Complaint as Competitive Sport
Step inside. Don’t be shy. You’re just in time for meaningless rant time. Yes…..again.
When you watch as many sports telecasts as I do, you start to think you can do a better job of play by play than the announcers. Or a better job of recapping the highlights if you’re an anchor for, say, ESPNews. I’ve grown completely sick of being told what atheletes are "nice guys" and "do great things for their community" or which ones "have some character issues." I don’t care. About a week ago, I saw what could only be described as a puff piece about NBA player Gilbert Arenas. They kept referring to his jersey number (which is 0) as some sort of allusion to the situation of a kid Arenas has kinda sorta taken care of since the kid’s whole family died in a fire. My gripe is that they made it seem like Arenas wears the number zero because of this kid, which is completely false. He met the kid a few years ago (his first year in Washington, I think), but he’s worn zero as his number at least since he was in college at Arizona. So the two things aren’t at all related. Obviously, that’s not important.
The next thing is useless statistics. Y’know, when the empty headed jerk-off reading the teleprompter tells you that a baseball player just hit a home run for the third consecutive Friday the 13th. Or that a basketball player has scored 22 points or more every Tuesday since January 9th. Or that a football player has caught at least two passes every game this season that took place on a Monday (even if this is the first time they’ve played on Monday all year….that’s unimportant). Or that a baseball player has a extended his hitting streak to 35 games in this season’s third game, but reminds you the streak extends back to last season. No shit? You mean he didn’t hit for 35 straight games in the first three games of the year? My God, that’s shocking news. Perhaps you heard the one about the pitcher who hadn’t allowed more than two runs per start on any Wednesday he’s started this year. What I’m getting at is that I don’t care about these retarded "statistics." It doesn’t make you sound smart. It isn’t even interesting. It’s just pointless.
Even better, and this comes up a lot this time of year, is listening to the empty headed jerk-off reading off the teleprompter completely butcher someones name because they really have no clue who the person is. It comes up a lot during the NHL Playoffs. You can tell which anchors watch hockey and which ones don’t just by listening to them. "And here’s a nice shot by Maxim Afen…..Afenuh….Afennergenov." (The real name is Afinogenov). And they try to say it with some sort of "cool" inflection to make themselves sound confident even thought it makes it even more obvious they don’t have a clue. If I didn’t love hockey so much, I’d just think it was funny, but instead, it comes across to me as disrespectful. Like they can bother to learn how to properly pronounce "Doug Mientkiewicz" (since he’s a baseball player, he’s important), but can’t learn how to pronounce "Francois Beauchemin" (since he’s a rookie defenceman for the Mighty Ducks, he doesn’t matter).
Now Playing in Dave’s Mental Jukebox: "This Love" by Maroon 5, "Remember the Name" by Fort Minor, and the ever hated and dreaded "Sister Christian" by Night Ranger (I was watching and laughing at an 80’s music infomercial late last night……and this was its revenge……..I’ll be hearing this song in my head for years again).
The NFL Draft wound up today and I can’t really complain too loudly about how the Titans did. I said months ago that either Matt Leinart or Vince Young would be fine as a #1 pick. I just hope they call pull a rabbit out of their ass and keep Steve McNair around for a couple years to tutor Vince Young. He can’t be the starting quarterback for at least one year. The second round pick of LenDale White was cringe-inducing, though. If it works, great. But he’s been hurt and out of shape all off season. He looks almost as soft as I do, which is just horrible for a top-flight football player. Of the rest of the draft class, Jonathan Orr, WR-Wisconsin, is the only name I even recognize. So we’ll see how they shake out when preseason rolls around.
I’m sick of seeing commercials for CGI-talking animal movies. Can we get another use for that style of animation, please? Enough with kid-friendly, pseudo-edgy animal movies. No more. This horse has been beaten to death about twelve times over by now. How about some nice talking cars……..oh, wait……..nevermind………..
In fact, I’m just about ready to give up on United Statesian movies. They just suck. Sure, the rest of the world makes their share of crap, too, but they also make their share of good ones. We stopped making our fair share of good movies about five-to-seven years ago.
To be added to the list of "Things I Want to Do Before I Die": See a Stanley Cup Playoff game in Calgary. I love watching the Flames play in their building this time of year. The atmosphere is absolutely insane. I want to experience that before I expire.
I should’ve just been born Canadian, come to think of it.
I should be watching hockey right now, but Nashville is continuing to suck, trailing San Jose/the Refs 2-0 after two periods. I can’t really stomach it….or maybe that’s indigestion.
Whatever. Time to go quench the insatiable appetite for ice cream.
Shimotsuma monogatari = Fucking hilarious
Sayonara.