Don't Forget To Turn Left...

This last weekend I happened to be watching SportsCenter (big surprise, I watch it like 4 times a day). But this time I happened to watch the highlights from the Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis.

During the quick minute of crashes, passes, and celebrating, I noticed one thing about the NASCAR highlight.

I realized that a minute of watching racing is about all I can handle. I just don't understand the fascination of competitive racing. (I say competitive because it's clearly a "competition" between a group of people. They train and compete to be number one.)

However, I am not convinced that racing is a sport, just like I'm not inclined to calling drivers athletes.

I grew up watching the four major sports; Baseball, Football, Basketball, and Hockey.

While I understand that every sport has it's boring moments that arguably every sports fan can make. Football with it's continuous replays and commercial breaks, hockey with it's low scoring match ups, and basketball when it's not the playoffs. Let's also not count out the entire sport of baseball (my favorite) that's boring in every aspect of the game to anyone who doesn't share the passion of America's past time. (At least I'm man enough to admit it.)

But racing... I really don't understand it. How can someone sit through 3 hours of cars going around in an oval. They're cars... they drive, pass each other, turn left about 2,000 times, and often crash because of stupidity. It's like the I87/I90 split during rush hour.

The concept of racing is simple but apparently the preliminary rules of racing are more complex than rocket surgery and brain science combined. The car must be perfect to a "T" in order to pass inspection for racing. If just the slightest thing is off kilter, a driver/car can be disqualified.

Can you imagine if this was the case for other sports.

Sorry, Rockets have to forfeit because Yao Ming forgot to lace his sneakers through every hole.
Looks like the Mets lose another one because Reyes' brim on his hat wasn't curved properly with a length of middle Ordinate of 1.5 inches. 

I'm not even going to get into the different types of flags that are waved depending on the different situations. Lets just say if it were football, the refs would look like a bag of skittles running down the field.

I'm also not going to even get started on the fuel issue of NASCAR, how dropping competitive racing could also drop gas prices by a significant amount. All I know is that NASCAR racing uses about 200,000 gallons of racing each year. For me, I could fill up 20,000 times with the amount of gas they use in one year. This would last me almost 780 years! So not only is the sport boring, but it's also wasting a natural resource. (Okay, I guess I got into it.)

It's not like baseball is hurting the population of cows from the leather baseballs that are used.

Overall the sport is just a way to kill time on a Sunday. I can't even say raining day, because they don't race during the rain, just like that other 1% of all sports.

I say, do yourself a favor. Next time you want to kill an afternoon of car watching. Grab a 6 pack, a couple law chairs and plop yourself on the medium of the highway, there's really no difference. Jimmie Johnson will still probably win.

Can You Hear, Email, Tweet, Text Me Now??

In the world we live in, technology is always changing. I think we can all agree that’s obvious. But to really step back and analyze it only makes you think even more. The other day I bought myself a new phone because my old one was dying after going through more abuse than Tina Turner.

While getting use to my new phone (LG Ally), I sat in living room jaw to the ground amazed at how many different things that it was capable of doing.

I’m actually surprised the manual wasn’t the size of a bible.

While reading through it, and playing around with the phone settings, I day dreamed back to the days of middle school where my parents handed me my first cell phone…The Nokia Brick.

The Nokia was the greatest and coolest thing a kid could own back then. It finally gave you a sense of ownership with something as responsible as a phone line.

It came with 3 or 4 ringtones, basic number pad for calling, no form of texting, limited service, oh and one of the coolest games, Snake.

I miss the days of simplicity in phones. Now-a-days my phone allows texting, emailing, instant messaging, picture taking, video recording, ringtone downloading, emailing, facebooking, youtube watching, WiFi-finding, Google Searching, emailing, voice activating, game playing, document scanning, GPSing, and about 10,000 other things the Nokia couldn’t but a Droid now can. (BTW, I put emailing 3 times because I have three emails linked to my phone, so there, it wasn’t a typo that you thought you noticed.)

Every phone I received after the Nokia got better and better, technology wise anyway. Not so much physically. I’ve had multiple bricks, flips, crackberrys, and now a droid.

I know that I’m amazed today at how much my phone does, and can wait for the next few years to see what else it can do.

And actually it won’t matter, because my father’s response to my future phone will never change and I get a kick out of it every time.

I’ll tell him everything from ESPN Fantasy Tracker to Bank of America Online Banking and he’ll just stare at me the way I cow stares at an oncoming train, and simply say, “DOES IT MAKE PHONE CALLS??”

Here’s to the APProaching Cell Phone Future!

epaC eht no floG

On the 4^th of July, I did something I have only done for the 3^rd time all year. And after about 5 hours of struggling, swearing, pissing (and moaning), weeping, throwing, kicking, and stomping, I’m not sure I’ll be doing this activity for quite some time.

No, I’m not talking about baking a soufflé or trying to land the effin’ plane in Top Gun for NES.  I’m talking about golf.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love golf. I love playing it, watching it, talking about it, (betting on it), reading… well maybe not reading about it. But that doesn’t mean you should stop reading about it. Let’s continue…

I guess we can start our story off at the beginning of my round which began when my jaw dropped in the pro shop when I saw how much it was to play.

Now granted, I wasn’t the one paying; my father was (God Bless his wallet.) Regardless, no one should have paid that much to watch me struggle for 18 holes.

1^st hole we get up to the tee box and my dad takes his first shot of the day. That’s if you don’t could the 50 or so he took on the practice green. Dude loves to putt. (Fun Fact: My dad is the 1988 Massachusetts State Mini Golf Champion. Not mock it, until you can tell me what your dad is the state champion in.)

His ball goes far and a little left. Next my brother, long and straight down the fairway. (Must resist CaddyShack reference)

Next my uncle who take out his 5 wood and smashes the ball up the fairway. “Big hitter the Lama, long.” Dammit!

Then it was my turn. My first shot went about 60 yards to the left, dead hook, in the trees. 1 ball down, 42 left in the bag.

The next 9 holes was alike a Lincoln Theater Tragedy. 53 swings later and standing at a cool 18 over par, the best thing to come from this day had finally arrived. A red Power-Ade and frozen Snickers. Nothing ever tasted so good. Remind you that it was in the 90’s (the temperature not my score) and it felt like playing golf in Satan’s sauna.

For the first time in 13 holes, I actually hit the damn ball straight and WHATTA-YA-KNOW! I pared the effin’ hole.

I’m not so bad after the second shot; unfortunately the hole starts on the tee box not 200 yards down the middle of the fairway.

The rest of the holes weren’t a pleasure cruise but I did get to witness my brother par the par 3 with a chip out of the sand that slowly rolled across the green and into the hole. It was very cool to see since I had never seen anyone do that before. (Would have made Bobby Orr #4 on SportsCenter’s Top Ten.)

So after 5 hours, 104 strokes, 15 lost balls, 3 blisters, and the creation of 3 new swear words, I officially had the worst round of my life, but… I still had fun.

I had fun because I know I’m not a good golfer. I know I’m not going to hit under par, or bring my hand cap under my age. So it’s all about having fun and enjoying the one par I’ll get or watching someone else chip it in from the bunker for par.

I can’t drive, chip, loft, flop, or any other kind of golf swing other than putt. My game consisted of no more than 2 putts per hole which by mini golf standards puts me at 9 UNDER!!!! Sooooo… I HAD A GREAT ROUND OF GOLF!!

Looks like it’s time for me to take after my dad and hit the windmills and clown months rather than the fairways and fringes.

See you on the fake greens… I’ll be the one with the $90 dollar putter and red colored ball.