by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2007/09/27 02:46 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2007/09/26/5143742.aspx
Nothing technical and if you enjoy any of what I usually write about then I doubt this will interest you. Truly, you will probably want to skip....
One never knows when I'll write something in this blog about sports -- it is pretty rare and kind of unusual in what sport it might be, like remember the golf thing last year?
It is hard to avoid sports when I am around my parents though, since they are such huge fans of Indians and the Browns.
For fun, the Indians are playing a double header against the Mariners, and the Indians get the home field advantage in the Mariners home field (the magic of make-up games; you lose a bit on the home field crowd but who cares if you get to bat last?).
Watching their sports interest always makes me wonder if I was switched at the hospital or something? :-)
Anyway, you get the point here, I'm sure -- even though I have no interest in either baseball or football, it is like when Jules said My girlfriend is a Vegetarian, which pretty much means I'm a Vegetarian, too -- it is like in the air here, so I end up having to soak it all in. I know more about the Indians right now than I probably did when I lived near Cleveland.
So the day before my birthday (today) they play this double header. If they lose, I hope everyone's mood is not affected (if I had a choice I would probably root for the Mariners but I doubt I have a choice in this case if I don't want to sleep in the car or maybe in the Sukkah tonight. :-(
In unrelated news1, the story of Antonio Heston and his $19 adventures on the corner of North High and 6th (less than a block south of my old apartment when I was living in Columbus over a decade ago) caught my eye for a totally different view on sports (conceptually no worse than a weekend in Cincinnati with the Bengals). It is weird, when I was around OSU it never seemed like the football players had trouble finding willing companionship, which made the story seem that much stranger to me. I admit I don't know much about the prices for such things but this is like when Bart Simpson sold his soul for $5 -- it seems like both should have been for more.
In even less related news2, the fact that Case Western Reserve assistant professor and Fullbright scholar Marixa Lasso not being allowed to renew her visa or to come back from Panama really sucks, and is a trend that I hope is not being expanded. Granted this country is unpopular enough throughout the world that wanting to be here might well be grounds to suspect people3, but in this case she has a job and a husband here. Who are they kidding?
(I have two friends who went to school at Case, neither of whom knew the professor but both whom interestingly enough liked her name, one even called her name fabulous though this may indicate she does not get out enough4!)
Back on topic (well, sort of!), my own disenchantment with sports was less exciting, though. It actually started with football, when back in high school the fact that people thought I looked a bit like Bernie Kosar used to mean that I would get my ass kicked from to time in a season when every play was a handoff to Kevin Mack and there were many more losses than some fans were willing to put up with -- it is easy to blame a very short running game. It is when I decided to find something other than sports to hold my interest, most of the time. If you know what I mean.
I guess I find myself hoping that the Indians win both games today, not because I want them to (I don't), but because I don't really care that much either way and it will make folks around here happier if they do.
I could start talking about Chief Wahoo and the negative stereotypes of Native Americans but that likely deserves its own blog post which I probably won't write; it is bad enough that some yahoo will erroneously claim that Microsoft thinks hookers aren't charging enough5 after reading my oblique reference to the OSU new story.
I'll post this up for tonight after one (and probably both) of the games is over even though it was written before either started, which might help put it all in perpective....
Good luck, Antonio. I hope it all works out5. And please let Marixa back in5.
1 - The downside of being in Cleveland is that I end up reading the paper.
2 - I really need to stop reading the paper, soon.
3 - This is a joke, not a serious statement.
4 - Hopefully she will realize I am joking about this or I may owe a dove bar or a latte here!
5 - To my knowledge, this is an official position of neither Microsoft nor any of its officers.
This post brought to you by ½ and ½ (U+00bd and U+00bd, a.k.a. VULGAR FRACTION ONE HALF and VULGAR FRACTION ONE HALF, a.k.a. HALF AND HALF)