Category: 2006

Socks.

This past Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration warned us not to eat bagged spinach. Okay.

…

Last weekend, I watched some of my former players play a soccer game. During the game, I overheard a conversation between a parent and a club official. They were discussing the possibility of buying uniforms from a new supplier. At one point the club official mentioned that the socks from the new supplier cost less than five bucks a pair, and that the boys could pay for their socks by having a car wash.

I looked at the two teams, which were from the same local club. Both teams (from the same club) were wearing brand-name uniforms with jerseys worth at least forty dollars each. Many players were wearing cleats worth more than a hundred bucks a pair. They had practice t-shirts. They had name-brand bags. They were playing on a well-groomed field with nice, short, green grass. There were several sets of practice goals lying around the park and a permanent restroom/concession stand. They hire professional coaches and a club coaching director. There were several pretty expensive cars in the parking lot.

Simply put, there was no shortage of money available to the players or parents, or to the club in general. And yet here was a club official talking about a car wash to raise five dollars per player. How cheap. Of course, maybe they can afford the fancy uniforms, the nice fields, the professional coaches, etc. because they have car washes and other fundraisers.

Anyhow, this led me to look up this club’s website and looked up the fees. Registration fee: over $200 per player per year. Uniform fee: over $150 per player per year. Tournament fee: around $50 per player per tournament. Coaching fee: at least $25 per player per month. Apparently the fees aren’t much different for select players at other local clubs. With fees that high, if I were a teenager today, I wouldn’t be playing select soccer.

This is not to criticize the people who are willing to spend money on helping their kids get into the best soccer programs available. But how much do all those Brazilian parents spend on their kids’ soccer development? Don’t they just ball up some socks and newspapers and make their kids play in run-down back alleys? Maybe I shouldn’t bring that up. In three years we’ll see Ronaldinho pitching Nike’s new line of broken glass bottles, milk crates, asphalt, and balled-up socks that get better bounce and truer flight than ever before.

…

The second year I played select soccer, our jerseys hadn’t arrived in time for our first two games. We wore white t-shirts, and used black markers to write the numbers on our backs. It was done in alphabetical order, so I wore an extremely sloppily drawn #16. I wasn’t happy, because it wasn’t my usual jersey number. We won both games.

Our fancy new uniforms came in time for the third game, which we lost. After the game, I showed the bright green jersey to my dad and asked him what he thought of it. He said, “I don’t like it. It’s a loser jersey.” There is a lesson here, but I won’t belabor it.

Posted on by VDV

There’s no long “I” in “Jaguar.”

I am often asked whether I’m glad to be back. My typical response is, “That depends. Back where?” Am I glad to be back at the same old school? Absolutely; I like to teach and Paxon is one of the best public schools out there.

But am I glad to be back in the same old town? No. Not even close. I don’t like the weather; it’s too hot and steamy for far too many months. I don’t like the way the roads are laid (lain? lay? layded?) out; as my grandfather said when he first moved here, “the streets are like spaghetti.”

Furthermore, I’m not glad to be back in Jacksonville because I won’t be able to see the Bears play every week. They’re showing the Jags-Cowboys game on TV right now; I’m stuck having to track the Bears-Packers game on my fantasy league’s StatTracker. Worse, the jets that fly over the stadium during pre-game ceremonies also happen to fly right over my apartment. Noisily, evidently. I didn’t know that until about 4:10 this afternoon. It was close enough that I actually flew through my own roof to see what the commotion was.

Each NFL team should be required to prove that a majority of the people in that team’s television viewing area can correctly pronounce the name of the team. This would solve one of my two football-related complaints about Jacksonville: either the team would be forced to relocate to, say, Los Angeles, or Portland, or anywhere-other-than-here—improving the odds that I’ll see the Bears on television—or people around here would learn one of the correct pronunciations of “Jaguars.”

P.S. The Packers suck.

7 Responses to “There’s no long “I” in “Jaguar.””

  1. Andrew Jackson Says:
    September 10th, 2006 at 5:56 PM

In Kentucky we called them “house cats,” and dealt with them accordingly, and called bears “Sir,” and dealt with them conversely.

Hold fast,
Andy J.

  1. Doctor Hmnahmna Says:
    September 16th, 2006 at 4:23 PM

I’ve found that the Jag-wire pronunciation is more prevalent for people who learned to speak north of the Mason-Dixon line.

JAX may just need to run off the Yankees.

  1. VDV Says:
    September 16th, 2006 at 6:00 PM

You are horribly, terribly mistaken about the Jag-wire pronunciation issue. I think the problem with your sampling method is that you don’t live in Jacksonville, where most locals are just now learning the correct pronunciation.

  1. aabrock Says:
    September 18th, 2006 at 9:38 PM

As I am watching the Jag-wars play on MNF, I feel that this post will be the proper place for the following suggestion:

Dear ,

Stop mentioning your wonderful fantasy picks. No one cares. We don’t think that you are any smarter for having semi-randomly choosing one wide receiver over another after said receiver has a good game. Saying “that is a good play, because I have that guy in my fantasy league. Oh, and it’s good for him since he scored a touchdown and won the game and triggered his $2 million performance bonus.”

Thank you.

  1. VDV Says:
    September 19th, 2006 at 4:55 PM

Why didn’t you join the FFL this year? We had to add in a fake team, the USC Gamecocks, to give us an even number of teams.

  1. Doctor Hmnahmna Says:
    September 24th, 2006 at 1:23 PM

I was listening to the radio this morning, and the Ditka used the Jag-wire pronunciation. And we all know the Ditka can’t possibly be wrong . . . didn’t he trade his entire draft one year for Ricky Williams?

  1. VDV Says:
    September 24th, 2006 at 4:00 PM

The fact that your puny, mortal mind can grasp neither the Will nor the Mystery of the Ditka is no reason to assume that He is capable of error.

Seriously though, I would not cite Chicagoans as authorities on proper pronunciation any more than I would cite Suthunahs. For instance, if you ask a Chicagoan, the Bears play in “Soldier’s” Field (not Soldier) and the big airport is “O’Hara” (not O’Hare).

The fact remains: the predominant pronunciation down here, up until recently, was “Jag-wire.” If my proposal were passed and enforced, we’d be talking about a “Re-name the team” contest for the L.A. Jaguars, or the Portland Jaguars.

Posted on by VDV

On Plamegate’s end.

Driving back from a cookout at a friend’s house on Sunday, I saw a sign: “$500 penalty for littering.” Well, what if I were caught throwing a five hundred dollar bill out the window? What then, hm?

…

Friday’s Washington Post featured an editorial about the Valerie Plame affair. It turns out that the person who “leaked” Plame’s identity was not retaliating against her husband, Joe Wilson, and was not even a supporter of the War in Iraq. The leak occurred “in an offhand manner, virtually as gossip,” and the Post editorial board places most of the blame for the leak and the subsequent end of Plame’s CIA career on Joe Wilson himself. Fine.

The part that galls me is in the last paragraph:

Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming – falsely, as it turned out – that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger… It’s unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

“It’s unfortunate”? Remember “Bush lied, people died”? That was Joe Wilson’s baby. Half the country still believes that Bush lied about Saddam’s attempts to buy yellowcake uranium, and thus lied about one of the reasons for the War in Iraq. That’s not “unfortunate,” that’s “deliberate deception by Joe Wilson combined with the media’s failure to expose Wilson’s lies as thoroughly as they promoted them in the first place.”

After Wilson was proven to be a liar, how much effort did the media make to convince the public that Bush didn’t lie us into war? Where were the headlines blaring that Wilson himself lied and undermined support for the war? Where were the headlines pointing out that Wilson was doing all this while working for Bush’s opponent in the 2004 Presidential campaign? Where are the editorials calling for Wilson to admit that he’s nothing more than a pompous, deceitful political hack who had no regard whatsoever for the ill effect his statements would have on the war effort or troop morale? Never mind Mr. Bush; Wilson owes the Allied troops and the Iraqi people an apology.

I’d have to buy Lexis/Nexis so I could do a thorough check of the Post’s archives, but since there are so many people still convinced that Bush “lied us into war,” I think it’s perfectly safe to say that the Post et al. haven’t done nearly enough to repair the damage. It is the Mother of All Understatements to call that “unfortunate.”

 

Posted on by VDV

A bad ending to the week.

Thursday afternoon, my brother and I went to a particular apartment complex to have a look at a particular apartment. We filled out some applications, picked out the floorplan we wanted, then spoke with the manager about which units would be coming open in the next few weeks.

The whole visit was futile. After speaking with her for half an hour, I still wasn’t sure exactly when we’d be able to walk through the apartments that would be coming open–but it definitely wouldn’t be for another two weeks or so. I asked whether any of the soon-to-be-open apartments had cats or smokers, because I don’t want any trace of either in my living space. She knew that one unit did have a cat in it, and that they might replace the carpet. She couldn’t (or wouldn’t) tell us whether the rest of the available units had cats or smokers in them. This was somewhat frustrating, but tolerable.

Then came the kicker: she asked for a two hundred dollar deposit. My brother asked when we’d get it back. She said, “You have forty-eight hours after we approve your credit to cancel your rental application.”

Two days to cancel our rental application and recover the $200, and the earliest we could even see the apartment—never mind sign a lease and move in—was still two weeks away? My brother suggested that this might be a little bit unfair.

The manager’s response was that since they were “taking the unit off the market” by accepting our application, they were justified in keeping the $200 deposit if we decided not to move in. After all, they’d have to turn away other applicants, right? But that was nonsense:

• If other people showed up looking for an apartment after we reserved but before we signed a lease or moved in, she could easily accept their applications and put them on a waiting list (and I’m sure this apartment complex already maintains a waiting list). If we decided not to move in, she could call them right up and take their $200—after giving ours back.

• If no such people showed up, then it wouldn’t have mattered that we took it off the market—there was no market. There was nobody to turn away. After returning our money, the complex would end up with the same zero dollars they would have had if we’d never shown up in the first place.

In short, this was just a scam to get an extra two hundred bucks. If we had forked over the $200, found out during the walk-through that the apartment had had a cat, a smoker, a smoking cat and a cat-smoker in it, and then the manager refused to change the carpet or make any other repairs, then we’d lose the deposit and would be stuck in a bad lease.

Needless to say, she didn’t get the money, and won’t get our business.

…

Friday was by far the worst day of the new school year. I left my contacts and my glasses at home, which resulted in a headache that got worse and worse throughout the day. I am near-sighted, so I could read whatever was right in front of me, but my students looked fuzzier and fuzzier the further back they sat. Maybe that’s a good thing. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, babbled incoherently, and was totally useless.

And that was before going out for milk and cookies after school with some coworkers. We went back to the same place as before, started to have a good time chit-chatting and rumor-mongering… and then she showed up.

With the same glittering Tri-Delt pin on her blouse.

And the same makeup caked on her face.

And the same grating voice, blithering away, imparting her unwanted wisdom in besotted breath.

It was The Magpie.

Our group of about twelve sat at a long table (actually four or five square ones pushed together). When Magpie would start talking to someone at one end of the table, the rest of us would slowly creep away. So Magpie would be alone with her victim at her end, and the rest of us would stand in a large group at the safe end, with several empty chairs in between. Then she’d come to the populated end, and the migration would begin again, but in the opposite direction.

I’m sure it was an amusing visual, and I’d love to have sped-up overhead footage of said migration. But if the Magpie keeps ruining otherwise perfectly good times, I’ll once again have to take my business elsewhere. Or maybe tell her about some other restaurant where other Paxon teachers hang out on Friday afternoons. Better yet, I’ll tell her where Stanton teachers hang out.

…

For me, the worst time of any week is 10:31 AM on Saturday. The time is not random; what is the reason?

7 Responses to “A bad ending to the week.”

  1. twink Says:
    August 28th, 2006 at 12:26 PM

Must when Sophie wakes up. Either that or wrestling’s on.

  1. aabrock Says:
    August 28th, 2006 at 7:19 PM

You can no longer order from the breakfast menu at your favorite fast food restaurant?

  1. roxuresox Says:
    August 29th, 2006 at 7:42 PM

going to have that procedure done?

  1. VDV Says:
    September 4th, 2006 at 7:14 PM

Chik-Fil-A stops serving breakfast for the week, and I can’t get a chicken biscuit again until Monday. It’s far worse than 10:31 at McGaggle’s on a Saturday.

  1. roxuresox Says:
    September 4th, 2006 at 8:23 PM

that is pretty harsh, shame im never awake before then else id hit up the one on campus

  1. Doctor Hmnahmna Says:
    September 16th, 2006 at 4:22 PM

Mrs. Hmnahmna thinks you’re a wuss over the Chik-Fil-A breakfast. More accurately, she says you’re acting like a girl

  1. VDV Says:
    September 16th, 2006 at 6:03 PM

I can’t see how being pissed that I can’t get a Chik-Fil-A chicken biscuit makes me a wuss, but I can see how taking dictation from her makes you one.

Posted on by VDV

Cardinal rule.

My God, that’s a clever title. The Arizona Cardinals recently opened their new Cardinals Stadium, complete with retractable dome and air conditioning. This, combined with their relatively new uniforms and new logo, will ensure that hometown fans will be able to watch their team suck in comfort and with style. You can dress them up as much as you want… they’re still the Cards.

I’ve always believed that good uniforms will not make teams play better, but bad uniforms will make teams play worse. It makes sense, right? Dressing something or someone up may not make them any more competent, but looking like a slob or looking silly can be demoralizing.

There probably isn’t any valid statistical support for my proposition, so I’ll just have to make do with the best available anecdotal evidence: I submit, for your consideration, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

For years, the Suckaneers were the most horrible, awful team in the league, and you could usually pencil in a “W” where you saw them on the schedule. It was bad enough that their “city” is actually a body of water, but they chose to wear the most humiliating uniforms in the history of history itself. Football is supposed to be controlled barbarism; a large part of the game is beating your opponent to a pulp and flat-out intimidation. Yet every Sunday, for twenty years, teams playing against the Bucs would line up against what looked like orange creamsicles come to life.

How could you possibly look at them and be intimidated? You get down in your three-point stance, you hear someone across the line shouting out defensive coverages, screaming obscenities at you, threatening you. Then you look up at the source: grown men wearing light orange jerseys and white helmets featuring the worst logo ever: an orange-and-red gentleman with a dagger in his teeth who is winking at you. At that point, you know everything’s going to be all right and you’re going to crush these pantywaists.

However, in 1997, they started wearing red, black, and pewter. Even wearing a color named after some of the trinkets you’d find at your grandmother’s house, the Bucs were suddenly a team to be reckoned with. No longer did they run out on the field looking as fearsome as a pack of tropical Skittles; they ran out looking like men. Men with “pewter power.”

Let’s look at the numbers. The Buccaneers with lame uniforms (1976-1996): three winning seasons in 21 years, including an 0-14 inaugural season, three playoff appearances and one playoff victory. The Buccaneers without lame uniforms (1997-present): six winning seasons in nine years, one 8-8 season, six trips to the playoffs and one Super Bowl Championship.

One could also cite the Broncos and Patriots as examples of this rule; the Broncos didn’t win the Super Bowl until the year they got rid of the Gator-esque uniforms and snorting-horse-in-a-giant-D helmets, and the Patriots didn’t win until the year after they got rid of their hideous shadow-striped jerseys.

Where the uniforms the only difference? Probably not. But nobody wearing Buccaneer Bruce (yes, that’s the mascot’s name) on the side of his helmet was going anywhere near the Super Bowl.

Back to the Cardinals. The Cardinals have a long tradition of being horrible dating back to their founding in 1898. However, they were champions of the NFL in 1926 and 1947 and runners-up in 1948, meaning that they occasionally threw in some success. In accordance with my hypothesis, that was all back when they had plain, logo-less helmets, and were named “Cardinals” because of the color of their first uniforms. Then, tragically, they added the cute little redbird to their helmets in 1960 and haven’t done jack since. One measly playoff victory in forty-six years. That’s it.

Changing the bird on their helmets from looking slightly perturbed to looking greatly disappointed is not going to make them play any harder, or feel any more aggressive. Air conditioning may make the fans feel better—at least, until they see the product on the field. It’s time for the Cardinals to get rid of that horrible logo once and for all, and go to plain, blood-red helmets. Otherwise, those grown men with the cute little redbirds on the sides of their helmets will be doomed to chronic underachievement.

3 Responses to “Cardinal rule.”

  1. Doctor Hmnahmna Says:
    August 20th, 2006 at 8:34 PM

So, lets take another look at the Buccaneers’ old scheme: pastel colors, a winking logo with a foppish hairdo named Bruce, etc. Not to be homophobic, but . . .

Interesting that you left out another team that got relatively better with a uniform change – the Atlanta Falcons in the early ’90s, when Jerry Glanville took over the team and they went to the silver and black scheme.

Speaking of football, do I have to be commisioner for MWAFFL again this year? Or will we see the return of the Payton Memorial Fantasy Football League?

  1. VDV Says:
    August 22nd, 2006 at 7:30 PM

Yes, you’re commissioner again. And you’re right; the best thing Glanville ever did was switch the Falcons to black helmets and uniforms. Of course, they wear those fancy Arena-league wannabe uniforms now… oh well.

I’m going to root for whatever team announces that they will abandon their logo, take the names off the backs of the jerseys, get rid of every stripe, dot, swoosh and other adornment on their uniforms, and wear all white at home and all black away.

  1. Andrew Jackson Says:
    August 22nd, 2006 at 10:12 PM

Aye, when Sappy Maddy (Madison) decided to change our regulars into those fabulous red and blue jackets before the redcoats came back in 1812, the boys weere ready to kick some British arse in New Orelans. Indeed, methinks Hamilton met his end only due to that absoltuely horrid salmon sweater his wife knitted for him (I mean, was that a sweater, or did her sewing kit throw up?). Burr, with his stunningly sheek petticoat, could smell the non-bulletproofity. Hamilton should have known better, though. Salmon was, like,sooooo “1790s.”

Hold fast,
Andy J.

 
Posted on by VDV