I Never Picked Cotton

Another pathetic, embarrassing loss for the Bills. Whatever that intangible is that makes a team bad, the Bills have it. I’m watching the Steelers game now, and I can’t remember the last time they were bad for any real stretch of time. I looked it up: since 1990 they’ve finished below .500 only 4 times. In that time they’ve won 11 or more games 7 times. They’ve been known for literally decades as being tough on defense, a physical team. They are just a winning team, a winning organization. To what is that due? The ownership? The fans? Something in the water in Pittsburgh? The Bills are not a winning organization. Not as bad as the Cardinals or Lions in terms of being bad consistently, the Bills are a consistently mediocre franchise. They had good years in the late ‘80s and almost great years in the early ‘90s (insert your Super Bowl jokes here) but other than that they’re mediocre. Why can’t they get over the hump? Somewhere a Cubs fan is cringing because I’m making this comparison, but it reminds me during the playoffs when I talked to friends who are Cubs fans. They expected to lose, and even worse suspected that the players expected to lose. When I watch a Bills game, I expect them to lose, and often they are coached and play as if they expect to lose. Still, I’d rather watch them lose in Buffalo than in Toronto.

If I were shipwrecked on a desert island and had happened to snag a few CDs to listen to for the rest of eternity, along with my waterproof solar-powered CD player, I should hope that I remembered some Johnny Cash albums. I think I could listen to Johnny Cash for the rest of eternity.

For some reason food always tastes better at Mom’s house. I’m not even talking about Thanksgiving, which we didn’t do at Mom’s house this year, I’m talking about simple things like sandwiches. I was at her house twice in the past few days and each time I was there I had sandwiches. The bread wasn’t very special, the ham was just packaged sandwich ham from the store, and the mustard was a store brand, but it tasted really good. I am downright convinced that had I made the exact same sandwich at my apartment, it wouldn’t have tasted as good. And I made these sandwiches myself, so it’s not like love was the secret ingredient or anything ridiculous like that. It is inexplicable.

One of the most dangerous things the Indians can do is rush to blame the Mumbai attacks on pure Pakistani hatred for Indians. That is asking for escalation of potentially very dangerous proportions.

As I watched the body count climb, I knew it was only a matter of time before someone rubbed two brain cells together to come up with the idea to label the attacks “India’s 9/11”. Sort of like how Europe has had a 9/11 of its own since September 12, 2001. In fact, they’ve had several, according to the media. The Madrid train bombings, the London bombings; I’m sure there are others also. Other countries have had 9/11s as well. It’s like a club that no one wants to be in but their admission is up to the press, who is eager to induct new members all the time. Using 9/11 to sell stories is pretty despicable. “Gosh, if that is their 9/11 it must be pretty bad and in turn interesting for me to read!” It’s another chicken or the egg question though; whose fault is it that people won’t read the news unless they can relate to it or enjoy it in some sick way, their own or the media’s? Oh, who am I kidding; I meant “watch”, not “read”.

I laugh to myself more often than I think is warranted when I read either quotes or IMs or emails. I’ve figured out that it’s because unless instructed otherwise through punctuation I assume the speaker is intending to be heard as if completely deadpan. I don’t think that this is my fault, as the point of punctuation is to accentuate words and sentences to better express the tone of the words, whether it’s an inquisitive question mark, an excited exclamation point, or a pause of a comma or a semicolon, which can be dramatic, deliberate, or cautious. I’m not sure why don’t people use these tools. You’d think that the less emotion I interpret the less entertaining the reading would be, because emotion is exciting! However, a deadpan delivery is probably the funniest one there is. Maybe everyone has thought all this through already and they intentionally make all of their emails and IMs and quotes extra entertaining by leaving out any indication of emotion, and I’m just catching on. That would be a real wakeup.

Morning Quickie

I finally got around to reading this interview with former German Chancellor Schröder that Matt J passed along to me yesterday. The Chancellor talks about the Georgia-Russia fiasco, what it means for Russia, and what it means for the West. He seems pretty frank. I wonder if he was like that when he was still in office. That would be refreshing.

Major League Baseball cannot institute instant replay this season. If you start a season with the rules a certain way, you have to play the season out that way. And the fact that MLB seems more concerned with the instant replay rule than with shattering bats is a little absurd.

There’s a chance that Melky Cabrera may never re-emerge from the minors. I still like my T-shirt.

On ESPN, fans voted and elected the greatest player of all time for each team. I didn’t vote because I hate these things. Fans chose Jim Kelly for the Bills. He won very much with a mere plurality, getting only 37% of the vote, in front of Bruce Smith, O.J., Darryl Talley (!), and Thurman Thomas. I’m glad the vote was so close, but it’s obvious only a minority of the voters were over 30, otherwise O.J. would have gotten more votes. People forget how great he was. 2,003 yards in 14 games! Plus, I love Darryl Talley, but him getting more votes than Thurman Thomas is just plain wrong.

I assume Matt J will not object to the Original and the Only LT (a healthy 84%) beating out the likes of Michael Strahan, Phil Simms, Frank Gifford, and, uh…Carl Banks. No Eli! Where’s the outrage?

Obama’s pick for Veep reported to come early tomorrow. Obama’s keeping it quiet so his supporters who have signed up for this super-cool, super-neat, super-insider, clap-your-hands-because-you-get-a-text-message-from-Barack-and-can-show-your-friends-how-involved-you-are notification can find out before the media and the masses who he has chosen. My money is on Drudge getting it before any text message gets sent out.

I learned this morning that the incumbent party hosting their convention last is a tradition that has held steady since 1956, and is one that is steeped in history, a lot of which goes back to the 1864 and 1868 elections. Also, in 1868 the chairman of the Democratic convention was Horatio Seymour. There was a deadlock in the voting among other potential candidates. Suddenly, Seymour himself was being mentioned as a strong possibility to be the nominee. He got up in front of everyone and declared that they could not vote for him, and he wasn’t being humble. He really meant it: he didn't want it. They voted for him anyway, and he reluctantly went on to get crushed by Ulysses S. Grant, who remains the President with the coolest name. Anyway, can you imagine anyone in politics today saying “No, don’t vote for me”?