Self-Stung

There isn't much that I hate more than wasps. They're ugly, they're scary (I'll admit it), and when I was about 10 I got absolutely rocked by one right on my lower lip and it hurt worse than about anything I'd ever experienced. I really, really hate (and am scared of) wasps.

It just so happens, however, that our backyard is insanely infested with wasps. When I try to mow in the late morning, I can seriously stand and look at the back of our fence and count five or so within my range of vision at any given moment. If I bump a part of the fence with the mower, six or eight will fly up all disturbed and then disturb me in kind. It makes an unpleasant but not-unreasonable task into an absolute gauntlet of terror.

So how excited was I when my lovely bride tells me that she saw a trap at the store for $15? I went on-line to check them out and I was sold. It looked like there could be a hundred of those little devils inside a trap, and that's exactly what I was after, so we went for it.

After about a week, the trap was still wasp-free. I couldn't believe it. On the company's website, they like swarmed to it. So what do I do about the disappointingly impotent wasp trap? I did the only reasonable thing -- I went and bought another one. Now there are two traps with no wasps, and here's why this is discouraging for me:

The three principles of the situation, in order of intelligence:
1) The Wasps. They send me running scared and stay out of the traps.
2) The Trap Company. They sold me a product that didn't work, and then sold me another one.
3) Me. I'm still deathly afraid of the wasps, whose numbers have not been reduced by one despite my best efforts; and I've given the trap company my money twice for a product that hasn't worked once. The obvious conclusion? I'm a scared, broke moron.

Bullish

Be honest, it DID kind of look like the Celtics sleep-walked through the first half of game 1, didn't it? But after an incredibly intense series, I have to take back some of my rage after that loss. I underestimated the B*lls (hint: It's not Bills, Bells, Balls, Bolls, or Bylls) and am quite happy to just get out of the series alive. Thoughts:

1) Incredible. Really, really incredible. Whoever doesn't watch the NBA missed out big. On the whole it's not as compelling as college, it's true, but watch THIS series and then tell me it's boring.

2) The B*lls played great. I hate them, but that's the truth. Gordon, Rose, Salmons. Those cats brought it.

3) No new news, but I love Paul Pierce. Did anybody else hear his interview after he single-handedly lifted his team to victory in Game 5? The reporter asked something about how they find the energy to keep going with all the overtimes and all. Paul smiled (doesn't happen often!) and said something to the effect of "Oh man, this is fun! We'll play seven overtimes if we need to." Pro athletes are asked stupid questions all the time, and they NEVER get it right. Paul got it right. Nice. It's a job for them, I get it, but it's supposed to be fun. Thanks Paul, for restoring just a little bit of faith in pro sports/athletes.

4) So the Magic are next. We'll see, but without KG, it's going to be rough. And if they can pull it off, the Cavs are almost for sure just too tough. Still, better than going out to the B*lls.

It's Playoff Time

Isn't it? I sure hope not -- I sure hope I didn't just watch my team sleepwalk through a home playoff loss to the Ch*c*g* B*lls. It sure looked to me like they were playing some sort of an extended exhibition, because I've seen them in the playoffs, and it didn't look anything at all like that.

I know Garnett's down, and any realistic chance of hanging Banner Number Eighteen went with him. I get that. But that's no reason to drop Game 1 to the freaking B*lls. So I'm doing my part -- Flogging's going green. Now let's see you do your part, and I don't want to see another loss this round.

If You Have Nothing Worthwile to Write. . .

Just a thought I had the other day -- what happened to colors? I mean colors used to be colors, right, like red, blue, yellow, purple, whatever. Not that the cardinal colors or whatever were sufficient, but of course we weren't necessarily limited to those, so it was ok. We could modify any color in any number of ways. No, not shackled simply to "blue" we could have light blue or dark blue. When light and dark aren't enough, we could even modify it with adjectives from outside the traditional realm of color. "Sky blue," "electric blue," "sea blue," "midnight blue," the opportunities are almost endless. Even if they're not endless, however, we could combine colors -- "blue-green" or what have you. And now the opportunities really are virtually endless.

And all of this before we even get into the colors that we don't really make use of anyway, like fuchsia, indigo, magenta, crimson, vermilion, mauve, teal, and taupe, to name a few.

Why is it, then, that things have suddenly become colors?

You guys, salmon isn't a color, it's a fish. Charcoal isn't a color, it's a carbon residue (I'll admit, I had to look that one up). Rasberry isn't a color, it's a berry. Our sofa is considered "mocha" (although it cost less). Mocha isn't a color, it's a freaking flavor!

Now I confess, there's no good reason why this should bother me. It's purely a product of my own mild nueroses, and I understand that. But still, where will this end? Will it stop with fish, berries, and flavors? Who's to say that it won't get worse and worse until someday someone describes something that's a sort of pale, unattractive pink (see how I just took a real color and modified it for a more specific purpose?) as simply "Ross." Besides, it had been too long since I'd written anything on here, and I just had nothing better to say.

The Devil's In the Q&A

So not too long ago Mark Driscoll and anther person debated the existence of Satan with a couple other guys on Nightline. I didn't hear about it until after it was done, but then I was curious, especially since mostly all my pastor said about it was about Driscoll's shirt. I didn't really care about the shirt, I wanted to see the debate. So I youtube'd it. It's up in about 10 segments if you're interested.

Anyway, at the end they had an audience question bit. I always hate those. They just never go well when the average person tries to expose the brilliant person (that goes for both sides of this, as well as most any other, issue). Anyway, one woman directed a comment to Driscoll that his belief that Jesus is the only way to God was arrogant and narrow-minded (or some variation of thereof). My question is simply, "Can we do away with this once and for all?"

At the heart of the idea is, essentially, the belief that, if you think you're right and others are wrong, you should think differently and be more open/tolerant/whatever of different beliefs. Isn't it really the same as saying "You think differently than I do, and you ought to change to think more like me?" Isn't that the exact same thing?

Look, the Christ-followers who are happy that those who aren't connected to Christ are headed to a God-less eternity need to be slapped down, absolutely. And there surely are arrogant Christ-followers just like there are arrogant athiests, agnostics, Muslims, Scientologists, whatever. But is there anything arrogant about believing something? Do you believe that there is? Is that arrogant?

Christ-followers shouldn't be throwing stones at those who believe differently, and a lot of them (us, to be honest) have done way too much of it. But it just makes no more sense for those who think differently than us to throw stones at us for believing differently.

Can we please agree on that?

I'll Be Honest

I was hoping for some good fan karma on that last post. Not that the sentiments weren't genuine, and I know that having shots fall is too much to ask, but why couldn't the universe pay me back with -- oh, I don't know -- some hustle on defense? A sense of urgency when you're down double-digits in the 2nd half of a tournament game? Every member of the opposing team cramping up simultaneously for an hour or so (which just *might* have been long enough to creep back into contention)?

For real, I'm starting to question whether this karma deal has any validity at all. I know it goes against the philosophy of so many, but is it possible that what I type into my keyboard here doesn't effect the game in Memphis? What's next, are we also to believe that the announcers calling somebody a good free throw shoooter doesn't suddenly and drastically lower their chance of hitting? Are we to believe that mentioning that we're having a decent day at work doesn't suddenly cause chaos to ensue? I know, I know. I'm taking this loss awfully hard and talking crazy. There just has to be a more reasonable explanation, right?

Respect and Sympathies, Card Nation

UofL fans, you're the classiest and most reasonable fan base, college or pro, that I've lived with. A few bad apples, of course (not to name names, but the guy on WKRD at 3:00 who yells about everything isn't much of an ambassador), but across the board you're excellent fans and beautiful people. You know that I'm no fan of your team, but you deserved a far better finish than what you got today. I know it' s no consolation, but for your sake, I'm sorry.