Tuesday, August 10, 2010

It's almost impossible to care about this one...

Upon reading this news story, I find it almost impossible to care about any aspect of it.

I have no attraction to any aspect of keeping reptiles as pets. This is a function of my aversion to snakes, but it's more because of my aversion to anyone who would think having one as a pet is a good idea on any level.

They're snakes, for crying out loud. You don't cuddle with snakes. Rather, you leave snakes alone or hit them with a large stick if they refuse to be left alone. Moreover, the word "snake" and the expression "snake in the grass" have become metaphors for anyone who is beneath contempt.

In my opinion, and outside of a researcher, people who would keep snakes as pets are fundamentally off balance, to say the least. I do feel badly for anyone who becomes ill through no direct fault of their own, but it's very hard to work up a tear for someone who feeds their pets live or fresh-frozen animals, whole.

Look, I have a Labrador Retriever, and I feed it the processed remains of slaughtered lambs that are mixed with rice and veggies. I eat lamb myself, and I get that doing these things is difficult for some (read "Vegans") to comprehend and accept.

But I do draw what is for me a definite line.

I don't feed my dog live squirrels, live mice, live gerbils, or live anything.

Nope. I can't care much at all about any aspect of a story that describes someone getting sick from the frozen whole animals they give their reptiles. They need to buy a Lab: the licks, walks, and cuddles they'll receive are a whole lot more enjoyable. Besides, the word "Lab" is not a metaphor, let alone one for anything nasty.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Fifty-nine is the new 63? Are you kidding?

I'll bet the sports writer Edgar Thompson who wrote this piece for the Palm Beach Post recently, has never shot anything close to the magical 59 he seems to disdain in his article.

Among other silly things he says, he wrote, "59 is the new 63 - an exceptional round of golf, not an extraordinary one," but what does the word "extraordinary" mean?

It means going beyond what is usual, what is ordinary. For pro golfers, shooting in the 60s is ordinary and usual, but if Mr. Thompson honestly thinks shooting a 59 is "usual" and "ordinary," he needs to pay
much closer attention to the game of golf. In truth, I think he was probably just trying to be clever, but in do so he has perhaps exposed himself as clueless about golf.

Any golfer can shoot a good score on any day. This happens all the time. Heck, I recently shot an 82 on Tullymore in Stanton Michigan, and had I not tried to hit a nearly impossible second shot on 18, I had a good chance to shoot a 78 for the first time in my life. This is a difficult golf course with an insane slope rating, and I'm a bogie golfer, but I would argue that my doing this was akin to Stuart Appleby shooting a 59 on Greenbrier's Old White Course.

An 82 was an extraordinary round for me, and Appleby's 59 was an extraordinary round for him. It's all relative and a function of the fickleness of golf. But there is no way a 59 is not extraordinary. No way. Very, very few people have ever done it. You could maybe count them on two hands. In fact, hitting a hole-in-one is far more ordinary than shooting a 59 will ever be.

Get a grip, Mr. Thompson, and write about things you know, like being clueless. Now that would be extraordinary.