Far And Wide
Hello World,
Happy Spring! Tuesday was the vernal equinox, ushering in this most rejuvenating season of the calendar, and about as welcome as, well, a breath of spring after a long cold winter. Ordinarily, the first day of spring is nothing more than a cruel hoax perpetrated on the long-suffering citizens in the northeast corridor, on a day that usually has temperatures in the single digits and three feet of snow everywhere - which I have always thought is not only cruel and unusual punishment and adding insult to injury, but kicking a man when he's down besides, and thanks so very much not. But not this time around, by golly, and not by a long shot, I can tell you that. No, indeed, this year the first day of spring was 75 degrees and sunny, with balmy breezes wafting to and fro, and a veritable thundering herd of the locals out in shorts and tank tops everywhere. This is the first day of spring for sissies, I tell you, and it's my idea of a first day of spring that I can live with, and glad of it. The way I figure it, we've already long since paid our dues as far as horrible weather over the course of time, and no doubt will again, at least if our old nemesis Comrade Mischka has anything to say about it, so we can certainly enjoy a well-deserved break once in a while, da? Probably even now, the powers-that-be are making plans to hit us with the single digit temperatures and 3-feet of snow at the autumnal equinox in September instead, and won't we all be surprised then. (NOT)
Speaking of surprises, what hasn't been going on in the local sports scene, you might be wondering, and well might you wonder. To the surprise of just about everyone, the Jets acquired veteran quarterback Tim Tebow from the Denver Broncos, which has certainly made a splash in the media, and set tongues wagging among fans and foes alike. Football camps don't even open for four months, but it already looks like it will be interesting times ahead for the gridiron faithful in this area. In other sports news, the plucky New York Rangers have somehow managed to lead their division all season, defending their position as front-runners against all comers, compared to previous seasons where they would sneak into the playoffs by the skin of their teeth at the very last moment, from way back in the standings. They've been able to do this mainly with a ragtag band of gritty nobodies, and none of the marquee players that light up teams like Pittsburgh or Washington - although if there were plans afoot to make a deal with the Jets for Tim Tebow, that might not be such a bad idea after all. Meanwhile in the national pastime, the hapless Mets are facing the prospect of an upcoming season without their superstar shortstop, as Jose Reyes left to sign with another team, and didn't bother to leave large shoes to fill, because he is essentially irreplaceable by any standard. And speaking of large shoes, what more can be said about the recent Lin-sanity of the New York Knicks, where an unheralded Ivy League youngster bursts on the scene and basically turns the town on its collective ear, giving everyone a reason to cheer, and making believers out of the most hard-boiled critics on every side. Personally, I would call that a "Lin-derella story," but I refuse to add to the gargantuan cacophony of atrocious puns of every description being foisted on a defenseless public, and which could have been entirely avoided, if only his name had been something like Hakeem Olajuwon instead.
For all the hoopla about Jeremy Lin, and deservedly so, the one thing nobody seemed to mention was what I considered the key point that made it all so remarkable, namely that he's playing professional basketball in New York, at what now would be regarded as a mere 6' 3" in height. Heck, I work with people at the hospital who are taller than that, and they probably weren't even tall enough to play basketball in high school nowadays. I can pretty much guarantee that every other team in the league has at least one player who would over-shadow him by 10 or 12 inches, which to me, makes his meteoric success even more astounding. When all is said and done, the Knicks may wind up with exactly the same record they would have had without him, but he's certainly made the season a lot more interesting than anyone could have ever expected, that's for sure. And that's not just a New York Lin-ute, believe me.
On the home front, the unseasonable weather has got June busting out all over in March, and the yard is turning into more of a riot of color every day. The daffodils have exploded in clumps, and a cheery welter of hyacinths in every shade of the rainbow. There's sunny forsythia all over town, and Ruby Begonia, the majestic magnolia is a sight to behold. I've never seen so much blue squill, and even the dogwoods are starting to put on a show. In fact, yesterday I was outside in the middle of the day, and startled a small yellow butterfly in the driveway, which is about the earliest I can ever remember seeing anything like that in our yard. Now, lepidopterists will tell you that the mourning cloak is historically the earliest butterfly of the season, but there was nothing mournful about this golden sunbeam fluttering by, I can tell you that. We also had a visit from our hard-charging landscapers, who scoured the grounds and laid down loads of top soil, grass seed and peat moss, so with any luck, we could conceivably have something that approximates an actual lawn at some point, and for the first time in decades, I don't mind saying. At church, the property is over-run with its expanse of sunny yellow creeping buttercup to greet the Sunday morning faithful, and a more welcome sight would be hard to conjure up in this urban jungle. Of course, it would be petty and captious to complain about the beauty of nature that surrounds us at this moment, but at this rate, there won't be anything left to be busting out in June, and then where will we be, I ask you that.
Lately, the local newspaper has been over-stuffed every day with a bottomless pit of glossy circulars, as if this were the very weeks before Christmas, or some other important shopping event, which it certainly isn't, and I ought to know. A recent one caught my eye from our friends at Prisco Appliances, where they tell me, "The Satisfied Customer Comes First," which is a nice change of pace from the usual retail scene nowadays, where the customer is either benignly ignored, or actively abused. Please feel free to go right ahead and visit their web site at www.shopprisco.com and see for yourself. Items on sale among their electronic products included an array of LED and plasma TV sets, DVD and Blu-Ray players, digital photo frames, and something they described as a 7" wide-screen tablet. I'm sorry, I'm afraid that I'm simply going to have to draw the line at that, and there's just no way around it. It's bad enough that words have lost all their meaning, without getting completely ridiculous about it, and I, for one, am not going to stand for it. I don't think that someone needs to be a cantankerous nitpicking old fuddy-duddy to say that we can all agree that anything which is only seven inches across should not be described as "wide-screen" under any circumstances, no matter what it may be, at any time, for any reason, and that's all there is to it. This is right up there with "jumbo shrimp" and "instant classic," and I can tell you right now that I will have no part of it, and that's final. Why, you may as well describe the Knicks' pocket phenom as "The Lin-credible Hulk," and just stop making sense altogether. At least, that's my story and I'm sticking with it, or my name isn't -
Hakeem Olajuwon
Happy Spring! Tuesday was the vernal equinox, ushering in this most rejuvenating season of the calendar, and about as welcome as, well, a breath of spring after a long cold winter. Ordinarily, the first day of spring is nothing more than a cruel hoax perpetrated on the long-suffering citizens in the northeast corridor, on a day that usually has temperatures in the single digits and three feet of snow everywhere - which I have always thought is not only cruel and unusual punishment and adding insult to injury, but kicking a man when he's down besides, and thanks so very much not. But not this time around, by golly, and not by a long shot, I can tell you that. No, indeed, this year the first day of spring was 75 degrees and sunny, with balmy breezes wafting to and fro, and a veritable thundering herd of the locals out in shorts and tank tops everywhere. This is the first day of spring for sissies, I tell you, and it's my idea of a first day of spring that I can live with, and glad of it. The way I figure it, we've already long since paid our dues as far as horrible weather over the course of time, and no doubt will again, at least if our old nemesis Comrade Mischka has anything to say about it, so we can certainly enjoy a well-deserved break once in a while, da? Probably even now, the powers-that-be are making plans to hit us with the single digit temperatures and 3-feet of snow at the autumnal equinox in September instead, and won't we all be surprised then. (NOT)
Speaking of surprises, what hasn't been going on in the local sports scene, you might be wondering, and well might you wonder. To the surprise of just about everyone, the Jets acquired veteran quarterback Tim Tebow from the Denver Broncos, which has certainly made a splash in the media, and set tongues wagging among fans and foes alike. Football camps don't even open for four months, but it already looks like it will be interesting times ahead for the gridiron faithful in this area. In other sports news, the plucky New York Rangers have somehow managed to lead their division all season, defending their position as front-runners against all comers, compared to previous seasons where they would sneak into the playoffs by the skin of their teeth at the very last moment, from way back in the standings. They've been able to do this mainly with a ragtag band of gritty nobodies, and none of the marquee players that light up teams like Pittsburgh or Washington - although if there were plans afoot to make a deal with the Jets for Tim Tebow, that might not be such a bad idea after all. Meanwhile in the national pastime, the hapless Mets are facing the prospect of an upcoming season without their superstar shortstop, as Jose Reyes left to sign with another team, and didn't bother to leave large shoes to fill, because he is essentially irreplaceable by any standard. And speaking of large shoes, what more can be said about the recent Lin-sanity of the New York Knicks, where an unheralded Ivy League youngster bursts on the scene and basically turns the town on its collective ear, giving everyone a reason to cheer, and making believers out of the most hard-boiled critics on every side. Personally, I would call that a "Lin-derella story," but I refuse to add to the gargantuan cacophony of atrocious puns of every description being foisted on a defenseless public, and which could have been entirely avoided, if only his name had been something like Hakeem Olajuwon instead.
For all the hoopla about Jeremy Lin, and deservedly so, the one thing nobody seemed to mention was what I considered the key point that made it all so remarkable, namely that he's playing professional basketball in New York, at what now would be regarded as a mere 6' 3" in height. Heck, I work with people at the hospital who are taller than that, and they probably weren't even tall enough to play basketball in high school nowadays. I can pretty much guarantee that every other team in the league has at least one player who would over-shadow him by 10 or 12 inches, which to me, makes his meteoric success even more astounding. When all is said and done, the Knicks may wind up with exactly the same record they would have had without him, but he's certainly made the season a lot more interesting than anyone could have ever expected, that's for sure. And that's not just a New York Lin-ute, believe me.
On the home front, the unseasonable weather has got June busting out all over in March, and the yard is turning into more of a riot of color every day. The daffodils have exploded in clumps, and a cheery welter of hyacinths in every shade of the rainbow. There's sunny forsythia all over town, and Ruby Begonia, the majestic magnolia is a sight to behold. I've never seen so much blue squill, and even the dogwoods are starting to put on a show. In fact, yesterday I was outside in the middle of the day, and startled a small yellow butterfly in the driveway, which is about the earliest I can ever remember seeing anything like that in our yard. Now, lepidopterists will tell you that the mourning cloak is historically the earliest butterfly of the season, but there was nothing mournful about this golden sunbeam fluttering by, I can tell you that. We also had a visit from our hard-charging landscapers, who scoured the grounds and laid down loads of top soil, grass seed and peat moss, so with any luck, we could conceivably have something that approximates an actual lawn at some point, and for the first time in decades, I don't mind saying. At church, the property is over-run with its expanse of sunny yellow creeping buttercup to greet the Sunday morning faithful, and a more welcome sight would be hard to conjure up in this urban jungle. Of course, it would be petty and captious to complain about the beauty of nature that surrounds us at this moment, but at this rate, there won't be anything left to be busting out in June, and then where will we be, I ask you that.
Lately, the local newspaper has been over-stuffed every day with a bottomless pit of glossy circulars, as if this were the very weeks before Christmas, or some other important shopping event, which it certainly isn't, and I ought to know. A recent one caught my eye from our friends at Prisco Appliances, where they tell me, "The Satisfied Customer Comes First," which is a nice change of pace from the usual retail scene nowadays, where the customer is either benignly ignored, or actively abused. Please feel free to go right ahead and visit their web site at www.shopprisco.com and see for yourself. Items on sale among their electronic products included an array of LED and plasma TV sets, DVD and Blu-Ray players, digital photo frames, and something they described as a 7" wide-screen tablet. I'm sorry, I'm afraid that I'm simply going to have to draw the line at that, and there's just no way around it. It's bad enough that words have lost all their meaning, without getting completely ridiculous about it, and I, for one, am not going to stand for it. I don't think that someone needs to be a cantankerous nitpicking old fuddy-duddy to say that we can all agree that anything which is only seven inches across should not be described as "wide-screen" under any circumstances, no matter what it may be, at any time, for any reason, and that's all there is to it. This is right up there with "jumbo shrimp" and "instant classic," and I can tell you right now that I will have no part of it, and that's final. Why, you may as well describe the Knicks' pocket phenom as "The Lin-credible Hulk," and just stop making sense altogether. At least, that's my story and I'm sticking with it, or my name isn't -
Hakeem Olajuwon
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 7:26 PM
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