So we're at a crowded restaurant tonight, and I'm sitting with a TV practically in my face, on ESPN, and it's some show about football, college and pro, what's up for next season. I ignored it best I could, but it reminded me of a somewhat passionate gripe. Here's the thing:
FOOTBALL SEASON IS OVER!!!
The only reason that sport is popular is because ESPN and TV in general keep hammering at it. Last summer a Baseball Tonight was preempted because &^%^&%^& Brett Favre was going somewhere. For the last 2 days they've been going in depth of college recruiting. About the time the NBA playoffs begin and the baseball season is getting interesting, they'll do 24/7 (almost) in- depth minute yammering on the NFL draft. Will they do that for the baseball draft, for college basketball recruiting? Oh sure, you bet. It's like they look for excuses to show something football related, no matter what other sport they have to denigrate to do so. It makes me sick. Change your name to EFPN. You're a football network that gets annoyed when you have to cover other sports. And you annoy me.
If other sports got the same coverage they give football -- or if football got the same coverage they give other sports -- there would not be a question of football being the most popular sport. Give them a even playing field and see what happens. TV has a vested interest in promoting football, and with reason: football is uniquely suited to TV's needs: it was a made-for-TV sport just waiting for TV to be invented. They grew together, starting in the late 50s, and when the networks figured out they had a symbiotic relation with football, of course it started promoting it, because as football would grow, TV would grow.
Hence, we have an idiotic program in my face, a week after the season ended, because ESPN dare not let go.
I used to be mildly interested in football from time to time. TV has made me hate it. I didn't watch a minute this year until the Super Bowl. And that was mainly to see the E-Trade baby.
Anyway, the food was okay, though it took forever. And I was with family, which was great.
I've never rooted against the "hero" of a book as much as I rooted against Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer. Artemis Fowl is a super genius, super criminal. Also, he's a jerk. Trouble is, much as I hoped, a many junctures, that the little creep would get his skin flayed off by the fairies he was torturing, I knew he wouldn't because there's a whole series of books about him. My hunch is that someone thought he'd be a good answer to Harry Potter. He isn't. Also, Colfer can't write.
I had assumed this book was meant for kids, for the Potter aficionados. But there's swearing and the bad guys win. Blech.
