touchmonkey

After far too long away, I’ve finally returned to the sport I love most, mountain biking. The first order of business was to find a new ride. After over 8 years of not really paying attention to the mountain bike market, I found myself pretty clueless about new technologies and brands. Budget and a strong sense of traditionalism demanded that my new ride remain a hardtail, and the best damned local bike shop ever helped me get my hands on this beautiful beast:

Kona Hoss Deluxe

I’m crazy out of shape (so bad I found myself walking up singletrack I would have cleared without a second thought during my collegiate heyday of hammering up Galbraith Mountain twice a day) but what really took my breath away was just how freaking amazing hydraulic disc brakes are… not to mention the plush ride this things monster (to me) fork provides. And the pedals.. oh my goodness the pedals are exactly the sort of thing I used to wish for in the bad old days of struggling to click into my mud-filled SPD torture devices. I’ve already ordered a set for my wife’s bike and I’ve become an outspoken evangelist for Mallet pedals — better than sliced bread!

Mallet C up close and personal

I’m gonna race this thing if I can manage to get into something better than the couch potato physical condition I’m currently blubbering around in.

I have, in the past, always felt pretty strongly opposed to censorship of any kind for television programming, whether it be for shows on cable or network channels. The main reason I’ve always felt this way is that I’ve just figured if people don’t want to see swearing/violence/sex/etc. on tv, they don’t have to watch the show, and why should the picky ones get to ruin it for the rest of the nation if more viewers want to watch it than not?

Lately, however, I’ve been considering becoming one of those annoying letter-writers who contacts the networks, the NFL, and really anybody involved with the recent practice of inserting all kinds of horrific advertisements during commercial breaks for NFL games. These are particularly insidious because there’s no way to know what you’re in for. You think you’re sitting down with the family to watch a football game where the most risque thing will be a mouthed curse word or a gyrating cheerleader. Instead, you get to see a graphic ad for Saw III or The Hills Have Eyes or whatever slasher-rape-fantasy-horror flick is coming out next.

Traditionally, watching NFL football on TV has been a family-safe activity. It’s even on during daytime/primetime when networks tend to keep the racier shows off the air until the later hours when the young kids are supposedly in bed. Now, however, it seems like every NFL game is sullied with graphic and disturbing commercials for the latest Hollywood slasher gore-fest. And I have to either hope I get the channel changed before my young kids are given nightmares for the next week, banish my kids from the room when football is on, or choose to not watch it. And that sucks.

I’m not against the crappy slasher films being made if that’s what people want to pay to watch. I’m against the graphic commercials for these movies being aired during otherwise family-friendly programming in the middle of the day on a Sunday or smack-dab in the middle of Prime Time on a Monday evening.

Maybe becoming a parent has turned me into a bit of a prude, but I don’t remember ever seeing the level of depraved violence being graphically portrayed during NFL commercial breaks as there have been this year. ESPN, Fox, and CBS are all equally culpable.

I remember being a kid and going to watch the Mariners in the Kingdome. That was a horrible place to watch baseball. Even in the summer you had to wear a sweatshirt, because the place was air conditioned and it was always too cold. It didn’t feel like a baseball game at all. And the home team always lost. But it had one thing going for it: the only people there were real baseball fans. Then 1995 happened. What a fantastic season. It was a sweet reward for all of us long-suffering fans. And there wasn’t a more magical place on earth than that crappy concrete dome. That season was, of course, the beginning of the end for real baseball fans in Seattle.

I know, I know - all the experts point to that season as the year that saved Major League Baseball in Seattle. The year that got Safeco Field built. But it was also the year all the poseurs showed up. The jackals and rats and vultures of sport: the fair weather fan.

You know the type. Hell, you might BE the type. They never used to care for the home team. Their favorite team is whatever team won the World Series last year. And after ‘95, they all started buying Mariner hats and putting Mariner stickers on their car windows. They don’t know how to watch baseball but they always get up and dance during the seventh-inning-stretch. Parasites.

Anyhow, thanks to dreadfully poor decisions (or indecisions) by Mariner management, the team has been on a downward slide for the past few years. And despite the fact that Safeco Field is The Best Place In The World on a sunny July day, attendance began to drop last year. And now the Mariners have dropped their home opener in a style reminiscient of their pre-’95 Bad Old Days.

It made me smile.

It gave root to the hope that my children will get to experience the character-building misery that is rooting for a losing team. Plus, I figure one more losing season will be all it will take to drive the last of the rat-bastard fair weather fans away. Then I can teach my kids the other great baseball tradition: buying cheap seats and sneaking into the more expensive empty ones!