Signs of the Times: Beer Pong

I used to be a big-time beer drinker, before I got saved. Drinking was business to me, more than pleasure, so games that get a person drunk were not necessary.

Saw these cups at one of my local Sheetz, while waiting for my chemicals to cook in the kitchen. The package made me laugh.

www.Getpong.com sells plastic cups and bouncy balls in the same bag, and yet Not intended for use with alcoholic beverages. Some might say the company is just protecting itself. Too kind. They just have crazy-mad nerve.

Roanoke, VA: Old-Timey Car at the Waffle House

Just some quick flicks I took early one Sunday morning. If anyone knows what kind of car this is, let us know.

I'm tempted to make a joke about being able to write my name in chalk on this machine's tire, while it is in traffic. But that's too much. I and a good partner could beat it in a three-legged race, though.

The good people at Waffle House know my face, if not my name....

Owners and Property, Masters and Slaves



We could say we are at a strange point in America's race relations. But the United States' whole history of obsession with skin color has been strange. Bryant Gumbel doesn't help when, in the words of mainstream media, he "evoked" slave-master criticisms of NBA commish David Stern during the lockout.


He made the comments on his HBO show Real Sports, and his commentary sparked controversy, as Gumbel meant it to. He's too experienced a journalist and TV personality to not have considered the backlash. He must have thought it through, because he's fanned these flames several times in the past.


No one talks about Bryant Gumbel until he says these things. So he must be considered suspect.


Gumbel is probably right: in his heart, Stern (and the other NBA powerbrokers) do see the players as "boys" in the literal, business, and diminuitive sense. All heads of companies and industries think this way about the little cogs of people, doing the grunt work. Makes it hard to understand why any Average Joe Schmoe would ever side with the very wealthy, on just about anything.


Observe how your boss's boss's boss treats you, when he or she strolls through for the yearly visit. And remember that it's not always simply sweat and hard work that gains worldly success.


People who've never cracked a Bible have heard Jesus's words: "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:24, KJV) This verse says: you give me a man who's acquired great wealth, and I'll show you a man who's likely in love with the world.


The fact is, we are all property. In the flesh, anyone reading this is working for someone else. Shelter, food, clothes, transportation... the rest is a bonus.


On a spiritual level, you are either of the devil, or you belong to the Lord. You and everyone else must choose, even David Stern. Our President, past presidents, and the leaders of all of the other countries, have already made their choice. Watch them carefully and see for yourself. More importantly, ask: Who are you working for?

Signs of the Times: Proofreader on Luch Break

Are You There, God? It's Me, Tim

Right now, almost no one involved with the NFL (including radio and TV analysts) believe in Tim Tebow. His chances of becoming a successful pro quarterback are so astronomical, Tebow's critics say, they are positively biblical.

They are not wrong, at least to date. Tebow was given a half-chance after the lockout to make his mark. But his preseason appearances were anemic. He's been described as a tight end who wandered under center.

Monday night's game against AFC West rival Oakland and we didn't see Tebow.Kyle Orton started for the Denver Broncos, and rightly so. Even QB Brady Quinn has an opportunity to step ahead of Tebow.

Tim Tebow's supporters are just as enthusiastic as his critics. Strangely enough, many of those who think the least of him have confessed guilt--as if they're insulting a nice guy. They are correct again.

His Super Bowl commercial pushed an emotional anti-abortion button, and he wrote a memoir before the age of twenty-five. Those things, added to his evangelical appeal, rubbed people the wrong way. Now that he appears short of the skills needed to quarterback a team, Tebow is fair game.

The only way to give Tebow a shot to succeed is to completely build the Denver franchise around his particular skills--think Michael Vick, Jr. Slower with a weaker arm. For now it seems that Tebow hasn't adjusted to the speed of NFL defenses. Only playing time solves that, if it can be solved at all.

Denver is not going to build off of him. It could work if the Broncos were brilliant personnel evaluators, only they clearly are not. Tebow as the cornerstone is too radical an idea in the conservative world of the National Football League. You copy the winners--that's how it works. And so far even scrambling QBs like Vick can't win it all.

Only a strike of fortune will reveal whether he can really perform.

Doppelgänger: Seth MacFarlane v. Sam Bradford

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane

St. Louis Ram QB Sam Bradford

 

more double takes... 

Still Miles To Go

It's going to be hard for the typical LeBron-hater to keep that lump out of his throat. That's if the Miami Heat continue in the playoffs as they are.

Philadelphia put up as much fight as they could, but the Heat waxed them in the first round, four games to one. Fans and analysts tried to poke at LeBron and Dwyane Wade that week. It wasn't easy to criticize.

The NBA Playoffs are strange, as are all postseasons in all sports. Usually it's because of TV contracts. Games get spaced out by three, four, or even five days. Athletes lose something when their season-long routine is disrupted. In baseball it's very evident, because up until the playoffs, the players are working nearly every day. Even the viewer can see that the alignment is off, so obviously the athletes feel it.

Other than the surging Memphis Grizzlies, the Heat are the only team who seem unaffected by the schedule shifts. They have taken a 2-0 lead on the Celtics as the second round series goes back to Boston. All of them are in tune on the court and in the press room.

James and Wade stood together for a press conference before that Game 2 win, saying that being on the dais together saved time. But it was an unspoken message about their current solidarity. "Our job is to bring out the best in each other," Wade said.

That is bad news for those who hated this so-called super team from day one. The guard is changing.

Dream Journal: Torso

I'm lying in bed, unable to sleep. [In the dream.] I try to kick off the covers and get up. Maybe I'll do some chores... But my legs don't work. I can't move.

Starting to get scared. I'm hitting my legs through the blanket with my fists. I don't feel anything. I am screaming for help but I live alone. It's 3 a.m. No one can hear me.

With a great deal of pain and effort I pull myself to a sitting position. Are... are my legs getting longer?? No. My legs are gone. Separated from my body. This can't be happening.

I turn on the lamplight. Yes. My legs are under the covers, alone. There is no blood. No mess at all. Holding my breath, I lift the blanket, trying to ignore my rootless buttocks. My thighs are looking back at me, the femur bone and flesh neatly cut like a cartoon. From this angle, they look like two big Flintstone steaks.

Somehow I am calm, now that I see the situation. I look over to the nightstand. There is a kind of soil in a jar. I somehow know that this is what I need... I stand my legs up next to the bed. They wobble but stay vertical. Never noticed that scar before. I sprinkle the soil on the exposed flesh at the top of my thighs. The legs start to shake.

Maybe I passed out for a moment. The legs are back under the covers, attaching to me... it feels like a weird massage, but inside the flesh.

More Deadly Than the Male

For most guys, there is no good time to watch women play hoops.

If you agree with that, you missed three well-played games last weekend. The NCAA women's Final Four in Indianapolis was very competitive, and the title game was better than the men's. Which isn't saying much.

Texas A&M squeezed Notre Dame out, 76-70, in the final. That was after those teams beat two #1 seeds each to reach Tuesday's game. And two of the bullies on the block were Connecticut and Tennessee.

The big problem with women college teams is that the divide between the haves (UConn, Stanford, Tennessee, about a half-dozen others) and the have-nots (everyone else) has been huge since the ladies' tourney began in 1982.

Some years ago, it was not easy to appreciate Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes or Sue Bird when their college competition didn't always look ready to play. And watching the University of Conneticut's sublime Maya Moore destroy unskilled defenders doesn't show me how good she really is.

That's why I picked up on the women's tourney at its end. The teams are stronger top to bottom. The title game's stars, Skylar Diggins and Danielle Adams, led two teams who can really play.

Let's anticipate a shift. Maybe a female basketball recruit who was only thinking about one of the powerhouses will think about a Notre Dame or an A&M. Maybe the 101-39 scores I always see in women's hoops will start to equalize. While those kind of scores exist, people will know that the game is not competitive yet--that there just isn't a big enough pool of talented players.

In college, I wrote for the school newspaper. One of my beats was the women's basketball team, a team that went undefeated in conference play before getting beat down by Tennessee in a #1-#16 match-up. A few of the male writers on staff would laugh into their hand at me. Like a lot of men, they thought basketball was all about high-flying. They didn't know what I knew.

I knew that a skilled, fundamentally-sound player, no matter the gender, is dangerous. And very fun to watch.

Martin Lawrence: Fight the Power

Once upon a time, I had the whole Martin show collection. All five seasons on DVD. Some of the routines I repeated word for word. WZUP! These are images of Martin Lawrence as a recurring character on the series, "Bob." Martin created several of my favorite TV characters ever (at least, they used to be). I used to want to dress as Security Guard Otis for Halloween, before I found out what the 'holiday' really meant.

But after a while, the humor on the show started bothering me. Lawrence is a very funny person--no news there. I thought his early stand-up was honest and aggressive; his later fare like Runteldat was incoherent. His show was supposed to be a bit different, to have an edge, when it aired.  Fox was sailing over the still-growing The Simpsons bubble when Martin came along. Fox was still pushing the envelope: These are black people, so we're in our own lane. This was years before UPN and its ilk.

The more I watched the show, I saw that what is meant to be comedy seemed needlessly crude and cruel. All the racial, gender and sexual jokes weren't as funny as they used to be.

"But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks." (Ephesians 5:3-4, KJV)

Martin Lawrence has transitioned over to more kid-friendly fare, or so goes the perception. In interviews, he seems almost serene and at peace as compared to years ago. But movies like Rebound have the same humor, only with rubber edges.

Asked a different way: Is soft porn still pornography? Years ago, I would have said no. Now I see that the typical "standard mailing" clothing catalog (from Alloy, for example) can give a man the same sensual thoughts as a Playboy.

So Lawrence's drop from "R" to the occasional "PG"  is kind of deceiving. In 2006's Open Season there is a teddy bear thong and a dog humping a hubcap, among other similar things. Pretty much everything Hollywood and mainstream entertainment produce are introductions to the "real world." Kids' primers for destruction.

Martin Lawrence is simply a vehicle for a larger agenda. But we all make our own beds. When he was waving a gun in that Los Angeles intersection, he was reportedly screaming "Fight the power!" We pray that he meant battling against the enemy's sinister power.

Either way, as the Washington Post wrote in 1997, "Hollywood doesn't care: There'll always be another Martin Lawrence."

Dream Journal: Killstreak

I am playing Call of Duty, the video game. Wreckin' shop on the other team. The M60 has 200 in the extended clip, and I use every single bullet, mowing down enemies in bunches.

I can't be stopped. 10 consecutive kills without a death. 15. 25. 50 kills!...

UFO KILLSTREAK it says on the screen. A flash fills my vision.

Before I can even think to ask what's happened, I'm inside a UFO, the old-school kind from the 1950s flicks. Saucer-like with a lot of bulbous lights and rotating parts. It's like I am  the UFO. Every inch of my surface is an eye. Nothing can hide from me.

I fire the plasma cannon at the feet of three soldiers, vaporizing them. I can hear their screams from a mile away. Floating death machine. And now, I am not just over an urban war zone, but a downtown, filled with civilians.

I start feathering the cannon trigger. Buildings are crumbling, people go flying as if they were launched... What am I doing? I keep thinking, as vehicles and gas lines explode in my wake.

But I keep firing. We play to win the game.

 

 

Double Trouble

The ACC is supposedly having a subpar year. They've had several consecutive 'down' years. The conference's last couple of down seasons even ended with the title. The Big East usually is mentioned as the new standard in college hoops.

But it is no surprise when super conferences get six-plus teams in the tournament. With that many teams, there will be years when they all are pretty good. The problem is, that only gets you to the Sweet 16, at best.

And except in rare cases, no one cares about the regular season. History is packed with trivia; there isn't room for all that stuff. All people will remember fifty years from now, if anything, is who won it all.

There are a number of freshmen and sophomores in the Atlantic Coast Conference who will make noise this season, and next. Two of the fastest-rising stocks are UNC's Harrison Barnes and John Henson. They are already very good young players. Both have the potential for much more.

Henson is "Marcus Camby 2.0" as one game announcer described him: grasshopper-proportioned limbs, a small forward's leaping quickness, the hunger to keep you from filling your basket. He's even developing a few post moves, including a running flip shot that somehow goes in.

Barnes was on all the high school all-star lists. He disappeared for the first third of the year, reminding me a bit of Kobe Bryant's Laker debut. He took too many save-the-day shots and passed at the wrong times. He wore a I know I'm good; I just need one more shot look for a while... then it started to click for Barnes. He has that court vision that (my estimate) only about 5% of college players have--the ability to adjust in mid-dribble. Barnes is going to be one of the best players in Carolina history... assuming he stays.

Incredible Shrinking Interest: Will Fans Love the OKC Thunder Tomorrow?

I remember being against the idea of a NBA team being in Oklahoma City. Especially since that team had been ripped from Seattle. It was nothing against OKC. It was only the appreciation for the Sonics franchise history.

The enthusiasm of the new host city has been refreshing, but the Thunder are still fairly new. Wake me when the honeymoon is over.

Commish David Stern supported the move. There were valid reasons for the buyout, but it felt like we were being sold... something. I wasn't buying. If anything, why not contract that team and one other?

LeBron got flamed around Christmas-time, when he mentioned contraction, but it's not a new idea. He's just the biggest name to say it publicly. It's not even a bad idea.

The numbers say that NBA on TV is as popular as it's been in years. People who hate the league for whatever reason like to say, "Well, no one I know watches the NBA." No one I know watches cricket, either, but tens of millions of other people do.

According to USAToday, TNT and ESPN are both headed for cable TV's most-watched NBA seasons, averaging 1.5% of U.S. households per game. That is a lot of nobodies.

I agree with the idea of contraction in all of the major sports. The only issue would be the jobs lost at the ground level. The stadium and food workers would suffer.

Shorter seasons would help. And shorter seasons will never happen.

But two teams cut from baseball, football, and basketball would significantly raise the level of play--which is already incredible. As jaded as we can be, the things that professional athletes do on a regular basis is amazing.

The lockouts and clogged labor talks are not happening by accident. In each case, the huge amount of money at stake makes all sides involved go bonkers. Gut Feeling: That the leagues/owners are trying so hard to vacuum up every dollar, maybe other things went untended. Americans love to be entertained, and right now the three major sports are riding relatively high. But as the leagues and owners money-grab, lie about revenue, refuse to show the very financial records they want attention upon... are they forgetting the fans?