Technicalities

Keep Your Eye On the Ball

The Commissar will be turning a portion of his great mind to covering the run up to World Cup Soccer 2006. Apparently the competition starts this year - which is something I didn't know, then again, I don't follow soccer closely.

I happen to like soccer. I enjoy watching a game between 2 good teams. What amazes me is the utter contempt that many American "sports fans" have for the game. They will watch golf for heaven sake! But then proceed to deride soccer. This is especially common in Sportscasters.

Well, we have very very basic cable, but it does have a number of Spanish speaking stations - which means, if the American stations won't cover it, we'll likely watch some games in Spanish. That's okay by me, then I don't have to be distracted by the inane chatter of those covering the game.

So ya wanna be a Green Beret

I'm not quite sure what to make of this story about Tiger Woods. He is apparently at Fort Bragg, NC to get a taste of Special Forces training.

"He's not going to have a drill sergeant barking up and down at him and yelling at him to get in line," Buckner said "He's going to get some exposure and experience with how Special Forces operators conduct business."

I'm glad he's showing a positive interest in the Armed Services. OTOH - I find the whole visit rather strange. I mean - what's the point of doing anything Army if you don't have to go through a Drill Sergeant to get there first! That's really the whole point isn't it? The shared experience of training. Learning to rely on each other. Working together. Or did I miss something somewhere?

They're calling it a "sanitized version of real Special Forces training". Seems like it's more of a nice little camp tour, a few demos, and letting him try some of the easier stuff. Then he gives the bigwigs a golf lesson and goes on his merry way.

Well, he has the money and clout to be able to do this. And if the publicity let's young people know that there are interesting challenging things to do in the Army - that's all to the good. I'm just not quite sure what Tiger expects to get out if it.

It's the Second Coming...

Of Greg Maddux.

In case you aren't a sports fan in general, or a baseball fan in particular, the Chicago Cubs have signed Maddux to a 3 year deal. And if you are REALLY not a sports fan and don't know who Maddux is... I can't imagine you'd still be reading this, but stranger things have happened... he is a 38 year old pitcher who started out as a Cub, moved to Atlanta for the last 11 or 12 years, and, like the prodigal son, has returned to Chicago.

Now you may wonder why I am telling you this. Well, all the Cubs fans, sports writers, and talking heads, appear to believe that this move will make the Cubs walk on water. After hearing the discussion at different times during the day on the radio, I conclude that this is a religious experience to be savored. I therefore present it to your notice, so you may be suitably awed too.

What do I think? I think I'll wait til the Cubs get to the World Series before I start saying that they're gonna win it all. Until then, I'll just enjoy the baseball season. I may even try to make it to a game. (my boss buys season tickets - good ones - LOL)

Surprisingly Good Game

It's not often that I get a chance to watch the Super Bowl all the way through like I did yesterday. The games I have managed to see have generally been real duds - no contest at all. Yesterday's was excellent though. The game going down to the wire like that was terrific entertainment.

The commercials... sorry they sucked pond water. What a disappointment. After all, most everyone wants to see what new and fun ways these companies can come up with to make us laugh or just say WOW. It seemed to me that they had 12 year olds writing the scripts this year. With the fart joke, the crotch joke, the screaming wife joke... geeze can't they do better than that? The only commercial I thought was worth seeing, was AFTER the game was over - the California Cheese commercial with the cows - I thought that one was really funny.

As for the ho-hum excessively boring halftime show. I realize that I am getting old - but honestly I could not understand a single word these people were supposedly singing (even though it was mostly lip sync). With Janet Jackson that has been the case for her entire career - she has no voice. I'm told she dances... right. Nellie spent the entire 2 seconds up on stage grabbing his crotch. Kid Rock surely was saying something - but I'm not sure what it was. I will give him credit for not lip-syncing his part.

As for what to tell your kids about the costume thing... You say - Gee it's really sad that this is the only way Janet can get any attention at all isn't it. Looks pretty silly to me.

As for Justin and Janet - together - the implication on stage that they are a couple. All I could think of was - ick - she's old enough to be his mother. LOL - now THAT really shows how old I am! *G*

UPDATE Question : Does anyone know what the FCC can do to the various people and companies involved? Fines? Banning from the airwaves? I just wondered since I've seen headlines about them doing a swift and thorough evaluation.