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.

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.

Great news!

I know things in the world are sort of roiling right now, but if you're a Niners fan, this announcement has to come as great news.

Define irony...

This article does so perfectly.

Just can't win...

The oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico is tragic. The loss of life more so. No one should lose sight of this. The families of the 11 lost are devastated. And what is left as a result is also devastating and is perhaps yet another result of corporate hubris, of corporate incompetence, and of the corporate imperative to maximize shareholder value above all else.

But ultimately, the corporation that undertook this effort is responsible for the disaster, financially and morally.

There is no denying this. But the partisan right is already spilling its vitriol regarding their perception of the Obama administration's responsibility for this spill.

Huh?

Sean "There's no pandering I won't undertake" Hannity was ranting on a recent episode of his show that the Obama adminstration has acted too slowly, is somehow deficient in its response to this (corporate-made) catastrophe.

Really, Sean? Aren't you the same guy who claims Obama should keep his hands off and out of American corporations' ability to maximize profits and away from their right to exercise free-market values that you and yours hold so dear?

Well you can't have it both ways Sean. You can't claim Obama should stay out of the operations of corporations and then slam Obama when one of those corporations proves it's thoroughly incapable of handling a mess it's made.

Oh wait, sure you can: this is what you do. Sorry. I forgot.

What did she just say?

Sarah Palin is again spewing gobbledygook and, in so doing, giving gobbledygook everywhere a bad name. This woman is so shallow you couldn't even wade in her.

Does anyone seriously believe the Arizona immigration bill won't promote racial profiling? How could it do anything but? It specifically targets people based on their looks, on their physical characteristics, on their race.

Does she really believe blond-haired, blue-eyed tourists will be asked to "show papers?" Of course they won't. (And to allow police to be sued if they don't aggressively pursue the bill's intent is to force police to err on the side of profiling. I feel sorry for the police; they have a tough job that is made so much tougher by this foolish and knee-jerk legislation.)

Sarah Palin is a walking sound-bite, but this will come back to bite her as more and more sentient people come to realize she doesn't have anything close to a clue about pretty much anything.

Look, I'm not a Palin hater. I don't know the woman, so how could I hate someone I don't know? I don't hate anyone. But what I do know is that based on her own words, she continues to show herself as woefully ignorant and criminally stupid, and she continues to set herself up for derision and ridicule.

Run Sarah run. Please! You'll run the Republican Party and the Tea Party into the ground.

Civet poo coffee... no, really...

I'm often amazed that we've survived as a species as long as we have, especially when I read stuff like this.

I love coffee. I prefer Peet's Coffee, have been drinking their blends for over 20 years, and during this time have probably tried everything they sell. I even lived near a Peet's Coffee Shop for a while in California.

But I can assure you if I see Peet's Civet Coffee appear in their emailed new coffees list, I won't be trying it anytime soon. Yuck.

Look. I'm nowhere near a picky eater; I've even tried Durian, which is perhaps the nastiest smelling "fruit" in the world. But even Durian doesn't drop from a Civet's derriere.

Hey Jim Nantz, settle down!

Jim Nantz's overwhelming tendency to be a pompously pontificating prig and a bloviating blowhard was in full view yesterday when he blasted on Tiger Woods for offensive language at The Masters tournament. Agreed. Tiger needs to walk it like he talks it. Mr. Nantz said some things that I think were right on the mark.

But two things, Jim: first, you're a TV talking head so who gives a flying flip at a rolling doughnut about anything you might happen to say? Second, admit it, you're in the tank for Lefty and you always have been. Moreover, it was obvious you and CBS saw as the better story for the weekend -- and CBS always has to have a storyline -- the "Phil Good - Tiger Evil" scenario and you all ran with it.

Above all, though, get some freaking perspective.

Sure, The Masters is a wonderful event. There's no denying this. But let's not forget that its very name suggests a throwback to the antebellum South, which was a perception reinforced until 1990 when the Augusta National Golf Club finally admitted an African-American member.

"Masters" of golf certainly, but of what and of who else?

Further, admit that this godfather of all modern-day good old boys clubs is still practicing membership apartheid against women.

So the glass house in which the Augusta National membership still lives -- and where you sit for four days a year representing their image, Jim -- is just as susceptible to thrown stones as any. Get some perspective and leave the stones on the ground where they belong. And let's not even mention your well-rehearsed and tired tournament-closing tag lines every year or your cliche-ridden reportage overall.

You really should take a hint from your good pal Fred Couples on patience, acceptance, class, and deportment.

Funny words...

Just read a couple of funny words:

• Paliban, for followers of Sarah Palin and her politics, and
• Teahadists, for followers of Tea Party politics.

Wish I knew who coined these; I'd credit them here.

Stepping up with sports cliches

If you've ever listened to 20 minutes of ESPN, 20 minutes of any football game, or even 10 minutes of The Golf Channel, you've heard dozens if not scores of sports cliches.

Perhaps the most common of these is the word "hey," which is used to begin paraphrased or quoted comments from athletes or sports figures, as in,"He said to me, 'Hey, it's up to you to perform.'"

Also, athletes like to "dig deep." Apparently they can't dig shallowly and expect to compete and win.

Another common cliche is "I mean," which is also a sentence starter or phrase starter. It's become more of a fall-back phrase as well, similar to "you know." The LPGA's Michelle Wie, as an example -- and nowhere near a unique one -- uses "I mean" a great deal. Rather than saying "I mean," just say what you mean to say and trust this will suffice.

"Much maligned" is another popular cliche. No one says "often criticized" or "frequently castigated." Rather, you usually hear the alliterative "much maligned," which seems to be the "overwhelming favorite," another cliche phrase you hear quite often.

"Step up" is being used increasingly more frequently, bordering on constantly. This term generally refers to an athlete needing to perform above a usual level in a tight situation. To "step up" one's game seems the most common context, with the phrase "step your game up" falling out of the Snoop Dog song "Step Yo Game Up." (No point in worrying about the dangling preposition.)

Frank Gifford, formerly a color commentator on Monday Night Football (MNF) and one of my favorites, was responsible for so many sports cliches, but the one that sticks in my mind most is "good quickness," which is used to this day. It's an odd expression because the qualifying adjective "good" implies that the opposite might exist: that is, someone might have "bad quickness," quickness that might imply evildoing or wrongdoing. To my mind, quickness in any athlete is a good thing all round. Now you hear "great quickness" as well; apparently this is quickness that has over-achieved.

Although not unique to sportscasters, another sports cliche is the segue, which some talking heads use to distraction, such as Kraig Kinn on The Golf Channel. Mr. Kinn can't put three sentences together without a segue between two of them. It's like an addiction: he can't help himself. But he's not alone in this affliction and, to be fair, I'm sure most Broadcasting 101 courses teach the segue as a valid tool. (And speaking of this, "101" has become a cliche as well.)

Another concept, similar to the segue, that has become a cliche is stating the obvious, which you hear all the time during pre-game shows. The most common example of stating the obvious comes in response to a question about what a team needs to do to win: "They have to put lots of points on the board and keep the other team out of the end zone." Really? You're being paid a great deal of money to be on the pre-game show: this is the best you can do? Perhaps you should pick up the phone and let the coach know this gem.

A term you'll commonly hear from golf commentators is "putting on a clinic," as in "He's certainly giving us all a putting clinic today." But it's not limited to golf: certainly the Sixer's Dr. J put on clinics all the time.

When describing some trend in an athlete's recent performance or reputation, "of late" (a favorite of The Golf Channel's Kelly Tilghman, along with "much maligned") is regularly used, as in "He's been driving the ball well of late" or "Her game has been resurgent of late." (And why do you hear "resurgent" far more than "coming back," "revived," or "rejuvenated?" Hmmm...)

Along with the $2-word resurgent, "adversity" is another cliche you hear regularly. Athletes love to talk about "facing adversity" or "handling adversity." It would appear the words "misfortune" and "difficulty" are insufficient, as if something bad, wrong, difficult, unfortunate, or challenging can only be "adverse."

"Dig deep" is used often as well: it indicates an athlete's need to call on inner resources of speed or strength or willpower.

"At the end of the day" has become so common that you'll hear both interviewers and interviewees saying it a couple of times in a single interview. "When all is said and done" is a typical alternative. But at the end of the day they're both cliches.

You can also get combinations of cliches, as in...

• "He's stepped up his game of late,"
• "At the end of the day she stepped up and dug deep in facing adversity."
  
• "Her performance has been much maligned of late,"
• "Hey, I mean we faced adversity and stepped up our game."
• "I decided hey, I'll put on a clinic with my running game.

That's it for now, with more to come I'm sure.

Tiger's Top 10 List

In another of my blog posts is a list of things I'll never say; one of these things should be, "Well now that you've asked me what I think Tiger should do to fix his career, here goes." But let's just assume for a moment that I have been asked the question and that I provide my answer in the form of...

The Top 10 Things Tiger Needs to Do

1. Acknowledge your family publicly: if you're serious about improving your marriage and fixing what you broke, start with the occasional mention of your wife. Phil won for Amy and his mom and said so unabashedly; maybe you could dedicate a tournament to someone...?
2. Improve your on-course interactions with the fans: enough of the "I'm at work" thing; reaching out and signing autographs will help you.
   
3. Develop a better attitude toward golf-related questions: sure, many questions are stupid, but it's their job to ask them and part of your job to answer them.
4. Show a little more humanity: stop acting like a robot and start acting like a person.
5. Pitch fits after bad shots or don't pitch fits: pick one way; don't say you're not going to do something then do it anyway, and then get pissy when someone calls you on it.
   
6. Play more during the year: you came in fourth by just practicing; how good would you be by actually playing? Duh.
   
7. Smile more: really... would it kill you?
8. Realize that cockiness is not endearing: it's what got you into trouble in the first place!
9. Lose the sunglasses: this one speaks for itself.
10. Seek better advice: if the release of the Nike commercial is exemplary of the advice you receive, you need new advisers now.

Tiger in 2010

Now that Tiger is back playing golf, now that most of the questions have been asked and answered, and now that his first tournament is done, I'd like to suggest that he's on the verge of playing some of the best golf of his life.

Ask yourself.. How good is he really if he can take almost 5 months off from competition and come in fourth on what is arguably one of the most difficult golf courses (and demanding tournaments) in the world with one of the deepest fields in the world? How close did he really come yesterday? How well could he do for the remainder of the year with more playing time?

But... the challenge for him in all this will be playing time. He might just target the majors in 2010; therefore, the layoffs between each tournament will not necessarily be as good for him as playing might be.

Either way, though, if you appreciate golf, this could be an exciting year. And with Anthony Kim finally playing to his potential, with Lee Westwood playing better than ever, and with Lefty back on track and pushing hard, it could be even better than that.

Way to go Lefty!

Phil finally had the chance to finish The Masters going away instead of sweating a playoff or his last putt.

The impossible shot he hit between the trees on 13 to pin-high, 3-feet right, was simply astounding and, to me, the shot of the round (and perhaps his tournament). That he would even consider such a shot is why he's Phil the Thrill, and sure, had he missed it, the "experts" would be all over him still.

But he didn't miss it, and everyone who saw it had to ensure their dropped jaws were still attached.

What a great round of golf! Way to go Lefty!

A beautiful sight...

As a long-time 49er fan who had to suffer through several defeats at Texas Stadium in Irving, this is a beautiful sight.

Mr. Segue...

Someone at the Golf Channel needs to tell Kraig Kann he doesn't have to make everything that happens or that someone says into a damn segue. It's really annoying.

Kraig, buddy, kut it out, for krying out loud.

"And loud is what the crowds at the Masters were as Saturday once again proved to be 'moving day'."

"Now we'll be moving back to Augusta where Rich Lerner is standing by with Tiger Woods, who spent much of the day hitting from the woods..."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!