Earlier in the week, I was driving one of the back streets around Town Creek, when a pickup approached, and a young man was in the bed of the truck embracing a chain saw. Attached to the driver’s door with what I would like to say was duct tape, but I’m not sure, was an obviously hand lettered sign (complete with the “plan ahead” feature) that said “(Name)’s Tree Removal Service”. It’s an ill wind….
And secondly, before going on to an honest to goodness rant, is just an observation. We usually listen to radio station WTOP for news. During hurricanes, storms, blizzards, etc., they emulate the Weather Channel posturing themselves as the center of information. They proclaim that they will “stay on top of the power companies until all power is restored”. What this actually means is that they tell (whoever has power) the amount of people who don’t. Reciting statistics that are public knowledge, they go through them: PEPCO reports 15,254 outages; BGE 8,739; SMECO 2,831; and so on. How exactly this is “staying on top of the power companies” escapes me.
Bye, Bye, Irene.. you are not welcome here ever again..
Sports Rant (mostly golf).
Alert readers will remember that I often lament the “we’re number one” mentality of the networks in their approach to sports coverage. The very first college basket ball game (of over 30) is hyped by CBS as “The Road to the Final Four”; college football rages about who is a “BCS contender”; all the sports talk shows on pro football immediately start the (off and on) season hypothesizing on who is a “playoff” caliber team. Hockey immediately starts talking about the Stanley Cup. Baseball? “the Hunt for October!”. The implied message is that the “regular season” is only a minor prelude to the “playoffs!” Never mind watching a season of good plays by talented athletes, enjoying seeing their ability (notice the on purpose avoidance of the word “athleticism”), good competition, rivalries, and so forth. It’s only about where you finish in the last game of the season.
So, it is with this background that “Golf” apparently had to climb on board. Now to me, a “playoff” is head to head competition where the winner continues, and the loser goes home. If I (or my team) beats you, you’re done. Last man/woman/team standing can then claim they are “number one”. Fair enough. But the problem with golf is that it is an individual sport. You and the course. You can only control what you do, and pretty much have no interaction or impact on your opponent. So, how in the world do you come up with a “playoff”?
The obvious answer is to (somehow) develop a match play scenario which does have a head to head format. But no. Let’s come up with a system of “points” that nobody can possibly understand, changes drastically after every tournament all year, then when the “playoffs” start everything gets reset, and nobody knows what the hell is going on. It works so well that in years past the “leader” didn’t even have to play to win. So every year they “tweak” it in an attempt to create drama. Bull Hockey. Other than the $10 million for the final winner, I don’t think the golfers give a damn. They just play until the points tell them to eventually go fishing. And now that the playoffs are being covered, I can barely stand it. The little inset that used to tell you the player, what hole he’s on and his overall score, now contains another little number that indicates his “place” in the playoff. It’s either red or green depending on if he’s above or below the number that will continue, and rockets up and down depending on what player some player does 8 holes away. Announcers struggle to explain all of this to us ignoramuses, “If things don’t change, he’ll finish 73rd, but if so and so sinks this putt, he’ll be 21st”. Projected this, projected that… What idiocy. More announcers in post game: “What do you have to do to improve your chances of the cup?”; “What was going through your mind when Ernie Els sank that putt and ….”. They just play golf. It’s just the “media” trying to make this interesting. It’s not. Junk it.
Happier thoughts from our back yard yesterday:
oh yeah,,
DFD
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