Moon River
Hello World,
Welcome to the very much non-official email of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China, formerly known as Peking, but then again, who's counting? Besides, that was way back in the days when the dinosaurs were roaming the vast unformed land masses (and I ought to know) and nobody even remembers that anymore, except old fogies like me and, well, the dinosaurs, I guess. So the Olympics have been carrying on for the last couple of weeks, and being pretty entertaining by all accounts, what with old records being broken and new records being set, and not even a single international incident to mar the idyllic harmony of peace and goodwill to all. So to all of the nay-sayers out there who felt that there couldn't possibly be Olympics in China, because after all, the world is flat and anyone who tried to sail over there would just fall off the edge ..... no wait a minute, that can't be right, those were Christopher Columbus' nay-sayers. Well, to everyone who said that they can't possibly put a man on the moon, or they might just as well put all of them there ..... no that's not right either, that's the punch line to a completely different joke altogether. Oh well, I'm sure the nay-sayers must have said something about the Olympics being in China, heaven knows the nay-sayers always seem to have something to say about everything, but they've been proven wrong once again, and I'm just as glad of it. After all, where would we be now if Christopher Columbus hadn't sent those men to the moon to prove it was round? Why, we might all be speaking Chinese today, and I don't know about anyone else, but I can tell you that the dinosaurs and I would never be up to it, and you can bet your Hong Kong Bok Choy on that.
Speaking of sports, the Mets have slowly but surely been clawing their way back up to respectability, and at last the day came when they found themselves perched atop their division in the NL East, a game over their closest rivals, a scenario which would have seemed impossible just scant weeks earlier. Of course, there's still 35 games left to play in the season, and a lot can happen in that time, not all of it good, believe me. But there's also worse things than being in first place in August (you can check with the Atlanta Braves and get back to me on that later) so the important thing is to enjoy the moment, however fleeting. Now, it must be said that the Mets being in first place is nothing shocking on the local scene, and in fact, it takes a lot more than that to stun the home-town fans, but there were two instances lately when events did exactly that. The first was when the lowly Jets, who are earnest but often inept, signed superstar quarterback Brett Favre from the Green Bay Packers, in a move that would make fans of another team giddy, but Jets fans know better. They may be shocked, but they're not stupid, and they've been too disappointed for too long to believe in miracles now. On the other hand, if everyone only listened to the nay-sayers, we'd never have the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria on the moon right now, and we'd all be speaking Chinese, or something like that. So it remains to be seen if the age of miracles has really passed, or whether Brett Favre and the Jets can actually scale new heights that haven't been seen by Gang Green since the heyday of Broadway Joe Namath, or should I say, be still my heart. Meanwhile, the world of sports broadcasting was rocked earlier this week when the team of Mike and the Mad Dog went their separate ways after 20 years together on the radio, and to say that it was the end of an era would be putting it mildly. Chris Russo (he's the "Mad Dog" part) decided against all logic to leave WFAN sports radio after being with them since their inception, and elected instead to go into exile on Sirius satellite radio, where I'm sure their dozens of fans will lose no time in welcoming him with open arms, probably as much as 50 altogether, if you multiply each person by two arms. In the media, the hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth was a sight to behold, and far outweighed the outcry for poor Chad Pennington, who lost his job in the Brett Favre deal, after putting in years of dedicated service with the organization. Well, to paraphrase Calvin Coolidge, the business of sports is business, and when it comes to giving fans the business, the New York sports scene is all over it like a bad suit.
Alert readers may recall my old beat-up spring scale, which I've been using to track my progress in my new and improved health and fitness regimen, in the hopes of seeing improved numbers as time goes on. I don't like to complain about the poor old dear, bless its little corroded heart, because it's not only as old as the hills and doesn't owe us a thing at this point, but I'm sure it's doing the very best that it can. However, it must be said that the results it provides can vary wildly depending on a variety of circumstances, such as where it's positioned, the time of day, atmospheric conditions, tides, electrical interference, political unrest, apathy, alignment of the planets or perhaps the meddlesome activities of space aliens. Bill, who can always be counted on to be helpful, thought that having a brand new digital scale would be just the thing, and got me one from a company whose name is a hallmark in the industry of weights and measures. Unfortunately, when I tried it earlier in the week, I was dismayed to see that it had packed on 12 pounds that I thought I had already lost, compared to the old scale, and I don't mind saying, certainly not the direction that I was hoping that my fitness efforts would be going in. And this would also not be the first time in my life that I'm thinking that accuracy is vastly over-rated, no thank you so very much not.
While we're on the subject of accuracy, Bill found some room for improvement in a few online surveys that he took recently, for instance, this question from our friends at Greenfield Online:
===================
Which City do you stay?
- Los Angeles
- New York City
- Chicago
- San Francisco
- Boston
===================
Then there was the one from PC Magazine, where he clicked on the button to start the survey, only to be directed to a page that announced:
=========================================
Thanks for your participation! We hope you enjoyed it!
=========================================
Boy, talk about the bum's rush, they don't even give you a chance to get your foot in the door. Meanwhile, our friends at Zoomerang usually offer demographic questions with multiple choice answers, where you can select, for instance, your gender, income level or marital status from a list of options. That was noticeably missing on these next questions, where respondents were unable to answer even the simplest questions about themselves:
=======================================
2. Please select the category that includes your age.
[__]
7. Which one of the following best describes you?
[__]
8. In which state do you live?
[__]
9. Which of the following best describes your employment status?
[__]
========================================
It probably came as a surprise to the Zoomerang survey team later, when they found that people couldn't tell them where they live or how old they are, which are not the kinds of subjective, opinion-based questions that people normally have trouble with on surveys. I mean, I agree that accuracy is over-rated and all, but this is taking misinformation to a whole new level.
Of course, everyone already knows how I feel about those new bathtub-shaped cars that look like nothing so much as little silver doorstops with four doors, and then they slap a spoiler on the rear end, as if that somehow makes the doorstop look more sporty or something. Frankly, I don't know what a sporty doorstop would look like, but I think it's pointless to put a spoiler on anything with more than two doors, and expect it to look like a sports car, which it clearly is not. Actually, I like a nice four door sedan as much as anybody, but I object to it being misrepresented as something it's not, with this totally preposterous spoiler tacked on the back for no purpose. Call me delusional (don't you dare!) but I really thought that was as far as they could go, in terms of making cars look ridiculous and completely out of character. Then last week, as I was pulling out of our neighborhood, I had a car drive in front of me, and here as Dave Barry always says, "I'm not making this up," it was a tan minivan wearing a bra. Personally, I think car bras look silly under the best of circumstances, but this minivan was a whole new low in absurdity, and would have to make you concerned about the owner's sanity, not to mention, fashion sense. I can't help feeling, if this is the state that we have sunk to, after millions of years of evolution, well, perhaps Mark Twain said it best when he pointed out that humans are the only animals who blush, or have a reason to. Honestly, some times you just have to shake your head and wonder, is this what Christopher Columbus went to the moon for?
Welcome to the very much non-official email of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China, formerly known as Peking, but then again, who's counting? Besides, that was way back in the days when the dinosaurs were roaming the vast unformed land masses (and I ought to know) and nobody even remembers that anymore, except old fogies like me and, well, the dinosaurs, I guess. So the Olympics have been carrying on for the last couple of weeks, and being pretty entertaining by all accounts, what with old records being broken and new records being set, and not even a single international incident to mar the idyllic harmony of peace and goodwill to all. So to all of the nay-sayers out there who felt that there couldn't possibly be Olympics in China, because after all, the world is flat and anyone who tried to sail over there would just fall off the edge ..... no wait a minute, that can't be right, those were Christopher Columbus' nay-sayers. Well, to everyone who said that they can't possibly put a man on the moon, or they might just as well put all of them there ..... no that's not right either, that's the punch line to a completely different joke altogether. Oh well, I'm sure the nay-sayers must have said something about the Olympics being in China, heaven knows the nay-sayers always seem to have something to say about everything, but they've been proven wrong once again, and I'm just as glad of it. After all, where would we be now if Christopher Columbus hadn't sent those men to the moon to prove it was round? Why, we might all be speaking Chinese today, and I don't know about anyone else, but I can tell you that the dinosaurs and I would never be up to it, and you can bet your Hong Kong Bok Choy on that.
Speaking of sports, the Mets have slowly but surely been clawing their way back up to respectability, and at last the day came when they found themselves perched atop their division in the NL East, a game over their closest rivals, a scenario which would have seemed impossible just scant weeks earlier. Of course, there's still 35 games left to play in the season, and a lot can happen in that time, not all of it good, believe me. But there's also worse things than being in first place in August (you can check with the Atlanta Braves and get back to me on that later) so the important thing is to enjoy the moment, however fleeting. Now, it must be said that the Mets being in first place is nothing shocking on the local scene, and in fact, it takes a lot more than that to stun the home-town fans, but there were two instances lately when events did exactly that. The first was when the lowly Jets, who are earnest but often inept, signed superstar quarterback Brett Favre from the Green Bay Packers, in a move that would make fans of another team giddy, but Jets fans know better. They may be shocked, but they're not stupid, and they've been too disappointed for too long to believe in miracles now. On the other hand, if everyone only listened to the nay-sayers, we'd never have the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria on the moon right now, and we'd all be speaking Chinese, or something like that. So it remains to be seen if the age of miracles has really passed, or whether Brett Favre and the Jets can actually scale new heights that haven't been seen by Gang Green since the heyday of Broadway Joe Namath, or should I say, be still my heart. Meanwhile, the world of sports broadcasting was rocked earlier this week when the team of Mike and the Mad Dog went their separate ways after 20 years together on the radio, and to say that it was the end of an era would be putting it mildly. Chris Russo (he's the "Mad Dog" part) decided against all logic to leave WFAN sports radio after being with them since their inception, and elected instead to go into exile on Sirius satellite radio, where I'm sure their dozens of fans will lose no time in welcoming him with open arms, probably as much as 50 altogether, if you multiply each person by two arms. In the media, the hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth was a sight to behold, and far outweighed the outcry for poor Chad Pennington, who lost his job in the Brett Favre deal, after putting in years of dedicated service with the organization. Well, to paraphrase Calvin Coolidge, the business of sports is business, and when it comes to giving fans the business, the New York sports scene is all over it like a bad suit.
Alert readers may recall my old beat-up spring scale, which I've been using to track my progress in my new and improved health and fitness regimen, in the hopes of seeing improved numbers as time goes on. I don't like to complain about the poor old dear, bless its little corroded heart, because it's not only as old as the hills and doesn't owe us a thing at this point, but I'm sure it's doing the very best that it can. However, it must be said that the results it provides can vary wildly depending on a variety of circumstances, such as where it's positioned, the time of day, atmospheric conditions, tides, electrical interference, political unrest, apathy, alignment of the planets or perhaps the meddlesome activities of space aliens. Bill, who can always be counted on to be helpful, thought that having a brand new digital scale would be just the thing, and got me one from a company whose name is a hallmark in the industry of weights and measures. Unfortunately, when I tried it earlier in the week, I was dismayed to see that it had packed on 12 pounds that I thought I had already lost, compared to the old scale, and I don't mind saying, certainly not the direction that I was hoping that my fitness efforts would be going in. And this would also not be the first time in my life that I'm thinking that accuracy is vastly over-rated, no thank you so very much not.
While we're on the subject of accuracy, Bill found some room for improvement in a few online surveys that he took recently, for instance, this question from our friends at Greenfield Online:
===================
Which City do you stay?
- Los Angeles
- New York City
- Chicago
- San Francisco
- Boston
===================
Then there was the one from PC Magazine, where he clicked on the button to start the survey, only to be directed to a page that announced:
=========================================
Thanks for your participation! We hope you enjoyed it!
=========================================
Boy, talk about the bum's rush, they don't even give you a chance to get your foot in the door. Meanwhile, our friends at Zoomerang usually offer demographic questions with multiple choice answers, where you can select, for instance, your gender, income level or marital status from a list of options. That was noticeably missing on these next questions, where respondents were unable to answer even the simplest questions about themselves:
=======================================
2. Please select the category that includes your age.
[__]
7. Which one of the following best describes you?
[__]
8. In which state do you live?
[__]
9. Which of the following best describes your employment status?
[__]
========================================
It probably came as a surprise to the Zoomerang survey team later, when they found that people couldn't tell them where they live or how old they are, which are not the kinds of subjective, opinion-based questions that people normally have trouble with on surveys. I mean, I agree that accuracy is over-rated and all, but this is taking misinformation to a whole new level.
Of course, everyone already knows how I feel about those new bathtub-shaped cars that look like nothing so much as little silver doorstops with four doors, and then they slap a spoiler on the rear end, as if that somehow makes the doorstop look more sporty or something. Frankly, I don't know what a sporty doorstop would look like, but I think it's pointless to put a spoiler on anything with more than two doors, and expect it to look like a sports car, which it clearly is not. Actually, I like a nice four door sedan as much as anybody, but I object to it being misrepresented as something it's not, with this totally preposterous spoiler tacked on the back for no purpose. Call me delusional (don't you dare!) but I really thought that was as far as they could go, in terms of making cars look ridiculous and completely out of character. Then last week, as I was pulling out of our neighborhood, I had a car drive in front of me, and here as Dave Barry always says, "I'm not making this up," it was a tan minivan wearing a bra. Personally, I think car bras look silly under the best of circumstances, but this minivan was a whole new low in absurdity, and would have to make you concerned about the owner's sanity, not to mention, fashion sense. I can't help feeling, if this is the state that we have sunk to, after millions of years of evolution, well, perhaps Mark Twain said it best when he pointed out that humans are the only animals who blush, or have a reason to. Honestly, some times you just have to shake your head and wonder, is this what Christopher Columbus went to the moon for?
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 6:18 PM
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