Playoff!

I don't care if college football playoff games won't sell out. Not every bowl even does right now anyway. Remember those reports about how cheap Orange Bowl tickets were going for the day of the game? So, now today I hear some nobody sportscaster opining that we shouldn't have a playoff because the games won't sell out.

What B.S.

Yes, of course I understand what big business college football is. But it is still a sport, and not even a professional one at that. If the integrity of the game is to be preserved, all other considerations besides fairness must be pushed aside. End of discussion.

The NCAA and the Presidents and Athletic Directors of the BCS conferences have proven that they could care less about fair play. It's about the money. It's worse than the other rigged sports like Professional Wrestling or the NBA because at least in those sports the athletes are getting paid.

Sure, the college athlete gets a scholarship, and I'm not going to disparage the scholarship itself. Nor the degrees these athletes earn. Other people diminish this accomplishment, but I'll never understand why. It's an honorable compensation for their efforts. There's two other things that upset me instead.

First, academic dishonesty. Universities either lower their academic standards or actually cheat in order to attract skilled athletes that would otherwise be academically ineligible. The Universities themselves are cheapening the athlete's education and the degree conferred upon them. In essense, they are diminishing the compensation to the athlete. They are saying that their education is worth nothing. So, thanks alot for that.

Secondly, there is the greater effect that a football program has on a University's finances. Not only does a successful football program boost student applications to the school, but the more profitable a program is, the less of a burden it is on tuition-payers. This is important because it means the BCS gives an advantage to certain institutions of higher learning. This then affects (to exactly what degree, I can't say) their research capabilities, their grants, the economies of the surrounding cities, and the state that funds them in part. So, when someone says this isn't Congress's problem, I respectfully disagree.

You Liar!

Laura Ingraham, you are a liar. We did not receive three feet of snow during your stay in Utah. We did not receive another three this morning. Not even at Alta, where you stayed during your trip. It was a bizarre moment for me to be driving down a clear street with the sun shining, and hear your voice on the radio proclaiming that I was covered by three feet of snow. You lied.

Furthermore, I thought you knew that Utah is a very Republican state. I'm fairly certain that a good portion of locals at the lodge at Alta were conservative. When they reacted as your daughter said "Put Barack in the fire!" I think it wasn't just because they were mindless "libs," as you accuse, but rather, they were simply decent people who couldn't help but feel disgusted at the suggestion of the immolation of our president.

Please, kindly shut up. Thank you.

P.S. Also on the topic of AM Talk Radio Right Wing Douchebags, I'm wondering if, in all fifteen years of his talk show, Michael Savage has ever EVER gone a single broadcast without comparing Liberals to Nazis. EVER?!

Stu takes first! Does Stu take second?

Well, the Utes won. And the Utes lost. The Red Rocks Gymnastics team went down to BYU and smashed them 197.800 to whatever low score the Cougars got. Ute fans absolutely outnumbered BYU fans by about 200 - 50. It made Emily and I wish we had gone down there. Madeleine wanted to go too, since it looked a lot quieter than Ute meets. It's sad to see Kristina Baskett and Nina Kim leave; they've been our favorites ever since the first meet we attended.

And the Runnin' Utes lost to Arizona in the opening round of the NCAA playoffs. Even though I held out hope until the end, and was sincerely excited when they started fighting back with five minutes to go, it was glaringly obvious to me from the start that Arizona was going to win. Their guys were just all over the floor, hassling the Utes and showing endless energy. As I write this, Cleveland State is leading Wake Forest, but I would expect either team to lose to Arizona in the next round after what I've seen tonight.

There, you see? I blogged again. Maybe there is some hope for this becoming actively used again. The embarrassing thing is the how edited my former posts are. Everything you see posted prior to today has been edited by me sometime in 2005. I went back and cleaned out all the bad language and cutting out "unworthy" stuff. How foolish of me. What's the point of polishing this up?

The World Needs More Blogs

No it doesn't. So I'm just resurrecting my old one. I would find it embarrassingly hilarious if I made this particular post one of those "This is what my blog will be about" posts, then follow it up with absolutely nothing. You can find those littering the landscape of the blogosphere. It's awesome.

Speaking of littered blogospheres, there's a thought that's been kicking around my head. And since getting my thoughts into writing is what my blog will be about, here we go.

I think about how much of history is simply lost. There are billions of unaccounted-for lives that were lived with no written record of their accomplishments. And every lifetime contains accomplishments. Even large, powerful civilizations have had their written records lost to history. And we think we're so lucky now that everything is adequately catalogued and filed away so that every last detail of our life and times are preserved for the ages.

But do have any idea how much CRAP is recorded too? Look at the damn "Blogosphere" or YouTube or Twitter or imagine how many copies of People or Us or Entertainment Weekly have been printed that have preserved exactly nothing of historical value. Well, not the important stuff. Nothing that will enlighten future researchers in their understanding of the early 21st Century. All of the important details of our time will be buried underneath a mountain of useless information.

Of course, it all depends on what is considered important. I realize that. My point was more to illustrate just how equally transient in time we are to those lost civilizations. All this will be gone, everything we have constructed will be eroded away, and everything we have written will go unread.

Like this. Heh.

Anywho, one other thought I must get out before I lose it; my love of the words "nuanced" and "robust." Specifically because they can be used to describe their own usage. To use the word "nuanced" is to have a nuanced understanding of your subject, the word, and its usage. Furthermore, if you use "robust" in describing something, you are also declaring your robust support for calling it so. At least that's the way I think of it. They're fantastic words.

P.S. Reminder to myself if I'm reading this about 360 or so days from now - go with your gut when you're filling out your NCAA Bracket!!! Again this year I got bit in the opening round, wondering why I changed my mind on picking Texas A&M, Michigan, and Maryland.