Sunday, September 19, 2004

State of emergency? Grab your tofu...

All of this recent weather fluctuation we've had up here in South Central Pennsylvania because of the remnants of Hurricane Ivan have left me thinking about the ritual dash to the supermarket which occurs before a major weather event, such as a snowstorm is scheduled to hit. It was always bread and milk that were cleared off the shelves due to some preconceived
notion that these staples would be enough for someone to survive, even in a nuclear crisis. I'm just wondering, though, if recent trends won't put a halt to this. It seems like everyone is now on a health kick or diet fad system, such as the ever-popular Atkins diet. Will bread and milk be replaced by Slim-Fast and bacon? Or perhaps spring water and wheat grass? I know this much...if I'm in a crisis state, all diets are off. I'm eating whatever food I can find, no matter how many carbs it has or how high its fat content is. If I need food and I can get my hands on it, I'm eating it. Not that it's really any different than how I live my life anyway...

Side question: Where did the name "tofu" come from? Doesn't sound too appetizing, does it? Those marketing wizards need to go back to the drawing board.

Thursday, August 26, 2004

Trying to Reason With Hurricane Season...

A line from a Jimmy Buffett song just went through my head, which is the above-stated title of my third blog in an endless series that really have nothing to do with one another, except they sprang forth from my twisted mind.

The other day at work, some of my fellow Rahal employees wondered what would happen when whoever it is that names the newest tropical storms and hurricanes (wow, what a job that must be) runs out of names, what will they do? I mean, I'm sure it will take a while to run through every spelling of a name (i.e. Shaun, Sean, Shawn, etc...), but eventually it could happen. What next? I believe I may have the solution...

Corporate sponsorship of the hurricanes. Hey, if ball parks & stadiums around the country can do it, why not sponsor a deadly storm? It makes every news page & will most assuredly be front page at one point or another. But even that could get silly...just picture if Denzel Washington's movie from a few years back of a wrongly-imprisoned boxer were to sponsor the storm, it would be a hurricane brought to us by "The Hurricane". People would get confused.

At the opposite end of the spectrum (or should I say Wachovia Center, for those of you familiar with Philadelphia), a perfect sponsor would be the University of Miami, whose team name happens to be the Hurricanes. It would be very fitting and I'm sure some t-shirts with catchy slogans would be hot sellers for a few weeks at the student store.

Maybe, though, companies don't try to profit from these storms because they ultimately result in a loss of human life, which would rule out MetLife, Mutual of Omaha, or any such life insurance provider due to conflict of interest. But, I do see that newspapers across the country will shout news of war, violence, murder, and all other such pleasant happenings in order to sell copies. To them, a hurricane would be an easy sell...as long as they get the exclusives.

Just something else for everyone to think about. As always, I'm open to comments.

Friday, August 13, 2004

The 2004 Summer Olympics

Well, my wife & I are about ready to settle in & watch the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics, which has me thinking...

To be in the Olympics, you must train, train, train, in order to be at the level where you can compete. I'm sure this takes up a lot of time & you hear constantly about people who do nothing but train. My question is this: HOW DO THEY MAKE MONEY??

Sure, your biggest stars are going to have endorsement deals & such, commercials, etc... where they make money, but what about the little guys? The supporting cast...the backups...the middle guys on the relay teams...the lesser known gymnasts. I think you get my point.

I have barely enough time to fold laundry, let alone train for a grueling physical sporting event on which my very country's pride could rest. I could see being someone on the Olympic basketball team who gets paid professional money anyway & would probably be out on a yacht somewhere if it wouldn't be for the Olympics giving them something to do. But your normal, everyday athlete trying to just medal, nevermind trying for a gold, has to struggle with paying the bills. Unless they're a bunch of rich kids who live off of "Mummy & Daddy", but I doubt that's true. Anyone know the answer to this? Enlighten me...

Monday, August 09, 2004

Remember wrestling in 1996-1997?

This may be a weird way to start blogging, but it's something that's fresh on my mind. Anyone who was a wrestling fan back in 1996 or 1997 will remember that it was like opening a Christmas present every Monday because you never knew what was going to happen. You knew for sure that it would be something you didn't expect & something you'd enjoy greatly, but you weren't sure exactly what. Then on Tuesday you could be talking to a group of 5 people & chances are that 3 out of those 5 people knew exactly what you were talking about. Nowadays, that number has diminished to where you may be the only person who knows what happened. I blame this on many things. First off, the Internet has taken away what guessing game there was in wrestling. Now you know about someone's character turn or someone's debut sometimes a couple months in advance. It's as if someone took those Christmas presents every Monday (and now every Thursday) & ran them through an X-ray machine to show you what you were getting. Next, I blame age. Had I not gotten older & been expected to take on so many responsibilities, I would enjoy wrestling much more. Third, I blame Vince McMahon. While I proclaim him to be a genius, he missed the truck when he bought WCW & decided to make it public. Competition made him even more of a genius & now he is complacent without it. Last, but certainly not least, I blame that section of fans that came into power back in 1998 or so when wrestling was still at its height of popularity. These are the same people that when WCW was bought out, they started to leave the WWF (now WWE) behind. Had they stuck with it even through the tough times, even just to complain to those that would listen week to week about how bad the product is, we may not be in this wallowing pit of despair we're in right now. True, this may only be a lull in the action temporarily and I do see a light ahead in the tunnel, but we're pretty low right now as wrestling fans can go. This makes me even more nostalgic so that when Jason calls me & tells me he found some tapes of old Nitros and Raws, it makes me smile, but can almost bring a tear to my eye to know those times are gone & we may never see those again. Let's hope I'm wrong...

Note: Not all of my blogs will be about wrestling, but they will be about things which I care deeply for. If this doesn't interest you, you may have "taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque", to paraphrase Bugs Bunny.