Now that both ESPN and Sports Illustrated have declared it so, it is now official. 2008 is the best year in sports ever! Michael Phelps winning 8 gold metals! Usain Bolt running away with sprint records! Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor maywalshing their competition! Tiger Woods winning the U.S. Open on 1 good leg! Nadal and Federer playing the best tennis match ever! Jimmie Johnson winning the Sprint Cup back-to-back-to-back! Danica Patrick finally winning a race! Brett Favre retiring and then un-retiring! The New York Giants beating the previously undefeated Patriots with the greatest catch in Super Bowl history! The Miami Dolphins and Tampa Bay Rays both going from worst to first! The Phillies bringing Philadelphia its first championship in 26 years! The Celtics and Lakers both coming back from the grave to renew the NBA's best rivalry! Kansas winning the NCAA basketball title after a 3-point shot at the buzzer! All of these accomplishments are great, don't get me wrong, but to proclaim that this year is the Best Sports Year Ever! is not only a big stretch but also demonstrates the East Coast bias of the national sports media.
If you are a sports fan in Seattle, San Francisco, or most other cities west of the Mississippi, you might rightfully take exception to this proclamation. In Seattle, the Seahawks just completed a dreadful season where half the team spent the year on Injured Reserve. The Mariners were truly awful, and the Sonics left town to be truly awful somewhere else. Even the Washington Huskies, one of the historically best college football programs in the country, had an awful year to forget. Washington State’s only bright spot this year was beating Washington. In the Bay Area, the San Jose Sharks had a decent run but fell apart in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs again, and this was the highlight of the local sports year. The Giants, A’s, 49ers, Raiders, and Warriors were all mediocre, and Stanford and Cal’s sports teams weren't much better. Even the perennial arena football power San Jose Sabercats had a down year this year, and may not play at all next year. San Diego, Portland, Phoenix, Denver, Houston, Dallas, and St. Louis all had down sports years this year. Los Angeles had some success with the Lakers, Angels, Dodgers, USC football, and UCLA basketball teams all having good years (plus the fact that Tiger Woods is a LA area native), but even their fans are depressed because all of them suffered heartbreaking defeats at the end of their seasons. Ditto for the university football teams in Texas. The Arizona Cardinals in Phoenix may be the only western team that can say they have had a successful year, but if Atlanta cleans their clock next week as the odds makers predict then that goes away too. However, because a New York won the Super Bowl, a Philadelphia team won the World Series, and a Boston team won everything else, plus the revival of sports in Florida and Washington DC, it is the Greatest Sports Year Ever!
I agree that this is very trivial in the grand scheme of things, but it just bothers me the read and watch this stuff. It is very disrespectful (yeah, that sounds pretentious, but it's true!). There should be some kind of bailout here or something to fix this. Let’s get Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the other Western legislators working on this. Congress should require Al Davis to either sell the Raiders or move them to an East Coast city, require the Sonics to return to Seattle, ban the Yankees and Red Sox from signing any free agents, and require ESPN to move their studios from Connecticut to Colorado. Now that is change that we can believe in!
Monday, December 29, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
New York City Jet Blues
I recently returned from a short trip to New York City. It was my first visit to the Big Apple and came at the invitation of someone there that I am working with on one of my many volunteer projects. Since I was only there for 2 days I didn't get to see all of the city, but I was able to get around midtown Manhattan and see Times Square, Rockefeller Plaza, Central Park, and the observation deck of the Empire State Building. I also got to spend some time in Greenwich Village as that was where my meeting was.
New York is an interesting place to be sure. There is, as the song goes, some "magic in the air." I noticed that the pedestrians in New York are not shy about cross the street on a red light. Man, if you do that in San Francisco you're likely going to get run over. The traffic, both in Manhattan and to and from JFK, was as crowded as any freeway here, though in Manhattan the traffic is almost all taxis and trucks. I was surprised to see that not all of Manhattan consists of skyscrapers. Indeed, between the Empire State Building and lower Manhattan (where Wall Street is) there are hardly any buildings taller than a few stories.
The flight to New York was fine, but the flight back was a 9-1/2 ordeal. I got stuck in a middle seat, though I managed to get in a exit row so I had some leg room to work with. Then the flight had to be diverted to Denver because there wasn't enough fuel to make it all the way to Oakland. Seriously, the plane was running out of gas. Because of the diversion we flew through an area of rough turbulence that had me reaching for the Dramamine. When we landed the pilot said that the "gas and go" would only take about 20 minutes. The fueling itself took 45. The ground crew decided to clean out the septic tanks while we were there, but one of the values broke, so we were stuck for another 30 minutes while they fixed that. Then, because we were on the ground for so long they had to de-ice the plane before we took off. Why they didn't think of that (we were landing in Denver after all!) is beyond me. So the 20 minute delay ended up being close to 2 hours by the time we landed in Oakland. And get this, you would think that they would have served free drinks to us to compensate for the delay, but nope, they were still charging for the drinks and they didn't do a second snack service even though everyone had missed their dinners because of this nonsense. This will be the last time that I fly JetBlue (there, I said it) t0 New York.
There, I feel better now.
New York is an interesting place to be sure. There is, as the song goes, some "magic in the air." I noticed that the pedestrians in New York are not shy about cross the street on a red light. Man, if you do that in San Francisco you're likely going to get run over. The traffic, both in Manhattan and to and from JFK, was as crowded as any freeway here, though in Manhattan the traffic is almost all taxis and trucks. I was surprised to see that not all of Manhattan consists of skyscrapers. Indeed, between the Empire State Building and lower Manhattan (where Wall Street is) there are hardly any buildings taller than a few stories.
The flight to New York was fine, but the flight back was a 9-1/2 ordeal. I got stuck in a middle seat, though I managed to get in a exit row so I had some leg room to work with. Then the flight had to be diverted to Denver because there wasn't enough fuel to make it all the way to Oakland. Seriously, the plane was running out of gas. Because of the diversion we flew through an area of rough turbulence that had me reaching for the Dramamine. When we landed the pilot said that the "gas and go" would only take about 20 minutes. The fueling itself took 45. The ground crew decided to clean out the septic tanks while we were there, but one of the values broke, so we were stuck for another 30 minutes while they fixed that. Then, because we were on the ground for so long they had to de-ice the plane before we took off. Why they didn't think of that (we were landing in Denver after all!) is beyond me. So the 20 minute delay ended up being close to 2 hours by the time we landed in Oakland. And get this, you would think that they would have served free drinks to us to compensate for the delay, but nope, they were still charging for the drinks and they didn't do a second snack service even though everyone had missed their dinners because of this nonsense. This will be the last time that I fly JetBlue (there, I said it) t0 New York.
There, I feel better now.
Friday, December 12, 2008
News and Comment... Good. Day.
As I'm sitting around the house waiting for new job to start, I came across a few items in the newspaper that I felt were worthy of comment:
Headlines courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle.
"Madonna blasted for stirring up lust": Yes, apparently the Material Girl is stirring up sinful emotions with the people of Chile, at least according to Chilean Cardinal Jorge Medina. Cardinal Medina spoke out in his sermon on Wednesday saying that Madonna was causing "crazy enthusiasm" and "impure thoughts" during her current concert tour in Chile, the first time she has ever toured the country. This is of course not a new accusation. Madonna herself tends to encourage such comments I would imagine (how else to explain Erotica?). What got me was the venue that Cardinal Medina chose to make his comments, a mass in honor of the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. So I guess as far as the Cardinal is concerned making 3,000 or so dissidents "disappear" forever is OK but causing people to think lustful thoughts is not.
"Reid tries to clear air over 'smelly' remark": It appears that Nevada Senator Harry Reid doesn't like the smell of tourists that visit the Capitol. He too chose a very interesting time to make his disparaging remark, the grand opening of the new Capitol Visitor Center. Reid noted during the opening that in the summertime "you can literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol." What got me was Reid's response to the flak that he got from a number of sources including his hometown newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "Anyone who took the time to watch my statement or read it in full knows the point I was making: I'm always pleased when the Capitol is filled with citizens eager to learn about our country's great history and the work that we do in that historic building," Reid wrote in a letter to the Review-Journal. So is Senator Reid pleased about the tourists' smell? Does it smell like victory to him? (bonus points to you if you get the reference) That's the only way I can see his point. No wonder the car bailout bill failed.
"Study finds many kids use herbal remedies": Unbeknownst to most of us I would guess, the government conducted a survey and found 1 in 9 kids are using some form of alternative medicine, such as herbal remedies and acupuncture. This does not include religious healing, by the way, as the government was quick to point out. What got me here is who is using them and what they are being used for. The survey found that kids that were covered by private insurance plans were more likely to use alternative medicine than those who were uninsured. I guess it makes sense in that richer kids would be more likely to experiment compared to poor ones, no doubt with the encouragement of their yuppie parents, but what does it say about private insurance? The survey also found that alternative medicine was being used to relieve back and neck pain more than anything else. What does it say about our kids today when so many are suffering from pains commonly associated with old people?
"'Day Without a Gay' demo fizzles": Yes, if you were homosexual you were supposed to call in sick on Wednesday in protest over the passage of the anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 in California. However, it appears that few gay people did, even in gay friendly San Francisco. The San Francisco Chronicle interviewed some gay people (they are easy to find in San Francisco) and many of them told the Chronicle that they couldn't afford to take the day off because of the uncertain economic situation. Some gay store owners complained to the Chronicle that the gay boycott came in the middle of the Christmas shopping season. What got me was that for all the attention being paid to gay marriage these days it's still trumped by the economy in the minds of most gay people. Even gay people are more concerned about their pay checks then about making a protest. If that doesn't demonstrate just how normal gay people are I don't know what else will.
"Abdul says Fox ignored stalker issue": I cover this in detail at my other blog, The Armchair Idol Judge. Go ahead and click, I know you want to...
Headlines courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle.
"Madonna blasted for stirring up lust": Yes, apparently the Material Girl is stirring up sinful emotions with the people of Chile, at least according to Chilean Cardinal Jorge Medina. Cardinal Medina spoke out in his sermon on Wednesday saying that Madonna was causing "crazy enthusiasm" and "impure thoughts" during her current concert tour in Chile, the first time she has ever toured the country. This is of course not a new accusation. Madonna herself tends to encourage such comments I would imagine (how else to explain Erotica?). What got me was the venue that Cardinal Medina chose to make his comments, a mass in honor of the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. So I guess as far as the Cardinal is concerned making 3,000 or so dissidents "disappear" forever is OK but causing people to think lustful thoughts is not.
"Reid tries to clear air over 'smelly' remark": It appears that Nevada Senator Harry Reid doesn't like the smell of tourists that visit the Capitol. He too chose a very interesting time to make his disparaging remark, the grand opening of the new Capitol Visitor Center. Reid noted during the opening that in the summertime "you can literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol." What got me was Reid's response to the flak that he got from a number of sources including his hometown newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "Anyone who took the time to watch my statement or read it in full knows the point I was making: I'm always pleased when the Capitol is filled with citizens eager to learn about our country's great history and the work that we do in that historic building," Reid wrote in a letter to the Review-Journal. So is Senator Reid pleased about the tourists' smell? Does it smell like victory to him? (bonus points to you if you get the reference) That's the only way I can see his point. No wonder the car bailout bill failed.
"Study finds many kids use herbal remedies": Unbeknownst to most of us I would guess, the government conducted a survey and found 1 in 9 kids are using some form of alternative medicine, such as herbal remedies and acupuncture. This does not include religious healing, by the way, as the government was quick to point out. What got me here is who is using them and what they are being used for. The survey found that kids that were covered by private insurance plans were more likely to use alternative medicine than those who were uninsured. I guess it makes sense in that richer kids would be more likely to experiment compared to poor ones, no doubt with the encouragement of their yuppie parents, but what does it say about private insurance? The survey also found that alternative medicine was being used to relieve back and neck pain more than anything else. What does it say about our kids today when so many are suffering from pains commonly associated with old people?
"'Day Without a Gay' demo fizzles": Yes, if you were homosexual you were supposed to call in sick on Wednesday in protest over the passage of the anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 in California. However, it appears that few gay people did, even in gay friendly San Francisco. The San Francisco Chronicle interviewed some gay people (they are easy to find in San Francisco) and many of them told the Chronicle that they couldn't afford to take the day off because of the uncertain economic situation. Some gay store owners complained to the Chronicle that the gay boycott came in the middle of the Christmas shopping season. What got me was that for all the attention being paid to gay marriage these days it's still trumped by the economy in the minds of most gay people. Even gay people are more concerned about their pay checks then about making a protest. If that doesn't demonstrate just how normal gay people are I don't know what else will.
"Abdul says Fox ignored stalker issue": I cover this in detail at my other blog, The Armchair Idol Judge. Go ahead and click, I know you want to...
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
The Genius of Bowling and Peppermints
Hello there, just checking in to see how things are going.
Following up on a earlier post, I finally asked one of my co-workers why he congratulated me for leaving. He told me that usually when someone elects to leave on their own (as opposed to be fired) it's usually for a better opportunity. So he was congratulating me for earning the greater opportunity. OK, that's makes some sense.
I participated in our company bowling tournament tonight and the wrist of my throwing hand is almost rigid. It was my first trip inside a bowling alley in over 20 years, and I actually managed to break 100. It was a last minute decision to attend, since this is my last week at work. But I figured what the heck and went. Considering both of parents were hardcore bowlers when I was growing up I've always wondered why I always sucked at it. I also wonder how in the world a sport like bowling ever got invented. In mean, who could have thought of doing it in the first place?
I recently downloaded "Incense and Peppermints" by Strawberry Alarm Clock and I've been playing it almost non-stop ever since. I've heard the melody many times before but it's the lyrics that have me captured under its spell. Check this out:
Good sense, innocence, cripplin' mankind
Dead kings, many things, I can't define
Occasions, persuasions, clutter your mind
Incense and peppermints, the color of time.
Who cares what games we choose?
Little to win, but nothing to lose.
Incense and peppermints
Meaningless nouns
Turn on, tune in, turn your eyes around.
Look at yourself, look at yourself, yeah, yeah
Look at yourself, look at yourself, yeah, yeah, yeah!
To divide this cockeyed world in two
Throw your pride to one side, it's the least you can do.
Beatniks and politics, nothing is new
A yardstick for lunatics, one point of view
Who care what games we choose?
Little to win, but nothin' to lose.
Good sense, innocence, cripplin' mankind
Dead kings, many things, I can't define.
Occasion, persuasions clutter your mind
Incense and peppermints, the color of time.
Who care what games we choose?
Little to win, but nothin' to lose.
Incense and peppermints
Incense and peppermints
Sha la la
Sha la la
Sha la la
Sha la la
Sha la la
I especially like the line "A yardstick for lunatics, one point of view." I'm sure there is a message there but damned if I know what it is. This is pure genius my friends. One wonders why these guys never had another hit song.
Or maybe it's just the organ and cowbell. I gotta have more cowbell!
Following up on a earlier post, I finally asked one of my co-workers why he congratulated me for leaving. He told me that usually when someone elects to leave on their own (as opposed to be fired) it's usually for a better opportunity. So he was congratulating me for earning the greater opportunity. OK, that's makes some sense.
I participated in our company bowling tournament tonight and the wrist of my throwing hand is almost rigid. It was my first trip inside a bowling alley in over 20 years, and I actually managed to break 100. It was a last minute decision to attend, since this is my last week at work. But I figured what the heck and went. Considering both of parents were hardcore bowlers when I was growing up I've always wondered why I always sucked at it. I also wonder how in the world a sport like bowling ever got invented. In mean, who could have thought of doing it in the first place?
I recently downloaded "Incense and Peppermints" by Strawberry Alarm Clock and I've been playing it almost non-stop ever since. I've heard the melody many times before but it's the lyrics that have me captured under its spell. Check this out:
Good sense, innocence, cripplin' mankind
Dead kings, many things, I can't define
Occasions, persuasions, clutter your mind
Incense and peppermints, the color of time.
Who cares what games we choose?
Little to win, but nothing to lose.
Incense and peppermints
Meaningless nouns
Turn on, tune in, turn your eyes around.
Look at yourself, look at yourself, yeah, yeah
Look at yourself, look at yourself, yeah, yeah, yeah!
To divide this cockeyed world in two
Throw your pride to one side, it's the least you can do.
Beatniks and politics, nothing is new
A yardstick for lunatics, one point of view
Who care what games we choose?
Little to win, but nothin' to lose.
Good sense, innocence, cripplin' mankind
Dead kings, many things, I can't define.
Occasion, persuasions clutter your mind
Incense and peppermints, the color of time.
Who care what games we choose?
Little to win, but nothin' to lose.
Incense and peppermints
Incense and peppermints
Sha la la
Sha la la
Sha la la
Sha la la
Sha la la
I especially like the line "A yardstick for lunatics, one point of view." I'm sure there is a message there but damned if I know what it is. This is pure genius my friends. One wonders why these guys never had another hit song.
Or maybe it's just the organ and cowbell. I gotta have more cowbell!
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