This was from an email that I wrote today (entitled "Surprise, surprise..." -- but this was way off the original topic).
The email:
>From ESPN: ? The news that Arkansas State linebacker Chris
>Littleton will be allowed to play in his team's bowl game
>despite a recent arrest for battering a police officer elicits
>only one appropriate response:
>Arkansas State is in a bowl game?
My reply:
Yes, they're that bad.
-----------
Now, I can think of a couple of A-State fans that will get on to me for this, but all I can say what I experienced while I was a student at ASU. The Powers That Be decided, for whatever reason, that ASU needed to play in a higher division than they were at the time. They switched divisions and promptly began to suck to the nth degree. I went to one ball game during my undergrad (that I remember): it was homecoming, we were playing some much smaller school from Out West somewhere, and we ALMOST won. It was the one exciting football game I remember seeing there, because the score was tied in the 4th quarter, with a field goal in overtime deciding the game.
The rest of the schools we played then we had no business playing. I don't know if that is still the case, but unless there has been some major improvement, I would suspect that what I observed back in the day is still status quo. In fact, Littleton's inclusion in the game tells me that he's valuable enough to the head coach (read: he's pretty much carrying the team, or is one of a few key players who are) that a mere battery charge is not enough to stop him from playing. [This is also not unprecedented. A basketball player in the late 90's (whose name escapes me at the moment -- my mother taught him in high school too) was also allowed to play, dispite pending drug charges.]
In any case, ASU in a bowl game is a surprising thing to me. ASU Athletics ignoring legal proceedings to keep a player in the game? Not so much.
[x-posted to the LJ]
20 December 2005
02 December 2005
the persistence of memories
I was inspired to comment on a post on Joel's blog, and when I got done, I realized it looked more like a blog post than a comment. So, for your enjoyment, The Blog That Really Should Have Been (revised and expanded version).
With heavy heart, I rid myself of my favorite clothing item the summer before last when I moved to Germany. They were a pair of leather sandals that I had bought the spring of my senior year in high school (1995) and they were comfortable.
They were Rockports, a nondescript, basic brown, bought with the idea that I needed very comfortable shoes when I went to London and Paris for a 10-day senior trip. I wore only those sandals while I walked (and sometimes trudged) around those cities on the other side of the Pond, and my feet never once got sore. I was tired, and my legs hurt, but my feet never did. After that trip I wore them every day that wasn't Too Cold to Get Away With Wearing Sandals.
After four years of constant use in college, I thought they were worn out. The sole was wearing down at the heel, and the leather covering the Rockport cushioning had worn shinily thin whereever my feet touched it. The right foot had even worn a hole in the leather, under my big toe.
But would I part with them? Oh, no! I wore them another four years, until the sandals wouldn't stay on my feet because they were literally falling apart. The strap across the toes was tearing away from the soles, and the leather under my feet had long since disintegrated.
Despite all this, those sandals still moved with me to Lawrence, and were great laundry shoes my first year in grad school. They only got the boot (so to speak) when I had to reduce my trappings from half a house down to two suitcases.
On Not Too Cold days (which are admittedly in shorter supply in Kansas than Arkansas) I still mourn the loss of my beloved sandals. I have quested for many years to find a shoe that can even approximate the comfort of the blessed Rockports, but to no avail. Part of the motivation for holding on until they no longer contained enough leather to classify as a shoe was the insane hope that, maybe, perhaps, I could get Another Pair Just Like Them.
For the winter, I am content with normal shoes. As soon as the nip in the air turns to a blushing warmth, the longings for my perished sandals will return.
With heavy heart, I rid myself of my favorite clothing item the summer before last when I moved to Germany. They were a pair of leather sandals that I had bought the spring of my senior year in high school (1995) and they were comfortable.
They were Rockports, a nondescript, basic brown, bought with the idea that I needed very comfortable shoes when I went to London and Paris for a 10-day senior trip. I wore only those sandals while I walked (and sometimes trudged) around those cities on the other side of the Pond, and my feet never once got sore. I was tired, and my legs hurt, but my feet never did. After that trip I wore them every day that wasn't Too Cold to Get Away With Wearing Sandals.
After four years of constant use in college, I thought they were worn out. The sole was wearing down at the heel, and the leather covering the Rockport cushioning had worn shinily thin whereever my feet touched it. The right foot had even worn a hole in the leather, under my big toe.
But would I part with them? Oh, no! I wore them another four years, until the sandals wouldn't stay on my feet because they were literally falling apart. The strap across the toes was tearing away from the soles, and the leather under my feet had long since disintegrated.
Despite all this, those sandals still moved with me to Lawrence, and were great laundry shoes my first year in grad school. They only got the boot (so to speak) when I had to reduce my trappings from half a house down to two suitcases.
On Not Too Cold days (which are admittedly in shorter supply in Kansas than Arkansas) I still mourn the loss of my beloved sandals. I have quested for many years to find a shoe that can even approximate the comfort of the blessed Rockports, but to no avail. Part of the motivation for holding on until they no longer contained enough leather to classify as a shoe was the insane hope that, maybe, perhaps, I could get Another Pair Just Like Them.
For the winter, I am content with normal shoes. As soon as the nip in the air turns to a blushing warmth, the longings for my perished sandals will return.
01 December 2005
two more weeks
Last paper due: Dec. 14.
Worth reading: 'hate mail' sent to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Some of these lovely letters are from people who include their profession or academic status in their letters. Many missives display particularly good examples of verbal irony.
It still makes me sad.
Worth reading: 'hate mail' sent to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Some of these lovely letters are from people who include their profession or academic status in their letters. Many missives display particularly good examples of verbal irony.
It still makes me sad.
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