4 Stories I'm Sick Of Hearing

We live in a 24-hour news cycle, where media outlets deliver stories that appeal to the lowest common denominator. So stories types get cycled every year, which you could remove the names from the stories and publish them anew every year.

1) Apple product features and, especially, defects.
Apple products are cool. They work well. People like them. Apple might have sold 1 million iPad 2s after its launch. Yay! One out of every 300 people might have one. Or will in a few weeks. It's understandable that it would sell well, because they only cost $234,867. Middle-class parents are definitely lining up. And when I hear that the backlight on the device doesn't work properly, I feel for them. I really do.

Product defects often are important stories. Take the Toyota Prius. Most people did not own the car. But if a car is out of control, you don't have to own one for it to affect you. "Apple, I can't watch my Toy Story 3 download in the maximum possibly quality." I don't care; keep it off TV.

2) NCAA Tournament snubs
Every season people fly into a tirade because the NCAA selection committee declared their team to not be among the 37 best teams that were not good enough to win their conference tournaments. Including those champions, the teams missing from the bracket probably didn't crack the top 50.

Bummer. The 45th best team is not good enough to win the national championship. This isn't college football, thank goodness, where teams good enough to cut down the nets, so to speak, get left out every season, even unbeaten teams.

"Snubbed" teams can increase their chances by winning their conference tournament. Do that, and they get a guaranteed berth in the Big Dance. Because every conference (except the Ivy League) awards its auto bid to the tournament winner, and every team in every major conference plays in said tournament, every team has a chance to win the national title by winning every postseason game. "We're definitely one of the 50 best teams," should not be a rallying cry.

All snub stories-All-Stars, Oscar nominations, etc.-should be banned. Most people will never receive an Oscar nomination. Most actors will never receive an Oscar nomination. Hell, most good actors will never receive an Oscar nomination. Not getting an Oscar nod is the norm. The norm is not newsworthy.

3) Can ____ win ____ election?
Elections are not won with talent, game-planning and hustle like sports teams win games and championships. At least, not in the same sense. It's all about opinions, and the more recent the opinion the more important it is. Still, news agencies publish stories on their front pages. For example, today CNN featured an article titled "Possible 2012 GOP Candidates."

Political predicting is irrelevant. Need proof? A May 2007 article forecasting the 2008 election called Obama the #2 Democrat who would lose to Giuliani or McCain. The author went on to say, "No one knows it yet, but the real frontrunners are John Edwards and Mitt Romney." Enough said.

4) Celeb A feuding with Celeb B on Twitter
Twitter has its uses, like announcing sales and breaking news. If you want context, intelligence, question AND answers (Twitter can deliver 1, not both), go elsewhere. You want inane banter, sniping and speech without the PR filter? Go see who's twittin' what. But please, CNN, ABC, etc., leave these nit-twits where they belong, off the air.

2010 Hoops (Sucked)

I didn't watch one second of the national championship on Monday night. I knew how it would go down, and I couldn't bare to see it happen. I have avoided the highlights so far, and God willing I will never see them. It's all part of the plan to pretend it never happened.

The 2009-2010 basketball season and tournament will forever be remembered by me as the one I don't remember. UNC played its most disappointing season in its 100-year history, and the tournament was a perfect nightmare. I couldn't describe a more soul-crushing way for it to unfold.

Just a few more days and this dook thing will blow over, and I can resume forgetting it.

Sunday Sports Summary

The craziest sports days leave Sportscenter anchors breathless at the top of the broadcast. Saturday was one of those days.

It started with (alma mater alert!) UNC's hoops game at Kentucky. This season I will cheer against Kentucky, and not only so the Heels can pass them in the "Race to 2,000 Wins", which is important because college basketball will be canceled forever when one team reaches that mark. I will root against them because John Calipari is an ass who will probably ruin their program someday.

UNC thought the game ended after about three minutes, when the Wildcats scored 28 points to the two points UNC mustered. For the rest of the game they played catch-up, and made the final look respectable. But without a 100% John Wall, it was bound to get closer.

The McDonald's Mastercard College Football Championship Saturday, Race to the Citi BCS National Championship presented by Dr. Pepper followed basketball. Florida's Tim Tebow, the greatest person in the history of the Earth, lost to Alabama, and will be bronzed alive a la Han Solo and placed outside of The Swamp, bowl game be damned.

Most people who tuned in to the Big 12 Championship presented by Every Company in the S&P 500 rooted for Nebraska, first for parity's sake and then for pity's sake. The Blackshirts (so-called because they almost never wear black shirts [go figure]) only put nine players on the field for offense, or so it seemed as they gained 106 yards for the whole game.

(Both teams combined to gain 308 in the game. Alabama, facing the nation's top defense in many catagories, gained 274 yards in the first half.)

The Huskers managed to turn those yards into 12 points, and if they hadn't donated 55 yards on penalties to the Texas scholarship fund and the football team, the BCS polling computers would have exploded. We could have seen a non-BCS school, TCU, play for it all. It's a damn shame that five teams won all of their games, and only two get the chance to win the national championship. Shame on college football.

Speaking of national championships (alma mater alert!), the Tar Heel ladies soccer team won title number 20, more than every women's team in every Division I sport at every college ever. The field hockey team also won a natty, making the Heels the defending champions in three team sports.

The ACC/Big Ten Challenge

The Big Ten finally won the Challenge last night, after ten previous failures, and I couldn't be happier. They won basically on the heels of a Wisconsin upset against Duke, who lost for the first time in Challenge.

People (well, its CEO, at least) used to say about General Motors, "As GM goes, so goes the nation." Perhaps people will say, "As Duke goes, so goes the ACC." If that's the case, fine. I'll take an ACC loss every time if it means Duke loses and UNC wins. (By the way, the Heels beat the Spartans three times in less than one year. They are also 5-0 against them in the NCAA Tourney. Can we play them every year?)

The Big Ten backers say that the Challenge is meaningless, that the conference should be judged by NCAA Tournament spots and yada yada yada. I disagree; it does show conference strength. Since the last Big Ten national championship (Michigan State, 2000), the ACC has won four titles, going 3-0 against the Big Ten in the championship game.

Such is the result of the real ACC/Big Ten Challenge.

National Champs

Going to see the Tar Heels jank nuts in grills tonight!

Look out, here comes some sports

The NBA is considering shortening its season. Please do it! I need this. America needs this. We are addicted to sports.

The NBA season is already very long. It lasts 82 games, each 48 minutes. Most college teams play only 40% as many minutes during their seasons. Yet even that season feels too long. It amazes me that in our ADD world, our sports are getting longer. The NFL is in serious discussion to lengthen the season by two games. We already deal with endless, endless, draft coverage. 

We take note of fewer things for less time in life in general, yet we focus longer on more sports. That clearly means we are addicted. We can't send an entire nation to sports rehab, so the only other solution is for the sports to help us. Help us by shortening the seasons. Not just in the NBA, but everywhere. 

Because I'll relapse.

G

I miss Gatorade X-Factor Lemon-Lime + Strawberry. I searched for it this weekend and didn't see it. Today I realize that's just because Gatorade has renamed it. The marketing geniuses have re-branded it "Be Tough". What the heck? As if "G" wasn't bad enough?? I loved saying "Please pass the X-Factor", now I've got to readjust to "Please pass the Be Tough?". Lame.

This is an interesting topic coming on the day of the NCAA championship. I noticed they've dropped "G" and instead VitaminWater is the beverage of NCAA choice. Is there a reason for the switch other than money?? It's a little disconcerting to see the VitaminWater jugs on the court - I'm scared Kelly Clarkson or 50 Cent are going to pop out and start pimpin' it.

Kentucky did what?

Kentucky fired Billy Gillespie. After receiving the boot, he said, "I wish we would have won more." Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart cited "philosophical differences" between the coach and the legendary basketball program. I saw a tape of the exchange in his office:

Barnhart enters Gillespie's office, unannounced, sits down at his desk, and removes a tennis ball from his pocket. He tosses it repeatedly and says: "Billy, you're a good guy, but you gotta go."

Gillespie, who is writing diligently the whole time, is unaware that Barnhart has even entered the room. He does not look up: "Not right now Kevin (his assistant who sounds eerily like Gillespie's boss), I'm trying to recruit for next season."

Barnhart: "That's just it Gillespie. (The coach looks up at the manner of address. He stops writing.) You're done. Get it? Canned. Tossed. Axed. Kaput. Fired." He tosses the ball.

Gillespie: "I don't understand sir. Do you not like my ties? Should I change my name to Adolph Rupp Jr.? Is my mansion too big?"

Barnhart is bored of the tennis ball. He returns it to his pocket and withdraws a half-dollar. He flips it along his knuckles: "No, not that."

Gillespie, rubbing his chin: "Did I not attend enough alumni meetings? Do my players have too many tattoos? Should I have asked Ashley Judd to attend road games?"

Barnhart: "None of those things, Billy-Boy. See the fact is, you just didn't win enough games. We here at Kentucky are accustomed to winning. We've won 284 national championships and produced every All-American ever. In fact, for our first 28 seasons of basketball, we played twenty-eight games a year and won all fifty-six of them. Your two seasons here just didn't cut it. That and I really disagree with your idea that mind and body, while having distinct ontological statuses, do not causally interfere with one another. You know, real philosophical differences."

Gillespie: "Oh. So I should have won more?"

Barnhart said nothing as he rose and left the office. Gillespie returned to filling out recruiting forms.  

Tourney observations

Every year I look forward to the NCAA Tourney more than any other event (yes more than Christmas and my birthday). The first weekend is like both of those days plus two more days. During my sophomore year in college I scheduled my entire spring semester so I could skip the fewest number of classes to watch the first round games. This is legit.

This year I watched hoops until my eyes bled. The added screen size and definition of an HDTV maximize the ocular stimulation. Time Warner, in their lone positive influence on the cable TV scene, created four channels so I can cruise the up to four simultaneous games without submitting to the draconian CBS producers or the local market stakes. If UNC is blowing out a team by 35, I can catch the two-point game between Memphis and CS Northridge at any time. 

Here are some musings. Keep in mind, brain functions drop considerably during tourney weekend.

MSU v. USC: Spartans v. Trojans. Such epic battles require gross exaggeration. MSU won 2,400-2,399. The game lasted 72 hours and featured 50,000 players. Everyone in the arena participated. MSU flute player Joe Agamemnon nailed the game-winning three while USC coach Tim "King Priam" Floyd grappled with a Kraken and forgot to call timeout. 

USC cheerleaders are smokin' hot with their sweater tops.

I tuned to Utah-Arizona for a little bit. I saw a big guy sit on the bench with "Utah" on the back of his jersey. I said to my roommate, "There's a guy on Utah with last name Utah." He laughed. I said, "It would be funny if his first name was Provo or Salt Lake City." Then he said, "Or if his name was Chicago or Dallas or something." We agreed it was a funny last name. I turned to another game and later came back to the Utah game. When he came back downstairs I said, "So it turns out all the players have 'Utah' on the backs of the their jerseys." He laughed, but for a different reason that time.

When the Chattanooga Mocs play their games, do they warm up in the other team's jerseys? Do they stand around saying things like, "I'm Jeff Adrien; I'm Hasheem Thabeet?" Do they take exactly the same shots as their opponents each time?

The Dayton Flyers have nice nickname as a shout-out to their flight history. Other teams should have similar nicknames. I hope the Memphis FedExs face the Lousiville UPSs. The CEOs could bet their companies on the game's outcome.

Speaking of Louisville, they played Morehead St. in the first round. The on-screen score graphic said MORE/LOU. We could all use more Lou. "Hey, I a-make you a pizza!" I hope I offended some people with that one. This made me pine for favorite school abbreviation: Southern Illinois appearing as "So Ill" on screen.

Newspaper writers must salivate over the chance to write "Sooners Rather Than Later" if Oklahoma wins the championship on a last-second shot.

There could be an all-city Final Four. The aforementioned all-parcel delivery winner could play the blue collar Pitt-Syracuse winner for everything. Obama declares: "Winning fans will not get laid off!" Plus they would play in Detroit, the king of blue-collar towns. "Detroit residents, attend the game and you won't get laid off!"

This weekend we get twelve more games. Go Heels!