Monday, September 29, 2003
has anyone ever seen jack mcdowell and alexi lalas in the same room at the same time? i sincerely doubt that anyone has or ever could. until proved otherwise, they are the same person in my book. all along everyone thought bo jackson was the greatest cross over athlete ever, but there rite under our noses was jack lalas, aka alexi mcdowell. both "individuals" were fiery competitors never fully appreciated for the skills possessed in their primes, both retired around the same time, and both joined/started a struggling "i may be a quasi-celebrity but i can also sorta play the guitar and im all about the music, man" rock bands...
also, jack mcdowell was most likely the first athlete to ever give the crowd the finger after a poor performance. see how that has been happening a lot over the past few years? i bet he's pulling in mad royalties for it...
and one more thing. jack black may very well be a comic genius. there i said it.
also, jack mcdowell was most likely the first athlete to ever give the crowd the finger after a poor performance. see how that has been happening a lot over the past few years? i bet he's pulling in mad royalties for it...
and one more thing. jack black may very well be a comic genius. there i said it.
Friday, September 26, 2003
(a) people are sheep. (b) most are not good at judging their capabilities. (c) some aren't very coordinated. (d) less than 5% learn from their mistakes. it's usually interesting when these concepts collide. now these are not novel or new ideas. but it's good to be reminded of these facts every so often (or everyday, whichever comes first)...
so we're at the reds game the other day. a line drive gets ripped foul down the right field line, like 5 rows in. i mean a serious p-rod. so some people get up, all excited, like they are going to catch it - case (b). i can tell right away that these people have no chance at catching this ball, the ball sammy sosa lops into the stands from 10 feet away in between innings, or even the beach ball that gets bounced around - case (c). how, you say, do i know? because when someone's arms are completely extended and all you can see is their palms, well, that is not what we call soft hands.
so there's this poor guy who has attributes (b) and (c) and the misfortune of being directly in the line of fire. yup, you can guess the result. line drive right in the face. didn't even get a hand on it. you could count his reaction time with an hour glass. i assume broken nose. immediately people are yelling for a doctor. here's where case (a) comes in. for the next 10 minutes, until the guy is walked out with a pepperoni sized gash on the bridge of his nose, all the fans in the 20 rows around us stand up. nevermind that the game paused 5 seconds, and they are now not watching the batter. perfect potential for a repeat offense - case (d). so we're sitting, trying to see the game but just getting a nice view of some fat guy's sweaty back. here's where my buddy yell's "down in front," kristina yells "sit down," and me, i just default to sarcasm such as "nothing like reveling in other's misfortunes," and "nothing like watching someone's nose bleed." people don't even respond to the straight forward requests, but they always turn and sneer at the sarcasm. that's really funny to me. they turn, acknowledge that they are blocking your view, then turn, mutter about me being rude and keep staring at the hurt guy. soon its a shockwave of "what's everyone standing up for" and before you know it, all of section 136 is on its feet. it took two full batters for us to be able to see again. i would like those people to learn the lesson for (d), but then we would've missed 2 innings.
and we stayed seated the whole time. boy did we show them...
also , someone should do their thesis on "The Things People Will Do to Get on the Jumbo-Tron and Why." i'd at least read the abstract...
so we're at the reds game the other day. a line drive gets ripped foul down the right field line, like 5 rows in. i mean a serious p-rod. so some people get up, all excited, like they are going to catch it - case (b). i can tell right away that these people have no chance at catching this ball, the ball sammy sosa lops into the stands from 10 feet away in between innings, or even the beach ball that gets bounced around - case (c). how, you say, do i know? because when someone's arms are completely extended and all you can see is their palms, well, that is not what we call soft hands.
so there's this poor guy who has attributes (b) and (c) and the misfortune of being directly in the line of fire. yup, you can guess the result. line drive right in the face. didn't even get a hand on it. you could count his reaction time with an hour glass. i assume broken nose. immediately people are yelling for a doctor. here's where case (a) comes in. for the next 10 minutes, until the guy is walked out with a pepperoni sized gash on the bridge of his nose, all the fans in the 20 rows around us stand up. nevermind that the game paused 5 seconds, and they are now not watching the batter. perfect potential for a repeat offense - case (d). so we're sitting, trying to see the game but just getting a nice view of some fat guy's sweaty back. here's where my buddy yell's "down in front," kristina yells "sit down," and me, i just default to sarcasm such as "nothing like reveling in other's misfortunes," and "nothing like watching someone's nose bleed." people don't even respond to the straight forward requests, but they always turn and sneer at the sarcasm. that's really funny to me. they turn, acknowledge that they are blocking your view, then turn, mutter about me being rude and keep staring at the hurt guy. soon its a shockwave of "what's everyone standing up for" and before you know it, all of section 136 is on its feet. it took two full batters for us to be able to see again. i would like those people to learn the lesson for (d), but then we would've missed 2 innings.
and we stayed seated the whole time. boy did we show them...
also , someone should do their thesis on "The Things People Will Do to Get on the Jumbo-Tron and Why." i'd at least read the abstract...
so, Hoosier's. if you've never seen it or know about it, stop reading now. and don't come back until you've seen it or know about it. anyway, i've always had one big issue with this movie. the coach preaches the whole movie about team work, 5 players as one unit, and all this stuff that makes everyone watching want to be the guy who gets boards, makes great passes, plays tough d, and not care about what their line in the paper will be (see below for an indepth look at high school basketball lines). clearly this coach wants to put the team first, and everyone, the players, the whole town, eventually (a) buy into the idea, and (b) love the idea, and (c) miss the point that they are all hypocrites! here's why - when the town is running the coach out, jimmy steps up and says "i'll play but only if coach stays" and everyone cheers and brings the coach back, and they all go on to do great shit. yeah, cuz that's what a team player does - he makes ultimatums to everyone else on the team.
i can only compare it to when 2 guys on our college baseball team said "we'll play this year but only if we can go to cancun and miss the first 6 games." they were back in the starting lineup for game 7.
pretty much no one but ahren should read from here on out. now on to my random tangent. my hometown paper covered high school sports and for basketball, the lines for games would say name field goals made-free throws made-total points, same thing for everyone who scored. for example it would say goetz 2-2-7 (at the bottom they would mention 3 pointers and it would say goetz 1). this was a pretty typical line for my scrawny ass as a senior. yeah i was not very good. anyway, if you went in for 2 minutes in the 1st quarter and missed a shot, grabbed a board got subbed out, there was never any recored that you played. when the 12th guy on the team scored in the last 2 seconds of a blowout, the crowd would yell "in the paper, in the paper." this is hilarious and embarassing at the same time. anyway, where kristina grew up in minneapolis, the paper is awesome at covering high school sports. their lines go like this: name FG made-FG attempted FT made-attempted total points. so there paper was like this smith 6-11 5-6 17, then the next player and so on. does everyone realize how much better this is? the same guy who saw 2 minutes in the first half would be represented (even if he took no shots: jones 0-0 0-0 0). what makes this really funny is that there is an official scorer for the shots made, but some guy at the end of the bench who never plays tallies the shots attempted. for anyone who has ever been a benchwarmer in basketball, you know how accurate these are. coach would be like "how many shots did ryan miss in the first half?" all the bench guys would sort of look at each other, and someone would go, "uh, 9?" and the next guy would say "actually i think it was only 8" that way it made it look like they all were paying attention.
after reading what i just wrote, i realized it is not very interesting to anyone but me. ha. you just wasted your time.
i can only compare it to when 2 guys on our college baseball team said "we'll play this year but only if we can go to cancun and miss the first 6 games." they were back in the starting lineup for game 7.
pretty much no one but ahren should read from here on out. now on to my random tangent. my hometown paper covered high school sports and for basketball, the lines for games would say name field goals made-free throws made-total points, same thing for everyone who scored. for example it would say goetz 2-2-7 (at the bottom they would mention 3 pointers and it would say goetz 1). this was a pretty typical line for my scrawny ass as a senior. yeah i was not very good. anyway, if you went in for 2 minutes in the 1st quarter and missed a shot, grabbed a board got subbed out, there was never any recored that you played. when the 12th guy on the team scored in the last 2 seconds of a blowout, the crowd would yell "in the paper, in the paper." this is hilarious and embarassing at the same time. anyway, where kristina grew up in minneapolis, the paper is awesome at covering high school sports. their lines go like this: name FG made-FG attempted FT made-attempted total points. so there paper was like this smith 6-11 5-6 17, then the next player and so on. does everyone realize how much better this is? the same guy who saw 2 minutes in the first half would be represented (even if he took no shots: jones 0-0 0-0 0). what makes this really funny is that there is an official scorer for the shots made, but some guy at the end of the bench who never plays tallies the shots attempted. for anyone who has ever been a benchwarmer in basketball, you know how accurate these are. coach would be like "how many shots did ryan miss in the first half?" all the bench guys would sort of look at each other, and someone would go, "uh, 9?" and the next guy would say "actually i think it was only 8" that way it made it look like they all were paying attention.
after reading what i just wrote, i realized it is not very interesting to anyone but me. ha. you just wasted your time.
