This age-old adage is nonsense, as has been proven by computers. The true exchange rate for pictures versus words: 100,000. You heard me. A picture is worth 100,000 words. A standard digital photograph utilizes approximately 1 megabyte of space on your hard drive. To match that with your standard single spaced Times New Roman 12-size font text on Word, one needs to fill up approximately 200 pages, or roughly 100,000 words. So if anyone ever spouts their favorite overused anecdote again, let em know they need to re-examine where they put the decimal.
Speaking of words, I have no clue how many I have wasted on this blog, but did you know that War and Peace is %75 as long as the Bible? Someone, somewhere, needs to tell this Leo Tolstoy guy to shut the heck up. (The perfect length is of course Charles Dickens. What word length is that, you say? Depends on what mood he was in)
I was musing on such matters when driving down a highway the other day; my ponderings were interrupted by a sign which alerted me that the speed limit was "enforced by aircraft". I'm sorry but has no one ever found this funny before? "Oh no, there are PLANES watching me! Now I'll slow down! Maybe they will shoot hellfire rockets at me if I don't obey the speed limit!"
I mean seriously, what do these fabled, invisible planes do? They circle around for hours just looking to find someone driving eighty, then they call the local authorities who by the time everything is said and done are probably no longer local, and then go back to searching for those impatient vehicular drivers among us? I suppose so. Fear the aircraft enforced speed limit!
Anyway, while I hardly need any reason to degenerate into completely non-sports-related topics such as phantom airplanes and long-winded authors, you will notice as this post continues that I am finding myself particularly off-topic; far more so than usual. The reason for this is simple. There are no sports stories to discuss right now. Well, to be more specific, there is *one* story and I'll break that down for you later, but--
OH CRAP! ESPN is sueing me for use of the phrase "break it down." I'm dead. Or not, but the reality is, ESPN should either patent that phrase, marry that phrase, or stop using that phrase. I am so, so sick of the ESPN analysts and talking heads using that inane phrase to the point where their "overuse" is somewhat akin to a guy who just died of cocaine overdose saying he "might have overused it". The phrase isn't even that useful to begin with, yet everytime you turn around, someone on ESPN is breaking down this that and the other thing. They break down the game before it starts, then at half time they break down the first half and what you can expect from the second half, and then when the game is over they break down the whole game, and then they break down what everyone said about the game, and then they break down all this breaking down. Geez, people. By now we are far beyond the atomic level. There is no plausible method of breaking anything down any further.
And even if there were, WHY ARE WE BREAKING THINGS FOR GOODNESS' SAKE?! There is no need to violently dissassemble every game prior during and after completion. How about showing us the big picture, instead of ripping it apart into McDonalds simplicity, completely lacking in insight? Oh, wait. That would require them to actually be capable of delivering insight. Well dang, what was I thinking.
Anyway, to move onto the one and only sports story worth talking about (no, I'm not reffering to Amanda Beard, you perverts), the Yankees have won eight in a row and are only--"only"--8.5 games out of first in the AL East race.
We all knew the Yankees would get hot at some point. They do it every year, this year is no exception, it was an inexorable, inevitable, indomitable force of nature waiting to happen. We didn't know the Red Sox would oblige by having a minor collapse at the same time. I gotta say, I did not expect the Yankees to make up 6 games in a matter of three weeks. I was thinking that even if the Yankees won twenty in a row (not gonna happen) the Red Sox would probably win fifteen out of twenty and the race would still not even be close. But the Red Sox have had some trouble lately, and it is about freaking time.
Regardless, this whole situation brings up the question of how long do you let your favorite team control your heartbeat before pronouncing them dead and thus detaching your heartbeat since obviously you don't want your own organs pulled down with your craptastic sports team. Some people say you never stop rooting for your team and I agree, but that is besides the point. "Rooting" and "living and dying" are entirely different things. If I want to make it to the age of thirty, I have to shut down my overdeveloped sports enthusiasm at some time, or I will have a palpitating heart until the end of September when a cruddy team finally puts itself--and me--out of my misery. So I think that when your team is fourteen and a half back, it is okay to put the "I'm in a euphoric mood when they win, I'm in a suicidal mood when they lose" thing on life support. And then if they miraculously pick up six games in a flash, you can re-connect your heartbeat to their's, only to likely see them blow it all again.
Man, I will be surprised if I make it to trigenarian status. Why couldn't I love the Patriots or something?
~The Sports Maunderer~
2 comments:
I've always thought the same thing about the aircraft enforced speed limites...you'll have sped past before they can do anything & how they gonna get your license plate number from that high up?
good post.
Go ahead. Justify cutting the cord when your team does nothing but lose. I still think the real Yankee fan fends off thoughts of suicide when the boys in pinstripes are scraping the bottom of the barrel, stands tall and declares that it is never over, that the days of dominance will return, and that Yankee baseball is and ever will be a joyful thing.
(the fact that I write this as the Yankees pursue and 10 game winning streak does not in any way undermine its validity).
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