It’s true. I really do. I’m sorry, but you have to understand that you are the stupidest holiday we have. Let’s count up the ways that you are terrible.
1. No day off work. Now, I can’t think of a reason to have Halloween off, but just the fact that no one has ever tried tells me that it is not a worthwhile holiday. Even Presidents’ Day ranks above you, Halloween. Not only is it a day off work, but it is often my birthday and usually includes some great History Channel specials! What do you have, Halloween?
2. You don’t even have good food to eat. Go ahead, name me a Halloween-specific meal, and roasted pumpkin seeds aren’t a meal (though they are tasty). I am a big squash lover, and so pumpkins carved into jack-o-lanterns look like a lot of wasted food to me. Easter has ham, which is just wrong, but you can’t even boast a morally incorrect meal.
3. Trick-or-treating Part I: Speaking of bad meals…Actually going to people’s houses, demanding candy, and then dragging your loot back home is a terrible idea. First, a few of my neighbors really get into Halloween, and that’s mildly disturbing. Second, several of my neighbors aren’t courteous enough to even say hello when we pass, but I want my children to take candy from them? And finally, the neighbors that I would want to converse with never light their porches. Oh, and did I mention the cold?
4. Trick-or-treating Part II: The candy gathered is a problem for many reasons. First, though my children profess to love candy, they hardly ever eat it. Second, when they don’t eat it, I do. Third, there is candy that not even I will eat! This sorry mass of disgustingly flavored rejection sits on top of the fridge until next Easter, when we get tired enough of it that we toss the lot. Candy…Boooo!
5. Trick-or-Treating Part III: The kids that come to the door annoy the heck out of me. The little ones are very cute, and I appreciate their happiness and awkward shyness. Then the night wears on, and the older kids start to come out. When a thirteen-year-old rings my bell at 8:00, I’ve had just about enough. “Here, kid, take this candy that somehow survived the Easter purge.” Oh yes, the main reason I hate this part of trick-or-treating is the fact that my doorbell rings. Unannounced company never makes me happy.
6. As if buying and then figuring out how to dispose of candy wasn’t enough, you give me an extra shot of commercialism in the costume and decorating madness. Everyone points a finger at the commercialistic modern Christmas, but you, Halloween, are completely based on merchandising products that I don’t need. And yet I am required to buy them! For stealing the most unnecessary money from my wallet of any holiday, I hate you, Halloween.
You are morally wrong, environmentally insensitive, fiscally annoying, and generally a detriment to society. I hate you, Halloween.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
The Sporting Life
Most of my blog entries have something to do with personal views or happenings. This time you get a bit of the randomness that comes out of my head. But first, our typical diversion.
Some people sing in the shower, some shave in the shower, some even try to get clean in the shower. I do a couple of those, but they are sideline entertainment. My main goal in the shower is to process information. I often say that I do my best thinking in the shower. And why do I mention that here? Partially to make you afraid of reading any future posts I might type up. Primarily, however, it’s a lead in to this statement:
Before I really launch into this, I want to define a few things:
• A game is a competition between opposing parties who attempt to achieve a goal.
• A sport is a game that includes athletic competition between opponents that can modify their play to impact others.
Pretty simple, right? Gaming is the overall category. Sports are a subset of games that contain specific characteristics. And, for the record, those definitions are mine, not some dictionary's (I thought of them while shaving).
And with those two definitions, we can start to think about what a sport is, and why people might appreciate watching one sport over another. For example, why is soccer immensely popular world-wide, while American football is quite limited? Why do we call baseball “America’s game”, when it’s obviously a sport?
The answer to the latter question is easy. Baseball is a game because sports are a subset of all games. Calling baseball “America’s game” just gives it a more generic title. Baseball, however, is the sport that I tried the hardest to bracket out of the subset. I’ll watch baseball, but I won’t go out of my way to buy a ticket. I struggle with dignifying the seven guys randomly standing around while the batter, pitcher, and catcher actually play a game to be a team sport. Baseball created some of the more specific characteristics in my definitions.
So, let’s examine a few games, and identify whether they are sports or not. Why? Because I have the time:
• Golf – It won’t be surprising to most that golf is not a sport. It is, of course, a game, and it does include the athletic characteristic of a sport. However, my play does not directly impact your score; therefore golf is not a sport.
• Boxing, fencing, martial arts, etc – All of the one-on-one competitive fighting games are obviously sports. They require athleticism, while also pitting the skills of one opponent directly against those of another.
• Fishing and Hunting – Sports…I struggled with this for a couple of seconds, until I realized that the prey was just another type of opponent. Unfortunately, in this sport if the prey loses it becomes dinner. The fisherman chooses the rod and tackle that s/he thinks will attract the fish. The fish decides whether it is going to take the bait. If it does, its individual strength is tested against the equipment and fortitude of the fisherman. Incidentally, this means that commercial net-based fishing is not a sport.
• Skiing, snowboarding, skateboarding, etc – All games. With apologies to those that say that they compete in extreme sports…you’re wrong. You compete in extreme games. Until such time as we have two people skiing a slope at the same time, it’s just a game. A very athletic game, of course. Incidentally, figure skating and curling go into this category as well. In fact, most winter games do. I guess it’s more difficult to convince competitors to play at the same time when it’s below freezing.
• Racing – Be it in a car, on a bike, or simply with your own two feet, races are natural sports. I could probably find resources that site races as the first of all sports, but I won’t even try. In a race I am competing against a personal clock, but I usually am also competing against others in my heat. And, for those that wonder about car racing being athletic, you try to control a very powerful vehicle at over two-hundred miles per hour for five-hundred laps. We’ll see how many calories you burn.
• Weightlifting – One of my favorites. I love weightlifting. No, not to watch (that’s just stupid). I love to personally lift weights. There’s no doubt about it, weightlifting is very athletic. Fortunately, though, competition lifters can not influence the ability of opponents, therefore weightlifting competitively is a game.
• Poker – Just putting this one in as we see it all the time on ESPN. Poker is not a sport. It is filler that allows ESPN to not run half-hour long commercials. Poker requires the utmost in skill competition between opponents, but it is in no way athletic.
With all of the above stated, I find it interesting that the most popular sports in the world are either individual sports, or team sports in which any person on the field can be a star. I don’t mean to imply that team sports are less popular than individual sports (Hello! Soccer and baseball!) Instead, I see popularity in the sports that allow the individual to rise above the team while functioning within parameters.
Let’s look at American football for a minute. Football is certainly a sport, but (despite every attempt by the NFL) it simply isn’t very popular outside North America. Football definitely has its stars, but they are from specific positions. It is very rare that you see a lineman (defensive or offensive) become a true star, and they count as up to forty percent of a team’s regular downs contingent (9/22). Toss in the tight end and the problem just gets worse. These are guys that play every single down, take the most physical punishment, but get very little love on the highlights reel.
Conversely, let’s look at soccer. There are 11 guys on that field. Every single one of them has a chance at any particular moment to do something spectacular. An amazing save, a goal, a perfect pass, and it’s all there for the fans to enjoy.
Baseball is the ultimate example of this. Every single pitch in baseball requires the utmost in fan attention, because you never know where that ball will go. Maybe baseball can only loosely be labeled as a team sport, but it wins the prize for building anticipation throughout the game. In what other sport do you have over three-hundred identifiable unique points for potential greatness? That next pitch may go wild, be a strike, result in a routine fly ball, or just bend around the fair side of the foul pole. You never know, and that’s why people love baseball…damn them.
Other sports are popular for the same reason. Who will win the race because the opponent just didn’t have enough gas? Who will tip the puck into the unprotected side of the net (ubiquitous hockey reference,)? Who will dive onto the hard court to save the ball? We love the sports that allow the individual, as well as the team, to win.
Did you enjoy that little exploration into what goes through my mind while I shower? Seriously, it all happened today. Want to contest any of the above? Go ahead and comment, but you'll be wrong.
What do you do in the shower?
Some people sing in the shower, some shave in the shower, some even try to get clean in the shower. I do a couple of those, but they are sideline entertainment. My main goal in the shower is to process information. I often say that I do my best thinking in the shower. And why do I mention that here? Partially to make you afraid of reading any future posts I might type up. Primarily, however, it’s a lead in to this statement:
So I was thinking about sports in the shower today.
Before I really launch into this, I want to define a few things:
• A game is a competition between opposing parties who attempt to achieve a goal.
• A sport is a game that includes athletic competition between opponents that can modify their play to impact others.
Pretty simple, right? Gaming is the overall category. Sports are a subset of games that contain specific characteristics. And, for the record, those definitions are mine, not some dictionary's (I thought of them while shaving).
And with those two definitions, we can start to think about what a sport is, and why people might appreciate watching one sport over another. For example, why is soccer immensely popular world-wide, while American football is quite limited? Why do we call baseball “America’s game”, when it’s obviously a sport?
The answer to the latter question is easy. Baseball is a game because sports are a subset of all games. Calling baseball “America’s game” just gives it a more generic title. Baseball, however, is the sport that I tried the hardest to bracket out of the subset. I’ll watch baseball, but I won’t go out of my way to buy a ticket. I struggle with dignifying the seven guys randomly standing around while the batter, pitcher, and catcher actually play a game to be a team sport. Baseball created some of the more specific characteristics in my definitions.
So, let’s examine a few games, and identify whether they are sports or not. Why? Because I have the time:
• Golf – It won’t be surprising to most that golf is not a sport. It is, of course, a game, and it does include the athletic characteristic of a sport. However, my play does not directly impact your score; therefore golf is not a sport.
• Boxing, fencing, martial arts, etc – All of the one-on-one competitive fighting games are obviously sports. They require athleticism, while also pitting the skills of one opponent directly against those of another.
• Fishing and Hunting – Sports…I struggled with this for a couple of seconds, until I realized that the prey was just another type of opponent. Unfortunately, in this sport if the prey loses it becomes dinner. The fisherman chooses the rod and tackle that s/he thinks will attract the fish. The fish decides whether it is going to take the bait. If it does, its individual strength is tested against the equipment and fortitude of the fisherman. Incidentally, this means that commercial net-based fishing is not a sport.
• Skiing, snowboarding, skateboarding, etc – All games. With apologies to those that say that they compete in extreme sports…you’re wrong. You compete in extreme games. Until such time as we have two people skiing a slope at the same time, it’s just a game. A very athletic game, of course. Incidentally, figure skating and curling go into this category as well. In fact, most winter games do. I guess it’s more difficult to convince competitors to play at the same time when it’s below freezing.
• Racing – Be it in a car, on a bike, or simply with your own two feet, races are natural sports. I could probably find resources that site races as the first of all sports, but I won’t even try. In a race I am competing against a personal clock, but I usually am also competing against others in my heat. And, for those that wonder about car racing being athletic, you try to control a very powerful vehicle at over two-hundred miles per hour for five-hundred laps. We’ll see how many calories you burn.
• Weightlifting – One of my favorites. I love weightlifting. No, not to watch (that’s just stupid). I love to personally lift weights. There’s no doubt about it, weightlifting is very athletic. Fortunately, though, competition lifters can not influence the ability of opponents, therefore weightlifting competitively is a game.
• Poker – Just putting this one in as we see it all the time on ESPN. Poker is not a sport. It is filler that allows ESPN to not run half-hour long commercials. Poker requires the utmost in skill competition between opponents, but it is in no way athletic.
With all of the above stated, I find it interesting that the most popular sports in the world are either individual sports, or team sports in which any person on the field can be a star. I don’t mean to imply that team sports are less popular than individual sports (Hello! Soccer and baseball!) Instead, I see popularity in the sports that allow the individual to rise above the team while functioning within parameters.
Let’s look at American football for a minute. Football is certainly a sport, but (despite every attempt by the NFL) it simply isn’t very popular outside North America. Football definitely has its stars, but they are from specific positions. It is very rare that you see a lineman (defensive or offensive) become a true star, and they count as up to forty percent of a team’s regular downs contingent (9/22). Toss in the tight end and the problem just gets worse. These are guys that play every single down, take the most physical punishment, but get very little love on the highlights reel.
Conversely, let’s look at soccer. There are 11 guys on that field. Every single one of them has a chance at any particular moment to do something spectacular. An amazing save, a goal, a perfect pass, and it’s all there for the fans to enjoy.
Baseball is the ultimate example of this. Every single pitch in baseball requires the utmost in fan attention, because you never know where that ball will go. Maybe baseball can only loosely be labeled as a team sport, but it wins the prize for building anticipation throughout the game. In what other sport do you have over three-hundred identifiable unique points for potential greatness? That next pitch may go wild, be a strike, result in a routine fly ball, or just bend around the fair side of the foul pole. You never know, and that’s why people love baseball…damn them.
Other sports are popular for the same reason. Who will win the race because the opponent just didn’t have enough gas? Who will tip the puck into the unprotected side of the net (ubiquitous hockey reference,)? Who will dive onto the hard court to save the ball? We love the sports that allow the individual, as well as the team, to win.
In Conclusion
Did you enjoy that little exploration into what goes through my mind while I shower? Seriously, it all happened today. Want to contest any of the above? Go ahead and comment, but you'll be wrong.
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