Sunday, August 07, 2005

I should probably rant where I'm supposed to.

As you may or probably don't know if I haven't ever named you on this blog, several of my friends created and host a website for all things anime. Not only is it very well done, it's actually got lots and lots of fairly cool stuff like reviews, advice, and information. And I'm now going to post a link to the sight without their express written permission. Why? Because Badjew is sleeping in the next room and pays half my rent. He can tell me otherwise later. As could NotHayama, and Lianne Sentar (the names they use on the site. I'm not going to be giving the real names here, Lianne works for Tokyopop too. It's what I call BADASS). It also has a very active forum where discourse is actually pretty solid and ranges in topics from the Middle East, Religion, and Terrorism to 'dude how wicked was the Batman movie!' and a lot of things in between about anime. I would recommend it, even if, nay especially if you know very little about anime, manga, or the oddballs like me who enjoy it. You might learn something, or at least confirm your belief that I'm clinically insane. One or the other.

http://www.sleepisfortheweak.org

Now I like a good rant every now and then. I like complaining. I like arguing even more then I like complaining. And recently I've been getting very annoyed with a certain cities sports coverage. That city being Toronto. As I live here. And as the blog title says, bad ideas just happen, story of my life really.

You also may or may not know that I was in The Lord of the Rings: A Journey through Middle-Earth, a first year seminar course here at U of T (still the best proffessor I've ever had), a lot of the crazy cool kids I call friends here were in the same class. There as well was a lively forum where I like to complain, or rant. I still (two classes and years later, and we're not allowed on the forum after we get out of the class) hold the record for the longest post.

What does, Sleepisfortheweak, my annoyance at Toronto sportscasters, a university course on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, and my propensity to spout nonsense have to do with each other? Well, funny you should ask! After the classes forum went down, we needed somewhere else we could gather and post among what we consider to be an elite corps of people. As it should turn out, a member of the class, and this guys roommate, happens to be Badjew (I've mentioned his real name and his alias together before) so he set up an exclusive forum for the expatriots of the group. Only veterans of the class are allowed in, and we have to decide we like you. Which means, you have to hang out with us and tell Ben you want to be on the forum (we go back every year to challenge the underclassman to a trivia competition, and we're undefeated). Other, lesser mortals, can't even see the forum on the website. Well, I ranted on it, and figured I should share. Since you have nothing better to do but read my blog. Now mind you, the arguments that have spawned from this have been fun of the most kind of character. And Becca, the winter games will never be held in Jamaica (even though they have a blobsled team, and a bad movie about a bobsled team) becasue that would be stupid. As stupid as having the summer games in Yellowknife. Since no one outside of ex-LOTR classes can see the post, and since I'm such a nice guy, and since the name of this blog wasn't an accident, I'm sharing the text. Voila:

"I've been really trying to hold back. IT'S NOT HOCKEY SEASON YET PEOPLE!!! ARGOS?!? BLUE JAYS?!? Both of them HAVE A SHOT IN HELL AT WINNING! There's SO much going on in the world of sports right now, and all people seem to do is have their eye towards what MAY happen to OTHER teams (I've heard more about Yzerman OR the Kings OR if so in so is going to stay in europe/russia OR Sidney Crosby in the last two days then anything to do with the leafs), hell I knew Brian Leetch Hal Gill, and Joe Thornton was going back to the Bruins before I heard Mats Sundin or ANY other leafs players name even MENTIONED anywhere on rogers or the score. What the hell is wrong with this city that your team that isn't playing yet, gets LESS coverage then other cities teams which aren't playing yet, but still gets more then the Team who last year WON the freakin' Grey Cup and are now on top of their division? During the lockout, the Rock won in actually fairly spectacular fashion, and I had TROUBLE getting info because apparently Toronto would rather listen to people who make often 1,000% MORE per year then anyone working 9-5 whine about how they might make only 500% more, while playing a sport that hey! They weren't even playing at the time!

SHAQ O'BLOODY NEIL got more coverage for his new contract with the MIAMI HEAT, (It's not Toronto, it's not a sport being played now, WHY SHOULD WE CARE?) then the blue jays and argos combined in the paper I was reading. Now, maybe the paper sucks. But if the Jays don't get credit for coming back to within a game and a half of the Yankees against the winningest team in baseball right now in tomorrows press. I'm going to curse a lot.

GAH!

But if we must continue down this road... I don't think 4 on 4 overtime hockey ever added to the 'drama' of hockey, I sort of felt cheated since there were fewer players and no one was bleeding to cause it. Shootouts are a hell of a lot of fun to watch, and you lose any nail you might have when you chew them off. The red line was a rule added to let older players keep up with the pace of younger ones and keep playing longer, and helped spawn such lovely things as systems play. I won't miss it. And the salary cap has been needed for so long it's laughable. As for the newer teams. I don't begrudge any team that goes back into an old proven market (the wildstars or the northern wild people or whatever they are now) but someone really needs to fire some marketing personel. The Blue Jackets is the dumbest name since Disney tried to start a trend of naming teams after movies. At least the Wilds logo is as stupid as the old northstars one, but they have an excuse. The Thrashers 'T' thing looks like it belongs in the Klingon alphabet, and the blue jackets, well, it's just...dumb. Now there are some bad team names out there. The Rock, Blues (why would you name a team after something that's SUPPOSED to be depressing?) and so forth. But names like the leafs, white/red sox and stuff have reasons and the excuse that people in the past were stupid and thought stupid things were cool and now it's tradition.

I've always maintained that hockey shouldn't be allowed south of the Mason-Dixon line, and I think that the NHL has about 6 too many teams. Basically one needs to go from every division. (I mean really do we need TWO florida teams? Canadians retire there, I don't care, they had to move from Canada so root for your old team will ya? Kill the Panthers at least, Phoenix, Dallas, and the Kings are blasphemous, the Mighty Ducks and the Blue Jackets are almost the butt end of every joke made by hockey sports casters, Atlanta, and Carolina are pretty stupid places for a hockey teams, and so forth, so there's a lot of candidates for nothingness in my eyes) . Kill them all and bring back Quebec and the Whale!

It also would have been neat-o to see the original six either in their own division, as in all six in the one (which I know wouldn't work but shuttup) or have them all in separate divisions or something to emphasise the original sixness of of the teams. Before anyone gets mad saying they've had a long hidden fetish for the Florida Panthers (ewwwww), my reasoning for the Mason-Dixon line is a belief that it is UTTERLY sacriligious to play winter sports such as hockey, on any ground that never sees snow. And freak tornado hail doesn't count as snow. No ice, no hockey. Period. The Stanley cup should never GO TO THE DESERT! If Arizona finds a Mesa that freezes over in the winter due to its elevation then FINE. Build the stadium on top and core out the rock for the parking garage, but no stadium without ice.
_________________
I think re-incarnating as a Hooloovoo would be the best possible scenario... I mean, it's a superintelligent color, how wicked is that?"

Yeah. I wrote this in Canada. I'm Canadian. And I'm fed up with what's happening. The newspapers will have on average, two pages on what other teams are doing in the offseason, who's playing who in what local charity event, who didn't have sex with who's wife and so on. One page, will be devoted to the Leafstalking about talking too someone who is talking about being willing to talk about talking to someone about a trade contract, who is talking about trying to build a team while talking about the salary cap and CBA which are now months old. It's NASA suddenly decides they need to tell us what space is again, and then keep telling us for 3 months while aliens are invading the earth. Then you turn the page to get a page and a third devoted to baseball, and the remaining two thirds go to football (and the Argos are in first place too, and they won last year). Turn the page again and you get boxscores and on the other page horse races, and maybe blurb about soccer, cricket, or take your pick today. The current fiasco over the Mann Cup only got a paragraph in yesterday's paper. And Lacrosse, not hockey is the national sport of Canada.

Going to bed now.

Counting the Days - Goldfinger

5 Comments:

At 7/8/05 11:48 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"And Becca, the winter games will never be held in Jamaica (even though they have a blobsled team, and a bad movie about a bobsled team) becasue that would be stupid. As stupid as having the summer games in Yellowknife."

If I recall, the real argument was that you didn't think that people without naturally occuring snow should be allowed to play hockey, or even build ice skating rinks. I said that was stupid, which it is. In regards to the Olympics, I never once said that they would be held in places with the wrong climate, or that they should be held in places with the wrong climate. I said that I didn't care where they held the Olympics. I also don't care about sports, at all, ever, except when people force me to go to football games just because I'm in the band.

I still can't believe you got me into a stupid sports argument. Particularly with the argument "People who live in warm places shouldn't be allowed to play hockey."

 
At 8/8/05 1:58 AM, Blogger Jaecyn said...

You didn't but Maggie did about the olympics. And I can't believe I got you into that argument either. It was fun!

 
At 8/8/05 3:16 PM, Blogger Mr. M said...

I agree, some cities should not have NHL teams, but the argos don't get as much coverage because percentage wise not that many people are interested in CFL football in Toronto. The Argos got coverage the day after they play, just not during the whole week. The Jays usually get an article or two in the paper, it's just that Toronto, always has, and sadly always will be a one-horse town. And that horse's name is The Toronto Maple Leafs. We love hockey, and since our team isn't doing anything, we write about what other teams are doing

 
At 9/8/05 3:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

it snows in texas... and there's lots of ice.. it just only happens in january for the most part ^_^

 
At 15/8/05 4:39 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's been over a week. I have begun to worry.

 

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