1 Happy St

At least 2 of the people who have ever come to this site are from Michigan. So perhaps one of them can answer Joe Posnanski's questions:

Do Detroit Lions fans want their team to go 0-16? I think this is a deep question, one that might take a full blog post or essay or something. But I try to put myself in a Lions fan shoes, and my first reaction is that, yes, absolutely, I would want 0-16. I mean, that’s a bit of history. If the Lions go 1-15, they’re just down there with a handful of nondescript and incredibly bad football teams — there wouldn’t be anything SPECIAL about them. If you are going to be bad, be historically bad, that’s what I always say.

But, then I started to think of my own childhood, when I was a young Cleveland Browns fan, and how every football loss took away a little piece of my soul. Oh man, those weeks at school after Browns losses were TERRIBLE. I had that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach for just about the whole week — you know that feeling, when something bad happened, and you just had that sick feeling. You might not even remember precisely what happened was but you still feel it in your belly. I know there are young Lions fans out there who are like that, and I could not wish 16 losses on any of them.

But then I started to think about how much pain the Lions have put those fans through the last few years — I mean, it has been ptiful. It wasn’t just that the Lions were terrible; no, they have snubbed their nose at the fans by refusing to fire their GM, by continuing to hire goofy head coaches, by doing all sorts of nonsensical things in the draft. And as a fan, maybe you want 0-16 so that ownership will REALLY panic and start doing the George Castanza opposite thing. I mean, sure, 1-15 might lead to a new direction, but 0-16 DEFINITELY leads to a new direction, that’s like a punch in the face and everyone would have to stare in the mirror and say, “Um, OK, we literally could not have been worse. I guess every single thing we have done the last few years has been wrong. So let’s completely change course.” That would be good for the Lions.

But then I started to think about those players, the coaches, all the people who invested their hearts into this team. Do they deserve 0-16? Does anyone? Detroit is going through rough times. Isn’t this too cruel?

So basically, I don't know the answer to the question.

If you do a search of the word "judgment" on this blog, you'll find it in 5 different posts (all by me). If you do a search of the word "judgement" on this blog, you'll find it in 1 post (by Greg). What can we learn from this? That one of us is spelling it wrong.

Or are we?

The last time I used the word was May 27th and I remember at the time wondering if I was spelling it correctly. So I looked it up and the weird thing was that the dictionary seemed to say that either spelling was okay. What the [bleep]? It seems I'm not the only person confused by this. Consider Joe Posnanski's blog from today:

It’s crazy to think that nobody wants to just make a call on how to spell the word “judgement” (or, if you prefer, “judgment”). Dictionaries seem to be in agreement … either spelling is fine, you can spell it either with the E or without the E, they don’t really care. See, that bothers me — if a DICTIONARY won’t make a call, who will? What is happening in our society? Some say that the British version is “judgement” while the American is “judgment,” which is equally annoying … we should be able to come to some sort of NATO agreement on this, no? Well, frankly, we have to make a call here. It’s a clear-cut choice. We spell the word “engagement” with an E. So from this day forth … the only correct way to spell judgement is, well, judgement. Thank you.

Agreed.

About Barack Obama's elitism - [He] has bought into the concept that Barack Obama is too elitist and not at all like the real and authentic folk. Well, first off, there’s the sickening absurdity of the whole elitist concept — the man is RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT. Of course he thinks he’s elite. So does McCain, Hill, Bob Barr, and anyone else who has the audacity to believe that he/she should be the President of the United States. Please. How in the hell can someone raise hundreds of millions of dollars and travel non-stop around the country to tell people again and again why he is the right choice — the only choice — to become the world’s most powerful person and NOT BE ELITIST? Ripping a presidential candidate for being elitist to me is like ripping your heart surgeon for being a perfectionist.

Good stuff.

Courtesy of Joe-Po:

Here's what you do: You make two snowballs. You throw the first one high in the air. The person who you are throwing the snowball at will, involuntarily, follow that snowball. They can't help it. Like moth to fire. Elvis to jelly doughnuts. LaRussa to pitching change. They will follow that first snowball and give you one free and clear shot. You only get one shot at this. Don't miss.

NOTE: Be careful not to watch the first snowball yourself. I’ve seen the CMST backfire on people before.

I was going to touch on this subject myself, but Joe Posnanski did it already and it turns out that his sentiments are pretty much mine. So take it away Joe:

OK, have you seen these reality-based commercials that Burger King is doing where they take the Whopper out of their restaurants and film people’s stunned reactions? I’m not going to lie to you, these really bother me. I admit, this is at least in part because I consider Burger King a 20-miler — meaning I’d only go there if there isn’t another fast-food restaurant within 20 miles. But more, this bothers me as a TV commercial enthusiast because it’s so freaking pointless. Yeah, we get it. People who go into Burger King will probably expect to have the opportunity to buy Whoppers. This has nothing to do with quality. Whoppers may be (and are) horrendous — but they’re ALL YOU’VE GOT.

I once went into a breakfast place in Jacksonville, and I ordered eggs and orange juice and the waitress said, “Oh, sorry, we’re out of orange juice.” Yeah. Out of orange juice. I want you to think about this for a moment.

1. This was a BREAKFAST PLACE — one of those places that closes down at 11:30. It only served breakfast.

2. This breakfast place was in Florida. You know. FLORIDA? Sunshine State?

3. They were out of orange juice.

Was I upset? Sure. They could have filmed me saying to the waitress, “You’re joking, right? You’re at a breakfast place in Florida — I was expecting to have Anita Bryant herself come out here to personally serve me orange juice and lecture me about whatever whacked out thing she’s into now, evils of homosexuality, saving children, whatever. No orange juice? This is a gag, right?”

Of course, I didn’t say any of that or anything else. I never do. I just THOUGHT that. But had I said that, I don’t see how that would have been an endorsement for their orange juice. I think Pizza Hut pizza is ghastly bad. But if I was in the emergency situation of having to order something from Pizza Hut, and I stopped in, and they said, “no, we don’t have pizza today,” well, yeah, I would be mad too. Doesn’t make the pizza or the Whopper any less crappy.

Well said Joe.

And since I have nothing else to add on the subject, can somebody please tell me if I'm living the high life? I went into this bar the other day and.......

Okay never mind.