Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Hoops Happiness

I realize that we're officially experiencing the Sports Doldrums right now, but there is a bit of news that's worth mentioning. This article points out some rules changes the NCAA has adopted for football and basketball. I don't know that I really give a rip about allowing coach's challenges in football, how long halftime is at football games, or how many digits show up on the clocks in Division II and III basketball games. HOWEVER, I am ecstatic to see that they've outlawed the action that I hate more than any other (among those that were legal) in basketball: calling timeout while falling out of bounds. Simply marvelous. I've been preaching about how annoying that is for years, and I'm glad to see that the NCAA has finally listened. I am now officially having a good day, Sports Doldrums or no.

Monday, May 15, 2006

The Dangers of DDR

Come to think of it, music video booths are dangerous, too. Still, I couldn't tear my eyes off of this. I hope you ... umm ... appreciate it as much as I did.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

How? "Boom"

I know they say that lightning never strikes the same place twice. That may be true, but it can apparently strike close to the same place.

As is my wont, I attempted to play some golf on Sunday. What I actually did was play some bad golf. It was fun, though, and it had one sublime golf moment for me. Not surprisingly, I hit my tee shot on the 11th hole into the woods. What was surprising that I found the ball, and it looked like I had room between the trees to hit it back onto the course. Unfortunately, I failed to adhere to my big bro's theory in this situation: if there's a tree you can hit, aim right at it. Under his theory, you nearly ensure that you will miss the tree because, face it, you aren't that accurate. Furthermore, if you do hit the tree, then you can rejoice in actually hitting the ball precisely where you were aiming. As I said, I failed to follow the elder Abs's teachings, and I tried to hit the ball through the opening between the trees. Since you are so smart, you will have already guessed that I hit one of the trees, sending the ball halfway back to where I had hit it from, with the exact same opening back to the course in front of my ball.

Did I at this point remember the sage advice of my brother? Of course not. I tried to hit the ball through the opening and partly succeeded, leaving the ball in the grassy rough 150 yards away from the center of the green instead of on the carpet-like surface of the fairway. Grumbling I walked over to the ball, pulling a 9-iron, when the Big Head Kid tried to impart some Zen sense of calm to me: "Just hit it on the green, two-putt for your 6 and get off this hole," he suggested, as if those were the simplest things in the world to do.

So I stepped up and swung, sending my ball toward the center of the green. "That's a good hit," the BHK informed me. We both watched it hit the middle of the green and start rolling back toward the flag. Jokingly, I told the ball, "Go in!" Then, the BHK and I said something like, "Oh! ohhhhhAAAAAAAHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!" as the ball rolled straight into the hole.

After I had tossed my club in the air and run around with my hands in the air, I couldn't help but marvel what a ridiculous par that was. Then I realized that it was on the same course that I dropped in a shot from 115 yards for eagle last summer. Different hole, but same course.

Finally, just before I did a celebratory cartwheel, I was reminded that, "Boom goes the dynamite."

Out of Context

I realize that it can be Bad Thing when quotes are taken out of context. Doing so can change the meaning of what was said entirely, and it certainly robs the listener of the general point/feeling (or context, no?) of what was said. However, sometimes the quote is rendered so funnily (assuming that's a word) odd that it stands alone, making the context hard to remember. For instance, visiting our favorite rooftop bar last Thursday, I heard a friend say, "I wish I had that kinda balls." I don't remember what made him say that, but I can't help but chuckle about the quote itself. I didn't even know there were different kinds.