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02/02/2005: "Random Thoughts 9"
Another post with a number, but one I haven't done in a while... the vacuum cleaner for my brain -- Random Thoughts!
Speaking of vacuum cleaners, I received one as a Chanukah present in December. I still haven't opened the box. I don't live in squalor or anything, but I can't motivate myself to vacuum. It'll happen eventually, I guess, but not today, probably not tomorrow and I already know that I'm planning to do something else the next day.
Vacuum is a weird word. It's the only one I can think of with a double-u. Then there's the letter W, which we call a double-u in English. Spanish always made more sense that way -- it's doble-vay, translatable as double-v, which is what the letter actually is. It's also one of the few letters whose name you'd spell out without actually using the letter... a W is not circular.
(eh, bee, see, dee, ee, ef, gee, aitch, eye, jay, kay, el, em, en, oh, pee, cue, are, ess, tee, you, vee, double-u, ex, why, zee)
Hondo, the old New York Post gambling blurbologist, used to refer to himself in his blurbs as "Mr. Aitch." When I was a kid -- and what kid doesn't love to read gambling blurbs? -- I'd read that, not understand that it was pronounced "Mr. H" and wonder who the heck Mr. Ay-Itch was. Maybe he needed some ointment.
The even weirder thing about that is that I almost never read the Post growing up. I still don't read it much, and Hondo doesn't write their gambling blurbs anymore, but for some reason that sticks out in my memory. I also remember the Daily News blurbmeister, "The Big W," even though for the last several years it's been Mighty Quinn, who I work with on a daily basis. It kind of takes some magic out of it to know the man behind the blurb, kind of like, well, knowing a magician's tricks while you watch his show.
I'm still working on my memo to the owners of the Daily News to propose that we open a Honolulu bureau. Wish me luck.
Tom Brady will be in Honolulu later this month as a Pro Bowler. First, I think that every player in the Pro Bowl should get a spot on the Pro Bowling Tour, just to see how they actually do as Pro Bowlers. (Lame, I know.) Second, can we save the "Brady is a sure-fire Hall of Famer" talk for just a little bit? He's in the league for five years, has only played four of them. His deal with Satan may just expire after this Super Bowl. Three Super Bowl rings, two Super Bowl rings, whatever he winds up with, if the guy spends the next 10 years playing like Billy Joe Hobert or Billy Joe Tolliver, he's not going to Canton.
Look up Billy Joe Hobert and Billy Joe Tolliver's career numbers sometime. Aside from the fact that they were teammates one year on the Saints and were actually seen in the same place at the same time, it's hard to believe that two guys named Billy Joe could be so statistically similar in their utter mediocrity.
How do the Billy Joe Hoberts and Billy Joe Tollivers of the world stick around in sports? It's been well-documented that they stink. There's not someone else out there who deserves a shot? Imagine if the Patriots had decided in the fall of 2001 that they'd rather go with Billy Joe Quarterback to fill in for the injured Drew Bledsoe than Brady. And how come Billy Joe, Billy Joe and Jim Miller are always getting shots, while Craig Whelihan only gets one chance? OK, I know the answer to that -- Craig Whelihan was awful. But it's no different in any other sport -- how many baseball teams have employed John Wasdin, better known, at least to my friend Andrew, as "Wayback Wasdin?" The blind squirrel only very rarely finds a nut... maybe it's time to recognize who the blind squirrels are.
The MTA estimated that there would be no C train service for five years. Then it was six months. Now the C train is back in under two weeks. First I was angry at the ridiculousness of their five-year estimate. Now I'm angry at their utter stupidity. Maybe they should have just made their initial estimate "we don't know yet." That probably would have surprised nobody in New York. Then they could have actually taken some time to figure out how long it was going to take.
My best wishes to the Pope. Still, even if he makes it through this latest bout of illness, he seems to have this mortal coil all but shaken off. John Paul II is one of the few world leaders still in power who was also in his position when I was born. I'll be 24 in March, and the familiar faces who are still in their familiar positions are pretty much the Pope, Queen Elizabeth, Fidel Castro and George Steinbrenner. That list is also pretty much in order of each one's chances of getting into Heaven.
Castro doesn't get too much ink these days, does he?
Oh, and from the CNN thing on the Pope that told me he took over in 1978, because I wasn't totally sure whether maybe there had been another Pope who went out right after I was born or something: "His visits to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Des Moines, Chicago and Washington took on the trappings of major holidays." How did Des Moines get on the list? Did the Pope get a better hotel deal with a Saturday night stayover in Sioux City? It's kind of like Michelangelo's David going to Springfield... only that was on The Simpsons.
The Pope went to Des Moines... I need more details on this. Did he go to Hardee's? Did he stop over in Iowa City and buy a big Pope hat with a University of Iowa logo on it? Actually, shouldn't the Pope really have gone to South Bend if he was going to go to a Midwestern place? I wonder what the Pope would make of Touchdown Jesus.
The groundhog came up this morning and saw his shadow, meaning six more weeks of winter. But ther are now 13 days and an hour left until pitchers and catchers. The hell with the rodent -- that's when spring starts.
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