Does your momma know that you're out?

Over the past weekend I was in Cocoa for a Masters meet, which went ok. It was about par for what has been happening: not great, but not disastrous, either... but I have left Cocoa in a much better mood than my previous encounter with it. (Which was on my move down here, and driving around semi-lost for 30 minutes trying to find a restaurant to eat at, while starving. And finally getting fed up to the point where I purposely left town just to get out of Dodge. Ironically, I ate at a restaurant right near where the critical point happend during the move: where I sat through 3 stop light cycles waiting for a left turn arrow, before finally running the light.)

But, in any case, now I have at least... 5 reasons to like Cocoa:

• averaging 43 miles per gallon on the drive up;
• Blue Bell ice cream in the grocery store;
• Sonic (can't really beat a slushee and tots);
• being able to justifiably name your meet the "Hot Cocoa" meet... (and it was rather warm both days, though luckily the water wasn't too bad)
• close enough to get back in time to see Mamma Mia! (of course, know I have ABBA stuck in my head...)

Well I can dance with you honey
If you think it's funny
Does your mother know that you're out?

Janie's got a gun

I'm at a McDonald's yesterday, munching down on some Chicken McNuggets for lunch while attempting to get through The Canterbury Tales (at the rate they're traveling with me, they'll never reach that cathedral.... But did you know that "you all" is in The Knight's Tale? Right here at line 1967. Well, actually "yow al". It makes me wonder if Chaucer inadvertently coined the term "y'all"... but I digress).

Anyways, so I'm dipping in my barbecue sauce and attempting to read. Seated next to me is a group of about 5 guys, dispersed out to about three 2-person tables (I guess so they were spaced out). I start hearing one of the guys talking about how stores like Kmart and Wal-Mart can't return things once they're delivered to them. That instead they must sell them to get them out of inventory. This apparently means that the item gets put on clearance at a discount to clear them out.

The guy had walked into a Wal-Mart and found such a clearance. On ammunition.

The price for the handgun and shotgun bullets were so low that they were cheap enough to buy and resell elsewhere (according to him). So low, in fact, that he wasn't sure they were priced correctly and so he checked with a nearby employee to make sure they were. After confirming the low price, he left... to call some hunting buddies to see if they wanted him to buy some shells for them (yes was the answer).

A few minutes later, the guy went back into the store, and asked a nearby salesgirl for all the ammo on clearance, to purchase. All. This entailed her having to go into the back and bring the back-stock out (she went around the shelves putting boxes and boxes into a shopping cart, loading the whole thing up). In the end, the guy walked out of the store with that shopping cart full of ammunition. And a security guard escorting him to his car (to whom the guy had been kind enough to show his concealed weapons license and gun; though he'd not been asked...).

Now, while the image of a shopping cart piled full of bullets is entertaining, I am a wee bit surprised/worried that one person can go in and buy so much ammunition at one time. Like they were stocking up for an arsenal... or something.

Then registering shortly after that crossed my mind initially, my brain registered/connected that the guy had a concealed weapon permit, which probably meant he had a gun on him right then, in McDonalds.... How American, I guess?

Janie's got a gun
Janie's got a gun
Her whole world's come undone
From looking straight at the sun

It's not having what you want,It's wanting what you've got...

More spin than a good backstroke drill:
Earlier this month, maybe a week or so ago, I read this article about the 2008 Youth Swimming Worlds. Coverage of this event, for whatever reason (maybe somewhat related to how FINA covers itself, or just how press releases in general are) has been highly biased. This caused me to comment that it had "more spin than a good backstroke drill". (If you're not a swimmer, you probably won't get that comment at all... but it's hysterical! Ok, maybe just slightly lame funny).

Anyways, the spin in the article matched what was present in the daily coverage by FINA of the meet, particularly all the "fast" swims being done, demonstrated by the meet records being set. Of course, the writer fails to point out what I deem are slightly important facts:

• that this is the 2nd meet, so the records came from one previous meet.
• the meet format was different this time, and more conducive to faster swimming.
• their quality of competition at this edition was elevated from the first edition.
• and let us not forget that there are some new, speedy suits around (LZR anyone?).
  

So mentioning the fact that 38 of 40 meet records were set might be little less impressive (as if the fact that 95% of the records were better might not tip you off).

Anyways, the spin presented in that coverage reminded me of a peeve of mine: what I like to call "news from the future." There are really two types:

1. news from the other side of the dateline, which comes from "tomorrow's" edition, because it's already tomorrow, in say Melbourne, Australia. (I don't really have issue with this one; it's just kinda cool. But the other...)
2. when a news items is aired/published prior to the conclusion of the event it's describing.

This second type generally requires a prediction/assumption on the writer's part of what they think will happen, and seems to be all in the name of getting the news out first. (And not necessarily out accurately.)

The most common example of this second type of which I'm aware is the weekly U.S. weekend film box office tallies, that tend to be published at noon on Sunday, when most movie theaters haven't even opened for the day (Sunday's still part of the weekend, isn't it? Or has the weekend moved to start on Friday at 12:01 a.m., because that's when movies can come out?). Happens every week, and tends to be right on the main page of Yahoo et al, too....

One of my other favorite/frustrating examples happens with every election in the U.S., where the East Coast t.v. stations start predicting the results of West Coast states, sometimes hours before their polls close. (I tend to surmise this to the general notion that "our polls are closed, so there's must be".) I worry that it might effect the outcome of the voting there... and it doesn't really even address that there isn't anything to report for a few hours because things aren't done (but those 24 hours of news have to be filled somehow, and heaven forbid it be with another news story rather than the same one over and over and over...). And this doesn't really address Hawaii and Alaska, which are further still being the West Coast (but I have read about Hawaii wreaking havoc on the American Idol voting, which makes me feel a little better).

And it is a wee bit fun to read about things that haven't happened yet in the past tense... I guess. I just wish media people wouldn't be in such a rush that they couldn't go back and check their reports; or redo them (gasp) once something becomes actual. I guess the internet age heightens the visibility of this...

Which reminds me of a "shocking" news item recently seen: a fat calorie will cause equal weight gain as a "carb" calorie. Gasp! (more gasping, I know, I know). Might that be because a calorie is a unit of available energy? And when it goes unused, it gets stored as fat... (pesky nutrition, I know, I know).

Anyways, on a lighter side: do you know there's a World MiniGolf Federation????

I'm gonna soak up the sun
While it's still free
Gonna soak up the sun
Before it goes out on me

Calls to mind the silver screen

(Hopefully) Good movie... which I won't get to see until after this weekend, as I'm helping out at Sectionals through Sunday. This is also postponing my seeing Mamma Mia...

Calls to mind the silver screen
And all its sad goodbyes

I wish I could define, All the thoughts that cross my mind They seem to big for me to choose, I don't know which ones to lose

Greetings. I am recovering not only from yesterday's Bastille Day, but also from the weekend visit by my mom and step-dad who breezed into town. (Ok, not so much from July 14, but more so because of the visit. That, and Heidi's birthday today.)

Not much happened Saturday of note, save a few noteworthy incidents during dinner (most of the day was just hanging out type of stuff). Where we were eating had the USA softball team playing Canada in a pre-Olympic tune-up on several of the multiple televisions scattered throughout the place (not all the tv's in the place but both sides of our table could see the game). What we ended up noticing and being perplexed by--given that the sound was not on for any of the t.v.s--was that the USA women had on pink, and not red, jerseys. We eventually discerned that the non-patriotic pink was purposely being worn not in some effort to feminize the players (which had my mom and I not particularly happy: they should have been in red, white and blue), but rather for breast cancer awareness. This made my mom and I feel somewhat better; however, not before my mom used the word "parlay" in a sentence and completely missed any reference to Captain Jack Sparrow. I did find it entertaining though (and there was a "Captain Jack's" dessert on the menu...).


Sunday was a bit more eventful, as we headed down to Dania Beach (just south of Fort Lauderdale) to watch some jai-alai at Dania Jai-Alai (pictured). My mom was the instigator for this trip: she had gone when she was young with her father and wanted to see how it was now. I was also interested in going, although did not know much about it: my prior exposure to the sport consisting basically of the shot of play included in the opening credits of Miami Vice when it was on t.v. (way back when). Well, that, and that the ball moves very fast and is very hard, and has killed some people (also way back when--they wear helmets now to help protect against this).

The whole trip was neat and interesting. The play/game itself was fascinating, if not a bit frustrating, particularly if you wanted a particular person to win (adding on the pressure of a bet just made this worse, by the way). In some respect, the play is similar to racquetball/handball in structure, with the addition of 8 people/teams playing in a round-robin type format, where the winner of a point stays on court to play the next up in the line (for those curious to know). Beyond the game, the atmosphere was also entrancing to me: the 10,000 seats filled with just over a 100 people. In some respects, you could see and feel how popular the game used to be, and the hope that it might once again. That the remain bulk of the fans seemed to have stayed with the game since its heyday (i.e. it was an older population), also added to the atmosphere.

We ended up staying through the first 9 games of Sunday's 14 game schedule, which covered about 3-4 hours. Then departed to catch some dinner. All-in-all a good time, and I now have begun a plot to drag get a group of friends down there for a "field trip" of sorts....

Help me, make the right decisions
Know which way to turn, lessons to learn
And just what my purpose is here

Hold your head up (moving on), Keep you head up (grooving on)

Ahhh, another busy week. This time punctuated by a visit from my mom and stepdad this weekend, so again not a lot to write. However, I will point you in the direction of an article by ESPN's Pat Forde that I liked, about finishing outside the top-2 at the Olympic Trials (which were last week). That article is here:
The ecstasy of second and the agony of third

Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?

What happened to Miss Independent?

Happy 4^th of July!
(I'm distracted by the new Coldplay song Viva la Vida, as well as some pesky bill issues and enjoying the holiday weekend... i.e. more later)

Oh, and there's also the USA swimming Olympic Trials going on this week. Results here, videocast here ( 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Eastern daily, through Sunday; and then finals at night from 7:45 p.m. Eastern).

When Miss Independent walked away
No time for love that came her way
She looked in the mirror and thought today
What happened to Miss No Longer Afraid?