Tradition Smadition

Gotta love Major League Baseball. If you are not sure why it is appealing, but find yourself watching it as much as I do-Here could be the appeal. Where else in the world do they force 65-year old men/managers to wear a children's baseball uniform? They are supposedly the leaders of the free world of the Diamond, not a homeless dude who chose a second hand Little League uniform over a camouflage WWII uniform at a flea market.

Do you need to wear that fine blend of stripes, elastic and butt enhancing material to pick your nose on TV, (oh wait, that is just a sign to steal second base) spit tobacco/gum in the dugout or kick dirt and yell obscenities to another overweight, elder gentleman who is wearing a similar tight poly nit black umpire uniform. I haven't quite comprehended the value of wearing the knickers past the age of 12.

Is this why we enjoy America's Favorite Past time? Or is it the fact we only have 24 hours in a day and most of today's games take up 1/4 of it. I think of baseball like the sport version of a soap opera. I could miss three weeks worth of episodes and when I return, the same plot line hasn't changed. You would return to see the same pitcher struggling to get an out while the same all-star slugger is in a hitting slump since May (Going 0-38 should mean you owe the fans $23 million).

If there is any sport that needs to be digitally recorded to be played back without all the filler its baseball. You could watch an entire game with your DVR in about 23 seconds. But then you would miss all those shots of Wilford Brimley separating the sunflower seeds from his mouth to hit the pitching coach's butt from 12 feet out.

Don't Mettle with the Five Rings of Sportsmanship

There is a reason the Olympics only come every four years. (correct that)-two years, but four for each season.

It takes at least that long for the Media to come up with life stories for every athlete. Is there one participant that didn't go through hardship of a great great grandparent who died recently or one who has a hangnail just before the Games end? Is there one without a sibling suffering from inoperable stubbornness, one who didn't suffer an economic injustice of having to pay for their own gas or a severe case of acne growing up in an disadvantaged environment?

It's the Olympics, not Survivor-Beijing. Win the Gold and get your face on the cover of a Wheaties box and a guest shot on The Tonight Show.

Lose, and end up stuffing your face with Froot Loops and watching old shows of the Wide World of Sports with you starring in the Agony of Defeat.

It's not that hard to enjoy the Games of the Olympiad. It's just hard waiting 7.5 hours to see one actual event after watching All-American and native Texan Tommy Brown's life be drawn out on the T.V. screen only to watch him come in 8th....um..out of 8.

I...WANT..MY...OLD...TV

Years ago it started with a small peacock and three letters in the lower right corner. An almost nonchalantly array of hiding nothing of importance.

But each year the TV networks get bolder and more intrusive adding to their graphics and stats while the actual show becomes only a thumbnail of existence.

When I'm watching a football game, I do want to see the score and the down/yds to go. But you don't have to use up a Manhattan billboard of the actual screen to prove your point.

When I'm catching the Headline News, I don't need to see stocks, weather, the time in Paraguay, a Paris Hilton sightings recap and product placement ads all framing the postage stamp image of the story I'm trying to watch. One graphic at a time would be sufficient.

When I'm watching a suspenseful or drama movie on cable, I don't want to see a person poke their head in superimposed from another show on the same network acting like they are part of the plot line. (Note to network honchos: Seeing Holly Hunter wearing a sundress to promote her show as I am waiting to see if Detective Sipowitz is going to go off the wagon or smack his partner doesn't make me add to my Tivo schedule anytime soon.)

I might as well listen to the radio, for as little as I actually SEE on my big screen TV anymore. I blame MTV (do I sound like anyone's father yet?). I knew when they started that irritating technique of the shaking camera, adding a short micro second bursts of an image, can't see a face for more than a speed of light moment, we were going down a slippery slope of digressing the initial technology of creating TV in the first place.

(NOTE for educational purposes: If you divide a still image into a collection of small colored dots (pixels), your brain will reassemble the dots into a meaningful image-the definition of how a TV works)

My brain has enough issues trying to see if Lauren from the Hills and Kim Kardashian are ever going to combine forces and defeat the Style Villains of LA than to decipher a half dozen additional graphics, stats and scrolling messages that have invaded my own grey matter.

Instead of adding to our brain freeze, let's create a channel of only long visual camera takes, conversations that last more than a text message and plot lines that have a beginning, middle and climax. The only graphic I want to see is the title of the show flash in front of me and a quick "THE END" so I know I can flip to SportsCenter.

If I need more information, I'll just click the Google function on my cell phone screen. My only issue is my phone is too small and I wish they would remove the images and show all the cool graphics and stats available scrolling by my phone network. Wink

Can I Sell a Vowell

After the Evening News and Jeopardy happens to land one of the most challenging shows on TV. Forget knowing (in question format of course) which century did the aggressors challenge the economic development of the Spanish Inquisition by the accused heretics who brought general population before the tribunal and given no chance to confess their heresy against the Church before they were publicly killed or sentenced to a life in prison.

(um. Alec, what is the 5th Century?)

The Wheel Of Fortune provides the utmost skill and knowledge I have ever witnessed last night in between Vanna and Pat sharing a pair of wax lips with each other to add humor fill for the 30 minute show of intellectual brain fodder. With a majority of the following puzzle (AN INVENTOR) on the board solved

T H M A S
E D I S N

and only vowels left, a contestant actually bought a vowel to bring her colossal winnings from $200 down to $100. But the bigger issue was, YOU GUESSED IT, she bought a "R".

I truly love this country and its diversity, its entertaining value of game shows that turn into the car wrecks where we just can't drive by and ignore the victims.

Perhaps as "Jeopardy" and "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" have written entry tests for their contestants, I think Wheel of Fortune and Deal or No Deal should as well.

Sample 1st question: "Do you know Pat and Vanna's last name? (100% accuracy will be recorded). "Can you name Britney and her Jamie Lynn Spears' children and their age? (98% accuracy). "Can you name at least two states and one country not including Arkansas and America?" "OK. you are right, that is a trick question" One more, "If you spin a wheel clockwise will it tell time?"

I would laugh along with this show more often if I didn't recognize these are the same people who think the moon actually gets closer and bigger as it nears the horizon and that the sun revolves around the earth (OK OK..you know some you had to think about if you knew that or not as well. Just making sure you are paying attention (go to Google if you doubt me).

This fall's new game show should play with audience's mind. How's this for a idea:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Um, Pat. I'd like to buy a biran, a herat and some corague becusae three is no plcae lkie hmoe

Running on Empty

Ran in a local 5K last night. Hold on.. Just a minute.

Ok. I'm still trying catching my breath 12 hours later.

5K=3.2 miles of nature, peace, exhilarating stimulation for the entire body and an incredible amount of pain and suffering. Sorry, but there is a reason that New Balance uses the slogan HATE/love to RUN.

It is a great sense of accomplishment when you actual finish the race, but so is completing the Sunday NY Times crossword and my body doesn't hurt when I do that unless I'm bench pressing the circulars in between Ups and Downs word hints.

When did they start allowing children to run in adult races? I wouldn't mind it if they weren't discussing "Gossip Girl" and the "Teen Choice Awards" as they pass my ASSpiring quest for finishing the race still living.

Then there is the tortoise and the hare syndrome. The running wannabes who take off in a full sprint only to be passed by me trucking along at a steady pace of molasses just trying to remember how to breathe. (Is it inhale first, exhale second or vice versa?)

I would have finished in under a day in a half, but they also allow motivated obsessed parents with running strollers on the course. I actually ran more like a 10K trying to pass Wyoma and Grady with their Double Wide pack of babies on a path with no emergency pull off lane. Yep, up hill I'm shooting by them as they curse the fact they didn't use birth control, and downhill, I see them whizz by me like an XGames HalfPipe exhibition.

Next up is a Duathalon (bike/run combo) I thought I would punish myself to sit behind spandex and florescent UGLY extra tight shirts to motivate me to design a new race--STROLLER DERBY sponsored by extra baggy pull ups and fluorescent BabyGap shirts.

I Need a Little Off the Top

At a strip mall and stuck between a QuikChek, a Chinese Restaurant and a "WE BUY GOLD FOR CASH" store was one of the thousands of America's favorite hair salons. Little did I know why they call them "strip" malls until now. Only cheap hair salons can come up with names that rival Go-Go Bars for self-pundits.

From THE PRIME CUT, to THE CUT ABOVE. From HAIR PORT to SOPHISTICUTS' HEAD CLIP JOINT. The names themselves should make you avoid getting your hair cut here unless you have lice or want lice. (Either way you lose and they win a customer)

I challenge anyone to walk into any of these fine slice of American Pie and trust the fact you will walk away with anything but a Power Mullet or a 80's Hair Band Perm. Take note: Have you looked at what style these "beauticians" themselves have opted for? Realize they haven't had a new style magazine in the waiting room table since Charlie's Angels "the TV show", not the movie, aired in 1976, but YOU are going to trust them with the one part of your body you can't hide at school or work?

From hair color that even the Mother Nature rejected to flips, curls, comb-overs and shags that put serious doubt that the US has ever evolved since the Cold War. I'm not even going to comment on the advice provided in these modern day Coiffures that double as a nail specialist institution. "No, No, honey even if you're 75, you should have your hair still down to your lower back." "Oh girlfriend, its a lovely shade of Red, don't even worry about what your boyfriend Ned thinks." or my personal favorite, "I feel the urge to emulasatalate (no clue) and simulcast Victoria Beckham and Katie Holmes with one wave of my magic scissors. You are so gonna love it Honey."

The good news is that for $9.95, I can get a shampoo, cut and advice on how to avoid toenail infections all within one store away from selling my gold tooth.

Time is Money for Only a Selected Few

Huge sporting goods grand opening this weekend. Hundreds of anxious patrons lined up around the building awaiting the doors to open. What could be so thrilling? What is so amazing where someone would spend a Sunday morning AND afternoon standing in line with other humans with no lives?

An autograph from their favorite ballplayer? Four tickets to a game? A lifetime supply of tube socks? No, it has to be much more valuable for this long and winding crowd. These intellectual wonders of our society are lined up to receive a $10.00 gift card to SPEND in the sporting goods store. NOT cash, not hundreds of dollars, but a $10.00 gift card that has an expiration date.

Unless they all walked to the store, they spent that much money already driving to the store. Unless they feel that a ten spot is going to drastically reduce a pair of $150.00 Air Jordans to anything below $140.00, their life perceptions are completely out of whack.

I must have lost my value of a dollar as I wouldn't spend ONE hour to wait for a gift card that is less than the $25 blockbuster card still sitting in my wallet from 2002 (who rents movies anymore?).

I have 48 hours maximum of a weekend escape, but there is nothing more valuable to me than standing in 95 degree sun on a sidewalk to ensure I got the deal of a lifetime that rivals my trip to the Poconos for five hours to listen to a four hour sales pitch of a timeshare to receive a free trip to the Bahamas as long as I pay for airfare and go between July 6-9 during a leap year.

Next week, I'm going to offer all of those thrifty shoppers a gift they truly can benefit from. Stay home, go to the online store of the same name and receive a $10.00 first time user gift card. All you have to do is send me $9.95 plus shipping and handling and I'll send you the web site address. (Hint, it starts with WWW.)

Honk If You Have Vanity Plates

Walking through a small town during its summer Friday night car show lined on the streets of its center of shops and restaurants.

Hundreds of meticulously cared for automobiles, hot rods, cruisers, antique horseless wagons and pimped out rides (um...just transportation for the rest of us folks) aligned for showcasing, bragging rights and a place to catch up with people of similar interests.

I too, crave social networking and sharing of ideas of hobbies but one aspect of this Back to the Future showcase of metal and paint I don't quite get is the fact every owner of these "Cherry" rides looks the same. I thought I just crashed a Kenny Rogers convention during Frontier Days.

Perhaps OCD pet owners indistinctly start looking like their pets after a few years of living together, but every car enthusiast I witnessed had salt-n-pepper hair, a un-groomed goatee, beer belly, acid wash jeans, and Blu-blocker sunglasses-OH, and that was just the female owners. (sorry, it was too easy. I couldn't resist on a Friday)

Does spending hours detailing, caring and cleaning an engine and using Q-tips in seat cracks that even 3-year-old Hubba Bubba gum wouldn't dare hide, create an atmosphere of a Smokey & The Bandit personality combined with a Dukes of Hazard throwback polyester flannel button down shirt? If so, I'm taking up Scrapbooking instead.

I'm afraid to go to a local boat show this weekend. I'm sure I'll see similar landscapes and the aroma of Christmas tree air fresheners as well. However, replacing the car owner's "Mustang Logo" baseball cap that matches his ride, will be 60-year-old Gilligan and Skipper wannabees showcasing their varnished decks while exposing their corduroy short SHORTS and two sizes too small golf shirts. Anyone have a chamois? I'm going to tear up and I don't want the drops to Bead Up on the paint job of my 1968 Chevy Camaro with a 406 ci SBC Transmission: TH350 w/Stage 2 Shift Kit.

The Slicer Dicer and Ginzu Knife walk into a bar...

Late night infomercial showcasing a new amazing, space age, state of the art, cutting edge cleaning sponge. Outstanding absorbency that combines both Karate Kid's "WAX ON and WAX OFF" cleaning in one yellow ball of softness.

I have no idea the cost because they won't tell me until I waste another 20 minutes of my life watching this woman who has never washed a car in her life wash a car she would never be caught dead in, but, I do know that it will last a lifetime and that alone forces my credit card to flex out of my wallet.

Oh wait, if I act now, I get an additional one at no extra cost. FANTASTIC. Um. but if it lasts a lifetime, why do I need another one? I'm only washing one car at a time, I'm ambidextrous, but can't use both hands at once. I'm confused as they had me at, "Have you ever needed...." and lost me at "quantities are running low". Low quantities? If they stop giving free ones away, they would have more for suckers like me. Forget it. I'm going back to watching TONY LITTLE and his fat ponytail ride the Gazelle. At least I know it's only $329 and look how his body has just melted away using it for 20 years. Better yet, I'm going to listen to the sounds of 90's rock. I have 10 more CD's coming if I continue to pay off my loan to my lifetime music club.

Indecent Exposure to an Impatient Flasher

Stop & Go traffic, early morning and nobody is more anxious to get to work than I. Trying to keep a safe distance from the car in front you is difficult at times especially if you follow the law of 1 car length for every 10 mph of speed like I do (wink). But, when you are going 3 miles an hour with your foot on the break 90% of the time and some impatient driver is flashing his new halogen blue lights at you, where does he think you are going to go if you actually could move?

Does he think he's Bruce Almighty and can part the traffic sea of frustration at a whim or a flash of brights? Dude!! Even if I could move to another lane, why would I give you the satisfaction of allowing you get to your work 5 seconds before me? Worse yet, is the fact that someone behind me actually moved to the emergency lane to let him pass. OMG, he's driving a Camaro, not an emergency vehicle. The only thing he is in hurry for is to get to McDonald's before their Breakfast sandwiches are replaced by Big Macs at 10:30. (scary that I know the time of menu change at a fast food restaurant)

I appreciate courtesy drivers and polite commuters that let you merge without pretending to ignore your need to join their mangled group of lane marauders. But there is more of a chance that gas will be under $3.00 a gallon again than I would oblige to move over for this guy when the rest of the state has to endure the mighty transportation infrastructure quandary. If you hope for me to move, remove your fuzzy dice from your mirror, roll a seven and kiss your spinning wheels for luck and perhaps the dump truck next to you won't drop a load on your cheap Maaco paint job before the next exit.

Time to live past LIVESTRONG

First, I'm a big Lance Armstrong fan and I loved the marketing prowess of creating an inexpensive "pet rock" idea that has legs and viral success for the ages as the LIVESTRONG bracelet did and all the money it raised. But after every charity known to man (people against people, chartreuse bracelets for the colorblind and humans against fur jewelry) got involved, don't you think its time for these middle aged men with THE MEN'S WEARHOUSE suits to stash their "I'm a supporter of something" bracelets in the same pile as their Member's Only Jackets, Tassel loafers and Velour V-neck sweater vests that show more nipples than Simon Cowell at a Karaoke contest? Sincere support is great. Charity is something we all wish we could do more with and for, but when it comes to stretching out a "cool" idea so long that the original plastic ring has been stretched to fit around a size 36 waist, its time to find a new item to wear. YES, now that you asked, I do have an idea. I'd like to suggest a strobe lit plastic ring that slides over the middle finger to support all your number 1 piggy back charities that you want to tell to "WEAR THIS" as you pass by their booths and signs. Think of the word of mouth marketing on that concept.

You say hello, but do I have to say hello...AGAIN?

Narrow hallway at the office. One of the few paths on the floor that engulfs the offices and cubicles. Important question of the day.

When you see and pass the same person five or more times throughout the day, what in the world do you say after the first greeting? If you first see them in the morning, It's the simple etiquette of a "Good morning" or "How are you?"

However, after two or three hallway fly bys before lunch, what on earth do you say or not say without insulting each other's intelligence?

"How 'bout them (INSERT FAVE SPORTS TEAM)?", or "Working hard today, Bro?" ...I think not. You have seen them more times than your own family this week and not once do you get the sense they are going anywhere except in a circle.

If you are lucky and can space it until after lunch, you can go with the mundane, "Almost done eh?" or "Boy, what a day huh?" but do I care when the only thing that seems to get accomplished is adding frequent walking mileage to their dress shoes before 5 pm.

We should add a new rule to greetings in the office. After seeing the same person in the same building on the same day within a 4 hour time period, the only thing you should have to acknowledge is a wardrobe malfunction, wet floor warning or the fact that they didn't notice your fly was open, you tripped on the spilled coffee and that you are still circling the office looking for the same person to set up a meeting for tomorrow.....I'm just saying...