Ponderances, Inanities, and other Nonsense
Archive for November, 2006
Wrong Message for SoMD
Nov 16th
This guy had sex with a dead deer (and it wasn’t his first incident), and was acquitted yesterday, as his lawyer found some loophole based upon the deer having been already dead.
With all of the deer carcasses here in Southern Maryland, and all the SMIBs, things could get ugly.
Maryland State Bird
Nov 14th
Of course the state bird is the Baltimore Oriole, but I would like to think that if the people that decided the state bird lived in Southern Maryland, it would be the buzzard or even the raven, due to all the “Street Pizza” adorning the roads here. I cannot manage but a few miles without seeing a buzzard picking a deer carcass on the side of the road.
I know that they probably named Baltimore’s Football team after a character in a poem by the town’s favorite literary son, Edgar Allen Poe, but I like to think it is because of road kill. Heck, it probably inspired Poe.Â
The picture I have is of him riding in a coach just outside of town and his horses run into a deer, totalling one of the horses. He jumps out all pissed off and while he waits for the police (which was happenstance because they didn’t have cell phones [I just had to point that out for anyone born after 1990 that may be reading this]), pulls a coin out of his vest pocket and flips it and because it was tails the buzzard would not have his day.
If only the team were the “Baltimore Buzzards,” with the alliteration and everything. (*Sigh*)
Voting.
Nov 7th
It’s voting day and it appears that Arizona has concocted a way to entice people to vote: they are going to make someone a millionaire. One lucky voter will receive a door prize of one million dollars. I sh*t you not. A radio personality on the local station said that it would influence voters that don’t know the issues to vote and therefore doom Arizona.
There are two things wrong with this statement:
1. No one knows the issues. In fact, issues haven’t been part of any candidate’s campaign strategy in years. Almost universally, the vogue strategy is to sling mud on your opponents, about their character and how they voted, followed by a “But Bob won’t do that, you can trust him. He’ll get things done.” I could not ask what these things are and surely not how they would come about. The issues don’t get discussed. Now, don’t get me wrong…they are almost always crooks and deserve the bashing, but it shouldn’t be as big of a deal as the issues themselves. And no one knows the issues, so you don’t have to exclude some demographic to play the game nowdays.
2. Most of the bad voters that he is referring to are the same people that, as they are cashing in their winning scratch-offs and holding up the line, are telling the cashier that they won’t play the lottery for only 3 million, and that they’ll wait until it rolls over a couple of times. I’m sure 1 million to vote with decent odds (1: 2.6million) and no chance of rollover will not provide the proper incentive.
Football thoughts…
Nov 6th
It gets easier every year to entertain the possibility of moving to some foreign country and never watching football. There really is no replacement, though some surrogate candidates would be Formula One and soccer. But with each passing year, it seems that college football loses its luster more and more. I went from being excited to the point of not sleeping if a big game was the same weekend to TiVo-ing every game and watching it whenever. I had to stop and do a mental inventory of why this is, and I came up with this.
1. Most coverage now seems to be some templated “Mad Lib” style of reporting, and almost all of the interesting articles on ESPN.com are now “inSider” and you have to pay for them. For instance, when #13 LSU beat #8 Tennessee, it was “Tigers shock Vols,” though it is not too far of a stretch to think that the #13 team could quite possibly beat a team five positions above them in the rankings. But, if you see someone who may actually have something legit to say, such as Herbstriet, it is an inSider column.
2. Commercials and advertisements during pay-per-view games is an outrage. I especially hate seeing the yellow line depicting first down yardage changing to blue and then an ad magically scrolls out onto the field. As if the ad in the scoreboard and the Aflac Trivia Question and the TV Time outs weren’t enough, I am paying for a game and then being fed more commercials. What happened to cable? It used to be that you paid for cable because you didn’t want commercials, now the cable companies put commercials out during the commercials telling you how great cable advertising is. What’s more, I have to pay even more for ESPN Game Plan and then have to see all of this marketing shit. Enough, you greedy asshats!
3. The disparity of the conferences and the haphazard way (mucho subjectivity) that the rankings are produced. One word: tournament. That is the only way. Pro Football has its playoffs, so should college.
(Mumbling mantras and thinking happy thoughts…) I just have to ask myself every once in a while if it is worth it. Prolly not.
Playing Catsup…
Nov 3rd
That is one word that I have never known the proper spelling. Is it ketchup or catsup?
 Anyhoo…Sophia had her pediatrician appointment and she is now (drum roll, please)…
10 pounds, 9.1 ounces!
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