is embarrassing to me. Within a day or two, we had our baseball team's manager (seriously-- isn't the manager the one who's supposed to bring maturity and all that?) accusing an opponent of throwing at his guy's head (which, under the circumstances, would have been ludicrous) and a(nother) boxer complaining about the scoring (in fairness [pun intended], Olympic boxing has been as plauged by shady scoring as, well, pro boxing). I understand disappointment, but especially in the Olympics, whatever happened to representing your country first and foremost?
3) Lucky for us, there's Cuban tae-kwon-do. Apparently I can't link to the video due to copywright laws, but after being disqualified a dude kicked the ref (who, apparently, is Sweedish, no less) in the face. And it really does take the gold for poor sportsmanship . . . but. But isn't kicking people in the face pretty much the whole point of the event? So while we all (and myself too, I guess) rush to vilify this as the worst Olympic action of all time, it was a mere misapplication of the very skill that he was intending to be rewarded for. Now obviously it's important to kick the right dude, no question, but do you see what I'm getting at? It's just kind of ironic, right?
Almost as rich is the reaction of the guy who won. He said that obviously the Cuban dude couldn't go on and his foot (toe? whatever) was broken. In light of the fact that his obviously incapacitated opponent got up and popped a dude in the melon, I'm not sure his argument is watertight.
4) Speaking of sportmanship, it's sad how often doping comes up, and how often we (or "I" at least) wonder about it. Dude looked yoked? I wonder. Girl built like a dude? I wonder again. With medals being stripped retroactively (much like universities "vacating" wins and championships and what not [*cough* USC *cough*]) and all that's going on, do you feel like you're always going to be waiting for another ball to drop?
5) Swimming medals are, to a degree, bogus. Phelps is obviously the greatest swimmer alive today, but imagine if, for instance, basketball gave out medals for 5-on-5, 3-on-3, 1-on-1, free-throw shooting, three-point shooting, ball handling skills, and slam dunk competitions? The point is that, no matter how dominant one might be on the hardwood, there's only one medal available, and so there's something artificial about even having the opportunity to win 8 medals in a sinlge sport. That said, I think it's hilarious that one dude has more gold medals than, say, Italy, Canada, or Spain. He has more total medals than, for instance, the Czech Republic or North Korea. I just think it's funny.
1) As noted in a previous post, 12 year-old girls on a world stage don't constitute something that I can really laugh at anymore. It just feels (too) mean. Particularly in light of that fact, though, there's something pretty amusing about the alleged age scandal. What kind of "sport" is it an advantage to be younger? Can you imagine if NFL teams were trying to sneak as 15 year-olds onto their rosters? Or how about a 12 year old kid standing in to face a Brad Lidge slider? Really (and I actually mean this), it's a shame for the people involved (assuming innocence, of course), but you have to admit it's good entertainment, right?
2) It's not funny at all to me, but the actions of certain Americans is embarrassing to me. Within a day or two, we had our baseball team's manager (seriously-- isn't the manager the one who's supposed to bring maturity and all that?) accusing an opponent of throwing at his guy's head (which, under the circumstances, would have been ludicrous) and a(nother) boxer complaining about the scoring (in fairness [pun intended], Olympic boxing has been as plauged by shady scoring as, well, pro boxing). I understand disappointment, but especially in the Olympics, whatever happened to representing your country first and foremost?
3) Lucky for us, there's Cuban tae-kwon-do. Apparently I can't link to the video due to copywright laws, but after being disqualified a dude kicked the ref (who, apparently, is Sweedish, no less) in the face. And it really does take the gold for poor sportsmanship . . . but. But isn't kicking people in the face pretty much the whole point of the event? So while we all (and myself too, I guess) rush to vilify this as the worst Olympic action of all time, it was a mere misapplication of the very skill that he was intending to be rewarded for. Now obviously it's important to kick the right dude, no question, but do you see what I'm getting at? It's just kind of ironic, right?
Almost as rich is the reaction of the guy who won. He said that obviously the Cuban dude couldn't go on and his foot (toe? whatever) was broken. In light of the fact that his obviously incapacitated opponent got up and popped a dude in the melon, I'm not sure his argument is watertight.
4) Speaking of sportmanship, it's sad how often doping comes up, and how often we (or "I" at least) wonder about it. Dude looked yoked? I wonder. Girl built like a dude? I wonder again. With medals being stripped retroactively (much like universities "vacating" wins and championships and what not [*cough* USC *cough*]) and all that's going on, do you feel like you're always going to be waiting for another ball to drop?
5) Swimming medals are, to a degree, bogus. Phelps is obviously the greatest swimmer alive today, but imagine if, for instance, basketball gave out medals for 5-on-5, 3-on-3, 1-on-1, free-throw shooting, three-point shooting, ball handling skills, and slam dunk competitions? The point is that, no matter how dominant one might be on the hardwood, there's only one medal available, and so there's something artificial about even having the opportunity to win 8 medals in a sinlge sport. That said, I think it's hilarious that one dude has more gold medals than, say, Italy, Canada, or Spain. He has more total medals than, for instance, the Czech Republic or North Korea. I just think it's funny.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
World-Class Thoughts
Like so many of you, when I was younger I LOVED the Olympics. I have great memories of, while my older sister was away at camp, sitting in our basement watching the '84 games and drinking Shasta pop (a MAJOR treat) with my mom. Really, really great memories.
Somewhere along the way, though, the Olympics lost some luster. Honestly, I think it has a lot to do with the US not being as dominant as we'd like, and so when these Beijing games came upon us, I barely noticed. The Phillies are in first, after all! But then everyone was talking about the opening ceremony and how great it was and all these other things, so I flipped it on for a few hours the other night, and now I'm legitimately interested. It was pretty compelling, really. And when push comes to shove I'm afraid that I'm a Phillies fan first and a American fan second (that's kind of wrong of me, isn't it? I'd be WAY more excited for So Taguchi to rock a game-winning double off of Billy Wagner than for any American to triumph over the world -- at least I feel a little bad about it), but I've been sucked half-way in nonetheless. And here, as you may expect, are my thougts.
1) I don't care about swimming. I hate it personally (it's cold and wet, two things I'm not a fan of) and generally find it completely un-comelling. But that men's 4x100 freestyle relay? THAT was just great human drama. Especially since the French conveniently propped themselves up as the "bad guys" with their pre-race drivel, that was definitely as excited about a man moving through water in an awkward looking onesie as I've ever been. That was worth the whole evening, right there.
2) Speaking of "bad guys", I have another reason to not like watching gymnastics. Have you SEEN these girls? They're like twelve. The beauty of competition is that you want to win and that means that somebody else has to lose, and that' s great, again, especially where boastful French dudes or the Mets are involved. And I remember, in my younger years, cheering against gymnansts from opposing nations. Hoping that they'd err, or even better, fall over completely. Nothing against them personally, of course, just hoping that my country can win. At my current station in life, though, I'm completely unable to hope that something terrible befalls a twelve year old girl in the biggest moment of her life under pretty much any circumstance. It takes away from the pureness of the competition for me, the "us vs them" that helps to provide clear boundaries and indetifies us with one person or team and not another. And of course I don't watch for the pure enjoyment of the event -- I don't care how pretty people look flying through the air, I just want my country to be drowning in gold medals -- so gymnastics is ruined for me. Which is really too bad, because I didn't like it much to begin with, and they show it for 8,000 hours on end.
3) Speaking of wanting my country to be drowning in gold medals, the Olympics really does bring into sharp relief the insatiable greed of the Americans (or, at least, me). How many is enough? No number exists. If we won every single medal in the entire games except one, would we be more satisfied or less? Knowing myself, I think I'd be upset about the one that got away more than excited about the insidious domination. And knowing you, I think you might feel the same way.
4) It's nice to be able to cheer for players like LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Kobe Bryant. Especially James, who seems like a genuinely likeable guy, but as much as I admire his skill and particularly his amazing performance in game 7 of the Eastern Conferance Semi-Finals this year, I was forced to cheer -- FORCEFULLY -- against every spectacular basket he made. It's simple -- if you oppose the Green, I oppose you. So it's great to be able to get behind some of these guys rather than playing against them. They're scary to play against. And yes, by "play against" I mean "be played against by people who I've never met but wear a jersey that I associate with while I jump up and down screaming in my living room". There, now you see how scary it really is for me, right?
5) The strange differences between events are interesting to me. You can flip from swimming or gymnastics or something where the uniforms are, well, uniform to something like "beach" volleyball, where one guy has a hat on backwards and his partner has sunglasses (inside, of course). I mean, that's pretty weird, right?
Somewhere along the way, though, the Olympics lost some luster. Honestly, I think it has a lot to do with the US not being as dominant as we'd like, and so when these Beijing games came upon us, I barely noticed. The Phillies are in first, after all! But then everyone was talking about the opening ceremony and how great it was and all these other things, so I flipped it on for a few hours the other night, and now I'm legitimately interested. It was pretty compelling, really. And when push comes to shove I'm afraid that I'm a Phillies fan first and a American fan second (that's kind of wrong of me, isn't it? I'd be WAY more excited for So Taguchi to rock a game-winning double off of Billy Wagner than for any American to triumph over the world -- at least I feel a little bad about it), but I've been sucked half-way in nonetheless. And here, as you may expect, are my thougts.
1) I don't care about swimming. I hate it personally (it's cold and wet, two things I'm not a fan of) and generally find it completely un-comelling. But that men's 4x100 freestyle relay? THAT was just great human drama. Especially since the French conveniently propped themselves up as the "bad guys" with their pre-race drivel, that was definitely as excited about a man moving through water in an awkward looking onesie as I've ever been. That was worth the whole evening, right there.
2) Speaking of "bad guys", I have another reason to not like watching gymnastics. Have you SEEN these girls? They're like twelve. The beauty of competition is that you want to win and that means that somebody else has to lose, and that' s great, again, especially where boastful French dudes or the Mets are involved. And I remember, in my younger years, cheering against gymnansts from opposing nations. Hoping that they'd err, or even better, fall over completely. Nothing against them personally, of course, just hoping that my country can win. At my current station in life, though, I'm completely unable to hope that something terrible befalls a twelve year old girl in the biggest moment of her life under pretty much any circumstance. It takes away from the pureness of the competition for me, the "us vs them" that helps to provide clear boundaries and indetifies us with one person or team and not another. And of course I don't watch for the pure enjoyment of the event -- I don't care how pretty people look flying through the air, I just want my country to be drowning in gold medals -- so gymnastics is ruined for me. Which is really too bad, because I didn't like it much to begin with, and they show it for 8,000 hours on end.
3) Speaking of wanting my country to be drowning in gold medals, the Olympics really does bring into sharp relief the insatiable greed of the Americans (or, at least, me). How many is enough? No number exists. If we won every single medal in the entire games except one, would we be more satisfied or less? Knowing myself, I think I'd be upset about the one that got away more than excited about the insidious domination. And knowing you, I think you might feel the same way.
4) It's nice to be able to cheer for players like LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Kobe Bryant. Especially James, who seems like a genuinely likeable guy, but as much as I admire his skill and particularly his amazing performance in game 7 of the Eastern Conferance Semi-Finals this year, I was forced to cheer -- FORCEFULLY -- against every spectacular basket he made. It's simple -- if you oppose the Green, I oppose you. So it's great to be able to get behind some of these guys rather than playing against them. They're scary to play against. And yes, by "play against" I mean "be played against by people who I've never met but wear a jersey that I associate with while I jump up and down screaming in my living room". There, now you see how scary it really is for me, right?
5) The strange differences between events are interesting to me. You can flip from swimming or gymnastics or something where the uniforms are, well, uniform to something like "beach" volleyball, where one guy has a hat on backwards and his partner has sunglasses (inside, of course). I mean, that's pretty weird, right?
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Nothing to See Here. . .
It's actually true, but I need to post, so here we go.
1) I was initially going to change to Phillies colors after the All-Star break, but after winning the Championship and all I felt compelled to give the green some extra time. But now it's August and the Phils are in first, so we it's time to make a change. Enjoy!
2) The post a couple weeks ago about going off caffeine? I've been completely off for nearly 2 weeks now, and I do feel better, generally. I went from about 250 mg a day down to 200, 150, 100, 75, 54, 42, 34, and finally 20 (some of those rough approximations, but should be close), taking a three or four days at each plateau. I had a few headache issues and a few irritable days, but for the most part it wasn't as hard as I'd thought it would be. Wohoo!
3) OU had to kick a kid off the football team this week after he had an inappropriate rap on youtube (I'd link it but, of course, it's inappropriate -- it's not hard to find if you're really curious). Tough call, and it wasn't THAT bad in and of itself, but it's also not a first offense. It's sad for the kid, but ultimately I'm happy to be cheering for an organization that's really trying to do things the right way, even when it costs a high-potential player.
4) Had an interesting experience the other day. Walked out of a Chili's after a staff meeting and a random woman whom I'd never met in my life comes up and says, "Do you want to hear an almost dirty joke?" I replied "Almost." (Which I thought was decent for being in the moment, but after further reflection realize that it could be taken to mean that if the joke isn't FULL-ON dirty then I don't want to waste my time, but whatever.) And then she proceeds to tell me a moderately dirty joke (not terrible terrible, but I sure wouldn't tell it to my mom. And it's a lot of fun for me to get a reaction out of my mom). I didn't laugh, mostly because I was just completely overwhelmed at the surrealness of the situation. I think I just sort of stood there looking confused. Who does that? So I turn to go back to my car, and as I'm about to put the key into the lock, the bizarreness of the situation hits me and I haven't stopped laughing since. I really should have tried to do SOMEthing with the situation, but . . . HUH?
5) That's pretty much all for now, kids!
1) I was initially going to change to Phillies colors after the All-Star break, but after winning the Championship and all I felt compelled to give the green some extra time. But now it's August and the Phils are in first, so we it's time to make a change. Enjoy!
2) The post a couple weeks ago about going off caffeine? I've been completely off for nearly 2 weeks now, and I do feel better, generally. I went from about 250 mg a day down to 200, 150, 100, 75, 54, 42, 34, and finally 20 (some of those rough approximations, but should be close), taking a three or four days at each plateau. I had a few headache issues and a few irritable days, but for the most part it wasn't as hard as I'd thought it would be. Wohoo!
3) OU had to kick a kid off the football team this week after he had an inappropriate rap on youtube (I'd link it but, of course, it's inappropriate -- it's not hard to find if you're really curious). Tough call, and it wasn't THAT bad in and of itself, but it's also not a first offense. It's sad for the kid, but ultimately I'm happy to be cheering for an organization that's really trying to do things the right way, even when it costs a high-potential player.
4) Had an interesting experience the other day. Walked out of a Chili's after a staff meeting and a random woman whom I'd never met in my life comes up and says, "Do you want to hear an almost dirty joke?" I replied "Almost." (Which I thought was decent for being in the moment, but after further reflection realize that it could be taken to mean that if the joke isn't FULL-ON dirty then I don't want to waste my time, but whatever.) And then she proceeds to tell me a moderately dirty joke (not terrible terrible, but I sure wouldn't tell it to my mom. And it's a lot of fun for me to get a reaction out of my mom). I didn't laugh, mostly because I was just completely overwhelmed at the surrealness of the situation. I think I just sort of stood there looking confused. Who does that? So I turn to go back to my car, and as I'm about to put the key into the lock, the bizarreness of the situation hits me and I haven't stopped laughing since. I really should have tried to do SOMEthing with the situation, but . . . HUH?
5) That's pretty much all for now, kids!
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